96 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



so that there be this caution used, that when they be thoroughly 

 sifted and brought to resolution, they be from thenceforth 

 omitted, discarded, and not continued to cherish and encourage 

 men in doubting. To which calendar of doubts or problems I 

 advise be annexed another calendar, as much or more material, 

 which is a calendar of popular errors: I mean chiefly m 

 natural history, such as pass in speech and conceit, and are 

 nevertheless apparently detected and convicted of untruth, 

 that man s knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such 

 dross and vanity. As for the doubts or non liquets general or 

 in total, I understand those differences of opinions touching 

 the principles of nature, and the fundamental points of the 

 same which have caused the diversity of sects, schools, and 

 philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democntus, 

 Parmenides, and the rest. For although Aristotle, as though 

 he had been of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not 

 reign except the first thing he did he killed all his brethren ; 

 yet to those that seek truth and not magistracy, it cannot 

 but seem a matter of great profit, to see before them the 

 several opinions touching the foundations of nature. Not tor 

 any exact truth that can be expected in those theories ; for as 

 the same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by the received 

 astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of 

 the planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise 

 by the theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move, 

 and the calculations are indifferently agreeable to both, so the 

 ordinary face and view of experience is many times satisfied by 

 several theories and philosophies ; whereas to find the real 

 truth requireth another manner of severity and attention. 

 For as Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call every 

 woman mother, but afterward they come to distinguish accord- 

 in&quot; to truth, so experience, if it be in childhood, will call 

 every philosophy mother, but when it cometh to ripeness it 

 will discern the true mother. So as in the meantime it is 

 good to see the several glosses and opinions upon Nature, 

 whereof it may be everyone in some one point hath seen 

 clearer than his fellows, therefore I wish some collection to be 

 made painfully and understanding^ de antiqws philosophiis, 

 out of all the possible light which remaineth to us of them : 

 which kind of work I find deficient. But here I must give 

 warning, that it be done distinctly and severedly ; the philo 

 sophies of everyone throughout by themselves, and not by 

 titles packed and faggoted up together, as hath been done by 

 Plutarch. For it is the harmony of a philosophy m itself, 

 which giveth it light and credence ; whereas if it be singled 



