128 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and 

 teaching of knowledge is, according unto the light and pre 

 suppositions of that which is delivered. For that knowledge 

 which is new, and foreign from opinions received, is to be 

 delivered in another form than that that is agreeable and 

 familiar ; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax 

 Democritus, doth in truth commend him, where he saith, &quot; If 

 we shall indeed dispute, and not follow after similitudes,&quot; &c. 

 For those whose conceits are seated in popular opinions need 

 only but to prove or dispute ; but those whose conceits are 

 beyond popular opinions, have a double labour ; the one to 

 make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and 

 demonstrate. So that it is of necessity with them to have 

 recourse to similitudes and translations to express themselves. 

 And therefore in the infancy of learning, and in rude times, 

 when those conceits which are now trivial were then new, the 

 world was full of parables and similitudes ; for else would men 

 either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for 

 paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood 

 or judged. So in divine learning, we see how frequent para 

 bles and tropes are, for it is a rule, that whatsoever science 

 is not consonant to presuppositions must pray in aid of 

 similitudes. 



(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and 

 received : as that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or 

 systasis, of concealment or cryptic, &c., which I do allow well 

 of, though I have stood upon those which are least handled 

 and observed. All which I have remembered to this purpose, 

 because I would erect and constitute one general inquiry 

 (which seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of tradition. 



(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, 

 doth further belong not only the architecture of the whole 

 frame of a work, but also the several beams and columns 

 thereof ; not as to their stuff, but as to their quantity and 

 figure. And therefore method considereth not only the dis 

 position of the argument or subject, but likewise the pro 

 positions : not as to their truth or matter, but as to their limita 

 tion and manner. For herein Ramus merited better a great 

 deal in reviving the good rules of propositions Ka06\ov irpurov, 

 Kara Travros, &c. than he did in introducing the canker of 

 epitomes ; and yet (as it is the condition of human things that, 

 according to the ancient fables, &quot;the most precious things have 

 the most pernicious keepers &quot;) it was so, that the attempt of the 

 one made him fall upon the other. For he had need be well 

 conducted that should design to make axioms convertible, if he 



