I. i.] THE FIRST BOOK. 5 



I. i. TN the entrance to the former of these, to clear 

 the way, and as it were to make silence, to have 

 the true testimonies concerning the dignity of learning to 

 be better heard, without the interruption of tacit objec 

 tions ; I think good to deliver it from the discredits and 

 disgraces which it hath received, all fromjgaoxance ; but 

 ignorance severally disguised; appearing sometimes in 

 the zeal and jealousy ofd Divines ; sometimes in the severity 

 and arrogancy ofj)olitiques ; and sometimes in the errors 

 and imperfections of learned men themselves. 



2. I hear the former sort say, that knowledge is of - 

 those things which are to be accepted of with great limita 

 tion and caution : that the aspiring to overmuch know 

 ledge was the originaMernptation and sin whereupon 

 ensued the fall of man : that knowledge hath in it some 

 what of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into 



a man it makes him swell; Scientia inflat : that Salomon 

 gives a censure, That there is no end of making books, and 

 that much reading is weariness of the flesh ; and again in 

 another place, That in spacious knowledge there is much 

 contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth 

 anxiety : that Saint Paul gives a caveat, That we be not 

 spoiled through vain philosophy : that experience demon 

 strates how learned men have been arch-heretics, how 

 learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how the 

 contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our 

 dependence upon God, who is the first cause. 



3. To discover then the ignorance and error of this 

 opinion, and the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, 

 it may well appear these men do not observe or consider 

 that it was not the pure knowledge of nature and uni- _ 

 versality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give 

 names unto other creatures in Paradise, as they were 



