I. 3.] THE FIRST BOOK. 



be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life, ill 

 conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over 

 from hand to hand, and many other inconveniences, 

 whereunto the condition of man is subject. For that /T&quot;\ 

 nothing parcel of the world is denied to man s inquiry) 

 and invention, he doth in another place rule over, when/ / 

 he saith, The spirit of man is as the lamp of God, where-\ j / 

 with he searcheth the imvardness of all secrets. If then\J/ 

 such be the capacity and receipt of the mind of man, it 

 is manifest that there is no danger at all in the proportion 

 or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it should 

 make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely 

 the quality_of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or 

 less, if it be taken without the true corrective thereof, hath 

 in it some nature of venom or malignity, and some effects 

 of that venom, which is ventosity or swelling. This cor 

 rective spice^tke-HUxture whereof maketh knowledge so 

 sovereign, ns charitw^ which the Apostle immediately / 

 addeth to m^rTTfrner clause : for so he saith, Knowledge 

 bloweth up, but charity buildeth up ; not unlike unto that 

 which he delivereth in another place : If I spake, saith he, 

 with the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it 

 were but as a tinkling cymbal ; not but that it is an 

 excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men and 

 angels, but because, if it be severed from charity, and not 

 referred to the good of men and mankind, it hath rather 

 a sounding and unworthy glory, than a meriting and 

 substantial virtue. And as for that censure of Salomon, 

 concerning the excess of writing and reading books, and 

 the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth from knowledge ; 

 and that admonition of Saint Paul, That we be not seduced 

 by vain philosophy ; let those places be rightly understood, 

 and they do indeed excellently set forth the true bounds 



