OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [iV. 2. 



2. There be therefore chiefly jthree vanities in studies^ 

 whereby learning hath been most traduced. For those 

 things we do esteem vain, which are either false or fri 

 volous, those which either have no truth or no use : and - 

 those persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous. 

 or curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: 

 so that in reason as well as in experience there fall out 

 to be these three distemp.^r g - (as ^1^ may term them) of 

 learn inghjj the TirstfTantastical Jb^arningj the 

 tentious. learning ; and the lj^ delicate learning; vain 

 imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations ; and 

 with the last I will begin. Martin Luther, conducted (no 

 doubt) by an higher providence, but in discourse of rea 

 son, finding what a province he had undertaken against 

 the bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the 

 church, and finding his own solitude, being no ways 

 aided by the opinions of his own time, was enforced to 

 awake all antiquity, and to call former times to his suc 

 cours to make a party against the present time : so that 

 the ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, 

 which had long time slept in libraries, began generally- 

 to be read and revolved. .This by consequence did draw 

 on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the lan 

 guages original, wherein those authors did write, for the 

 better understanding of those authors, and the better 

 advantage of pressing and applying their words. And 

 thereof grew again a delight in their manner of style and 

 phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing ; which 

 was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and 

 opposition that the propounders of those primitive but 

 seeming new opinions had against the schoolmen; who 

 were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings 

 were altogether in a different style and form ; taking 



