OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [iV. 5- 



ftation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of 

 learning which are extant in their books. For the wit 

 and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the 

 contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh accord 

 ing to the stuff and is limited thereby ; but if it work 

 upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is 

 endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, 

 admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of 

 substance or profit. 



This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of 

 sorts ; either in the subject itself that they handle, 

 \ wheTiTis a fruitless speculation or controversy (whereof 

 \there are no small number both in divinity and philo 

 sophy), or Jn the mariner or method of handling of a 

 knowledge, which amongst them was this ; upon every 

 particular position or assertion to frame objections, and 

 to those objections, solutions ; which solutions were for 

 the most part not confutations, but distinctions : whereas 

 indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of 

 the old man s faggot, in the bond. For the harmony of a 

 science, supporting each part the other, is and ought to 

 be the true and brief confutation and suppression of all 

 the smaller sort of objections. But, on the other side, if 

 you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one 

 by one, you may quarrel with them and bend them and 

 break them at your pleasure : so that as was said of 

 Seneca, Verborum minutiis rerum frangit pondera, so a 

 man may truly say of the schoolmen, Qu&stionum minutiis 

 scientiarum frangunt soliditatem. For were it not better 

 for a man in a fair room to set up one great light, or 

 branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with 

 a small watch candle into every corner? And such is 

 their method; that rests__noL^SQ_much uponevidenceQf_ 



