- 



t 40 /OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, [v. 4. 



when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it may 

 perchance be further polished and illustrate and accom 

 modated for use and practice ; but it increaseth no more 

 in bulfcvand substance. 



5. Another error which doth succeed that which we 

 last-iwentioned, Ts^that after the distribution of particular 

 arts and sciences, men have abandoned universality, or 

 philosophia prima : wliicrTTrdiiiiuL bur*cease and stop all 

 progression. For no perfect discovery can be made upon 

 a flat or a level : neither is it possible to discover the 

 more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you 

 stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend 

 not to a higher science. 



6. Ajiothp 1 *- fc rrrtr hath proceeded from too great a 

 eyerence, and a kind of adoration of the mind and 



nderstanding of man ; by means whereof, men have 

 witfcirawn themselves_tpo muj:hJjamUJie^ontemplation 

 QJTnature, and the observations of experience, and have 

 tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits. 

 Upon these intellectualists, which are notwithstanding ( 

 commonly taken for the most sublime and divine philo 

 sophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying, Men 

 sought truth in their own little worlds, and not in the great 

 and common world ; for they disdain&quot; to spell, and so by 

 degrees to read in the volume of God s works : and 

 contrariwise by continual meditation and agitation of wit 

 do urge and as it were invocate their own spirits to 

 divine and give oracles unto them, whereby they are 

 deservedly deluded. 



7. Another error that hath some connexion with this 

 latter is, that men have used to infect their meditations, 

 opinions, and doctrines, with some conceits which they 

 have most admired, or some sciences which they have 



