INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 101 



liar marks, but those capital, condemned them singly. For 

 the human mind, my son, puffed up with the incursions 

 and observations of things, contrives and educes very 

 various species of error. But Aristotle is as a taller plant 

 of one species, so also Plato, and others besides. Yet thou 

 requirest particular confutations. Verily it were a great 

 sin against the golden fortune of mankind, the pledge of 

 empire, for me to turn aside to the pursuit of most fleeting 

 shadows. One bright and radiant light of truth, my son, 

 must be placed in the midst, which may illuminate the 

 whole, and in a moment dispel all errors. Certain feeble 

 and pale lamps are not to be carried round to the several 

 corners and holes of errors and falsehoods. Wherefore, 

 my son, detest what you were seeking; for it is very pro 

 fane. But now I hear thee asking: Is all that the whole 

 of these have asserted altogether false and vain ? Truly, 

 my son, this is unhappiness and that prodigious, not igno 

 rance. For no man does not at times hit upon something 

 true. When Heraclitus remarked, that knowledge is to be 

 sought by men in private worlds, not in the common world, 

 I perceive that he sacrificed well at the entrance of philo 

 sophy. Democritus, I think, did not unhappily philoso 

 phize, when attributing immense variety and infinite suc 

 cession to nature, he set himself against almost all other 

 philosophers, the slaves of* custom, and given over to secu- 

 larities, and by this opposition bringing toth errors into 

 collision, destroyed both, and opened some way for truth 

 between the extremes. The numbers of Pythagoras I set 

 down as also of good omen. Dindamus the Indian I com 

 mend, for having called custom antiphysis. And to Epi 

 curus disputing against the explication of causes (as they 

 speak) by intentions and ends, though childishly and phi- 

 lologically, I nevertheless not unwillingly listen. Pyrrho 

 also and the vacillating academics, talking from the skiff, 

 and conducting themselves against idols like certain mo 

 rose lovers (who are always reproaching their loves, but 

 never desert them), I use for the sake of the mind and of 

 hilarity. Nor without cause : for idols drive others straight 

 forwards, but these in a circle, which is pleasanter. Lastly, 

 I should wish to have Paracelsus and Severinus for criers, 

 when with such clamours they convoke men to the sugges 

 tion of experience. What then ? Are they possessed of 

 truth ? Nothing less. And, my son, some proverbs of 

 rustics are apposite to truth. If the sow with her snout 

 should happen to imprint the letter A upon the ground j 



