ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING HI 



fruits, from natural history; the accounts of cities, govern 

 ments, and manners, from civil history; the climates and 

 astronomical phenomena, from mathematics: in which kind 

 of history the present age seems to excel, as having a full 

 view of the world in this light. The ancients had some 

 knowledge of the zones and antipodes 



&quot;Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis, 

 Illic sera rubens accendit lumina vesper&quot; l 



though rather by abstract demonstration than fact. But 

 that little vessels, like the celestial bodies, should sail 

 round the whole globe, is the happiness of our age. 

 These times, moreover, may justly use not only plus 

 ultra where the ancients used non plus ultra, but also 

 imitabile fulmen where the ancients said non imitabile 

 fulmen 



&quot;Demens qui nimbos el non imitabile fulmen.&quot; 8 



This improvement of navigation may give us great hopes 

 of extending and improving the sciences, especially as it 

 seems agreeable to the Divine will that they should be coe 

 val. Thus the prophet Daniel foretells, that &quot;Many shall 

 go to and fro on the earth, and knowledge shall be in 

 creased,&quot; 3 as if the openness and thorough passage of the 

 world and the increase of knowledge were allotted to 

 the same age, which indeed we find already true in part: 

 for the learning of these times scarce yields to the former 

 periods or returns of learning the one among the Greeks 

 and the other among the Eomans, and in many particulars 

 far exceeds them. 



1 Virgil, Georgics, i. 251. 2 Yirgil, ^Eneid, vi. 590. 3 Dan. xii. 4. 



