26 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



his best with Adrianus Caesar ; excusing himself, That 

 it was reason to yield to him that commanded thirty 

 legions. These and the like applications and stooping 

 to points of necessity and convenience cannot be dis 

 allowed ; for though they may have some outward 

 baseness, yet in a judgement truly made they are to 

 be accounted submissions to the occasion and not to 

 the person. 



IV. 1. Now I proceed to those errors and vanities 

 which have intervened amongst the studies themselves 

 of the learned, which is that which is principal and 

 proper to the present argument ; wherein my purpose 

 is not to make a justification of the errors, but by 

 a censure and separation of the errors to make a justifica 

 tion of that which is good and sound, and to deliver 

 that from the aspersion of the other. For we see that 

 it is the manner of men to scandalize and deprave that 

 which retaineth the state and virtue, by taking advan 

 tage upon that which is corrupt and degenerate : as 

 the heathens in the primitive church used to blemish 

 and taint the Christians with the faults and corruptions 

 of heretics. But nevertheless I have no meaning at 

 this time to make any exact animadversion of the errors 

 and impediments in matters of learning, which are 

 more secret and remote from vulgar opinion, but only 

 to speak unto such as do fall under or near unto a 

 popular observation. 



2. There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, 

 whereby learning hath been most traduced. For those 

 things we do esteem vain, which are either false or 

 frivolous, 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 distempers (as I may 

 term them) of learning : the first, fantastical learning ; 

 the second, contentious learning ; and the last, 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, 



