32 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of 

 truth : for the truth of being and the truth of knowing 

 are one, differing no more than the direct beam and the 

 beam reflected. This vice therefore brancheth itself 

 into two sorts ; delight in deceiving and aptness to be 

 deceived ; imposture and credulity ; which, although 

 they appear to be of a diverse nature, the one seeming 

 to proceed of cunning and the other of simplicity, yet 

 certainly they do for the most part concur : for, as 

 the verse noteth, 



Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est, 



an inquisitive man is a prattler ; so upon the like 

 reason a credulous man is a deceiver : as we see it in 

 fame, that he that will easily believe rumours, will as 

 easily augment rumours and add somewhat to them 

 of his own ; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he 

 saith, Fingunt simul creduntque : so great an 

 affinity hath fiction and belief. 



9. This facility of credit and accepting or admitting 

 things weakly authorized or warranted, is of two kinds 

 according to the subject : for it is either a belief of 

 history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact ; or 

 else of matter of art and opinion. As to the former, 

 we see the experience and inconvenience of this error 

 in ecclesiastical history ; which hath too easily received 

 and registered reports and narrations of miracles 

 wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, 

 and other holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels, 

 and images : which though they had a passage for 

 a time by the ignorance of the people, the superstitious 

 simplicity of some, and the politic toleration of others, 

 holding them but as divine poesies ; yet after a period 

 of time, when the mist began to clear up, they grew to 

 be esteemed but as old wives fables, impostures of 

 the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of Antichrist, 

 to the great scandal and detriment of religion. 



10. So in natural history, we see there hath not been 

 that choice and judgement used as ought to have been ; 

 as may appear in the writings of Plinius, Cardanus, 



