38 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



furnace ; and Gilbertus our countryman hath made 

 a philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone. 

 So Cicero, when, reciting the several opinions of the 

 nature of the soul, he found a musician that held the 

 soul was but a harmony, saith pleasantly, Hie ab arte 

 sua non recessit, &c. But of these conceits Aristotle 

 speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, * Qui 

 respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant. 



8. Another error is an impatience of doubt, and 

 haste to assertion without due and mature suspension 

 of judgement. For the two ways of contemplation are 

 not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of 

 by the ancients : the one plain and smooth in the 

 beginning, and in the end impassable ; the other rough 

 and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair 

 and even : so it is in contemplation ; if a man will begin 

 with certainties, he shall end in doubts ; but if he 

 will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in 

 certainties. 



9. Another error is in the manner of the tradition 

 and delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part 

 magistral and peremptory, and not ingenuous and 

 faithful ; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and not 

 easiliest examined. It is true that in compendious 

 treatises for practice that form is not to be disallowed : 

 but in the true handling of knowledge, men ought not 

 to fall either on the one side into the vein of Velleius 

 the Epicurean, Nil tarn metuens, quam ne dubitare 

 aliqua de re videretur ; nor on the other side into 

 Socrates his ironical doubting of all things ; but to 

 propound things sincerely with more or less assevera 

 tion, as they stand in a man s own judgement proved 

 more or less. 



10. Other errors there are in the scope that men 

 propound to themselves, whereunto they bend their 

 endeavours ; for whereas the more constant and devote 

 kind of professors of any science ought to propound to 

 themselves to make some additions to their science, 

 they convert their labours to aspire to certain second 

 prizes : as to be a profound interpreter or commenter, 



