42 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



work is but for exercise and experiment, not for neces 

 sity ; for there being then no reluctation of the creature, 

 nor sweat of the brow, man s employment must of con 

 sequence have been matter of delight in the experiment, 

 and not matter of labour for the use. Again, the first 

 acts which man performed in Paradise consisted of tho 

 two summary parts of knowledge ; the view of crea 

 tures, and the imposition of names. As for the know 

 ledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched 

 before, not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the 

 moral knowledge of good and evil ; wherein the sup 

 position was, that God s commandments or prohibi 

 tions were not the originals of good and evil, but that 

 they had other beginnings, which man aspired to 

 know ; to the end to make a total defection from God 

 and to depend wholly upon himself. 



7. To pass on : in the first event or occurrence after 

 the fall of man, we see (as the scriptures have infinite 

 mysteries, not violating at all the truth of the story or 

 letter) an image of the two estates, the contemplative 

 state and the active state, figured in the two persons 

 of Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most 

 primitive trades of life ; that of the shepherd (who, by 

 reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and living in view 

 of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life), 

 and that of the husbandman : where we see again the 

 favour and election of God went to the shepherd, and 

 not to the tiller of the ground. 



8. So in the age before the flood, the holy records 

 within those few memorials which are there entered 

 and registered, have vouchsafed to mention and honour 

 the name of the inventors and authors of music and 

 works in metal. In the age after the flood, the first 

 great judgement of God upon the ambition of man 

 was the confusion of tongues ; whereby the open trade 

 and intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly 

 imbarred. 



9. To descend to Moyses the lawgiver, and God s 

 first pen : he is adorned by the scriptures with this 

 addition and commendation, That he was seen in all 



