46 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. (fiOOK I, 



Tliis unprofitable subtilty is of two kinds, and appears 

 either in the subject, when that is fruitless speculation or 

 controversy, or in the manner of treating it, which amongst 

 them was this : Upon every particular position they framed 

 objections, and to those objections solutions; which solutions 

 were generally not confutations, but distinctions ; whereas 

 tihe strength of all sciences is like the strength of a iagot 

 bound. For the harmony of science, when each part 

 supports the other, is the true and short confutation of all 

 the smaller objections ; on the contrary, to take out every 

 axiom, as the sticks of the fagot, one by one, you may 

 quarrel with them, and bend them, and break them at 

 pleasure : whence, as it was said of Seneca, that he 

 &quot;weakened the weight of things by trivial expression,&quot; 1 

 we may truly say of the schoolmen, &quot; That they broke the 

 solidity of the sciences by the minuteness of their questions.&quot; 

 For, were it not better to set up one large light in a noble 

 room, that to go about with a small one, to illuminate every 

 comer thereof 1 Yet such is the method of schoolmen, that 

 rests not so much upon the evidence of truth from arguments, 

 authorities, and examples, as upon particular confutations 

 and solutions of every scruple and objection ; which breeds 

 one question, as fast as it solves another ; just as in the above 

 example, when the light is carried into one corner, it darkens 

 the rest. Whence the fable of Scylla seems a lively image 

 of this kind of philosophy, who was transformed into a 

 beautiful virgin upwards, whilst barking monsters surrounded 

 her below, 



&quot; Candida succinctani latrantibus inguina monstris.&quot; 



Virg. Eel. vi. 75. 



So the generalities of the schoolmen are for a while fair and 

 proportionable ; but to descend into their distinctions and 

 decisions, they end in monstrous altercations and barking 

 questions. Whence this kind of knowledge must necessarily 

 fall under popular contempt ; for the people are ever apt to 

 contemn truth, upon account of the controversies raised 

 about it ; and so think those all in the wrong way, who 

 never meet. And when they see such quarrels about sub- 

 tilties and matters of no use, they usually give into the 



1 Quinctilian, lib x. cap. 1, 130. 



