50 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [BOOK 1 



truth antiquity, as we call it, is the yoang state of the 

 world j for those times are ancient when the world is ancient; 

 and not those we vulgarly account ancient by computing 

 backwards : so that the present time is the real antiquity. 



Another error, proceeding from the former, is, a distrust 

 that anything should be discovered in later times that was 

 not hit upon before ; as if Lucian s objection against the 

 gods lay also against time. He pleasantly asks why the gods 

 begot ,so many children in the first ages, but none in his 

 days ; and whether they were grown too old for generation, 

 or were restrained by the Pa] nan law, which prohibited old 

 men from marrying 1 T For thus we seem apprehensive that 

 time is worn out, and become unfit for generation. And 

 here we have a remarkable instance of the levity and incon 

 stancy of man s humour ; which, before a thing is effected, 

 thinks it impossible, and as soon as it is done, wonders it was 

 not done before. So the expedition of Alexander into Asia 

 was at first imagined a vast and impracticable enterprise, yet 

 Livy afterwards makes so light of it as to say, &quot; It was but 

 bravely venturing to despise vain opinions.&quot; 8 And the case 

 was the same in Columbus s discovery of the West Indies. 

 But this happens much more frequently in intellectual 

 matters, as we see in most of the propositions of Euclid, 

 which, till demonstrated, seem strange, but when demon 

 strated, the mind receives them by a kind of affinity, as if 

 we had known them before. 



Another error of the same nature is an imagination that 

 of all ancient opinions or sects, the best has ever prevailed, 

 and suppressed the rest ; so that if a man begins a new 

 search, he must happen upon somewhat formerly rejected ; 

 and by rejection, brought into oblivion j as if the multitude, 

 or the wiser sort to please the multitude, would not often 

 give way to what is light and popular, rather than maintain 

 what is substantial and deep. 



Another different error is, the over-early and peremptory 

 reduction of knowledge into arts and methods, from which 

 time the sciences are seldom improved ; for as young men 

 rarely grow in stature after their shape and limbs are fully 



* Senec. imput. ap. Lact. Instit. i. 2ti, 13. 



&quot;Nihil aliud quam bene ausus est, vana contemnere.&quot; Livy, 

 b. 10, c. 17. 



