THE FIRST BOOK. 31 



plation, they had proved excellent lights, to the great 

 advancement of all learning and knowledge ; but as they 

 are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark 

 keeping : but as in the inquiry of theViivine truth, their 

 pride inclined to leave the oracle of God's word, and to 

 vanish in the mixture of their own inventions ; so in the 

 inquisition of nature, they ever left the oracle of God's 

 works, and adored the deceiving and deformed images 

 which the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few 

 received authors or principles, did represent unto them. 10 

 And thus much for the second disease of learning. 



For the third vice or disease of learning, which con- 

 cerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest ; 

 as that which doth destroy the essential form 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 appeal] to be of a diverse 20 

 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, 

 [Avoid inquisitive men, for they are babblers^] 

 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 ere- 30 

 duntque: [Those who are prone to invent are also prone to 

 believe .] so great an affinity hath fiction and belief. 



This facility of credit, and accepting or admitting things 

 weakly authorized or warranted, is of two kinds, accord 

 ing to the subject : for it is either a belief of history, 

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



