38 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment 

 For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the tw< 

 ways of action, commonly Spoken of by the ancients ; th 

 one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the en< 

 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 en< 

 in certainties. 



10 Another error is in the manner of the tradition am 

 ft delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistra 

 and peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful ; in a sort a 

 may be soonest believed, and not easiliest examined. It i 

 true, that in compendious treatises for practice, that form i 

 not to be disallowed : but in the true handling of knowledg< 

 men ought not to fall eitlier, on the one side, into the vein c 

 Velleius the Epicurean, Nil tarn metuens, quam ne dubitat 

 aliqua de re videretur : [Fearing nothing so much as that h 

 might seem to be in doubt about anything :] nor, on the othe 



20 side, into Socrates his ironical doubting of all things ; but t 

 v propound things sincerely, with more or less asseveration, a 



they stand in a man's own judgment proved more or less. 



Other errors there are in the scope that men propoun 

 to themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours ; fc 

 whereas the more constant and devoted kind of professoi 

 of any science ought to propound to themselves to make som 

 additions to their science, they convert their labours t 

 aspire to certain second prizes ; as to be a profound interpret* 

 or commenter, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be 



30 methodical compounder or abridger, and so the patrimony ( 

 knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved, but seldoi 

 augmented. 



But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistakin 



N^ or misplacing of the last OF furthest end of knowledge : fc 



men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge 



sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite 



