OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond-woman, to acquire 

 and gain to her master's use ; but as a spouse, for generation, 

 fruit, and comfort. 



Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of 

 dissection, those peccant humours, (the principal of them,) 

 which have not only given impediment to the proficience 

 of learning, but have given also occasion to the traducement 

 thereof : wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be remem 

 bered, Fidelia vulnera amantis, sed dolosa oscula malignantis : 



10 [Faithful are the u-ounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy 

 are deceitful.'} This, I think, I have gained, that I ought to 

 be the better believed in that which I shall say pertaining 

 to commendation ; because I have proceeded so freely in that 

 which concerneth censure. And yet I have no purpose to 

 enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the 

 Muses ; (though I am of opinion that it is long since their 

 rites were duly celebrated :) but my intent is, without var 

 nish or amplification, justly to weigh the dignity of know* 

 Jledgg in the balance with other things, and to take the true 



20 value thereof by testimonies and arguments divine and 

 human. 



First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge 

 in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attri 

 butes and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man, 

 and may be observed with sobriety ; wherein we may not 

 seek it by the name of learning ; for all learning is know 

 ledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original : and 

 therefore we must look for it by another name, that of 

 wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures call it. 

 30 It is so then, that in the work of the creation v/e see a 

 double emanation of virtue from God ; the one referring more 

 properly to power, the other to wisdom ; the one expressed 

 in making the subsistence of the matter, and the other in 

 disposing the beauty of the form. This being supposed, it 

 is to be observed that for anything which appeareth in the 



