ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 57 



concise and round rather than diffusive; by which contriv 

 ance the whole looks more ingenious than it is. Seneca 

 used this kind of style profusely, but Tacitus and Pliny 

 with greater moderation. It has also begun to render itself 

 acceptable in our time. But to say the truth, its admirers 

 are only the men of a middle genius, who think it adds a 

 dignity to learning; while those of solid judgment justly 

 reject it as a certain disease of learning, since it is no more 

 than a jingle, or peculiar quaint affectation of words. 64 

 And so much for the first disease of learning. 



The second disease is worse in its nature than the 

 former; for as the dignity of matter exceeds the beauty of 

 words, so vanity in matter is worse than vanity in words: 

 whence the precept of St. Paul is at all times seasonable: 

 &quot;Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of 

 science falsely so called. &quot; He assigns two marks of sus 

 pected and falsified science: the one, novelty and strange 

 ness of terms; the other, strictness of positions; which nec 

 essarily induces oppositions, and thence questions and alter 

 cations. And indeed, as many solid substances putrefy, and 

 turn into worms, so does sound knowledge often putrefy 

 into a number of subtle, idle, and vermicular questions, 

 that have a certain quickness of life, and spirit, but no 

 strength of matter, or excellence of quality. This kind of 

 degenerate learning chiefly reigned among the schoolmen; 

 who, having subtle and strong capacities, abundance of 

 leisure, and but small variety of reading, their minds being 

 shut up in a few authors, as their bodies were in the cells 

 of their monasteries, and thus kept ignorant both of the 

 history of nature and times; they, with infinite agitation of 

 wit, spun out of a small quantity of matter, those laborious 

 webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the 

 human mind, if it acts upon matter, and contemplates the 

 nature of things, and the works of God, operates according 



54 Since the establishment of the French Academy, a studied plainness and 

 simplicity of style begins to prevail in that nation. 

 65 I. Tim. vi. 20. 



