42 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



delight in the experiment, and not matter of labour for the 

 use. Again, the first acts which man performed in Paradise 

 consisted of the two summary parts of knowledge ; the view 

 of creatures, and the imposition of names. As for the know 

 ledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched before, 

 not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral know 

 ledge of good and evil ; wherein the supposition was, that 

 God's commandments or prohibitions were not the originals 

 of good and evil, but that they had other beginnings, which 



10 man aspired to know ; to the end to make a total defection 

 from God, and to depend wholly upon himself. 



To pass on : in the first event or occurrence after the fall 

 of man, we see, (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not 

 violating at all the truth of the story or letter,) an image of 

 the two estates, the contemplative state and the active state, 

 figured in the two persons of Abel and Cain, and in the two 

 simplest and most primitive trades of life ; that of the shep 

 herd, (who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and 

 living in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative 



20 life,) and that of the husbandman : where we see again the 

 favour and election of God went to the shepherd, and not to 

 the tiller of the ground. 



So in the age before the flood, the holy records within 

 those few memorials which are there entered and registered, 

 have vouchsafed to mention and honour the name of the in 

 ventors and authors of music and works in metal. In the 

 age after the flood, the first great judgment of God upon the 

 ambition of man was the confusion of tongues ; whereby the 

 open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was 



30 chiefly imbarred. 



To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God's first pen : 

 he is adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and com 

 mendation, That he was seen in all the learning of the 

 Egyptians; which nation, we know, was one of the most 

 ancient schools of the world : for so Plato brings in the 

 Egyptian priest saying unto Solon : You Grecians are ever 



