ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 155 



tation ; and 3. The confutation of images or idols. The doc- 

 trine of the confutation of sophisms is extremely useful : for al- 

 though a gross kind of fallacy is not improperly compared, by 

 Seneca, to the tricks of jugglers,* where we know not by what 

 means the things are performed, but are well assured they are 

 not as they appear to be, yet the more subtile sophisms not only 

 supply occasions of answer, but also in reality confound the 

 judgment. This part concerning the confutation of sophisms 

 is, in precept, excellently treated by Aristotle, but still better 

 by Plato, in example ; not only in the persons of the ancient 

 sophists, Gorgias, Hippias, Protagoras, Euthydemus, etc., but 

 even in the person of Socrates himself,** who, always professing 

 to affirm nothing, but to confute what was produced by others, 

 has ingeniously expressed the several forms of objections, fal- 

 lacies, and confutations. Therefore in this part we find no de- 

 ficiency, but only observe by the way, that though we place the 

 true and principal use of this doctrine in the confutation of 

 sophisms, yet it is plain that its degenerate and corrupt use tends 

 to the raising of cavils and contradictions, by means of those 

 sophisms themselves ; which kind of faculty is highly esteemed, 

 and has no small uses, though it is a good distinction made be- 

 tween the orator and the sophist, that the former excels in swift- 

 ness, as the greyhound, the other in the turn, as the hare. 



With regard to the confutations of interpretation, we must 

 here repeat what was formerly said of the transcendental and 

 adventitious conditions of beings, such as greater, less, whole, 

 parts, motion, rest, etc. For the different way of considering 

 these things, which is either physically or logically, must be re- 

 membered. The physical treatment of them we have allotted 

 to primary philosophy, but their logical treatment is what we 

 here call the confutation of interpretation. And this we take 

 for a sound and excellent part of learning, as general and com- 

 mon notions, unless accurately and judiciously distinguished 

 from their origin, are apt to mix themselves in all disputes, so 

 as strangely to cloud and darken the light of the question, and 

 frequently occasion the controversy to end in a quarrel about 

 words: for equivocations and wrong acceptations of words, 

 especially of this kind, are the sophisms of sophisms ; where- 

 fore it is better to treat of them separate than either to receive 

 them into primary philosophy or metaphysics, or again, to 

 make them a part of analytics, as Aristotle has confusedly done. 



