THE SECOND BOOK 135 



ad summovendam turham, to make way and make room 

 for their opinions, rather than in their true use and 

 service. Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with 

 a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seduce - 

 ment are the very same in divine and human truth : 

 for as in divine truth man cannot endure to become 

 as a child ; so in human, they reputed the attending 

 the inductions (whereof we speak) as if it were a second 

 infancy or childhood. 



4. Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were 

 rightly induced, yet nevertheless certain it is that 

 middle propositions cannot be deduced from them in 

 subject of nature by syllogism, that is, by touch and 

 reduction of them to principles in a middle term. It 

 is true that in sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and 

 the like, yea, and divinity (because it pleaseth God to 

 apply himself to the capacity of the simplest), that 

 form may have use ; and in natural philosophy like- 

 wise, by way of argument or satisfactory reason, 

 ' Quae assensum parit, operis efifoeta est ' : but the 

 subtilty of nature and operations will not be enchained 

 in those bonds. For arguments consist of propositions, 

 and propositions of words, and words are but the 

 current tokens or marks of popular notions of things ; 

 which notions, if they be grossly and variably collected 

 out of particulars, it is not the laborious examination 

 either of consequences or arguments, or of the truth 

 of propositions, that can ever correct that error, being 

 (as the physicians speak) in the first digestion. And 

 therefore it was not without cause, that so many 

 excellent philosophers became Sceptics and Academics, 

 and denied any certainty of knowledge or comprehen- 

 sion ; and held opinion that the knowledge of man 

 extended only to appearances and probabilities. It is 

 true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a form 

 of irony, ' Scientiam dissimulando simulavit ' : for he 

 used to disable his knowledge, to the end to enhance 

 his knowledge : Uke the humour of Tiberius in his 

 beginnings, that would reign, but would not acknow- 

 ledge so much. And in the later Academy, which 



