4 The Advancement of Learning 



propound unto you framed particulars; yet I may excite 

 your princely cogitations to visit the excellent treasure of 

 your own mind, and thence to extract particulars for this 

 purpose, agreeably to your magnanimity and wisdom. 



I. I. In the entrance to the former of these, to clear the way, and 

 as it were to make silence, to have the true testimonies 

 concerning the dignity of Learning to be better heard, 

 without the interruption of tacit objections, I think good to 

 deliver it from the discredits and disgraces which it hath 

 received; all from ignorance; but ignorance severally 

 . disguised, appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy 

 )of Divines; sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of 

 Politiques; and sometimes in the errors and imperfections 

 of learned men themselves. 

 ^2^ I hear the former sort say, that Knowledge is of those 

 ^^hings which are to be accepted of with great hmitation and 

 caution ; that the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the 

 original temptation and sin whereupon ensued the fall of 

 man ; that Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, 

 and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him 

 swell; Scientia inflat : ^ that Salomon gives a censure, That 

 there is no end of making books, and that much reading is 

 weariness of the flesh ; ^ and again in another place. That in 

 spacious knowledge there is much coniri station, and that he 

 that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety ;^ that St. Paul 

 gives a caveat. Thai we he not spoiled through vain philosophy,"^ 

 that experience demonstrates how learned men have been 

 arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to 

 atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes 

 derogate from our dependence upon God, who is the first 

 cause. 

 3. To discover then the ignorance and error of this opinion, 

 and the misunderstanding in the grounds therof, it may well 

 appear these men do not observe or consider that it was not 

 the pure knowledge of nature and universality, a knowledge 

 by the light whereof man did give names unto other crea- 

 tures in paradise,* as they were brought before him, accord- 



» I Cor. viii. i. • Eccl. xii. 12. • Eccl. i. 18. 



• Col. ii. 8. • See Gen. ii. and iii. 



