34 The Advancement of Learning 



8. Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to 

 assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. 

 For the two ways of contemplation are not unhke the two 

 ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the 

 one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end 

 impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the 

 entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in con- 

 templation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall 

 end in doubts ; but if he will be content to begin with 

 doubts, he shall end in certainties. 



9. Another error is in the manner of the tradition and 

 delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistral 

 and peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful ; in a sort 

 as may be soonest beheved, and not easihest examined. It 

 is true, that in compendious treatises for practice that form 

 is not to be disallowed : but in the true handling of know- 

 ledge, men ought not to fall either on the one side into the 

 vein of Velleius the Epicurean: Nil tarn metuens, qudm ne 

 dubitare aliqua de re videretur ; ^ nor on the other side into 

 Socrates his ironical doubting of all things ; "^ but to pro- 

 pound things sincerely with more or less asseveration, as 

 they stand in a man's own judgment proved more or less. 



10. Other errors there are in the scope that men propound 

 to themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours; for 

 whereas the more constant and devote ^ kind of professors 

 of any science ought to propound to themselves to make 

 some additions to their science, they convert their labours 

 to aspire to certain second prizes: as to be a profound 

 interpreter or commenter, to be a sharp champion or de- 

 fender, to be a methodical compounder or abridger; and 

 so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be sometimes 

 improved, but seldom augmented. 



11. But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking 

 or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge : for 

 men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, 

 sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite ; 

 sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight ; 

 sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to 



' Cic. De Nat. Deor. I. viii. 18. 



"His Wpibvfia. See Plato, Apol. (p. 21), for the best instance of 

 this. He there explains his supeiiority to consist in the knowledge 

 of his own ignorance. » So edition 1605. 



