42 The Advancement of Learning 



we will be secured from error; first, the Scriptures, reveal- 

 ing the Will of God ; and then the creatures expressing His 

 Power ; ^ whereof the latter is a key unto the former : not 

 only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense 

 of the Scriptures, by the general notions of reason and rules 

 of speech ; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into 

 a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is 

 chiefly signed and engraven upon His works. Thus much 

 therefore for divine testimony and evidence concerning the 

 true dignity and value of Learning. 

 VII. I. As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a dis- 

 course of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice 

 of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace the 

 variety of them. First, therefore, in the degrees of human 

 honour amongst the heathen, it was the highest to obtain to 

 a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto the Chris- 

 tians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now separately 

 of human testimony: according to which, that which the 

 Grecians call apotheosis, and the Latins, relatio inter divos, 

 was the supreme honour which man could attribute unto 

 man : especially when it was given, not by a formal decree 

 or act of state, as it was used among the Roman Emperors, 

 but by an inward assent and belief. Which honour, being 

 so high, had also a degree or middle term; for there were 

 reckoned above human honours, honours ^ heroical and 

 divine : in the attribution and distribution of which honours, 

 we see antiquity made this difference: that whereas 

 founders and uniters of states and cities, law-givers, extirpers 

 of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons 

 in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies 

 or demi-gods; such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, 

 Romulus, and the hke: on the other side, such as were 

 inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and com- 

 modities towards man's life, were ever consecrated amongst 

 the gods themselves; as were Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, 

 Apollo, and others: and justly; for the merit of the former 

 is confined within the circle of an age or a nation; and is 

 like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and 

 good, yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of 

 ground where they fall; but the other is indeed hke the 

 benefits of heaven, which are permanent and universal. 

 » C£. Nov, Org. i. 89. » All the old editions read honoui. 



