144 The Advancement of Learning 



with them to have recourse to similitudes and translations 

 to express themselves. And therefore in the infancy of 

 learning, and in rude times, when those conceits which are 

 now trivial were then new, the world was full of parables 

 and simihtudes ; for else would men either have passed over 

 without mark, or else rejected for paradoxes, that which 

 was offered, before they had understood or judged. So 

 in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes 

 are : for it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not consonant 

 to presuppositions, must pray in aid of simihtudes. 

 II.! There be also other diversities of Methods vulgar and 

 received: as that of Resolution or Analysis, of Constitution 

 or Systasis, of Concealment or Cryptic, etc., which I do allow 

 well of, though I have stood upon those which are least 

 handled and observed. All which I have remembered to 

 this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one 

 general inquiry, which seems to me deficient, touching the 

 Wisdom of Tradition. 



12. But unto this part of knowledge concerning Methods 

 doth farther belong not only the architecture of the whole 

 frame of a work, but also the several beams and columns 

 thereof; not as to their stuff, but as to their quantity and 

 figure. And therefore Method considereth not only the 

 disposition of the argument or subject, but likewise the 

 propositions: not as to their truth or matter, but as to 

 their limitation and manner. For herein Ramus merited 

 better a great deal in reviving the good rules of propositions, 

 KadoXov TrpioTov Kara Travros, etc., than he did in intro- 

 ducing the canker of epitomes; ^ and yet (as it is the con- 

 duction of human things that, according to the ancient 

 fables, the most precious things have the most pernicious 

 keepers) it was so, that the attempt of the one made him 

 fall upon the other. For he had need be well conducted 

 that should design to make axioms convertible, if he make 

 them not withal circular, and non-promovent, or incurring 

 into themselves; but yet the intention was excellent. 



13. The other considerations of method, concerning pro- 

 positions, are chiefly touching the utmost propositions, 

 which limit the dimensions of sciences; for every know- 

 ledge may be fitly said, besides the profundity (which is 



* Should this not rather have been Dichotomies? "quam in unica 

 sua Methodo et Dichototniis obtrudendis." 



