Lect. IX.] QUOTATIONS FROM BACON. 219 



ADDENDUM TO LECTURE IX. 



Lord Bacon, in his Advancement of Learning, is very severe 

 upon the metaphysicians of the Middle Ages. I must be allowed to 

 give a few of his pithy sentences ; take the following : — 



" Surely, like as many substances in nature which are solid do 

 putrefy and corrupt into worms ; so it is the property of good and 

 sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, 

 unwholesome, and, as I may term them, vermicidate questions, which 

 have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness 

 of matter or goodness of quality. This kind of degenerate learning 

 did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who, having sharp and strong 

 wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their 

 wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle 

 their dictator), as their persons were shut up ia the cells of monas- 

 teries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time, 

 did, out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit, 

 spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in 

 their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, 

 which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh accord- 

 ing to the stufi', and is limited thereby ; but if it work upon itself, as 

 the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed 

 cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fulness of thread and work, 

 but of no substance or profit." 



As to "second causes," and the Divinity who is enthroned above 

 and beyond the Cosmos, his remarks are so pertinent and so full of 

 eloquence and wisdom, that I cannot refrain from further citation. 

 He had been quoting " One of Plato's School," as to the obscuration of 

 divine things by objects of " the sense," and then he goes on to say — 

 " And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great learned 

 men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the 

 secrets of the Deity by the waxen wings of the senses. And so for 

 the conceit that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, 

 and that the ignorance of second causes should make a more 

 devout dependence upon God, which is the first cause ; first, it is 

 good to ask the question which Job asked of his friends. Will you 



