i;o OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



power of a king and the difference and perfection of 

 such a king. 



Therefore I did conclude with myself, that I could not 

 make unto your Majesty a better oblation than of some 

 treatise tending to that end ; whereof the sum will consist 

 of these two parts : the former concerning the excellency v 

 of learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the merit > 

 and true glory in the augmentation and propagation there- 

 of; the later, what the particular acts and works are which 

 hjye been embraced and undertaken for the advancement 

 Vf>f learning, and again what defects and undervalues I find 

 in such particular acts ; to the end that though I cannot 

 positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or pro- 

 pound 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 agreeable to your magnanimity and wisdom. 



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 arro- 

 gancy of politiques, and sometimes in the errors and 

 imperfections of learned men themselves. 



I hear the former sort say, that knowledge is of those 

 things which are to be accepted of with great limitation 

 and caution ; that the aspiring to over-much 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 Solomon 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 contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge 



