THE FIRST BOOK 171 



increaseth anxiety' ; that St. Paul gives a caveat, 'That we 

 be not spoiled through vain philosophy ' ; that experience 

 demonstrates how learned men have been arch-heretics, 

 how learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how 

 the contemplation of second causes doth derogate from 

 our dependence upon God, who is the first cause. 



To discover then the ignorance and error of this opinion 

 and the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may 

 well appear these men do not observe or consider that it 

 was not the pure knowledge of nature and universality, a 

 knowledge by the light whereof man did give names unto 

 other creatures in Paradise, as they were brought before 

 him, according unto their proprieties, which gave the 

 occasion to the fall ; but it was the proud knowledge of 

 good and evil, with an intent in man to give law unto 

 himself and to depend no more upon God's commandments, 

 which was the form of the temptation. Neither is it any 

 quantity of knowledge how great soever that can make the 

 mind of man to swell ; for nothing can fill, much less 

 extend, the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of 

 God ; and therefore Solomon speaking of the two principal 

 senses of inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that 

 the eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with 

 hearing * x and if there be no fulness, then is the continent 

 greater than the content : so of knowledge itself and the 

 mind of man, whereto the senses are but reporters, he 

 defineth likewise in these words, placed after that calendar 

 or ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of times 

 and seasons for all actions and purposes ; and concludeth 

 thus : ' God hath made all things beautiful, or decent, in 

 the true return of their seasons : Also he hath placed the . 

 world in man's heart, yet cannot man find out the work 

 which God worketh from the beginning to the end ' : 

 declaring not obscurely that God hath framed the mind of 

 man as a mirror or glass capable of the image of the 

 universal world, and joyful to receive the impression 

 -thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light ; and not only 

 delighted in beholding the variety of things and vicissitude 

 of times, but raised also to find out and discern the 



