OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



ordinances and decrees which throughout all those changes 

 are infallibly observed. And although he doth insinuate 

 that the supreme or summary law of nature, which he 

 calleth ' the work which God worketh from the beginning 

 to the end/ is not possible to be found out by man ; yet that 

 doth not derogate from the capacity of the mind, but may 

 be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life, ill 

 conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from 

 hand to hand, and many other inconveniences whereunto 

 the condition of man is subject. For that nothing parcel of 

 jthe world is denied to man's inquiry and invention he doth 

 Hn another place rule over, when he saith, ' The spirit of 

 man is as the lamp of God, wherewith he searcheth the 

 inwardness of all secrets/ If then such be the capacity and 

 receipt of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no 

 danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, 

 how large soever, lest it should make it swell or out- 

 compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of know- 

 ledge, which be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken 

 without the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature 

 of venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom, 

 which is ventosity or swelling. This corrective spice, the 

 mixture whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is 

 Charity, which the apostle immediately addeth to the 

 former clause ; for so he saith, c knowledge bloweth up, 

 but charity buildeth up ' ; not unlike unto that which he 

 delivereth in another place : ' If I spake (saith he) with 

 the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it 

 were but as a tinkling cymbal ' ; not but that it is an 

 excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men and 

 angels, but because if it be severed from charity, and not 

 referred to the good of men and mankind, it hath rather a 

 sounding and unworthy glory than a meriting and sub- 

 stantial virtue. 



And as for that censure of Solomon concerning the 

 excess of writing and reading books and the anxiety 

 of spirit which redoundeth from knowledge, and that 

 admonition of St. Paul, * That we be not seduced by vain 

 philosophy ' ; let those places be rightly understood, and 



