THE FIRST BOOK 189 



though they may have some outward baseness, yet in a 

 judgment truly made they are to be accounted submissions 

 to the occasion and not to the person. 



Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have 

 intervened amongst the studies themselves of the learned ; 

 which is that which is principal and proper to the present 

 argument ; wherein my purpose is not to make a justifica- 

 tion of the errors, but, by a censure and separation of the 

 errors, to make a justification of that which is good and 

 sound, and to deliver that from the aspersion of the other. ^1/1*** 

 For we see that it is the manner of men to scandalize and 

 deprave that which retaineth the state and virtue, by 

 taking advantage upon that which is corrupt and degen- 

 erate : as the Heathens in the primitive church used 

 to blemish and taint the Christians with the faults and 

 corruptions of heretics. But nevertheless I have no mean- 

 ing at this time to make any exact animadversion of the 

 errors and impediments in matters of learning which are 

 more secret and remote from vulgar opinion ; but only to 

 speak unto such as do fall under, or near unto, a popular 

 observation. 



There be therefore chiefly tjirce^vamties in studies, 



whereby learning hath been most traduced. For those 



things we do esteem vain, which are either false or 



frivolous, those which either have no truth or no use : and 



those persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous 



or curious ; and curiosity is either in matter or words : scr-^f 



that in reason as well as in experience, there fall out to be J> 



these three distempers (as I may term them) of learning ; 



fthe first, fantastical learning ; the second, contentious 



Jlearning ; and the last, delicate learning ; vain imagina- 



) tions, vain altercations, and vain affectations ; and with the 



\J.ast I will begin. Martin Luther, conducted (no doubt) 



by an higher Providence, but in discourse of reason finding 



what a province he had undertaken against the Bishop of 



Rome and the degenerate traditions of the church, and 



finding his own solitude, being no ways aided by the 



opinions of his own time, was enforced to awake all 



antiquity, and to call former times to his succors to make 



