192 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



disdain, Nil sacri es, so there is none of Hercules' followers 

 in learning, that is, the more severe and laborious sort of 

 inquirers into truth, but will despise those delicacies and 

 affectations, as indeed capable of no divineness. And thus 

 much of the first disease or distemper of learning. 



The second, which followeth, is in nature worse than the 

 former ; for as substance of matter is better than beauty 

 of words, so contrariwise vain matter is worse than vain 

 words : wherein it seemeth the reprehension of St. Paul was 

 not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the 

 times following ; and not only respective to divinity, but 

 extensive to all knowledge: Devita prof anas vocum novitates, 

 et oppositiones fa/si nominis scientiae. For he assigneth two 

 marks and badges of suspected and falsified science ; the 

 one, the novelty and strangeness of terms ; the other, the 

 strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce 

 oppositions, and so questions and altercations. 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 subtile, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term 

 them) vermiculate 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 5 but their wits being shut up in" the cells of a 

 few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons 

 were shut up in the cells of monasteries 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 

 I it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the 

 creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is 

 limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider 

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

 cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread 

 and work, but of no substance or profit. 



