THE FIRST BOOK 193 



This same unprofitable subtlety or curiosity is of two 

 sorts ; either in the subject itself that they handle, when it 

 is a fruitless speculation or controversy, (whereof there are 

 no small number both in divinity and philosophy,) or m> |^^ 

 the manner or method of handling of a knowledge ; which J ~ 

 amongst them was this; upon every particular position i L .o 

 or assertion to frame objections, and to those objections, \ ' 

 solutions ; which solutions were for the most part not J 

 confutations, but distinctions : whereas indeed the strength 

 of all sciences is, as the strength of the old man's faggot, 

 in the bond. For the harmony of a science, supporting 

 each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief 

 confutation and suppression of all the smaller sort of 

 objections ; but on the other side, if you take out every 

 axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by one, you may 

 quarrel with them and bend them and break them at 

 your pleasure : so that as was said of Seneca, Verborum 

 minutiis rerum frangit pondera, so a man may truly say 

 of the schoolmen, Quaestionum minutiis scienliarum frangunt 

 soliditatem. For were it not better for a man in a fair 

 room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of 

 lights, than to go about with a small watch candle into 

 every corner ? And such is their method, that rests not 

 so much upon evidence of truth proved by arguments, 

 authorities, similitudes, examples, as upon particular con- 

 futations and solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and 

 objection ; breeding for the most part one question as fast 

 as it solveth another ; even as in the former resemblance, 

 when you carry the light into one corner, you darken the 

 rest : so that the fable and fiction of Scylla seemeth to be 

 a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge ; 

 which was transformed into a comely virgin for the upper 

 parts ; but then Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina mon- 

 stris : so the generalities of the schoolmen are for a while^ 

 good and proportionable ; but then when you descend into 

 their distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb j 

 for the use and benefit of man's life, they end in mon- / 

 strous altercations and barking questions. So as it is not 

 possible but this quality of knowledge must fall under 



