198 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon, 

 and discover what is the best way ; but when the discovery 

 is well taken, then to make progression. And to speak 

 truly, Antiquitas saeculi juventus mundi. These times are 

 the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those 

 which we account ancient ordine retrograde^ by a computa- 

 tion backward from ourselves. 



Another error, induced by the former, is a distrust that 

 any thing should be now to be found out, which the world 

 should have missed and passed over so long time ; as if 

 the same objection were to be made to time that Lucian 

 maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods, of which he 

 wondereth that they begot so many children in old time 

 and begot none in his time, and asketh whether they were 

 become septuagenary, or whether the law Pappia> made 

 against old men's marriages, had restrained them. So it 

 seemeth men doubt lest time is become past children and 

 generation ; wherein contrariwise we see commonly the 

 levity and unconstancy of men's judgments, which, till a 

 matter be done, wonder that it can be done ; and as soon 

 as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done ; 

 as we see in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which 

 at first was prejudged as a vast and impossible enterprise ; 

 and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more of it 

 than this, Nil aliud quam bene ausus vana contemnere. And 

 the same happened to Columbus in the western navigation. 

 But in intellectual matters it is much more common ; as 

 may be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid, which 

 till they be demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent ; 

 but being demonstrate, our mind accepteth of them by a 

 kind of relation (as the lawyers speak) as if we had known 

 them before. 



Another error, that hath also some affinity with the 

 former, is a conceit that of former opinions or sects, after 

 variety and examination, the best hath still prevailed and 

 suppressed the rest ; so as if a man should begin the labour 

 of a new search, he were but like to light upon somewhat 

 formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion : 

 as if the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude's sake, 



