THE FIRST BOOK 199 



were not ready to give passage rather to that which is 

 popular and superficial than to that which is substantial and 

 profound ; for the truth is, that time seemeth to be of the 

 nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that 

 which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth 

 that which is weighty and solid. 



Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, 

 is the over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge 

 into arts and methods; from which time commonly 

 sciences receive small or no augmentation. But as young 

 men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow 

 to a further stature; so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms 

 and observations, it is in growth ; but when it once is 

 comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance be 

 further polished and illustrate, and accommodated for 

 use and practice; but it increaseth no more in bulk and 

 substance. _ 



Another error, which doth succeed that which we last 

 mentioned, is that after the distribution of particular 

 arts and sciences, men have abandoned universality, or 

 philosophia prima ; which cannot but cease and stop all \J 

 progression. For no perfect discovery can be made upon 

 a flat or a level : neither is it possible to discover the more 

 remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but 

 upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a 

 , higher science. _J 



Another error hath proceeded from too great a rever- 

 ence, and a kind of adoration of the mind and under- 

 standing of man ; by means whereoflfrnen have withdrawn 

 themselves too much from the contemplation of nature 

 and the observations of experience, and have tumbled up 

 and down in their own reason and conceits. Upon these 

 intellectualists, which are notwithstanding commonly taken 

 for the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus 

 gave a just censure, saying, ' Men sought truth in their 

 own little worlds, and not in the great and common 

 world 'y for they disdain to spell and so by degrees to 

 read in the volume of God's works ; and contrariwise by^ 

 continual meditation and agitation of wit do urge and as it 



