200 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



were invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles 

 unto them, whereby they are deservedly deluded. 



Another error that hath some connexion with this later 

 is, that men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, 

 and doctrines, with some conceits which they have most 

 admired, or some sciences which they have most applied ; 

 and given all things else a tincture accordingto .-thern,^ 

 utterly untrue and unproper. So hath Plato intermingled 

 his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with logic, and 

 the second school of Plato, Proclus and the rest, with the 

 mathematics. For these were the arts which had a kind 

 of primogeniture with them severally. So have the 

 alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of 

 the furnace ; and Gilbertus, our countryman, hath made 

 a philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone. So 

 Cicero, when, reciting the several opinions of the nature of 

 the soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a 

 harmony, saith pleasantly, Hie ab arte sua non recessit^ etc. 

 But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and 

 wisely, when he saith, Qui respidunt ad pauca de facili 

 pronundant. 



Another error is an impatience of doubt, and hastfc, to 

 assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment t 

 For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two 

 ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients ; the 

 one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end 

 impassable ; the other rough and troublesome in the 

 entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in 

 contemplation ; if a man will begin with certainties, he 

 shall end in doubts ; but if he will be content to begin 

 with doubts, he shall end in certainties. 



Another error is in the manner of the tradition and 

 delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magis- 

 tral and peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful ; in a 

 sort as may be soonest believed, and not easiliest examined. 

 It is true that in compendious treatises for practice that 

 form is not to be disallowed. But in the true handling of 

 knowledge, men ought not to fall either on the one side 

 into the vein of Velleius the Epicurean, Nil tarn metuens^ 



