THE SECOND BOOK 



are as so many suckers or spunges to draw use of know- 

 ledge ; insomuch as that which if doubts had not preceded 

 a man should never have advised but passed it over with- 

 out note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts is 

 made to be attended and applied. But both these com- 

 modities do scarcely countervail an inconvenience which 

 will intrude itself, if it be not debarred ; which is, that 

 when a doubt is once received men labour rather how to 

 keep it a doubt still than how to solve it, and accordingly 

 bend their wits. Of this we see the familiar example in 

 lawyers and scholars, both which if they have once admitted 

 a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for a doubt. But 

 that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed, which . 

 laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those 

 which labour to make certain things doubtful. Therefore 

 these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent 

 things, so that there be this caution used, that % 

 when they be throughly sifted and brought to Datura. 

 resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted, decarded, and 

 not continued to cherish and encourage men in doubting. 

 To which calendar of doubts or problems, I advise be 

 annexed another calendar, as much or more material, which 

 is a calendar of popular errors : I mean chiefly, 

 in natural history such as pass in speech and 

 conceit, and are nevertheless apparently detected 



j r i > i 11 



and convicted or untruth ; that man s knowledge 

 be not weakened nor imbased by such dross and 

 vanity. As for the doubts or non liquets general or in 

 total, I understand those differences of opinions touching 

 the principles of nature and the fundamental points of the 

 same, which have caused the diversity of sects, schools, and 

 philosophies , as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Demo- 

 critus, Parmenides, and the rest. For although Aristotle, 

 as though he had been of the race of the Ottomans, 

 thought he could not reign except the first thing he did he 

 killed all his brethren ; yet to those that seek truth and 

 not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great 

 profit to see before them the several opinions touching the 

 foundations of nature ; not for any exact truth that can be 



