CIVIL AND MORAL. 



contumely : and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. 

 Plutarch saith well to that purpose : &quot; Surely,&quot; saith he, &quot; I had rather 

 a great deal men should say, there was no such man at all as 1 lutarrh 

 than that they should say, that there wasone rititnrrh, th.it would cat his 

 children as soon as they wore born ; as the poets speak of Saturn.&quot; 

 And as the contumely is greater towards (i.xl, so the danger is greater 

 towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to 

 natural piety, to laws, to reputation ; all which may IK- guides to an 

 outward moral virtue, though religion were not : but superstition dis 

 mounts all these, and erc tcth an absolute monarchy in the minds of 

 men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states ; for it makes men 

 wary of themselves, as looking no farther : and we see the time* 

 inclined to atheism, as the time of Augustus C a-sar, were civil times. 

 Hut superstition hath been the confusion of many states ; and bringeth 

 in a newprimum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. 

 The master of superstition is the people ; and in all superstition wise 

 men follow fools ; and arguments are fitted to practice in a reversed 

 order. It was gravely said by some of the prelates in the Council of 

 Trent, where the doctrine of the schoolmen bare gieat sway; that the 

 schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign c entries and 

 epicycles, and such engines of orbs, to save the phenomena, though 

 they knew then. were no such things; and in like manner, that the 

 schoolmen had framed a number of subtile and intricate axioms and 

 theorems, to save the practice of the Church. The causes of supersti 

 tion arc : pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies : excess of outward 

 and pharisaical holiness : over-great reverence of traditions, which 

 cannot but load the Chun h : the stratagems of prelates for their own 

 ambition and lucre : the favouring too much of good intentions, which 

 opencth the gate to conceits and novelties : the taking an aim at divine 

 matters by human, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations : 

 and lastly, barbarous times, especially joined with calamities and 

 disasters. Superstition without a veil is a deformed thing : for as it 

 adtleth deformity to an ape to be so like a man ; so the similitude of 

 superstition to religion makes it the more deformed. And as whole 

 some meat corruptcth to little worms, so good forms and orders 

 corrupt into a number of petty observances. There is a superstition 

 in avoiding superstition ; when men think to do best, if they go farthest 

 from the superstition formerly received : therefore care would IK* had, 

 that, as it fareth in ill purgings, the good be not taken away with the 

 bad, which commonly is done when the people is the reformer. 



XVII I. OK TKAVKI- 



Travel in the younger sort is a part of education ; in the elder a 

 part of experience. He that travclleth into a country before he hath 

 some entrance into the language, gocth to school, and not to travel. 

 That young men travel under some tutor or grave servant, I allow 

 Well ; so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath been 

 in the country before ; whereby he may jc able to tell them wlvat 



