I.I ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 117 



femn truth upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to think 

 they are all out of their way which never meet : and when they sec 

 such digiadiation about subtiltics, and matters of no use or moment, 

 they easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusx,&quot; Verba 

 ista sunt senum otiosorum.&quot; 



Notwithstanding, certain it is, that if those schoolmen, to their 

 great thirst of truth, and unwearied travel of wit, had joined variety 

 and universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved 

 excellent lights, to the great advancement of all learning and 

 knowledge ; but as they are, they arc great undertakers indeed, and 

 hcrce with dark keeping. But as in the inquiry of the divine truth, 

 their pride inclined to leave the oracle of God s word, and to vanish in 

 the mixture of their own inventions ; so in the inquisition of nature, 

 they ever left the oracle of God s works, and adored the deceiving and 

 deformed images, which the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a 

 few received authors or principles, did represent unto them. And thus 

 much for the second disease of learning. 



For the third vice or disease of learning, which A,tmcerneth deceit 

 or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest ; as that which doth destroy 

 the essential form of knowledge ; which is nothing but a representation 

 of truth ; for the truth of being, and the truth of knowing are one, 

 differing no more than the direct beam, and the beam reflected. This 

 vice therefore brancheth itself into two sorts ; delight in deceiving, and 

 aptness to be deceived; imposture and credulity ; which, although they 

 appear to be of a diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of 

 cunning, and the other of simplicity ; yet certainly they ck) for the 

 most part concur: for as the verse noteth, 



&quot; Percontatorem fugito, nam gurrulus idem est: 



an inquisitive man is a prattler : so upon the like reason, a credulous 

 man is a deceiver; as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe 

 rumours, will as easily augment rumours, and add somewhat to them 

 of his own; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, &quot; Fingunt 

 simul creduntque :&quot; so great an affinity hath fiction and belief. 



This facility of credit, and accepting or admitting things weakly 

 authorized or warranted, is of two kinds, according to the subject : lor 

 it is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact ; 

 or else of matter of art and opinion : as to the former, we see the 

 experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history, 

 which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations of 

 miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and 

 other holy men, and their relicks, shrines, chapels, and images ; which 

 though they had a passage for a time, by the ignorance of the people, 

 the superstitious simplicity of some, and the politic toleration of others, 

 holding them but as divine poesies : yet after a period of time, when 

 the mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives 

 fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges ot 

 antichrist, to the great scandal and detriment of religion. 



So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and 



