120 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



judgments, which, till a matter be done, wonder that ft can be done ; 

 and, as soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner clone ; 

 as we see in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was 

 prejudged as a vast and impossible enterprise : and yet afterwards it 

 pleaseth Livy to make no more of it than this ; &quot; Nil aliud, quam bene 

 ausus est vana contemnere : &quot; and the same happened to Columbus in 

 the western navigation. But in intellectual matters, it is much more 

 common ; as may be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid, which 

 till they be demonstrated, they seem strange to our assent ; but being 

 demonstrated, our mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation, as the 

 lawyers speak, as if we had known them before. 



Another error that hath also some affinity with the former, is a 

 conceit, that of former opinions or sects, after variety and examination, 

 the best hath still prevailed, and suppressed the rest : so as, if a man 

 should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light upon 

 somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion ; as 

 if the multitude, or the wisest, for the multitude s sake, 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 carricth down 

 to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowncth 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 

 O r row to a farther 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 farther polished and illustrated, 

 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 priina; which cannot but 

 cease, and stop all 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. 



Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a 

 kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man : by means 

 whereof, men have withdrawn themselves too much from the contem 

 plation of nature, and the obseivations 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, 

 Baying, &quot; Men sought truth in their own little worlds, and not in the 

 great and common world ;&quot; for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees 

 to read in the volume of God s works ; and contrariwise, by continual 



Walton and agitation of wit, do urge and as it were invocate their 



