i .1 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. \ 2 1 



own spirits to divine, and give oracles unto them, whereby they are 

 deservedly deluded. 



Another error that hath some connexion with this latter, 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 

 according to them, 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 primo 

 geniture with them severally. So have the alchemists made a 

 philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace ; and Gilbcrtus, 

 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, &quot; Hie ab arte sua non rcccssit,&quot; etc. 

 Uut of these conceits Aristotle spcakcth seriously and wisely, when 

 he saith, &quot; Qui respiciunt ad pauca, dc facili pronuntiant.&quot; 



Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion 

 without due and mature suspension of judgment. 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 begin 

 ning, and in the end impassable ; the other rough and trouble 

 some 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 magistral and peremptory ; and 

 not ingenuous and faithful, in a sort, as may be soonest believed, and 

 most casiliest 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 : &quot;Nil tam mctucns, quam ne dubitnre 

 aliqua de re vidcretur:&quot; nor, on the other side, into Socrates his 

 ironical doubting of all things ; but to propound things sincerely, 

 with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a man s own judgment 

 proved more or less. 



Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to them 

 selves, whcreunto they bend their endeavours : for whereas the more 

 constant and devote kind of professors of any science ought to pro 

 pound to themselves to make some additions to their science ; they 

 convert their labours to aspire to certain second prizes ; as to be a 

 profound interpreter or commentator ; to be a sharp champion or 

 defender ; to be a methodical compoundcr or abridgcr ; and so 

 the patrimony of knowledge comcth to be sometimes improved, but 

 seldom augmented. 



Hut the greatest error of all the rest, is the mistaking or misplacing 

 of the last or farthest end of knowledge : for men have entered into 



