M ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 127 



As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as, in a discourse of this 

 nature and brevity, it is tit rather to use choice of those things which 

 we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them. First, there 

 fore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the 

 highest, to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto 

 the Christians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now separately 

 of human testimony ; according to which, that which the Grecians call 

 &quot; apotheosis,&quot; and the Latins, u relatio inter divos,&quot; was the supreme 

 honour which man could attribute unto man ; especially when it was 

 given, not by a formal decree or act of state, as it was used among the 

 Roman Emperors, but by an inward assent and belief. Which honour 

 being so high had also a degree or middle term ; for there were 

 reckoned above human honours, honours hcroical and divine : in the 

 attribution and distribution of which honours, we sec antiquity made 

 this difference : that whereas founders and uniters of states and cities, 

 lawgivers, cxtirpcrs of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent 

 persons in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies or 

 demigods, such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, Romulus, and the 

 like : on the other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts, 

 endowments and commodities towards man s life, were ever con 

 secrated amongst the gods themselves : as were Ceres, Bacchus, Mcr- 

 curius, Apollo, and others ; and justly : for the merit of the former is 

 confined within the circle of an age or a nation ; and is like fruitful 

 showers, which though they be profitable and good, yet serve but for 

 that season, and for a latitude of ground where they fall ; but the other 

 is indeed like the benefits of heaven, which are permanent and universal. 

 The former, again, is mixed with strife and perturbation ; but the latter 

 hath the true character of divine presence, coming in aura font, with 

 out noise or agitation. 



Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the 

 Ehconveniencies which grow from man to man, much inferior to the 

 former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature ; which 

 merit was lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of 

 Orpheus s theatre, where all beasts anil birds assembled, and forgetting 

 their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, 

 stood all sociably together, listening to the airs and accords of the 

 harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some 

 louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature : wherein is 

 aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage 

 and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge ; which as long 

 as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with 

 eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is 

 society and peace maintained ; but if these instruments be silent, or 

 that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve 

 into anarchy and confusion. 



But this appcareth more manifestly, when kings themselves, or 

 persons of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths 

 and popular estates, are endued with learning. For although he might 

 be thought partial to his own profession, that said, &quot;Then should 



