OF THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE, BEING THE 4TH CHAPTER, THE PREFACE
ONLY OF IT.
In some things it is more hard to attempt than to achieve, which
falleth out when the difficulty is not so much in the matter or
subject, as it is in the crossness and indisposition of the mind of
man to think of any such thing, to will or to resolve it. And
therefore Titus Livius in his declamatory digression wherein he doth
depress and extenuate the honour of Alexander's conquests saith,
NIHIL ALIUD QUAM BENE AUSUS VANA CONTEMNERE: in which sort of things
it is the manner of men first to wonder that any such thing should be
possible, and after it is found out to wonder again how the world
should miss it so long. Of this nature I take to be the invention
and discovery of knowledge, etc.
THE IMPEDIMENTS WHICH HAVE BEEN IN THE TIMES, AND IN DIVERSION OF
WITS, BEING THE 5TH CHAPTER, A SMALL FRAGMENT IN THE BEGINNING OF
THAT CHAPTER.
The encounters of the times have been nothing favourable and
prosperous for the invention of knowledge; so as it is not only the
daintiness of the seed to take, and the ill mixture and unliking of
the ground to nourish or raise this plant, but the ill season also of
the weather by which it hath been checked and blasted. Especially in
that the seasons have been proper to bring up and set forward other
more hasty and indifferent plants, whereby this of knowledge bath
been starved and overgrown; for in the descent of times always there
hath been somewhat else in reign and reputation, which hath generally
aliened and diverted wits and labours from that employment.
For as for the uttermost antiquity which is like fame that muffles
her head and tells tales, I cannot presume much of it; for I would
not willingly imitate the manner of those that describe maps, which
when they come to some far countries whereof they have no knowledge,
set down how there be great wastes and deserts there: so I am not apt
to affirm that they knew little, because what they knew is little
known to us. But if you will judge of them by the last traces that
remain to us, you will conclude, though not so scornfully as
Aristotle doth, that saith our ancestors were extreme gross, as those
that came newly from being moulded out of the clay or some earthly
substance; yet reasonably and probably thus, that it was with them in
matter of knowledge but as the dawning or break of day. For at that
time the world was altogether home-bred, every nation looked little
beyond their own confines or territories, and the world had no
through lights then, as it hath had since by commerce and navigation,
whereby there could neither be that contribution of wits one to help
another, nor that variety of particulars for the correcting of
customary conceits.
And as there could be no great collection of wits of several parts or
nations, so neither could there be any succession of wits of several
times, whereby one might refine the other, in regard they had not
history to any purpose. And the manner of their traditions was
utterly unfit and unproper for amplification of knowledge. And again
the studies of those times, you shall find, besides wars, incursions,
and rapines, which were then almost every where betwixt states
adjoining (the use of leagues and confederacies being not then known),
were to populate by multitude of wives and generation, a thing at
this day in the waster part of the West-Indies principally affected;
and to build sometimes for habitation towns and cities, sometimes for
fame and memory monuments, pyramids, colosses, and the like. And if
there happened to rise up any more civil wits; then would he found
and erect some new laws, customs, and usages, such as now of late
years, when the world was revolute almost to the like rudeness and
obscurity, we see both in our own nation and abroad many examples of,
as well in a number of tenures reserved upon men's lands, as in
divers customs of towns and manors, being the devices that such wits
wrought upon in such times of deep ignorance, etc.
THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE FOR WANT OF A TRUE SUCCESSION OF WITS,
AND THAT HITHERTO THE LENGTH OF ONE MAN'S LIFE HATH BEEN THE GREATEST
MEASURE OF KNOWLEDGE, BEING THE 6TH CHAPTER, THE WHOLE CHAPTER.
In arts mechanical the first device comes shortest and time addeth
and perfecteth. But in sciences of conceit the first author goeth
furthest and time leeseth and corrupteth. Painting, artillery,
sailing, and the like, grossly managed at first, by time accommodate
and refined. The philosophies and sciences of Aristotle, Plato,
Democritus, Hippocrates, of most vigour at first, by time degenerated
and imbased. In the former many wits and industries contributed in
one: In the latter many men's wits spent to deprave the wit of one.
The error is both in the deliverer and in the receiver. He that
delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such form as may be
soonest believed, and not as may be easiliest examined. He that
receiveth knowledge desireth rather present satisfaction than
expectant search, and so rather not to doubt than not to err. Glory
maketh the author not to lay open his weakness, and sloth maketh the
disciple not to know his strength.
Then begin men to aspire to the second prizes; to be a profound
interpreter and commenter, to be a sharp champion and defender, to be
a methodical compounder and abridger. And this is the unfortunate
succession of wits which the world hath yet had, whereby the
patrimony of all knowledge goeth not on husbanded or improved, but
wasted and decayed. For knowledge is like a water that will never
arise again higher than the level from which it fell; and therefore
to go beyond Aristotle by the light of Aristotle is to think that a
borrowed light can increase the original light from whom it is taken.
So then no true succession of wits having been in the world, either
we must conclude that knowledge is but a task for one man's life, and
then vain was the complaint that LIFE IS SHORT, AND ART IS LONG: or
else, that the knowledge that now is, is but a shrub, and not that
tree which is never dangerous, but where it is to the purpose of
knowing Good and Evil; which desire ever riseth upon an appetite to
elect and not to obey, and so containeth in it a manifest defection.