except against it; I must deliver unto you for my private opinion, that I am one of that crew that say there is, and we profess, a far greater holdfast of certainty in our sciences, than you by your discourse will seem to acknowledge.

For whereas, first, you do object the ill success and errors of practitioners in physic, you know as well they do proceed of the patient's unruliness, for not one of a hundred doth obey his physician in observing his cautels; or by misinformation of their own indisposi tions, for few are able in this kind to explicate themselves; or by reason their diseases are by nature incurable, which is incident, you know, to many sorts of maladies; or for some other hidden cause which cannot be discovered by course of conjecture. Howbeit, I am full of this belief, that as physic is ministred now-a-days by physicians, it is much to be ascribed to their negligence or ignorance, or other touch of imperfection, that they speed no better in their practice for few are found of that profession so well instructed in their art, as they might by the precepts which their art doth afford; which though it be defective in regard of such perfection, yet for certain it doth flourish with admirable remedies, such as tract of time hath taught by experimental events, and are the open highway to that principal knowledge that you recommend.

As for alchemy, and magic, some conclusions they have that are worthy the preserving; but all their skill is so accompanied with subtleties and guiles, as both the crafts and craft-masters are not only despised, but named with derision. Whereupon to make good your principal assertion, methinks you should have drawn your examples from that which is taught in the liberal sciences, not by picking out cases that happen very seldom, and may by all confession be subject to reproof; but by controlling the generals, and grounds, and eminent positions, and aphorisms, which the greatest artists and philosophers have from time to time defended.

For it goeth for current amongst all men of learning, that those kind of arts which clerks in times past did

term quadrivials, confirm their propositions by infallible demonstrations.

And likewise in the trivials such lessons and directions are delivered unto us, as will effect very near, or as much altogether, as every faculty doth promise. Now in ease we should concur to do as you advise, which is, to renounce our common notions, and cancel all our theorems, axioms, rules, and tenets, and so to come babes ad regnum naturæ, as we are willed by Scriptures to come ad regnum cælorum; there is nothing more certain in my understanding, than that it would instantly bring us to barbarism, and, after many thousand years, leave us more unprovided of theorical furniture than we are at this present: for that were indeed to become very babes, or tabula rasa, when we shall leave no impression of any former principles, but be driven to begin the world again, and to travel by trials of axioms and sense, which are your proofs by particulars, what to place in intellectu, for our general conceptions; it being a maxim of all mens approving, In intellectu nihil esse, quod non prius fuit in sensu; and so in appearance it would befal us, that till Plato's year be come about, our insight in learning would be of less reckoning than now it is accounted..

As for that which you inculcate, of a knowledge more excellent than now is among us, which experience might produce, if we would but essay to extract it out of nature by particular probations, it is no more upon the matter, but to incite us unto that, which without instigation by a natural instinct men will practise of themselves: for it cannot in reason be otherwise thought, but that there are infinite numbers in all parts of the world, for we may not in this case confine our cogitations within the bounds of Europe, which embrace the course that you purpose, with all the diligence and care that ability can perform; for every man is born with an appetite of knowledge, where with he cannot be so glutted, but still, as in a dropsy, thirst after more.

But yet why they should hearken to any such persuasion, as wholly to abolish those settled opinions and general theorems, to which they attained by their own

and their ancestors experience, I see nothing yet al ledged to induce me to think it.

Moreover, I may speak, as I should suppose with good probability, that if we should make a mental survey what is like to be effected all the world over, those five or six inventions which you have selected, and imagine to be but of modern standing, would make but a slender show amongst so many hundreds of all kinds of natures, which are daily brought to light by the enforcement of wit, or casual events, and may be compared, or partly preferred above those that you have named.

But were it so here that all were admitted, that you can require, for the augmentation of our knowledge; and that all our theorems and general positions were utterly extinguished with a new substitution of others in their places, what hope may we have of any benefit of learning by this alteration?

Assuredly, as soon as the new are brought with their additions ad auμ, by the inventors and their followers, by an interchangeable course of natural things they will fall by degrees to be buried in oblivion, and so on continuance to perish outright; and that perchance upon the like to your present pretences, by proposal of some means to advance all our knowledge to an higher pitch of perfectness: for still the same defects that antiquity found, will reside in mankind.

And therefore, other issues of their actions, devices, and studies are not to be expected, than is apparent by records were in former times observed.

I remember here a note which Paterculus made of the incomparable wits of the Grecians and Romans in their flourishing state, that there might be this reason of their notable downfal in their issue that came after; because by nature Quod summo studio petitum est ascendit in summum, difficilisque in perfecto mora est; insomuch that men perceiving that they could go no farther, being come to the top, they turned back again of their own accord, forsaking those studies that are most in request, and betaking themselves to new endeavours,

as if the thing that they sought had been by prevention surprised by others.

So it fared in particular with the eloquence of that age, that when their successors found that hardly they could equal, by no means excel their predecessors, they began to neglect the study thereof, and both to write and speak for many hundred years in a rustical manner; till this latter revolution brought the wheel about again, by inflaming gallant spirits to give the onset afresh, with straining and striving to climb unto the top and height of perfection, not in that gift only, but in every other skill in any part of learning.

For I do not hold it an erroneous conceit to think of every science, that as now they are professed, so they have been before in all precedent ages, though not alike in all places, nor at all times alike in one and the same place, but according to the changings and twinings of times, with a more exact and plain, or with a more rude and obscure kind of teaching.

And if the question should be asked, what proof I have of it, I have the doctrine of Aristotle, and of the deepest learned clerks, of whom we have any means to take any notice, that as there is of other things, so there is of sciences ortus et interitus, which is also the meaning, if I should expound it, of nihil novum sub sole, and is as well to be applied ad facta, as ad dicta, ut nihil neque dictum neque factum, quod non est dictum et factum prius. I have farther for my warrant that famous complaint of Solomon to his son against the infinite making of books in his time, of which in all congruity it must needs be understood, that a great part were observations and instructions in all kind of literature: and of those there is not now so much as one petty pamphlet, only some parts of the bible excepted, remaining to posterity.

As then there was not, in like manner, any footing to be found of millions of authors that were long before Solomon, and yet we must give credit to that which he affirmed, that whatsoever was then, or had been before, it could never be truly pronounced of it, Behold this is new.

Whereupon I must for my final conclusion infer,

seeing all the endeavours, study and knowledge of mankind, in whatsoever art or science, have ever been the same, as they are at this present, though full of mutabilities, according to the changes and accidental occa sions of ages and countries, and clerks dispositions, which can never be but subject to intention and remission, both in their devices and practices of their knowledge: if now we should accord in opinion with you, First, to condemn our present knowledge of doubts and incertitudes, which you confirm but by averment, without other force of argument: And then to disclaim all our axioms and maxims, and general assertions that are left by tradition from our elders to us, which, for so it is to be pretended, have passed all probations of the sharpest wits that ever were: And lastly, to devise, being now become again as it were abecedarii, by the frequent spelling of particulars to come to the notice of the true generals, and so afresh to create new principles of sciences the end of all would be that, when we shall be dispossessed of the learning which we have, all our consequent travels will but help us in a circle to conduct us to the place from whence we set forward, and bring us to the happiness to be restored in integrum: which will require as many ages as have marched before us, to be perfectly achieved.

And this I write with no dislike of increasing our knowledge with new-found devices, which is undoubt edly a practice of high commendation, in regard of the benefit they will yield for the present; that the world hath ever been, and will assuredly for ever continue very. full of such devisors, whose industry hath been very obstinate and eminent that way, and hath produced strange effects, above the reach and the hope of mens common capacities; and yet our notions and theorems have always kept in grace both with them, and with the rarest that ever were named among the learned.

By this you see to what boldness I am brought by your kindness, that if I seem to be too saucy in this contradiction, it is the opinion that I hold of your noble disposition, and of the freedom in these cases that you will afford your special friend, that hath induced me to do it. And although I myself, like a carrier's horse,