The Advancement of Learning

‘...I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those things which are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution; that the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and sin whereupon ensued the fall of man; that knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and, therefore, where it entereth into a man it makes him swell; Scientia inflat; that Solomon gives a censure, *That there is no end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the flesh;* and again in another place, *That in spacious knowledge there is much contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety;* that Saint Paul gives a caveat, *That we be not spoiled through vain philosophy;* that experience demonstrates how learned men have been arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our dependence upon God, who is the first cause...’