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CAP. 18.
That the cautels and devices put in practice in the
delivery of knowledge for the covering and palliating of ignorance, and the
gracing and overvaluing of that they utter, are without number; but none
more bold and more hurtful than two; the one that men have used of a few
observations upon any subject to make a solemn and formal art, by filling
it up with discourse, accommodating it with some circumstances and
directions to practice, and digesting it into method, whereby men grow
satisfied and secure, as if no more inquiry were to be made of that matter;
the other, that men have used to discharge ignorance with credit, in
defining all those effects which they cannot attain unto to be out of the
compass of art and human endeavour. That the very styles and forms of
utterance are so many characters of imposture, some choosing a style of
pugnacity and contention, some of satire and reprehension, some of
plausible and tempting similitudes and examples, some of great words and
high discourse, some of short and dark sentences, some of exactness of
method, all of positive affirmation, without disclosing the true motives
and proofs of their opinions, or free confessing their ignorance or
doubts, except it be now and then for a grace, and in cunning to win the
more credit in the rest, and not in good faith. That although men be free
from these errors and incumbrances in the will and affection, yet it is
not a thing so easy as is conceived to convey the conceit of one man's mind
into the mind of another without loss or mistaking, specially in notions
new and differing from those that are received. That never any knowledge was
delivered in the same order it was invented, no not in the mathematic,
though it should seem otherwise in regard that the propositions placed last
do use the propositions or grants placed first for their proof and
demonstration. That there are forms and methods of tradition wholly
distinct and differing, according to their ends whereto they are directed.
That there are two ends of tradition of knowledge, the one to teach and
instruct for use and practice, the other to impart or intimate for
re-examination and progression. That the former of these ends requireth a
method not the same whereby it was invented and induced, but such as is
most compendious and ready whereby it may be used and applied. That the
latter of the ends, which is where a knowledge is delivered to be continued
and spun on by a succession of labours, requireth a method whereby it may
be transposed to another in the same manner as it was collected, to the
end it may be discerned both where the work is weak, and where it breaketh
off. That this latter method is not only unfit for the former end, but
also impossible for all knowledge gathered and insinuated by Anticipations,
because the mind working inwardly of itself, no man can give a just account
how he came to that knowledge which he hath received, and that therefore
this method is peculiar for knowledge gathered by interpretation. That the
discretion anciently observed, though by the precedent of many vain persons
and deceivers disgraced, of publishing part, and reserving part to a
private succession, and of publishing in a manner whereby it shall not be
to the capacity nor taste of all, but shall as it were single and adopt
his reader, is not to be laid aside, both for the avoiding of abuse in the
excluded, and the stregthening of affection in the admitted. That there are
other virtues of tradition, as that there be no occasion given to error,
and that it carry a vigour to root and spread against the vanity of wits
and injuries of time; all which if they were ever due to any knowledge
delivered, or if they were never due to any human knowledge heretofore
delivered, yet are now due to the knowledge propounded.
[@ Works III, 247-9]
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