ignorance severally disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and
jealousy of divines, sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of
politics, and sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned
men themselves.

(2) 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.

(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, and
the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well appear
these men do not observe or consider that it was not the pure
knowledge of Nature and universality, a knowledge by the light
whereof man did give names unto other creatures in Paradise as they
were brought before him according unto their proprieties, which gave
the occasion to the fall; but it was the proud knowledge of good and
evil, with an intent in man to give law unto himself, and to depend
no more upon God's commandments, which was the form of the