not know so many as when I did but know a hundred,
and had scarcely ever simpled further than Cheapside.
For, indeed, heads of capacity, and such as are not full
with a handful or easy measure of knowledge, think
they know nothing till they know all; which being
impossible, they fall upon the opinion of Socrates, and
only know they know not anything. I cannot think
that Homer pined away upon the riddle of the fisher-
men, or that Aristotle, who understood the uncertainty
of knowledge, and confessed so often the reason of man
too weak for the works of nature, did ever drown him-
self upon the flux and reflux of Euripus.<93> We do but
learn, to-day, what our better advanced judgments will
unteach to-morrow; and Aristotle doth but instruct us,
as Plato did him, that is, to confute himself. I have
run through all sorts, yet find no rest in any: though
our first studies and junior endeavours may style us
Peripateticks, Stoicks, or Academicks, yet I perceive
the wisest heads prove, at last, almost all Scepticks,<94>
and stand like Janus in the field of knowledge. I have
therefore one common and authentick philosophy I
learned in the schools, whereby I discourse and satisfy
the reason of other men; another more reserved, and
drawn from experience, whereby I content mine own.
Solomon, that complained of ignorance in the height of
knowledge, hath not only humbled my conceits, but
discouraged my endeavours. There is yet another con-
ceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books, which
tells me it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind
pursuit of knowledge: it is but attending a little longer,