And thus much of the first disease
or distemper of learning.
(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former:
for as substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so
contrariwise vain matter is worse than vain words: wherein it
seemeth the reprehension of St. Paul was not only proper for those
times, but prophetical for the times following; and not only
respective to divinity, but extensive to all knowledge: Devita
profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae.
For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected and falsified
science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the other,
the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce
oppositions, and so questions and altercations. Surely, like as
many substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt
into worms;--so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to
putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and
(as I may term them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind
of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or
goodness of quality.
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