(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a
kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means
whereof, men have withdrawn themselves too much from the
contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and
have tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits. Upon
these intellectualists, which are notwithstanding commonly taken for
the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just
censure, saying: --"Men sought truth in their own little worlds, and
not in the great and common world;" for they disdain to spell, and
so by degrees to read in the volume of God's works; and contrariwise
by continual meditation and agitation of wit do urge and, as it
were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles unto
them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.
(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter is,
that men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and
doctrines with some conceits which they have most admired, or some
sciences which they have most applied, and given all things else a
tincture according to them, utterly untrue and improper.
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