So it is in
contemplation: if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end
in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall
end in certainties.
(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of
knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and
not ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed,
and not easiest examined. It is true, that in compendious treatises
for practice that form is not to be disallowed; but in the true
handling of knowledge men ought not to fall either on the one side
into the vein of Velleius the Epicurean, Nil tam metuens quam ne
dubitare aliqua de revideretur: nor, on the other side, into
Socrates, his ironical doubting of all things; but to propound
things sincerely with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a
man's own judgment proved more or less.
(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to
themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas the
more constant and devote kind of professors of any science ought to
propound to themselves to make some additions to their science, they
convert their labours to aspire to certain second prizes: as to be
a profound interpreter or commentor, to be a sharp champion or
defender, to be a methodical compounder or abridger, and so the
patrimony of knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved, but seldom
augmented.
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