But
the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted
from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither
are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and
cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing
infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages. So that if the
invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches
and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most
remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are
letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas
of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom,
illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other? Nay, further,
we see some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most
immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the
soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of
man could act and perform without the organs of the body, they
thought might remain after death, which were only those of the
understanding and not of the affection; so immortal and
incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to be.
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