and factions, to keep alive a number of questions of law, rather than to settle them. Let this however be provided against.

Of Inconsistency of Judgments.

APHORISM 94.

Inconsistency of judgments arises either from an immature and hasty decision, or from the rivalry of Courts, or from a bad and ignorant reporting of judgments, or from too great facility being given for their reversal. Care therefore should be taken that judgments proceed after mature deliberation; that courts preserve mutual respect for one another; that judgments be faithfully and wisely reported; and that the way to a repeal of judgments be narrow, rocky, and as it were paved with flint stones.

APHORISM 95.

If judgment be given on any case in a principal court, and a similar case occur in any other, do not proceed to pass judgment till a consultation has been held in some general assembly of the judges. For if it be that previous decisions must be rescinded, at least let them be interred with honour.

APHORISM 96.

That Courts should fence and dispute about jurisdiction is natural to humanity; the rather because of a foolish doctrine, that it is the part of a good and active judge to extend the jurisdiction of his Court; which stimulates the disease and applies a spur where a bit is needed. But that through this spirit of con

tention courts should freely rescind each other's judgments (judgments having nothing to do with the question of jurisdiction) is an intolerable evil, that should by all means be put down by kings or senates or governments. For it is a most pernicious example, that courts, whose business it is to keep the subjects at peace, should be at war with one another.

APHORISM 97.

Let not the way to a repeal of judgments by appeals, writs of error, new trials, and the like, be much too easy and open. Some hold that a suit should be withdrawn to a higher court, as quite a new cause, the previous judgment being completely laid aside and suspended. Others are of opinion that the judgment itself should remain in full force, whilst only its execution should be deferred. I do not like either of these ways; unless the courts wherein judgment has been delivered be of a low and inferior character; but I would rather let both the judgment stand, and the execution proceed, the defendant only giving security for costs and damages if the judgment be reversed.

This Title then touching Certainty of Laws shall stand as a model of the rest of the Digest which I have in mind.

But here I have concluded Civil Knowledge (as far as I have thought right to handle it), and together with it Human Philosophy, and, with Human Philosophy, Philosophy in General. At length therefore having arrived at some pause, and looking back into those things which I have passed through, this treatise of mine seems to me not unlike those sounds and prel

udes which musicians make while they are tuning their instruments, and which produce indeed a harsh and unpleasing sound to the ear, but tend to make the music sweeter afterwards. And thus have I intended to employ myself in tuning the harp of the muses and reducing it to perfect harmony, that hereafter the strings may be touched by a better hand or a better quill. And surely, when I set before me the condition of these. times, in which learning seems to have now made her third visitation to men; and when at the same time I attentively behold with what helps and assistances she is provided; as the vivacity and sublimity of the many wits of this age; the noble monuments of ancient writers, which shine like so many lights before us; the art of printing, which brings books within reach of men of all fortunes; the opened bosom of the ocean, and the world travelled over in every part, whereby multitudes of experiments unknown to the ancients have been disclosed, and an immense mass added to Natural History; the leisure time which the greatest wits in the kingdoms and states of Europe everywhere have at their disposal, not being so much employed in civil business as were the Greeks in respect of their popular governments, and the Romans in respect of the greatness of their monarchy; the peace which Britain, Spain, Italy, France too at last, and many other countries now enjoy; the consumption and exhaustion of all that can be thought or said on religious questions, which have so long diverted many men's minds from the study of other arts; the excellence and perfection of your Majesty's learning, which calls whole flocks of wits around you, as birds round a phoenix; and lastly the inseparable property of time, ever more and more

to disclose Truth; I cannot, I say, when I reflect on these things but be raised to this hope, that this third period will far surpass the Greek and Roman in learning; if only men will wisely and honestly know their own strength and their own weakness; and take from one another the light of invention and not the fire of contradiction; and esteem the inquisition of truth as a noble enterprise, and not a pleasure or an ornament; and employ wealth and magnificence on things of worth and excellence, not on things vulgar and of popular estimation. As for my labours, if any man shall please himself or others in the reprehension of them, they shall make at all events that ancient and patient request, "Strike, but hear." 1 Let men reprehend them as much as they please, if only they observe and weigh what is said. For the appeal is lawful, though perhaps it may not be necessary, from the first cogitations of men to their second, and from the present age to posterity. Now let us come to that learning which the two former periods have not been so blessed as to know, namely, Sacred and Inspired Divinity, the most noble Sabbath and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.

1 Plut. in Themist. c. 11.

OF

THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.

BOOK IX.

CHAPTER I.

The Divisions of Inspired Divinity are omitted— Introduction only is made to three Deficients; namely, the Doctrine concerning the Legitimate Use of the Human Reason in Divine Subjects; the Doctrine concerning the Degress of Unity in the Kingdom of God; and the Emanations of the Scriptures.

SEEING now, most excellent king, that my little bark, such as it is, has sailed round the whole circumference of the old and new world of sciences (with what success and fortune it is for posterity to decide), what remains but that having at length finished my course I should pay my vows? But there still remains Sacred or Inspired Divinity; whereof however if I proceed to treat I shall step out of the bark of human reason, and enter into the ship of the church; which is only able by the Divine compass to rightly direct its course. Neither will the stars of philosophy, which have hitherto so nobly shone upon us, any longer supply their light. So that on this subject also it will be as well to keep silence. I will accordingly omit the proper divi