The whole spirit and aim of his
great reform is summed up in the following fine passage:
"Facility to believe, impatience to doubt, temerity to assever,
glory to know, doubt to contradict, end to gain, sloth to search,
seeking things in words, resting in a part of nature--these and the
like have been the things which have forbidden the happy match
between the mind of man and the nature of things, and in place
thereof have married it to vain notions and blind experiments....
Therefore, no doubt, the _sovereignty of man_ lieth hid in
knowledge; wherein many things are reserved which kings with their
treasures cannot buy nor with their force command; their spials and
intelligencers can give no news of them; their seamen and
discoverers cannot sail where they grow. Now we govern nature in
opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity; but if we could
be led by her in invention, we should command her in action."
To the same occasion as the discourse on the _Praise of Knowledge_
belongs, also, one in _Praise of the Queen_.
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