“Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,” Book I., Chap. vi. Complete.

IN the matter of knowledge, there is between the angels of God and the children of men this difference; angels already have full and complete knowledge in the highest degree that can be imparted unto them; men, if we view them in their spring, are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all. Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees, till they come at length to be even as the angels themselves are. That which agreeth to the one now, the other shall attain unto in the end; they are not so far disjoined and severed but that they come at length to meet. The soul of man being therefore at the first as a book, wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted, we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto perfection of knowledge.

  Unto that which hath been already set down concerning natural agents this we must add, that albeit therein we have comprised as well creatures living as void of life, if they be in degree of nature beneath men, nevertheless a difference we must observe between those natural agents that work altogether unwittingly, and those which have, though weak, yet some understanding what they do, as fishes, fowls, and beasts have. Beasts are in sensible capacity as ripe even as men themselves, perhaps more ripe. For as stones, though in dignity of nature inferior unto plants, yet exceed them in firmness of strength or durability of being; and plants, though beneath the excellency of creatures endued with sense, yet exceed them in the faculty of vegetation and of fertility; so beasts, though otherwise behind men, may, notwithstanding, in actions of sense and fancy go beyond them; because the endeavors of nature, when it hath a higher perfection to seek, are in lower the more remiss, not esteeming thereof so much as those things do, which have no better proposed unto them.

  The soul of man, therefore, being capable of a more divine perfection, hath (besides the faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto us with beasts) a further ability, whereof in them there is no show at all, the ability of reaching higher than unto sensible things. Till we grow to some ripeness of years, the soul of man doth only store itself with conceits of things of inferior and more open quality, which afterwards do serve as instruments unto that which is greater; in the meanwhile above the reach of meaner creatures it ascendeth not. When once it comprehendeth anything above this, as the differences of time, affirmations, negations, and contradictions in speech, we then count it to have some use of natural reason. Whereunto if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true art and learning (which helps, I must plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, doth neither much know nor greatly regard), there would, undoubtedly, be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured, and that which now men are, as between men that are now and innocents. Which speech if any condemn, as being over hyperbolical, let them consider but this one thing: no art is at the first finding out so perfect as industry may after make it; yet the very first man that to any purpose knew the way we speak of and followed it hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of natural knowledge than sithence in any one part thereof the whole world besides hath done.

  In the poverty of that other new devised aid, two things there are notwithstanding singular. Of marvelous quick dispatch it is, and doth show them that have it as much almost in three days as if it dwell threescore years with them. Again, because the curiosity of man’s wit doth many times with peril wade further in the search of things than were convenient, the same is thereby restrained into such generalities as everywhere offering themselves are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit what need be. So as following the rules and precepts thereof, we may define it to be an art which teacheth the way of speedy discourse, and restraineth the mind of man that it may not wax otherwise.

  Education and instruction are the means, the one by use, the other by precept, to make our natural faculty of reason both the better and the sooner able to judge rightly between truth and error, good and evil. But at what time a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason, as sufficeth to make him capable of those laws, whereby he is then bound to guide his actions, this is a great deal more easy for common sense to discern than for any man by skill and learning to determine; even as it is not in philosophers, who best know the nature both of fire and of gold, to teach what degree of the one will serve to purify the other, so well as the artisan who doth this by fire discerneth by sense when the fire hath that degree of heat which sufficeth for his purpose.