Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/110

 thing, unlesse from their never having known any thing; for if one hath but once onely experienced the perfect knowledg of one onely thing, and but truly tasted what it is to know, he shall perceive that of infinite other conclusions, he understands not so much as one.

Your discourse is very concluding; in confirmation of which we have the example of those who understand, or have known some thing, which the more knowing they are, the more they know, and freely confesse that they know little; nay, the wisest man in all Greece, and for such pronounced by the Oracle, openly professed to know that he knew nothing.

It must be granted therefore, either that Socrates or that the Oracle it self was a lyar, that declaring him to be most wise, and he confessing that he knew himself to be most ignorant.

Neither one nor the other doth follow, for that both the assertions may be true. The Oracle adjudged Socrates the wisest of all men, whose knowledg is limited; Socrates acknowledgeth that he knew nothing in relation to absolute wisdome, which is infinite; and because of infinite, much is the same part, as is little, and as is nothing (for to arrive v. g. to the infinite number, it is all one to accumulate thousands, tens, or ciphers,) therefore Socrates well perceived his wisdom to be nothing, in comparison of the infinite knowledg which he wanted. But yet, because there is some knowledg found amongst men, and this not equally shared to all, Socrates might have a greater share thereof than others, and therefore verified the answer of the Oracle.

I think I very well understand this particular amongst men, Simplicius there is a power of operating, but not equally dispensed to all; and it is without question, that the power of an Emperor is far greater than that of a private person; but, both this and that are nothing in comparison of the Divine Omnipotence. Amongst men, there are some that better understand Agriculture than many others; but the knowledg of planting a Vine in a trench, what hath it to do with the knowledg of making it to sprout forth, to attract nourishment, to select this good part from that other, for to make thereof leaves, another to make sprouts, another to make grapes, another to make raisins, another to make the huskes of them, which are the works of most wise Nature? This is one only particular act of the innumerable, which Nature doth, and in it alone is discovered an infinite wisdom, so that Divine Wisdom may be concluded to be infinitely infinite.

Take hereof another example. Do we not say that the