.. the
circumnavigation of the world and the increase of science should
happen in the same age."[401]
In his great work on the _Advancement of Learning_ the firm grasp
which the methods he condemned held upon him is shown yet more
clearly. In the first book of it he asserts that "that
excellent book of Job, if it be revolved with diligence, will be
found pregnant and swelling with natural philosophy," and he
endeavours to show that in it the "roundness of the earth," the
"fixing of the stars, ever standing at equal distances," the
"depression of the southern pole," the "matter of generation,"
and "matter of minerals" are "with great elegancy noted."
But, curiously enough, he uses to support some of these truths
the very texts which the fathers of the Church used to destroy
them, and those for which he finds Scripture warrant most
clearly are such as science has since disproved. So, too, he
says that Solomon was enabled in his Proverbs, "by donation of
God, to compile a natural history of all verdure.
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