As the Wise went through the streets of Jerusalem and stood to teach in its open spaces, they observed certain men of various occupations, differing one from another both in social rank and in mental ability, whom nevertheless they classed under one category--THE SONS OF FOLLY. There were, of course, distinctions in the nature of their folly. The Authorised and Revised Versions are content to differentiate only three types, namely--Simpletons[58] (whether from lack of brain or lack of instruction, “Dullards”), Scorners[59], and Fools. The Hebrew text goes further and classifies the last named, the Fools, into (1) _Ivvillim_, those whose folly is due chiefly to the unrealised weakness of their nature--ignorant, vain, confident, headstrong, infatuate persons: in a word, “stupid fools”; and (2) _Kesilim_, whose is the folly of a gross and sensual nature, men who are morally, rather than mentally, unresponsive to the finer aspects of life--insensate, brutish persons, “coarse fools”; and (3) the _Nabal_, the man who is deliberate in his wrong-doing, the “Fool of Fools,” but whose folly is only folly, provided the moral instinct of Humanity is sound and the law of the Universe is ultimately against evil and Man was meant for God and goodness. He it is of whom a Psalmist, getting to the very root of the problem, says _The fool hath said in his heart: “There is no God.”_ Having made the fundamental error, his whole judgment of life has become perverted. Probably he is an astute person; but the greater his ability, the greater and more pernicious will be his folly. Naturally, this fool and the scorner were often one and the same person. The Wise speak little of him, except in his capacity as a scorner; but they recognise that he is terrible. One of the four things that cause the earth to tremble, say they, is when a man of this sort is filled with meat (Pr. 30^{22}). Elsewhere (Pr. 17^{7}) they remark sarcastically that _Honest words do not become a fool_--decency would be out of keeping with his character. So much for “the Fool _par excellence_.” The rest of the sayings about “fools” are concerned with those of the first and second types. If it were our intention to go into the teaching fully, the nice distinctions of the Hebrew would have to be observed with care.[60] But now that the _Nabal_ has been considered, it will be sufficient to follow the classification of the English Bible--scorners, simpletons, and fools--allowing the precise distinction between the _weak_ and the _coarse_ fool to lapse.