foresight, by plain evidence that the thing was profitable, as well for the present as for the time to come? If the first inventor could both find and persuade, his follower must do likewise, or be at fault himself; he must deliver the matter from the suspicion of hardness, which arises from his own defect in exposition. If he who reads fails to grasp the meaning through ignorance, he is to be pardoned for his infirmity; if having some capacity he fails from lack of will, he is punished enough by being left in ignorance; and if while able to follow with the best he keeps with the worst, blinded understanding is the greatest darkness, and punishes the evil humour with the depraving of reason. If an expounder, such as I am now, be himself weak, he is ill-advised if he either writes before he knows, or does not mend when he has written amiss, provided he knows where and how. Yet the reader’s courtesy is some protection against error to him who writes, as the writer’s pardon is a protection to him who reads, if simple ignorance is the only fault, without defect in goodwill. It will be admitted that hardness must arise either from the thing itself or from the handling. If the thing itself is hard it must be because it is strange to the reader, because it is outside of his ordinary interests and occupations, or because he does not give full study and attention to it. To illustrate the former difficulty, what affinity is there, in respect of occupation, between a simple ploughman, a wary merchant, and a subtle lawyer, or between manual trades and metaphysical discourses, whether in mathematics, physics, or divinity? Again, even to students who profess some alliance with what they study, can anything be easy if they have not laboured sufficiently in it? I need say no more than this, that where there is no acquaintance in profession there is no help to understanding, where there is no familiarity there is no facility, where there is no conference there is no knowledge. If the man delves the earth, and the matter dwells in heaven, there is no means of uniting them over so great a distance. But when the understanding, though in affinity, is clearly insufficient, there is far more hardness than where there is a difference of occupation, because a vain conceit brings much more error than weak knowledge. Some good may come out of an ignorant fellow if he begin to take hold, but the lukewarm learned mars his way by prejudiced opinion. But in all this, if there be any difficulty about the matter, its cause lies in the man, and not in the nature of the thing. I am quick in teaching, and hard of understanding, but towards whom and why? Towards him, forsooth, who is not sufficiently acquainted with the matter in hand. Well, then, if want of familiarity is the cause of the difficulty, acquaintance once made and continued will remedy that complaint, if the matter seem worth the man’s acquaintance in his natural tongue, for that