12. Now what an unreasonable imposition is this, that tho’ a man can think and write like an angel himself, yet he must not be accounted a man of learning, unless he can tell what every whimsical writer hath said before him? And how hard will it fall upon those, whose lot is to breathe in the last ages of the world, who must be accountable for all the whims and extravagancies of so many centuries? And yet this is made so great a part of learning, that the learning of most men lies in books rather than in things. And among authors, where one writes upon things, there are twenty write upon books. Nay, some carry this humour so far, that ’tis thought learning to know the very title of books and their editions, with the time and place when and where they were printed. And many there are who value themselves not a little on this mechanical faculty, tho’ they know no more of what is in them, than they do of what is written in the rolls of destiny. 13. From this placing of learning in the knowledge of books, proceeds that ridiculous vanity of multiplying quotations, which is also reckoned another piece of learning, tho’ they are used so impertinently, that there can be no other end in them, but to shew, that the author has read such a book. And yet it is no such convincing evidence of that neither. It being neither new nor difficult, for a man that is resolved upon it, to quote such authors as he never read nor saw. And were it not too odious a truth, I could name several of those author-mongers who pass for men of shrewd learning. 14. These and many other such things (for ’twere endless to reckon up all) are by the majority of the world voted for learning, and in these we spend our education, our study and our time, tho’ they are no way perfective of our understanding. So that in short, the charge of this reflection amounts to thus much, that learning is generally placed in the knowledge of such things, as the intellectual perfection of man is little or nothing concerned in. The Second REFLECTION. _Wherein the general conduct of human life is taxed for using undue and irregular methods, in prosecuting what is really perfective of the understanding._ 1. IN the preceding reflection the conduct of human life was censured, for placing learning in what is not perfective of the understanding. In the present, it is charged with pursuing what is so, in an undue and irregular manner. The other was an error about the end; this is an error about the means: which are the two hinges upon which all prudence and imprudence turn.