6. The virtue opposite to this defect is _gravity_, or steadiness; in which the end being the great and master-delight, directeth and keepeth in the way thereto all other thoughts. 7. The _extremity_ of dullness is that _natural folly_ which may be called _stolidity_: but the extreme of _levity_, though it be natural folly distinct from the other, and obvious to every man’s observation, I know _not_ how to call it. 8. There is a fault of the mind called by the Greeks Ἀμαϑια, which is _indocibility_, or _difficulty_ of being taught; the which must needs arise from a _false opinion_ that they _know already_ the truth of that is called in question: for certainly men are not otherwise so unequal in capacity as the _evidence_ is unequal between what is taught by the mathematicians, and what is commonly discoursed of in other books: and therefore if the minds of men were all of white paper, they would almost equally be disposed to acknowledge whatsoever should be in right method, and by right ratiocination delivered to them: but when men have once acquiesced in untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical records in their minds, it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such men, than to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over. The immediate _cause_ therefore of _indocibility_, is _prejudice_; and of prejudice, false opinion of our own knowledge. 9. Another, and a principal defect of the mind, is that which men call _madness_, which appeareth to be nothing else but some _imagination_ of some such _predominancy_ above the _rest_, that we have _no passion but from it_; and this conception is nothing else but excessive _vain glory_, or _vain dejection_; which is most probable by these examples following, which proceed in appearance every one of them from _pride_, or some _dejection_ of mind. As first, we have had the example of one that preached in Cheapside from a cart there, instead of a pulpit, that he himself was Christ, which was _spiritual_ pride or madness. We have had also divers examples of learned madness, in which men have manifestly been distracted upon any occasion that hath put them in remembrance of their own ability. Amongst the learned men, may be remembered, I think also, those that determine of the time of the world’s end, and other such the points of prophecy. And the gallant madness of Don Quixote is nothing else but an expression of such height of vain glory as reading of _romance_ may produce in pusillanimous men. Also rage and madness of love, are but great indignations of them in whose brains is predominant contempt from their enemies, or their mistresses. And the _pride_ taken in _form_ and _behaviour_, hath made divers men run mad, and to be so accounted, under the name of fantastic.