In some sense, Christiani Crassiani, Christians are Crassians, & if compared to that wisdom, no better then fools. Quis est sapiens? Solus Deus, *Pythagoras replies, God is only wise, Rom. 16. Paul determines only good, as Austine well contends, and no man living can be justified in his sight. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if any did understand, Psalm 53. 2, 3. but all are corrupt, erre. Rom. 3. 12. None doth good, no not one. Job aggravates this, 4. 18. Behold he found no stedfastnesse in his servants, and laid folly upon his angels, 19. How much more on them that dwell in houses of clay? In this sense we are all as fools, and the Scripture alone is arx Minervæ, we and our writings are shallow and unperfect.

But I do not so mean; even in our ordinary dealings, we are no better then fools. All our actions, as Pliny told Trajan, upbraid us of folly, our whole course of life is but matter of laughter: we are not soberly wise; and the world it self, which ought at least to be wise by reason of his antiquity, as Hugo de Prato Florido will have it, semper stultizat; is every day more foolish then other; the more it is whipped, the worse it is, and as a child, will still be crowned with roses and flowers. We are apish in it, asini bipedes, and every place is full inversorum Apuleiorum, of metamorphosed and two-legged asses, inversorum Silenorum, childish, pueri instar bimuli, tremulâ patris dormientis in ulnâ.

Jovianus Pontanus, Antonio Dial, brings in some laughing at an old man, that by reason of his age was a little fond; but as he admonisheth there, Ne mireris mi hospes de hoc sene, marvel not at him only, for tota hæc civitas delirium, all our Town dotes in like sort. we are a company of fools. Ask not with him in the Poet, Larvæ hunc intemperiæ insaniæque agitant senem? What madnesse ghosts this old man, but what madnesse ghosts us all? For we are ad unum omnes, all mad, semel insanivimus omnes, not once, but alway so, & semel, & simul, & semper, ever and altogether as bad as he; and not senex bis puer, delira anus, but say it of us all, semper pueri, yong and old, all dote as Lactantius proves out of Seneca;

and no difference betwixt us and children, saving that, majora ludimus, & grandioribus pupis, they play with babies of clouts & such toyes, we sport with greater babies. We cannot accuse or condemn one another, being faulty our selves, deliramenta loqueris, you talk idly, or as Mitio upbraided Demea, insanis, auferte, for we are as mad our own selves, and it is hard to say which is the worst. Nay tis universally so, Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia.

When Socrates had taken great pains to finde out a wise man, and to that purpose had consulted with philosophers, poets, artificers, he concludes all men were fools; and though it procured him both anger and much envy, yet in all companies he would openly professe it. When Supputius in Pontanus had travelled all over Europe to conferre with a wise man, he returned at last without his errand, and could finde none. Cardan concurs with him, Few there are (for ought I can perceive) well in their wits. So doth Tully, I see every thing to be done foolishly and unadvisedly.

Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum, unus utrique Error, sed variis illudit partibus omnes. One reels to this, another to that wall. Tis the same error that deludes them all. They dote all, but not alike, Μανία οὐ πᾶσιν ὁμοία, not in the same kinde, One is covetous, a second lascivious, a third ambitious, a fourth envious, &c. as Damasippus the Stoick hath well illustrated in the poet, Desipiunt omnes æquè ac tu.

Tis an inbred maladie in every one of us, there is seminarium stultitiæ, a seminarie of folly, which if it be stirred up, or get a head, will run in infinitum, & infinitely varies, as we our selves are severally addicted, saith Balthazar Castilio: and cannot so easily be rooted out, it takes such fast hold, as Tully holds, altæ radices stultitiæ, so we are bred, and so we continue. Some say there be two main defects of wit, error and ignorance, to which all others are reduced; by ignorance we know not things necessary, by error we know them falsly. Ignorance is a privation, error a positive act. From ignorance comes vice, from error heresie, &c. But make how many kinds you will, divide and subdivide, few men are free, or that do not impinge on some one kinde or other. Sic plerumque agitat stultos inscitia, as he that examines his own and other mens actions, shall finde.