And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.
Ver. 2. If any man think] This is one thing I know, that I know nothing, said Socrates. Neither know I this yet, that I know nothing, saith another. Though I know myself ignorant of many things (saith a third), yet I dare boldly profess with Origen, Ignorantiam meam non ignore, I am not ignorant that I am ignorant. The greatest part of our knowledge is but the least part of our ignorance. And yet how apt are we to think we know all that is knowable: as in Alcibiades' army all would be leaders, none learners. Epicurus said, that he was the first man that ever discovered truth, and yet in many things he was more blind than a beetle. (Aug. de Civ. Dei, 16.) Aratus the astrologer vaunted, that he had counted the stars and written of them all. Hoc ego primus vidi, I first saw this, said Zabarel. And Laurentius Valla boasted, that there was no logic worthy to be read but this, which therefore he called, Logicam Laurentinam. Joseph Scaliger is for his human learning called by one Daemonium et miraculum hominis naturae, a matchless man. But surely it had been happy for him to have been ignorant of this one thing, that he knew so much. He might, by his skill in languages, have much advanced the literary republic, had he not so much admired himself, and more seriously affected to seem witty than ponderous. Wine is good, when it goes to the heart to cheer it; but when it fumes all up into the head, it maketh it giddy: so doth knowledge. Nestorius the heretic bragged that he alone understood the Scriptures; and that, till his time, all the world was benighted. He afterwards fell into horrid blasphemy, and died in banishment.