Ignorance Of The Law Is

The Privilege Of Absurdity; To Which No Living Creature Is Subject, But Man Only.

And In These Four Things, Opinion Of Ghosts , Ignorance Of Second Causes, Devotion Towards What Men Fear , And Taking Of Things Casual For Prognostics , Consisteth The Natural Seed Of Religion ; Which By Reason Of The Different Fancies, Judgments And Passions Of Several Men, Has Grown Up Into Ceremonies So Different, That Those Which Are Used By One Man, Are For The Most Part Ridiculous To Another.

As In The Presence Of The Master, The Servants Are Equall, And Without Any Honour At All; So Are The Subjects, In The Presence Of The Soveraign. And Though They Shine Some More, Some Lesse, When They Are Out Of His Sight; Yet In His Presence, They Shine No More Than The Starres In Presence Of The Sun.

And Therefore In Geometry (which Is The Only Science That It Hath Pleased God Hitherto To Bestow On Mankind), Men Begin At Settling The Significations Of Their Words; Which Settling Of Significations, They Call Definitions, And Place Them In The Beginning Of Their Reckoning.

Can It Then Be Doubted, But That God, Who Is Infinitely Fine Spirit, And Withal Intelligent, Can Make And Change All Species And Kind Of Body As He Pleaseth? But I Dare Not Say, That This Is The Way By Which God Almighty Worketh, Because It Is Past My Apprehension: Yet It Serves Very Well To Demonstrate, That The Omnipotence Of God Implieth No Contradiction.