there, Ne mireris mi hospes de hoc sene, marvel not at him only, for tota haec civitas delirium, all our town dotes in like sort, [215]we are a company of fools.  Ask not with him in the poet, [216]_Larvae hunc intemperiae insaniaeque agitant senem_?  What madness ghosts this old man, but what madness ghosts us all?  For we are ad unum omnes, all mad, semel insanivimus omnes not once, but alway so, et semel, et simul, et semper, ever and altogether as bad as he; and not senex bis puer, delira anus, but say it of us all, semper pueri, young and old, all dote, as Lactantius proves out of Seneca; and no difference betwixt us and children, saving that, majora ludimus, et grandioribus pupis, they play with babies of clouts and such toys, we sport with greater baubles.  We cannot accuse or condemn one another, being faulty ourselves, deliramenta loqueris, you talk idly, or as [217]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, [218]_Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia_.

When [219]Socrates had taken great pains to find 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 profess it.  When [220] Supputius in Pontanus had travelled all over Europe to confer with a wise man, he returned at last without his errand, and could find none. [221] Cardan concurs with him, “Few there are (for aught I can perceive) well in their wits.”  So doth [222]Tully, “I see everything 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.”

[223]They dote all, but not alike, [Greek:  Mania gar pasin homoia], not in the same kind, “One is covetous, a second lascivious, a third ambitious, a fourth envious,” &c. as Damasippus the Stoic hath well illustrated in the poet,

[224] “Desipiunt omnes aeque ac tu.”

       “And they who call you fool, with equal claim
        May plead an ample title to the name.”

’Tis an inbred malady in every one of us, there is seminarium stultitiae, a seminary of folly, “which if it be stirred up, or get ahead, will run in infinitum, and infinitely varies, as we ourselves are severally addicted,” saith [225]Balthazar Castilio:  and cannot so easily be rooted out, it takes such fast hold, as Tully holds, altae radices stultitiae, [226]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 falsely.  Ignorance is a privation, error a positive act.  From ignorance comes vice, from error heresy, &c.  But make how many kinds you will, divide and subdivide, few men are free, or that do not impinge on some one kind or other. [227]_Sic plerumque agitat stultos inscitia_, as he that examines his own and other men’s actions shall find.