No More Learning

He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one of those
who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of Scots. In
October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk of the
Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth £1,600 or £2,000 a year; but
for the succession to this office he had to wait until 1608. It had not
yet fallen to him when he wrote his “Two Books of the Advancement of
Learning. ” In the Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as
member for Middlesex. He raised difficulties of procedure in the way of
the grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the joining of the
Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a desire to extend the time
allowed for payment from three years to six; it was, in fact, extended to
four years. The Queen was offended. Francis Bacon and his brother
Antony had attached themselves to the young Earl of Essex, who was their
friend and patron. The office of Attorney-General became vacant. Essex
asked the Queen to appoint Francis Bacon. The Queen gave the office to
Sir Edward Coke, who was already Solicitor-General, and by nine years
Bacon’s senior. The office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and
that was sought for Francis Bacon. The Queen, after delay and
hesitation, gave it, in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming. The Earl of
Essex consoled his friend by giving him “a piece of land”—Twickenham
Park—which Bacon afterwards sold for £1,800—equal, say, to £12,000 in
present buying power. In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament as member
for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the rich widow of
Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady married, in the next
year, Sir Edward Coke. It was in 1597 that Bacon published the First
Edition of his Essays. That was a little book containing only ten essays
in English, with twelve “Meditationes Sacræ,” which were essays in Latin
on religious subjects. From 1597 onward to the end of his life, Bacon’s
Essays were subject to continuous addition and revision. The author’s
Second Edition, in which the number of the Essays was increased from ten
to thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December, 1612, seven
years later than these two books on the “Advancement of Learning;” and
the final edition of the Essays, in which their number was increased from
thirty-eight to fifty-eight, appeared only in 1625; and Bacon died on the
9th of April, 1626. The edition of the Essays published in 1597, under
Elizabeth, marked only the beginning of a course of thought that
afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in philosophy.

In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex. Francis Bacon had
separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that was
disregarded. Bacon, now Queen’s Counsel, not only appeared against his
old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps, he hoped to win
back the Queen’s favour, he twice obtruded violent attacks upon Essex
when he was not called upon to speak. On the 25th of February, 1601,
Essex was beheaded. The genius of Bacon was next employed to justify
that act by “A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and
committed by Robert late Earle of Essex and his Complices. ” But James of
Scotland, on whose behalf Essex had intervened, came to the throne by the
death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March, 1603. Bacon was among the crowd
of men who were made knights by James I. , and he had to justify himself
under the new order of things by writing “Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie
in certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex. ” He was
returned to the first Parliament of James I. by Ipswich and St. Albans,
and he was confirmed in his office of King’s Counsel in August, 1604; but
he was not appointed to the office of Solicitor-General when it became
vacant in that year.

That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published this
work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of learning
from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of the studies
chosen, or the way of dealing with them. This came, he said, especially
by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge,
as if there were sought in it “a couch whereupon to rest a searching and
restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk
up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to
raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and
contention; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for
the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate. ” The rest of
the First Book was given to an argument upon the Dignity of Learning; and
the Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning, is, as Bacon himself
described it, “a general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an
inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and
converted by the industry of man; to the end that such a plot made and
recorded to memory may both minister light to any public designation and
also serve to excite voluntary endeavours. ” Bacon makes, by a sort of
exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all subjects of study, as an
intellectual map, helping the right inquirer in his search for the right
path. The right path is that by which he has the best chance of adding
to the stock of knowledge in the world something worth labouring for; and
the true worth is in labour for “the glory of the Creator and the relief
of man’s estate. ”

H. M.




THE
FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON;
OF THE PROFICIENCE AND
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,
DIVINE AND HUMAN.


_To the King_.

THERE were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and
freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon ordinary observance, the
other upon a devout cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth to kings
from their servants both tribute of duty and presents of affection. In
the former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting, according to
my most humble duty and the good pleasure of your Majesty’s employments:
for the latter, I thought it more respective to make choice of some
oblation which might rather refer to the propriety and excellency of your
individual person, than to the business of your crown and state.

Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind, and
beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to discover
that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but with the
observant eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the other parts of
your virtue and fortune, I have been touched—yea, and possessed—with an
extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the
philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the
faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the
penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your
elocution: and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I
have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato’s
opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man
by Nature knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original
notions (which by the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the
body are sequestered) again revived and restored: such a light of Nature
I have observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and
blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark of another’s
knowledge delivered. And as the Scripture saith of the wisest king,
“That his heart was as the sands of the sea;” which, though it be one of
the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest
portions; so hath God given your Majesty a composition of understanding
admirable, being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters, and
nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least; whereas it should seem an
impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to make itself fit for
great and small works. And for your gift of speech, I call to mind what
Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Cæsar: _Augusto profluens_, _et quæ
principem deceret_, _eloquentia fuit_. For if we note it well, speech
that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or speech that savoureth of
the affectation of art and precepts, or speech that is framed after the
imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though never so excellent; all
this hath somewhat servile, and holding of the subject. But your
Majesty’s manner of speech is, indeed, prince-like, flowing as from a
fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into Nature’s order,
full of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any.
And as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emulation and
contention of your Majesty’s virtue with your fortune; a virtuous
disposition with a fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time
was) of your greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the
due time; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with most
blessed and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and most Christian desire
of peace, with a fortunate inclination in your neighbour princes
thereunto: so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be
no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty’s gifts of
Nature and the universality and perfection of your learning. For I am
well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all, but
a positive and measured truth; which is, that there hath not been since
Christ’s time any king or temporal monarch which hath been so learned in
all literature and erudition, divine and human. For let a man seriously
and diligently revolve and peruse the succession of the Emperors of Rome,
of which Cæsar the Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and
Marcus Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the Emperors of
Græcia, or of the West, and then to the lines of France, Spain, England,
Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judgment is truly made.
For it seemeth much in a king if, by the compendious extractions of other
men’s wits and labours, he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and
shows of learning, or if he countenance and prefer learning and learned
men; but to drink, indeed, of the true fountains of learning—nay, to have
such a fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a king born—is
almost a miracle. And the more, because there is met in your Majesty a
rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred literature as of profane
and human; so as your Majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, which
in great veneration was ascribed to the ancient Hermes: the power and
fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the
learning and universality of a philosopher. This propriety inherent and
individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be expressed not only
in the fame and admiration of the present time, nor in the history or
tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in some solid work, fixed
memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a character or signature both of
the power of a king and the difference and perfection of such a king.

Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make unto your
Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending to that end,
whereof the sum will consist of these two parts: the former concerning
the excellency of learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the merit
and true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof; the latter,
what the particular acts and works are which have been embraced and
undertaken for the advancement of learning; and again, what defects and
undervalues I find in such particular acts: to the end that though I
cannot positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound unto
you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely cogitations to
visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, and thence to extract
particulars for this purpose agreeable to your magnanimity and wisdom.

I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these—to clear the way and, as it
were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning the
dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit
objections—I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces
which it hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance severally
disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines,
sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of politics, and sometimes in the
errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.

(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those things which
are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution; that the
aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and sin
whereupon ensued the fall of man; that knowledge hath in it somewhat of
the serpent, and, therefore, where it entereth into a man it makes him
swell; _Scientia inflat_; that Solomon gives a censure, “That there is no
end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the flesh;”
and again in another place, “That in spacious knowledge there is much
contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety;”
that Saint Paul gives a caveat, “That we be not spoiled through vain
philosophy;” that experience demonstrates how learned men have been
arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how
the contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our dependence upon
God, who is the first cause.

(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, and the
misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well appear these men do
not observe or consider that it was not the pure knowledge of Nature and
universality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give names unto
other creatures in Paradise as they were brought before him according
unto their proprieties, which gave the occasion to the fall; but it was
the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give law
unto himself, and to depend no more upon God’s commandments, which was
the form of the temptation. Neither is it any quantity of knowledge, how
great soever, that can make the mind of man to swell; for nothing can
fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of
God; and, therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two principal senses of
inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never
satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and if there be no
fulness, then is the continent greater than the content: so of knowledge
itself and the mind of man, whereto the senses are but reporters, he
defineth likewise in these words, placed after that calendar or
ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of times and seasons for
all actions and purposes, and concludeth thus: “God hath made all things
beautiful, or decent, in the true return of their seasons. Also He hath
placed the world in man’s heart, yet cannot man find out the work which
God worketh from the beginning to the end”—declaring not obscurely that
God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the
image of the universal world, and joyful to receive the impression
thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only delighted in
beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but raised also
to find out and discern the ordinances and decrees which throughout all
those changes are infallibly observed. And although he doth insinuate
that the supreme or summary law of Nature (which he calleth “the work
which God worketh from the beginning to the end”) is not possible to be
found out by man, yet that doth not derogate from the capacity of the
mind; but may be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life,
ill conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from hand to
hand, and many other inconveniences, whereunto the condition of man is
subject. For that nothing parcel of the world is denied to man’s inquiry
and invention, he doth in another place rule over, when he saith, “The
spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the
inwardness of all secrets. ” If, then, such be the capacity and receipt
of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no danger at all in the
proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it should
make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of
knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken without
the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or
malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or
swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so
sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to the former
clause; for so he saith, “Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up;”
not unlike unto that which he deilvereth in another place: “If I spake,”
saith he, “with the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it
were but as a tinkling cymbal. ” Not but that it is an excellent thing to
speak with the tongues of men and angels, but because, if it be severed
from charity, and not referred to the good of men and mankind, it hath
rather a sounding and unworthy glory than a meriting and substantial
virtue. And as for that censure of Solomon concerning the excess of
writing and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth
from knowledge, and that admonition of St. Paul, “That we be not seduced
by vain philosophy,” let those places be rightly understood; and they do,
indeed, excellently set forth the true bounds and limitations whereby
human knowledge is confined and circumscribed, and yet without any such
contracting or coarctation, but that it may comprehend all the universal
nature of things; for these limitations are three: the first, “That we do
not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality;” the
second, “That we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves
repose and contentment, and not distaste or repining;” the third, “That
we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the
mysteries of God. ” For as touching the first of these, Solomon doth
excellently expound himself in another place of the same book, where he
saith: “I saw well that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance as light
doth from darkness; and that the wise man’s eyes keep watch in his head,
whereas this fool roundeth about in darkness: but withal I learned that
the same mortality involveth them both. ” And for the second, certain it
is there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which resulteth from knowledge
otherwise than merely by accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is
the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when
men fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it to
their particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak fears or
vast desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble of mind which is
spoken of; for then knowledge is no more _Lumen siccum_, whereof
Heraclitus the profound said, _Lumen siccum optima anima_; but it
becometh _Lumen madidum_, or _maceratum_, being steeped and infused in
the humours of the affections. And as for the third point, it deserveth
to be a little stood upon, and not to be lightly passed over; for if any
man shall think by view and inquiry into these sensible and material
things to attain that light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the
nature or will of God, then, indeed, is he spoiled by vain philosophy;
for the contemplation of God’s creatures and works produceth (having
regard to the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having
regard to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken
knowledge. And, therefore, it was most aptly said by one of Plato’s
school, “That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which
(as we see) openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then,
again, it obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth
the sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
divine. ” And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great
learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the
secrets of the Deity by this waxen wings of the senses. And as for the
conceit that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that
the ignorance of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon
God, which is the first cause; first, it is good to ask the question
which Job asked of his friends: “Will you lie for God, as one man will
lie for another, to gratify him? ” For certain it is that God worketh
nothing in Nature but by second causes; and if they would have it
otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards
God, and nothing else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean
sacrifice of a lie. But further, it is an assured truth, and a
conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
philosophy may incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further
proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion. For in
the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto
the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay
there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man
passeth on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of
Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily
believe that the highest link of Nature’s chain must needs he tied to the
foot of Jupiter’s chair. To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak
conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a
man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word,
or in the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men
endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware
that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to
ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound
these learnings together.

II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from politics,
they be of this nature: that learning doth soften men’s minds, and makes
them more unapt for the honour and exercise of arms; that it doth mar and
pervert men’s dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making
them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too peremptory
or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too immoderate and
overweening by reason of the greatness of examples, or too incompatible
and differing from the times by reason of the dissimilitude of examples;
or at least, that it doth divert men’s travails from action and business,
and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it doth
bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more
ready to argue than to obey and execute. Out of this conceit Cato,
surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed that ever lived, when
Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to Rome, and that the young
men of Rome began to flock about him, being allured with the sweetness
and majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate
that they should give him his despatch with all speed, lest he should
infect and enchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at unawares
bring in an alteration of the manners and customs of the state. Out of
the same conceit or humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage
of his country and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of
separation between policy and government, and between arts and sciences,
in the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging the one to
the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other to the Grecians: _Tu
regere imperio popules_, _Romane_, _memento_, _Hæ tibi erunt artes_, &c.
So likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid it as an
article of charge and accusation against him, that he did, with the
variety and power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men
from due reverence to the laws and customs of their country, and that he
did profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the
worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence
and speech.

(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a countenance of
gravity than any ground of justice: for experience doth warrant that,
both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and concurrence
in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the
same ages. For as ‘for men, there cannot be a better nor the hike
instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, the
Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle’s scholar in philosophy, and the
other was Cicero’s rival in eloquence; or if any man had rather call for
scholars that were great generals, than generals that were great
scholars, let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian;
whereof the one was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the
other was the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of
Persia. And this concurrence is yet more visible in times than in
persons, by how much an age is greater object than a man. For both in
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Græcia, and Rome, the same times that are most
renowned for arms are, likewise, most admired for learning, so that the
greatest authors and philosophers, and the greatest captains and
governors, have lived in the same ages. Neither can it otherwise he: for
as in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much about
an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the more
early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof the one correspondeth to
the body, the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or near
sequence in times.

(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning, should rather
hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable; we see it is
accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians, which
commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are confident and
adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions
of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures; we see
it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are only men
of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many times easily
surprised when matter falleth out besides their experience, to the
prejudice of the causes they handle: so by like reason it cannot be but a
matter of doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric statesmen,
not well mingled with men grounded in learning. But contrariwise, it is
almost without instance contradictory that ever any government was
disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors. For howsoever it
hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and disable learned men
by the names of _pedantes_; yet in the records of time it appeareth in
many particulars that the governments of princes in minority
(notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state)—have
nevertheless excelled the government of princes of mature age, even for
that reason which they seek to traduce, which is that by that occasion
the state hath been in the hands of _pedantes_: for so was the state of
Rome for the first five years, which are so much magnified, during the
minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a _pedenti_; so it was again,
for ten years’ space or more, during the minority of Gordianus the
younger, with great applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus,
a _pedanti_: so was it before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus,
in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the
women, who were aided by the teachers and preceptors. Nay, let a man
look into the government of the Bishops of Rome, as by name, into the
government of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who were both
at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find
that such Popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of
state, than those which have ascended to the papacy from an education and
breeding in affairs of state and courts of princes; for although men bred
in learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and
accommodating for the present, which the Italians call _ragioni di
stato_, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with
patience, terming them inventions against religion and the moral virtues;
yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are perfect in those same
plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, which if
they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of those
other, no more than of physic in a sound or well-dieted body. Neither
can the experience of one man’s life furnish examples and precedents for
the event of one man’s life. For as it happeneth sometimes that the
grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more than the
son; so many times occurrences of present times may sort better with
ancient examples than with those of the later or immediate times; and
lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning than one
man’s means can hold way with a common purse.

(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions of the mind
for policy and government, which learning is pretended to insinuate; if
it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered withal that
learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine or
remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity. For if by a
secret operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side
by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve;
yea, and how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till they
resolve. If it make men positive and regular, it teacheth them what
things are in their nature demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and
as well the use of distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of
principles and rules. If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of
examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of
comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in all these it
doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert. And these medicines
it conveyeth into men’s minds much more forcibly by the quickness and
penetration of examples. For let a man look into the errors of Clement
VII. , so lively described by Guicciardini, who served under him, or into
the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles to
Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute. Let him look into
the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how he be obstinate or
inflexible. Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him
from being vaporous or imaginative. Let him look into the errors of Cato
II. , and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the
present world.

(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to leisure and
privateness, and make men slothful: it were a strange thing if that which
accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should induce
slothfulness, whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed that no
kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned; for
other persons love it for profit, as a hireling that loves the work for
the wages; or for honour, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of
men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or
because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them
occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth some
faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good-humour
and pleasing conceits towards themselves; or because it advanceth any
other their ends. So that as it is said of untrue valours, that some
men’s valours are in the eyes of them that look on, so such men’s
industries are in the eyes of others, or, at least, in regard of their
own designments; only learned men love business as an action according to
nature, as agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body,
taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase, so that of
all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business
which can hold or detain their mind.

(6) And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle in
business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or softness of
spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of: _Quidam tam sunt umbratiles_, _ut
putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est_; and not of learning: well
may it be that such a point of a man’s nature may make him give himself
to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in his
nature.

(7) And that learning should take up too much time or leisure: I answer,
the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath (no question)
many vacant times of leisure while he expecteth the tides and returns of
business (except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and
unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done by
others), and then the question is but how those spaces and times of
leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in pleasure or in studies; as
was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary Æschines, that was a
man given to pleasure, and told him “That his orations did smell of the
lamp. ” “Indeed,” said Demosthenes, “there is a great difference between
the things that you and I do by lamp-light. ” So as no man need doubt
that learning will expel business, but rather it will keep and defend the
possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at
unawares may enter to the prejudice of both.

(8) Again, for that other conceit that learning should undermine the
reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation and
calumny, without all shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of
obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood,
it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing
man can by a light. And it is without all controversy that learning doth
make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, and pliant to
government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous:
and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the
most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to
tumults, seditious, and changes.

(9) And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well punished for
his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he offended; for
when he was past threescore years old, he was taken with an extreme
desire to go to school again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to the end
to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well demonstrate that his former
censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity, than
according to the inward sense of his own opinion. And as for Virgil’s
verses, though it pleased him to brave the world in taking to the Romans
the art of empire, and leaving to others the arts of subjects, yet so
much is manifest—that the Romans never ascended to that height of empire
till the time they had ascended to the height of other arts. For in the
time of the two first Cæsars, which had the art of government in greatest
perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro; the best
historiographer, Titus Livius; the best antiquary, Marcus Varro; and the
best or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are
known. As for the accusation of Socrates, the time must be remembered
when it was prosecuted; which was under the Thirty Tyrants, the most
base, bloody, and envious persons that have governed; which revolution of
state was no sooner over but Socrates, whom they had made a person
criminal, was made a person heroical, and his memory accumulate with
honours divine and human; and those discourses of his which were then
termed corrupting of manners, were after acknowledged for sovereign
medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been received ever since
till this day. Let this, therefore, serve for answer to politiques,
which in their humorous severity, or in their feigned gravity, have
presumed to throw imputations upon learning; which redargution
nevertheless (save that we know not whether our labours may extend to
other ages) were not needful for the present, in regard of the love and
reverence towards learning which the example and countenance of two so
learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as Castor and
Pollux, _lucida sidera_, stars of excellent light and most benign
influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority in our nation.

III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or
diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men
themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their
fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their studies. For
the first, it is not in their power; and the second is accidental; the
third only is proper to be handled: but because we are not in hand with
true measure, but with popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to
speak somewhat of the two former. The derogations therefore which grow
to learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either in
respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life and
meanness of employments.

(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually to
begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as other men, by reason
they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase, it were
good to leave the commonplace in commendation of povery to some friar to
handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this point when he
said, “That the kingdom of the clergy had been long before at an end, if
the reputation and reverence towards the poverty of friars had not borne
out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of bishops and
prelates. ” So a man might say that the felicity and delicacy of princes
and great persons had long since turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the
poverty of learning had not kept up civility and honour of life; but
without any such advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverent
and honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in the Roman
state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes. For we see what
Titus Livius saith in his introduction: _Cæterum aut me amor negotii
suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec major_, _nec sanctior_,
_nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit_; _nec in quam tam sero avaritia
luxuriaque immigraverint_; _nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac
parsimoniæ honos fuerit_. We see likewise, after that the state of Rome
was not itself, but did degenerate, how that person that took upon him to
be counsellor to Julius Cæsar after his victory where to begin his
restoration of the state, maketh it of all points the most summary to
take away the estimation of wealth: _Verum hæc et omnia mala pariter cum
honore pecuniæ desinent_; _si neque magistratus_, _neque alia vulgo
cupienda_, _venalia erunt_. To conclude this point: as it was truly said
that _Paupertas est virtutis fortuna_, though sometimes it come from
vice, so it may be fitly said that, though some times it may proceed from
misgovernment and accident. Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in
censure, _Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons_; and in precept, “Buy
the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and knowledge;” judging that
means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to
means. And as for the privateness or obscureness (as it may be in vulgar
estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men, it is a theme so
common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in
comparison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty,
pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no man
handleth it but handleth it well; such a consonancy it hath to men’s
conceits in the expressing, and to men’s consents in the allowing. This
only I will add, that learned men forgotten in states and not living in
the eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral
of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others were, Tacitus
saith, _Eo ipso præfulgebant quod non visebantur_.

(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most traduced to
contempt is that the government of youth is commonly allotted to them;
which age, because it is the age of least authority, it is transferred to
the disesteeming of those employments wherein youth is conversant, and
which are conversant about youth. But how unjust this traducement is (if
you will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure of reason)
may appear in that we see men are more curious what they put into a new
vessel than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould they lay about a young
plant than about a plant corroborate; so as this weakest terms and times
of all things use to have the best applications and helps. And will you
hearken to the Hebrew rabbins? “Your young men shall see visions, and
your old men shall dream dreams:” say they, youth is the worthier age,
for that visions are nearer apparitions of God than dreams? And let it
be noted that howsoever the condition of life of _pedantes_ hath been
scorned upon theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern
looseness or negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of
schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times did
always make a just complaint, that states were too busy with their laws
and too negligent in point of education: which excellent part of ancient
discipline hath been in some sort revived of late times by the colleges
of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard of their superstition I may
say, _Quo meliores_, _eo deteriores_; yet in regard of this, and some
other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I may say, as
Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus, _Talis quum sis_, _utunam noster
esses_. And that much touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of
learned men.

(4) As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing personal and
individual: and no doubt there be amongst them, as in other professions,
of all temperatures: but yet so as it is not without truth which is said,
that _Abeunt studua in mores_, studies have an influence and operation
upon the manners of those that are conversant in them.

(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my part cannot
find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of learned
men; not inherent to them as they are learned; except it be a fault
(which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato II. , Seneca,
and many more) that because the times they read of are commonly better
than the times they live in, and the duties taught better than the duties
practised, they contend sometimes too far to bring things to perfection,
and to reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of precepts or
examples of too great height. And yet hereof they have caveats enough in
their own walks. For Solon, when he was asked whether he had given his
citizens the best laws, answered wisely, “Yea, of such as they would
receive:” and Plato, finding that his own heart could not agree with the
corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear place or office, saying,
“That a man’s country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with
humble persuasions, and not with contestations. ” And Cæsar’s counsellor
put in the same caveat, _Non ad vetera instituta revocans quæ jampridem
corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt_; and Cicero noteth this error directly
in Cato II. when he writes to his friend Atticus, _Cato optime sentit_,
_sed nocet interdum reipublicæ_; _loquitur enim tanquam in republicâ
Platonis_, _non tanquam in fæce Romuli_. And the same Cicero doth excuse
and expound the philosophers for going too far and being too exact in
their prescripts when he saith, _Isti ipse præceptores virtutis et
magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura vellet
protulisse_, _ut cum ad ultimum animo contendissemus_, _ibi tamen_, _ubi
oportet_, _consisteremus_: and yet himself might have said, _Monitis sum
minor ipse meis_; for it was his own fault, though not in so extreme a
degree.

(6) Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been incident to
learned men, which is, that they have esteemed the preservation, good,
and honour of their countries or masters before their own fortunes or
safeties. For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians: “If it please you
to note it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should grow great
amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians; but they be of
that nature as they are sometimes not good for me to give, but are always
good for you to follow. ” And so Seneca, after he had consecrated that
_Quinquennium Neronis_ to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on
his honest and loyal course of good and free counsel after his master
grew extremely corrupt in his government. Neither can this point
otherwise be, for learning endueth men’s minds with a true sense of the
frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity
of their soul and vocation, so that it is impossible for them to esteem
that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of
their being and ordainment, and therefore are desirous to give their
account to God, and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings and
the states that they serve) in those words, _Ecce tibi lucrefeci_, and
not _Ecce mihi lucrefeci_; whereas the corrupter sort of mere politiques,
that have not their thoughts established by learning in the love and
apprehension of duty, nor never look abroad into universality, do refer
all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the
world, as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes, never
caring in all tempests what becomes of the ship of state, so they may
save themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune; whereas men that
feel the weight of duty and know the limits of self-love use to make good
their places and duties, though with peril; and if they stand in
seditious and violent alterations, it is rather the reverence which many
times both adverse parts do give to honesty, than any versatile advantage
of their own carriage. But for this point of tender sense and fast
obligation of duty which learning doth endue the mind withal, howsoever
fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their corrupt principles may
despise it, yet it will receive an open allowance, and therefore needs
the less disproof or excuse.

(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be more
properly defended than truly denied, is that they fail sometimes in
applying themselves to particular persons, which want of exact
application ariseth from two causes—the one, because the largeness of
their mind can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite
observation or examination of the nature and customs of one person, for
it is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man, _Satis magnum alter
alteri theatrum sumus_. Nevertheless I shall yield that he that cannot
contract the sight of his mind as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth
a great faculty. But there is a second cause, which is no inability, but
a rejection upon choice and judgment. For the honest and just bounds of
observation by one person upon another extend no further but to
understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby
to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon
reasonable guard and caution in respect of a man’s self. But to be
speculative into another man to the end to know how to work him, or wind
him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven,
and not entire and ingenuous; which as in friendship it is want of
integrity, so towards princes or superiors is want of duty. For the
custom of the Levant, which is that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix
their eyes upon princes, is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but the
moral is good; for men ought not, by cunning and bent observations, to
pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings, which the Scripture hath
declared to be inscrutable.

(8) There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part)
which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to
observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and
commit errors in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar
sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that
which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this consequence doth
oft deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which was said by
Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of
his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this question,
pertinently and justly, when, being invited to touch a lute, he said, “He
could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state. ” So no
doubt many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy
which are to seek in little and punctual occasions. I refer them also to
that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the
gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and owls and
antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious liquors and
confections; acknowledging that, to an external report, he was not
without superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly
replenished with excellent virtues and powers. And so much touching the
point of manners of learned men.

(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to some
conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors of
learning have wronged themselves and gone too far; such as were those
trencher philosophers which in the later age of the Roman state were
usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn
parasites, of which kind, Lucian maketh a merry description of the
philosopher that the great lady took to ride with her in her coach, and
would needs have him carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and
yet uncomely, the page scoffed and said, “That he doubted the philosopher
of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic. ” But, above all the rest, this
gross and palpable flattery whereunto many not unlearned have abased and
abused their wits and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into
Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and
estimation of learning. Neither is the modern dedication of books and
writings, as to patrons, to be commended, for that books (such as are
worthy the name of books) ought to have no patrons but truth and reason.
And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to private and equal
friends, or to entitle the books with their names; or if to kings and
great persons, it was to some such as the argument of the book was fit
and proper for; but these and the like courses may deserve rather
reprehension than defence.

(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application of
learned men to men in fortune. For the answer was good that Diogenes
made to one that asked him in mockery, “How it came to pass that
philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of
philosophers? ” He answered soberly, and yet sharply, “Because the one
sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not. ” And of the like
nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having a petition to
Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon
Dionysius stayed and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and afterwards
some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that
he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a
private suit to fall at a tyrant’s feet; but he answered, “It was not his
fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in his feet. ”
Neither was it accounted weakness, but discretion, in him that would not
dispute his best with Adrianus Cæsar, excusing himself, “That it was
reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions. ” These and the
like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience,
cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some outward baseness, yet
in a judgment truly made they are to be accounted submissions to the
occasion and not to the person.

IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have intervened
amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is that which is
principal and proper to the present argument; wherein my purpose is not
to make a justification of the errors, but by a censure and separation of
the errors to make a justification of that which is good and sound, and
to deliver that from the aspersion of the other. For we see that it is
the manner of men to scandalise and deprave that which retaineth the
state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is corrupt and
degenerate, as the heathens in the primitive Church used to blemish and
taint the Christians with the faults and corruptions of heretics. But
nevertheless I have no meaning at this time to make any exact
animadversion of the errors and impediments in matters of learning, which
are more secret and remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto
such as do fall under or near unto a popular observation.

(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby
learning hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem vain
which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth or
no use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either credulous or
curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason as
well as in experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I
may term them) of learning—the first, fantastical learning; the second,
contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning; vain imaginations,
vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the last I will begin.
Martin Luther, conducted, no doubt, by a higher Providence, but in
discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against
the Bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and
finding his own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his
own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times
to his succours to make a party against the present time. So that the
ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long time
slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved. This, by
consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the
languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better
understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and
applying their words. And thereof grew, again, a delight in their manner
of style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing, which was
much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the
propounders of those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the
schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings
were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and
frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit
of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may
call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again, because the great
labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say,
_Execrabilis ista turba_, _quæ non novit legem_), for the winning and
persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request
eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access
into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes
concurring—the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen,
the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching—did bring in
an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began
to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more
after words than matter—more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the
round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the
clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and
figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of
argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew the flowing
and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then
did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator
and Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and
Imitation, and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their
lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all
young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of
learning. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo,
_Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone_; and the echo answered in
Greek, _One_, _Asine_. Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be
utterly despised as barbarous. In sum, the whole inclination and bent of
those times was rather towards copy than weight.

(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when men study
words and not matter; whereof, though I have represented an example of
late times, yet it hath been and will be _secundum majus et minus_ in all
time. And how is it possible but this should have an operation to
discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
men’s works like the first letter of a patent or limited book, which
though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter? It seems to me
that Pygmalion’s frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity;
for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of
reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in
love with a picture.

(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be condemned, to
clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy itself with sensible
and plausible elocution. For hereof we have great examples in Xenophon,
Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree; and hereof
likewise there is great use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of
truth and the deep progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because
it is too early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire
of further search before we come to a just period. But then if a man be
to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of conference,
counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall he find it
prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that manner. But
the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules, when he
saw the image of Adonis, Venus’ minion, in a temple, said in disdain,
_Nil sacri es_; so there is none of Hercules’ followers in learning—that
is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers into truth—but will
despise those delicacies and affectations, as indeed capable of no
divineness. And thus much of the first disease or distemper of learning.

(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former: for as
substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so contrariwise vain
matter is worse than vain words: wherein it seemeth the reprehension of
St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the
times following; and not only respective to divinity, but extensive to
all knowledge: _Devita profanas vocum novitates_, _et oppositiones falsi
nominis scientiæ_. For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected
and falsified science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the
other, the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce
oppositions, and so questions and altercations. Surely, like as many
substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into
worms;—so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and
dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term
them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and
life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality. This
kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who
having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety
of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors
(chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the
cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of
nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite
agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which
are extant in their books.
For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon
matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh
according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon
itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings
forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread
and work, but of no substance or profit.

(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two sorts: either
in the subject itself that they handle, when it is a fruitless
speculation or controversy (whereof there are no small number both in
divinity and philosophy), or in the manner or method of handling of a
knowledge, which amongst them was this—upon every particular position or
assertion to frame objections, and to those objections, solutions; which
solutions were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions:
whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of the
old man’s faggot, in the bond. For the harmony of a science, supporting
each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation
and suppression of all the smaller sort of objections. But, on the other
side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by
one, you may quarrel with them and bend them and break them at your
pleasure: so that, as was said of Seneca, _Verborum minutiis rerum
frangit pondera_, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen, _Quæstionum
minutiis scientiarum frangunt soliditatem_. For were it not better for a
man in fair room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of
lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle into every corner?
And such is their method, that rests not so much upon evidence of truth
proved by arguments, authorities, similitudes, examples, as upon
particular confutations and solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and
objection; breeding for the most part one question as fast as it solveth
another; even as in the former resemblance, when you carry the light into
one corner, you darken the rest; so that the fable and fiction of Scylla
seemeth to be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge;
which was transformed into a comely virgin for the upper parts; but then
_Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris_: so the generalities of
the schoolmen are for a while good and proportionable; but then when you
descend into their distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb
for the use and benefit of man’s life, they end in monstrous altercations
and barking questions. So as it is not possible but this quality of
knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to
contemn truths upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to
think they are all out of their way which never meet; and when they see
such digladiation about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they
easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, _Verba ista sunt
senum otiosorum_.

(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to their great
thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had joined variety and
universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent
lights, to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge; but as
they are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark
keeping. But as in the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined
to leave the oracle of God’s word, and to vanish in the mixture of their
own inventions; so in the inquisition of nature, they ever left the
oracle of God’s works, and adored the deceiving and deformed images which
the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few received authors or
principles, did represent unto them. And thus much for the second
disease of learning.

(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth deceit or
untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest; as that which doth destroy
the essential form of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of
truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing
no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected. This vice therefore
brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving and aptness to be
deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they appear to be of a
diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning and the other of
simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most part concur: for, as the
verse noteth—

“Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est,”

an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a credulous man
is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe
rumours will as easily augment rumours and add somewhat to them of his
own; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, _Fingunt simul
creduntque_: so great an affinity hath fiction and belief.

(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things weakly
authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the subject: for it
is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact;
or else of matter of art and opinion. As to the former, we see the
experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history;
which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations of
miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and other
holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels and images: which though
they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the
superstitious simplicity of some and the politic toleration of others
holding them but as divine poesies, yet after a period of time, when the
mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives’
fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of
Antichrist, to the great scandal and detriment of religion.

(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and
judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in the writings of
Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught
with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously
untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural philosophy with
the grave and sober kind of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity of
Aristotle is worthy to be observed, that, having made so diligent and
exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with
any vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all
prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into one
book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such
whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or
weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities and
reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the
memory of men.

(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and
opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too much belief is
attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The
sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and confederacy
with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number:
astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless,
the ends or pretences are noble. For astrology pretendeth to discover
that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe
and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural
philosophy from variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and
alchemy pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies
which in mixtures of natures are incorporate. But the derivations and
prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the practices,
are full of error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have
sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring
themselves to auricular traditions and such other devices, to save the
credit of impostures. And yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that
it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable; that,
when he died, told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried
underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground, and
gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and digging the
mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year
following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to
light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as
well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man’s life.

(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors in
sciences, in making them dictators, that their words should stand, and
not consuls, to give advice; the damage is infinite that sciences have
received thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low at a
stay without growth or advancement. For hence it hath come, that in arts
mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth and
perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and time
leeseth and corrupteth. So we see artillery, sailing, printing, and the
like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accommodated and
refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies and sciences of Aristotle,
Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at
the first, and by time degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason is no
other, but that in the former many wits and industries have contributed
in one; and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about
the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved than
illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the level of the
first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so knowledge derived from
Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of examination, will not rise again
higher than the knowledge of Aristotle. And, therefore, although the
position be good, _Oportet discentem credere_, yet it must be coupled
with this, _Oportet edoctum judicare_; for disciples do owe unto masters
only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own judgment till they
be fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual
captivity; and therefore, to conclude this point, I will say no more, but
so let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of
authors, be not deprived of his due—which is, further and further to
discover truth. Thus have I gone over these three diseases of learning;
besides the which there are some other rather peccant humours than formed
diseases, which, nevertheless, are not so secret and intrinsic, but that
they fall under a popular observation and traducement, and, therefore,
are not to be passed over.

V. (1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two extremities:
the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it seemeth the children of
time do take after the nature and malice of the father. For as he
devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the
other; while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and novelty
cannot be content to add but it must deface; surely the advice of the
prophet is the true direction in this matter, _State super vias
antiquas_, _et videte quænam sit via recta et bona et ambulate in ea_.
Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand
thereupon and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is
well taken, then to make progression. And to speak truly, _Antiquitas
sæculi juventus mundi_. These times are the ancient times, when the
world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient _ordine
retrogrado_, by a computation backward from ourselves.

(2) Another error induced by the former is a distrust that anything
should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed and
passed over so long time: as if the same objection were to be made to
time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods; of which
he wondereth that they begot so many children in old time, and begot none
in his time; and asketh whether they were become septuagenary, or whether
the law _Papia_, made against old men’s marriages, had restrained them.
So it seemeth men doubt lest time is become past children and generation;
wherein contrariwise we see commonly the levity and unconstancy of men’s
judgments, which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and
as soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as we see
in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as
a vast and impossible enterprise; and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to
make no more of it than this, _Nil aliud quàm bene ausus vana
contemnere_. And the same happened to Columbus in the western
navigation. But in intellectual matters it is much more common, as may
be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid; which till they be
demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent; but being demonstrate, our
mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation (as the lawyers speak), as
if we had known them before.

(3) Another error, that hath also some affinity with the former, is a
conceit that of former opinions or sects after variety and examination
the best hath still prevailed and suppressed the rest; so as if a man
should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light upon
somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion; as if
the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude’s sake, were not ready to
give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial than to that
which is substantial and profound for the truth is, that time seemeth to
be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that
which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is
weighty and solid.

(4) Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the
over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods;
from which time commonly sciences receive small or no augmentation. But
as young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a
further stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations,
it is in growth; but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it
may, perchance, be further polished, and illustrate and accommodated for
use and practice, but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.

(5) Another error which doth succeed that which we last mentioned is,
that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have
abandoned universality, or _philosophia prima_, which cannot but cease
and stop all progression. For no perfect discovery can be made upon a
flat or a level; neither is it possible to discover the more remote and
deeper parts of any science if you stand but upon the level of the same
science, and ascend not to a higher science.

(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a kind
of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means whereof, men
have withdrawn themselves too much from the contemplation of nature, and
the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in their own
reason and conceits. Upon these intellectualists, which are
notwithstanding commonly taken for the most sublime and divine
philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying:—“Men sought truth
in their own little worlds, and not in the great and common world;” for
they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of God’s
works; and contrariwise by continual meditation and agitation of wit do
urge and, as it were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give
oracles unto them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.

(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter is, that men
have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines with some
conceits which they have most admired, or some sciences which they have
most applied, and given all things else a tincture according to them,
utterly untrue and improper. So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy
with theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of Plato,
Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were the arts which
had a kind of primogeniture with them severally. So have the alchemists
made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus
our countryman hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a
loadstone. So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of the nature
of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a harmony,
saith pleasantly, _Hic ab arte sua non recessit_, _&c. _ But of these
conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, _Qui
respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant_.

(8) Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion
without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of
contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by
the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end
impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a
while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with
certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin
with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of
knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and not
ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and not
easiest examined. It is true, that in compendious treatises for practice
that form is not to be disallowed; but in the true handling of knowledge
men ought not to fall either on the one side into the vein of Velleius
the Epicurean, _Nil tam metuens quam ne dubitare aliqua de revideretur_:
nor, on the other side, into Socrates, his ironical doubting of all
things; but to propound things sincerely with more or less asseveration,
as they stand in a man’s own judgment proved more or less.

(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to themselves,
whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas the more constant and
devote kind of professors of any science ought to propound to themselves
to make some additions to their science, they convert their labours to
aspire to certain second prizes: as to be a profound interpreter or
commentor, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical
compounder or abridger, and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be
sometimes improved, but seldom augmented.

(11) But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or
misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. For men have
entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural
curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds
with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and
sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most
times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true
account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if
there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and
restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk
up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind
to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and
contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for
the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate. But this is
that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and
action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than
they have been: a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets,
Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation; and Jupiter, the planet of
civil society and action, howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and
action, that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre
and profession; for I am not ignorant how much that diverteth and
interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of knowledge, like unto the
golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which, while she goeth aside and
stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered,

“Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit. ” {39}

Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy down
from heaven to converse upon the earth—that is, to leave natural
philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and policy. But
as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and
benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both philosophies to
separate and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void,
and to preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that
knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as
a bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master’s use; but as a spouse,
for generation, fruit, and comfort.

(12) Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissection, those
peccant humours (the principal of them) which have not only given
impediment to the proficience of learning, but have given also occasion
to the traducement thereof: wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be
remembered, _fidelia vulnera amantis_, _sed dolosa oscula malignantis_.
This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better believed in
that which I shall say pertaining to commendation; because I have
proceeded so freely in that which concerneth censure. And yet I have no
purpose to enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the
Muses (though I am of opinion that it is long since their rites were duly
celebrated), but my intent is, without varnish or amplification justly to
weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other things, and to
take the true value thereof by testimonies and arguments, divine and
human.

VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the
archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of God,
as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with sobriety;
wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning, for all learning is
knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original, and therefore
we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the
Scriptures call it.

(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a double
emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more properly to power,
the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the subsistence of the
matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of the form. This being
supposed, it is to be observed that for anything which appeareth in the
history of the creation, the confused mass and matter of heaven and earth
was made in a moment, and the order and disposition of that chaos or mass
was the work of six days; such a note of difference it pleased God to put
upon the works of power, and the works of wisdom; wherewith concurreth,
that in the former it is not set down that God said, “Let there be heaven
and earth,” as it is set down of the works following; but actually, that
God made heaven and earth: the one carrying the style of a manufacture,
and the other of a law, decree, or counsel.

(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to spirits: we
find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that
supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, the first place or degree is
given to the angels of love, which are termed seraphim; the second to the
angels of light, which are termed cherubim; and the third, and so
following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all
angels of power and ministry; so as this angels of knowledge and
illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.

(4) To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and
material forms, we read the first form that was created was light, which
hath a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal things to
knowledge in spirits and incorporal things.

(5) So in the distribution of days we see the day wherein God did rest
and contemplate His own works was blessed above all the days wherein He
did effect and accomplish them.

(6) After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man was
placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so appointed to him,
could be no other than work of contemplation; that is, when the end of
work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity; for there
being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, man’s
employment must of consequence have been matter of delight in the
experiment, and not matter of labour for the use. Again, the first acts
which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary parts of
knowledge; the view of creatures, and the imposition of names. As for
the knowledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched before, not
the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge of good and
evil; wherein the supposition was, that God’s commandments or
prohibitions were not the originals of good and evil, but that they had
other beginnings, which man aspired to know, to the end to make a total
defection from God and to depend wholly upon himself.

(7) To pass on: in the first event or occurrence after the fall of man,
we see (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not violating at all
the truth of this story or letter) an image of the two estates, the
contemplative state and the active state, figured in the two persons of
Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most primitive trades of life;
that of the shepherd (who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and
lying in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life), and
that of the husbandman, where we see again the favour and election of God
went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of the ground.

(8) So in the age before the flood, the holy records within those few
memorials which are there entered and registered have vouchsafed to
mention and honour the name of the inventors and authors of music and
works in metal. In the age after the flood, the first great judgment of
God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues; whereby the
open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly
imbarred.

(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God’s first pen: he is adorned
by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, “That he was seen
in all the learning of the Egyptians,” which nation we know was one of
the most ancient schools of the world: for so Plato brings in the
Egyptian priest saying unto Solon, “You Grecians are ever children; you
have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of knowledge. ” Take a view
of the ceremonial law of Moses; you shall find, besides the prefiguration
of Christ, the badge or difference of the people of God, the exercise and
impression of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits thereof, that
some of the most learned Rabbins have travailed profitably and profoundly
to observe, some of them a natural, some of them a moral sense, or
reduction of many of the ceremonies and ordinances. As in the law of the
leprosy, where it is said, “If the whiteness have overspread the flesh,
the patient may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any whole flesh
remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean;” one of them noteth a
principle of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before maturity
than after; and another noteth a position of moral philosophy, that men
abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners, as those that are half
good and half evil. So in this and very many other places in that law,
there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion of
philosophy.

(10) So likewise in that excellent hook of Job, if it be revolved with
diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural
philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the roundness of the world,
_Qui extendit aquilonem super vacuum_, _et appendit terram super
nihilum_; wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north,
and the finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched. So
again, matter of astronomy: _Spiritus ejus ornavit cælos_, _et
obstetricante manu ejus eductus est Coluber tortuoses_. And in another
place, _Nunquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas_, _aut gyrum
Arcturi poteris dissipare_? Where the fixing of the stars, ever standing
at equal distance, is with great elegancy noted. And in another place,
_Qui facit Arcturum_, _et Oriona_, _et Hyadas_, _et interiora Austri_;
where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern pole,
calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern stars were in
that climate unseen. Matter of generation: _Annon sicut lac mulsisti
me_, _et sicut caseum coagulasti me_? &c. Matter of minerals: _Habet
argentum venarum suarum principia_; _et auro locus est in quo conflatur_,
_ferrum de terra tollitur_, _et lapis solutus calore in æs vertitur_; and
so forwards in that chapter.

(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift or
endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon’s petition and in God’s
assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and temporal
felicity. By virtue of which grant or donative of God Solomon became
enabled not only to write those excellent parables or aphorisms
concerning divine and moral philosophy, but also to compile a natural
history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon
the wall (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb), and
also of all things that breathe or move. Nay, the same Solomon the king,
although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings,
of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and
renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but
only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly,
“The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to
find it out;” as if, according to the innocent play of children, the
Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them
found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be
God’s playfellows in that game; considering the great commandment of wits
and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them.

(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our
Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His
power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors
of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles.
And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in
the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but _vehicula scientiæ_.

(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to use
for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first He did
employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, more
evidently to declare His immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom
or knowledge; yet nevertheless that counsel of His was no sooner
performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession He did send His
divine truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with
servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was only learned
amongst the Apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New
Testament.

(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the
Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of this
heathen; insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julianus (whereby it was
interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or
exercises of learning) was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious
engine and machination against the Christian Faith than were all the
sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation
and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever
obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the
censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men;
in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen
antiquity and authors. But contrariwise it was the Christian Church,
which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the
north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred
lap and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning, which
otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been.

(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our
fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to account for
their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious
and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was
ordained by the Divine Providence that there should attend withal a
renovation and new spring of all other knowledges. And on the other side
we see the Jesuits, who partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation
and provocation of their example, have much quickened and strengthened
the state of learning; we see (I say) what notable service and reparation
they have done to the Roman see.

(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be
two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration,
which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion.
The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation of
the glory of God. For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite
us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if we
should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they
first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the
majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some
excellent jeweller by that only which is set out toward the street in his
shop. The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative
against unbelief and error. For our Saviour saith, “You err, not knowing
the Scriptures, nor the power of God;” laying before us two books or
volumes to study, if we will be secured from error: first the Scriptures,
revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing His power;
whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our
understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general
notions of reason and rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in
drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is
chiefly signed and engraven upon His works. Thus much therefore for
divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of
learning.

VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a discourse
of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice of those things
which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them. First,
therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the
highest to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto the
Christians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now separately of
human testimony, according to which—that which the Grecians call
_apotheosis_, and the Latins _relatio inter divos_—was the supreme honour
which man could attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a
formal decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman Emperors),
but by an inward assent and belief. Which honour, being so high, had
also a degree or middle term; for there were reckoned above human
honours, honours heroical and divine: in the attribution and distribution
of which honours we see antiquity made this difference; that whereas
founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of
tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit,
were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods, such as were
Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the like; on the other side, such
as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities
towards man’s life, were ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as
was Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and others. And justly; for the
merit of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and good,
yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where they
fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of heaven, which are
permanent and universal. The former again is mixed with strife and
perturbation, but the latter hath the true character of Divine Presence,
coming in _aura leni_, without noise or agitation.

(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the
inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former,
of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which merit was
lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus’
theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their
several appetites—some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel—stood all
sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp, the
sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but
every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the
nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed
desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear
to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and
persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and
peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition
and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and
confusion.

(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves, or persons
of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular
estates, are endued with learning. For although he might be thought
partial to his own profession that said “Then should people and estates
be happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings;” yet
so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and
governors there have been ever the best times: for howsoever kings may
have their imperfections in their passions and customs, yet, if they be
illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and
morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and
peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when
counsellors and servants stand mute and silent. And senators or
counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed upon more safe and
substantial principles, than counsellors which are only men of
experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other
discover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to the agility
of their wit to ward or avoid them.

(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still the law
of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples) doth best
appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitianus the emperor
until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a succession of six princes,
all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of learning, which age
for temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever the
Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world) enjoyed—a matter
revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was
slain: for he thought there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck
and a head of gold, which came accordingly to pass in those golden times
which succeeded; of which princes we will make some commemoration;
wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter
for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, yet,
because it is pertinent to the point in hand—_Neque semper arcum tendit
Apollo_—and to name them only were too naked and cursory, I will not omit
it altogether. The first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose
government is by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life:
_Postquam divus Nerva res oluim insociabiles miscuisset_, _imperium et
libertatem_. And in token of his learning, the last act of his short
reign left to memory was a missive to his adopted son, Trajan, proceeding
upon some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended
in a verse of Homer’s—

“Telis, Phœbe, tuis, lacrymas ulciscere nostras. ”

(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but if we will
hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, “He that receiveth a
prophet in the name of a prophet shall have a prophet’s reward,” he
deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes; for there was
not a greater admirer of learning or benefactor of learning, a founder of
famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned men to office, and
familiar converser with learned professors and preceptors who were noted
to have then most credit in court. On the other side how much Trajan’s
virtue and government was admired and renowned, surely no testimony of
grave and faithful history doth more lively set forth than that legend
tale of Gregorius Magnum, Bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme
envy he bare towards all heathen excellency; and yet he is reported, out
of the love and estimation of Trajan’s moral virtues, to have made unto
God passionate and fervent prayers for the delivery of his soul out of
hell, and to have obtained it, with a caveat that he should make no more
such petitions. In this prince’s time also the persecutions against the
Christians received intermission upon the certificate of Plinius
Secundus, a man of excellent learning and by Trajan advanced.

(6) Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that lived, and the
most universal inquirer: insomuch as it was noted for an error in his
mind that he desired to comprehend all things, and not to reserve himself
for the worthiest things, falling into the like humour that was long
before noted in Philip of Macedon, who, when he would needs overrule and
put down an excellent musician in an argument touching music, was well
answered by him again—“God forbid, sir,” saith he, “that your fortune
should be so bad as to know these things better than I. ” It pleased God
likewise to use the curiosity of this emperor as an inducement to the
peace of His Church in those days; for having Christ in veneration, not
as a God or Saviour, but as a wonder or novelty, and having his picture
in his gallery matched with Apollonius (with whom in his vain imagination
he thought its had some conformity), yet it served the turn to allay the
bitter hatred of those times against the Christian name, so as the Church
had peace during his time. And for his government civil, although he did
not attain to that of Trajan’s in glory of arms or perfection of justice,
yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he did exceed him. For
Trajan erected many famous monuments and buildings, insomuch as
Constantine the Great in emulation was wont to call him _Parietaria_,
“wall-flower,” because his name was upon so many walls; but his buildings
and works were more of glory and triumph than use and necessity. But
Adrian spent his whole reign, which was peaceable, in a perambulation or
survey of the Roman Empire, giving order and making assignation where he
went for re-edifying of cities, towns, and forts decayed, and for cutting
of rivers and streams, and for making bridges and passages, and for
policing of cities and commonalties with new ordinances and
constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so that
his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and decays of
former times.

(7) Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently learned,
and had the patient and subtle wit of a schoolman, insomuch as in common
speech (which leaves no virtue untaxed) he was called _Cymini Sector_, a
carver or a divider of cummin seed, which is one of the least seeds.
Such a patience he had and settled spirit to enter into the least and
most exact differences of causes, a fruit no doubt of the exceeding
tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which being no ways charged or
encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or scruples, but having been
noted for a man of the purest goodness, without all fiction or
affectation, that hath reigned or lived, made his mind continually
present and entire. He likewise approached a degree nearer unto
Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto St. Paul, “half a
Christian,” holding their religion and law in good opinion, and not only
ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of Christians.

(5) There succeeded him the first _Divi fratres_, the two adoptive
brethren—Lucius Commodus Verus, son to Ælius Verus, who delighted much in
the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the poet Martial his
Virgil; and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: whereof the latter, who obscured
his colleague and survived him long, was named the “Philosopher,” who, as
he excelled all the rest in learning, so he excelled them likewise in
perfection of all royal virtues; insomuch as Julianus the emperor, in his
book entitled _Cærsares_, being as a pasquil or satire to deride all his
predecessors, feigned that they were all invited to a banquet of the
gods, and Silenus the jester sat at the nether end of the table and
bestowed a scoff on everyone as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus
came in, Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance, not knowing where
to carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance at his patience towards
his wife. And the virtue of this prince, continued with that of his
predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the world, that
though it were extremely dishonoured in Commodus, Caracalla, and
Heliogabalus, who all bare the name, yet, when Alexander Severus refused
the name because he was a stranger to the family, the Senate with one
acclamation said, _Quomodo Augustus_, _sic et Antoninus_. In such renown
and veneration was the name of these two princes in those days, that they
would have had it as a perpetual addition in all the emperors’ style. In
this emperor’s time also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as
in this sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning
in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the world.

(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not presuming to speak
of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment the most excellent is that
of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of Britain; a
prince that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels,
would trouble him, I think, to find for her a parallel amongst women.
This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even
amongst masculine princes—whether we speak of learning, of language, or
of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity—and unto the very
last year of her life she accustomed to appoint set hours for reading,
scarcely any young student in a university more daily or more duly. As
for her government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm)
that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better tines,
and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of
her regiment. For if there be considered, of the one side, the truth of
religion established, the constant peace and security, the good
administration of justice, the temperate use of the prerogative, not
slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable
to so excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means,
both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of
discontents; and there be considered, on the other side, the differences
of religion, the troubles of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain,
and opposition of Rome, and then that she was solitary and of herself;
these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an instance
so recent and so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more
remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is concerning the
conjunction of learning in the prince with felicity in the people.

(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil
merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and
peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy in
enablement towards martial and military virtue and prowess, as may be
notably represented in the examples of Alexander the Great and Cæsar the
Dictator (mentioned before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose
virtues and acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the
wonders of time in that kind; but of their affections towards learning
and perfections in learning it is pertinent to say somewhat.

(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great
philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto him; he
was attended with Callisthenes and divers other learned persons, that
followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and conquests. What price
and estimation he had learning in doth notably appear in these three
particulars: first, in the envy he used to express that he bare towards
Achilles, in this, that he had so good a trumpet of his praises as
Homer’s verses; secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave touching
that precious cabinet of Darius, which was found among his jewels
(whereof question was made what thing was worthy to be put into it, and
he gave his opinion for Homer’s works); thirdly, in his letter to
Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of nature, wherein he
expostulateth with him for publishing the secrets or mysteries of
philosophy; and gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more to
excel other men in learning and knowledge than in power and empire. And
what use he had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his
speeches and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that
in all variety.

(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat idle
to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet, since the argument I
handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall perceive I am as
willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an Alexander, or a Cæsar, or
an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred years since, as any that now
liveth; for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty
that I propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming in any man’s
praises. Observe, then, the speech he used of Diogenes, and see if it
tend not to the true state of one of the greatest questions of moral
philosophy: whether the enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of
them, be the greatest happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly
contented with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition,
“were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes. ” But Seneca
inverteth it, and saith, “_Plus erat_, _quod hic nollet accipere_, _quàm
quod ille posset dare_. ” There were more things which Diogenes would
have refused than those were which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.

(13) Observe, again, that speech which was usual with him,—“That he felt
his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust;” and see if it were
not a speech extracted out of the depth of natural philosophy, and liker
to have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus than from
Alexander.

(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon the
bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his flatterers, that
was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and said, “Look, this is very
blood; this is not such a liquor as Homer speaketh of, which ran from
Venus’ hand when it was pierced by Diomedes. ”

(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in the speech he
used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made against his father
Antipater; for when Alexander happened to say, “Do you think these men
would have come from so far to complain except they had just cause of
grief? ” and Cassander answered, “Yea, that was the matter, because they
thought they should not be disproved;” said Alexander, laughing, “See the
subtleties of Aristotle, to take a matter both ways, _pro et contra_,
&c. ”

(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art which he
reprehended to serve his own humour: when bearing a secret grudge to
Callisthenes, because he was against the new ceremony of his adoration,
feasting one night where the same Callisthenes was at the table, it was
moved by some after supper, for entertainment sake, that Callisthenes,
who was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or purpose at his own
choice; which Callisthenes did, choosing the praise of the Macedonian
nation for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner as
the hearers were much ravished; whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased,
said, “It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a subject; but,” saith he,
“turn your style, and let us hear what you can say against us;” which
Callisthenes presently undertook, and did with that sting and life that
Alexander interrupted him, and said, “The goodness of the cause made him
eloquent before, and despite made him eloquent then again. ”

(17) Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent use of a
metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxeth Antipater, who was an
imperious and tyrannous governor; for when one of Antipater’s friends
commended him to Alexander for his moderation, that he did not degenerate
as his other lieutenants did into the Persian pride, in uses of purple,
but kept the ancient habit of Macedon, of black. “True,” saith
Alexander; “but Antipater is all purple within. ” Or that other, when
Parmenio came to him in the plain of Arbela and showed him the
innumerable multitude of his enemies, specially as they appeared by the
infinite number of lights as it had been a new firmament of stars, and
thereupon advised him to assail them by night; whereupon he answered,
“That he would not steal the victory. ”

(18) For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, so much in
all ages embraced, that he made between his two friends Hephæstion and
Craterus, when he said, “That the one loved Alexander, and the other
loved the king:” describing the principal difference of princes’ best
servants, that some in affection love their person, and other in duty
love their crown.

(19) Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary with
counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters according to the
model of their own mind and fortune, and not of their masters. When upon
Darius’ great offers Parmenio had said, “Surely I would accept these
offers were I as Alexander;” saith Alexander, “So would I were I as
Parmenio. ”

(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made when he gave
so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was asked what he did
reserve for himself, and he answered, “Hope. ” Weigh, I say, whether he
had not cast up his account aright, because _hope_ must be the portion of
all that resolve upon great enterprises; for this was Cæsar’s portion
when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then utterly overthrown
with largesses. And this was likewise the portion of that noble prince,
howsoever transported with ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was
usually said that he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had
turned all his estate into obligations.

(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to say
hyperbolically, “That if all sciences were lost they might be found in
Virgil,” so certainly this may be said truly, there are the prints and
footsteps of learning in those few speeches which are reported of this
prince, the admiration of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the
Great, but as Aristotle’s scholar, hath carried me too far.

(22) As for Julius Cæsar, the excellency of his learning needeth not to
be argued from his education, or his company, or his speeches; but in a
further degree doth declare itself in his writings and works: whereof
some are extant and permanent, and some unfortunately perished. For
first, we see there is left unto us that excellent history of his own
wars, which he entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times
have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and lively
images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of
words and perspicuity of narration that ever was; which that it was not
the effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept, is well
witnessed by that work of his entitled _De Analogia_, being a grammatical
philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same _Vox ad placitum_ to
become _Vox ad licitum_, and to reduce custom of speech to congruity of
speech; and took as it were the pictures of words from the life of
reason.

(23) So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power and
learning, the then reformed computation of the year; well expressing that
he took it to be as great a glory to himself to observe and know the law
of the heavens, as to give law to men upon the earth.

(24) So likewise in that book of his, _Anti-Cato_, it may easily appear
that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as victory of war:
undertaking therein a conflict against the greatest champion with the pen
that then lived, Cicero the orator.

(25) So, again, in his book of Apophthegms, which he collected, we see
that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to
take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his
own to be made an apophthegm or an oracle, as vain princes, by custom of
flattery, pretend to do. And yet if I should enumerate divers of his
speeches, as I did those of Alexander, they are truly such as Solomon
noteth, when he saith, _Verba sapientum tanquam aculei_, _et tanquam
clavi in altum defixi_: whereof I will only recite three, not so
delectable for elegancy, but admirable for vigour and efficacy.

(26) As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, that could
with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was thus: The Romans,
when their generals did speak to their army, did use the word _Milites_,
but when the magistrates spake to the people they did use the word
_Quirites_. The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to be
cashiered; not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to draw
Cæsar to other conditions; wherein he being resolute not to give way,
after some silence, he began his speech, _Ego Quirites_, which did admit
them already cashiered—wherewith they were so surprised, crossed, and
confused, as they would not suffer him to go on in his speech, but
relinquished their demands, and made it their suit to be again called by
the name of _Milites_.

(27) The second speech was thus: Cæsar did extremely affect the name of
king; and some were set on as he passed by in popular acclamation to
salute him king. Whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off
thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname: _Non Rex
sum_, _sed Cæsar_; a speech that, if it be searched, the life and fulness
of it can scarce be expressed. For, first, it was a refusal of the name,
but yet not serious; again, it did signify an infinite confidence and
magnanimity, as if he presumed Cæsar was the greater title, as by his
worthiness it is come to pass till this day. But chiefly it was a speech
of great allurement toward his own purpose, as if the state did strive
with him but for a name, whereof mean families were vested; for _Rex_ was
a surname with the Romans, as well as _King_ is with us.

(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus, when
Cæsar, after war declared, did possess himself of this city of Rome; at
which time, entering into the inner treasury to take the money there
accumulate, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him. Whereto Cæsar said,
“That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place. ” And
presently taking himself up, he added, “Young man, it is harder for me to
speak it than to do it—_Adolescens_, _durius est mihi hoc dicere quàm
facere_. ” A speech compounded of the greatest terror and greatest
clemency that could proceed out of the mouth of man.

(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident himself knew well
his own perfection in learning, and took it upon him, as appeared when
upon occasion that some spake what a strange resolution it was in Lucius
Sylla to resign his dictators, he, scoffing at him to his own advantage,
answered, “That Sylla could not skill of letters, and therefore knew not
how to dictate. ”

(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the concurrence
of military virtue and learning (for what example should come with any
grace after those two of Alexander and Cæsar? ), were it not in regard of
the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one other particular, as
that which did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme wonder: and
it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from Socrates’ school into
Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against King Artaxerxes.
This Xenophon at that time was very young, and never had seen the wars
before, neither had any command in the army, but only followed the war as
a voluntary, for the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend. He
was present when Falinus came in message from the great king to the
Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of
men, left to themselves in the midst of the king’s territories, cut off
from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles. The
message imported that they should deliver up their arms and submit
themselves to the king’s mercy. To which message, before answer was
made, divers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus; and amongst
the rest Xenophon happened to say, “Why, Falinus, we have now but these
two things left, our arms and our virtue; and if we yield up our arms,
how shall we make use of our virtue? ” Whereto Falinus, smiling on him,
said, “If I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I
believe you study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say; but you are
much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the king’s power. ”
Here was the scorn; the wonder followed: which was that this young
scholar or philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by
treason, conducted those ten thousand foot, through the heart of all the
king’s high countries, from Babylon to Græcia in safety, in despite of
all the king’s forces, to the astonishment of the world, and the
encouragement of the Grecians in times succeeding to make invasion upon
the kings of Persia, as was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian,
attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the
Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.

VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral and
private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is contained in the
verses:—

“Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros. ”

It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men’s minds;
but indeed the accent had need be upon _fideliter_; for a little
superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away
all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts
and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both
sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to
accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain admiration
of anything, which is the root of all weakness. For all things are
admired, either because they are new, or because they are great. For
novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly but
will find that printed in his heart, _Nil novi super terram_. Neither
can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain,
and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the
Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of
the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece,
of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a
fort, or some walled town at the most, he said:—“It seemed to him that he
was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the mice, that the old
tales went of. ” So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal
frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls
except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants
carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and
fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death or
adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and
imperfections of manners. For if a man’s mind be deeply seasoned with
the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he
will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman
weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth the next
day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon
said, “_Heri vidi fragilem frangi_, _hodie vidi mortalem mori_. ” And,
therefore, Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of
causes and the conquest of all fears together, as _concomitantia_.

“Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari. ”

(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning
doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes purging the ill
humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion,
sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and
exulcerations thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will conclude with
that which hath _rationem totius_—which is, that it disposeth the
constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects
thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and
reformation.