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ANALYSIS OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
5. It makes them immoderate by greatness of example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
164 | |
| It teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and all the cautious of application. | ||
6.It makes them incompatible by dissimilitude of examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
165 | |
| Let a man look into the errors of Clement the Seventh, so livelily described by Guicciardine, 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 info the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how he be obstinate or inflexible. Let him but read the fable of Ixion, und it will hold him from being vaporous or imaginative. Let him look into the errors of Cato the Second, and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the present world. | ||
7. It disposes men to leisure and retirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
165 | |
| It were strange if that, which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation, should induce sloth fulness: of all men they are the moxt indefatigable, if it be towards any business that can detain their minds. The most active or busy men that hath been or can be, hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business. And then the question is, but how those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in pleasures or in studies; as was well answered by Demosthenes, to his adversary Æchines, 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." | ||
8. It relaxes discipline by making men more ready to argue than to obey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
164 | |
| To say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood, 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, maniable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes then churlish, thwarting, and mutinous. | ||
| objections to learning from the errors of learned men. | ||
| 1. From their fortunes. | ||
| 2. From their manners. | ||
| 3. From the nature of their studies. | ||
| first. | ||
| objections to learning from the fortunes of learned men. | ||
| 1. Learned men are poor and live in obscurity. | ||
| 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, Taritus saith, "Eo ipso præfulgebant, quod non visebantur." | ||
| 2. Learned men are engaged in mean employments, as the education of youth. | ||
| We see men are more curious what they put info a new vessel, than into a vessel seasoned: and what mould they lay about a young plant, than about a plant corroborate: so as the weakest terms and times of all things use to have the best applications and helps. | ||
| secondly. | ||
| objections to learning from the manners of learned men. | ||
| 1. Learned men endeavour to impose the laws of ancient severity upon dissolute times. | ||
| 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." | ||
| 2. Learned men prefer the public good to their own interest. | ||
| The corrupter sort of mere politicians, that have not their thoughts established by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor ever 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. | ||
| 3. Learned men fail sometimes in applying themselves to individuals. | ||
| The reasons of this: | ||
| 1. The largeness of their minds, which cannot descend to particulars. | ||
| He that cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty. | ||
| 2. Learned men reject from choice and judgment. | ||
| The honest and just bounds of observation, by one person upon another, extend no farther 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 unto 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. | ||
| 3. Learned men are negligent in their behaviour. | ||
| Learned men should not stoop to persons, although they ought to submit to occasions.[1] | ||
| thirdly. | ||
| objections to learning from the nature of the studies of learned men. | ||
| distempers of learning. | ||
| 1. Fantastical learning. | ||
| 2. Contentious learning. | ||
| 3. Delicate learning. | ||
| Vain imaginations: vain altercations : vain affectations. | ||
Delicate learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
170 | |
| 1. It is the study of words, and not of matter. | ||
- ↑ See note (A) at the end of this Treatise.
