ANALYSIS OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
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But for a tablet, or picture of smaller volume, (not presuming to speal of your majesty that liveth,) in my judgment the most most excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of Britain, a princess 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 language, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity: and unto the very last year of her life she was 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 inland never had forty-five years of better times; and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of her regimen. 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 in concerning the conjunction of learning in the prince with felicity in the people.[1] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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3. There is a concurrence between learning and military virtue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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| When Cæsar, after war declared, did possess himself of the city of Rome, at which time entering into the inner treasury to take the money there accumulated, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him: whereto Caæsar said, "That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place." And presently taking himself up, he added, "Adolescens, durius eat mihi hoc dicere quum facere." Young man, it is harder for me to speak than to do it. A speech compounded of the greatest terror and greatest clemency that could proceed out of the mouth of man. | ||
4. Learning improves private virtues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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| 1. It takes away the barbarism of men's minds. "Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, | ||
| 2. It takes away levity, temerity, and insolency. | ||
3. It takes away vain admiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
182 | |
| If a man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it, the divineness of souls excepted, will not seem much other than an ant hill, where as some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. | ||
| 4. It mitigates the fear of death or adverse fortune. | ||
| 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, | ||
5. It disposes the mind not to be fixed in its defects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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| The unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account; nor the pleasure of that "suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem." Certain it is that "veritas" and "banitas" differ but as the seal and the print: for truth prints goodness; and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations. | ||
| 5. Learning is power.[2] | ||
6. Learning advances fortune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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7. The pleasure of knowledge is the greatest of pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
183 | |
| We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and nit pleasures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality: and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable. It is a view of delight, to stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea, or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain; but it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty if truth, and from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down of other men. | ||
8. Learning insures immortality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
183 | |
| If the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters tn be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other? Nevertheless, I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of Æsop's cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem, or of Midax, that being chosen judge between Apollo president of the Muses, and Pan god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty and love against wisdom and power; nor of Agrippina, "occidat matrem, modo imperet," that preferred empire with conditions never so detestable; or of Ulyssus, "qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati," being a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency or of a number of the like popular judgments. For these things continue as they have been: but so will that also continue whereupon learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not: "justificata est sapientia a filiis suis." | ||
