The Essays of Francis Bacon/L Of Studies

by Francis Bacon

L. Of Studies.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make^[1] judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning^[2] by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously;^[3] and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would^[4] be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy^[5] things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that^[6] he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.^[7] Nay there is no stond^[8] or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought^[9] out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins;^[10] shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathemathics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores.^[11] If he be not apt to beat^[12] over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

1. Make. Of a court, a judge. To render, give (a decision, judgment). The New English Dictionary, on the authority of Sir Frederick Pollock, says, "Now unusual in England; still common in America."
2. Proyning, old spelling of pruning.
3. Curiously. Attentively.
4. Would, for should.
5. Flashy. Insipid; tasteless.
6. That. What, that which.
7. Studies develop into manners.

   Sive abeunt studia in mores, artesque magistrae.

   P. Ovidii Nasonis Heroides. Epistola XV. 83. Sappho Phaoni.
   
   Note this thought and Bacon's own translation of it: "Abeunt studia in mores, studies have an influence and operation upon the manners of those conversant in them." Advancement of Learning, I. iii. 4.
8. Stond. Hindrance.
9. Wrought. Worked. "What hath God wrought," the first telegram, was sent by Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the telegraph, from the rooms of the United States Supreme Court, in Washington, to Baltimore, May 24, 1844.
10. Reins. Kidneys.
11. Splitters of cumin, that is, hair-splitters. Cumin is an oriental plant with small, aromatic seed. "Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently learned, and had the patient and subtle wit of a schoolman; in so much as in common speech (which leaves no virtue untaxed) he was called Cymini Sector, a carver or 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 the most exact differences of causes; a fruit no doubt of the exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind; which being no ways charged or incumbered, 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." Advancement of Learning, I. vii. 7.
12. To beat over. To beat out, to get to the bottom of.