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The Advancement of Learning

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(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 Caesar, 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, quae 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 scientiae.
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, Quaestionum
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 AEsop 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
quaenam 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 saeculi
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 quam 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.

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