To the King
1. THERE were under the
law, excellent King, both daily Sacrifices
and free-will 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.
2. 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, te 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 [1605: "motions";
1629; 1633: "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 Caesar: AUGUSTO
PROFLUENS, ET QUAE 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, bowing 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 [2] 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 [1605:
profection] 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 has 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 Caesar the Dictator, who lived some years before Christ, and
Marcus Antoninus were the best learned; and so descend, to the emperors
of Graecia, 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
[the logical PROPRIUM QUOD CONSEQUITUR ESSENTIAM REI] 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.
3. 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, agreeably 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
Politiques; 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 Salomon 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 St. 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
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 therof, 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 go
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 Salomon,
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 Kalendar 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 [3] 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
delivereth 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 Salomon, 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, Salomon 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 THE 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 (gee 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
AMD 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 the 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 DO 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 man 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 [4]
be 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
Politiques, 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 dispatch 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 populos,
Romane, memento,
Hae tibi erunt artes,
etc.
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 disputations, 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 like instance, as of that pair, Alexander the Great and
Julius Cesar 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 a
greater object than a man. For both in Egypt, Assyria, Persia,
Graecia, 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 be: 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 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
PEDANTI; 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 Mistheus, 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, [5] 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 estate, than those which have ascended to the
papacy from an education and breeding in affairs of estate 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
events of one man's life: for, as it happeneth sometimes that the
grandchild, or other descendants, 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 latter 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 the seventh, so lively 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 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 the second, 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: for 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
times and returns of business (except he be either tedious and of no
dispatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things
that may be better done by others:) and then the question is, but how
these 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 Aeschines, 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 LAMPLIGHT. So as no man need doubt that learning will
expulse 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 [6] gentle,
generous, maniable, 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, seditions, 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 art 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 Caesars, 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 la.bours 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 common place in commendation of poverty 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 MD THE SCANDAL OF THE SUPERFLOSTICS
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 reverend and honoured thing
poverty 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: CAETERUM AUT ME AMOR NEGOTII SUSCEPTI FALLIT, AUT NULLA
UNQUAM RESPUBLICA NEC MAJOR, NEC SANCTIOR, NEC BONIS EXEMPLIS DITIOR
FUIT; NEC IN QUAM TAM SERAE AVARITIA LUXURIAQUE IMMIGRAVERINT; NEC
UBI TANTUS AC TAM DIU PAUPERTATI AC PARSIMONIAE 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 Caesar 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 HAEC, ET OMNIA MALA PARITER CUM HONORE
PECUNIAE DESINENT; SI NEQUE MAGISTRATUS, NEQUE ALIA VULGO CUPIENDA,
VENALIA ERUNT. To conclude this point, as it was truly said, that
RUBOR EST VIRTUTIS COLOR, though sometime it come from vice; so it
may be fitly said that Paupertas est virtutis fortuna, though
sometime it may proceed from misgovernment and accident. Surely
Salomon 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 [with] 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
images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia: of which not
being represented, as many others were, Tacitus saith, EO IPSO
PRAEFULGEBANT, QUOD NON VISEBANTUR.
3. And for meanness of
employment, that which is most traduced to
contempt is that the government [7] 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 the 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, UTINAM
NOSTER ESSES. And thus 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 STUDIA 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 the
second, 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 once, saying, THAT A MAN'S COUNTRY
WAS TO BE USED AS HIS PARENTS WERE, THAT IS, WITH HUMBLE PERSUASIONS,
AND NOT WITH CONTESTATIONS. And Caesar's counsellor put in the same
caveat, NON AD VETERA INSTITUTA REVOCANS QUAE JAMPRIDEM CORRUPTIS
MORIBUS LUDIBRIO SUNT: and Cicero noteth this error directly in Cato
the second, when he writes to his friend Atticus; CATO OPTIME SENTIT,
SED NOCET INTERDUM REIPUBLICAE; LOQUITUR ENIM TANQUAM IN
REIPUBLICÂ
PLATONIS, NON TANQUAM IN FAECE 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 PRAECEPTORES
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 YE, AND YE 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 states that they serve) in these 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 estates, 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 excusation.
7. Another fault incident
commonly to learned men, which may be
more properly defended than truly [8] 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 inablity, 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 often 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 mean time 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 WOOLD TURN TO BE A CYNIC. But
above all the rest, the 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
moral 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 staid, and gave him the hearing, and
granted it; and afterward 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 scandalize 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 [9]
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.
(a) 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 no ways 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. Thus 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 different 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 la.bnur that then was with the people (of whom the
Pharisees were wont to say, EXECRABLIS 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 copie 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 CONSUMPSI IN LEGENDO CICERONE; and the Echo answered in
Greek, < w(/ve >, 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 copie 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
limned book; which though it hath large flourishes, yet 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; [10] 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 putrify and corrupt into worms; so it is the
property of good and sound knowledge to putrify 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 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 worl; 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 fagot, in the band. 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 fagot, 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 a 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, cavilation, 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 truth 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 subtilties, and matters of no use or moment, they
easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracuse, 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 (as the lawyers speak, matter
of fact); or else of matter of art and opinion. As to the [11]
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 sake, 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 were to be built), was not to be mingled or
weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities
and reports that seem incredible 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 nature 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 under ground 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 counsellors 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 farthest, 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 springhead 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, OPORTO EDOCTUM JUDICARE; for disciples do owe
unto masters only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own
judgment until 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 that 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 FIT 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 [12]
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 inconstancy 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.
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 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 unproper. 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 alchymists 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 lodestone. 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, etc. But of these conceits Aristotle
speaketh seriously and wisely, when he saith, QUI RESPICIUNT AD PAUCA
DE FACILE 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 easiliest examined. I: 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 RE VIDERETUR; [13] 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 commenter, 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 farthest 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 tarrasse, 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. Rut 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.
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 curtesan, for
pleasure and vanity only, or as a bondwoman, 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 hath 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 the 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.
[14] 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 the 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 living 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 book 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 COELOS, ET
OBSTETRICANTE MANU EJUS EDACTUS EST COLUBER TORTUOSUS. 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;
ANON SICUT LAC MULSISTI ME, ET SICUT CASEUM COAGULASTI ME ? etc.
Matter of minerals; HABET ARGENTUM VENARUM SUARUM PRINCIPIA: ET AURO
LOCUS EST IN QUO CONFLATUR, FERRUM DE TERRA TOLLITUR, ET LAPIS
SOLUTUS CALORE IN AES VERTITUR: and so forwards in that chapter.
11. So likewise in the
person of Salomon the King, we see the gift
or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Salomon'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
Salomon 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 a herb,) and also of all things that breathe or move. Nay, the
same Salomon 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.
[15] 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 the Holy Spirit was chiefly
figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which
are but VEHICULA SCIENTIAE.
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 the 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
the 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. 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 chieflysigned 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:
especially 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, law-givers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers of
the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit, were honoured
but with the titles of worthies or demi-gods; such as were Hercules,
Theseus, Minos, 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 were 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.
[16] 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
to 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 its 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, do 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 Domitian 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
fiourishing 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 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 OLIM 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, Phoebe, 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 IÎ 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 a 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 Magnus, bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme envy
he bore 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
persecution 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 over-rule 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 AVOW 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 he 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 glory of arms, or perfection of justice,
yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he [17] 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 divider of cummin, 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 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. 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.
8. There succeeded him
the first DIVI FRATRES, the two adoptive
brethren, Lucius Commodus Verus, (son to Aelius 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 CAESARES, 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 every one 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 bore 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 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 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 great 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 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 island never had forty-five years of better times;
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 fiourishing 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 Caesar 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 bore towards Achilles, in this, that he had so good
[18] 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 expostulated 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 Caesar, 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
an 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
there were which Alexander could have given.
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 SUBTILTIES OF ARISTOTLE, TO TAKE A MATTER
BOTH WAYS, PRO ET CONTRA, ETC.
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 taxed 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
use 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, especially 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,
Hephaestion 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 others 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 OVERS, 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 right, because HOPE must be
the portion of all that resolve upon great enterprises. For this was
Caesar'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.
[19] 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 Caesar,
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 picture 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 Caesar 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: Caesar 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 CAESAR; 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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
Caesar said, THAT IF HE DID NOT DESIST, HE WOULD LAY HIM DEAD IN THE
PLACE. And presently taking himself up, he added, ADOLESCENS, DURIUS
EST MIHI HOC DICERE QUÀM 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.
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 dictature; 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 would
come with any grace after those two of Alexander and Caesar?) were it
not in regard of the rareness of circumstances 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 Phalynus
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 [20] their arms, and submit themselves to
the king's mercy. To which message before answer was made, divers of
the army conferred familiarly with Phalynus, and amongst the rest
Xenophon happened to say, WHY, PHALYNUS, 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 Phalynus 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
Graecia in safety, in despite of all the king's forces, to the
astonishment of the world, and the encouragement of the Grecians in
time 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 BATTLE 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. For 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. The good parts he hath he will learn to show to the
full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them: the
faults he hath he will learn how to hide and colour them, but not
much to amend them: like an ill mower, that mows on still, and never
whets his scythe: whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise, that
he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with
the use and employment thereof. Nay, further, in general and in sum,
certain it is that VERITAS and BONITAS 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.
3. From moral virtue let
us pass on to matter of power and
commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be any
comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man's
nature. We see the dignity of the commandment is according to the
dignity of the commanded: to have commandment over beasts, as herdmen
have, is a thing contemptible; to have commandment over children, as
schoolmasters have, is a matter of small honour; to have commandment
over galley-slaves is a disparagement rather than an honour. Neither
is the commandment of tyrants much better, over people which have put
off the generosity of their minds: and therefore it was ever holden
that honours in free monarchies and commonwealths had a sweetness
more than in tyrannies; because the commandment extendeth more over
the wills of men, and not only over their deeds and services. And
therefore, when Virgil putteth himself forth to attribute to Augustus
Caesar the best of human honours, he doth it in these words:
[21]--------------------------------Victorque
volentes
Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.
But yet the commandment
of knowledge is yet higher than the
commandment over the will; for it is a commandment over the reason,
belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the
mind, and giveth law to the will itself. For there is no power on
earth which setteth up a throne or chair of state in the spirits and
souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and
beliefs, but knowledge and learning. And therefore we see the
detestable and extreme pleasure that arch-heretics, and false
prophets, and impostors are transported with, when they once find in
themselves that they have a superiority in the faith and conscience
of men; so great as if they have once tasted of it, it is seldom seen
that any torture or persecution can make them relinquish or abandon
it. But as this is that which the author of the Revelation calleth
the depth or profoundness of Satan: so by argument of contraries,
the just and lawful sovereignty over men's understanding, by force of
truth rightly interpreted, is that which approacheth nearest to
the similitude of the Divine Rule.
4. As for fortune and
advancement, the beneficence of learning is
not so confined to give fortune only to states and commonwealths, as
it doth not likewise give fortune to particular persons. For it was
well noted long ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings,
than either Sylla, or Caesar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding
their great largesses and donatives, and distributions of lands to so
many legions. And no doubt it is hard to say. whether arms or learning
have advanced greater numbers. And in case of sovereignty we see,
that if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet learning
hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in some competition
with empire.
5. Again, for the
pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning,
it far surpasseth all other in nature: for, shall the pleasures of
the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the obtaining of
desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of
consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed
the pleasures of the affections? 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 not 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; and
therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or
accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment
to the mind of man which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly,
Suave mari magno,
turbantibus aequora ventis, etc.
IT IS A VIEW OF DELIGHT,
saith he, 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 OF TRUTH; AND FROM THENCE TO DESCRY
AND BEHOLD THE ERRORS, PERTURBATIONS, LABOURS, AND WANDERINGS UP AND
DOWN OF OTHER MEN.
6. Lastly, leaving the
vulgar arguments, that by learning man
excelleth in in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by learning
man ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in body he
cannot come, and the like; let us conclude with the dignity and
excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature
doth most aspire, which is, immortality or continuance: for to this
tendeth generation, and raising of houses and families; to this
buildings, foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of
memory, fame, and celebration, and in effect the strength of all
other human desires. We see then how far the monuments of wit and
learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the
hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred
years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during
which time, infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been
decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures
or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar; no, nor of the kings or great
personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and
the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth. But the images of
men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of
time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to
be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in
the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and
opinions in succeeding ages: so that, 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 to 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? Nay further, we see some of the
philosophers which were least divine, and most immersed in the
senses, and denied generally the immortality of the soul, yet came to
this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man could act and
perform without the organs of the body, they thought might remain
after death, which were only those of the understanding, and not of
the affection: so immortal and incorruptible a thing did knowledge
seem unto them to be. But we, that know by divine revelation that not
only the understanding but the affections purified, not only the
spirit but the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, do
disclaim in these rudiments of the senses. But it must be remembered
both in this last point, and so it may likewise be needful in other
places, that in probation of the dignity of knowledge or learning, I
did in the beginning separate divine testimony from human, which
method I have pursued, and so handled them both apart.
7. Nevertheless, I do not
pretend, and I know it will [22] be
impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment,
either of Aesop's Cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem;
or of Midas, 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 Ulysses, QUI VETULAM PRAETULIT
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.