THE
FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON;
OF THE PROFICIENCE AND
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,
DIVINE AND HUMAN.
_To the King_.
THERE were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and
freewill 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.
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, the
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 (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 Cæsar: _Augusto profluens_, _et quæ
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, flowing 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
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 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 hath 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 Cæsar the Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and
Marcus Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the Emperors of
Græcia, 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 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.
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 agreeable 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 politics, 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 Solomon 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 Saint 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 doth 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 thereof, 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 an 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, Solomon, 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 calendar 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 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 deilvereth 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 Solomon 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, Solomon 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 this 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 then 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 and 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 this 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
lie 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 men 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 he 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 politics,
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 despatch 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 popules_, _Romane_, _memento_, _Hæ tibi erunt artes_, &c.
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 disputatious, 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 hike
instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, 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 greater object than a man. For both in
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Græcia, 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 he: 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 somewhat 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 _pedenti_; 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 Misitheus,
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, 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
state, than those which have ascended to the papacy from an education and
breeding in affairs of state 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 event of one man’s life. For as it happeneth sometimes that the
grandchild, or other descendant, 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 later 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
VII., so lively described by Guicciardini, 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
II., 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, so 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 tides and returns of
business (except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and
unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done by
others), and then the question is but how those spaces and times of
leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in pleasure or in studies; as
was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary Æschines, that was a
man given to pleasure, and told him “That his orations did smell of the
lamp.” “Indeed,” said Demosthenes, “there is a great difference between
the things that you and I do by lamp-light.” So as no man need doubt
that learning will expel 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 gentle, generous, manageable, 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 arts 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 Cæsars, 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 labours 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 commonplace in commendation of povery 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
out the scandal of the superfluities 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 reverent
and honoured thing poverty of fortune 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: _Cæterum aut me amor negotii
suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec major_, _nec sanctior_,
_nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit_; _nec in quam tam sero avaritia
luxuriaque immigraverint_; _nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac
parsimoniæ 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 Cæsar 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 hæc et omnia mala pariter cum
honore pecuniæ desinent_; _si neque magistratus_, _neque alia vulgo
cupienda_, _venalia erunt_. To conclude this point: as it was truly said
that _Paupertas est virtutis fortuna_, though sometimes it come from
vice, so it may be fitly said that, though some times it may proceed from
misgovernment and accident. Surely Solomon 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 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 the images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral
of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others were, Tacitus
saith, _Eo ipso præfulgebant quod non visebantur_.
(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most traduced to
contempt is that the government 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 this 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_, _utunam noster
esses_. And that 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 studua 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 II., 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 office, saying,
“That a man’s country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with
humble persuasions, and not with contestations.” And Cæsar’s counsellor
put in the same caveat, _Non ad vetera instituta revocans quæ jampridem
corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt_; and Cicero noteth this error directly
in Cato II. when he writes to his friend Atticus, _Cato optime sentit_,
_sed nocet interdum reipublicæ_; _loquitur enim tanquam in republicâ
Platonis_, _non tanquam in fæce 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 præceptores 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 you, and you 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
the states that they serve) in those 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 state, 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 excuse.
(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be more
properly defended than truly 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 inability, 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
oft deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which was said by
Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of
his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this question,
pertinently and justly, when, being invited to touch a lute, he said, “He
could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state.” So no
doubt many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy
which are to seek in little and punctual occasions. I refer them also to
that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the
gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and owls and
antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious liquors and
confections; acknowledging that, to an external report, he was not
without superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly
replenished with excellent virtues and powers. And so much touching the
point of manners of learned men.
(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to some
conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors of
learning have wronged themselves and gone too far; such as were those
trencher philosophers which in the later age of the Roman state were
usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn
parasites, of which kind, Lucian maketh a merry description of the
philosopher that the great lady took to ride with her in her coach, and
would needs have him carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and
yet uncomely, the page scoffed and said, “That he doubted the philosopher
of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic.” But, above all the rest, this
gross and palpable flattery whereunto many not unlearned have abased and
abused their wits and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into
Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and
estimation of learning. Neither is the modern dedication of books and
writings, as to patrons, to be commended, for that books (such as are
worthy the name of books) ought to have no patrons but truth and reason.
And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to private and equal
friends, or to entitle the books with their names; or if to kings and
great persons, it was to some such as the argument of the book was fit
and proper for; but these and the like courses may deserve rather
reprehension than defence.
(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application of
learned men to men in fortune. For the answer was good that Diogenes
made to one that asked him in mockery, “How it came to pass that
philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of
philosophers?” He answered soberly, and yet sharply, “Because the one
sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not.” And of the like
nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having a petition to
Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon
Dionysius stayed and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and afterwards
some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that
he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a
private suit to fall at a tyrant’s feet; but he answered, “It was not his
fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in his feet.”
Neither was it accounted weakness, but discretion, in him that would not
dispute his best with Adrianus Cæsar, excusing himself, “That it was
reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions.” These and the
like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience,
cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some outward baseness, yet
in a judgment truly made they are to be accounted submissions to the
occasion and not to the person.
IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have intervened
amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is that which is
principal and proper to the present argument; wherein my purpose is not
to make a justification of the errors, but by a censure and separation of
the errors to make a justification of that which is good and sound, and
to deliver that from the aspersion of the other. For we see that it is
the manner of men to scandalise and deprave that which retaineth the
state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is corrupt and
degenerate, as the heathens in the primitive Church used to blemish and
taint the Christians with the faults and corruptions of heretics. But
nevertheless I have no meaning at this time to make any exact
animadversion of the errors and impediments in matters of learning, which
are more secret and remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto
such as do fall under or near unto a popular observation.
(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby
learning hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem vain
which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth or
no use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either credulous or
curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason as
well as in experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I
may term them) of learning—the first, fantastical learning; the second,
contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning; vain imaginations,
vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the last I will begin.
Martin Luther, conducted, no doubt, by a higher Providence, but in
discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against
the Bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and
finding his own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his
own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times
to his succours to make a party against the present time. So that the
ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long time
slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved. This, by
consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the
languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better
understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and
applying their words. And thereof grew, again, a delight in their manner
of style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing, which was
much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the
propounders of those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the
schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings
were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and
frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit
of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may
call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again, because the great
labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say,
_Execrabilis ista turba_, _quæ non novit legem_), for the winning and
persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request
eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access
into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes
concurring—the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen,
the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching—did bring in
an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began
to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more
after words than matter—more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the
round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the
clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and
figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of
argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew the flowing
and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then
did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator
and Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and
Imitation, and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their
lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all
young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of
learning. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo,
_Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone_; and the echo answered in
Greek, _One_, _Asine_. Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be
utterly despised as barbarous. In sum, the whole inclination and bent of
those times was rather towards copy than weight.
(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when men study
words and not matter; whereof, though I have represented an example of
late times, yet it hath been and will be _secundum majus et minus_ in all
time. And how is it possible but this should have an operation to
discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
men’s works like the first letter of a patent or limited book, which
though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter? It seems to me
that Pygmalion’s frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity;
for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of
reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in
love with a picture.
(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be condemned, to
clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy itself with sensible
and plausible elocution. For hereof we have great examples in Xenophon,
Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree; and hereof
likewise there is great use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of
truth and the deep progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because
it is too early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire
of further search before we come to a just period. But then if a man be
to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of conference,
counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall he find it
prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that manner. But
the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules, when he
saw the image of Adonis, Venus’ minion, in a temple, said in disdain,
_Nil sacri es_; so there is none of Hercules’ followers in learning—that
is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers into truth—but will
despise those delicacies and affectations, as indeed capable of no
divineness. And thus much of the first disease or distemper of learning.
(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former: for as
substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so contrariwise vain
matter is worse than vain words: wherein it seemeth the reprehension of
St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the
times following; and not only respective to divinity, but extensive to
all knowledge: _Devita profanas vocum novitates_, _et oppositiones falsi
nominis scientiæ_. For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected
and falsified science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the
other, the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce
oppositions, and so questions and altercations. Surely, like as many
substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into
worms;—so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and
dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term
them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and
life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality. This
kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who
having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety
of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors
(chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the
cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of
nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite
agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which
are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon
matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh
according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon
itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings
forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread
and work, but of no substance or profit.
(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two sorts: either
in the subject itself that they handle, when it is a fruitless
speculation or controversy (whereof there are no small number both in
divinity and philosophy), or in the manner or method of handling of a
knowledge, which amongst them was this—upon every particular position or
assertion to frame objections, and to those objections, solutions; which
solutions were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions:
whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of the
old man’s faggot, in the bond. For the harmony of a science, supporting
each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation
and suppression of all the smaller sort of objections. But, on the other
side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by
one, you may quarrel with them and bend them and break them at your
pleasure: so that, as was said of Seneca, _Verborum minutiis rerum
frangit pondera_, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen, _Quæstionum
minutiis scientiarum frangunt soliditatem_. For were it not better for a
man in fair room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of
lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle into every corner?
And such is their method, that rests not so much upon evidence of truth
proved by arguments, authorities, similitudes, examples, as upon
particular confutations and solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and
objection; breeding for the most part one question as fast as it solveth
another; even as in the former resemblance, when you carry the light into
one corner, you darken the rest; so that the fable and fiction of Scylla
seemeth to be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge;
which was transformed into a comely virgin for the upper parts; but then
_Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris_: so the generalities of
the schoolmen are for a while good and proportionable; but then when you
descend into their distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb
for the use and benefit of man’s life, they end in monstrous altercations
and barking questions. So as it is not possible but this quality of
knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to
contemn truths upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to
think they are all out of their way which never meet; and when they see
such digladiation about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they
easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, _Verba ista sunt
senum otiosorum_.
(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to their great
thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had joined variety and
universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent
lights, to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge; but as
they are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark
keeping. But as in the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined
to leave the oracle of God’s word, and to vanish in the mixture of their
own inventions; so in the inquisition of nature, they ever left the
oracle of God’s works, and adored the deceiving and deformed images which
the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few received authors or
principles, did represent unto them. And thus much for the second
disease of learning.
(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth deceit or
untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest; as that which doth destroy
the essential form of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of
truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing
no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected. This vice therefore
brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving and aptness to be
deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they appear to be of a
diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning and the other of
simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most part concur: for, as the
verse noteth—
“Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est,”
an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a credulous man
is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe
rumours will as easily augment rumours and add somewhat to them of his
own; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, _Fingunt simul
creduntque_: so great an affinity hath fiction and belief.
(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things weakly
authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the subject: for it
is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact;
or else of matter of art and opinion. As to the former, we see the
experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history;
which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations of
miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and other
holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels and images: which though
they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the
superstitious simplicity of some and the politic toleration of others
holding them but as divine poesies, yet after a period of time, when the
mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives’
fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of
Antichrist, to the great scandal and detriment of religion.
(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and
judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in the writings of
Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught
with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously
untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural philosophy with
the grave and sober kind of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity of
Aristotle is worthy to be observed, that, having made so diligent and
exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with
any vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all
prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into one
book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such
whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or
weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities and
reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the
memory of men.
(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and
opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too much belief is
attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The
sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and confederacy
with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number:
astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless,
the ends or pretences are noble. For astrology pretendeth to discover
that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe
and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural
philosophy from variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and
alchemy pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies
which in mixtures of natures are incorporate. But the derivations and
prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the practices,
are full of error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have
sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring
themselves to auricular traditions and such other devices, to save the
credit of impostures. And yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that
it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable; that,
when he died, told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried
underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground, and
gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and digging the
mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year
following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to
light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as
well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man’s life.
(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors in
sciences, in making them dictators, that their words should stand, and
not consuls, to give advice; the damage is infinite that sciences have
received thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low at a
stay without growth or advancement. For hence it hath come, that in arts
mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth and
perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and time
leeseth and corrupteth. So we see artillery, sailing, printing, and the
like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accommodated and
refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies and sciences of Aristotle,
Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at
the first, and by time degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason is no
other, but that in the former many wits and industries have contributed
in one; and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about
the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved than
illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the level of the
first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so knowledge derived from
Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of examination, will not rise again
higher than the knowledge of Aristotle. And, therefore, although the
position be good, _Oportet discentem credere_, yet it must be coupled
with this, _Oportet edoctum judicare_; for disciples do owe unto masters
only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own judgment till they
be fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual
captivity; and therefore, to conclude this point, I will say no more, but
so let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of
authors, be not deprived of his due—which is, further and further to
discover truth. Thus have I gone over these three diseases of learning;
besides the which there are some other rather peccant humours than formed
diseases, which, nevertheless, are not so secret and intrinsic, but that
they fall under a popular observation and traducement, and, therefore,
are not to be passed over.