Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam,
Multa tulit fecitque puer. Hon. De Ar. Poet. 412.
The youth, who hopes th' Olympic prize to gain,
All arts must try, and every toil sustain. FRANCIS.
IT is observed by Bacon, that "reading makes a
full man, conversation a ready man, and writing
an exact man."
As Bacon attained to degrees of knowledge
scarcely ever reached by any other man, the directions
which he gives for study have certainly a just
claim to our regard; for who can teach an art with
so great authority, as he that has practised it with
undisputed success?
Under the protection of so great a name, I shall,
therefore, venture to inculcate to my ingenious
contemporaries, the necessity of reading, the fitness of
consulting other understandings than their own, and
of considering the sentiments and opinions of those
who, however neglected in the present age, had in
their own times, and many of them a long time
afterwards, such reputation for knowledge and acuteness
as will scarcely ever be attained by those that
despise them.
An opinion has of late been, I know not how,
propagated among us, that libraries are filled only
with useless lumber; that men of parts stand in need
of no assistance; and that to spend life in poring upon
books, is only to imbibe prejudices, to obstruct and
embarrass the powers of nature, to cultivate memory
at the expense of judgment, and to bury reason
under a chaos of indigested learning.
Such is the talk of many who think themselves
wise, and of some who are thought wise by others;
of whom part probably believe their own tenets, and
part may be justly suspected of endeavouring to
shelter their ignorance in multitudes, and of wishing to
destroy that reputation which they have no hopes
to share. It will, I believe, be found invariably true,
that learning was never decried by any learned man;
and what credit can be given to those who venture
to condemn that which they do not know?
If reason has the power ascribed to it by its
advocates, if so much is to be discovered by attention
and meditation, it is hard to believe, that so many
millions, equally participating of the bounties of
nature with ourselves, have been for ages upon ages
meditating in vain: if the wits of the present time
expect the regard of posterity, which will then
inherit the reason which is now thought superior to
instruction, surely they may allow themselves to be
instructed by the reason of former generations.
When, therefore, an author declares, that he has
been able to learn nothing from the writings of his
predecessors, and such a declaration has been lately
made, nothing but a degree of arrogance unpardonable
in the greatest human understanding, can
hinder him from perceiving that he is raising
prejudices against his own performance; for with what
hopes of success can he attempt that in which
greater abilities have hitherto miscarried? or with
what peculiar force does he suppose himself invigorated,
that difficulties hitherto invincible should give
way before him?
Of those whom Providence has qualified to make
any additions to human knowledge, the number is
extremely small; and what can be added by each
single mind, even of this superior class, is very
little: the greatest part of mankind must owe all
their knowledge, and all must owe far the larger
part of it, to the information of others. To understand
the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend
their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a
task more than equal to common intellects; and
he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle,
who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge,
and can detail it occasionally to others who have
less leisure or weaker abilities.
Persius has justly observed, that knowledge is
nothing to him who is not known by others to
possess it[k]: to the scholar himself it is nothing
with respect either to honor or advantage, for the
world cannot reward those qualities which are
concealed from it; with respect to others it is nothing,
because it affords no help to ignorance or errour.
[k] Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter.
Sat. i. 27.
It is with justice, therefore, that in an
accomplished character, Horace unites just sentiments
with the power of expressing them; and he that
has once accumulated learning, is next to consider,
how he shall most widely diffuse and most agreeably
impart it.
A ready man is made by conversation. He that
buries himself among his manuscripts, "besprent,"
as Pope expresses it, "with learned dust," and
wears out his days and nights in perpetual research
and solitary meditation, is too apt to lose in his
elocution what he adds to his wisdom; and when
he comes into the world, to appear overloaded with
his own notions, like a man armed with weapons
which he cannot wield. He has no facility of
inculcating his speculations, of adapting himself to the
various degrees of intellect which the accidents of
conversation will present; but will talk to most
unintelligibly, and to all unpleasantly.
I was once present at the lectures of a profound
philosopher, a man really skilled in the science
which he professed, who having occasion to explain
the terms opacum and pellucidum, told us, after
some hesitation, that opacum was, as one might
say, opake, and that pellucidum signified pellucid.
Such was the dexterity with which this learned
reader facilitated to his auditors the intricacies of
science; and so true is it, that a man may know what
he cannot teach.
Boerhaave complains, that the writers who have
treated of chymistry before him, are useless to the
greater part of students, because they presuppose
their readers to have such degrees of skill as are not
often to be found. Into the same errour are all men
apt to fall, who have familiarized any subject to
themselves in solitude: they discourse, as if they
thought every other man had been employed in the
same inquiries; and expect that short hints and
obscure allusions will produce in others the same train
of ideas which they excite in themselves.
Nor is this the only inconvenience which the man
of study suffers from a recluse life. When he meets
with an opinion that pleases him, he catches it up
with eagerness; looks only after such arguments as
tend to his confirmation; or spares himself the
trouble of discussion, and adopts it with very little
proof; indulges it long without suspicion, and in
time unites it to the general body of his knowledge,
and treasures it up among incontestable truths:
but when he comes into the world among men who,
arguing upon dissimilar principles, have been led to
different conclusions, and being placed in various
situations, view the same object on many sides; he
finds his darling position attacked, and himself in
no condition to defend it: having thought always
in one train, he is in the state of a man who having
fenced always with the same master, is perplexed
and amazed by a new posture of his antagonist; he
is entangled in unexpected difficulties, he is harassed
by sudden objections, he is unprovided with solutions
or replies; his surprise impedes his natural
powers of reasoning, his thoughts are scattered and
confounded, and he gratifies the pride of airy
petulance with an easy victory.
It is difficult to imagine, with what obstinacy
truths which one mind perceives almost by intuition,
will be rejected by another; and how many
artifices must be practised, to procure admission for
the most evident propositions into understandings
frighted by their novelty, or hardened against them
by accidental prejudice; it can scarcely be conceived,
how frequently, in these extemporaneous controversies,
the dull will be subtle, and the acute absurd;
how often stupidity will elude the force of
argument, by involving itself in its own gloom; and
mistaken ingenuity will weave artful fallacies, which
reason can scarcely find means to disentangle.
In these encounters the learning of the recluse
usually fails him: nothing but long habit and frequent
experiments can confer the power of changing
a position into various forms, presenting it in
different points of view, connecting it with known
and granted truths, fortifying it with intelligible
arguments, and illustrating it by apt similitudes;
and he, therefore, that has collected his knowledge
in solitude, must learn its application by mixing
with mankind.
But while the various opportunities of conversation
invite us to try every mode of argument, and
every art of recommending our sentiments, we are
frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in
themselves strictly defensible: a man heated in talk,
and eager of victory, takes advantage of the mistakes
or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of
concessions to which he knows he has no right, and
urges proofs likely to prevail on his opponent, though
he knows himself that they have no force: thus the
severity of reason is relaxed, many topicks are
accumulated, but without just arrangement or
distinction; we learn to satisfy ourselves with such
ratiocination as silences others; and seldom recall to
a close examination, that discourse which has gratified
our vanity with victory and applause.
Some caution, therefore, must be used lest
copiousness and facility be made less valuable by inaccuracy
and confusion. To fix the thoughts by writing, and
subject them to frequent examinations and reviews,
is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its
own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the
fallacies which it practises on others: in conversation we
naturally diffuse our thoughts, and in writing we
contract them; method is the excellence of writing,
and unconstraint the grace of conversation.
To read, write, and converse in due proportions,
is, therefore, the business of a man of letters. For
all these there is not often equal opportunity;
excellence, therefore, is not often attainable; and most
men fail in one or other of the ends proposed, and
are full without readiness, or without exactness.
Some deficiency must be forgiven all, because all
are men; and more must be allowed to pass uncensured
in the greater part of the world, because none
can confer upon himself abilities, and few have the
choice of situations proper for the improvement of
those which nature has bestowed: it is, however,
reasonable to have PERFECTION in our eye; that we may
always advance towards it, though we know it never
can be reached.