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