On the Dignity and Advancement of Learning, First Book

The Different Objections to Learning stated and confuted; its Dignity and Merit maintained

AS UNDER the old law, most excellent king, there were daily sacrifices and free oblations—the one arising out of ritual observance, and the other from a pious generosity, so I deem that all faithful subjects owe their kings a double tribute of affection and duty. In the first I hope I shall never be found deficient, but as regards the latter, though doubtful of the worthiness of my choice, I thought it more befitting to tender to your Majesty that service which rather refers to the excellence of your individual person than to the business of the State.

In bearing your Majesty in mind, as is frequently my custom and duty, I have been often struck with admiration, apart from your other gifts of virtue and fortune, at the surprising development of that part of your nature which philosophers call intellectual. The deep and broad capacity of your mind, the grasp of your memory, the quickness of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, your lucid method of arrangement, and easy facility of speech—at such extraordinary endowments I am forcibly reminded of the saying of Plato, “that all science is but remembrance,” and that the human mind is originally imbued with all knowledge; that which she seems adventitiously to acquire in life being nothing more than a return to her first conceptions, which had been overlaid by the grossness of the body. In no person so much as your Majesty does this opinion appear more fully confirmed, your soul being apt to kindle at the intrusion of the slightest object; and even at the spark of a thought foreign to the purpose to burst into flame. As the Scripture says of the wisest king, “That his heart was as the sands of the sea,” which, though one of the largest bodies, contains the finest and smallest particles of matter. In like manner God has endowed your Majesty with a mind capable of grasping the largest subjects and comprehending the least, though such an instrument seems an impossibility in nature. As regards your readiness of speech, I am reminded of that saying of Tacitus concerning Augustus Cæsar, “Augusto profluens ut quæ principem virum deceret, eloquentia fuit.” For all eloquence which is affected or overlabored, or merely imitative, though otherwise excellent, carries with it an air of servility, nor is it free to follow its own impulses. But your Majesty’s eloquence is indeed royal, streaming and branching out in nature’s fashion as from a fountain, copious and elegant, original and inimitable. And as in those things which concern your crown and family, virtue seems to contend with fortune—your Majesty being possessed of a virtuous disposition and a prosperous government, a virtuous observance of the duties of the conjugal state with most blessed and happy fruit of marriage, a virtuous and most Christian desire of peace at a time when contemporary princes seem no less inclined to harmony—so likewise in intellectual gifts there appears as great a contention between your Majesty’s natural talents and the universality and perfection of your learning. Nor indeed would it be easy to find any monarch since the Christian era who could bear any comparison with your Majesty in the variety and depth of your erudition. Let any one run over the whole line of kings, and he will agree with me. It indeed seems a great thing in a monarch, if he can find time to digest a compendium or imbibe the simple elements of science, or love and countenance learning; but that a king, and he a king born, should have drunk at the true fountain of knowledge, yea, rather, should have a fountain of learning in himself, is indeed little short of a miracle. And the more since in your Majesty’s heart are united all the treasures of sacred and profane knowledge, so that like Hermes your Majesty is invested with a triple glory, being distinguished no less by the power of a king than by the illumination of a priest and the learning of a philosopher. Since, then, your Majesty surpasses other monarchs by this property, which is peculiarly your own, it is but just that this dignified pre-eminence should not only be celebrated in the mouths of the present age, and be transmitted to posterity, but also that it should be engraved in some solid work which might serve to denote the power of so great a king and the height of his learning.

Therefore, to return to our undertaking: no oblation seemed more suitable than some treatise relating to that purpose, the sum of which should consist of two parts—the first of the excellence of learning, and the merit of those who labor judiciously and with energy for its propagation and development. The second, to point out what part of knowledge has been already labored and perfected, and what portions left unfinished or entirely neglected; in order, since I dare not positively advise your Majesty to adopt any particular course, that by a detailed representation of our wants, I may excite your Majesty to examine the treasures of your royal heart, and thence to extract, whatever to your magnanimity and wisdom may seem best fitted to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge.

On the threshold of the first part it is advisable to sift the merits of knowledge, and clear it of the disgrace brought upon it by ignorance, whether disguised (1) in the zeal of divines, (2) the arrogance of politicians, or (3) the errors of men of letters.

Some divines pretend, 1. “That knowledge is to be received with great limitation, as the aspiring to it was the original sin, and the cause of the fall; 2. That it has somewhat of the serpent, and puffeth up”; 3. That Solomon says, “Of making books there is no end: much study is weariness of the flesh; for in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow”: 4. “That St. Paul cautions being spoiled through vain philosophy”: 5. “That experience shows learned men have been heretics; and learned times inclined to atheism; and that the contemplation of second causes takes from our dependence upon God, who is the first.”

To this we answer, 1. It was not the pure knowledge of nature, by the light whereof man gave names to all the creatures in Paradise, agreeable to their natures, that occasioned the fall; but the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give law to himself, and depend no more upon God. 2. Nor can any quantity of natural knowledge puff up the mind; for nothing fills, much less distends the soul, but God. Whence as Solomon declares, “That the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing”; so of knowledge itself he says, “God hath made all things beautiful in 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”; hereby declaring plainly that God has framed the mind like a glass, capable of the image of the universe, and desirous to receive it as the eye to receive the light; and thus it is not only pleased with the variety and vicissitudes of things, but also endeavors to find out the laws they observe in their changes and alterations. And if such be the extent of the mind, there is no danger of filling it with any quantity of knowledge. But it is merely from its quality when taken without the true corrective that knowledge has somewhat of venom or malignity. The corrective which renders it sovereign is charity, for according to St. Paul, “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth.” 3. For the excess of writing and reading books, the anxiety of spirit proceeding from knowledge, and the admonition that we be not seduced by vain philosophy; when these passages are rightly understood, they mark out the boundaries of human knowledge, so as to comprehend the universal nature of things. These limitations are three: the first, that we should not place our felicity in knowledge, so as to forget mortality; the second, that we use knowledge so as to give ourselves ease and content, not distaste and repining; and the third, that we presume not by the contemplation of nature, to attain to the mysteries of God. As to the first, Solomon excellently says, “I saw that wisdom excelleth folly as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head but the fool walketh in darkness; and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.” And for the second, it is certain that no vexation or anxiety of mind results from knowledge, but merely by accident; all knowledge, and admiration, which is the seed of knowledge, being pleasant in itself; but when we frame conclusions from our knowledge, apply them to our own particular, and thence minister to ourselves weak fears or vast desires; then comes on that anxiety and trouble of mind which is here meant—when knowledge is no longer the dry light of Heraclitus, but the drenched one, steeped in the humors of the affections. 4. The third point deserves to be more dwelt upon; for if any man shall think, by his inquiries after material things, to discover the nature or will of God, he is indeed spoiled by vain philosophy; for the contemplation of God’s works produces knowledge, though, with regard to him, not perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken knowledge. It may, therefore, be properly said, “That the sense resembles the sun, which shows the terrestrial globe, but conceals the celestial”; for thus the sense discovers natural things, while it shuts up divine. And hence some learned men have, indeed, been heretical, while they sought to seize the secrets of the Deity borne on the waxen wings of the senses. 5. As to the point that too much knowledge should incline to atheism, and the ignorance of second causes make us more dependent upon God, we ask Job’s question, “Will ye lie for God, as one man will do for another, to gratify him?” For certainly God works nothing in nature but by second causes; and to assert the contrary is mere imposture, as it were, in favor of God, and offering up to the author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. Undoubtedly a superficial tincture of philosophy may incline the mind to atheism, yet a further knowledge brings it back to religion; for on the threshold of philosophy, where second causes appear to absorb the attention, some oblivion of the highest cause may ensue; but when the mind goes deeper, and sees the dependence of causes and the works of Providence, it will easily perceive, according to the mythology of the poets, that the upper link of Nature’s chain is fastened to Jupiter’s throne. To conclude, let no one weakly imagine that man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, and works, divinity, and philosophy; but rather let them endeavor an endless progression in both, only applying all to charity, and not to pride—to use, not ostentation, without confounding the two different streams of philosophy and revelation together.

The reflections cast upon learning by politicians, are these. 1. “That it enervates men’s minds, and unfits them for arms; 2. That it perverts their dispositions for government and politics; 3. That it makes them too curious and irresolute, by variety of reading; too peremptory or positive by strictness of rules; too immoderate and conceited by the greatness of instances; too unsociable and incapacitated for the times, by the dissimilitude of examples; or at least, 4. That it diverts from action and business, and leads to a love of retirement; 5. That it introduces a relaxation in government, as every man is more ready to argue than obey; whence Cato the censor—when Carneades came ambassador to Rome, and the young Romans, allured with his eloquence, flocked about him—gave counsel in open senate, to grant him his despatch immediately, lest he should infect the minds of the youth, and insensibly occasion an alteration in the State.”

The same conceit is manifest in Virgil, who, preferring the honor of his country to that of his profession, challenged the arts of policy in the Romans, as something superior to letters, the pre-eminence in which, he freely assigns to the Grecians.

And we also observe that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, charged him in his impeachment with destroying, in the minds of young men, by his rhetorical arts, all authority and reverence for the laws of the country.

1. But these and the like imputations have rather a show of gravity, than any just ground; for experience shows that learning and arms have flourished in the same persons and ages. As to persons, there are no better instances than Alexander and Cæsar, the one Aristotle’s scholar in philosophy, and the other Cicero’s rival in eloquence; and again, Epaminondas and Xenophon, the one whereof first abated the power of Sparta, and the other first paved the way for subverting the Persian monarchy. This concurrence of learning and arms, is yet more visible in times than in persons, as an age exceeds a man. For in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the times most famous for arms are likewise most admired for learning; so that the greatest authors and philosophers, the greatest leaders and governors, have lived in the same ages. Nor can it well be otherwise; for as the fulness of human strength, both in body and mind, comes nearly at an age; so arms and learning, one whereof corresponds to the body, the other to the soul, have a near concurrence in point of time.

2. And that learning should rather prove detrimental than serviceable in the art of government, seems very improbable. It is wrong to trust the natural body to empirics, who commonly have a few receipts whereon they rely, but who know neither the causes of diseases, nor the constitutions of patients, nor the danger of accidents, nor the true methods of cure. And so it must needs be dangerous to have the civil body of States managed by empirical statesmen, unless well mixed with others who are grounded in learning. On the contrary, it is almost without instance, that any government was unprosperous under learned governors. For however common it has been with politicians to discredit learned men, by the name of pedants, yet it appears from history, that the governments of princes in minority have excelled the governments of princes in maturity, merely because the management was in learned hands. The State of Rome for the first five years, so much magnified, during the minority of Nero, was in the hands of Seneca, a pedant: so it was for ten years, during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great applause in the hands of Misitheus, a pedant; and it was as happy before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus, under the rule of women, assisted by preceptors. And to look into the government of the bishops of Rome, particularly that of Pius and Sextus Quintus, who were both at their entrance esteemed but pedantical friars, we shall find that such popes did greater things, and proceeded upon truer principles of state, than those who rose to the papacy from an education in civil affairs, and the courts of princes. For though men bred to learning are perhaps at a loss in points of convenience, and present accommodations, called reasons of state, yet they are perfect in the plain grounds of religion, justice, honor, and moral virtue, which, if well pursued, there will be as little use of reasons of state, as of physic in a healthy constitution. Nor can the experience of one man’s life furnish examples and precedents for another’s: present occurrences frequently correspond to ancient examples, better than to later. And lastly, the genius of any single man can no more equal learning, than a private purse hold way with the exchequer.

3. As to the particular indispositions of the mind for politics and government, laid to the charge of learning, if they are allowed of any force, it must be remembered, that learning affords more remedies than it breeds diseases; for if, by a secret operation, it renders men perplexed and irresolute, on the other hand, by plain precept, it teaches when, and upon what grounds, to resolve, and how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice: if it makes men positive and stiff, it shows what things are in their nature demonstrative, what conjectural; and teaches the use of distinctions and exceptions, as well as the rigidness of principles and rules. If it misleads, by the unsuitableness of examples, it shows the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and the cautions of application; so that in all cases, it rectifies more effectually than it perverts: and these remedies it conveys into the mind much more effectually by the force and variety of examples. Let a man look into the errors of Clement the Seventh, so livelily described by Guicciardini; or into those of Cicero, described by himself in his epistles to Atticus, and he will fly from being irresolute: let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will beware of obstinacy or inflexibility: let him read the fable of Ixion, and it will keep him from conceitedness: let him look into the errors of the second Cato, and he will never tread opposite to the world.

4. For the pretence that learning disposes to retirement, privacy, and sloth; it were strange if what accustoms the mind to perpetual motion and agitation should induce indolence; whereas no kind of men love business, for its own sake, but the learned; while others love it for profit, as hirelings for the wages; others for honor; others because it bears them up in the eyes of men, and refreshes their reputations, which would otherwise fade; or because it reminds them of their fortune, and gives them opportunities of revenging and obliging; or because it exercises some faculty, wherein they delight, and so keeps them in good humor with themselves. Whence, as false valor lies in the eyes of the beholders, such men’s industry lies in the eyes of others, or is exercised with a view to their own designs; while the learned love business, as an action according to nature, and agreeable to the health of the mind, as exercise is to that of the body: so that, of all men, they are the most indefatigable in such business as may deservedly fill and employ the mind. And if there are any laborious in study, yet idle in business, this proceeds either from a weakness of body, or a softness of disposition, and not from learning itself, as Seneca remarks, “Quidam tam sunt umbratiles ut putent in turbido esse, quicquid in luce est.” The consciousness of such a disposition may indeed incline a man to learning, but learning does not breed any such temper in him.

If it be objected, that learning takes up much time, which might be better employed, I answer that the most active or busy men have many vacant hours, while they expect the tides and returns of business; and then the question is, how those spaces of leisure shall be filled up, whether with pleasure or study? Demosthenes being taunted by Æschines, a man of pleasure, that his speeches smelt of the lamp, very pertly retorted, “There is great difference between the objects which you and I pursue by lamplight.” No fear, therefore, that learning should displace business, for it rather keeps and defends the mind against idleness and pleasure, which might otherwise enter to the prejudice both of business and learning. 5. For the allegation that learning should undermine the reverence due to laws and government, it is a mere calumny, without shadow of truth; for to say that blind custom of obedience should be a safer obligation than duty, taught and understood, is to say that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a man with his eyes open can by a light. And, doubtless, learning makes the mind gentle and pliable to government, whereas ignorance renders it churlish and mutinous; and it is always found that the most barbarous, rude, and ignorant times have been most tumultuous, changeable, and seditious.

6. As to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was punished for his contempt of learning, in the kind wherein he offended, for when past threescore the humor took him to learn Greek, which shows that his former censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity than his inward sense. And, indeed, the Romans never arrived at their height of empire till they had arrived at their height of arts; for in the time of the first two Cæsars, when their government was in its greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgil; the best historiographer, Livy; the best antiquary, Varro; and the best, or second best orator, Cicero, that the world has known. And as to the persecution of Socrates, the time must be remembered in which it occurred, viz., under the reign of the Thirty Tyrants, of all mortals the bloodiest and basest that ever reigned, since the government had no sooner returned to its senses than that judgment was reversed. Socrates, from being a criminal, started at once into a hero, his memory loaded with honors human and divine, and his discourses, which had been previously stigmatized as immoral and profane, were considered as the reformers of thought and manners. And let this suffice as an answer to those politicians who have presumed, whether sportively or in earnest, to disparage learning.

We come now to that sort of discredit which is brought upon learning by learned men themselves; and this proceeds either (1) from their fortune, (2) their manners, or (3) the nature of their studies.

1. The disrepute of learning from the fortune or condition of the learned, regards either their indigence, retirement, or meanness of employ. As to the point, that learned men grow not so soon rich as others, because they convert not their labors to profit, we might turn it over to the friars, of whom Machiavel said, “That the kingdom of the clergy had been long since at an end, if the reputation and reverence toward the poverty of the monks and mendicants had not borne out the excesses of bishops and prelates.” For so the splendor and magnificence of the great had long since sunk into rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learned men had not kept up civility and reputation. But to drop such advantages, it is worth observing how reverend and sacred poverty was esteemed for some ages in the Roman State, since, as Livy says, “There never was a republic greater, more venerable, and more abounding in good examples than the Roman, nor one that so long withstood avarice and luxury, or so much honored poverty and parsimony.” And we see, when Rome degenerated, how Julius Cæsar after his victory was counselled to begin the restoration of the State, by abolishing the reputation of wealth. And, indeed, as we truly say that blushing is the livery of virtue, though it may sometimes proceed from guilt, so it holds true of poverty that it is the attendant of virtue, though sometimes it may proceed from mismanagement and accident.

As for retirement, it is a theme so common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, for the liberty, the pleasure, and the freedom from indignity it affords, that every one praises it well, such an agreement it has to the nature and apprehensions of mankind. This may be added, that learned men, forgotten in States and not living in the eyes of the world, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus at the funeral of Junia, which not being represented as many others were, Tacitus said of them that “they outshone the rest, because not seen.”

As for their meanness of employ, that most exposed to contempt is the education of youth, to which they are commonly allotted. But how unjust this reflection is to all who measure things, not by popular opinion, but by reason, will appear in the fact that men are more careful what they put into new vessels than into those already seasoned. It is manifest that things in their weakest state usually demand our best attention and assistance. Hearken to the Hebrew rabbis: “Your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams”; upon which the commentators observe, that youth is the worthier age, inasmuch as revelation by vision is clearer than by dreams. And to say the truth, how much soever the lives of pedants have been ridiculed upon the stage, as the emblem of tyranny, because the modern looseness or negligence has not duly regarded the choice of proper schoolmasters and tutors; yet the wisdom of the ancientest and best times always complained that States were too busy with laws and too remiss in point of education. This excellent part of ancient discipline, has in some measure been revived of late by the colleges of Jesuits abroad; in regard of whose diligence in fashioning the morals and cultivating the minds of youth, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabasus, “Talis quum sis, utinam noster esses.”

2. The manners of learned men belong rather to their individual persons than to their studies or pursuits. No doubt, as in all other professions and conditions of life, bad and good are to be found among them; yet it must be admitted that learning and studies, unless they fall in with very depraved dispositions, have, in conformity with the adage, “Abire studia in mores,” a moral influence upon men’s lives. For my part I cannot find that any disgrace to learning can proceed from the habits of learned men, inherent in them as learned, unless peradventure that may be a fault which was attributed to Demosthenes, Cicero, the second Cato, and many others, that seeing the times they read of more pure than their own, pushed their servility too far in the reformation of manners, and to seek to impose, by austere precepts, the laws of ancient asceticism upon dissolute times. Yet even antiquity should have forewarned them of this excess; for Solon, upon being asked if he had given his citizens the best laws, replied, “The best they were capable of receiving.” And Plato, finding that he had fallen upon corrupt times, refused to take part in the administration of the commonwealth, saying that a man should treat his country with the same forbearance as his parents, and recall her from a wrong course, not by violence or contest, but by entreaty and persuasion. Cæsar’s counsellor administers the same caveat in the words, “Non ad vetera instituta revocamus quæ jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt.” Cicero points out the same error in the second Cato, when writing to his friend Atticus: “Cato optime sentit sed nocet interdum Reipublicæ; loquitur enim tanquam in Republica Platonis, non tanquam in fæce Romuli.” The same orator likewise excuses and blames the philosophers for being too exact in their precepts. These preceptors, said he, have stretched the lines and limits of duties beyond their natural boundaries, thinking that we might safely reform when we had reached the highest point of perfection. And yet himself stumbled over the same stone, so that he might have said, “Monitis sum minor ipse meis.”

3. Another fault laid to the charge of learned men, and arising from the nature of their studies, is, “That they esteem the preservation, good, and honor of their country before their own fortunes or safeties.” Demosthenes said well to the Athenians, “My counsels are not such as tend to aggrandize myself and diminish you, but sometimes not expedient for me to give, though always expedient for you to follow.” So Seneca, after consecrating the five years of Nero’s minority to the immortal glory of learned governors, held on his honest course of good counsel after his master grew extremely corrupt. Nor can this be otherwise; for learning gives men a true sense of their frailty, the casualty of fortune, and the dignity of the soul and its office; whence they cannot think any greatness of fortune a worthy end of their living, and therefore live so as to give a clear and acceptable account to God and their superiors; while the corrupter sort of politicians, who are not by learning established in a love of duty, nor ever look abroad into universality, refer all things to themselves, and thrust their persons into the centre of the world, as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes, without regarding in storms what becomes of the ship of the State, if they can save themselves in the cock-boat of their own fortune.

Another charge brought against learned men, which may rather be defended than denied, is, “That they sometimes fail in making court to particular persons.” This want of application arises from two causes—the one the largeness of their mind, which can hardly submit to dwell in the examination and observance of any one person. It is the speech of a lover rather than of a wise man, “Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus.” Nevertheless he who cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as dilate it, wants a great talent in life. The second cause is, no inability, but a rejection upon choice and judgment; for the honest and just limits of observation in one person upon another extend no further than to understand him sufficiently, so as to give him no offence, or be able to counsel him, or to stand upon reasonable guard and caution with respect to one’s self; but to pry deep into another man, to learn to work, wind, or govern him, proceeds from a double heart, which in friendship is want of integrity, and toward princes or superiors want of duty. The eastern custom which forbids subjects to gaze upon princes, though in the outward ceremony barbarous, has a good moral; for men ought not, by cunning and studied observations, to penetrate and search into the hearts of kings, which the Scripture declares inscrutable.

Another fault noted in learned men is, “That they often fail in point of discretion and decency of behavior, and commit errors in ordinary actions, whence vulgar capacities judge of them in greater matters by what they find them in small.” But this consequence often deceives; for we may here justly apply the saying of Themistocles, who being asked to touch a lute, replied, “He could not fiddle, but he could make a little village a great city.” Accordingly many may be well skilled in government and policy, who are defective in little punctilios. So Plato compared his master Socrates to the shop-pots of apothecaries painted on the outside with apes and owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious remedies.

But we have nothing to offer in excuse of those unworthy practices, whereby some professors have debased both themselves and learning, as the trencher philosophers, who, in the decline of the Roman State, were but a kind of solemn parasites. Lucian makes merry with this kind of gentry, in the person of a philosopher riding in a coach with a great lady, who would needs have him carry her lapdog, which he doing with an awkward officiousness, the page said, “He feared the Stoic would turn Cynic.” But above all, the gross flattery wherein many abuse their wit, by turning Hecuba into Hellena, and Faustina into Lucretia, has most diminished the value and esteem of learning. Neither is the modern practice of dedications commendable; for books should have no patrons but truth and reason. And the ancient custom was, to dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or if to kings and great persons, it was to such as the subject suited. These and the like measures, therefore, deserve rather to be censured than defended. Yet the submission of learned men to those in power cannot be condemned. Diogenes, to one who asked him “How it happened that philosophers followed the rich, and not the rich the philosophers?” answered, “Because the philosophers know what they want, but the rich do not.” And of the like nature was the answer of Aristippus, who having a petition to Dionysius, and no ear being given him, fell down at his feet, whereupon Dionysius gave him the hearing, and granted the suit; but when afterward Aristippus was reproved for offering such an indignity to philosophy as to fall at a tyrant’s feet, he replied, “It was not his fault if Dionysius’ ears were in his feet,” Nor was it accounted weakness, but discretion, in him that would not dispute his best with the Emperor Adrian, excusing himself, “That it was reasonable to yield to one that commanded thirty legions.” These and the like condescensions to points of necessity and convenience, cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some show of external meanness, yet in a judgment truly made, they are submissions to the occasion, and not to the person.

We proceed to the errors and vanities intermixed with the studies of learned men, wherein the design is not to countenance such errors, but, by a censure and separation thereof to justify what is sound and good; for it is the manner of men, especially the evil-minded, to depreciate what is excellent and virtuous, by taking advantage over what is corrupt and degenerate. We reckon three principal vanities for which learning has been traduced. Those things are vain which are either false or frivolous, or deficient in truth or use; and those persons are vain who are either credulous of falsities or curious in things of little use. But curiosity consists either in matter or words, that is, either in taking pains about vain things, or too much labor about the delicacy of language. There are, therefore, in reason as well as experience, three distempers of learning; viz., vain affectations, vain disputes, and vain imaginations, or effeminate learning, contentious learning, and fantastical learning.

The first disease, which consists in a luxuriance of style, has been anciently esteemed at different times, but strangely prevailed about the time of Luther, who, finding how great a task he had undertaken against the degenerate traditions of the Church, and being unassisted by the opinions of his own age, was forced to awake antiquity to make a party for him; whence the ancient authors both in divinity and the humanities, that had long slept in libraries, began to be generally read. This brought on a necessity of greater application to the original languages wherein those authors wrote, for the better understanding and application of their works. Hence also proceeded a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an admiration of this kind of writing, which was much increased by the enmity now grown up against the schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary party, and whose writings were in a very different style and form, as taking the liberty to coin new and strange words, to avoid circumlocution and express their sentiments acutely, without regard to purity of diction and justness of phrase. And again, because the great labor then was to win and persuade the people, eloquence and variety of discourse grew into request as most suitable for the pulpit, and best adapted to the capacity of the vulgar; so that these four causes concurring, viz., 1, admiration of the ancients; 2, enmity to the schoolmen; 3, an exact study of languages; and 4, a desire of powerful preaching—introduced an affected study of eloquence and copiousness of speech, which then began to flourish. This soon grew to excess, insomuch that men studied more after words than matter, more after the choiceness of phrase, and the round and neat composition, sweet cadence of periods, the use of tropes and figures, than after weight of matter, dignity of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew into esteem the flowing and watery vein of Orosius, the Portugal bishop; then did Sturmius bestow such infinite pains upon Cicero and Hermogenes; then did Car and Ascham, in their lectures and writings, almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes; then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be utterly despised as barbarous; and the whole bent of those times was rather upon fulness than weight.

Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter; and though we have given an example of it from later times, yet such levities have and will be found more or less in all ages. And this must needs discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned men’s works appear like the first letter of a patent, which, though finely flourished, is still but a letter. Pygmalion’s frenzy seems a good emblem of this vanity; for words are but the images of matter, and unless they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is to fall in love with a picture.

Yet the illustrating the obscurities of philosophy with sensible and plausible elocution is not hastily to be condemned; for hereof we have eminent examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and Plato; and the thing itself is of great use; for although it be some hindrance to the severe inquiry after truth, and the further progress in philosophy, that it should too early prove satisfactory to the mind, and quench the desire of further search, before a just period is made; yet when we have occasion for learning and knowledge in civil life, as for conference, counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, we find it ready prepared to our hands in the authors who have wrote in this way. But the excess herein is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules, when he saw the statue of Adonis, who was the delight of Venus, in the temple, said with indignation, “There is no divinity in thee”; so all the followers of Hercules in learning, that is, the more severe and laborious inquirers after truth, will despise these delicacies and affectations as trivial and effeminate.

The luxuriant style was succeeded by another, which, though more chaste, has still its vanity, as turning wholly upon pointed expressions and short periods, so as to appear concise and round rather than diffusive; by which contrivance the whole looks more ingenious than it is. Seneca used this kind of style profusely, but Tacitus and Pliny with greater moderation. It has also begun to render itself acceptable in our time. But to say the truth, its admirers are only the men of a middle genius, who think it adds a dignity to learning; while those of solid judgment justly reject it as a certain disease of learning, since it is no more than a jingle, or peculiar quaint affectation of words. And so much for the first disease of learning.

The second disease is worse in its nature than the former; for as the dignity of matter exceeds the beauty of words, so vanity in matter is worse than vanity in words; whence the precept of St. Paul is at all times seasonable: “Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.” He assigns two marks of suspected and falsified science: the one, novelty and strangeness of terms; the other, strictness of positions; which necessarily induces oppositions, and thence questions and altercations. And indeed, as many solid substances putrefy, and turn into worms, so does sound knowledge often putrefy into a number of subtle, idle, and vermicular questions, that have a certain quickness of life, and spirit, but no strength of matter, or excellence of quality. This kind of degenerate learning chiefly reigned among the schoolmen; who, having subtle and strong capacities, abundance of leisure, and but small variety of reading, their minds being shut up in a few authors, as their bodies were in the cells of their monasteries, and thus kept ignorant both of the history of nature and times; they, with infinite agitation of wit, spun out of a small quantity of matter, those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the human mind, if it acts upon matter, and contemplates the nature of things, and the works of God, operates according to the stuff, and is limited thereby; but if it works upon itself, as the spider does, then it has no end; but produces cobwebs of learning, admirable indeed for the fineness of the thread, but of no substance or profit.

This unprofitable subtilty is of two kinds, and appears either in the subject, when that is fruitless speculation or controversy, or in the manner of treating it, which among them was this: Upon every particular position they framed objections, and to those objections solutions; which solutions were generally not confutations, but distinctions; whereas the strength of all sciences is like the strength of a fagot bound. For the harmony of science, when each part supports the other, is the true and short confutation of all the smaller objections; on the contrary, to 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 pleasure: whence, as it was said of Seneca, that he “weakened the weight of things by trivial expression,” we may truly say of the schoolmen, “That they broke the solidity of the sciences by the minuteness of their questions.” For, were it not better to set up one large light in a noble room, than to go about with a small one, to illuminate every corner thereof? Yet such is the method of schoolmen, that rests not so much upon the evidence of truth from arguments, authorities, and examples, as upon particular confutations and solutions of every scruple and objection; which breeds one question, as fast as it solves another; just as in the above example, when the light is carried into one corner, it darknes the rest. Whence the fable of Scylla seems a lively image of this kind of philosophy, who was transformed into a beautiful virgin upward, while barking monsters surrounded her below—

“Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris.”

So the generalities of the schoolmen are for a while fair and proportionable; but to descend into their distinctions and decisions, they end in monstrous altercations and barking questions. Whence this kind of knowledge must necessarily fall under popular contempt; for the people are ever apt to contemn truth, upon account of the controversies raised about it; and so think those all in the wrong way, who never meet. And when they see such quarrels about subtilties and matters of no use, they usually give in to the judgment of Dionysius, “That it is old men’s idle talk.” But if those schoolmen, to their great thirst of truth, and unwearied exercise of wit, had joined variety of reading and contemplation, they would have proved excellent lights to the great advancement of all kinds of arts and sciences. And thus much for the second disease of learning.

The third disease, which regards deceit or falsehood, is the foulest; as destroying the essential form of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of truth; for the truth of existence and the truth of knowledge are the same thing, or differ no more than the direct and reflected ray. This vice, therefore, branches into two; viz., delight in deceiving and aptness to be deceived; imposture and credulity, which, though apparently different, the one seeming to proceed from cunning, and the other from simplicity, yet they generally concur. For, as in the verse,

“Percontatorem fugito; nam garrulus idem est,”

an inquisitive man is a prattler; so a credulous man is a deceiver; for he who so easily believes rumors will as easily increase them. Tacitus has wisely expressed this law of our nature in these words, “Fingunt simul creduntque.” This easiness of belief, and admitting things upon weak authority, is of two kinds, according to the subject; being either a belief of history and matter of fact, or else matter of art and opinion. We see the inconvenience of the former in ecclesiastical history, which has too easily received and registered relations of miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, monks, and their relics, shrines, chapels, and images. So in natural history, there has not been much judgment employed, as appears from the writings of Pliny, Carban, Albertus, and many of the Arabians; which are full of fabulous matters; many of them not only untried, but notoriously false, to the great discredit of natural philosophy with grave and sober minds. But the produce and integrity of Aristotle is here worthy our observation, who, having compiled an exact history of animals, dashed it very sparingly with fable or fiction, throwing all strange reports which he thought worth recording in a book by themselves, thus wisely intimating, that matter of truth which is the basis of solid experience, philosophy, and the sciences, should not be mixed with matter of doubtful credit; and yet that curiosities or prodigies, though seemingly incredible, are not to be suppressed or denied the registering.

Credulity in arts and opinions, is likewise of two kinds; viz., when men give too much belief to arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences that sway the imagination more than the reason, are principally three; viz., astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; the ends or pretensions whereof are however noble. For astrology pretends to discover the influence of the superior upon the inferior bodies; natural magic pretends to reduce natural philosophy from speculation to works; and chemistry pretends to separate the dissimilar parts, incorporated in natural mixtures, and to cleanse such bodies as are impure, throw out the heterogeneous parts, and perfect such as are immature. But the means supposed to produce these effects are, both in theory and practice, full of error and vanity, and besides, are seldom delivered with candor, but generally concealed by artifice and enigmatical expressions, referring to tradition, and using other devices to cloak imposture. Yet alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons, he had left them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they, by digging, found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines, procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavors to make gold have brought many useful inventions and instructive experiments to light.

Credulity in respect of certain authors, and making them dictators instead of consuls, is a principal cause that the sciences are no further advanced. For hence, though in mechanical arts, the first inventor falls short, time adds perfection; while in the sciences, the first author goes furthest, and time only abates or corrupts. Thus artillery, sailing, and printing, were grossly managed at the first, but received improvement by time; while the philosophy and the sciences of Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclid, and Archimedes, flourished most in the original authors, and degenerated with time. The reason is, that in the mechanic arts, the capacities and industry of many are collected together; whereas in sciences, the capacities and industry of many have been spent upon the invention of some one man, who has commonly been thereby rather obscured than illustrated. For as water ascends no higher than the level of the first spring, so knowledge derived from Aristotle will at most rise no higher again than the knowledge of Aristotle. And therefore, though a scholar must have faith in his master, yet a man well instructed must judge for himself; for learners owe to their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they are fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual captivity. Let great authors, therefore, have their due, but so as not to defraud time, which is the author of authors, and the parent of truth.

Besides the three diseases of learning above treated, there are some other peccant humors, which, falling under popular observation and reprehension, require to be particularly mentioned. The first is the affecting of two extremes; antiquity and novelty: wherein the children of time seem to imitate their father; for as he devours his children, so they endeavor to devour each other; while antiquity envies new improvements, and novelty is not content to add without defacing. The advice of the prophet is just in this case: “Stand upon the old ways, and see which is the good way, and walk therein.” For antiquity deserves that men should stand awhile upon it, to view around which is the best way; but when the discovery is made, they should stand no longer, but proceed with cheerfulness. And to speak the truth antiquity, as we call it, is the young state of the world; for those times are ancient when the world is ancient; and not those we vulgarly account ancient by computing backward; so that the present time is the real antiquity.

Another error, proceeding from the former, is, a distrust that anything should be discovered in later times that was not hit upon before; as if Lucian’s objection against the gods lay also against time. He pleasantly asks why the gods begot so many children in the first ages, but none in his days; and whether they were grown too old for generation, or were restrained by the Papian law, which prohibited old men from marrying? For thus we seem apprehensive that time is worn out, and become unfit for generation. And here we have a remarkable instance of the levity and inconstancy of man’s humor; which, before a thing is effected, thinks it impossible, and as soon as it is done, wonders it was not done before. So the expedition of Alexander into Asia was at first imagined a vast and impracticable enterprise, yet Livy afterward makes so light of it as to say, “It was but bravely venturing to despise vain opinions.” And the case was the same in Columbus’s discovery of the West Indies. But this happens much more frequently in intellectual matters, as we see in most of the propositions of Euclid, which, till demonstrated, seem strange, but when demonstrated, the mind receives them by a kind of affinity, as if we had known them before.

Another error of the same nature is an imagination that of all ancient opinions or sects, the best has ever prevailed, and suppressed the rest; so that if a man begins a new search, he must happen upon somewhat formerly rejected; and by rejection, brought into oblivion; as if the multitude, or the wiser sort to please the multitude, would not often give way to what is light and popular, rather than maintain what is substantial and deep.

Another different error is, the over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods, from which time the sciences are seldom improved; for as young men rarely grow in stature after their shape and limbs are fully formed, so knowledge, while it lies in aphorisms and observations, remains in a growing state; but when once fashioned into methods, though it may be further polished, illustrated, and fitted for use, it no longer increases in bulk and substance.

Another error is, that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men generally abandon the study of nature, or universal philosophy, which stops all further progress. For as no perfect view of a country can be taken upon a flat, so it is impossible to discover the remote and deep parts of any science by standing upon the level of the same science, or without ascending to a higher.

Another error proceeds from too great a reverence, and a kind of adoration paid to the human understanding; whence men have withdrawn themselves from the contemplation of nature and experience, and sported with their own reason and the fictions of fancy. These intellectualists, though commonly taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, are censured by Heraclitus, when he says, “Men seek for truth in their own little worlds, and not in the great world without them”: and as they disdain to spell, they can never come to read in the volume of God’s works; but on the contrary, by continual thought and agitation of wit, they compel their own genius to divine and deliver oracles, whereby they are deservedly deluded.

Another error is, that men often infect their speculations and doctrines with some particular opinions they happen to be fond of, or the particular sciences whereto they have most applied, and thence give all other things a tincture that is utterly foreign to them. Thus Plato mixed philosophy with theology; Aristotle with logic; Proclus with mathematics; as these arts were a kind of elder and favorite children with them. So the alchemists have made a philosophy from a few experiments of the furnace, and Gilbert another out of the loadstone: in like manner, Cicero, when reviewing the opinions on the nature of the soul, coming to that of a musician, who held the soul was but a harmony, he pleasantly said, “This man has not gone out of his art.” But of such authors Aristotle says well: “Those who take in but a few considerations easily decide.”

Another error is, an impatience of doubting and a blind hurry of asserting without a mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are like the two ways of action so frequently mentioned by the ancients; the one plain and easy at first, but in the end impassable; the other rough and fatiguing in the entrance, but soon after fair and even: so in contemplation, if we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.

Another error lies in the manner of delivering knowledge, which is generally magisterial and peremptory, not ingenuous and open, but suited to gain belief without examination. And in compendious treatises for practice, this form should not be disallowed; but in the true delivering of knowledge, both extremes are to be avoided; viz., that of Velleius the Epicurean, who feared nothing so much as the non-appearance of doubting;” and that of Socrates and the Academics, who ironically doubted of all things: but the true way is to propose things candidly, with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a man’s own judgment.

There are other errors in the scope that men propose to themselves: for whereas the more diligent professors of any science ought chiefly to endeavor the making some additions or improvements therein, they aspire only to certain second prizes; as to be a profound commentator, a sharp disputant, a methodical compiler, or abridger, whence the returns or revenues of knowledge are sometimes increased, but not the inheritance and stock.

But the greatest error of all is, mistaking the ultimate end of knowledge; for some men covet knowledge out of a natural curiosity and inquisitive temper; some to entertain the mind with variety and delight; some for ornament and reputation; some for victory and contention; many for lucre and a livelihood; and but few for employing the Divine gift of reason to the use and benefit of mankind. Thus some appear to seek in knowledge a couch for a searching spirit; others, a walk for a wandering mind; others, a tower of state; others, a fort, or commanding ground; and others, a shop for profit or sale, instead of a storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the endowment of human life. But that which must dignify and exalt knowledge is the more intimate and strict conjunction of contemplation and action; a conjunction like that of Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation; and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action. But here, by use and action, we do not mean the applying of knowledge to lucre, for that diverts the advancement of knowledge, as the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which, while she stoops to take up, the race is hindered.

“Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.”

Nor do we mean, as was said of Socrates, to call philosophy down from heaven to converse upon earth: that is, to leave natural philosophy behind, and apply knowledge only to morality and policy: but as both heaven and earth contribute to the use and benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both philosophies, to separate and reject vain and empty speculations, and preserve and increase all that is solid and fruitful.

We have now laid open by a kind of dissection the chief of those peccant humors which have not only retarded the advancement of learning, but tended to its traducement. If we have cut too deeply, it must be remembered, “Fidelia vulnera amantis, dolosa oscula malignantis.” However, we will gain credit for our commendations, as we have been severe in our censures. It is, notwithstanding, far from our purpose to enter into fulsome laudations of learning, or to make a hymn to the Muses, though we are of opinion that it is long since their rites were celebrated; but our intent is to balance the dignity of knowledge in the scale with other things, and to estimate their true values according to universal testimony.

Next, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in its original; that is, in the attributes and acts of God, so far as they are revealed to man, and may be observed with sobriety. But here we are not to seek it by the name of learning; for all learning is knowledge acquired, but all knowledge in God is original: we must, therefore, look for it under the name of wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures call it.

In the work of creation we see a double emanation of virtue from God; the one relating more properly to power, the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the matter, and the other in disposing the form. This being supposed, we may observe that, for anything mentioned in the history of the creation, the confused mass of the heavens and earth was made in a moment; whereas the order and disposition of it was the work of six days: such a mark of difference seems put between the works of power and the works of wisdom; whence, it is not written that God said, “Let there be heaven and earth,” as it is of the subsequent works; but actually, that “God made heaven and earth”; the one carrying the style of a manufacture, the other that of a law, decree, or counsel.

To proceed from God to spirits. We find, as far as credit may be given to the celestial hierarchy of the supposed Dionysius the Areopagite, the first place is given to the angels of love, termed Seraphim; the second, to the angels of light, called Cherubim; and the third and following places to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all angels of power and ministry; so that the angels of knowledge and illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.

To descend from spiritual and intellectual, to sensible and material forms; we read the first created form was light, which, in nature and corporeal things, hath a relation and correspondence to knowledge in spirits, and things incorporeal; so, in the distribution of days, we find the day wherein God rested and completed his works, was blessed above all the days wherein he wrought them.

After the creation was finished, it is said that man was placed in the garden to work therein, which work could only be work of contemplation; that is, the end of his work was but for exercise and delight, and not for necessity: for there being no reluctance of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, man’s employment was consequently matter of pleasure, not labor. Again, the first acts which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary parts of knowledge, a view of the creature, and imposition of names.

In the first event after the fall, we find an image of the two states, the contemplative and the active, figured out in the persons of Abel and Cain, by the two simplest and most primitive trades, that of the shepherd and that of the husbandman; where again, the favor of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of the ground.

So in the age before the flood, the sacred records mention the name of the inventors of music and workers 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 obstructed.

It is said of Moses, “That he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” which nation was one of the most ancient schools of the world; for Plato brings in the Egyptian priest saying to Solon, “You Grecians are ever children, having no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of knowledge.” In the ceremonial laws of Moses we find, that besides the prefiguration of Christ, the mark of the people of God to distinguish them from the Gentiles, the exercise of obedience, and other divine institutions, the most learned of the rabbis have observed a natural and some of them a moral sense in many of the rites and ceremonies. Thus 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 notes a principle of nature, viz., that putrefaction is more contagious before maturity than after. Another hereupon observes a position of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not corrupt the manners of others, so much as those who are but half wicked. And in many other places of the Jewish law, besides the theological sense, there are couched many philosophical matters. The book of Job likewise will be found, if examined with care, pregnant with the secrets of natural philosophy. For example, when it says, “Qui extendit Aquilonem super vacuum, et appendit terram super nihilum,” the suspension of the earth and the convexity of the heavens are manifestly alluded to. Again, “Spiritus ejus ornavit cælos, et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est coluber tortuosus;” and in another place, “Numquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare?” where the immutable configuration of the fixed stars, ever preserving the same position, is with elegance described. So in another place: “Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et Hyadas, et interiora Austri,” where he again refers to the depression of the South Pole in the expression of “interiora Austri,” because the southern stars are not seen in our hemisphere. Again, what concerns the generation of living creatures, he says, “Annon sicut lac mulsisti me, et sicut caseum coagulasti me?” and touching mineral subjects, “Habet argentum venarum suarum principia, et auro locus est, in quo conflatur; ferrum de terra tollitur, et lapsis solutus calore in æs vertitur,” and so forward in the same chapter.

Nor did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our Saviour, who himself first showed his power to subdue ignorance, by conferring with the priests and doctors of the law, before he showed his power to subdue nature by miracles. And the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly expressed in the gift of tongues, which are but the conveyance of knowledge.

So in the election of those instruments it pleased God to use for planting the faith, though at first he employed persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, the more evidently to declare his immediate working, and to humble all human wisdom or knowledge, yet in the next succession he sent out his divine truth into the world, attended with other parts of learning as with servants or handmaids; thus St. Paul, who was the only learned among the apostles, had his pen most employed in the writings of the New Testament.

Again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the Church were well versed in all the learning of the heathens, insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julian prohibiting Christians the schools and exercises, was accounted a more pernicious engine against the faith than all the sanguinary persecution of his predecessors. Neither could Gregory the First, bishop of Rome, ever obtain the opinion of devotion even among the pious, for designing, though otherwise an excellent person, to extinguish the memory of heathen antiquity. But it was the Christian Church which, amid the inundations of the Scythians from the northwest and the Saracens from the east, preserved in her bosom the relics even of heathen learning, which had otherwise been utterly extinguished. And of late years the Jesuits, partly of themselves and partly provoked by example, have greatly enlivened and strengthened the state of learning, and contributed to establish the Roman See.

There are, therefore, two principal services, besides ornament and illustration, which philosophy and human learning perform to faith and religion, the one effectually exciting to the exaltation of God’s glory, and the other affording a singular preservative against unbelief and error. Our Saviour says, “Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God”; thus laying before us two books to study, if we will be secured from error; viz., the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God, and the creation, which expresses his power; the latter whereof is a key to the former, and not only opens our understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scripture by the general notions of reason and the rules of speech, but chiefly opens our faith in drawing us to a due consideration of the omnipotence of God, which is stamped upon his works. And thus much for Divine testimony concerning the dignity and merits of learning.

Next for human proofs. Deification was the highest honor among the heathens; that is, to obtain veneration as a god was the supreme respect which man could pay to man, especially when given, not by a formal act of state as it usually was to the Roman emperors, but from a voluntary, internal assent and acknowledgment. This honor being so high, there was also constituted a middle kind, for human honors were inferior to honors heroical and divine. Antiquity observed this difference in their distribution, that whereas founders of states, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit, were honored but with the titles of heroes, or demigods, such as Hercules, Theseus, Minos, Romulus, etc. Inventors, and authors of new arts or discoveries for the service of human life, were ever advanced among the gods, as in the case of Ceres, Bacchus, Mercury, Apollo, and others. And this appears to have been done with great justice and judgment, for the merits of the former being generally confined within the circle of one age or nation, are but like fruitful showers, which serve only for a season and a small extent, while the others are like the benefits of the sun, permanent and universal. Again, the former are mixed with strife and contention, while the latter have the true character of the Divine presence, as coming in a gentle gale without noise or tumult.

The merit of learning in remedying the inconveniences arising from man to man, is not much inferior to that of relieving human necessities. This merit was livelily described by the ancients in the fiction of Orpheus’ theatre, where all the beasts and birds assembled, and forgetting their several appetites, stood sociably together listening to the harp, whose sound no sooner ceased, or was drowned by a louder, but they all returned to their respective natures; for thus men are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, which as long as we hearken to precepts, laws, and religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments become silent, or seditions and tumult drown their music, all things fall back to confusion and anarchy.

This appears more manifestly when princes or governors are learned; for though he might be thought partial to his profession who said, “States would then be happy, when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings”; yet so much is verified by experience, that the best times have happened under wise and learned princes; for though kings may have their errors and vices, like other men, yet if they are illuminated by learning, they constantly retain such notions of religion, policy, and morality, as may preserve them from destructive and irremediable errors or excesses; for these notions will whisper to them, even while counsellors and servants stand mute. Such senators likewise as are learned proceed upon more safe and substantial principles than mere men of experience—the former view dangers afar off, while the latter discover them not till they are at hand, and then trust to their wit to avoid them. This felicity of times under learned princes appears eminent in the age between the death of Domitian and the reign of Commodus, comprehending a succession of six princes, all of them learned, or singular favorers and promoters of learning. And this age, for temporal respects, was the happiest and most flourishing that ever the Roman State enjoyed; as was revealed to Domitian in a dream the night before he was slain, when he beheld a neck and head of gold growing upon his shoulders; a vision which was, in the golden times succeeding this divination, fully accomplished. For his successor Nerva was a learned prince, a familiar friend and acquaintance of Apollonius, who expired reciting that line of Homer—“Phœbus, with thy darts revenge our tears.” Trajan, though not learned himself, was an admirer of learning, a munificent patron of letters, and a founder of libraries. Though the taste of his court was warlike, professors and preceptors were found there in great credit and admiration. Adrian was the greatest inquirer that ever lived, and an insatiable explorer into everything curious and profound. Antoninus, possessing the patient and subtile mind of a scholastic, obtained the sobriquet of Cymini Sector, or splitter of cuminseed. Of the two brothers who were raised to the rank of gods, Lucius Commodus was versed in a more elegant kind of learning, and Marcus was surnamed the philosopher. These princes excelled the rest in virtue and goodness as much as they surpassed them in learning. Nerva was a mild philosopher, and who, if he had done nothing else than give Trajan to the world, would have sufficiently distinguished himself. Trajan was most famous and renowned above all the emperors for the arts both of peace and war. He enlarged the bounds of empire, marked out its limits and its power. He was, in addition, so great a builder, that Constantine used to call him Parietaria, or Wallflower, his name being carved upon so many walls. Adrian strove with time for the palm of duration, and repaired its decays and ruins wherever the touch of its scythe had appeared. Antoninus was pious in name and nature. His nature and innate goodness gained him the reverence and affection of all classes, ages, and conditions; and his reign, like his life, was long and unruffled by storms. Lucius Commodus, though not so perfect as his brother, exceeded many of the emperors in virtue. Marcus, formed by nature to be the model of every excellence, was so faultless, that Silenus, when he took his seat at the banquet of the gods, found nothing to carp at in him but his patience in humoring his wife. Thus, in the succession of these six princes, we may witness the happy fruits of learning in sovereignty painted in the great table of the world.

Nor has learning a less influence on military genius than on merit employed in the state, as may be observed in the lives of Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, a few examples of which it will not be impertinent here to notice.

Alexander was bred under Aristotle, certainly a great philosopher, who dedicated several of his treatises to him. He was accompanied by Calisthenes and several other learned persons both in his travels and conquests. The value this great monarch set upon learning appears in the envy he expressed of Achilles’ great fortune in having so good a trumpet of his actions and prowess as Homer’s verses; in the judgment he gave concerning what object was most worthy to be inclosed in the cabinet of Darius found among his spoils, which decided the question in favor of Homer’s works; in his reprehensory letter to Aristotle, when chiding his master for laying bare the mysteries of philosophy, he gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more glorious to excel others in learning and knowledge than in power and empire. As to his own erudition, evidences of its perfection shine forth in all his speeches and writing, of which, though only small fragments have come down to us, yet even these are richly impressed with the footsteps of the moral sciences. For example, take his words to Diogenes, and judge if they do not inclose the very kernel of one of the greatest questions in moral philosophy, viz., whether the enjoyment or the contempt of earthly things leads to the greatest happiness; for upon seeing Diogenes contented with so little, he turned round to his courtiers, who were deriding the cynic’s condition, and said, “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.” (But Seneca, in his comparison, gives the preference to Diogenes, saying that Diogenes had more things to refuse than it was in the disposition of Alexander to confer.) For his skill in natural science, observe his customary saying, that he felt his mortality chiefly in two things—sleep and lust. This expression, pointing as it does to the indigence and redundance of nature manifested by these two harbingers of death, savors more of an Aristotle and a Democritus than of an Alexander. In poesy, regard him rallying in his wounds one of his flatterers, who was wont to ascribe unto him Divine honor. “Look,” said he, “this is the blood of a man—not such liquor as Homer speaks of, which ran from Venus’s hand when it was pierced by Diomedes.” In logic, observe, in addition to his power of detecting fallacies and confuting or retorting arguments, his rebuke to Cassander, who ventured to confute the arraigners of Antipater, his father, Alexander having incidentally asked, “Do you think these men would come so far to complain, except they had just cause?” Cassander replied, “That was the very thing which had given them courage, since they hoped that the length of the journey would entirely clear them of calumnious motives.” “See,” said Alexander, “the subtilty of Aristotle, taking the matter pro and con.” Nevertheless he did not shrink to turn the same art to his own advantage which he reprehended in others; for, bearing a secret grudge to Calisthenes, upon that rhetorician having drawn down great applause by delivering, as was usual at banquets, a spontaneous discourse in praise of the Macedonian nation, Alexander remarked, that it was easy to be eloquent upon a good topic, and requested him to change his note, and let the company hear what he could say against them. Calisthenes obeyed the request with such sharpness and vivacity, that Alexander interrupted him, saying, “That a perverted mind, as well as a choice topic, would breed eloquence.” As regards rhetoric, consider his rebuke of Antipater, an imperious and tyrannous governor, when one of Antipater’s friends ventured to extol his moderation to Alexander, saying that he had not fallen into the Persian pride of wearing the purple, but still retained the Macedonian habit. “But Antipater,” replied Alexander, “is all purple within.” Consider also that other excellent metaphor which he used to Parmenio, when that general showed him, from the plains of Arbella, the innumerable multitude of his enemies, which, viewed as they lay encamped in the night, represented a host of stars; and thereupon advised Alexander to assail them at once. The hero rejected the proposition, saying, “I will not steal a victory.” As concerns policy, weight that grave and wise distinction, which all ages have accepted, which he made between his two chief friends, Hephæstion and Craterus, saying, “That the one loved Alexander, and the other the king.” Also observe how he rebuked the error ordinary with counsellors of princes, which leads them to give advice according to the necessity of their own interest and fortune, and not of their master’s. When Darius had made certain proposals to Alexander, Parmenio said, “I would accept these conditions if I were Alexander.” Alexander replied, “So surely would I were I Parmenio.” Lastly, consider his reply to his friends, who asked him what he would reserve for himself, since he lavished so many valuable gifts upon others. “Hope,” said Alexander, who well knew that, all accounts being cleared—“hope is the true inheritance of all that resolve upon great enterprises.” This was Julius Cæsar’s portion when he went into Gaul, all his estate being exhausted by profuse largess. And it was also the portion of that noble prince, howsoever transported with ambition, Henry, Duke of Guise; for he was pronounced the greatest usurer in all France, because all his wealth was in names, and he had turned his whole estate into obligations. But perhaps the admiration of this prince in the light, not of a great king, but as Aristotle’s scholar, has carried me too far.

As regards Julius Cæsar, his learning is not only evinced in his education, company, and speeches, but in a greater degree shines forth in such of his works as have descended to us. In the Commentary, that excellent history which he has left us, of his own wars, succeeding ages have admired the solidity of the matter, the vivid passages and the lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of diction and perspicuity of narration. That this excellence of style was not the effect of undisciplined talent, but also of learning and precept, is evident from that work of his, entitled “De Analogia,” in which he propounds the principles of grammatical philosophy, and endeavors to fashion mere conventional forms to congruity of expression, taking, as it were, the picture of words from the life of reason. We also perceive another monument of his genius and learning in the reformation of the Calendar, in accomplishing which he is reported to have said that he esteemed it as great a glory to himself to observe and know the law of the heavens, as to give laws to men upon earth. In his Anti-Cato, he contended as much for the palm of wit as he strove in his battles for victory, and did not shrink from confronting the greatest champion of the pen in those times, Cicero the orator. Again, in his book of apothegms, he deemed it more honorable to note the wise sayings of others, than to record every word of his own as an oracle or apothegm, as many vain princes are by flattery urged to do. And yet, should I enumerate any of them, as I did before those of Alexander, we should find them to be such as Solomon points to in the saying, “Verba sapientum tanquam aculei, et tanquam clavi in altum defixi.” Of these, however, I shall only relate three, not so remarkable for elegance as for vigor and efficacy. He who could appease a mutiny in his army by a word, must certainly be regarded as a master of language. This Cæsar performed under the following circumstances. The generals always addressed the army as milites; the magistrates, on the other hand, in their charges to the people, used the word Quirites. Now the soldiers being in tumult, and feignedly praying to be disbanded, with a view to draw Cæsar to other conditions, the latter resolved not to succumb, and after a short pause, began his speech with “Ego, Quirites,” which implied they were at once cashiered: upon which, the soldiers were so astonished and confused that they relinquished their demands, and begged to be addressed by the old appellation of milites. The second saying thus transpired. Cæsar extremely affected the name of king, and some were set on to salute him with that title as he passed by. Cæsar, however, finding the cry weak and poor, put it off thus in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname: “Non rex sum, sed Cæsar,” I am not king, but Cæsar, an expression, the pregnancy of which it is difficult to exhaust; for first, it was a refusal of the name, though not serious; again, it displayed infinite confidence and magnanimity in presuming Cæsar to be the greater title, a presumption which posterity has fully confirmed. But chiefly the expression is to be admired as betraying a great incentive to his designs, as if the state strove with him for a mere name, with which even mean families were invested. For Rex was a surname with the Romans, as well as King is with us. The last saying I shall mention, refers to Metellus: as soon as Cæsar had seized Rome, he made straightway to the ærarium to seize the money of the state; but Metellus being tribune, forestalled his purpose, and denied him entrance: whereupon Cæsar threatened, if he did not desist, to lay him dead on the spot. But presently checking himself, added, “Adolescens, durius est mihi hoc dicere quam facere”; Young man, it is harder for me to say this than to do it. A sentence compounded of the greatest terror and clemency that could proceed out of the mouth of man. But to conclude with Cæsar. It is evident he was quite aware of his proficiency in this respect, from his scoffing at the idea of the strange resolution of Sylla, which some one expressed about his resignation of the dictatorship: “Sylla,” said Cæsar, “was unlettered, and therefore knew not how to dictate.”

And here we should cease descanting on the concurrence of military virtue with learning, as no example could come with any grace after Alexander and Cæsar, were it not for an extraordinary case touching Xenophon, which raised that philosopher from the depths of scorn to the highest pinnacle of admiration. In his youth, without either command or experience, that philosopher followed the expedition of Cyrus the younger against Artaxerxes, as a volunteer, to enjoy the love and conversation of his friend Proxenus. Cyrus being slain on the field, Falinus came to the remnant of his army with a message from the king, who, presuming on the fewness of their number, and the perilous nature of their position in the midst of foreign enemies, cut off from their country by many navigable rivers, and many hundred miles, had dared to command them to surrender their army, and submit entirely to his mercy. Before an answer was returned, the heads of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus, and among the rest Xenophon happened to say, “Why, Falinus, we have only these two things left, our arms and our virtue, and if we yield up our arms, how can we make use of our virtue?” Falinus, with an ironical smile, replied, “If I be not deceived, young man, you are an Athenian; and I believe you study philosophy, as you talk admirably well. But you grossly deceive yourself if you think your courage can withstand the king’s power.” Here was the scorn, but the wonder followed. This young philosopher, just emerged from the school of Socrates, after all the chieftains of the army had been murdered by treason, conducted those ten thousand foot through the heart of the king’s territories, from Babylon to Græcia, untouched by any of the king’s forces. The world, at this act of the young scholar, was stricken with astonishment, and the Greeks encouraged in succeeding ages to invade the kings of Persia. Jason the Thessalian proposed the plan, Agesilaus the Spartan attempted its execution, and Alexander the Macedonian finally achieved the conquest.

To proceed from imperial and military, to moral and private virtue; it is certain that learning softens the barbarity and fierceness of men’s minds, according to the poet,

But then it must not be superficial, for this rather works a contrary effect. Solid learning prevents all levity, temerity, and insolence, by suggesting doubts and difficulties, and inuring the mind to balance the reasons on both sides, and reject the first offers of things, or to accept of nothing but what is first examined and tried. It prevents vain admiration, which is the root of all weakness: things being admired either because they are new, or because they are great. As for novelty, no man can wade deep in learning, without discovering that he knows nothing thoroughly; nor can we wonder at a puppet-show, if we look behind the curtain. With regard to greatness; as Alexander, after having been used to great armies, and the conquests of large provinces in Asia, when he received accounts of battles from Greece, which were commonly for a pass, a fort, or some walled town, imagined he was but reading Homer’s battle of the frogs and the mice; so if a man considers the universal frame, the earth and its inhabitants will seem to him but as an anthill, where some carry grain, some their young, some go empty, and all march but upon a little heap of dust.

Learning also conquers or mitigates the fear of death and adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments to virtue and morality; for if a man’s mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and corruptibility of things, he will be as little affected as Epictetus, who one day seeing a woman weeping for her pitcher that was broken, and the next day a woman weeping for her son that was dead, said calmly, “Yesterday I saw a brittle thing broken, and to-day a mortal die.” And hence Virgil excellently joined the knowledge of causes and the conquering of fears together as concomitants:

It were tedious to enumerate the particular remedies which learning affords for all the diseases of the mind, sometimes by purging the morbific humors, sometimes by opening obstructions, helping digestion, increasing the appetite, and sometimes healing exulcerations, etc. But to sum up all, it disposes the mind not to fix or settle in defects, but to remain ever susceptible of improvement and reformation; for the illiterate person knows not what it is to descend into himself, or call himself to an account, nor the agreeableness of that life which is daily sensible of its own improvement; he may perhaps learn to show and employ his natural talents, but not increase them; he will learn to hide and color his faults, but not to amend them, like an unskilful mower, who continues to mow on without whetting his scythe. The man of learning, on the contrary, always joins the correction and improvement of his mind with the use and employment thereof. To conclude, truth and goodness differ but as the seal and the impression; for truth imprints goodness, while the storms of vice and perturbation break from the clouds of error and falsehood.

From moral virtue we proceed to examine whether any power be equal to that afforded by knowledge. Dignity of command is always proportionable to the dignity of the commanded. To have command over brutes as a herdsman is a mean thing; to have command over children as a schoolmaster is a matter of small honor; and to have command over slaves is rather a disgrace than an honor. Nor is the command of a tyrant much better over a servile and degenerate people; whence honors in free monarchies and republics have ever been more esteemed than in tyrannical governments, because to rule a willing people is more honorable than to compel. But the command of knowledge is higher than the command over a free people, as being a command over the reason, opinion, and understanding of men, which are the noblest faculties of the mind that govern the will itself; for there is no power on earth that can set up a throne in the spirits of men but knowledge and learning; whence the detestable and extreme pleasure wherewith archheretics, false prophets, and impostors are transported upon finding they have a dominion over the faith and consciences of men, a pleasure so great, that if once tasted scarce any torture or persecution can make them forego it. But as this is what the Apocalypse calls the depths of Satan, so the just and lawful rule over men’s understanding by the evidence of truth and gentle persuasion, is what approaches nearest to the Divine sovereignty.

With regard to honors and private fortune, the benefit of learning is not so confined to states as not likewise to reach particular persons; for it is an old observation, that Homer has given more men their livings than Sylla, Cæsar, or Augustus, notwithstanding their great largesses. And it is hard to say whether arms or learning have advanced the greater numbers. In point of sovereignty, if arms or descent have obtained the kingdom, yet learning has obtained the priesthood, which was ever in competition with empire.

Again, the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning surpass all others; for if the pleasures of the affections exceed the pleasures of the senses as much as the obtaining a desire or a victory exceeds a song or a treat, shall not the pleasures of the understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? In all other pleasures there is a satiety, and after use their verdure fades; which shows they are but deceits and fallacies, and that it was the novelty which pleased, not the quality; whence voluptuous men frequently turn friars, and ambitious princes melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, for here gratification and appetite are perpetually interchanging, and consequently this is good in itself, simply, without fallacy or accident. Nor is that a small pleasure and satisfaction to the mind, which Lucretius describes to this effect: “It is a scene of delight to be safe on shore and see a ship tossed at sea, or to be in a fortification and see two armies join battle upon a plain. But it is a pleasure incomparable for the mind to be seated by learning in the fortress of truth, and from thence to view the errors and labors of others.”

To conclude. The dignity and excellence of knowledge and learning is what human nature most aspires to for the securing of immortality, which is also endeavored after by raising and ennobling families, by buildings, foundations, and monuments of fame, and is in effect the bent of all other human desires. But we see how much more durable the monuments of genius and learning are than those of the hand. The verses of Homer have continued above five and twenty hundred years without loss, in which time numberless palaces, temples, castles, and cities have been demolished and are fallen to ruin. It is impossible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar, or the great personages of much later date, for the originals cannot last, and the copies must lose life and truth; but the images of men’s knowledge remain in books, exempt from the injuries of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Nor are these properly called images; because they generate still, and sow their seed in the minds of others, so as to cause infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages. If, therefore, the invention of a ship was thought so noble, which carries commodities from place to place and consociateth the remotest regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be valued, which, like ships, pass through the vast ocean of time, and convey knowledge and inventions to the remotest ages? Nay, some of the philosophers who were most immersed in the senses, and denied the immortality of the soul, yet allowed that whatever motions the spirit of man could perform without the organs of the body might remain after death, which are only those of the understanding, and not of the affections, so immortal and incorruptible a thing did knowledge appear to them. And thus having endeavored to do justice to the cause of knowledge, divine and human, we shall leave Wisdom to be justified of her children.