The Advancement of Learning
“Your enemies will be glad of this”—
“Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ.”
than by hearing it said only, “This is evil for you.”
(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before, touching
provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness
of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts: the one in resemblance
to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made
up; both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request.
The former of these I will call _antitheta_, and the latter _formulæ_.
(8) _Antitheta_ are theses argued _pro et contra_, wherein men may be
more large and laborious; but (in such as are able to do it) to avoid
prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast
up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be as
skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be
used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.
“_Pro verbis legis_.
Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quæ recedit a litera:
Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.
_Pro sententia legis_.
Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur singula.”
(9) _Formulæ_ are but decent and apt passages or conveyances of speech,
which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of preface,
conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &c. For as in buildings
there is great pleasure and use in the well casting of the staircases,
entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech, the conveyances and
passages are of special ornament and effect.
“_A conclusion in a deliberative_.
So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences
future.”
XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge,
the one critical, the other pedantical. For all knowledge is either
delivered by teachers, or attained by men’s proper endeavours: and
therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth
chiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading
of books; whereunto appertain incidently these considerations. The first
is concerning the true correction and edition of authors; wherein
nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice. For these critics
have often presumed that that which they understand not is false set
down: as the priest that, where he found it written of St. Paul _Demissus
est per sportam_, mended his book, and made it _Demissus est per portam_;
because _sporta_ was a hard word, and out of his reading: and surely
their errors, though they be not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are of
the same kind. And therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most
corrected copies are commonly the least correct.
The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors, which
resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein it is over usual to
blanch the obscure places and discourse upon the plain.
The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great light
to true interpretations.
The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the authors;
that men thereby may make some election unto themselves what books to
read.
And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies; that
men may know in what order or pursuit to read.
(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of tradition
which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers considerations of
great fruit.
As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what to
initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.
Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to press the more
difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for it is one method
to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing with
heavy shoes.
A third is the application of learning according unto the propriety of
the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual, but
seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies: as, for example,
if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention,
the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be
caught away but a moment, one is new to begin. And as sciences have a
propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or powers
have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy profiting: and
therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what kinds of wits and
natures are most apt and proper for what sciences.
Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence to
hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in exercising their
faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise their faults and get
ill habits as well as good; so as there is a great judgment to be had in
the continuance and intermission of exercises. It were too long to
particularise a number of other considerations of this nature, things but
of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy. For as the wronging or
cherishing of seeds or young plants is that that is most important to
their thriving, and as it was noted that the first six kings being in
truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the
principal cause of the immense greatness of that state which followed, so
the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible (though
unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time or contention of labour
can countervail it afterwards. And it is not amiss to observe also how
small and mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall into
great men or great matters, do work great and important effects: whereof
we see a notable example in Tacitus of two stage players, Percennius and
Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian armies into
an extreme tumult and combustion. For there arising a mutiny amongst
them upon the death of Augustus Cæsar, Blæsus the lieutenant had
committed some of the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon
Vibulenus got to be heard speak, which he did in this manner:—“These poor
innocent wretches appointed to cruel death, you have restored to behold
the light; but who shall restore my brother to me, or life unto my
brother, that was sent hither in message from the legions of Germany, to
treat of the common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by
some of his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
executioners upon soldiers. Answer, Blæsus, what is done with his body?
The mortalest enemies do not deny burial. When I have performed my last
duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain
besides him; so that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true
hearts to the legions, may have leave to bury us.” With which speech he
put the army into an infinite fury and uproar: whereas truth was he had
no brother, neither was there any such matter; but he played it merely as
if he had been upon the stage.
(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational knowledges;
wherein if I have made the divisions other than those that are received,
yet would I not be thought to disallow all those divisions which I do not
use. For there is a double necessity imposed upon me of altering the
divisions. The one, because it differeth in end and purpose, to sort
together those things which are next in nature, and those things which
are next in use. For if a secretary of estate should sort his papers, it
is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort together things of
a nature, as treaties, instructions, &c. But in his boxes or particular
cabinet he would sort together those that he were like to use together,
though of several natures. So in this general cabinet of knowledge it
was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the nature of things;
whereas if myself had been to handle any particular knowledge, I would
have respected the divisions fittest for use. The other, because the
bringing in of the deficiences did by consequence alter the partitions of
the rest. For let the knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be
fifteen. Let the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty; the parts of
fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three
and five; the parts of twenty are two, four, five, and ten. So as these
things are without contradiction, and could not otherwise be.
XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the
appetite and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, _Ante omnia_, _fili_,
_custodi cor tuum_: _nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ_. In the handling
of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a
man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of
alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions
for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters. So have they
made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and
portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well
described as the true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires. But
how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will
of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it
over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably. For it is not the
disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by
nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines
and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and the
like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence of this
part.
(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock
whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast
away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and
common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the
wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties),
but contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain
resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to
the subtlety of disputatious, or to the eloquence of discourses. But
Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence, _Nocet illis eloquentia_,
_quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit_, _sed sui_. Doctrine should be such
as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher;
being directed to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s
commendation. And therefore those are of the right kind which may be
concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel, _Quæ si feceritis_, _non
oratorem dumtaxat in præsentia laudabitis_, _sed vosmetipsos etiam non
ita multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore_.
(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a
fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who
got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of
the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas:
“Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem.”
And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure
that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn
action and active life, these Georgics of the mind, concerning the
husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical
descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the main and
primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or
platform of good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one
describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue,