The Advancement of Learning
things to attain that light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the
nature or will of God, then, indeed, is he spoiled by vain philosophy;
for the contemplation of God’s creatures and works produceth (having
regard to the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having
regard to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken
knowledge. And, therefore, it was most aptly said by one of Plato’s
school, “That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which
(as we see) openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then,
again, it obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth
the sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
divine.” And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great
learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the
secrets of the Deity by this waxen wings of the senses. And as for the
conceit that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that
the ignorance of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon
God, which is the first cause; first, it is good to ask the question
which Job asked of his friends: “Will you lie for God, as one man will
lie for another, to gratify him?” For certain it is that God worketh
nothing in Nature but by second causes; and if they would have it
otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards
God, and nothing else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean
sacrifice of a lie. But further, it is an assured truth, and a
conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
philosophy may incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further
proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion. For in
the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto
the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay
there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man
passeth on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of
Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily
believe that the highest link of Nature’s chain must needs he tied to the
foot of Jupiter’s chair. To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak
conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a
man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word,
or in the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men
endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware
that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to
ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound
these learnings together.
II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from politics,
they be of this nature: that learning doth soften men’s minds, and makes
them more unapt for the honour and exercise of arms; that it doth mar and
pervert men’s dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making
them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too peremptory
or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too immoderate and
overweening by reason of the greatness of examples, or too incompatible
and differing from the times by reason of the dissimilitude of examples;
or at least, that it doth divert men’s travails from action and business,
and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it doth
bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more
ready to argue than to obey and execute. Out of this conceit Cato,
surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed that ever lived, when
Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to Rome, and that the young
men of Rome began to flock about him, being allured with the sweetness
and majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate
that they should give him his despatch with all speed, lest he should
infect and enchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at unawares
bring in an alteration of the manners and customs of the state. Out of
the same conceit or humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage
of his country and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of
separation between policy and government, and between arts and sciences,
in the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging the one to
the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other to the Grecians: _Tu
regere imperio popules_, _Romane_, _memento_, _Hæ tibi erunt artes_, &c.
So likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid it as an
article of charge and accusation against him, that he did, with the
variety and power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men
from due reverence to the laws and customs of their country, and that he
did profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the
worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence
and speech.
(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a countenance of
gravity than any ground of justice: for experience doth warrant that,
both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and concurrence
in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the
same ages. For as ‘for men, there cannot be a better nor the hike
instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, the
Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle’s scholar in philosophy, and the
other was Cicero’s rival in eloquence; or if any man had rather call for
scholars that were great generals, than generals that were great
scholars, let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian;
whereof the one was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the
other was the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of
Persia. And this concurrence is yet more visible in times than in
persons, by how much an age is greater object than a man. For both in
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Græcia, and Rome, the same times that are most
renowned for arms are, likewise, most admired for learning, so that the
greatest authors and philosophers, and the greatest captains and
governors, have lived in the same ages. Neither can it otherwise he: for
as in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much about
an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the more
early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof the one correspondeth to
the body, the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or near
sequence in times.
(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning, should rather
hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable; we see it is
accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians, which
commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are confident and
adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions
of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures; we see
it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are only men
of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many times easily
surprised when matter falleth out besides their experience, to the
prejudice of the causes they handle: so by like reason it cannot be but a
matter of doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric statesmen,
not well mingled with men grounded in learning. But contrariwise, it is
almost without instance contradictory that ever any government was
disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors. For howsoever it
hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and disable learned men
by the names of _pedantes_; yet in the records of time it appeareth in
many particulars that the governments of princes in minority
(notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state)—have
nevertheless excelled the government of princes of mature age, even for
that reason which they seek to traduce, which is that by that occasion
the state hath been in the hands of _pedantes_: for so was the state of
Rome for the first five years, which are so much magnified, during the
minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a _pedenti_; so it was again,
for ten years’ space or more, during the minority of Gordianus the
younger, with great applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus,
a _pedanti_: so was it before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus,
in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the
women, who were aided by the teachers and preceptors. Nay, let a man
look into the government of the Bishops of Rome, as by name, into the
government of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who were both
at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find
that such Popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of
state, than those which have ascended to the papacy from an education and
breeding in affairs of state and courts of princes; for although men bred
in learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and
accommodating for the present, which the Italians call _ragioni di
stato_, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with
patience, terming them inventions against religion and the moral virtues;
yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are perfect in those same
plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, which if
they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of those
other, no more than of physic in a sound or well-dieted body. Neither
can the experience of one man’s life furnish examples and precedents for
the event of one man’s life. For as it happeneth sometimes that the
grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more than the
son; so many times occurrences of present times may sort better with
ancient examples than with those of the later or immediate times; and
lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning than one
man’s means can hold way with a common purse.
(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions of the mind
for policy and government, which learning is pretended to insinuate; if
it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered withal that
learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine or
remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity. For if by a
secret operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side
by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve;
yea, and how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till they
resolve. If it make men positive and regular, it teacheth them what
things are in their nature demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and
as well the use of distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of
principles and rules. If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of
examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of
comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in all these it
doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert. And these medicines
it conveyeth into men’s minds much more forcibly by the quickness and
penetration of examples. For let a man look into the errors of Clement
VII., so lively described by Guicciardini, who served under him, or into
the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles to
Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute. Let him look into
the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how he be obstinate or
inflexible. Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him
from being vaporous or imaginative. Let him look into the errors of Cato
II., and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the
present world.
(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to leisure and