The Advancement of Learning
argentum venarum suarum principia_; _et auro locus est in quo conflatur_,
_ferrum de terra tollitur_, _et lapis solutus calore in æs vertitur_; and
so forwards in that chapter.
(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift or
endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon’s petition and in God’s
assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and temporal
felicity. By virtue of which grant or donative of God Solomon became
enabled not only to write those excellent parables or aphorisms
concerning divine and moral philosophy, but also to compile a natural
history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon
the wall (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb), and
also of all things that breathe or move. Nay, the same Solomon the king,
although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings,
of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and
renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but
only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly,
“The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to
find it out;” as if, according to the innocent play of children, the
Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them
found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be
God’s playfellows in that game; considering the great commandment of wits
and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them.
(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our
Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His
power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors
of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles.
And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in
the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but _vehicula scientiæ_.
(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to use
for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first He did
employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, more
evidently to declare His immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom
or knowledge; yet nevertheless that counsel of His was no sooner
performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession He did send His
divine truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with
servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was only learned
amongst the Apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New
Testament.
(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the
Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of this
heathen; insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julianus (whereby it was
interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or
exercises of learning) was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious
engine and machination against the Christian Faith than were all the
sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation
and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever
obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the
censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men;
in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen
antiquity and authors. But contrariwise it was the Christian Church,
which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the
north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred
lap and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning, which
otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been.
(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our
fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to account for
their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious
and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was
ordained by the Divine Providence that there should attend withal a
renovation and new spring of all other knowledges. And on the other side
we see the Jesuits, who partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation
and provocation of their example, have much quickened and strengthened
the state of learning; we see (I say) what notable service and reparation
they have done to the Roman see.
(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be
two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration,
which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion.
The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation of
the glory of God. For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite
us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if we
should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they
first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the
majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some
excellent jeweller by that only which is set out toward the street in his
shop. The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative
against unbelief and error. For our Saviour saith, “You err, not knowing
the Scriptures, nor the power of God;” laying before us two books or
volumes to study, if we will be secured from error: first the Scriptures,
revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing His power;
whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our
understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general
notions of reason and rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in
drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is
chiefly signed and engraven upon His works. Thus much therefore for
divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of
learning.
VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a discourse
of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice of those things
which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them. First,
therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the
highest to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto the
Christians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now separately of
human testimony, according to which—that which the Grecians call
_apotheosis_, and the Latins _relatio inter divos_—was the supreme honour
which man could attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a
formal decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman Emperors),
but by an inward assent and belief. Which honour, being so high, had
also a degree or middle term; for there were reckoned above human
honours, honours heroical and divine: in the attribution and distribution
of which honours we see antiquity made this difference; that whereas
founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of
tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit,
were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods, such as were
Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the like; on the other side, such
as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities
towards man’s life, were ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as
was Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and others. And justly; for the
merit of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and good,
yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where they
fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of heaven, which are
permanent and universal. The former again is mixed with strife and
perturbation, but the latter hath the true character of Divine Presence,
coming in _aura leni_, without noise or agitation.
(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the
inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former,
of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which merit was
lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus’
theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their
several appetites—some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel—stood all
sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp, the
sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but
every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the
nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed
desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear
to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and
persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and
peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition
and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and
confusion.
(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves, or persons
of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular
estates, are endued with learning. For although he might be thought
partial to his own profession that said “Then should people and estates
be happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings;” yet
so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and
governors there have been ever the best times: for howsoever kings may
have their imperfections in their passions and customs, yet, if they be
illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and
morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and
peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when
counsellors and servants stand mute and silent. And senators or
counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed upon more safe and
substantial principles, than counsellors which are only men of
experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other
discover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to the agility
of their wit to ward or avoid them.
(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still the law
of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples) doth best
appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitianus the emperor
until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a succession of six princes,
all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of learning, which age
for temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever the
Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world) enjoyed—a matter
revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was
slain: for he thought there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck
and a head of gold, which came accordingly to pass in those golden times
which succeeded; of which princes we will make some commemoration;
wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter
for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, yet,
because it is pertinent to the point in hand—_Neque semper arcum tendit
Apollo_—and to name them only were too naked and cursory, I will not omit
it altogether. The first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose
government is by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life:
_Postquam divus Nerva res oluim insociabiles miscuisset_, _imperium et
libertatem_. And in token of his learning, the last act of his short
reign left to memory was a missive to his adopted son, Trajan, proceeding
upon some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended
in a verse of Homer’s—
“Telis, Phœbe, tuis, lacrymas ulciscere nostras.”
(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but if we will