The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

166 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. BOOK I.
towards any business which can hold or detain art of empire, and leaving to others the arts of
their mind. subjects; yet so much is manifest, that the RoAnd if any man be laborious in reading and mans never ascended to that height of empire,
study, and yet idle in business and action, it grow- till the time they had ascended to the height of
eth from some weakness of body or softness of other arts. For in the time of the two first Caespirit; such as Seneca speaketh of: "1 Quidam sars, which had the art of government in greatest
tam sunt umbratiles, ut putent in turbido esse perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius
quicquid in luce est;" and not of learning: well Maro; the best historiographer, Titus Livius;
may it be, that such a point of a man's nature the best antiquary, Marcus Varro; and the best,
may make him give himself to learning, but it is or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the menot learning that breedeth any such point in his mory of man are known. As for the accusation
nature. of Socrates, the time must be remembered when
And that learning should take up too much time it was prosecuted; which was under the thirty
or leisure: I answer; the most active or busy man tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious perthat hath been or can be, hath, no question, many sons that have governed; which revolutions of
vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides state was no sooner over, but Socrates, whom they
and returns of business, (except he be either tedious had made a person criminal, was made a person
and of no despatch, or lightly and unworthily am- heroical, and his memory accumulate with honours
bitious to meddle in things that may be better done divine and human; and those discourses of his,
by others:) and then the question is, but how those which were then termed corrupting of manners,
spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and were afterwards acknowledged for sovereign mespent; whether in pleasures or in studies; as was dicines of the mind and manners, and so have been
well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary received ever since till this day. Let this there-.Eschines, that was a man given to pleasure, and fore serve for answer to politicians, which in their
told him that his orations did smell of the lamp: humorous severity, or in their feigned gravity,
"Indeed," said Demosthenes, " there is a great have presumed to throw imputations upon learndifference between the things that you and I do ing; which redargution, nevertheless, (save that
by lamp-light." So as no man need doubt that we know not whether our labours may extend to
learning will expulse business; but rather it will other ages,) were not needful for the present, in
keep and defend the possession of the mind regard of the love and reverence towards learning,
against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise which the example and countenance of two so
at unawares may enter, to the prejudice of both. learned princes, Queen Elizabeth, and your maAgain, for that other conceit, that learning jesty, being as Castor and Pollux, "' lucida sideshould undermine the reverence of laws and ra," stars of excellent light and most benign
government, it is assuredly a mere depravation influence, hath wrought in all men of place and
and calumny, without all shadow of truth. For authority in our nation.
to say, that a blind custom of obedience should Now therefore we come to that third sort of disbe a surer obligation than duty taught and under- credit or diminution of credit, that groweth unto
stood; it is to affirm, that a blind man may tread learning from learned men themselves, which
surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their
light. And it is without all controversy, that fortune; or from their manners; or from the
learning doth make the minds of men gentle, nature of their studies. For the first, it is not in
generous, maniable, and pliant to government; their power; and the second is accidental; the
whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart- third only is proper to be handled: but because
ing, and mutinous; and the evidence of time we are not in hand with true measure, but with
doth clear this assertion, considering that the popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to
most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have speak somewhat of the two former. The derogabeen most subject to tumults, seditions, and tions, therefore, which grow to learning from the
changes. fortune or condition of learned men, are either
And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, in respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of
he was well punished for his blasphemy against privateness of life, and meanness of employlearning in the same kind wherein he offended; ments.
for when he was past threescore years old, he Concerning want, and that it is the case of
was taken with an extreme desire to go to school learned men usually to begin with little, and not
again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to the end to grow rich so fast as other men, by reason they
to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well de- convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and inmlonstrate; that his former censure of the Grecian crease: it were good to leave the commonplace
learning was rather an affected gravity, than ac- in commendation of poverty to some friar to
cording to the inward sense of his own opinion. handle, to whom much was attributed by MachiaAnd as for Virgil's verses, though it pleased him vel in this point; when he said, "' That the
to brave the world in taking to the Romans the kingdom of the clergy had been long before at an