7 
12 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Il.2. 
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 [a] greater object than a man. For both in Egypt, 
Assyria, Persia, Grecia, 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 be: 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 
