=e” 
“= 
ANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Ik 
Quintus could nof* 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 events of one man’s life. For as it 
happeneth sometimes that the grandchild, or other de- 
scendant, 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 indis- 
positions 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 re than it offereth cause of indis- 
position 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 
