72 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



vine. Antiquity observed this difference in their distribu 

 tion, that whereas founders of states, lawgivers, extirpers 

 of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent per 

 sons in civil merit, were honored but with the titles of 

 heroes, or demigods, such as Hercules, Theseus, Minos, 

 Romulus, etc. Inventors, and authors of new arts or dis 

 coveries for the service of human life, were ever advanced 

 among the gods, as in the case of Ceres, Bacchus, Mercury, 

 Apollo, and others. And this appears to have been done 

 with great justice and judgment, for the merits of the 

 former being generally confined within the circle of one 

 age or nation, are but like fruitful showers, which serve 

 only for a season and a small extent, while the others are 

 like the benefits of the sun, permanent and universal. 

 Again, the former are mixed with strife and contention, 

 while the latter have the true character of the Divine 

 presence, as coming in a gentle gale without noise or 

 tumult. 



The merit of learning in remedying the inconveniences 

 arising from man to man, is not much inferior to that of 

 relieving human necessities. This merit was livelily de 

 scribed by the ancients in the fiction of Orpheus theatre, 

 where all the beasts and birds assembled, and forgetting 

 their several appetites, stood sociably together listening to 

 the harp, whose sound no sooner ceased, or was drowned 

 by a louder, but they all returned to their respective na 

 tures; for thus men are full of savage and unreclaimed de 

 sires, which as long as we hearken to precepts, laws, and 

 religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion, so 

 long is society and peace maintained; but if these instru 

 ments become silent, or seditions and tumult drown their 

 music, all things fall back to confusion and anarchy. 



This appears more manifestly when princes or governors 

 are learned; for though he might be thought partial to his 

 profession who said, &quot;States would then be happy, when 

 either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings&quot;; 95 



95 Plato (De Republica, b. 5) ii. 475. 



