THE FIRST BOOK 15 



any such thing be, it must be remembered withal, that 

 learning minis tereth in every of them greater strength 

 of medicine or remedy 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 dissimili tude of examples, 

 it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors 

 of comparisons, and all the cautions of application ; 

 so that in all these it doth rectify more effectually 

 than it can pervert. And these medicines it conveyeth 

 into men s minds much more forcibly by the quickness 

 and penetration of examples. For let a man look into 

 the errors of Clement the seventh, so lively described 

 by Guicciardine, who served under him, or into the 

 errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his 

 Epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being 

 irresolute. Let him look into the errors of Phocion, 

 and he will beware how he be obstinate or inflexible. 

 Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold 

 him from being vaporous or imaginative. Let him 

 look into the errors of Cato the second, and he will 

 never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to 

 the present world. 



5. And for the conceit that learning should dispose 

 men to leisure and privateness, and make men slothful ; 

 it were a strange thing if that which accustometh the 

 mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should 

 induce slothf ulness : whereas contrariwise it may be 

 truly affirmed, that no kind of men love business for 

 itself but those that are learned ; for other persons 

 love it for profit, as an hireling, that loves the work 

 for the wages ; or for honour, as because it beareth 

 them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputa- 



