THE FIRST BOOK 65 



perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down 

 of other men. 



6. Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by 

 learning man excelleth man in that wherein man 

 excelleth beasts ; that by learning man ascendeth to 

 the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot 

 come ; and the like ; let us conclude with the dignity 

 and excellency of knowledge and learning in that 

 whereunto man s nature doth most aspire, which is 

 immortality or continuance ; for to this tendeth genera 

 tion, and raising of houses and families ; to this tend 

 buildings, foundations, and monuments ; to this 

 tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration ; 

 and in effect the strength of all other human desires. 

 We see then how far the monuments of wit and learn 

 ing are more durable than the monuments of power or 

 of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer con 

 tinued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the 

 loss of a syllable or letter ; during which time infinite 

 palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed 

 and demolished ? It is not possible to have the true 

 pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no 

 nor of the kings or great personages of much later 

 years ; for the originals cannot last, and the copies 

 cannot but leese of the life and truth. But the images 

 of men s wits and knowledges remain in books, ex 

 empted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual 

 renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, 

 because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the 

 minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions 

 and opinions in succeeding ages. So that if the in 

 vention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth 

 riches and commodities from place to place, and 

 consociateth the most remote regions in participation 

 of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magni 

 fied, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, 

 and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, 

 illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other ? 

 Nay further, we see some of the philosophers which 

 were least divine, and most immersed in the senses, 

 D 



