46 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



scribed by Guicciardini; or into those of Cicero, described 

 by himself in his epistles to Atticus, and he will fly from 

 being irresolute: let him look into the errors of Phocion, 

 and he will beware of obstinacy or inflexibility: let him 

 read the fable of Ixiom, 22 and it will keep him from con- 

 ceitedness: let him look into the errors of the second Cato, 

 and he will never tread opposite to the world. 28 



4&quot;. For the pretence that learning disposes to retirement, 

 privacy, and sloth; it were strange if what accustoms the 

 mind to perpetual motion and agitation should induce in 

 dolence; whereas no kind of men love business, for its own 

 sake, but the learned; while others love it for profit, as 

 hirelings for the wages; others for honor; others because 

 it bears them up in the eyes of men, and refreshes their 

 reputations, which would otherwise fade; or because it re 

 minds them of their fortune, and gives them opportunities; 

 of revenging and obliging; or because it exercises some 

 faculty, wherein they delight, and so keeps them in good 

 humor with themselves. Whence, as false valor lies in the 

 eyes of the beholders, such men s industry lies in the eyes 

 of others, or is exercised with a view to their own designs; 

 while the learned love business, as an action according to 

 nature, and agreeable to the health of the mind, as exercise 

 is to that of the body: so that, of all men, they are the most 

 indefatigable in such business as may deservedly fill and 

 employ the mind. And if there are any laborious in study, 

 yet idle in business, this proceeds either from a weakness 

 of body, or a softness of disposition, and not from learning 

 itself, as Seneca remarks, &quot;Quidam tarn sunt umbratiles ut 

 putent in turbido esse, quicquid in luce est. 24 The con 

 sciousness of such a disposition may indeed incline a man 

 to learning, but learning does not breed any such temper 

 in him. 



If it be objected, that learning takes up much time, 

 which might be better employed, I answer that the most 



22 Find. Pyth. ii. 21. 23 Cic. ad Att. i. 1. 



34 Seneca s Epistles, iii. near the end. 



