ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 47 



active or busy men have many vacant hours, while they 

 expect the tides and returns of business; and then the 

 question is, how those spaces of leisure shall be filled up, 

 whether with pleasure or study ? Demosthenes being taunted 

 by ^Eschines, a man of pleasure, that his speeches smelt of 

 the lamp, very pertly retorted, &quot;There is great difference 

 between the objects which you and I pursue by lamp 

 light.&quot; a5 No fear, therefore, that learning should dis 

 place business, for it rather keeps and defends the mind 

 against idleness and pleasure, which might otherwise enter 

 to the prejudice both of business and learning. 5. For the 

 allegation that learning should undermine the reverence 

 due to laws and government, it is a mere calumny, without 

 shadow of truth; for to say that blind custom of obedience 

 should be a safer obligation than duty, taught and under 

 stood, is to say that a blind man may tread surer by a 

 guide than a man with his eyes open can by a light. 

 And, doubtless, learning makes the mind gentle and pli 

 able to government, whereas ignorance renders it churlish 

 and mutinous; and it is always found that the most bar 

 barous, rude, and ignorant times have been most tumul 

 tuous, changeable, and seditious. 



6. As to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was pun 

 ished for his contempt of learning, in the kind wherein he 

 offended, for when past threescore the humor took him to 

 learn Greek, which shows that his former censure of the 

 Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity than his 

 inward sense. 26 And, indeed, the Eomans never arrived 

 at their height of empire till they had arrived at their 

 height of arts; for in the time of the first two Caesars, 

 when their government was in its greatest perfection, there 

 lived the best poet, Yirgil ; the best historiographer, Livy ; the 

 best antiquary, Yarro; and the best, or second best orator, 

 Cicero, that the world has known. And as to the persecu 

 tion of Socrates, the time must be remembered in which it 



25 Plutarch s &quot;Life of Demosthenes,&quot; not said of JEschines, but Pytheas. 



26 Plutarch s M. Cato. 



