98 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 



in any other attitude. Cf. Johnson, "You may be prudently 

 attached to great men, and yet independent. You are not to do 

 what you think wrong : and, Sir, you are to calculate, and not to 

 pay too dear for what you get. You must not give a shilling's 

 worth of court for sixpence worth of good. But if you can get a 

 shilling's worth of good for sixpence worth of court, you are a 

 fool if you do not pay court." 



Page 25, 1. 7. disallowed, disapproved. 

 1. 8. outward, i.e., in appearance. 



Pages 25-34. Bacon now proceeds to consider the last and 

 most serious objection which has been raised against learning, 

 and which is based on the results of the studies of learned men. 

 He confesses that there are Certain spurious kinds of learnmg, 

 but genuine learning is not for this reason to be despised. 

 Bacon proposes first to eliminate and discard the spurious 

 kinds of learning : when this has been done, the value of true 

 learning will be appreciated. 



The three circumstances which have brought discredit upon 

 learning are these: (i.) learned men have propounded untruths: 

 (ii.) they have been over subtle and contentious : (iii.) tfiey Tiave 

 been guilty of r/jfi^^?-^ 



Affectation relates not to matter, but to style, and is first 

 considered. The Reformers, says Bacon, were Led to a careful 

 study of the ancient writers, partly with a view of deriving from 

 them support for their own opinions, partly with a view of 

 ascertaining what was that primitive practice of the Church, 

 which they wished to restore. By this diligent study of the 

 ancient tongues, the Reformers were inspired with an admira 

 tion for them which, added to their hatred of the barbarous 

 style of the schoolmen, and to the necessity which they were 

 under of expressing themselves in language which would impress 

 the vulgar, led to an affected purism of style and a luxuriant 

 extravagance of speech. Matter was, by them, sacrificed to style. 

 This fault of affectation shows itself at intervals, and always 

 brings discredit upon learning. Style is by no means to.fyi s 

 despised, but a good style is not to be accepted in the place of H 

 matter. 



The second fault, viz., that of over-subtlety and contentious 

 ness, is worse than the first. 'Inhere is no great harm in affected 

 language, provided it is the vehicle of truth : but nothing can 

 atone for deficiency in the matter. It is the fault of which 

 the ^ schoolmen were conspicuously guilty. By constantly ex 

 ercising their ingenuity upon very limited data, they have 

 spun an endless but quite urutiihstn.ntinJ r^d wnrtftess web of 



