14 BACON 



and reason. And the ancient custom was, to dedicate them 

 only to private and equal friends, or if to kings and great per- 

 sons, it was to such as the subject suited. These and the like 

 measures, therefore, deserve rather to be censured than de- 

 fended. Yet the submission of learned men to those in power 

 cannot be condemned. DiogeneS) to one who asked him " How 

 it happened that philosophers followed the rich, and not the 

 rich the philosophers ? " answered, " Because the philosophers 

 know what they want, but the rich do not."* And of the like 

 nature was the answer of Aristippus, who having a petition to 

 Dionysius, and no ear being given him, fell down at his feet, 

 whereupon Dionysius gave him the hearing, and granted the 

 suit ; but when afterwards Aristippus was reproved for of- 

 fering such an indignity to philosophy as to fall at a tyrant's 

 feet, he replied, " It was not his fault if Dionysius's ears were 

 in his feet."w Nor was it accounted weakness, but discretion, 

 in him^ that would not dispute his best with the Emperor 

 Adrian, excusing himself, " That is was reasonable to yield to 

 one that commanded thirty legions." 1 ^ These and the like con- 

 descensions to points of necessity and convenience, cannot be 

 disallowed ; for though they may have some show of external 

 meanness, yet in a judgment truly made, they are submissions 

 to the occasion, and not to the person. 



We proceed to the errors and vanities intermixed with the 

 studies of learned men, wherein the design is not to countenance 

 such errors, but, by a censure and separation thereof to justify 

 what is sound and good ; for it is the manner of men, especially 

 the evil-minded, to depreciate what is excellent and virtuous, 

 by taking advantage over what is corrupt and degenerate. We 

 reckon three principal vanities for which learning has been 

 traduced. Those things are vain which are either false or 

 frivolous, or deficient in truth or use; and those persons are 

 vain who are either credulous of falsities or curious in things 

 of little use. But curiosity consists either in matter or words, 

 that is, either in taking pains about vain things, or too much 

 labor about the delicacy of language. There are, therefore, in 

 reason as well as experience, three distempers of learning, 

 viz., vain affectations, vain disputes, and vain imaginations, or 

 effeminate learning, contentious learning, and fantastical learn- 

 ing. 



The first disease, which consists in a luxuriancy of style, has 



