ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 35 



invade the kings of Persia. Jason the Thessalian proposed the 

 plan, Agesilaus the Spartan attempted its execution, and Alex- 

 ander the Macedonian finally achieved the conquest. 



To proceed from imperial and military, to moral and private 

 virtue ; it is certain that learning softens the barbarity and fierce- 

 ness of men's minds, according to the poet : 



" Scilicet ingenuas clidicisse fideliter artes 

 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros." Ovid.* 



But then it must not be superficial, for this rather works a 

 contrary effect. Solid learning prevents all levity, temerity, 

 and insolence, by suggesting doubts and difficulties, and inur- 

 ing the mind to balance the reasons on both sides, and reject the 

 first offers of things, or to accept of nothing but what is first 

 examined and tried. It prevents vain admiration, which is the 

 root of all weakness : things being admired either because they 

 are new, or because they are great. As for novelty, no man 

 can wade deep in learning, without discovering that he knows 

 nothing thoroughly ; nor can we wonder at a puppet-show, if 

 we look behind the curtain. With regard to greatness; as 

 Alexander, after having been used to great armies, and the con- 

 quests of large provinces in Asia, when he received accounts 

 of battles from Greece, which were commonly for a pass, a fort, 

 or some walled town, imagined he was but reading Homer's 

 battle of the frogs and the mice ; so if a man considers the uni- 

 ' versal frame, the earth and its inhabitants will seem to him but 

 as an ant-hill, where some carry grain, some their young, some 

 go empty, and all march but upon a little heap of dust. 



Learning also conquers or mitigates the fear of death and 

 adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments to 

 virtue and morality; for if a man's mind be deeply seasoned 

 with the consideration of the mortality and corruptibility of 

 things, he will be as little affected as Epictetus, who one day 

 seeing a woman weeping for her pitcher that was broken, and 

 the next day a woman weeping for her son that was dead, said 

 calmly: " Yesterday I saw a brittle thing broken, and to-day 

 a mortal die."f And hence Virgil excellently joined the knowl- 

 edge of causes and the conquering of fears together as con- 

 comitants : 



" Felix qui potuit reruin cognoscere causas, 

 Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fntum, 

 Subjecit pedibus; strepitumque Acherontis avari." Virgil.t 



