2 2 The Advancement of Learning 



cation of learned men to men in fortune. For the answer 

 was good that Diogenes made to one that asked him in 

 mockery, How it came to pass that philosophers were the fol- 

 lowers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers ? He 

 answered soberly, and yet sharply, Because the one sort knew 

 what they had med of, and the other did not} And of the like 

 nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having 

 a petition to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell 

 down at his feet ; whereupon Dionysius staid, and gave him 

 the hearing, and granted it; and afterward some person, 

 tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that 

 he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity 

 as for a private suit to fall at a tyrant's feet: but he 

 answered, It was not his fault, hut it was the fault of Dionysius 

 that had his ears in his feet} Neither was it accounted 

 weakness, but discretion in him that would not dispute his 

 best with Adrianus Caesar; excusing himself, That it was 

 reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions} These 

 and the like applications, and stooping to points of neces- 

 sity and convenience, cannot be disallowed; for though 

 they may have some outward baseness, yet in a judgment 

 truly made they are to be accounted submissions to the 

 occasion, and not to the person. 

 IV. I. Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have 

 intervened amongst the studies themselves of the learned, 

 which is that which is principal and proper to the present 

 argument; wherein my purpose is not to make a justifica- 

 tion of the errors, but by a censure and separation of the 

 errors to make a justification of that which is good and 

 sound, and to deliver that from the aspersion of the other. 

 For we see that it is the manner of men to scandalize and 

 deprave that which retaineth the state * and virtue, by 

 taking advantage upon that which is corrupt and degener- 

 ate: as the heathens in the primitive church used to 

 blemish and taint the Christians with the faults and 

 corruptions of heretics. But nevertheless I have no 



» Diog. Laert. Vit. Atistippi, ii. 69; the answer was given by 

 Aristippus. • Ibid. ii. 79. 



• Spartianus, Vit. Adriuni, § 15. The excuse was made by 

 Favorinus. 



* Had Bacon been accustomed to use the then modem word its, 

 it is probable he would have used it here. As it is " the state and 

 virtue " must mean its pure and right condition. 



