5 6 The Advancement of Learning 



broken; and went forth the next day and saw a woman 

 weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon said: 

 Heri vidi fragilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori} And 

 therefore Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the 

 knowledge of causes and the conquest of all fears, together, 

 as concomitantia : 



Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causcis, 

 Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum 

 Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.* 



2. It were too long to go over the particular remedies 

 which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind ; 

 sometimes purging the ill-humours, sometimes opening the 

 obstructions, sometimes helping digestion, sometimes 

 increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and 

 exulcerations thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will 

 conclude with that which hath rationem totius, which is, 

 that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be 

 fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable 

 and susceptible of growth and reformation. For the un- 

 learned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, 

 or to call himself to account; nor the pleasure of that 

 suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem} The good 

 parts he hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them 

 dexterously, but not much to increase them : the faults he 

 hath he will learn how to hide and colour them, but not 

 much to amend them : like an ill mower, that mows on still, 

 and never whets his scythe : whereas with the learned man 

 it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction 

 and amendment of his mind with the use and employment 



, thereof. Nay, further, in general and in sum, certain it is 



S that Veritas and Bonitas diSer but as the seal and the print : 



for Truth prints Goodness ; and they be the clouds of error 



which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations. 



3. From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and 

 commandment, and consider whether in right reason there 

 be any comparable with that wherewith knowledge invest- 

 eth and crowneth man's nature. We see the_d ignitv of th e 

 CQrnimndnie nt is according to the dignity of the con i- 



* There is no such tale in Epictetus, but see Simplicii in Epict. 

 Comment, cap. ^i. 



• Virg. Georg. ii. 490. • Xen. Mem. i. 6. 



