176 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



and disputations withdraw young men from due reverence 

 to the laws and customs of their country ; and that he did 

 profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to 

 make the worse matter seem the better, and to suppress 

 truth by force of eloquence and speech. 



But these and the like imputations have rather a 

 countenance of gravity than any ground of justice : for 



^experience] doth warrant that both in persons and in times 

 t ^ iere k atn been a meeting .and, -.concurrence in learning and 



U arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the 

 same ages. For as for men, there cannot be a better nor 

 the like instance, as of that pair, Alexander the Great and 

 Julius Caesar the dictator ; whereof the one was Aristotle's 

 scholar in philosophy, and the other was Cicero's rival in ? 

 eloquence ; or if any man had rather call for scholars that 

 were great generals than generals that were great scholars, 

 let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the 

 Athenian ; whereof the one was the first that abated the 

 power of Sparta, and the other was the first that made way 

 to the overthrow of the monarchy of Persia. And this 

 concurrence is yet more visible in times than in persons, 

 by how much an age is greater object than a man. For ? 

 both in Aegypt, Assyria, Persia, Graecia, and Rome, the 

 same times that are most renowned for arms are likewise 

 most admired for learning ; so that the greatest authors 

 and philosophers and the greatest captains and governors 

 have lived in the same ages. Neither can it otherwise be : 

 for as in man the ripeness of strength of the body and 

 mind cometh much about an age, save that the strength of 

 the body cometh somewhat the more early ; so in states, 

 arms and learning, whereof the one correspondeth to the 

 body, the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or 

 near sequence in times. 



And for matter of policy and government, that learning 

 should rather hurt than enable thereunto, is a thing 

 very improbable. We see it is accounted an error to 

 commit a natural body to empiric physicians, which com- 

 monly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are 

 confident and adventurous, but know neither the causes 



