i8o OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



himself to learning, but it is noLlearning that hreedeth any 

 such point in his nature. 



And that learning should take up too much time or 

 leisure ; I answer, the most active or busy man that hath 

 been or can be hath (no question) many vacant times of 

 leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business, 

 (except he be either tedious and of no dispatch, or lightly 

 and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be 

 better done by others ;) and then the question is but how 

 those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent ; 

 whether in pleasures or in studies ; as was well answered 

 by Demosthenes to his adversary Aeschines, that was a 

 man given to pleasure, and told him c that his orations did 

 smell of the lamp ' : ' Indeed (said Demosthenes) there is a 

 great difference between the things that you and I do by 

 lamp-light/ So as no man need doubt that learning will 

 expulse business ; but rather it will keep and defend the 

 possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which 

 otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice of both. 



Again, for that other conceit that learning should 

 undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is 

 assuredly a mere depravation and calumny without all 

 shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of t^ 

 obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught -^ 

 and understood, it is to affirm that a blind man may tread ^ ,y/# 

 surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And 

 it is without all controversy that learning doth make the **** 

 minds of men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to 

 government ; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, r0 s 4 

 thwart, and mutinous : and the evidence of time doth clear ' 

 this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, 

 and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, 

 seditions, and changes. 



And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was 

 well punished for his blasphemy against learning, in the 

 same kind wherein he offended ; for when he was past 

 threescore years old, he was taken with an extreme desire 

 to go to school again and to learn the Greek tongue, to 

 the end to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well 



