226 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, 

 and wanderings up and down of other men.' 



Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning 

 man excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts ; 

 that by learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their 

 motions, where in body he cannot come ; and the like ; 

 let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of know- 

 ledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature doth 

 most aspire ; which is immortality or continuance ; for 

 to this tendeth generation, and raising of houses and 

 families ; to this buildings, foundations, and monuments ; 

 to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and cele- 

 bration ; and in effect, the strength of all other human 

 desires. We see then how far the monuments of wit 

 and learning are more durable than the monuments of 

 power or of the hands. For have not the verses of 

 Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, 

 without the loss of a syllable or letter ; during which 

 time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been 

 decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have 

 the true pictures or statuas of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, 

 no nor of the kings or great personages of much later 

 years ; for the originals cannot last, and the copies 

 cannot but leese of the life and truth. But the images 

 of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted 

 from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual 

 renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, 

 because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the 

 mind of others, provoking and causing infinite actions 

 and opinions in succeeding ages. So that if the invention 

 of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches 

 and commodities from place to place, and consociateth 

 the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, 

 how much more are letters to be magnified, which as 

 ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages 

 so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, 

 and inventions, the one of the other ? Nay further, 

 we see some of the philosophers which were least divine 

 and most immersed in the senses and denied generally 



