I.] ADVANCEMENT or 



gravity, than any ground of justice : for experience doth warrant, that, 

 both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and con 

 currence in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same 

 men, and the same ages. For, as for men, there cannot be a belter, 

 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 Xcnophon the Athenian ; whereof the one was the first that 

 abated the power of Sparta, and the other was the first that made war 

 to the overthrow of the monarchy of Persia. And this concurrence is 

 yet more visible in times than in persons, by how much an a-;c is 

 greater object than a man. For both in /Kgypt, Assyria, Persia, 

 Gr:ecia, 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 the strength of body and mind comcth much about an age, 

 save that the strength of the body comcth somewhat the more early ; 

 so, in states, arms and learning, whereof the one corresponded 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 physi 

 cians, which commonly have a few pleasing receipts, whereupon they 

 are confident and adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, 

 nor the complexions of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true 

 method of cures : we sec it is a like error to rely upon advocates or 

 lawyers, which are only men of practice, and not grounded in their 

 books, who arc many times easily surprised, when matter fallcth out 

 besides their experience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle : so, 

 by like reason, it cannot be but a matter of doubtful consequence, if 

 states be managed by empiric statesmen, not well mingled with men 

 grounded in learning. Hut contrariwise, it is almost without instance 

 contradictory, that ever any government was disastrous that was in the 

 hands of learned governors. For howsoever it hath been ordinary 

 with politic men to extenuate and disable learned men by the names 

 of pedants ; yet in the records of time it appeal eth, in many particulars, 

 that the governments of princes in minority (notwithstanding the 

 infinite disadvantage of that kind of state) have nevertheless excelled 

 the government of princes of mature age, even for that reason which 

 they seek to traduce, which is, that by that occasion the state hath been 

 in the hands of pedants : for so was the state of Rome for the first five 

 years, which are so much magnified, during the minority of Nero, in 

 the hands of Seneca, a pedant : so it was again for ten years space or 

 more during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great 

 applause andcontentation in the hands of Misithcus, a pedant : so \\as 



