ioT, ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Kook 



it before that, in the minority of Alexander Scverus, in like happiness, 

 in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the women who 

 were aided by the teachers and preceptors. Nay, let a man look into 

 the government of the bishops of Rome, as by name, into the govern 

 ment of Pius Quintus, and Sextus Quintus, in our times, who were 

 both at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall 

 lind that such popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer 

 principles of state, than those which have ascended to the papacy from 

 an education and breeding in affairs of state and courts of princes ; for 

 although men bred in learning are perhaps to seek in points of con 

 venience, and accommodating for the present, which the Italians call 

 ni^inni di stato, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken 

 with patience, terming them inventions against religion and the moral 

 virtues ; yet on the other side, to recomixmsc that, they are perfect in 

 those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, 

 which if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use 

 of those other, no more than of physic in a sound or well dieted body. 

 Neither can the experience of one man s life furnish examples and 

 precedents for the events of one man s life : for as it happeneth some 

 times that the grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor, 

 more than the son ; so many times occurrences of present times may 

 sort better with ancient examples, than with those of the later or im 

 mediate times : and lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail 

 learning, than one man s means can hold way with a common purse. 



And as for those particular seducements, or indispositions of the 

 mind for policy and government, which learning is pretended to in 

 sinuate ; if it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered 

 withal, that learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of 

 medicine or remedy, than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity : 

 for if, by a secret operation, it make men perplexed and irresolute, on 

 the other side, by plain precept, it u-ucheth them when, and upon what 

 ground, to resolve ; yea, and how to carry things in suspense without 

 prejudice, till they resolve : if it make men positive and regular, it 

 teacheth them what things are in their nature demonstrative, and what 

 are conjectural ; and as well the use of distinctions and exceptions, as 

 the latitude of principles and rules. If it mislead by disproportion, or 

 dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, 

 the errors of comparisons, and all the cautions of application : so that 

 in all these it doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert. And 

 these medicines it convcyeth into men s minds much more forcibly by 

 the quickness and penetration of examples. For let a man look into 

 the errors of Clement the seventh, so lively described by Guicciardine, 

 who served under him, or into the errors of Cicero, painted out by his 

 own pencil in his epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being 

 irresolute. Let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will 

 beware how he be obstinate or inflexible. Let him but read the fable 

 of Ixion, and it will hold him from being vapon .is or imaginative. 

 Let him look into the errors of Cato the second, and he will never be 

 one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the present world. 



