136 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mine!, 

 and to accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain 

 admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness : for all 

 things are admired, either because they are new, or because they are 

 great. For novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation 

 thoroughly, but will find that printed in his heart, &quot; Nil novi super 

 terram.&quot; Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that 

 goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for 

 magnitude, as Alexander the great, after he was used to great armies, 

 and the conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received 

 letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were 

 commonly for a passage, or a fort, or some walled town at the most, 

 he said, &quot; It seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battle of the 

 frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of.&quot; So certainly, if a man 

 meditate upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon 

 it, the divineness of souls excepted, will not seem much other than an 

 ant-hill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and 

 some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. It taketh 

 away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune ; which is one ot 

 the gieatest impediments of virtue, and imperfections of manners. 

 For if a man s mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the 

 mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with 

 Epictetus, who went forth one day, and saw a woman weeping for her 

 pitcher of earth that was broken ; and went forth the next day, and 

 saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead ; and thereupon said, 

 &quot; Ileri vidi fragilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori.&quot; And therefore 

 did Virgil excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes, 

 and the conquest of all fears together, as concomitantia : 



Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 

 Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum 

 Subjt-cit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis a\-ari. 



It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning 

 doth minister to all the diseases of the mind, sometimes purging the 

 ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping 

 digestion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the 

 wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the like ; and therefore I 

 will conclude with that which hath &quot; rationem totius,&quot; which is, that 

 it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in 

 the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth 

 and reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to 

 descend into himself, or to call himself to account ; nor the pleasure 

 : that &quot; suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem.&quot; The good 

 parts he hath, he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexter 

 ously, but not much to increase them; the faults he hath, he will learn 

 hide and colour them, but not much to amend them : like an ill 

 mower, that mows on still, and never whets his scythe. Whereas, 

 c learned man it fares otherwise that he doth ever intermix 

 lion and amendment of his mind, with the use and employ- 



