138 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [BooV. 



learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in some 

 competition with empire. 



Again for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it 

 far sirrpasscth all other in nature: for shall the pleasures of the affec 

 tions so exceed the pleasures of the senses, as much as the obtaining 

 of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner? and must not, of 

 consequence, the pleasures of the intellect, or understanding, exceed 

 the pleasures of the affections ? We see in all other pleasures there 

 is a satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth ; which 

 showcth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures ; and 

 that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality ; and there 

 fore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes 

 turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satis 

 faction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable ; and therefore 

 appeared! to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. 

 Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the 

 mind of man, which the poet Lucretius described! elegantly : 

 Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis, etc. 



&quot; It is a view of delight,&quot; saith he, &quot; to stand or walk upon the shore 

 side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea ; or to be in 

 a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain ; but it is 

 a pleasure incomparable for the mind of man to be settled, landed, 

 and fortified in the certainty of truth, and from thence to descry and 

 behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and 

 down of other men.&quot; 



Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments that by learning man excelleth 

 man in that wherein man excelleth beasts ; that by learning man 

 asccndeth to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot 

 come, and the like : let us conclude with the dignity and excellency 

 of knowledge 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 tend build 

 ings, foundations, and monuments ; to this tendeth the desire of 

 memory, fame, and celebration, 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 statues 

 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 lose of the life and truth. But the images of men s wit? 

 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 



