220 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



decency, which is time and season. For as Solomon saith, &quot; Qui 

 rcspicit ad ventos, non seminat ; et qui rcspicit ad nubes, non metit : 

 a man must make his opportunity as oft as find it. To conclude ; 

 behaviour seemeth to me as a garment of the mind, and to have the 

 conditions of a garment. For it ought to be made in fashion ; it ought 

 not to be too curious ; it ought to be shaped so as to set forth any good 

 making of the mind, and hide any deformity ; and above all, it ought 

 not to be too strait, or restrained for exercise or motion. But this part 

 of civil knowledge hath been elegantly handled, and therefore I cannot 

 report it for deficient. 



The wisdom touching Negotiation or Business hath not been 

 hitherto collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning, and 

 the pi ofessors of learning. For from this root springeth chiefly that 

 note or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect ; that 

 there is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom. For of 

 the three wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for 

 wisdom of behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised, 

 as an inferior to virtue, and an enemy to meditation ; for wisdom of 

 government, they acquit themselves well when they arc called to it, 

 but that happeneth to few ; but for the wisdom of business, wherein 

 man s life is most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few 

 scattered advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of 

 this subject. For if books were written of this, as the other, I doubt 

 not but learned men, with mean experience, would far excel men ot 

 long experience, without learning, and outshoot them in their own bow. 



Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge should 

 be so variable, as it falleth not under precept ; for it is much less 

 infinite than science of government, which, we see, is laboured, and in 

 some part reduced. Of this wisdom, it seemeth, some of the ancient 

 Romans, in the saddest and wisest times, w r ere professors ; for Cicero 

 rcporteth, that it was then in use for senators that had name and 

 opinion for general wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, La?lius, and 

 many others, to walk at certain hours in the place, and to give audience 

 to those that would use their advice ; and that the particular citizens 

 would resort unto them, and consult with them of the marriage of a 

 daughter, or of the employing of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or 

 of an accusation, and every other occasion incident to man s life. So 

 as there is a wisdom of counsel and advice even in private cases, 

 arising out of an universal insight into the affairs of the world ; which 

 is used indeed upon particular cases propounded, but is gathered by 

 general observation of cases of like nature. For so we see in the book 

 which Q. Cicero writeth to his brother, &quot;De petitione consulatus,&quot; 

 being the only book of business, that I know, written by the ancients, 

 although it concerned a particular action then on foot, yet the sub 

 stance thereof consisteth of many wise and politic axioms, which 

 contain not a temporary, but a perpetual direction in the case of popular 

 elections. But chiefly we may see in those aphorisms which have place 

 amongst divine writings, composed by Solomon the king, of whom the 

 Scripture; testify, that his heart was as the sands of the sea, encom- 



