Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

I. The excellence of knowledge and the merit of propagating it

1. Objections to learning

2. Advantages of learning

7

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

II. What has been done for the advancement of learning, and what is omitted

THE EXCELLENCE OF LEARNING,

AND

THE MERIT OF DISSEMINATING IT.

[ocr errors]

7, 8, 9

OBJECTIONS TO LEARNING.

To clear the way, and, as it were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning the dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit objections.

Objections of Divines

Objections of Politicians

Objections from the Errors of Learned men

OBJECTIONS WHICH DIVINES MAKE TO LEARNING.

1. The aspiring to Knowledge was the cause of the fall

2. Knowledge generates pride

[ocr errors]

8

14

23

7

8

[ocr errors]

3. Solomon says there is no end of making books, and he that increases knowledge increases anxiety

10

b

We must not so place our felicity in knowledge as to forget our mortality: but to give ourselves repose and contentment, and not presume by the contemplation of nature to attain to the mysteries of God.

4. St. Paul warns us not to be spoiled through vain

philosophy

12

The sense of man resembles the sun, which opens and reveals the terrestrial globe but conceals the stars and celestial globe hence men fall who seek to fly up to the secrets of the Deity by the waxen wings of the senses. 5. Learned men are inclined to be heretics, and learned men to atheism

12

It is an assured truth and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a further proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion.

Let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety, or an illapplied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can earch too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; Divinity or Philosophy.

OBJECTIONS WHICH POLITITIANS MAKE TO LEARNING.

1. Learning softens men's minds and makes them unfit for

arms

14

Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar 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 Xenophon the Athenian.

2. Learning makes men unfit for civil affairs

16

It is accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians, 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 see it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers, which are only men of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many times easily surprised, when matter falleth 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.

1. It makes them irresolute by variety of reading

14

It teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve, and to carry things in suspense till they resolve. 3. It makes them too peremtory by strictness of rules

19

It teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve ; yea, and how to carry things in suspense without prejudice, still 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.

4. It makes them immoderate by greatness of example

14

It teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of 'comparisons, and all the cautions of application. It makes them incompatible by dissimilitude of examples 19 Let a man look into the errors of Clement the seventh, so livelily 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 vapourous 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

6. It disposes men to leisure and retirement.

It were strange if that, which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation, should induce slothful

ness: of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business that can detain their minds

The most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business. And then the question is, but, how those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent ; whether in pleasures or in studies; as was well answered by Demosthenes, to his adversary Eschines, that was a man given to pleasure, and told him, that his orations did smell of the lamp: "Indeed,” said Demosthenes, "there is a great difference between "the things that you and I do by lamp-light."

1. It relaxes discipline by making men more ready to argue than to obey

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

14

To say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood, is to affirm, that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwarting, and

mutinous.

OBJECTIONS TO LEARNING FROM THE ERRORS OF LEARNED MEN.

1. From their fortunes.

2. From their manners.

3. From the nature of their studies.

FIRST.

OBJECTIONS TO LEARNING FROM THE FORTUNES OF LEARNED

MEN.

1. Learned men are poor and live in obscurity.

Learned men forgotten in states, and not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia: of which not being represented, as

many others were, Tacitus saith, "Eo ipso præfulgebant,

quod nou visebantur.”

2. Learned men are engaged in mean employments as the education of youth.

We see men are more curious what they put into a new vessel, than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould they lay about a young plant, than about a plant corroborate: so as the weakest terms and times of all things use to have the best applications and helps.

SECONDLY..

OBJECTIONS TO LEARNING FROM THE MANNERS OF LEARNED

1. Learned

MEN.

men endeavour to impose the laws of ancient severity upon dissolute times.

[ocr errors]

Solon, when he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best laws, answered wisely, "Yea, of such as they "would receive;" and Plato, finding that his own heart could not agree with the corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear place or office; saying, "That a man's country was to be used as his parents were, that is, "with humble persuasions, and not with contestations." 2. Learned men prefer the public good to their own interest. The corrupter sort of mere politicians, that have not their thoughts established by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor ever look abroad into uuiversality, do refer all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes; never caring, in all tempests, what becomes of the ship of state, so they may save themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune.

3. Learned men fail sometimes in applying themselves to individuals.

The reasons of this;

1. The largeness of their minds, which cannot descend to

particulars.

He that cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty.

« PreviousContinue »