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Essay L: Of Studies
Essay L: Of Studies
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief
use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in
discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business.
For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one;
but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best
from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to
use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by
their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected
by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need
proyning, ^1 by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too
much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn
studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not
their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by
observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for
granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some
books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be
read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence
and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of
them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and
the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled
waters, flashy ^2 things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man;
and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need
have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and
if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he
doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile;
natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Abeunt studia in mores [Studies pass into and influence manners]. Nay, there
is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies;
like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good
for the stone and reins; ^3 shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking
for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man`s wit be
wandering, let him ntudy the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit
be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to
distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are
cymini sectores [splitters of hairs]. If he be not apt to beat over matters,
and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the
lawyers` cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.
[Footnote 1: Pruning, cultivating.]
[Footnote 2: Insipid.]
[Footnote 3: Kidneys.]
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