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 dis-

course; and for ability, is in the judgment, and

disposition of business.  For expert men can exe-

cute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one;

but the general counsels, and the plots and mar-

shalling 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, by study;

and studies themselves, do give forth directions too

much at large, except they be bounded in by ex-

perience.  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 with-

out 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 dis-

course; 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 impor-

tant arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else

distilled books are like common distilled waters,

flashy things.  Reading maketh a full man; confer-

ence 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.  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; 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 wan-

dering, let him study 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.  If he be

not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one

thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study 197

the lawyers' cases.  So every defect of the mind,

may have a special receipt.