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1 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 judgement 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 judgement wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar.They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience:for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study:and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.Crafty men condemn 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 book:else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy 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 subtle;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 wandering, 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 the lawyers’cases:so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. pdpvOHE6PhEL535dUH+JzKit/7/7pkBTmpIUp69m9se68nrjG9lftM2u2tvrPKIy

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