Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in private
ness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and dispositio
n of business.
For expert and execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and
the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best form those that are learned.
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to ma
ke 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 proyning (pruning) 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 discou
rse; 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 i
n the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; 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 subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave;
logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in morse.
Nay there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as disea
ses of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting fo
r 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 diff
erences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. (Hair-splitters sim-mini sek-tor
r-es) If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate anothe
r, let him study the lawyers\' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt