ESSAY XXIII. STUDIES. [1] STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and [2] 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 [3] from those that are learned. To spend too much [1.] STUDIES: In the earliest edition of the Essays, this stood first in order. Studies serve, &c.: In the Latin, 'Studies and the reading of books serve, &c.' The title of the Essay in Latin, is De Studiis et Lectione Librorum. Retiring: [2.] In privateness: seclusion from company. Synonyme? [In secessu et otio imprimis percipitur.] In discourse: The Latin is more full:-'In sermone tam familiari quam solenni.' And for ability, &c.: Here the Latin is more clear and satisfactory :-'Quatenus vero ad negotiorum subsidium, huc spectat, ut accuratiore judicio res et suscipiantur et disponantur.' General counsels : counsels concerning large interests. [Consilia de summis rerum.] Give synonymes for 'disposition of business,' 'expert,' 'plots,' 'marshalling of affairs.' Synonyme ? : [3.] Is sloth is a certain sort of specious indolence and inactivity. [Speciosa quædam socordia est.] Affectation: To make judgment: to judge of matters by their rules savors of the school, and does not succeed well. [De rebus autem ex regulis artis judicare scholam omnino sapit, nec bene succedit.] Humor: Synonyme ? Natural plants: those that come up without sowing or planting. As natural plants do not need pruning by study,' alter time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment 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 contemn studies, simple men [4] the sentence to obviate this fault in its construction. The Latin is free from it :-' Dotes enim naturales instar plantarum sunt sponte provenientum, quæ culturam et falcem artis desiderant.' [4.] Crafty men contemn studies: The contempt of studies often finds its expression in the word 'smattering;' and the couplet is become almost a proverb: "A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." But the poet's remedies for the dangers of a little learning are both of them impossible. None can 'drink deep' enough to be, in truth, any thing but superficial; and every human being, that is not a downright idiot, must taste. It is plainly impossible that any man should acquire a knowledge of all that is to be known on all subjects. But is it then meant that, on each particular subject on which he does learn any thing at all, he should be perfectly well informed? [Or, on the other hand] would any one sincerely advise that those who are not proficients in astronomy should remain ignorant whether the earth moves or the sun? The truth is every body ought to have a slight and superficial knowledge-a 'smattering,' if you will-of more subjects than it is possible to acquire thoroughly. What, then, is the 'smattering'-the imperfect and superficial knowledge-that really does deserve contempt? A slight and superficial knowledge is justly condemned, when it is put in the place of more full and exact knowledge. Now, as no one can learn all things perfectly, it seems best for a man to make some pursuit his main object, according to his calling-to his natural bent—or to his opportunities; then let him get a slight admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, [5] and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and refute, nor to believe and take for knowledge of what else is worth it, regulated in his choice by the same three circumstances.-W. Crafty men not in the ordinary sense of 'cunning,' but men of craft, of manual occupations, of mechanical or other business. Simple: Synonyme ? Simple men admire them: An amusing and apt illustration of the idea, is found in the picture which Goldsmith draws of the Village Schoolmaster :— "Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault. -Deserted Village. [5.] Read not, &c.: It would have been well if Bacon had added some hints as to the mode of study: how books are to be chewed, and swallowed, and digested. For, besides inattentive readers, who measure their proficiency by the pages they have gone over, it is quite possible to read most laboriously, even so as to get by heart the words of a book, without really studying it at all: that is, without employing the thoughts on the subject. There is [however] one mode of exercising the thoughts that is very hurtful; which is, that of substituting conjectures for attention to what the author says. After you have studied an author, reflect on what he says, and consider whether he is right, and how far; but while actually engaged in perusal, attend to what the writer actually says, and endeavor fairly to arrive at his meaning, before you proceed to speculate upon it for yourself. We should be ever on our guard against the tendency to read through colored spectacles.-W. granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others [6] [6.] Some books are to be tasted: For various reasons it will often be necessary to 'taste' some books which will be, to the most discerning palates, very nauseous, or very insipid. For, if you know only what is said, and done, and written, and read, and approved by the wise and the high-minded, you will remain unacquainted with a portion,—and that, alas, the largest portion—of mankind. The prevailing prejudices and weaknesses of each age and country, and class of men, and the peculiar kind of sophistry by which each are most liable to be misled, must be understood by any one who would have a correct acquaintance with that age, &c. And, again, some very valuable books can be but imperfectly understood without a knowledge of those they were designed to refute.-W. Curiously: (from cura, care) with care, with close attention. 'But observing it more curiously I saw within it several spots.' -Sir Isaac Newton. Wholly Synonyme ? With diligence and attention: It is important (says Prof. Henry Reed) to form 'this among our other habits of reading -to have an eye and a feeling for the fitness of the words, their power, their beauty, their simplicity, and truthfulness; to find ourselves, in reading a wise and good book, often pausing, in silent thankfulness and delight, as we think and feel what glorious apparel the author's wise thought or good feeling hath arrayed itself in-with what majesty or loveliness of speech or song the mind makes music for itself in the words in which it is embodied. So that the thought and the words receive strength and beauty from each other. Of that connection which exists between our thoughts and feelings, and the words we clothe them in, of their mutual relation and reaction, I cannot now speak further than to say, that the more we reflect on our own inner nature, and on the wondrous power of words, the better we shall feel and understand that relation, perceiving how words seem to dwell midway between the corporeal and incorporeal-a connection between our spiritual and material being. Speech, even more than reason, distinguishes man from the brute; and the two powers, in their mysterious union, lift him out of barbarism.'-Eng. Lit. Lect. III, pp. 87, 88. 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. [7] 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 [7.] Read by deputy: Paraphrase. Would Should. Else, &c.: 'As for percolation, trial would be made by clarifying.'-Bacon's Nat. Hist. Argaments: subjects. In other cases, distilled books (so to speak), like distilled waters, which are commonly sold, will be entirely insipid (flashy things). [Alias enim (ut sic dicam) distillati, instar aquarum distillatarum, quas vulgo mercantur, erunt penitus insipidi.] They are deprived of their spirit and vitality. There are certain works which must be read in their totality, in their precise language, to give us a full idea of their excellence. To change the form and phraseology, is to destroy their piquancy and force. What just idea should we have of Paradise Lost, or of some of the finest passages of Shakespeare, in an abridged form? Mr. Henry Rogers, in one of his articles for the Edinburgh Review [1849], has written a valuable paragraph, which fairly illustrates what seems to be the idea of our author in regard to distilled books, though no reference is made to Bacon :-" Considering the vastness of the accumulations of literature, and the impossibility of mastering them, it is not wonderful that the idea should sometimes have suggested itself, that it might be possible in a series of brief publications to distil, as it were, the quintessence of books, and condense folios into pamphlets. 'Were all books thus reduced,' says Addison, many a bulky author would make his appearance in a penny paper. There would scarce be such a thing in nature as a folio; the works of an age would be contained on a few shelves-not to mention millions of volumes that would be utterly annihilated.' One such attempt we remember being made with considerable pretensions; but it was as futile as every such attempt must be. |