letters, the pre-eminence in which, he freely assigns to the Grecians. "Tu regere imperio populos, Romane memento: Hæ tibi erunt artes."-Æn. vi. 851. And we also observe that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, charged him in his impeachment with destroying, in the minds of young men, by his rhetorical arts, all authority and reverence for the laws of the country." 1. But these and the like imputations have rather a show of gravity, than any just ground; for experience shows that learning and arms have flourished in the same persons and agés. As to persons, there are no better instances than Alexander and Cæsar, the one Aristotle's scholar in philosophy, and the other Cicero's rival in eloquence; and again, Epaminondas and Xenophon, the one whereof first abated the power of Sparta, and the other first paved the way for subverting the Persian monarchy. This concurrence of learning and arms, is yet more visible in times than in persons, as an age exceeds a man. For in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the times most famous for arms are likewise most admired for learning; so that the greatest authors and philosophers, the greatest leaders and governors, have lived in the same ages. Nor can it well be otherwise; for as the fulness of human strength, both in body and mind, comes nearly at an age; so arms and learning, one whereof corresponds to the body, the other to the soul, have a near concurrence in point of time. 2. And that learning should rather prove detrimental han serviceable in the art of government, seems very improbable. It is wrong to trust the natural body to empirics, who commonly have a few receipts whereon they rely, but who know neither the causes of diseases, nor the constitutions of patients, nor the danger of accidents, nor the true methods of cure. And so it must needs be dangerous to have the civil body of states managed by empirical statesmen, unless well mixed with others who are grounded in learning. On the contrary, it is almost without instance, that any government was unprosperous under learned governors "Plato, Apol. Soc. For however common it has been with politicians to discredit learned men, by the name of pedants. yet it appears from history, that the governments of princes in minority have excelled the governments of princes in maturity, merely because the management was in learned hands. The state of Rome for the first five years, so much magnified, during the minority of Nero, was in the hands of Seneca, a pedant: so it was for ten years, during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great applause in the hands of Misitheus, a pedant; and it was as happy before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus, under the rule of women, assisted by preceptors. And to look into the government of the bishops of Rome, particularly that of Pius and Sextus Quintus, who were both at their entrance esteemed but pedantical friars, we shall find that such popes did greater things, and proceeded upon truer principles of state, than those who rose to the рарасу from an education in civil affairs, and the courts of princes. For though men bred to learning are perhaps at a loss in points of convenience, and present accommodations, called reasons of state, yet they are perfect in the plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, which, if well pursued, there will be as little use of reasons of state, as of physic in a healthy constitution. Nor can the experience of one man's life furnish examples and precedents for another's present occurrences frequently correspond to ancient examples, better than to later. And lastly, the genius of any single man can no more equal learning, than a private purse hold way with the exchequer. 3. As to the particular indispositions of the mind for politics and government, laid to the charge of learning, if they are allowed of any force, it must be remembered, that learning affords more remedies than it breeds diseases; for if, by a secret operation, it renders men perplexed and irresolute, on the other hand, by plain precept, it teaches when, and upon what grounds, to resolve, and how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice if it makes men positive and stiff, it shows what things are in their nature demonstrative, what conjectural; and teaches the use of distinctions and exceptions, as well as the rigidness of prin : By the Italians "Ragioni di stato." ciples and rules. If it misleads, by the unsuitableness of examples, it shows the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and the cautions of application; so that in all cases, it rectifies more effectually than it perverts: and these remedies it conveys into the mind much more effectually by the force and variety of examples. Let a man look into the errors of Clement the Seventh, so livelily described by Guicciardini; or into those of Cicero, described by himself in his epistles to Atticus, and he will fly from being irresolute let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will beware of obstinacy or inflexibility: let him read the fable of Ixion, and it will keep him from conceitedness: let him look into the errors of the second Cato, and he will never tread opposite to the world. 4. For the pretence that learning disposes to retirement, privacy, and sloth; it were strange if what accustoms the mind to perpetual motion and agitation should induce indolence; whereas no kind of men love business, for its own sake, but the learned; whilst others love it for profit, as hirelings for the wages; others for honour; others because it bears them up in the eyes of men, and refreshes their reputations, which would otherwise fade; or because it reminds them of their fortune, and gives them opportunities of revenging and obliging; or because it exercises some faculty, wherein they delight, and so keeps them in good humour with themselves. Whence, as false valour lies in the eyes of the beholders, such men's industry lies in the eyes of others, or is exercised with a view to their own designs; whilst the learned love business, as an action according to nature, and agreeable to the health of the mind, as exercise is to that of the body: so that, of all men, they are the most indefatigable in such business as may deservedly fill and employ the mind. And if there are any laborious in study, yet idle in business, this proceeds either from a weakness of body, or a softness of disposition, and not from learning itselí, as Seneca remarks, "Quidam tam sunt umbratiles ut putent in turbido esse, quicquid in luce est."a The consciousness of such a disposition may indeed incline a man to learning, but learning does not breed any such temper in him. Pind. Pyth. ii. 21. If it be objected, that learning takes up much time, which might be better employed, I answer that the most active or busy men have many vacant hours, while they expect the tides and returns of business; and then the question is, how those spaces of leisure shall be filled up, whether with pleasure or study? Demosthenes being taunted by Æschines, a man of pleasure, that his speeches smelt of the lamp, very pertly retorted, "There is great difference between the objects which you and I pursue by lamp-light." No fear, therefore, that learning should displace business, for it rather keeps and defends the mind against idleness and pleasure, which might otherwise enter to the prejudice both of business and learning. 5. For the allegation that learning should undermine the reverence due to laws and government, it is a mere calumny, without shadow of truth; for to say that blind custom of obedience should be a safer obligation than duty, taught and understood, is to say that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a man with his eyes open can by a light. And, doubtless, learning makes the mind gentle and pliable to government, whereas ignorance renders it churlish and mutinous; and it is always found that the most barbarous, rude, and ignorant times have been most tumultuous, changeable, and seditious. 6. As to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was punished for his contempt of learning, in the kind wherein he offended, for when past threescore the humour took him to learn Greek, which shows that his former censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity than his inward sense. And, indeed, the Romans never arrived at their height of empire till they had arrived at their height of arts; for in the time of the two first Cæsars, when their government was in its greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgil; the best historiographer, Livy; the best antiquary, Varro; and the best, or second best orator, Cicero, that the world has known. And as to the persecution of Socrates, the time must be remembered in which it occurred, viz., under the reign of the Thirty Tyrants, of all mortals the bloodiest and basest that ever reigned, since the government Plutarch's Life of Deraosthenes, not said of Eschines, but Pytheas. ePlutarch's M. Cato. had no sooner returned to its senses than that judgment was reversed. Socrates, from being a criminal, started at once into a hero, his memory loaded with honours human and divine, and his discourses, which had been previously stigmatized as immoral and profane, were considered as the reformers of thought and manners. And let this suffice as an answer to those politicians who have presumed, whether sportively or in earnest, to disparage learning. We come now to that sort of discredit which is brought upon learning by learned men themselves; and this proceeds either (1) from their fortune, (2) their manners, or (3) the nature of their studies. 1. The disrepute of learning from the fortune or condition of the learned, regards either their indigence, retirement, or meanness of employ. As to the point, that learned men grow not so soon rich as others, because they convert not their labours to profit, we might turn it over to the friars, of whom Machiavel said, "That the kingdom of the clergy had been long since at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the poverty of the monks and mendicants had not borne out the excesses of bishops and prelates."e For so the splendour and inagnificence of the great had long since sunk into rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learned men had not kept up civility and reputation. But to drop such advantages, it is worth observing how reverend and sacred poverty was esteemed for some ages in the Roman state, since, as Livy says, "There never was a republic greater, more venerable, and more abounding in good examples than the Roman, nor one that so long withstood avarice and luxury, or so much honoured poverty and parsimony."f And we see, when Rome degenerated, how Julius Cæsar after his victory was counselled to begin the restoration of the state, by abolishing the reputation of wealth. And, indeed, as we truly say that blushing is the livery of virtue, though it may sometimes proceed from guilt, so it holds true of poverty that it is the attendant of virtue, though sometimes it may proceed from mismanagement and accident. d Plato, Apol. Socr. Livy's preface, towards the end. e Mach. Hist. de Firenza, b. 10. Diog. Cyn. ap. Laert. vi. 54; compare Tacitus, Agric. 45, of Domitian, Sævus vultus et rubor, a quo se contra pudorem muniebat.” |