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having a petition to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell
down at his feet, whereupon Dionysius stayed and gave him the
hearing, and granted it; and afterwards some person, tender on the
behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that he would offer the
profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a private suit to
fall at a tyrant's feet; but he answered, "It was not his fault, but
it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in his feet."
Neither was it accounted weakness, but discretion, in him that would
not dispute his best with Adrianus Caesar, excusing himself, "That
it was reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions." These
and the like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and
convenience, cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some
outward baseness, yet in a judgment truly made they are to be
accounted submissions to the occasion and not to the person.
IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have
intervened amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is
that which is principal and proper to the present argument; wherein
my purpose is not to make a justification of the errors, but by a
censure and separation of the errors to make a justification of that
which is good and sound, and to deliver that from the aspersion of
the other. For we see that it is the manner of men to scandalise
and deprave that which retaineth the state and virtue, by taking
advantage upon that which is corrupt and degenerate, as the heathens
in the primitive Church used to blemish and taint the Christians
with the faults and corruptions of heretics. But nevertheless I
have no meaning at this time to make any exact animadversion of the
errors and impediments in matters of learning, which are more secret
and remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto such as do
fall under or near unto a popular observation.
(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby
learning hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem
vain which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no
truth or no use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either
credulous or curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words:
so that in reason as well as in experience there fall out to be
these three distempers (as I may term them) of learning--the first,
fantastical learning; the second, contentious learning; and the
last, delicate learning; vain imaginations, vain altercations, and
vain affectations; and with the last I will begin. Martin Luther,
conducted, no doubt, by a higher Providence, but in discourse of
reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against the Bishop
of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and finding his
own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his own time,
was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times to his
succours to make a party against the present time. So that the
ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long
time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved.
This, by consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite
travail in the languages original, wherein those authors did write,
for the better understanding of those authors, and the better
advantage of pressing and applying their words. And thereof grew,
again, a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an
admiration of that kind of writing, which was much furthered and
precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of
those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the schoolmen,
who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings were
altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and
frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid
circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and
(as I may call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again,
because the great labour then was with the people (of whom the
Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, quae non novit
legem), for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of
necessity in chief price and request eloquence and variety of
discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of
the vulgar sort; so that these four causes concurring--the
admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact
study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching--did bring in an
affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began
to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt
more after words than matter--more after the choiceness of the
phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the
sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of
their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of
matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention,
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