The Proficience and Advancement of Learning | Page 7

when Carneades the philosopher came in
embassage to Rome, and that the young men of Rome began to flock
about him, being allured with the sweetness and majesty of his
eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate that they should
give him his despatch with all speed, lest he should infect and enchant
the minds and affections of the youth, and at unawares bring in an
alteration of the manners and customs of the state. Out of the same
conceit or humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage of his
country and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of
separation between policy and government, and between arts and
sciences, in the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging
the one to the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other to the
Grecians: Tu regere imperio popules, Romane, memento, Hae tibi erunt
artes, &c. So likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid
it as an article of charge and accusation against him, that he did, with
the variety and power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw
young men from due reverence to the laws and customs of their country,

and that he did profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was
to make the worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force
of eloquence and speech.
(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a countenance of
gravity than any ground of justice: for experience doth warrant that,
both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and
concurrence in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same
men and the same ages. For as 'for men, there cannot be a better nor the
hike instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, the
Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle's scholar in philosophy, and the
other was Cicero's rival in eloquence; or if any man had rather call for
scholars that were great generals, than generals that were great scholars,
let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian;
whereof the one was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the
other was the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of
Persia. And this concurrence is yet more visible in times than in
persons, by how much an age is greater object than a man. For both in
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Graecia, and Rome, the same times that are
most renowned for arms are, likewise, most admired for learning, so
that the greatest authors and philosophers, and the greatest captains and
governors, have lived in the same ages. Neither can it otherwise he: for
as in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much
about an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the
more early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof the one
correspondeth to the body, the other to the soul of man, have a
concurrence or near sequence in times.
(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning, should
rather hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable; we see it
is accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians,
which commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are
confident and adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor
the complexions of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method
of cures; we see it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers
which are only men of practice, and not grounded in their books, who
are many times easily surprised when matter falleth out besides their

experience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle: so by like reason
it cannot be but a matter of doubtful consequence if states be managed
by empiric statesmen, not well mingled with men grounded in learning.
But contrariwise, it is almost without instance contradictory that ever
any government was disastrous that was in the hands of learned
governors. For howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic men to
extenuate and disable learned men by the names of pedantes; yet in the
records of time it appeareth in many particulars that the governments of
princes in minority (notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that
kind of state)--have nevertheless excelled the government of princes of
mature age, even for that reason which they seek to traduce, which is
that by that occasion the state hath been in the hands of pedantes: for so
was the state of Rome for the first five years, which are so much
magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a
pedenti; so it was again, for ten years' space or more, during the
minority of Gordianus the younger, with great applause