No More Learning

Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne.
These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last,
and therein their own folly so much, that they bring it to the stake raw
and undigested; not that the place did need it neither, but that they
thought themselves furnished and would vent it.

_Not. _ 7. --Some, again who, after they have got authority, or, which is
less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much, dare presently to
feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will
not easily be found, not by the most curious.

_Not. _ 8. --And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and
false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of
their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like
thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together
usurped from one author; their necessities compelling them to read for
present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more
ridiculously and palpably guilty than those who, because they cannot
trace, they yet would slander their industry.

_Not. _ 9. --But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of all helps
and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which, perhaps, are
excellent), dare deride all diligence, and seem to mock at the terms when
they understand not the things; thinking that way to get off wittily with
their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in
negligence, though they cannot be in nature; and they utter all they can
think with a kind of violence and indisposition, unexamined, without
relation either to person, place, or any fitness else; and the more
wilful and stubborn they are in it the more learned they are esteemed of
the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment, who think those
things the stronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to
open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose.

_Not. _ 10.
--It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to
do more than enough may sometimes happen on something that is good and
great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest
of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and
ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is
sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick
darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can
(however unfitly), they are thought to have the greater copy; where the
learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they
intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true
artificer will not run away from Nature as he were afraid of her, or
depart from life and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of
his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it
shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-chains of
the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and
furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it
is his only art so to carry it, as none but artificers perceive it. In
the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or
by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men who,
without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or
preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another
age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his
wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth
inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing,
what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in
men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their
minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what
word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully
translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show
the composition manly; and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene,
sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised
of the most, but commended (which is worse), especially for that it is
naught.

_Ignorantia animae_. --I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, not of
the arts and sciences, but of itself; yet relating to those it is a
pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason,
and common confounder of truth, with which a man goes groping in the
dark, no otherwise than if he were blind. Great understandings are most
racked and troubled with it; nay, sometimes they will rather choose to
die than not to know the things they study for. Think, then, what an
evil it is, and what good the contrary.

_Scientia_. --Knowledge is the action of the soul and is perfect without
the senses, as having the seeds of all science and virtue in itself; but
not without the service of the senses; by these organs the soul works:
she is a perpetual agent, prompt and subtle; but often flexible and
erring, entangling herself like a silkworm, but her reason is a weapon
with two edges, and cuts through.