"Of Studies"

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in their privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsils, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned.


To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is their rules, is the humer of a scholar; they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience - for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and study themselves do gives forth directions too much at large, expert they be bounded in by experience. Craftymen contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.


Read not to contradict and confute, noe to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. some books are to be tasted, others tobe swallowed, and some few tobe chewed and digested; that is , some books are tobe read only in part; others to be read, but not curioursly; and some few to beread wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the les important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are , like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writhing an exact man; and , therefore , if a man write little , he had need have a great memory; if he confre little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning , to seem to know that he doth not.


Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics , subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral , greave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend; " Abeunt studia in mores"; say, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but many be wrouht out by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have apropriate exercises_ bowlin is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like; so, if a man't wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics, for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he mustbein again; if his wits be not apt to distinguish or find difference, let him study the schoolmen; for they are 'cyminisectores'; if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustarate another, let him study the lawyers' cases- so every defect of the mind may have a special reciept.