Studies serve for delight, for ornament¹, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse²; and for ability, is in the judgment³ and disposition⁴ of business. For expert and execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best form those that are learned.

 

To spend too much time in studies is sloth⁵; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar.

 

They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning (pruning) by study; and studies themselves do give forth⁶ directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

 

Crafty⁷ men contemn⁸ 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; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

 

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously⁹; and some few to be read 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 less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled¹⁰ books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.

 

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer 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 witty¹¹; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic¹² and rhetoric¹³ able to contend. Abeunt studia in morse. (Studies pass into the character.)

 

Nay¹⁴ there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought¹⁵ out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling¹⁶ is good for the stone and reins¹⁷; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach ; riding for the head; and the like.

 

So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations¹⁸, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cyminisectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate¹⁹ another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

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