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发表于 2006-7-4 17:12:43
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OF STUDIES
Francis Bacon
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use
for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse;
and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition 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 sloth; 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 by study; and studies themselves
do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by
experience.
Crafty men 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; 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 curiously; 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 distilled 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 witty; the mathematics subtile; natural
philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt
studia in morse.
Nay there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by
fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises.
Bowling 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's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in
demonstrations, 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 cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat
over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let
him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a
special receipt.
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