[♦] “gerality” replaced with “generality”
*7. For, first, It is reckoned a notable point of learning to understand variety of languages. This alone gives a man a title to learning, without one grain of sense; and on the other side, let a man be an angel for notion and discourse, yet unless he can express the same thought in variety of words, he may go for a rational, but will by no means be esteemed a learned man. Now is it not a strange thing, that so much stress should be laid on so very a trifle? For what am I the better for being able to tell, what ’tis a-clock in twenty languages? What does this signify to the perfection of my understanding? Words are purely in order to sense: and are therefore of no farther value, than as they help either to learn or to communicate it. Therefore, to affect them for themselves, is to turn the means into the end, than which nothing is more absurd. And yet this vain piece of pedantry has prevailed all the world over, and with some to that degree, that they have confounded ideas with words, and have made all science to terminate in the latter. Thus Mr. Hobbes makes reason to be nothing else, but “Sequela Nominum, a well-ordered train of words.” Never certainly was a plainer argument of the great degeneracy of mankind. And tho’ all the multipliers of tongues are not comprehended under this latter charge, yet it may concern them to consider, how great a folly it must be to place learning in that, which is one of the greatest curses upon earth, and which shall utterly cease in heaven.
*8. Again, it passes for an extraordinary part of learning to understand history: that is, in other words, to know what a company of silly creatures called men, have been doing for almost these six thousand years. Now, what is my understanding the perfecter for this? I deny not, that there are some matters of fact, as the more remarkable turns of ecclesiastical history, and the greater revolutions of the civil world, which are of moment to be known; because, by discovering to us the conduct of divine providence, they supply us with occasions of acknowledging and adoring the wisdom and goodness of God. Neither do I deny, that there are many other historical passages, which may be of moment to be known; tho’ not as perfective of our understanding, but as touching our interest. And so it may be of moment to me to know, the clock has struck one, if I have made an assignation at that time; but sure the bare naked theory of the clock’s having struck one, will add but little to my intellectual perfection. The most trivial matter of fact in the world is worth knowing, if I have any concern depending upon it: and the greatest without that, is utterly insignificant. So that ’tis not from perfecting of our understanding, but from the relation they have to our interest, that these things deserve to be known.
*9. I would desire the great magnifiers of history only to answer me this one question. Suppose such and such matters of fact, in the knowing which they perhaps glory more, than the actors themselves did in the doing them, had never been done? Suppose Fabius had never weathered out Hannibal by delays, nor Cyrus took Babylon by draining the river into the ditches: what diminution would this have been to the perfection of their understanding? They cannot say it would have been any. And why then should the knowing them now they are done, be reckoned an addition to it? And yet we find it is so, and that men study these things, not only for their use, (that we allow) but for their mere theory, placing learning in such history as has nothing to commend it, but only that it tells you, such and such things were done. Of this impertinent sort is the greatest part of the Roman and Grecian history: which, had not the world voted it for learning, would no more concern a man to know, than that a bird has dropt a feather upon the Pyrenean mountains.
10. Again, it passes for a notable piece of learning to understand chronology: to be able to adjust the intervals and distances of time, when such a man flourished, when such an action was done, and the like. Now I deny not, but it may concern some to know these things, who have any interest depending upon it. It may concern some to know, for instance, that there is a twofold date of the victory at Actium, the one reckoned from the fight there, the other from the taking of Alexandria. But however useful it may be to know this, yet certainly as to any intellectual perfection that accrues by it, it must needs be a very unedifying stuffage of the head; altho’ ’tis so generally accounted a great accomplishment and enrichment of it.
*11. There are many other things which the humour of the world has turned up for learning, which ignorance will never be the better for, and which wisdom does not need. Thus ’tis counted learning to have tumbled over a multitude of books, especially if great ones, and old ones, and obscure ones; but most of all, if manuscripts, the recovery of one of which is reckoned so much added to the common-wealth of learning, as they call it. Hence a well-read man signifies the very same as a learned man in most men’s dictionaries: and by well-read they don’t mean one that has read well, that has cleared and improved his understanding by his reading, but only one that has read much, tho’ perhaps he has puzzled and confounded his notions by doing so. Thus again, it goes for learning, to be acquainted with men’s opinions, especially of the ancients; to know what this or that philosopher held, what this or that author says, tho’ perhaps he says nothing but what is either absurd, or obviously true. What, for instance, can be more absurd; than that fancy of Empedocles, that there are two semicircles compassing the earth betwixt them, one of fire, the other of air; and that the former makes day, and the latter night? And yet to know this is learning! What can be more obviously true, than that grave doctrine of Aristotle, that privation must go before the introduction of the form in all generation? Or, that a thing must lose one form, before it can take another? And yet ’tis learning to know that he taught this! To know the thing is nothing: but to know that Aristotle taught it, that is learning! Nay farther, tho’ I am able to demonstrate the circulation of the blood, or the motion of the earth, yet I shall not be admitted into the order of the learned, unless I am able to tell, that Copernicus discovered the one, and Harvey the other. So much more learned an atchievment it is, to know opinions than things! And accordingly those are reckoned the most learned authors, who have given the greatest specimens of this kind of knowledge. Thus Picus Mirandula is more admired for his examination of the doctrine of the Pagans, than any of them were for what they delivered.
12. Now what an unreasonable imposition is this, that tho’ a man can think and write like an angel himself, yet he must not be accounted a man of learning, unless he can tell what every whimsical writer hath said before him? And how hard will it fall upon those, whose lot is to breathe in the last ages of the world, who must be accountable for all the whims and extravagancies of so many centuries? And yet this is made so great a part of learning, that the learning of most men lies in books rather than in things. And among authors, where one writes upon things, there are twenty write upon books. Nay, some carry this humour so far, that ’tis thought learning to know the very title of books and their editions, with the time and place when and where they were printed. And many there are who value themselves not a little on this mechanical faculty, tho’ they know no more of what is in them, than they do of what is written in the rolls of destiny.
13. From this placing of learning in the knowledge of books, proceeds that ridiculous vanity of multiplying quotations, which is also reckoned another piece of learning, tho’ they are used so impertinently, that there can be no other end in them, but to shew, that the author has read such a book. And yet it is no such convincing evidence of that neither. It being neither new nor difficult, for a man that is resolved upon it, to quote such authors as he never read nor saw. And were it not too odious a truth, I could name several of those author-mongers who pass for men of shrewd learning.
14. These and many other such things (for ’twere endless to reckon up all) are by the majority of the world voted for learning, and in these we spend our education, our study and our time, tho’ they are no way perfective of our understanding. So that in short, the charge of this reflection amounts to thus much, that learning is generally placed in the knowledge of such things, as the intellectual perfection of man is little or nothing concerned in.