Our Saviour first showed His power to subdue ignorance by His conference with the doctors, before He showed His power to subdue Nature by miracles; and the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly figured in the gift of tongues, which are the vehicles of knowledge. St. Paul, most learned of the apostles, had his pen most used in the New Testament. Many of the ancient fathers of the Church were excellently read in all the learning of the heathen; and that heathen learning was preserved, amid Scythian and Saracen invasions, in the sacred bosom of the Church. And in our own day, when God has called the Roman Church to account for degenerate manners and obnoxious doctrines. He has also ordained a renovation of all other knowledges; and, on the other side, the Jesuits, by quickening the state of learning, have done notable service to the Roman See. Wherefore two principal services are performed to religion by human learning: first, the contemplation of God's works is an effectual inducement to the exaltation of His glory; and, secondly, true learning is a singular preservative against unbelief and error.
To pass now to human proofs of the dignity of learning, we find that among the heathen the inventors of new arts, such as Ceres, Bacchus, and Apollo, were consecrated among the gods themselves by apotheosis. The fable of Orpheus, wherein quarrelsome beasts stood sociably listening to the harp, aptly described the natureof men among whom peace is maintained so long as they give ear to precepts, laws, and religion. It has been said that people would then be happy, when kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings; and history shows that the best times have ever been under learned princes.
As for the services of knowledge to private virtue, it takes away all levity, temerity, and insolence by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides. It takes away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness. No man can marvel at the play of puppets that goes behind the curtain. And certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal frame of Nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. But especially learning disposes the mind to be capable of growth and reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself or to call himself to account, nor the pleasure of feeling himself each day a better man than he was the day before; he is like an ill mower, that mows on still and never whets his scythe. Knowledge crowns man's nature with power. It even gives fortune to particular persons; and it is hard to say whether arms or learning have advanced greater numbers. As for the pleasure and delight thereof, in knowledge there is no satiety. "It is a pleasure incomparable," says Lucretius, "for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth; and from thence to descry the errors and perturbations of other men."
Lastly, by learning man excels man in that wherein man excels beasts. The great dignity of knowledge lies in immortality or continuance, and the monuments of learning are more durable than the monuments of power. Have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-fivehundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter, during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished?
If the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carries riches and commodities from place to place, and consociates the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified? Popular and mistaken judgments will continue as they have ever been, but so will that also continue whereupon learning has ever relied, and which fails not.
"Wisdom is justified of her children."
Second Book
The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of man's understanding--history to his memory, poetry to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason. Divine learning receives the same distribution, so that theology consisteth of history of the Church; of parables, which are divine poetry; and of holy doctrine or precept. For prophecy is but divine history, in which the narrative is before the fact.
History is "natural," "civil," "ecclesiastical," and "literary "; whereof the first three are extant, but the fourth is deficient. A true history of learning throughout the ages is wanting. History of Nature is of three sorts--of Nature in course, of Nature erring or varying, and of Nature altered or worked; that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts. The first of these is extant in good perfection; the two others are handled so weakly that I note them as deficient. The history of arts is of great use towards natural philosophy such as shall be operative to the benefit of man's life. Civil history is of three kinds: "memorials," "perfect histories," and "antiquities," comparable to unfinished,perfect and defaced pictures. Just or perfect history represents a time, a person, or an action. The first we call "chronicles"; the second, "lives"; and the third, "narrations," or "relations."
Of modern histories the greater part are beneath mediocrity. Annals and journals are a kind of history not to be forgotten; and there is also ruminated history, wherein political discourse and observations are mingled with the history of the events themselves. The history of cosmography is compounded of natural history, civil history, and mathematics. Ecclesiastical history receives the same divisions with civil history, but may further be divided into history of the Church, history of prophecy, and history of Providence. The first of these is not deficient, only I would that the sincerity of it were proportionate to its mass and quantity. The history of prophecy, sorting every prophecy with the event fulfilling the same, is deficient; but the history of Providence, and the notable examples of God's judgments and deliverances have passed through the labour of many. Orations, letters, and brief sayings, or apophthegms, are appendices to history. Thus much concerning history, which answers to memory.