Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is i
n privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judg
ment and disposition of business.For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particul
ars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come b
est from those that are learned.To spend too much time in studies is sloth; touse them too
much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of
a scholar.They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience:for natural abilities are l
ike natural plants that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth direct
ions 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 tha
t 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 chewe
d and digested;that is, some books are to be read onlyin parts; others to be read, but not
curiously; and some few to be read wholly,and with diligence and attention.Some books als
o may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others, but that would be only in th
e less important arguments, and the meaner sort of book;else distilled books are like comm
on 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 memor
y; 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,subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able
to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but ma
y be wrought out by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercis
es. Bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle wal
king for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like.So if a man's wit be wandering, le
t him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so lit
tle,he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences,let him
study the schoolmen, for they are cumini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters a
nd 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.