July 20, 2015

A Treasury of English Famous Essays

英美散文菁華

4.    Of Studies 論讀書

    Francis Bacon, 1561 – 1626, English philosopher and statesman.

       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 men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned.

       To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use 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 the experience, for natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study; and studies themselves give forth directions too much at large, except they are 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 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.

       Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man writes little, he needs to have a great memory; if he confers little, he needs to have a present wit, and if he reads little, he needs to have much cunning, to seem to know that he does not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend;… So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.