Francis Bacon Of Studies

Francis Bacon：

Analysis Of Studies

⏹Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.

⏹Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; V for ornament, is in

discourse; and V for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business.

⏹——Y ou can enjoy the greatest pleasure of reading when you read alone with focused

attention; you can attract attention and admiration of others when you make eloquent speeches; you can improve your ability when you make judgments and dispose matters.

⏹For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but

the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affaires, come best from those that are learned.

⏹——For experienced men are good at handling concrete things one by one, but things

like offering advice, making plans and arranging affairs are best done by those who 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.

⏹Spending too much time in studies tends to make people lazy; using them too often for

decoration tends make people hypocritical; doing things wholly by their rules is the queer characteristic of scholars.

⏹…studies themselves do give for th directions too much at large, except they be

bounded in by experience.

⏹——books contain too great variety of directions and subjects to be grasped by people,

unless they are confined by experience.

⏹Crafty men condemn 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.

⏹——Men with certain skill generally show contempt to studies, ignorant men show

admiration to them and wise men use them, because studies don’t teach people how to use them, which is a wisdom beyond and above books and obtained through 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.

⏹The purpose of reading is not to wrangle with (抬杠）the writer, nor to believe in blindly

what is said in books wholly, nor to find expressions and remarks for conversations，but to think carefully and make judgment.

⏹If a man V write little, he had need have a great memory; if he V confer little, he had

need have a present wit; and if he V read little, he had need have more cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

⏹——If a man should /were to write little, he should / need have a great memory; if he