Of Studies
Francis Bacon 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 judgement and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge the particulars, one by one but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in study sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules is the humour of the scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they are bounded in by experience. Crafty men contempt studies; simple men admire them, and wise men use them. For they teach not for 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.
