– sapere aude,
Incipe: vivendi qui recte prorogat horam,
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis avum.
Be bold to be wise: to begin, be strong,
He that to live well doth the time prolong,
Clowne-like expects, till downe the streame be run,
That runs, and will run, till the world be done.
It is mere simplicitie to teach our children,
Quid moveant Pisces, animosaque signa Leonis,
Lotus et Hesperia quid Capricornus aqua.
What Pisces move, or hot breath'd Leos beames,
Or Capricornus bath'd in western streames,
the knowledge of the starres, and the motion of the eighth spheare, before their owne;
[Greek text quote omited]
What longs it to the seaven stars, and me,
Or those about Bootes be.
Anaximenes writing to Pythagoras, saith, "With what sense can I amuse my selfe in the secrets of the Starres, having continually death or bondage before mine eyes?" For at that time the Kings of Persia were making preparations to war against his Countrie. All men ought to say so: Being beaten with ambition, with avarice, with rashnesse, and with superstition, and having such other enemies unto life within him. Wherefore shall I study and take care about the mobility and variation of the world? When hee is once taught what is fit to make him better and wiser, he shall be entertained with Logicke, naturall Philosophy, Geometry, and Rhetoricke, then having setled his judgement, looke what science he doth most addict himselfe unto, he shall in short time attaine to the perfection of it. His lecture shall be somtimes by way of talke and sometimes by booke: his tutor may now and then supply him with the same Author, as an end and motive of his institution: sometimes giving him the pith and substance of it ready chewed. And if of himselfe he be not so throughly acquainted with bookes, that hee may readily find so many notable discourses as are in them to effect his purpose, it shall not be amisse that some learned man bee appointed to keepe him, company, who at any time of need may furnish him with such munition as hee shall stand in need of; that hee may afterward distribute and dispense them to his best use. And that this kind of lesson be more easie and naturall than that of Gaza, who will make question? Those are but harsh, thornie, and unpleasant precepts; vaine, idle and immaterial words, on which small hold may be taken; wherein is nothing to quicken the minde. In this the spirit findeth substance to bide and feed upon. A fruit without all comparison much better, and that will soone be ripe. It is a thing worthy consideration, to see what state things are brought unto in this our age; and how Philosophie, even to the wisest, and men of best understanding, is but an idle, vaine and fantasticall name, of small use and lesse worth, both in opinion and effect. I thinke these Sophistries are the cause of it, which have forestalled the wayes to come unto it: They doe very ill that goe about to make it seeme as it were inaccessible for children to come unto, setting it foorth with a wrimpled [Footnote: wrinkled.] gastlie, and frowning visage; who hath masked her with so counterfet, pale, and hideous a countenance? There is nothing more beauteous, nothing more delightful, nothing more gamesome; and as I may say, nothing more fondly wanton: for she presenteth nothing to our eyes, and preacheth nothing to our eares, but sport and pastime. A sad and lowring looke plainly declareth that that is not her haunt. Demetrius the Gramarian, finding a companie of Philosophers sitting close together in the Temple of Delphos, said unto them, "Either I am deceived, or by your plausible and pleasant lookes, you are not in any serious and earnest discourse amongst your selves;" to whom one of them, named Heracleon the Megarian, answered, "That belongeth to them, who busie themselves in seeking whether the future tense of the verbe ___, hath a double, or that labour to find the derivation of the comparatives, [omitted] and of the superlatives [omitted], it is they that must chafe in intertaining themselves with their science: as for discourses of Philosophie they are wont to glad, rejoyce, and not to vex and molest those that use them."
Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in agro
Corpore, deprendas et gaudia; sumit utrumque
Inde habitum facies.
You may perceive the torments of the mind,
Hid in sicke bodie, you the joyes may find;
The face such habit takes in either kind.
That mind which harboureth Philosophie, ought by reason of her sound health, make that bodie also sound and healthie: it ought to make her contentment to through-shine in all exteriour parts: it ought to shapen and modell all outward demeanours to the modell of it: and by consequence arme him that doth possesse it, with a gracious stoutnesse and lively audacite, with an active and pleasing gesture, and with a setled and cheerefull countenance. The most evident token and apparant signe of true wisdome is a constant and unconstrained rejoycing, whose estate is like unto all things above the Moone, that is ever cleare, alwaies bright. It is Baroco [Footnote: Mnemonic words invented by the scholastic logicians] and Baralipton [Footnote: Mnemonic words invented by the scholastic logicians], that makes their followers prove so base and idle, and not Philosophie; they know her not but by heare-say; what? Is it not shee that cleereth all stormes of the mind? And teacheth miserie, famine, and sicknesse to laugh? Not by reason of some imaginarie Epicicles [Footnote: A term of the old astronomy.], but by naturall and palpable reasons. Shee aymeth at nothing but vertue; it is vertue shee seekes after; which as the schoole saith, is not pitcht on the top of an high, steepie, or inaccessible hill; for they that have come unto her, affirme that cleane-contrarie shee keeps her stand, and holds her mansion in a faire, flourishing, and pleasant plaine, whence as from an high watch tower, she survaieth all things, to be subject unto her, to whom any man may with great facilitie come, if he but know the way or entrance to her palace: for, the pathes that lead unto her are certaine fresh and shadie greene allies, sweet and flowrie waies, whose ascent is even, easie, and nothing wearisome, like unto that of heavens vaults. Forsomuch as they have not frequented this vertue, who gloriously, as in a throne of Majestie sits soveraigne, goodly, triumphant, lovely, equally delicious, and couragious, protesting her selfe to be a professed and irreconcileable enemie to all sharpnesse, austeritie, feare, and compulsion; having nature for her guide, fortune and voluptuousnesse for her companions; they according to their weaknesse have imaginarily fained her, to have a foolish, sad, grim, quarelous, spitefull, threatning, and disdainfull visage, with an horride and unpleasant looke; and have placed her upon a craggie, sharpe, and unfrequented rocke, amidst desert cliffes and uncouth crags, as a scar-crow, or bugbeare, to affright the common people with. Now the tutour, which ought to know that he should rather seek to fill the mind and store the will of his disciple, as much, or rather more, with love and affection, than with awe, and reverence unto vertue, may shew and tell him, that Poets follow common humours, making him plainly to perceive, and as it were palpably to feele, that the Gods have rather placed labour and sweat at the entrances which lead to Venus chambers, than at the doores that direct to Pallas cabinets.
And when he shall perceive his scholler to have a sensible feeling of himselfe, presenting Bradamant [Footnote: A warlike heroine in Boiardo's "Orlando Innamorato" and Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso."] or Angelica [Footnote: The faithless princess, on account of whom Orlando goes mad, in the same poems.] before him, as a Mistresse to enjoy, embelished with a naturall, active, generous, and unspotted beautie not uglie or Giant-like, but blithe and livelie, in respect of a wanton, soft, affected,