let these pass Wit is the mother of facetiousnes conceits jests raillery satyricalnes which is almost synonymum to wit drollery quick reparties quaint Metaphors and the like in conversation Of projects new Inventions Mechanical Instruments c. And in learning is the great Nurse of Poetry Oratory Musick Painting Acting and the like 2. JUDGMENT is the deliberate weighing and comparing of one subject one appearance one reason with another thereby to discern and chuse true from false good from bad and more true and good from lesser Which who so doth is a wise man beloved of God and reverenced of all good men Its parts consist 1. in circumspection or consideration of all circumstances advantages accidents c. 2. In sagacity or collecting much from little hints which requires both a great vivacity serenity and subtilty of spirit all these together make up Solertia 3. In caution or weighing all things for and against the subject And 4. Providence or provision of futures what may and what may not most probably fall out which is the height of human wisdom A judicious man is stable solid serious looks after truth real advantage and happines is fit to govern and obey is not rash or inconstant believes not easily nor easily disbelieves but as his reason guides him His discourse is not so plausible as solid useth reasons more then Metaphors speaks to purpose and knows when to hold his peace He is what every one strives but few arrive to be This faculty is proper for all Sciences that depend upon rational discourse and much thinking as Divinity and the profound mysteries thereof Natural Philosophy and Moral Practical Medicine Law Judicature and Government in Peace and War 3. MEMORY is the calling to mind or recollecting of what hath bin before known and apprehended They that excel in it are accounted many times greater Clerks then wise men are able to cite many Books and Authors and their Editions can tell their opinions and enterlace their discourse with ends of gold and silver Yet if not menaged by judgment their opinion or learning is of little force or esteem amongst knowing men who yet can gather many useful things out of their confusion This faculty is necessary for Lawyers whose learning lies in quotations and records and who number rather then weigh their Authorities 'T is also proper for learning Languages Criticismes Philology Antiquities for putting out commenting upon and making Indexes to Authors It is a natural faculty and conspicuous even in Children who by it learn till they arrive to some considerable degree of Understanding 4. IT is commonly imagined that a great memory seldom accompanieth a great wit or a good judgment and that these three are incompatible one with another that they have divers habitations in and a divers temperature of the brain Whereas I think the contrary is generally but not alwaies true And thence is gathered an effectual argument that they are all menaged by one great Agent the Soul or spirit which is above temperature place and matter That one man proves not excellent in all or many Sciences proceeds not from the inhability of one or other faculty of the Soul but either from the long time required to one study from want of industry every one being most ready to make use of and cultivate that wherein they have some natural advantage and to neglect the other or from the two great attachment Men have to what they first master so that all following studies are cast into the mold of the first or lastly from a mistake for that memory is not so conspicuous except where wit and judgment are wanting Yet in these later times what persons have we seen eminent in all three faculties Erasmus when a youth had all Terence and Horace by heart Jos. Scaliger in 21. daies got by heart all Homer the Ilias containing 31670 verses and the Odysses about the same number and in 4. months all the other Greek Poets Monsieur Peiresk when a youth at School could repeat all Ovids Metamorphosis and Justins History without book Card. Bellarmin saith Gallutius had such a memory ut quicquid legeret scriberetve statim ac subito reciperet quicquid recepisset fidelissimè constantissimèque retineret P. Paolo Sarpi's great memory as well as wit and judgment even from a child read in his life What a man Monsieur Pascal was in divers Sciences his other works what in Divinity the Provincials Letters demonstrate I will omit Julius Scaliger Joh. Picus Paulus Scalichius Adr. Turnebus Casaubon Card. Perron in four daies got by heart all Ecclesiastes in Hebrew and besides his other vast abilities was also an excellent Poet. Mr Oughtred in his old age had Ovid and Virgil fresh in his memory Fr. Suarez had S. Austins works so by heart that he could repeat not only the sense but for the most part his very words and if he was asked of any thing in his own works 22. Volums in fol. he could tell the place and very page where he treated of it But this himself called not memory but reminiscence for it was indeed as much judgment as memory for he was so well versed in that learning and so perfectly master of it having read the whole Course of School-Divinity as I remember 17. times over that if he were asked of any point or conclusion he would discourse of it just in the same manner and order as he had writ it in his Books I could produce many more instances But in reason the goodnes of the judgment must depend upon invention and memory that being the faculty which gives sentence according to the reports of the other two Yet few there are in whom these faculties are as I may say mingled ana It is best therefore that all be cultivated and advanced as high as they are capable to be and what is most defective is most to be helped And Children having memory by nature invention not till youth nor judgment till maturity their memory is first to be menaged only with this caution that they be made to understand what they learn and the reason of it as soon as they shall be capable 5. OF the bettering of Judgment we shall speak in another place but for Memory because we remember better those things 1. which we learn from our childhood 2. which we are more attentive to 3. which we exercise our selves most in 4. which we orderly apprehend 5. which we can call to mind from the beginning 6. which we conceive to be somewhat like 7. and which is pleasing to us and because childhood and youth have their memory tho not so excellent as men yet more useful then their understanding therefore what ever they learn let it be got by heart that they may repose and store up in their memory what their understanding afterwards may make use of let them also frequently render it and after several interstitiums which will be a great help to their memory to the
perfecting of which nothing conduceth so much as practise Yet there is also an Artificial help to memory which is variously and obscurely delivered by many Authors the shortest and easiest is this Make use of a sufficient number of places best known to you as of Towns in the way to London the Streets of London or the Signs in one Street such in fine as are well known to you Keep their order perfectly in mind which first which second c. and when any word is given you to remember place it in the first Town Street or Sign joining them together with some fancy tho never so extravagant the calling to mind your known place will draw along with it the fancy and that the word joined to it And these you may repeat afterwards either in the same order as they were delivered or backwards or as you please This serves very well for words and indifferently for verses after much practise but it requires a long time by this art to remember Sentences A succedaneum to memory is writing and Students are wont to serve themselves of common-place-Common-place-Books excellent helps to ordinary memories The best way that I know of ordering them is To write down confusedly what in reading you think observable Young Students commonly take notice of remarkable Histories Fables Apologues such as are not in Esop Adagies if not in Erasmus or Manutius Hieroglyphics Emblems Symbols which are all but simile's drest after divers fashions Histories of heathen Gods Laws and customes of Nations Wise and useful Sentences Elegant Figures Reasons and Causes Descriptions and the like Leaving in your Book a considerable margin marking every observation upon the page as well as the pages themselves with 1 2 3. c. Afterwards at your leasure set down in the margin the page of your Index where the head is to which such Sentence relates and so enter into the Index under such a head the page of your Note-book wherein such sentence is stored These Note-books if many are to be distinguished by A B C c. your Index must be well furnished with heads yet not too much multiplied least they cause confusion Your own experience will continually be supplying what is defective 6. INVENTION is bettered by practise by reading by imitation and by common-places 1 FOR practise let him have a Teacher who himself hath some considerable dexterity and practise in it who may guide his charge by fit and easy rules and exercises and not thrust him upon fishing in Books at first and may take his subject after him and shew him what more might have bin said and what he hath said bettered Neither let the young man torture his mind at all but set down what is suggested by his memory or fancy concerning his subject be it considerable or no. The Soul will by little and little heat and wind it self unto higher conceptions and in transcribing he may reject what is too obvious Let him be taught first to fill up a Sentence with epithetes oblique cases of the Instrument manner cause and all circumstances and relations which is easily known by the rection of the parts of his Sentence Practise him in most easy oppositions of Not and But in most easy descriptions of things most familiar to him to enure him to the observation and taking notice of what he sees in enumeration of parts and species as The old is better In Histories or Fables giving him somewhat to make out the rest as Ultima omnium spes evolavit è dolio in most easy and familiar similes as of a Shepheard and Magistrate pismire and industrious person sufficient variety of these is collected by Erasmus Under simile's are comprehended also Metaphors Allegories Fables Parables Symbols and the like And it were a good exercise amongst a circle of Scholars to propose a Symbol the easiest first and every one to answer in his turn v. g. let every one give his Symbol of fortitude and a motto or word for it such as a Pillar which sustaineth the greatest weight laid upright upon it the motto Rectum stabile a Palm tree that grows up against a pressure Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito to a Die homo quadratus An oaken-bough struck with lightning impavidum ferient A Rock an Anvil an helmet c. Fables are taken as Symbols from things natural from things animate as an Eagle Cock c. clothing them with speech and action such betwixt Men are Parables So there are mixtures of all these as Easter said to the Griggs tarde venerunt There are also compound subjects which they call Emblems of which Alciat Sambucus and many others have made Volums Such are also Impresa's of great Men a vast number whereof are collected by Typotius and others Another way of practise is to apply all such things as he seeth or as occur in his ordinary busines or conversation to somewhat of morality policy c. As seeing an Ivy thrust down the wall upon which it grew one said that was the perfect emblem of a flatterer an onion having its germe covered with so many scales representeth a man that conceals his intention under many pretences and the like 2 FOR reading verse him well in inventive Authors such are generally all Paradoxists Satyrists such as write one against another Declamators Controvertists and generally Orators and Poets as Cicero Quintilian Seneca I name him last because tho his matter be very good yet he husbands it well and spreads it thin Among the Latin Poets Lucan Juvenal Claudian Epigrammatists c. Let him also use his own invention before he reads upon his subject and in reading set down what his own fancy suggests upon or besides the Author and let him alwaies read Cassiodorus reports of Tully that he refused to plead when it was expected because he had not read upon his subject 3 FOR imitation let him imitate those he readeth as is taught in Rhetoric by translating paraphrasing epitomizing and composing upon his own subject somewhat like the other Give him the same subject with an Author unknown to him and then compare his conceits fancies reasons metaphors c. with the Authors Let him also vary discourses as an History into a Dialogue or Epistle which take their Arguments from all occasions as Antenor to Priamus to send back Helena Agan emnon to Menelaus to quit her So to vary Comedies and Dialogues into Epistles and Discourses as Mitio to Demeas to spare his Son and the like 7. 4 FOR Common-places and helping the Invention by them many have written very copiously others think it altogether unuseful For that experience testifies That those who have passed the course of their studies and never understood or practised this Art have yet had very good Inventions that those who use their fancies do not at all serve themselves of these common-places nor beg at every door for Arguments and Metaphors that the matter suggested by these places is only general
to draw Figures Galen to compose Medicines Jo. Picus Earl of Mirandula out-went his Teachers nor could they propose any thing to him which he did not immediately apprehend and the 900. conclusions which he proposed to defend against all opposers about 21. years of age shew what he was and he never retired till his death Jos. Scaliger saith of himself that all the time he lived with his Father in his youth he every day declamed and before 17. years old made his Tragedy Oedipus Besides many other particulars which he reciteth in the life of his Father To Vid. Fab. Pibrac then not 20. years old the great Alciati in his public Lectures acknowledged the solution of many great difficulties in the civil Law Grotius at 8. years old made Verses and performed his public exercises in Philosophy before 15. he put forth his Comment upon Martianus Capella At 16. he pleaded causes At 17. he put forth his Comment upon Aratus Lipsius writ his Books Variarum Lectionum at 18. years old Ingenium habuit docile omnium capax praeter Musices memoria non sine praeceptorum miraculo etiam in puero quae in senectute non defecit Cent. 4. ep 87. Sr Phi. Sidney saith Sr Fou. Grevill tho I knew from a child yet I never knew other then a man with such staiednes of mind lovely and familiar gravity as carried grace and reverence above greater years And what his parts were appears by that strange affection born him by Lanquet and William Prince of Orange who kept correspondence with him when but a youth Calvin printed his Institutions before 25. years old Alph. Tostatus learned all the liberal Sciences without being taught and writ in the 40. years he lived as much as most men can in that time well read yet was he also Counsellor to the King Referendary Major of Spain and Professor of Philosophy Divinity and Law in the University of Salamanca I could bring also very many more of our own Nation and my own knowledg besides Mr Oughtred and Mr Cowley to testify against that Proverb but I think very few examples Vopiscus saith none can be given of such as being dull and heavy in their youth arrived to any great perfection in their age Neminem says he in Probo unquam pervenisse ad virtutum summam jam maturum nisi qui puer seminario virtutum generosiore concretus aliquid inclitum designasset Mai non si raccoglie buon frutto nell ' autumno sel ' albero non ispunta buone foglie nella prima vera Danti Indubitatum est eos qui in ullà re unquam excelluerunt mature puerilibus annis ad eam rem accessisse P. Com. p. 59. totum in hoc consistit primum in beneficio Dei proximè in educatione Ibid. Let no man therefore slacken his endeavor towards these early fruits nor let the young man himself despond but rather which is a great truth say that God Almighty hath thus furnished him to be an ornament to his Creation and an assistance to Mankind Let the Educator also be more careful of him and not leave him to himself for there will come cold frosts and hails loathings and tediousnes of Labor which if not well defended will hazard his dropping off The subtil and delicate edge if encountring too great difficulties is in danger to turn in such cases therefore let them not be tired out but assisted to expedite themselves with ease and delight Propose to them high and noble studies but give them your hand keep them continually running but not at their full speed lest they grow weary and loath and abandon them And indeed it is a much greater difficulty and master-piece to direct and conduct great parts then mean ones Parts are indifferent to good or bad and great parts to great good or great evil and all great evil as well as great good proceeds from them And which way soever they go they are not easily diverted their abilities supplying them still with sufficient defence for themselves Maxima ingenia saith Seneca miror timeo mediocria probo as he is in less danger who walks on a plain then he who dances on a rop◠Minutius in the Preface to his Paradoxes tells us of one Creighton a Scottishman who at 21. years old when he was killed by order of the Duke of Mantua understood twelve Languages had read over all the Poets and Fathers disputed de omni scibili and answered ex tempore in verse Ingenium saith Scaliger prodigiosum admiratione magis quam amore dignum ei judicium defuit Principes solent illa ingenia amare magis quam bene doctos Such persons if not well regulated which as I said is difficult become many times proud and conceited angry and precipitious scornful and presumtuous many times also light and freakish And truly mean and indifferent or even low wits have more pleasure and satisfaction then these high-flyers For trusting to their parts they neglect study and exercise and so are easily surprised and discovered when either not fully apprehending the question and the consequences of an opinion or themselves not well disposed for discourse 3. THERE is another sort who have not so great parts but have a volubility of language are able upon a suddain to speak de omni ente non ente and of them too pro con This passeth amongst Women and ordinary people for Eloquence and great parts but amongst discreet and serious persons for impertinence And the rather because these Men chuse to talk commonly of things they understand not or are most improper and unknown to the company and of them also without order or method and have when at a non plus certain common places to retire to lest they should fall into that terrible disgrace of having no more to say 4. SOME persons tho very few have a strong indoles or inclination to and abilities for some particular science strong I say for a slight fancy to one more then another is not straightways as they call it a Genius to such a thing for most men are not altogether indifferent to all sorts of learning tho Card. du Perron could never observe that he was more affected to or more apt for one Science then another and yet may arrive to a great perfection in that whereto they are least disposed But if his Genius lead him so strongly to any one Science that he be unapt to others it is by all means to be humored Ne tentes saith Quintil. quod effici non potest nec ab eo quod quis optime facit in aliud cui minus est idoneus eum transferas It is reported of Ch. Clavius that being found by the Jesuits under whose education he was very unapt for learning and ready to be sent back to his Parents to be some other way emploied before they would quite abandon him one of them resolved to try him in Mathematics wherein in a short time he
profited to admiration and grew very famous and eminent in those studies Or if his Genius be accompanied with a noble and generous wit let great endeavor be used to teach him other Sciences and if that he is inclined to be not the noblest to take him off from it also Omnino iniquum est nobiliora ingenia dehonestari studiis minoribus Yet many times it is difficult to bring such off their inclination as in Monsieur Pascal out of the Preface to whose last book I will transcribe some passages very memorable both concerning the precociousnes of his wit and strong inclination to Mathematics Monsieur Pascal was observed in his childhood to have had an admirable understanding to pierce into the profundity and depth of things and to discern solid reason from superficial words In so much that when they offered him words only his understanding was restles and unsetled until he had discovered reason At 11. years old at table having struck an earthen dish and observed it to make a sound which ceased as soon as touched with his hand he was very earnest to know the cause thereof and from that began to demand many other questions concerning sounds in so much that he made then a small but very ingenious treatise concerning sounds This his strange inclination to ratiocination made his Father fear that if he should give him any insight into Geometry and Mathematics he would be so much taken with them that he would neglect all other studies especially Languages He therefore resolved to hinder him to lock up all Books of those Sciences and not so much as to speak of them in his presence But all this cautiousnes served only to excite his curiosity so that he often intreated his Father to teach him Mathematics or at least to tell him what they were His Father to satisfy him somewhat in general said they were Sciences which taught how to make figures equal or proportional one to another and withal forbad him to speak to him or think any more of them A command impossible for such a wit For upon this hint he began to revolve them continually in his mind especially at his times of recreation Once especially being in a large Hall where he used to divertise himself he began to make figures with a coal on the pavement as a circle a triangle of equal sides or of equal angles and the like and this he did easily Afterwards he began to search out and make propositions But all Books and instruction being by his Fathers diligence concealed from him he was forced to give names and definitions after his own invention A circle he called a round a line a bar c. After this he framed also to himself Axiomes and upon them Demonstrations after his own manner till he arrived to the 32. Prop. E. l. 1. His Father surprizing him in this posture was mightily astonished when he heard him discourse and as it were analize his propositions And hereupon by the advice of friends he put into his hands Euclides Elements which he read and comprehended at 12. years old with as great pleasure and facility as other Children do Romances he read and understood it all by himself without any Master and advanced so much in that knowledg that a while after at Paris he entred into the Conferences of learned Men held once a week concerning Mathematical questions Thither he brought his own inventions examined others propositions c. and yet was all this knowledg only the product of his leasure hours At 16. years old he composed a treatise of Conics which Monsieur Descartes would not believe but to have bin the work of his Father endeavoring to procure reputation to his Son At 19. years old he invented that Instrument of Arithmetic which is in print and at 23. having seen the experiments of Torricelli he also added to them a great number of his own This example of Monsieur Pascal is very extraordinary as was that of Pet. Damianus to piety who being a Boy and almost starved and naked by the churlish and unnatural usage of his Brother yet having found a piece of mony not regarding his own necessities he bestowed it upon a Priest to pray for his Fathers Soul Most men are fit for many Sciences and that inclination which they have to one more then another is ordinarily from their ability to perform one more then another as memory is for some wit for others courage and bodily strength for others c. or from their own imitation or others recommendation by word or example to one thing more then another or from some external and accidental effect they have seen or known of any one or some such like But tho all men have not or scarce any have all faculties excellent in an equal degree it will be the Teachers care and Educateds endeavor to better that wherein they are most defective but so all waies that you conduct them by that way they will go Too much strained-wits as forced grounds badly correspond to our hopes Unusquisque suum noscat saith Tully ad quas res aptissimi erimus in iis potissimum elaborabimus Seneca saith that Virgil was as unfortunate in Prose as Cicero in Verse But I am rather perswaded that both the one and the other proceeded from want of practise For Tasso was eminent in both and Ovid was an acute and eloquent Declamator as well as a fluent Poët And Sen. l. 2. Cont. 3. stories of him that being importuned by his Friends for liberty to expunge three verses out of his Writings he yeilded upon condition he might except three and named those they would have blotted out 5. BESIDES what I have already mentioned there are in teaching Sciences two great rules to be observed 1. Begin not to teach a new science till your Scholar understand all that is necessary to it as not Rhetoric till he know Grammar and the Latin Tongue for so he will learn both more and cheerfuller Whereas the mind cannot to purpose intend many things at once Tho such studies as have correspondence and affinity may well be conjoined for the comparing illustrates both and variety takes off the tediousnes See Quint. l. 2. c. 12. Be not too hasty with your Scholar advance him not too fast lay the foundation sure and stable For he that eats faster then he digests breeds crudities and work for the Physician to purge away Besides he that understands goes on cheerfully and securely Which I take to be the reason why Men of age make greater progress in learning then Children Jul. Scaliger began not to learn Greek till 40. years old and then mastered it in a very few months as he did French and Gascon in three Pet. Damianus learn'd not to read till mans estate yet proved one of the eminentest Scholars of his time Balaus entred so late upon the Law that they told him he intended to be an Advocate in the other World 2. Teach not too much at