."

["It neither makes a man live better nor talk better."
--Cicero, De Fin., i. 19.]

Is there more noise or confusion in the scolding of herring-wives than in
the public disputes of men of this profession? I had rather my son
should learn in a tap-house to speak, than in the schools to prate. Take
a master of arts, and confer with him: why does he not make us sensible
of this artificial excellence? and why does he not captivate women and
ignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness of his reasons
and the beauty of his order? why does he not sway and persuade us to what
he will? why does a man, who has so much advantage in matter and
treatment, mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations?
Strip him of his gown, his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter our
ears with Aristotle, pure and simple, you will take him for one of us,
or worse. Whilst they torment us with this complication and confusion of
words, it fares with them, methinks, as with jugglers; their dexterity
imposes upon our senses, but does not at all work upon our belief this
legerdemain excepted, they perform nothing that is not very ordinary and
mean: for being the more learned, they are none the less fools.

[So Hobbes said that if he had read as much as the academical
pedants he should have known as little.]

I love and honour knowledge as much as they that have it, and in its true
use 'tis the most noble and the greatest acquisition of men; but in such
as I speak of (and the number of them is infinite), who build their
fundamental sufficiency and value upon it, who appeal from their
understanding to their memory:

"Sub aliena umbra latentes,"

["Sheltering under the shadow of others."--Seneca, Ep., 33.]

and who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, if I dare to say so, worse
than stupidity. In my country, and in my time, learning improves
fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and
heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and
undigested mass; if airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtilises
them, even to exinanition. 'Tis a thing of almost indifferent quality;
a very useful accession to a well-born soul, but hurtful and pernicious
to others; or rather a thing of very precious use, that will not suffer
itself to be purchased at an under rate; in the hand of some 'tis a
sceptre, in that of others a fool