The Philobiblon by De Bury Richard;

Author:De Bury, Richard;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2019-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

THAT THOUGH WE LOVE MORE THE WORKS OF THE ANCIENTS YET WE HAVE NOT CONDEMNED THE STUDIES OF THE MODERNS

HOUGH the novelties of the moderns have never been distasteful to us, who have cherished with ever grateful affection those who had leisure for study and added to the opinions of our own forefathers whatever they could of subtlety or use, yet with more reckless eagerness have we desired to search through the perfected labours of the ancients. For, whether they flourished by nature with a subtler kind of mind or chanced to indulge in more instant study, or whether they made their way supported by the help of both, this one thing we have found to be evident, that their successors scarce suffice to discuss the attainments of those that went before them, or to receive even through a compend of their doctrine what the ancients produced by prolonged investigation. And just as we have read that they surpassed in excellence of body what modern times are known to exhibit, so it is in no wise absurd to think that many of the ancients were eminent for greater brightness of mind, since the works which they did prove each of these alike unattainable by posterity. Hence Phocas writes in the Prologue of his Grammar:

The Ancients all things in their books explore.

Say much in little then: thou canst no more.

And if our discourse turn upon fervour of learning and zeal for study, then it is they who devoted their entire life to philosophy. But our contemporaries in these times, glowing for a few years of fervid youth, in turn devote themselves slothfully to the allurements of vice; and when their passions are allayed and they have reached the height of discernment for judging between conflicting truths, being entangled in external affairs they soon withdraw and bid farewell to the schools of philosophy. They pour out the cloudy must of their youthful minds on the difficulties of philosophy, and bestow the wine which clears more maturely on anxiety in the affairs of this world. Yet more, as Ovid justly complains in the First of his De Vetula:

All turn aside to things that make for gain.

Few learn; but after wealth all strive amain.

O Virgin Science! they defile thee so:

They shame thee who shouldst chaste embraces know;

Not seeking thee thyself, hut gain through thee,

They live for riches, not philosophy.

And again below:

The Love of Wisdom banished,

The Love of Money reigns.

And this, it is clear, is the most violent poison of learning.

That the ancients set none other end to study but life itself is clear by the examples of many, as related by Valerius in the Seventh Chapter of his Eighth Book to Tiberius. Carneades, he saith, was long a laborious soldier of philosophy, and when he had finished ninety years the end of philosophizing was still in his eyes the end of life. Isocrates in his ninety-fourth year wrote a most famous book. Sophocles, when well-nigh a hundred years old, and Simonides in his eightieth year wrote poetry.

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