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Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626

"The Advancement of Learning"

" And, therefore, Virgil
did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and
the conquest of all fears together, as concomitantia.

"Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari."

(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which
learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes
purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions,
sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increasing appetite,
sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the
like; and, therefore, I will conclude with that which hath rationem
totius--which is, that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not
to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be
capable and susceptible of growth and reformation. For the
unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to
call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that suavissima vita,
indies sentire se fieri meliorem. The good parts he hath he will
learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to
increase them.


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