Minding the Mind

Nay, number (itself) in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage for (as Virgil saith) It never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be.
— Francis Bacon, Essay XXIX, "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates," in Francis Bacon: Essays/Advanced Learning/New Atlantis & c., Richard Foster Jones (ed. & sel.), p. 85.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business. For expert men can execute and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one, but the general counsels and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously [carefully]; and some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others, but that would [should] be only in the less important arguments and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled water, flashy [insipid or showy] things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematics subtile, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores ["Studies pass into manners."] Nay there is no stand [obstacle] or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics, for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are cumini sectores [hair-splitters]. If he be not apt to beat over [treat comprehensively] matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.
— Francis Bacon, Essay L, "Of Studies," in Ibid., pp. 143-145.

....while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and novelty cannot be content to add but it must deface. Surely the advice of the prophet is the true direction in this matter, Sate super vias antiquas, et videte quaenam sit via recta et bona, et ambulate in ea ["Stand in the old paths, and see which is the straight and good way, and walk in that."] Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way, but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression. And to speak truly, Antiquitas saeculi juventus mundi ["The antiquity of time is the youth of the world."] These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrograde, by a computation backward from ourselves.
     Another error, induced by the former, is a distrust that any thing should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed and passed over so long time, as if the same objective were to be made to time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods, of which he wondereth that they begot so many children in old time and begot none in his time .... So it seemeth men doubt [fear] lest time is become past children and generation, wherein contrariwise we see commonly the levity and unconstancy of men's judgements, which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done, and as soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done, as we see in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as a vast and impossible enterprise; and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more of it than this, Nil aliud quam bene ausus vana contemnere ["It was nothing but being bold enough to despise empty apprehensions."]....
— Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, in Ibid., p. 209-210.

     But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. For men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men; as if there were sought in knowledge a couch, whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace, for a wandering and varible mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate. But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been....
— Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, in Ibid., p. 214.

....But in reality that which I meditate and propound is not Acatalepsis but Eucatalepsis, not denial of the capacity to understand but provision for understanding truly, for I do not take away authority from the senses, but supply them with helps; I do not slight the understanding, but govern it. And better surely it is that we should know all we need to know, and yet think our knowledge imperfect, than that we should think our knowledge perfect, and yet not know anything we need to know.
— Francis Bacon, from Novum Organum (Magna Instauratio), in Ibid., pp. 330-331.