On the order and manner of reading, and on discipline. Philosophy is divided into the theoretical, the practical, the mechanical, and the logical. The theoretical is divided into theology, physics, and mathematics. Mathematics is divided into arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. The practical is divided into the solitary, the private, and the public. The mechanical is divided into the working of wool, armament, navigation, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and the theatrical art. Logic is divided into grammar and the art of argument. The art of argument is divided into demonstration, the probable, and the sophistical. The probable is divided into dialectic and rhetoric. In this division only the dividing parts of philosophy are contained.
There are still other subdivisions of these parts, but for now these may suffice. Therefore, in these, if you regard only the number, you will find twenty-one; if you wish to count the gradations, you will find twenty-eight. The authors of these sciences are read as being diverse. Some discovered the arts by beginning them, others by enlarging them, others by perfecting them, and so several authors of one and the same art are often cited. From among these I shall list below the names of a few. On the authors of the arts. Among the Greeks the theologian was Linus; among the Latins, Varro; and in our own time, John Scotus, who wrote on the ten categories as applied to God. Natural physics among the Greeks was discovered by Thales of Miletus, one of the seven sages; among the Latins, Pliny described it.
Arithmetic was invented by Pythagoras of Samos, and written down by Nicomachus. Among the Latins, first Apuleius, then Boethius translated it. This same Pythagoras also composed the Mathesis of the tetrad, that is, a book on the teaching of the quadrivium, and he devised the letter Y after the likeness of human life. As for the inventor of music, Moses says it was Tubal, who was of the line of Cain; the Greeks say Pythagoras, others Mercury, who first established the tetrachord, others Linus, or Zethus, or Amphion. They say geometry was first discovered in Egypt, and that its best author among the Greeks was Euclid. Boethius translated his art. Eratosthenes too was most penetrating in geometry, who discovered the circumference of the earth.
Some say that Ham, the son of Noah, first invented astronomy. The Chaldeans first taught astrology, according to the observance of the time of birth. But Josephus asserts that Abraham first instructed the Egyptians in astrology. Ptolemy, king of Egypt, restored astronomy. He also established the canons by which the courses of the stars are determined. Some say that the giant Nimrod was a most distinguished astrologer, under whose name astronomy is also found. The Greeks say that this art was first devised by Atlas, on account of which he is also said to have upheld the heavens. The inventor of ethics was Socrates, on which he wrote twenty-four books according to positive justice.
Then his disciple Plato composed many books On the Republic according to both kinds of justice, namely the natural and the positive. Then Tullius arranged books On the Republic in the Latin tongue. The philosopher Fronto too wrote a book of Stratagems, that is, of military adroitness. The mechanical art had various authors. Hesiod of Ascra first among the Greeks devoted himself to the describing of rustic matters, then Democritus. The great Carthaginian also composed his study of agriculture in twenty-eight volumes; among the Romans Cato first set forth On Agriculture, which Marcus Terentius afterwards polished.
Virgil too composed the Georgics, then Cornelius and Julius Atticus, and Aemilianus, that is Columella, a distinguished orator, who embraced the whole body of this discipline. Vitruvius too wrote On Architecture, and Palladius On Agriculture. They report that Minerva first showed the use of wool-working among the Greeks. They believe that she also first set up the loom, dyed wool, and was the inventress of the olive and of the craft of building. From her Daedalus learned, and he himself is believed to have practiced building after her. In Egypt, however, Isis, daughter of Inachus, discovered the use of sowing flax, and showed how garments might thence be made. Likewise she discovered there the use of wool. In Libya the use of wool first arose at the temple of Ammon.
Ninus, king of the Assyrians, first stirred up wars. They believe that Vulcan was the first smith, but the divine history says it was Tubal-cain. Prometheus first, pressing a stone into an iron ring, discovered the use of the ring. The Pelasgians first discovered the use of sailing. Ceres first in Greece, at Eleusis, discovered the use of grain, and Isis in Egypt. Pilumnus in Italy discovered the use of grain and spelt and the practice of grinding and pounding; Tagus in Spain the practice of sowing. Osiris in Egypt discovered the cultivation of vineyards, and Liber among the Indians. Daedalus first made the table and the chair. A certain Apicius first composed the apparatus of cookery, who in the end, when his goods were consumed, perished in it by a voluntary death.
The author of medicine among the Greeks was Apollo; his son Aesculapius enlarged it in renown and in practice; and after he perished by a thunderbolt, the care of healing was for a long time interrupted, and lay hidden for nearly five hundred years, until the time of King Artaxerxes. Then Hippocrates, born of his father Asclepius on the island of Cos, called it back into the light. The games are believed to have taken their beginning from the Lydians, who, coming from Asia, settled in Etruria under their leader Tyrrhenus, and there, among the other rites of their superstitions, established spectacles; this custom the Romans imitated, having summoned craftsmen thence, and from the Lydians these games were named. The letters of the Hebrews are believed to have taken their beginning from Moses through the Law; those of the Chaldeans and Syrians, through Abraham.
Isis invented the letters of the Egyptians; the Phoenicians those of the Greeks, which Cadmus brought from Phoenicia into Greece. Carmentis, mother of Evander, who by her proper name was called Nicostrata, discovered the Latin letters. Moses first wrote the divine history. Among the Gentiles, Dares the Phrygian first published the history of Troy, which they say was written by him on palm leaves. After Dares, Herodotus was held to be the first historian in Greece, after whom Pherecydes flourished in the same times in which Ezra wrote the Law. Alcmaeon of Croton is believed to have first invented fables. Egypt is the mother of the arts; from there they came into Greece, then into Italy. In Egypt grammar was first discovered in the time of Osiris, the husband of Isis.
In Egypt too dialectic was first invented by Parmenides, who, fleeing the cities and gatherings of men, settled on a rock for no small time, and thus devised dialectic, whence the rock was also called the Rock of Parmenides. Plato, however, after the death of his master Socrates, out of love of wisdom emigrated to Egypt, and there, having taken in the liberal studies, he returned to Athens, and at the Academy, his own country house, having gathered disciples together, he gave his effort to the studies of philosophy. He first established rational logic for the Greeks, which afterward Aristotle, his disciple, enlarged, perfected, and reduced to an art. Marcus Terentius Varro first translated dialectic from Greek into Latin. Afterward Cicero invented the Topics.
Demosthenes, son of a smith, is believed to be the discoverer of rhetoric among the Greeks; Tisias among the Latins, Corax at Syracuse. This art was written in Greek by Aristotle and Gorgias and Hermagoras, and translated into Latin by Tullius, Quintilian, and Titianus. Which arts are chiefly to be read. From all these sciences enumerated above, the ancients in their studies specially set apart seven for the task of instructing the learners, in which they perceived there to be such great usefulness above all the rest, that whoever had firmly grasped the discipline of these would afterward attain to the knowledge of the others more by inquiring and exercising than by being taught.
For they are, as it were, certain best instruments and rudiments by which a way is prepared for the mind to the full knowledge of philosophical truth. Hence the trivium and the quadrivium received their name, because by these, as by certain roads, the lively mind enters into the secrets of wisdom. No one at that time seemed worthy of the name of master who could not profess knowledge of these seven. Pythagoras too is read to have observed this custom in his studies, that up to a period of seven years—namely according to the number of the seven liberal arts—none of his disciples should dare to demand a reason for the things said by him, but should give faith to the words of the master until he had heard all things, and so by himself might already be able to find their reason.
Some are read to have learned these seven with such great zeal that they held them all so clearly in memory that, whatever writings they afterward took in hand, whatever questions they proposed to be solved or proved, they did not seek out from these, by turning the leaves of books, the rules and reasons for defining the matter in doubt, but at once had each thing ready in their heart. Hence it surely came about that there were in that time so many wise men that they themselves wrote more than we are able to read. But our scholars either will not or do not know how to keep a fitting measure in learning, and therefore we find many students but few wise.
But to me it seems that the reader must be provided for with no less care, lest he spend his effort in useless studies, than lest he remain lukewarm in a good and useful undertaking. It is bad to do a good thing negligently; it is worse to expend much labor in vain. But since not all can have this discernment, that they may understand what is profitable to themselves, therefore I shall briefly show the reader which writings seem to me more useful, and then I shall add a few things also concerning the manner of learning. On the two kinds of writings. There are two kinds of writings. The first kind is of those which are called the proper arts. The second is of those which are appendages of the arts.
The arts are those which are subordinated to philosophy, that is, which have as their subject-matter some certain and determinate part of philosophy, such as grammar, dialectic, and the others of this sort. The appendages of the arts are those which only pertain to philosophy, that is, which are occupied with some matter outside philosophy. Sometimes, however, certain of them touch upon things plucked from the arts in a scattered and confused way, or, if it is simple narration, they prepare the way to philosophy.
Of this sort are all the songs of the poets, such as tragedies, comedies, satires, and also heroic and lyric and iambic verses, and certain didactic pieces, and also fables and histories; likewise the writings of those whom we are now wont to call philosophers, who have been accustomed both to extend brief matter with long windings of words, and to obscure an easy meaning with perplexed discourses; or even, compiling diverse things together, as if out of many colors and forms, to make a single picture. Note what I have distinguished for you. There are two: the arts, and the appendages of the arts. But between these there seems to me to be so great a distance, as he says: As much as the pliant willow yields to the pale olive, as much as the lowly nard to the crimson rose-beds.
So that whoever desires to attain to knowledge, if, having left aside the truth of the arts, he should wish to entangle himself in the rest, would find, not to say infinite, yet very great matter of labor and scanty fruit. In short, the arts can make the reader perfect without their appendages, but those without the arts are able to confer nothing of perfection, especially since they have nothing in themselves to be sought after, by which they might invite the reader, except what is drawn over from the arts and accommodated, nor should anyone seek in them anything but what belongs to the arts. Wherefore it seems to me that effort must first be given to the arts, where the foundations of all things are, and the pure and simple truth is opened up—especially to these seven which I have mentioned, which are the instruments of the whole of philosophy.
Then let the rest also be read, if there is leisure, because sometimes lighter things mixed with serious ones tend to delight more, and rarity makes a good thing precious. Thus in the midst of the course of a fable we sometimes more eagerly retain a thought we have found there. Nevertheless, in the seven liberal arts is the foundation of all teaching, which above all the rest are to be had at hand, inasmuch as without them philosophical discipline is neither wont nor able to unfold and define anything. These indeed so cohere with one another, and by turns mutually need one another's reasons, that if even one be lacking, the rest cannot make a philosopher.
Whence those seem to me to err who, not attending to such coherence in the arts, choose certain ones for themselves out of them, and, leaving the rest untouched, think they can become perfect in these. That to each art what is its own must be assigned. There is again another error, not much less than this, which it greatly behooves one to avoid. For there are certain men who, though they omit nothing of those things which are to be read, yet do not know how to assign to any art what is its own, but read all things in each single one. In grammar they dispute about the method of syllogisms; in dialectic they inquire into the inflections of cases; and what is more deserving of ridicule, they read almost the whole book in the title, and scarcely get through the word 'It begins' in a third reading.
Men of this sort do not teach others, but make a show of their own knowledge. But would that, such as they appear to me, they appeared so to all! Consider how perverse this custom is, since assuredly the more superfluous things you have heaped together, the less you are able to grasp or retain those things which are useful. Therefore in any art two things especially must be discerned and distinguished by us: first, how one ought to treat of the art itself; second, how one ought to accommodate the reasonings of that art to any other matters whatever. There are two things: to treat of an art, and to act by means of an art. For example, to treat of an art, as is to treat of grammar; to act by means of an art, as is to act grammatically. Distinguish these two: to treat of grammar, and to act grammatically.
He treats of grammar who deals with the rules given concerning words and the precepts pertaining to this art. He acts grammatically, everyone who speaks or writes according to rule. Therefore to treat of grammar belongs only to certain writings, such as Priscian, Donatus, and Servius; but to act grammatically belongs to all. When therefore we treat of any art, especially in teaching, where all things must be reduced to a summary and called forth to easy understanding, it ought to suffice to explain that of which we treat as briefly and clearly as possible, lest, if we multiply foreign reasonings too much, we should disturb the reader rather than build him up. Not all things are to be said which we are able to say, lest those things which we ought to say be said less usefully.
Seek then in each single art that which has been established to pertain specially to it. Then, when you have read the arts, and have come to know by disputing and comparing what is proper to each one, then at last it will be permitted to compare the reasonings of the several arts with one another, and from an alternating consideration to investigate by turns those things which you had previously understood less. Do not multiply byways until you have learned the paths. You will run securely when you no longer fear to go astray. What is necessary for study. Three things are necessary for students: natural ability, exercise, and discipline. In natural ability it is considered that one easily perceives what is heard and firmly retains what is perceived; in exercise, that by labor and diligence one cultivates the natural sense;
in discipline, that, living praiseworthily, one should join good morals with knowledge. Concerning these three we shall touch briefly upon a few things one by one, by way of introduction. This pertains to natural ability, concerning talent. Those who give their effort to learning ought to be strong both in talent and in memory, which two so cohere in all study and discipline that, if one of them be lacking, the other cannot lead anyone to perfection—just as no gains can profit where guardianship is lacking, and he fortifies his storehouses in vain who has nothing to put away. Talent finds out and memory guards wisdom. Talent is a certain power naturally implanted in the mind, having strength of itself.
Talent proceeds from nature, is helped by use, is blunted by immoderate labor, and is sharpened by tempered exercise. Whence it was rather elegantly said by someone: 'I wish that you would at last spare yourself; there is labor in the papers, run through the air.' There are two things that exercise talent: reading and meditation. Reading is when we are instructed by the rules and precepts of those things which are written. The kind of reading is threefold: that of the teacher, that of the learner, or that of the one inspecting for himself. For we say 'I read the book to him,' and 'I read the book under him,' and 'I read the book.' In reading, order and manner are especially to be considered. On the order of reading.
Order is considered in one way in the disciplines, as if I were to say that grammar is more ancient than dialectic, or arithmetic prior to music; in another way in books, as if I were to say that the Catiline is prior to the Jugurtha; in another way in narration, which consists in a continuous series; in another way in exposition. Order in the disciplines is attended to according to nature; in books, according to the person of the author or the subject-matter; in narration, according to the arrangement, which is twofold: natural, namely when a thing is reported in the order in which it was done, and artificial, that is, when that which was done afterward is narrated first, and that which was prior is told afterward. In exposition, order is considered according to inquiry.
Exposition contains three things: the letter, the sense, and the deeper meaning. The letter is the fitting arrangement of words, which we also call construction. The sense is a certain easy and open signification, which the letter presents at first glance. The deeper meaning is a more profound understanding, which is not found except by exposition or interpretation. In these there is an order, that first the letter, then the sense, then the deeper meaning be inquired into. When this is done, the exposition is complete. On the manner of reading. The manner of reading consists in dividing. Every division begins from things finite and proceeds onward to things infinite. But everything finite is more known and comprehensible to knowledge.
But teaching begins from those things which are more known, and through the knowledge of them attains to the knowledge of those things which lie hidden. Moreover, we investigate by reason, to which it properly belongs to divide, when we descend from universals to particulars by dividing and by investigating the natures of individual things. For every universal is more determined than its particulars. When therefore we learn, we ought to begin from those things which are more known and determinate and comprehensive, and so, descending little by little, and distinguishing individual things by division, to investigate the nature of those things which are contained within them. On meditation.
Meditation is frequent thought with deliberation, which prudently investigates the cause and origin, the manner and usefulness of each thing. Meditation takes its beginning from reading, yet is bound by no rules or precepts of reading. For it delights to run through a certain open space, where it fixes a free gaze upon the truth to be contemplated, and now to graze upon these, now upon those causes of things, and now to penetrate whatever is profound, leaving nothing doubtful, nothing obscure. The beginning of teaching, therefore, is in reading; its consummation in meditation, which, if anyone learns to love more intimately and desires to give himself to it more often, renders life very pleasant, and affords the greatest consolation in tribulation.
For it is above all that which separates the soul from the din of earthly affairs, and even in this life causes one in a certain way to foretaste beforehand the sweetness of eternal rest. And when one has already learned, through the things which have been made, to seek and to understand Him who made all things, then it both instructs the mind with knowledge and floods it with gladness, whence it comes to pass that there is the greatest delight in meditation. There are three kinds of meditation. One consists in the consideration of morals, another in the searching of the commandments, the third in the investigation of the divine works. Morals are in vices and virtues. The divine commandment is partly commanding, partly promising, partly terrifying.
The work of God is both what His power creates, and what His wisdom governs, and what His grace co-works. All these things, how worthy of wonder they are, each person knows so much the more, the more attentively he has been accustomed to meditate upon the wonders of God. On memory. Concerning memory I judge that this above all must not be passed over for the present, that just as talent investigates and finds out by dividing, so memory guards by gathering. We ought therefore to gather, to be entrusted to memory, those things which we have divided in learning. To gather is to reduce to a certain brief and compendious summary those things about which something has been written or disputed at greater length—which by our elders was called an epilogue, that is, a brief recapitulation of the things said above.
For every treatise has some principle, upon which the whole truth of the matter and the force of its meaning rests, and to which all other things are referred. To seek and consider this is to gather. There is one fount and many rivulets; why do you follow the windings of the streams? Hold the fount and you have the whole. I say this for this reason, because the memory of man is dull and rejoices in brevity, and, if it is divided among many things, becomes less in each single one. We ought therefore in all teaching to gather something brief and certain, which may be stored in the little chest of the memory, whence afterward, when the matter requires, the rest may be derived. This too it is necessary often to repeat and to call back from the belly of the memory to the palate, lest by long intermission it grow stale.
Whence I beg you, O reader, do not rejoice too much if you have read many things, but if you have understood many things, and not only understood, but have been able to retain. Otherwise neither does it profit much to read, nor to understand. Wherefore I recall having said above that those who give their effort to learning have need of talent and memory. On discipline. A certain wise man, when he was questioned about the manner and form of learning, said: 'A humble mind, zeal for inquiring, a quiet life, silent scrutiny, poverty, a foreign land—these are wont to unlock for many the obscure things of reading.' He had heard, I think, what was said: 'Morals adorn knowledge,' and therefore to the precepts of reading he joins also the precepts of living, that the reader may recognize both the manner of his life and the method of his study.
Praiseworthy is not the knowledge which an unchaste life stains. And therefore it must be most carefully guarded against by him who seeks knowledge, that he not neglect discipline. On humility. Now the beginning of discipline is humility, of which, though there are many indications, these three especially pertain to the reader: first, that he hold no knowledge, no writing, as worthless; second, that he not blush to learn from anyone; third, that when he has attained knowledge, he not despise others. This deceives many, that before their time they wish to seem wise.
For hence they burst forth into a certain swelling of arrogance, so that they now begin both to feign what they are not and to blush at what they are, and they withdraw so much further from wisdom the more they think themselves to be not wise, but only to be reputed so. Of this sort I have known many, who, while they still lack the first elements, do not deign to be present at anything but the highest, and from this alone they think themselves to become great, if they read the writings or hear the words of the great and wise. 'We,' they say, 'have seen those men. We have read under them. They were often wont to speak to us. Those eminent ones, those famous ones, have known us.' But would that no one knew me, and I knew all things! You boast of having seen Plato, not of having understood him. I suppose it is unworthy of you henceforth to listen to me.
I am not Plato, nor did I deserve to see Plato. Let this suffice for you: you have drunk from the very fount of philosophy—but would that you still thirsted! The king, after golden goblets, drinks from an earthen vessel. Why do you blush? You have heard Plato; hear Chrysippus also. As the proverb says: 'What you do not know, perhaps Ofellus knows.' There is no one to whom it has been granted to know all things, nor again anyone to whom it has not befallen to have received something special from nature. The prudent reader, therefore, gladly listens to all, reads all things, despises neither writing, nor person, nor doctrine. Indifferently he seeks from all that which he sees to be lacking in himself, and considers not how much he knows, but how much he is ignorant of. Hence they cite that saying of Plato:
'I would rather learn another's things modestly than thrust forward my own shamelessly.' For why do you blush to learn, and are not ashamed not to know? That shame is greater than this. Or why do you aspire to the highest things when you lie in the lowest? Consider rather what your strength is able to bear. He advances most fittingly who advances in order. Some, while they wish to make a great leap, fall into a precipice. Do not therefore hasten too much. In this way you will more quickly attain to wisdom. Learn gladly from all what you do not know, because humility can make common to you what nature has made proper to each. You will be wiser than all if you are willing to learn from all. Those who receive from all are richer than all.
Finally, hold no knowledge as worthless, because all knowledge is good. Disdain not, if there is leisure, at least to read any writing. If you gain nothing, neither do you lose anything, especially since there is no writing, according to my estimation, which does not propose something to be sought after, if it be treated in a fitting place and order; which has not also something special, which the diligent searcher of the word may pluck, not found elsewhere, and the rarer, so much the more pleasing. Yet nothing is good which takes away something better. If you cannot read all things, read those which are more useful. Even if you could read all things, yet the same labor is not to be expended on all.