SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE

(1690)

I. AN ESSAY UPON THE ANCIENT AND MODERN

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LEARNING

HOEVER Converses much among the Old Books

will be something hard to please among the New; yet these must have their Part too in the leisure of an idle man, and have, many of them, their Beauties as well as their Defaults. Those of Story, or Relations of Matter of 5 Fact, have a value from their Substance as much as from their Form, and the variety of Events is seldom without Entertainment or Instruction, how indifferently soever the Tale is told. Other sorts of Writings have little of esteem but what they receive from the Wit, Learning, or Genius 10 of the Authors, and are seldom met with of any excellency, because they do but trace over the Paths that have been beaten by the Ancients, or Comment, Critick, and Flourish upon them, and are at best but Copies after those Originals, unless upon Subjects never touched by them, such as are 15 all that relate to the different Constitutions of Religions, Laws, or Governments in several Countries, with all matters of Controversie that arise upon them.

Two Pieces that have lately pleased me, abstracted from any of these Subjects, are, one in English upon the Antedi- 20 luvian World, and another in French upon the Plurality of Worlds; one Writ by a Divine, and the other by a Gentleman, but both very finely in their several Kinds and upon their several Subjects, which would have made very poor

work in common hands. I was so pleased with the last (I mean the Fashion of it rather than the Matter, which is cld and beaten) that I enquired for what else I could of the same hand, till I met with a small Piece concerning Poesy, which 5 gave me the same exception to both these Authors, whom I should otherwise have been very partial to. For the first could not end his Learned Treatise without a Panegyrick of Modern Learning and Knowledge in comparison of the Ancient: And the other falls so grosly into the 10 censure of the Old Poetry and preference of the New, that I could not read either of these Strains without some indignation, which no quality among men is so apt to raise in me as sufficiency, the worst composition out of the pride and ignorance of mankind. But these Two, being 15 not the only Persons of the Age that defend these Opinions, it may be worth examining how far either Reason or Experience can be allowed to plead or determin in their favour.

The Force of all that I have met with upon this Subject, 20 either in Talk or Writing is, First, as to Knowledge, That we must have more than the Ancients, because we have the Advantage both of theirs and our own, which is commonly illustrated by the Similitude of a Dwarfs standing upon a Gyants shoulders, and seeing more or farther than he. 25 Next, as to Wit or Genius, that Nature being still the same, these must be much at a Rate in all Ages, at least in the same Clymates, as the Growth and Size of Plants and Animals commonly are; And if both these are allowed, they think the Cause is gained. But I cannot tell why we 30 should conclude that the Ancient Writers had not as much Advantage from the Knowledge of others that were Ancient to them, as we have from those that are Ancient to us. The Invention of Printing has not, perhaps, multiplied Books, but only the Copies of them; and if we believe 35 there were Six Hundred Thousand in the Library of

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Ptolomy, we shall hardly pretend to equal it by any of ours, nor, perhaps, by all put together; I mean so many Originals that have lived any time, and thereby given Testimony of their having been thought worth preserving. For the Scribblers are infinite, that like Mushrooms or Flys are 5 born and dye in small circles of time; whereas Books, like Proverbs, receive their Chief Value from the Stamp and Esteem of Ages through which they have passed. Besides the account of this Library at Alexandria, and others very Voluminous in the lesser Asia and Rome, we have frequent 10 mention of Ancient Writers in many of those Books which we now call Ancient, both Philosophers and Historians. 'Tis true that besides what we have in Scripture concerning the Original and Progress of the Jewish Nation, all that passed in the rest of our World before the Trojan 15 War is either sunk in the depths of time, wrapt up in the mysteries of Fables, or so maimed by the want of Testimonies and loss of Authors that it appears to us in too obscure a shade to make any Judgment upon it. For the Fragments of Manethon about the Antiquities of Egypt, 20 the Relations in Justin concerning the Scythian Empire, and many others in Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, as well as the Records of China, make such Excursions beyond the periods of time given us by the Holy Scriptures that we are not allowed to reason upon them. And this dis- 25 agreement it self, after so great a part of the World became Christian, may have contributed to the loss of many Ancient Authors. For Solomon tells us, even in his Time, of Writing many Books there was no end; and whoever considers the Subject and the Stile of Job, which by many 30 is thought more ancient than Moses, will hardly think it was written in an Age or Country that wanted either Books or Learning; and yet he speaks of the Ancients then, and their Wisdome, as we do now.

But if any should so very rashly and presumptuously con- 35

clude, That there were few Books before those we have either Extant or upon Record, yet that cannot argue there was no Knowledge or Learning before those periods of time, whereof they give us the short account. Books may be 5 helps to Learning and Knowledge, and make it more common and diffused; but I doubt whether they are necessary ones or no, or much advance any other Science beyond the particular Records of Actions or Registers of time; and these, perhaps, might be as long preserved without 10 them, by the care and exactness of Tradition in the long Successions of certain Races of men with whom they were intrusted. So in Mexico and Peru, before the least use or mention of Letters, there was remaining among them the knowledge of what had passed in those mighty Nations 15 and Governments for many Ages. Whereas in Ireland, that is said to have flourished in Books and Learning before they had much Progress in Gaul or Britany, there are now hardly any Traces left of what passed there before the Conquest made of that Country by the English in Henry the Second's Time. A strange but plain Demonstration how Knowledge and Ignorance, as well as Civility and Barbarism, may succeed each other in the several Countries of the World, how much better the Records of time may be kept by Tradition in one Country than Writing 25 in another, and how much we owe to those Learned Languages of Greek and Latin, without which, for ought I know, the World in all these Western Parts would hardly be known to have been above five or six Hundred Years old, nor any certainty remain of what passed in it before that time.

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'Tis true, in the Eastern Regions, there seems to have been a general Custom of the Priests in each Country having been either by their own Choice, or by Design of the Governments, the perpetual Conservers of Knowledge and Story. Only in China this last was committed particu35 larly to certain Officers of State, who were appointed or

continued upon every accession to that Crown to Register distinctly the times and memorable Events of each Reign. In Ethiopia, Egypt, Caldea, Persia, Syria, Judea, these Cares were committed wholly to the Priests, who were not less diligent in the Registers of Times and Actions than 5 in the Study and Successive Propagation thereby of all Natural Science and Philosophy. Whether this was managed by Letters, or Tradition, or by both, 'tis certain the Ancient Colledges, or Societies of Priests, were mighty Reservoirs or Lakes of Knowledge, into which some 10 streams entred perhaps every Age from the Observations or Inventions of any great Spirits or transcendent Genius's that happened to rise among them: And nothing was lost out of these Stores, since the part of conserving what others have gained, either in Knowledge or Empire, is as common 15 and easy as the other is hard and rare among men.

In these Soyls were planted and cultivated those mighty growths of Astronomy, Astrology, Magick, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, and Ancient Story. From these Sources Orpheus, Homer, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Plato, and others of 20 the Ancients are acknowledged to have drawn all those Depths of Knowledge or Learning which have made them so Renowned in all succeeding Ages. I make a Distinction between these Two, taking Knowledge to be properly meant of things that are generally agreed to be true by 25 Consent of those that first found them out or have been since instructed in them, but Learning is the Knowledge of the different and contested Opinions of men in former Ages, and about which they have perhaps never agreed in any; and this makes so much of one and so little of the 30 other in the World.

Now to judge, Whether the Ancients or Moderns can be probably thought to have made the greatest Progress in the Search and Discoveries of the vast Region of Truth and Nature, it will be worth inquiring, What Guides have 35