areopagitica-第4章
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learning: for; said he; they wound us with our own weapons; and
with our own arts and sciences they overcome us。 And indeed the
Christians were put so to their shifts by this crafty means; and so
much in danger to decline into all ignorance; that the two
Apollinarii were fain; as a man may say; to coin all the seven
liberal sciences out of the Bible; reducing it into divers forms of
orations; poems; dialogues; even to the calculating of a new
Christian grammar。 But; saith the historian Socrates; the
providence of God provided better than the industry of Apollinarius
and his son; by taking away that illiterate law with the life of
him who devised it。 So great an injury they then held it to be
deprived of Hellenic learning; and thought it a persecution more
undermining; and secretly decaying the Church; than the open
cruelty of Decius or Diocletian。
And perhaps it was the same politic drift that the devil
whipped St。 Jerome in a lenten dream; for reading Cicero; or else
it was a phantasm bred by the fever which had then seized him。 For
had an angel been his discipliner; unless it were for dwelling too
much upon Ciceronianisms; and had chastised the reading; not the
vanity; it had been plainly partial; first to correct him for grave
Cicero; and not for scurril Plautus; whom he confesses to have been
reading; not long before; next to correct him only; and let so many
more ancient fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid studies
without the lash of such a tutoring apparition; insomuch that Basil
teaches how some good use may be made of Margites; a sportful
poem; not now extant; writ by Homer; and why not then of
Morgante; an Italian romance much to the same purpose?
But if it be agreed we shall be tried by visions; there is a
vision recorded by Eusebius; far ancienter than this tale of
Jerome; to the nun Eustochium; and; besides; has nothing of a fever
in it。 Dionysius Alexandrinus was about the year 240 a person of
great name in the Church for piety and learning; who had wont to
avail himself much against heretics by being conversant in their
books; until a certain presbyter laid it scrupulously to his
conscience; how he durst venture himself among those defiling
volumes。 The worthy man; loath to give offence; fell into a new
debate with himself what was to be thought; when suddenly a vision
sent from God (it is his own epistle that so avers it) confirmed
him in these words: READ ANY BOOKS WHATEVER COME TO THY HANDS;
FOR THOU ART SUFFICIENT BOTH TO JUDGE ARIGHT AND TO EXAMINE EACH
MATTER。 To this revelation he assented the sooner; as he
confesses; because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to the
Thessalonians; PROVE ALL THINGS; HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD。
And he might have added another remarkable saying of the same
author: TO THE PURE; ALL THINGS ARE PURE; not only meats and
drinks; but all kind of knowledge whether of good or evil; the
knowledge cannot defile; nor consequently the books; if the will
and conscience be not defiled。
For books are as meats and viands are; some of good; some of
evil substance; and yet God; in that unapocryphal vision; said
without exception; RISE; PETER; KILL AND EAT; leaving the
choice to each man's discretion。 Wholesome meats to a vitiated
stomach differ little or nothing from unwholesome; and best books
to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evil。 Bad
meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest
concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books; that they to
a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover;
to confute; to forewarn; and to illustrate。 Whereof what better
witness can ye expect I should produce; than one of your own now
sitting in Parliament; the chief of learned men reputed in this
land; Mr。 Selden; whose volume of natural and national laws proves;
not only by great authorities brought together; but by exquisite
reasons and theorems almost mathematically demonstrative; that all
opinions; yea errors; known; read; and collated; are of main
service and assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is
truest。 I conceive; therefore; that when God did enlarge the
universal diet of man's body; saving ever the rules of temperance;
he then also; as before; left arbitrary the dieting and repasting
of our minds; as wherein every mature man might have to exercise
his own leading capacity。
How great a virtue is temperance; how much of moment through the
whole life of man! Yet God commits the managing so great a trust;
without particular law or prescription; wholly to the demeanour of
every grown man。 And therefore when he himself tabled the Jews
from heaven; that omer; which was every man's daily portion of
manna; is computed to have been more than might have well sufficed
the heartiest feeder thrice as many meals。 For those actions which
enter into a man; rather than issue out of him; and therefore
defile not; God uses not to captivate under a perpetual childhood
of prescription; but trusts him with the gift of reason to be his
own chooser; there were but little work left for preaching; if law
and compulsion should grow so fast upon those things which
heretofore were governed only by exhortation。 Solomon informs us;
that much reading is a weariness to the flesh; but neither he nor
other inspired author tells us that such or such reading is
unlawful: yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein; it
had been much more expedient to have told us what was unlawful than
what was wearisome。 As for the burning of those Ephesian books by
St。 Paul's converts; 'tis replied the books were magic; the Syriac
so renders them。 It was a private act; a voluntary act; and leaves
us to a voluntary imitation: the men in remorse burnt those books
which were their own; the magistrate by this example is not
appointed; these men practised the books; another might perhaps
have read them in some sort usefully。
Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up
together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so
involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil; and in so many
cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned; that those confused
seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull
out; and sort asunder; were not more intermixed。 It was from out
the rind of one apple tasted; that the knowledge of good and evil;
as two twins cleaving together; leaped forth into the world。 And
perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and
evil; that is to say of knowing good by evil。 As therefore the
state of man now is; what wisdom can there be to choose; what
continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can
apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming
pleasures; and yet abstain; and yet distinguish; and yet prefer
that which is truly better; he is the true warfaring Christian。
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue; unexercised and
unbreathed; that never sallies out and sees her adversary but
slinks out of the race; where that immortal garland is to be run
for; not without dust and heat。 Assuredly we bring not innocence
into the world; we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies
us is trial; and trial is by what is contrary。 That virtue
therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil;
and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers; and
rejects it; is but a blank virtue; not a pure; her whiteness is but
an excremental whiteness。 Which was the reason why our sage and
serious poet Spenser; whom I dare be known to think a better
teacher than Scotus or Aquinas; describing true temperance under
the person of Guion; brings him in with his palmer through the cave
of Mammon; and the bower of earthly bliss; that he might see and
know; and yet abstain。 Since therefore the knowledge and survey of
vice is in this world s