Bacon's diligence must have been as great as his
learning. In speaking, in another part of the "Opus Tertium," of the
insufficiency of the common modes of instruction, he gives incidentally
an account of his own devotion to study. "I have labored much," he says,
"on the sciences and languages; it is now forty years since I first
learned the alphabet, and I have always been studious; except two years
of these forty, I have been always engaged in study; and I have expended
much, [in learning,] as others generally do; but yet I am sure that
within a quarter of a year, or half a year, I could teach orally, to a
man eager and confident to learn, all that I know of the powers of the
sciences and languages; provided only that I had previously composed a
written compend. And yet it is known that no one else has worked so hard
or on so many sciences and tongues; for men used to wonder formerly that
I kept my life on account of my excessive labor, and ever since I have
been as studious as I was then, but I have not worked so hard, because,
through my practice in knowledge, it was not needful."[16] Again he
says, that in the twenty years in which he had specially labored in the
study of wisdom, neglecting the notions of the crowd, he had spent more
than two thousand pounds [livres] in the acquisition of secret books,
and for various experiments, instruments, tables, and other things, as
well as in seeking the friendship of learned men, and in instructing
assistants in languages, figures, the use of instruments and tables,
and many other things.
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