professions, of all temperatures: but yet so as it is not without
truth which is said, that Abeunt studua in mores, studies have an
influence and operation upon the manners of those that are
conversant in them.

(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my part
cannot find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of
learned men; not inherent to them as they are learned; except it be
a fault (which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato
II., Seneca, and many more) that because the times they read of are
commonly better than the times they live in, and the duties taught
better than the duties practised, they contend sometimes too far to
bring things to perfection, and to reduce the corruption of manners
to honesty of precepts or examples of too great height. And yet
hereof they have caveats enough in their own walks. For Solon, when
he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best laws,
answered wisely, "Yea, of such as they would receive:" and Plato,
finding that his own heart could not agree with the corrupt manners
of his country, refused to bear place or office, saying, "That a
man's country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with
humble persuasions, and not with contestations." And Caesar's
counsellor put in the same caveat, Non ad vetera instituta revocans
quae jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt; and Cicero noteth
this error directly in Cato II. when he writes to his friend
Atticus, Cato optime sentit, sed nocet interdum reipublicae;
loquitur enim tanquam in republica Platonis, non tanquam in faece
Romuli. And the same Cicero doth excuse and expound the
philosophers for going too far and being too exact in their
prescripts when he saith, Isti ipse praeceptores virtutis et
magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura vellet