Complete. From Arber’s reprint of 1579.

THERE are three things which cause perfection in man, Nature, Reason, Use. Reason I call Discipline, Use, Exercise. If any one of these branches want, certainly the tree of virtue must needs wither. For Nature without discipline is of small force, and discipline without Nature more feeble; if exercise or study be void of any of these, it availeth nothing. For as in tilling of the ground and husbandry, there is first chosen a fertile soil, then a cunning sower, then good seed, even so must we compare Nature to the fat earth, the expert husbandman to the schoolmaster, the faculties and sciences to the pure seeds. If this order had not been in our predecessors, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and whosoever was renowned in Greece, for the glory of wisdom, they had never been eternized for wise men, neither canonized, as it were, for saints, among those that study sciences. It is therefore a most evident sign of God’s singular favor towards him that is endowed with all these qualities without the least of which man is most miserable. But if there be any one that thinketh wit not necessary to the obtaining of wisdom, after he hath gotten the way to virtue by industry and exercise, he is a heretic in my opinion, touching the true faith of learning, for if Nature play not her part, in vain is labor, and, as I said before, if study be not employed, in vain is Nature. Sloth turneth the edge of wit; study sharpeneth the mind; a thing, be it never so easy, is hard to the (idle); a thing, be it never so hard, is easy to the wit well employed. And most plainly we may see in many things the efficacy of industry and labor.

  The little drop of rain pierceth hard marble; iron with often handling is worn to nothing. Besides this, Industry showeth herself in other things: the fertile soil if it be never tilled doth wax barren, and that which is most noble by nature is made most vile by negligence. What tree if it be not topped beareth any fruit? What vine if it be not pruned bringeth forth grapes? Is not the strength of the body turned to weakness with too much delicacy; were not Milo his arms brawnfalien for want of wrestling? Moreover by labor the fierce unicorn is tamed, the wildest falcon is reclaimed, the greatest bulwark is sacked. It is well answered of that man of Thessaly, who being demanded who among the Thessalians were reputed most vile, those, said he, that live at quiet and ease, never giving themselves to martial affairs. But what should one use many words in a thing already proved? It is custom, use, and exercise that bringeth a young man to virtue, and virtue to his perfection. Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Spartans, did nourish two whelps both of one sire and one dam. But after a sundry manner, for the one he framed to hunt, and the other to lie always in the chimney’s end at the porridge pot. Afterward calling the Lacedæmonians into one assembly he said: To the attaining of virtue, ye Lacedæmonians, education, industry, and exercise is the most noblest means, the truth of which I will make manifest unto you by trial; then bringing forth the whelps, and setting down there a pot and a hare, the one ran at the hare, the other to the porridge pot. The Lacedæmonians scarce understanding this mystery, he said: Both of these be of one sire and one dam, but you see how education altereth nature.