Didascalicon, Book V: the senses of Scripture and the three kinds of readers
Chapter V. What hinders study
Having prescribed to the reader a certain matter, and determined by assigning their names those writings which pertain chiefly to divine reading, it seems to follow that we should say something also about the manner and order of reading, so that from what has been said he may know to what he ought to give his study, and from what is to be said receive the manner and method of that same study. But since we more easily understand what is to be done if we have first recognized what is not to be done, he must first be instructed what to guard against, and then informed how to accomplish what is to be done. And it must be said what the reason is that, out of so great a crowd of learners, many of whom excel in talent and are vigorous in exercise, there are found so few, and so easily numbered, to whom it falls to attain knowledge. And, to say nothing of those who are by nature dull and slow to understand, this especially moves me, and seems worthy of the question: whence it happens that two of equal talent and equal study apply themselves to one reading, and yet do not attain its understanding with a like effect. One quickly grasps what he seeks, the other labors long and profits little. But it must be known that in any business two things are necessary: the work, namely, and the method of the work, which are so connected that one without the other is either useless or less effective. Yet “better, as is said, is prudence than strength”; because we also lift weights sometimes which we cannot move by strength, by art. So it surely is in every study: he who works without discretion labors indeed but does not profit, and, as one beating the air, pours out his strength into the wind. Behold two passing through a forest together, the one laboring through byways, the other choosing the short-cuts of the straight road; they stretch their course with equal motion, but do not arrive equally soon. What shall I call Scripture but a forest, whose sentences, like certain sweetest fruits, we pluck by reading and ruminate by treating? He, then, who in such a multitude of books does not keep a manner and order of reading, as one straying in the thickness of the wood, has lost the path of the right way; and he is among those of whom it is said: ever learning, and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. For so much does discretion avail that without it both all leisure is shameful and labor useless. To embrace it universally: there are three things which chiefly are wont to hinder the studies of readers: negligence, imprudence, fortune. Negligence is when we either pass over altogether what is to be learned or learn it with too little zeal. Imprudence is when we do not keep a fitting order and manner in what we learn. Fortune is in the event, whether by chance or by nature, when by poverty, or weakness, or natural slowness, or even the scarcity of teachers, because either those who teach are not found, or those who teach well, we are drawn back from our purpose. In these matters, then, as to the first, that is negligence, the reader must be admonished; as to the second, that is imprudence, instructed; as to the third, that is fortune, helped.