Passage (Francis Bacon, *Of Studies*, 1625): "Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation." What is the function of the phrase *the humor of a scholar* in the sentence "to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar"?
ATo praise scholars for the consistency of their methods.
BTo define what scholarship technically requires.
CTo explain why scholars are often in good spirits.
DTo name a characteristic excess of scholars — over-reliance on the rules of learning rather than the judgment that experience teaches.
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: D. To name a characteristic excess of scholars — over-reliance on the rules of learning rather than the judgment that experience teaches.
Bacon lists three failures of excess: *too much time → sloth, too much for ornament → affectation, wholly by their rules → the humor of a scholar*. The structure tells you *the humor of a scholar* is the third **excess** — the characteristic vice of letting the rules of study dictate judgment.
*Humor* in early-modern usage means *temperament* or *characteristic disposition* (from the medical theory of the four humors). Not *funny*. So *the humor of a scholar* means *the typical disposition that scholars fall into*, in the same pejorative tone as the other two.
- **A** misreads the negative listing as praise.
- **C** treats it as definitional rather than evaluative.
- **D** reads *humor* in its modern (irrelevant) sense.
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