And
this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged of,
nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour
of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the
one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good.
this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged of,
nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour
of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the
one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good.
Bacon
This art of ciphering hath for relative an art of
deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, but, as things are, of great
use. For suppose that ciphers were well managed, there be multitudes of
them which exclude the decipherer. But in regard of the rawness and
unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass, the greatest matters
are many times carried in the weakest ciphers.
(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it may be
thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them for
show and ostentation, and to little other purpose. But let those, which
are skilful in them, judge whether I bring them in only for appearance,
or whether in that which I speak of them (though in few words) there be
not some seed of proficience. And this must be remembered, that as there
be many of great account in their countries and provinces, which, when
they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of mean rank and scarcely
regarded; so these arts, being here placed with the principal and supreme
sciences, seem petty things: yet to such as have chosen them to spend
their labours and studies in them, they seem great matters.
XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a controversy
in our time. But as in civil business, if there be a meeting, and men
fall at words, there is commonly an end of the matter for that time, and
no proceeding at all; so in learning, where there is much controversy,
there is many times little inquiry. For this part of knowledge of method
seemeth to me so weakly inquired as I shall report it deficient.
(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as a part of
judgment. For as the doctrine of syllogisms comprehendeth the rules of
judgment upon that which is invented, so the doctrine of method
containeth the rules of judgment upon that which is to be delivered; for
judgment precedeth delivery, as it followeth invention. Neither is the
method or the nature of the tradition material only to the use of
knowledge, but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since the
labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of knowledge, the
wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth the felicity of
continuance and proceeding. And therefore the most real diversity of
method is of method referred to use, and method referred to progression:
whereof the one may be termed magistral, and the other of probation.
(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be _via deserta et interclusa_. For as
knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error
between the deliverer and the receiver. For he that delivereth knowledge
desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as
may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather
present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt,
than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open his weakness,
and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength.
(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought to be
delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method wherein
it was invented: and so is it possible of knowledge induced. But in this
same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man knoweth how he came to
the knowledge which he hath obtained. But yet, nevertheless, _secundum
majus et minus_, a man may revisit and descend unto the foundations of
his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it into another, as it grew
in his own mind. For it is in knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean
to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots—but if you mean to remove
it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the
delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees
without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But
if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body
of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots. Of which
kind of delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath
some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in
inquisition, and therefore note it for deficient.
(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some affinity with
the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but
disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it
as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is
enigmatical and disclosed. The pretence whereof is, to remove the vulgar
capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledges, and to
reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can
pierce the veil.
(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great, is the
delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods; wherein we may observe
that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a few axioms or
observations upon any subject, to make a solemn and formal art, filling
it with some discourses, and illustrating it with examples, and digesting
it into a sensible method. But the writing in aphorisms hath many
excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not approach.
(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid:
for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of
the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off;
recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is
cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off. So there remaineth
nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and
therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write
aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded. But in methods,
“Tantum series juncturaque pollet,
Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,”
as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were disjointed,
would come to little. Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent or
belief, but less fit to point to action; for they carry a kind of
demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and
therefore satisfy. But particulars being dispersed do best agree with
dispersed directions. And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge
broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the
show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest.
(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great weight, is
the handling of knowledge by assertions and their proofs, or by questions
and their determinations. The latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately
followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning as it is to the
proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold.
For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise pursued, those
smaller things will come in of themselves: indeed a man would not leave
some important piece enemy at his back. In like manner, the use of
confutation in the delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to
serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to
minister and excite disputatious and doubts.
(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject or matter
which is handled. For there is a great difference in delivery of the
mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy,
which is the most immersed. And howsoever contention hath been moved,
touching a uniformity of method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how
that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards
learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain
empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks and shells of
sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture
and press of the method. And, therefore, as I did allow well of
particular topics for invention, so I do allow likewise of particular
methods of tradition.
(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and teaching of
knowledge is, according unto the light and presuppositions of that which
is delivered. For that knowledge which is new, and foreign from opinions
received, is to be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable
and familiar; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus,
doth in truth commend him, where he saith “If we shall indeed dispute,
and not follow after similitudes,” &c. For those whose conceits are
seated in popular opinions need only but to prove or dispute; but those
whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the one
to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate. So
that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and
translations to express themselves. And therefore in the infancy of
learning, and in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial
were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for
paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood or judged.
So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are, for
it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not consonant to presuppositions
must pray in aid of similitudes.
(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and received: as
that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or systasis, of
concealment or cryptic, &c. , which I do allow well of, though I have
stood upon those which are least handled and observed. All which I have
remembered to this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one
general inquiry (which seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of
tradition.
(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth further
belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a work, but also
the several beams and columns thereof; not as to their stuff, but as to
their quantity and figure. And therefore method considereth not only the
disposition of the argument or subject, but likewise the propositions:
not as to their truth or matter, but as to their limitation and manner.
For herein Ramus merited better a great deal in reviving the good rules
of propositions—Καθολον πρωτον, κυτα παντος &c. —than he did in
introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet (as it is the condition of
human things that, according to the ancient fables, “the most precious
things have the most pernicious keepers”) it was so, that the attempt of
the one made him fall upon the other. For he had need be well conducted
that should design to make axioms convertible, if he make them not withal
circular, and non-promovent, or incurring into themselves; but yet the
intention was excellent.
(13) The other considerations of method, concerning propositions, are
chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which limit the dimensions of
sciences: for every knowledge may be fitly said, besides the profundity
(which is the truth and substance of it, that makes it solid), to have a
longitude and a latitude; accounting the latitude towards other sciences,
and the longitude towards action; that is, from the greatest generality
to the most particular precept. The one giveth rule how far one
knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of another, which is
the rule they call Καθαυτο; the other giveth rule unto what degree of
particularity a knowledge should descend: which latter I find passed over
in silence, being in my judgment the more material. For certainty there
must be somewhat left to practice; but how much is worthy the inquiry?
We see remote and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge to
scorn of practical men; and are no more aiding to practice than an
Ortelius’ universal map is to direct the way between London and York.
The better sort of rules have been not unfitly compared to glasses of
steel unpolished, where you may see the images of things, but first they
must be filed: so the rules will help if they be laboured and polished by
practice. But how crystalline they may be made at the first, and how far
forth they may be polished aforehand, is the question, the inquiry
whereof seemeth to me deficient.
(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a method, which is
not a lawful method, but a method of imposture: which is, to deliver
knowledges in such manner as men may speedily come to make a show of
learning, who have it not. Such was the travail of Raymundus Lullius in
making that art which bears his name; not unlike to some books of
typocosmy, which have been made since; being nothing but a mass of words
of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms
might be thought to understand the art; which collections are much like a
fripper’s or broker’s shop, that hath ends of everything, but nothing of
worth.
XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration
of tradition, comprehended in that science which we call rhetoric, or art
of eloquence, a science excellent, and excellently well laboured. For
although in true value it is inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to
Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, “Aaron shall be
thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God”), yet with people it is the
more mighty; for so Solomon saith, _Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens_,
_sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet_, signifying that profoundness of
wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence
that prevaileth in an active life. And as to the labouring of it, the
emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the
experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of rhetoric exceed
themselves. Again, the excellency of examples of eloquence in the
orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the
precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art; and
therefore the deficiences which I shall note will rather be in some
collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the rules or
use of the art itself.
(2) Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots of this
science, as we have done of the rest, the duty and office of rhetoric is
to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will. For we
see reason is disturbed in the administration thereof by three means—by
illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or
impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or affection,
which pertains to morality. And as in negotiation with others, men are
wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by vehemency; so in this
negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences,
solicited and importuned by impressions or observations, and transported
by passions. Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as
that those powers and arts should have force to disturb reason, and not
to establish and advance it. For the end of logic is to teach a form of
argument to secure reason, and not to entrap it; the end of morality is
to procure the affections to obey reason, and not to invade it; the end
of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second reason, and not to
oppress it; for these abuses of arts come in but _ex oblique_, for
caution.
(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out
of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric
but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome
meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the
taste. For we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning that
which is good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is no man
but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think; and it was
excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that because he used to hold
on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing
against eloquence and good speech, knowing that no man can speak fair of
courses sordid and base. And therefore, as Plato said elegantly, “That
virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection;” so
seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the next
degree is to show her to the imagination in lively representation; for to
show her to reason only in subtlety of argument was a thing ever derided
in Chrysippus and many of the Stoics, who thought to thrust virtue upon
men by sharp disputations and conclusions, which have no sympathy with
the will of man.
(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to
reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and
insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and proofs; but
in regard of the continual mutinies and seditious of the affections—
“Video meliora, proboque,
Deteriora sequor,”
reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions did
not practise and win the imagination from the affections’ part, and
contract a confederacy between the reason and imagination against the
affections; for the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good,
as reason doth. The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely
the present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time. And,
therefore, the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly
vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made
things future and remote appear as present, then upon the revolt of the
imagination reason prevaileth.
(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more charged with the
colouring of the worst part, than logic with sophistry, or morality with
vice; for we know the doctrines of contraries are the same, though the
use be opposite. It appeareth also that logic differeth from rhetoric,
not only as the fist from the palm—the one close, the other at large—but
much more in this, that logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and
rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions and manners.
And therefore Aristotle doth wisely place rhetoric as between logic on
the one side, and moral or civil knowledge on the other, as participating
of both; for the proofs and demonstrations of logic are toward all men
indifferent and the same, but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric
ought to differ according to the auditors:
“Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion. ”
Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far that if a
man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he should speak to
them all respectively and several ways; though this politic part of
eloquence in private speech it is easy for the greatest orators to want:
whilst, by the observing their well-graced forms of speech, they leese
the volubility of application; and therefore it shall not be amiss to
recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it
here or in that part which concerneth policy.
(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as I said,
are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom and diligence of
Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a collection of the popular
signs and colours of good and evil, both simple and comparative, which
are as the sophisms of rhetoric (as I touched before). For example—
“Sophisma.
Quod laudatur, bonum: quod vituperatur, malum.
Redargutio.
Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces. ”
_Malum est_, _malum est_ (_inquit emptor_): _sed cum recesserit_, _tum
gloriabitur_! The defects in the labour of Aristotle are three—one, that
there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are not annexed;
and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use of them: for their
use is not only in probation, but much more in impression. For many
forms are equal in signification which are differing in impression, as
the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp and that
which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same. For
there is no man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said,
“Your enemies will be glad of this”—
“Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ. ”
than by hearing it said only, “This is evil for you. ”
(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before, touching
provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness
of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts: the one in resemblance
to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made
up; both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request.
The former of these I will call _antitheta_, and the latter _formulæ_.
(8) _Antitheta_ are theses argued _pro et contra_, wherein men may be
more large and laborious; but (in such as are able to do it) to avoid
prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast
up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be as
skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be
used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.
“_Pro verbis legis_.
Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quæ recedit a litera:
Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.
_Pro sententia legis_.
Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur singula. ”
(9) _Formulæ_ are but decent and apt passages or conveyances of speech,
which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of preface,
conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &c. For as in buildings
there is great pleasure and use in the well casting of the staircases,
entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech, the conveyances and
passages are of special ornament and effect.
“_A conclusion in a deliberative_.
So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences
future. ”
XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge,
the one critical, the other pedantical. For all knowledge is either
delivered by teachers, or attained by men’s proper endeavours: and
therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth
chiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading
of books; whereunto appertain incidently these considerations. The first
is concerning the true correction and edition of authors; wherein
nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice. For these critics
have often presumed that that which they understand not is false set
down: as the priest that, where he found it written of St. Paul _Demissus
est per sportam_, mended his book, and made it _Demissus est per portam_;
because _sporta_ was a hard word, and out of his reading: and surely
their errors, though they be not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are of
the same kind. And therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most
corrected copies are commonly the least correct.
The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors, which
resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein it is over usual to
blanch the obscure places and discourse upon the plain.
The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great light
to true interpretations.
The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the authors;
that men thereby may make some election unto themselves what books to
read.
And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies; that
men may know in what order or pursuit to read.
(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of tradition
which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers considerations of
great fruit.
As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what to
initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.
Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to press the more
difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for it is one method
to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing with
heavy shoes.
A third is the application of learning according unto the propriety of
the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual, but
seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies: as, for example,
if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention,
the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be
caught away but a moment, one is new to begin. And as sciences have a
propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or powers
have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy profiting: and
therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what kinds of wits and
natures are most apt and proper for what sciences.
Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence to
hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in exercising their
faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise their faults and get
ill habits as well as good; so as there is a great judgment to be had in
the continuance and intermission of exercises. It were too long to
particularise a number of other considerations of this nature, things but
of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy. For as the wronging or
cherishing of seeds or young plants is that that is most important to
their thriving, and as it was noted that the first six kings being in
truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the
principal cause of the immense greatness of that state which followed, so
the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible (though
unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time or contention of labour
can countervail it afterwards. And it is not amiss to observe also how
small and mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall into
great men or great matters, do work great and important effects: whereof
we see a notable example in Tacitus of two stage players, Percennius and
Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian armies into
an extreme tumult and combustion. For there arising a mutiny amongst
them upon the death of Augustus Cæsar, Blæsus the lieutenant had
committed some of the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon
Vibulenus got to be heard speak, which he did in this manner:—“These poor
innocent wretches appointed to cruel death, you have restored to behold
the light; but who shall restore my brother to me, or life unto my
brother, that was sent hither in message from the legions of Germany, to
treat of the common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by
some of his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
executioners upon soldiers. Answer, Blæsus, what is done with his body?
The mortalest enemies do not deny burial. When I have performed my last
duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain
besides him; so that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true
hearts to the legions, may have leave to bury us. ” With which speech he
put the army into an infinite fury and uproar: whereas truth was he had
no brother, neither was there any such matter; but he played it merely as
if he had been upon the stage.
(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational knowledges;
wherein if I have made the divisions other than those that are received,
yet would I not be thought to disallow all those divisions which I do not
use. For there is a double necessity imposed upon me of altering the
divisions. The one, because it differeth in end and purpose, to sort
together those things which are next in nature, and those things which
are next in use. For if a secretary of estate should sort his papers, it
is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort together things of
a nature, as treaties, instructions, &c. But in his boxes or particular
cabinet he would sort together those that he were like to use together,
though of several natures. So in this general cabinet of knowledge it
was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the nature of things;
whereas if myself had been to handle any particular knowledge, I would
have respected the divisions fittest for use. The other, because the
bringing in of the deficiences did by consequence alter the partitions of
the rest. For let the knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be
fifteen. Let the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty; the parts of
fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three
and five; the parts of twenty are two, four, five, and ten. So as these
things are without contradiction, and could not otherwise be.
XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the
appetite and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, _Ante omnia_, _fili_,
_custodi cor tuum_: _nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ_. In the handling
of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a
man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of
alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions
for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters. So have they
made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and
portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well
described as the true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires. But
how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will
of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it
over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably. For it is not the
disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by
nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines
and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and the
like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence of this
part.
(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock
whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast
away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and
common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the
wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties),
but contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain
resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to
the subtlety of disputatious, or to the eloquence of discourses. But
Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence, _Nocet illis eloquentia_,
_quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit_, _sed sui_. Doctrine should be such
as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher;
being directed to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s
commendation. And therefore those are of the right kind which may be
concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel, _Quæ si feceritis_, _non
oratorem dumtaxat in præsentia laudabitis_, _sed vosmetipsos etiam non
ita multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore_.
(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a
fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who
got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of
the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas:
“Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem. ”
And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure
that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn
action and active life, these Georgics of the mind, concerning the
husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical
descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the main and
primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or
platform of good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one
describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue,
apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.
(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good considereth it
either simple or compared; either the kinds of good, or the degrees of
good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputatious which were
touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude,
or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen
divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged. And as Aristotle saith,
“That young men may be happy, but not otherwise but by hope;” so we must
all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope
of the future world.
(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the philosopher’s
heaven, whereby they feigned a higher elevation of man’s nature than was
(for we see in what height of style Seneca writeth, _Vere magnum_,
_habere fragilitatem hominis_, _securitatem Dei_), we may with more
sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and labours.
Wherein for the nature of good positive or simple, they have set it down
excellently in describing the forms of virtue and duty, with their
situations and postures; in distributing them into their kinds, parts,
provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like: nay further, they
have commended them to man’s nature and spirit with great quickness of
argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched
them (as much as discourse can do) against corrupt and popular opinions.
Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also
excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the comparisons
between a contemplative and an active life, in the distinction between
virtue with reluctation and virtue secured, in their encounters between
honesty and profit, in their balancing of virtue with virtue, and the
like; so as this part deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.
(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received
notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had
stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good and
evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a
great light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted
with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound:
which being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much
confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.
(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of good—the one, as
everything is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it is a
part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the
greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a
more general form. Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy
moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it
forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth
to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies; so may we
go forward, and see that water and massy bodies move to the centre of the
earth; but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of
nature, they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking
their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world. This
double nature of good, and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven
upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the
public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and
being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being
in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded
with great vehemency and instance by his friends about him, that he
should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only
to them, _Necesse est ut eam_, _non ut vivam_. But it may be truly
affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other
discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is
communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as
the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the same God that gave the
Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate
creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of
God have wished themselves anathematised and razed out of the book of
life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion.
(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and determine
most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant. For
first, it decideth the question touching the preferment of the
contemplative or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle. For all
the reasons which he bringeth for the contemplative are private, and
respecting the pleasure and dignity of a man’s self (in which respects no
question the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike
to that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying
of philosophy and contemplation, who being asked what he was, answered,
“That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner, that
some came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some came as merchants
to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer and meet
their friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of them that
came to look on. ” But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life
it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on. Neither could
the like question ever have been received in the Church, notwithstanding
their _Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus_, by which place
they would exalt their civil death and regular professions, but upon this
defence, that the monastical life is not simple contemplative, but
performeth the duty either of incessant prayers and supplications, which
hath been truly esteemed as an office in the Church, or else of writing
or taking instructions for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses
did when he abode so long in the mount. And so we see Enoch, the seventh
from Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with God, yet did
also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude citeth. But for
contemplation which should be finished in itself, without casting beams
upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not.
(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates, and
their schools and successions, on the one side, who placed felicity in
virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises whereof do chiefly
embrace and concern society; and on the other side, the Cyrenaics and
Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in
some comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits)
to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served and
attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed it in
serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation; as if they would have
deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when there
was no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and
season; and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the
disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming
things according to the clearness of the desires, or the reluctation;
which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, measuring
things according to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or
wavering of belief; all which are manifest to tend to private repose and
contentment, and not to point of society.
(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which presupposeth
that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power, lest
we be liable to fortune and disturbance; as if it were not a thing much
more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends for the public, than to
obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune: as
Consalvo said to his soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he had
rather die one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for long by
one foot of retreat. Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath
signed, who hath affirmed that “a good conscience is a continual feast;”
showing plainly that the conscience of good intentions, howsoever
succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature than all the provision
which can be made for security and repose.
(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew general
about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or
profession; as if the purpose had been, not to resist and extinguish
perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a
particular kind and course of life to that end; introducing such a health
of mind, as was that health of body of which Aristotle speaketh of
Herodicus, who did nothing all his life long but intend his health;
whereas if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of
body is best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities,
so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go through the
greatest temptations and perturbations. So as Diogenes’ opinion is to be
accepted, who commended not them which abstained, but them which
sustained, and could refrain their mind _in præcipitio_, and could give
unto the mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn.
(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in some
of the most ancient and reverend philosophers and philosophical men, that
did retire too easily from civil business, for avoiding of indignities
and perturbations; whereas the resolution of men truly moral ought to be
such as the same Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, _e telâ
crassiore_, and not so fine as that everything should catch in it and
endanger it.
XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into the
division of good active and passive; for this difference of good (not
unlike to that which amongst the Romans was expressed in the familiar or
household terms of _promus_ and _condus_) is formed also in all things,
and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the one
to preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or multiply
themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the worthier; for in nature
the heavens, which are the more worthy, are the agent, and the earth,
which is the less worthy, is the patient. In the pleasures of living
creatures, that of generation is greater than that of food. In divine
doctrine, _beatius est dare quam accipere_. And in life, there is no
man’s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the effecting of somewhat that he
hath fixed in his desire, more than sensuality, which priority of the
active good is much upheld by the consideration of our estate to be
mortal and exposed to fortune. For if we might have a perpetuity and
certainty in our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price.
But when we see it is but _magni æstimamus mori tardius_, and _ne
glorieris de crastino_, _nescis partum diei_, it maketh us to desire to
have somewhat secured and exempted from time, which are only our deeds
and works; as it is said, _Opera eorum sequuntur eos_. The pre-eminence
likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection which is natural
in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the pleasures of the
sense, which is the principal part of passive good, can have no great
latitude. _Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris_; _cibus_, _somnus_, _ludus per
hunc circulum curritur_; _mori velle non tantum fortis_, _aut miser_,
_aut prudens_, _sed etiam fastidiosus potest_. But in enterprises,
pursuits, and purposes of life, there is much variety; whereof men are
sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils,
reintegrations, approaches and attainings to their ends. So as it was
well said, _Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est_. Neither hath this
active good an identity with the good of society, though in some cases it
hath an incidence into it. For although it do many times bring forth
acts of beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to a man’s own
power, glory, amplification, continuance; as appeareth plainly, when it
findeth a contrary subject. For that gigantine state of mind which
possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla and
infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy
as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world,
according to their own humours (which is the true theomachy), pretendeth
and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth furthest from good of
society, which we have determined to be the greater.
(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of conservative
and effective. For let us take a brief review of that which we have
said: we have spoken first of the good of society, the intention whereof
embraceth the form of human nature, whereof we are members and portions,
and not our own proper and individual form; we have spoken of active
good, and supposed it as a part of private and particular good. And
rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple desire or
appetite proceeding from love to themselves: one of preserving and
continuing their form; another of advancing and perfecting their form;
and a third of multiplying and extending their form upon other things:
whereof the multiplying, or signature of it upon other things, is that
which we handled by the name of active good. So as there remaineth the
conserving of it, and perfecting or raising of it, which latter is the
highest degree of passive good. For to preserve in state is the less, to
preserve with advancement is the greater. So in man,
“Igneus est ollis vigor, et cælestis origo. ”
His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the
perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which good is
that which is the tempest of human life; while man, upon the instinct of
an advancement, formal and essential, is carried to seek an advancement
local. For as those which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up and
down and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove
internal, so is it with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to
exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their
place. So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative or
perfective.
(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth in
the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; it seemeth to be
most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and lowest.
And
this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged of,
nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour
of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the
one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good.
Whether of these is the greater good is a question controverted; but
whether man’s nature may not be capable of both is a question not
inquired.
(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a sophist,
Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of mind, and the
sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell from argument to
ill words: the sophist saying that Socrates’ felicity was the felicity of
a block or stone; and Socrates saying that the sophist’s felicity was the
felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but itch and scratch.
And both these opinions do not want their supports. For the opinion of
Socrates is much upheld by the general consent even of the epicures
themselves, that virtue beareth a great part in felicity; and if so,
certain it is, that virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then
in compassing desires. The sophist’s opinion is much favoured by the
assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is greater than good
of simple preservation; because every obtaining a desire hath a show of
advancement, as motion though in a circle hath a show of progression.
(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the former
superfluous. For can it be doubted, but that there are some who take
more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some other, and yet,
nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them? So as
this same, _Non uti ut non appetas_, _non appetere ut non metuas_, _sunt
animi pusilli et diffidentis_. And it seemeth to me that most of the
doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautious than the
nature of things requireth. So have they increased the fear of death in
offering to cure it. For when they would have a man’s whole life to be
but a discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men think
that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of preparing.
Better saith the poet:—
“Qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat
Naturæ. ”
So have they sought to make men’s minds too uniform and harmonical, by
not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions; the reasons whereof I
suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated to a private,
free, and unapplied course of life. For as we see, upon the lute or like
instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many changes,
yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops and passages, as
a set song or voluntary; much after the same manner was the diversity
between a philosophical and civil life. And, therefore, men are to
imitate the wisdom of jewellers: who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or
an ice which may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone,
they help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too much, they
will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity as they
destroy not magnanimity.
(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private and
particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good of man
which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term duty; because
the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed
towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind well formed
and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue
without some relation to society, nor duty without an inward disposition.
This part may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic; but
not if it be well observed. For it concerneth the regiment and
government of every man over himself, and not over others. And as in
architecture the direction of framing the posts, beams, and other parts
of building, is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting
the building; and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame an
instrument or engine is not the same with the manner of setting it on
work and employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one
you incidently express the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine of
conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their conformity
thereunto.
(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common duty of
every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the respective or
special duty of every man in his profession, vocation, and place. The
first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said. The
second likewise I may report rather dispersed than deficient; which
manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge to be
best. For who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue,
challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and place?
For although sometimes a looker on may see more than a gamester, and
there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, “That the vale best
discovereth the hill;” yet there is small doubt but that men can write
best and most really and materially in their own professions; and that
the writing of speculative men of active matter for the most part doth
seem to men of experience, as Phormio’s argument of the wars seemed to
Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage. Only there is one vice which
accompanieth them that write in their own professions, that they magnify
them in excess. But generally it were to be wished (as that which would
make learning indeed solid and fruitful) that active men would or could
become writers.
(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, _honoris causa_, your Majesty’s
excellent book touching the duty of a king; a work richly compounded of
divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts;
and being in some opinion one of the most sound and healthful writings
that I have read: not distempered in the heat of invention, nor in the
coldness of negligence; not sick of dizziness, as those are who leese
themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in
matters impertinent; not savouring of perfumes and paintings, as those do
who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth; and chiefly well
disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth and apt for
action; and far removed from that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted
those that write in their own professions to be subject—which is, that
they exalt it above measure. For your Majesty hath truly described, not
a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory, but a Moses or a
David, pastors of their people. Neither can I ever leese out of my
remembrance what I heard your Majesty in the same sacred spirit of
government deliver in a great cause of judicature, which was, “That kings
ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of nature; and ought as
rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative as God doth His power of
working miracles. ” And yet notwithstanding in your book of a free
monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude
of the power and right of a king, as well as the circle of his office and
duty. Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your
Majesty, as a prime or eminent example of tractates concerning special
and respective duties; wherein I should have said as much, if it had been
written a thousand years since. Neither am I moved with certain courtly
decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in presence. No, it is
flattery to praise in absence—that is, when either the virtue is absent,
or the occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural, but forced,
either in truth or in time. But let Cicero be read in his oration _pro
Marcello_, which is nothing but an excellent table of Cæsar’s virtue, and
made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent persons,
wiser a great deal than such observers; and we will never doubt, upon a
full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.
(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of this part,
touching the duties of professions and vocations, a relative or opposite,
touching the frauds, cautels, impostures, and vices of every profession,
which hath been likewise handled; but how? rather in a satire and
cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit
to deride and traduce much of that which is good in professions, than
with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt. For, as
Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to
scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no
matter for his instruction: _Quærenti derisori scientiam ipsa se
abscondit_; _sed studioso fit obviam_. But the managing of this argument
with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be
one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be
planted. For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk—that if he see you
first, you die for it; but if you see him first, he dieth—so is it with
deceits and evil arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their
life; but if they prevent, they endanger. So that we are much beholden
to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought
to do. For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the
columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the
serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and
lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest—that is, all forms and
natures of evil. For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay,
an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them,
without the help of the knowledge of evil. For men of corrupted minds
presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and
believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men’s exterior language. So
as, except you can make them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of
their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality. _Non recipit
stultus verba prudentiæ_, _nisi ea dixeris quæ_, _versantur in corde
ejus_.
(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also appertain the
duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant.
So likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil bond of
companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other
proportionate duties; not as they are parts of government and society,
but as to the framing of the mind of particular persons.
(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth handle it
also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto belongeth the
weighing of duties between person and person, case and case, particular
and public. As we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own
sons, which was so much extolled, yet what was said?
“Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata minores. ”
So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides. Again, we see
when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose opinions
they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their associates,
and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant being a
usurper, they were divided in opinion; some holding that servitude was
the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better than a civil
war: and a number of the like cases there are of comparative duty.
Amongst which that of all others is the most frequent, where the question
is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice. Which Jason of
Thessalia determined against the truth: _Aliqua sunt injuste facienda_,
_ut multa juste fieri possint_. But the reply is good: _Auctorem
præsentis justitiæ habes_, _sponsorem futuræ non habes_. Men must pursue
things which are just in present, and leave the future to the Divine
Providence. So then we pass on from this general part touching the
exemplar and description of good.
XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of life, it
remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth thereunto, without
which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image or
statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and
motion; whereunto Aristotle himself subscribeth in these words: _Necesse
est scilicet de virtute dicere_, _et quid sit_, _et ex quibus gignatur_.
_Inutile enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem nosse_, _acquirendæ autem ejus
modos et vias ignorare_. _Non enum de virtute tantum_, _qua specie sit_,
_quærendum est_, _sed et quomodo sui copiam faciat_: _utrumque enum
volumeus_, _et rem ipsam nosse_, _et ejus compotes fieri_: _hoc autem ex
voto non succedet_, _nisi sciamus et ex quibus et quomodo_. In such full
words and with such iteration doth he inculcate this part. So saith
Cicero in great commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied
himself to philosophy, _Non ita disputandi causa_, _sed ita vivendi_.
And although the neglect of our times, wherein few men do hold any
consultations touching the reformation of their life (as Seneca
excellently saith, _De partibus vitæ quisque deliberat_, _de summa
nemo_), may make this part seem superfluous; yet I must conclude with
that aphorism of Hippocrates, _Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non
sentiunt_, _iis mens ægrotat_. They need medicine, not only to assuage
the disease, but to awake the sense. And if it be said that the cure of
men’s minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral
philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble
handmaid. For as the Psalm saith, “That the eyes of the handmaid look
perpetually towards the mistress,” and yet no doubt many things are left
to the discretion of the handmaid to discern of the mistress’ will; so
ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of
divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself (within due limits) many
sound and profitable directions.
(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I cannot but
find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to written inquiry; the
rather, because it consisteth of much matter, wherein both speech and
action is often conversant; and such wherein the common talk of men
(which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass) is wiser than their
books. It is reasonable, therefore, that we propound it in the more
particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit
ourselves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost incredible,
and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those themselves that have
written. We will, therefore, enumerate some heads or points thereof,
that it may appear the better what it is, and whether it be extant.
(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical we
ought to cast up our account, what is in our power, and what not; for the
one may be dealt with by way of alteration, but the other by way of
application only. The husbandman cannot command neither the nature of
the earth nor the seasons of the weather; no more can the physician the
constitution of the patient nor the variety of accidents. So in the
culture and cure of the mind of man, two things are without our command:
points of Nature, and points of fortune. For to the basis of the one,
and the conditions of the other, our work is limited and tied. In these
things, therefore, it is left unto us to proceed by application:—
“Vincenda est omnis fertuna ferendo:”
and so likewise,
“Vincenda est omnis Natura ferendo. ”
But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and
neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which
draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth
adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we call accommodating
or applying. Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the
exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto
which we do apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take
measure of the body.
(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set down sound
and true distributions and descriptions of the several characters and
tempers of men’s natures and dispositions, specially having regard to
those differences which are most radical in being the fountains and
causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture;
wherein it is not the handling of a few of them in passage, the better to
describe the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention.
For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which are
proportioned to great matters, and others to small (which Aristotle
handleth, or ought to have bandied, by the name of magnanimity), doth it
not deserve as well to be considered that there are minds proportioned to
intend many matters, and others to few? So that some can divide
themselves: others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be but in
few things at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as
well as a pusillanimity. And again, that some minds are proportioned to
that which may be dispatched at once, or within a short return of time;
others to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with length of
pursuit:—
“Jam tum tenditqus fovetque. ”
So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly
also ascribed to God as a magnanimity. So further deserved it to be
considered by Aristotle, “That there is a disposition in conversation
(supposing it in things which do in no sort touch or concern a man’s
self) to soothe and please, and a disposition contrary to contradict and
cross;” and deserveth it not much better to be considered. “That there
is a disposition, not in conversation or talk, but in matter of more
serious nature (and supposing it still in things merely indifferent), to
take pleasure in the good of another; and a disposition contrariwise, to
take distaste at the good of another? ” which is that properly which we
call good nature or ill nature, benignity or malignity; and, therefore, I
cannot sufficiently marvel that this part of knowledge, touching the
several characters of natures and dispositions, should be omitted both in
morality and policy, considering it is of so great ministry and
suppeditation to them both. A man shall find in the traditions of
astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men’s natures, according to
the predominances of the planets: lovers of quiet, lovers of action,
lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts,
lovers of change, and so forth. A man shall find in the wisest sort of
these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures
of the several cardinals handsomely and lively painted forth. A man
shall meet with in every day’s conference the denominations of sensitive,
dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, _huomo di prima impressione_,
_huomo di ultima impressione_, and the like; and yet, nevertheless, this
kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.
For the distinctions are found (many of them), but we conclude no
precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both
history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where these
observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our hands, but
no man bringeth them to the confectionary that receipts might be made of
them for use of life.
(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which are imposed
upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and
sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and
not extern; and again, those which are caused by extern fortune, as
sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy,
privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune,
rising _per saltum_, _per gradus_, and the like. And, therefore, we see
that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, _benignitas
hujis ut adolescentuli est_. Saint Paul concludeth that severity of
discipline was to be used to the Cretans, _increpa eos dure_, upon the
disposition of their country, _Cretensus semper mendaces_, _malæ bestiæ_,
_ventres_. Sallust noteth that it is usual with kings to desire
contradictories: _Sed plerumque regiæ voluntates_, _ut vehementes sunt_,
_sic mobiles_, _sæpeque ipsæ sibi advers_. Tacitus observeth how rarely
raising of the fortune mendeth the disposition: _solus Vespasianus
mutatus in melius_. Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and
sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men _qui magnam felicitatem
concoquere non possunt_. So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep a
measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune;
_Divitiæ si affluant_, _nolite cor apponere_. These observations and the
like I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in
his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses; but they
were never incorporate into moral philosophy, to which they do
essentially appertain; as the knowledge of this diversity of grounds and
moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of
complexions and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to
follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to
all patients.
(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the
affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to
know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases;
and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of
the divers characters of men’s natures, it followeth in order to know the
diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the
perturbations and distempars of the affections. For as the ancient
politiques in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea,
and the orators to the winds; because as the sea would of itself be calm
and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would
be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in
working and agitation: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the
nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as
winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And here again I
find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written divers
volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which is the
principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are
considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may be moved
by speech), he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the
quantity; but where their true place is he pretermitteth them. For it is
not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this
inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light
can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to
the particular affections as light is to particular colours. Better
travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I
can gather by that which we have at second hand. But yet it is like it
was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a
subject of this nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
descriptions and observations. So likewise I find some particular
writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections: as of
anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance,
and other. But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors
of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great life, how
affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and
how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify:
how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and
encounter one with another; and other the like particularities. Amongst
the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I
say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another;
even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which
otherwise percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation
is erected that excellent use of _præmium_ and _pæna_, whereby civil
states consist: employing the predominant affections of fear and hope,
for the suppressing and bridling the rest. For as in the government of
states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so
it is in the government within.
(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command, and
have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite,
and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled custom,
exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company,
friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these
as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind
suffereth, and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and
described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate
of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine: of which number we
will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it
were too long to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and
habit to speak of.
(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of
those things which consist by Nature, nothing can be changed by custom;
using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times up it
will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or hearing we do not
learn to see or hear the better. For though this principle be true in
things wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we cannot now
stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein Nature admitteth
a latitude. For he might see that a strait glove will come more easily
on with use; and that a wand will by use bend otherwise than it grew; and
that by use of the voice we speak louder and stronger; and that by use of
enduring heat or cold we endure it the better, and the like: which latter
sort have a nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he handleth,
than those instances which he allegeth. But allowing his conclusion,
that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more to
have taught the manner of superinducing that habit: for there be many
precepts of the wise ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of
ordering the exercises of the body, whereof we will recite a few.
(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either
too high a strain or too weak: for if too high, in a diffident nature you
discourage, in a confident nature you breed an opinion of facility, and
so a sloth; and in all natures you breed a further expectation than can
hold out, and so an insatisfaction in the end: if too weak, of the other
side, you may not look to perform and overcome any great task.
(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two several
times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst
disposed; that by the one you may gain a great step, by the other you may
work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make the middle times the
more easy and pleasant.
(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way, which
is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto we are by
nature inclined; like unto the rowing against the stream, or making a
wand straight by bending him contrary to his natural crookedness.
(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything better, and
with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not
first in the intention, but _tanquam aliud agendo_, because of the
natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint. Many other
axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and custom, which
being so conducted doth prove indeed another nature; but, being governed
by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of Nature, and bringeth forth
that which is lame and counterfeit.
(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and
operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great
caution and direction appertaining thereunto? Did not one of the fathers
in great indignation call poesy _vinum dæmonum_, because it increaseth
temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions? Is not the opinion of
Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, “That young men are no
fit auditors of moral philosophy, because they are not settled from the
boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and
experience”? And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and
discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded unto
virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and majesty, and
popular opinions against virtue in their parasites’ coats fit to be
scorned and derided), are of so little effect towards honesty of life,
because they are not read and revolved by men in their mature and settled
years, but confined almost to boys and beginners? But is it not true
also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of policy,
till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and morality; lest
their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think that there are no
true differences of things, but according to utility and fortune, as the
verse describes it, _Prosperum et felix scelus virtus vocatur_; and
again, _Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit_, _hic diadema_: which the
poets do speak satirically and in indignation on virtue’s behalf; but
books of policy do speak it seriously and positively; for so it pleaseth
Machiavel to say, “That if Cæsar had been overthrown, he would have been
more odious than ever was Catiline;” as if there had been no difference,
but in fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world? Again, is there
not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities
themselves (some kinds of them), lest they make men too precise,
arrogant, incompatible; as Cicero saith of Cato, _In Marco Catone hæc
bona quæ videmus divina et egregia_, _ipsius scitote esse propria_; _quæ
nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non a natura_, _sed a magistro_? Many
other axioms and advices there are touching those proprieties and
effects, which studies do infuse and instil into manners. And so,
likewise, is there touching the use of all those other points, of
company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the beginning in
the doctrine of morality.
(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more
accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground; that
the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at
other times in a state more depraved. The purpose, therefore, of this
practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to
obliterate and take forth the evil. The fixing of the good hath been
practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and observances or
exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as because
they keep the mind in continual obedience. The obliteration of the evil
hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of
that which is past, and an inception or account _de novo_ for the time to
come. But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all
good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to religion.
(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of all
other means the most compendious and summary, and again, the most noble
and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate;
which is, the electing and propounding unto a man’s self good and
virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his
compass to attain. For if these two things be supposed, that a man set
before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute,
constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould himself
into all virtue at once. And this indeed is like the work of nature;
whereas the other course is like the work of the hand. For as when a
carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereupon he worketh; as
if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude
stone still, till such times as he comes to it. But contrariwise when
nature makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all
the parts at one time. So in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man
practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude, nor the like
but when he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look, what
virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth commend
unto him, he is invested of a precedent disposition to conform himself
thereunto. Which state of mind Aristotle doth excellently express
himself, that it ought not to be called virtuous, but divine. His words
are these: _Immanitati autem consentaneum est opponere eam_, _quæ supra
humanitatem est_, _heroicam sive divinam virtutem_; and a little after,
_Nam ut feræ neque vitium neque virtus est_, _swic neque Dei_: _sed hic
quidem status altius quiddam virtute est_, _ille aluid quiddam a vitio_.
And therefore we may see what celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus
attributeth to Trajan in his funeral oration, where he said, “That men
needed to make no other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue
as good lords to them as Trajan had been;” as if he had not been only an
imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it. But these be heathen
and profane passages, having but a shadow of that divine state of mind,
which religion and the holy faith doth conduct men unto, by imprinting
upon their souls charity, which is excellently called the bond of
perfection, because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together.
And as it is elegantly said by Menander of vain love, which is but a
false imitation of divine love, _Amor melior Sophista lœvo ad humanam
vitam_—that love teacheth a man to carry himself better than the sophist
or preceptor; which he calleth left-handed, because, with all his rules
and preceptions, he cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that
facility to prize himself and govern himself, as love can do: so
certainly, if a man’s mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth work
him suddenly into greater perfection than all the doctrine of morality
can do, which is but a sophist in comparison of the other. Nay, further,
as Xenophon observed truly, that all other affections, though they raise
the mind, yet they do it by distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or
excesses; but only love doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same
instant doth settle and compose it: so in all other excellences, though
they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess. Only charity
admitteth no excess. For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power,
the angels transgressed and fell; _Ascendam_, _et ero similis altissimo_:
by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell;
_Eritis sicut Dii_, _scientes bonum et malum_: but by aspiring to a
similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever
transgressed, or shall transgress. For unto that imitation we are
called: _Diligite inimicos vestros_, _benefacite eis qui oderunt vos_,
_et orate pro persequentibus et calumniantibus vos_, _ut sitis filii
Patris vestri qui in cœlis est_, _qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos
et malos_, _et pluit super justos et injustos_. So in the first platform
of the divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, _Optimus
Maximus_: and the sacred Scriptures thus, _Miscericordia ejus super omnia
opera ejus_.
(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge, concerning the
culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any man, considering the
arts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is but to
collect into an art or science that which hath been pretermitted by
others, as matter of common sense and experience, he judgeth well. But
as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes, “You may not marvel (Athenians)
that Demosthenes and I do differ; for he drinketh water, and I drink
wine;” and like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of
sleep—
“Sunt geminæ somni portæ: quarum altera fertur
Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes:”
so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure maxim in
knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor (“of wine”) is the more
vaporous, and the braver gate (“of ivory”) sendeth forth the falser
dreams.
(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human philosophy,
which contemplateth man segregate, and as he consisteth of body and
spirit. Wherein we may further note, that there seemeth to be a relation
or conformity between the good of the mind and the good of the body. For
as we divided the good of the body into health, beauty, strength, and
pleasure, so the good of the mind, inquired in rational and moral
knowledges, tendeth to this, to make the mind sound, and without
perturbation; beautiful, and graced with decency; and strong and agile
for all duties of life. These three, as in the body, so in the mind,
seldom meet, and commonly sever. For it is easy to observe, that many
have strength of wit and courage, but have neither health from
perturbations, nor any beauty or decency in their doings; some again have
an elegancy and fineness of carriage which have neither soundness of
honesty nor substance of sufficiency; and some again have honest and
reformed minds, that can neither become themselves nor manage business;
and sometimes two of them meet, and rarely all three. As for pleasure,
we have likewise determined that the mind ought not to be reduced to
stupid, but to retain pleasure; confined rather in the subject of it,
than in the strength and vigour of it.
XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which of all
others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom.
Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said, “That the Romans were like sheep,
for that a man were better drive a flock of them, than one of them; for
in a flock, if you could get but some few go right, the rest would
follow:” so in that respect moral philosophy is more difficile than
policy. Again, moral philosophy propoundeth to itself the framing of
internal goodness; but civil knowledge requireth only an external
goodness; for that as to society sufficeth. And therefore it cometh oft
to pass that there be evil times in good governments: for so we find in
the Holy story, when the kings were good, yet it is added, _Sed adhuc
poulus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum suorum_. Again,
states, as great engines, move slowly, and are not so soon put out of
frame: for as in Egypt the seven good years sustained the seven bad, so
governments for a time well grounded do bear out errors following; but
the resolution of particular persons is more suddenly subverted. These
respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil knowledge.
(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary
actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation, and government.
For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection; and they be
three wisdoms of divers natures which do often sever—wisdom of the
behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.
(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected, but
much less despised; for it hath not only an honour in itself, but an
influence also into business and government. The poet saith, _Nec vultu
destrue verba tuo_: a man may destroy the force of his words with his
countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero, recommending to his
brother affability and easy access; _Nil interest habere ostium apertum_,
_vultum clausum_: it is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and
to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance. So we see Atticus,
before the first interview between Cæsar and Cicero, the war depending,
did seriously advise Cicero touching the composing and ordering of his
countenance and gesture. And if the government of the countenance be of
such effect, much more is that of the speech, and other carriage
appertaining to conversation; the true model whereof seemeth to me well
expressed by Livy, though not meant for this purpose: _Ne aut arrogans
videar_, _aut obnoxius_; _quorum alterum est àlienæ libertatis obliti_,
_alterum suæ_: the sum of behaviour is to retain a man’s own dignity,
without intruding upon the liberty of others. On the other side, if
behaviour and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may pass
into affectation, and then _Quid deformius quam scenam in vitam
transferre_—to act a man’s life? But although it proceed not to that
extreme, yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too much. And
therefore as we use to advise young students from company keeping, by
saying, _Amici fures temporis_: so certainly the intending of the
discretion of behaviour is a great thief of meditation. Again, such as
are accomplished in that form of urbanity please themselves in it, and
seldom aspire to higher virtue; whereas those that have defect in it do
seek comeliness by reputation; for where reputation is, almost everything
becometh; but where that is not, it must be supplied by _puntos_ and
compliments. Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an
over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of decency, which is
time and season. For as Solomon saith, _Qui respicit ad ventos_, _non
seminat_; _et qui respicit ad nubes_, _non metet_: a man must make his
opportunity, as oft as find it. To conclude, behaviour seemeth to me as
a garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a garment. For it
ought to be made in fashion; it ought not to be too curious; it ought to
be shaped so as to set forth any good making of the mind and hide any
deformity; and above all, it ought not to be too strait or restrained for
exercise or motion. But this part of civil knowledge hath been elegantly
handled, and therefore I cannot report it for deficient.
(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been hitherto
collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning and the
professors of learning. For from this root springeth chiefly that note
or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect, that there
is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom. For of the three
wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom of
behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised, as an
inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; for wisdom of government,
they acquit themselves well when they are called to it, but that
happeneth to few; but for the wisdom of business, wherein man’s life is
most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered
advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of this subject.
For if books were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned
men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without
learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.
(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge should
be so variable as it falleth not under precept; for it is much less
infinite than science of government, which we see is laboured and in some
part reduced. Of this wisdom it seemeth some of the ancient Romans in
the saddest and wisest times were professors; for Cicero reporteth, that
it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general
wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at
certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that would use
their advice; and that the particular citizens would resort unto them,
and consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, or of the employing
of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or of an accusation, and every
other occasion incident to man’s life. So as there is a wisdom of
counsel and advice even in private causes, arising out of a universal
insight into the affairs of the world; which is used indeed upon
particular causes propounded, but is gathered by general observation of
causes of like nature. For so we see in the book which Q. Cicero writeth
to his brother, _De petitione consulatus_ (being the only book of
business that I know written by the ancients), although it concerned a
particular action then on foot, yet the substance thereof consisteth of
many wise and politic axioms, which contain not a temporary, but a
perpetual direction in the case of popular elections. But chiefly we may
see in those aphorisms which have place amongst divine writings, composed
by Solomon the king, of whom the Scriptures testify that his heart was as
the sands of the sea, encompassing the world and all worldly matters, we
see, I say, not a few profound and excellent cautions, precepts,
positions, extending to much variety of occasions; whereupon we will stay
a while, offering to consideration some number of examples.
(6) _Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes aurem tuam_,
_ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem tibi_. Here is commended the
provident stay of inquiry of that which we would be loth to find: as it
was judged great wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he burned Sertorius’
papers unperused.
_Vir sapiens_, _si cum stulto contenderit_, _sive irascatur_, _sive
rideat_, _non inveniet requiem_. Here is described the great
disadvantage which a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than
himself; which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to
jest, or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no ways
quit himself well of it.
_Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum_, _postea sentiet eum
contumacem_. Here is signified, that if a man begin too high a pitch in
his favours, it doth commonly end in unkindness and unthankfulness.
_Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo_? _coram regibus stabit_, _nec erit
inter ignobiles_. Here is observed, that of all virtues for rising to
honour, quickness of despatch is the best; for superiors many times love
not to have those they employ too deep or too sufficient, but ready and
diligent.
_Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole_, _cum adolescente secundo
qui consurgit pro eo_. Here is expressed that which was noted by Sylla
first, and after him by Tiberius. _Plures adorant solem orientem quam
occidentem vel meridianum_.
deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, but, as things are, of great
use. For suppose that ciphers were well managed, there be multitudes of
them which exclude the decipherer. But in regard of the rawness and
unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass, the greatest matters
are many times carried in the weakest ciphers.
(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it may be
thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them for
show and ostentation, and to little other purpose. But let those, which
are skilful in them, judge whether I bring them in only for appearance,
or whether in that which I speak of them (though in few words) there be
not some seed of proficience. And this must be remembered, that as there
be many of great account in their countries and provinces, which, when
they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of mean rank and scarcely
regarded; so these arts, being here placed with the principal and supreme
sciences, seem petty things: yet to such as have chosen them to spend
their labours and studies in them, they seem great matters.
XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a controversy
in our time. But as in civil business, if there be a meeting, and men
fall at words, there is commonly an end of the matter for that time, and
no proceeding at all; so in learning, where there is much controversy,
there is many times little inquiry. For this part of knowledge of method
seemeth to me so weakly inquired as I shall report it deficient.
(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as a part of
judgment. For as the doctrine of syllogisms comprehendeth the rules of
judgment upon that which is invented, so the doctrine of method
containeth the rules of judgment upon that which is to be delivered; for
judgment precedeth delivery, as it followeth invention. Neither is the
method or the nature of the tradition material only to the use of
knowledge, but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since the
labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of knowledge, the
wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth the felicity of
continuance and proceeding. And therefore the most real diversity of
method is of method referred to use, and method referred to progression:
whereof the one may be termed magistral, and the other of probation.
(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be _via deserta et interclusa_. For as
knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error
between the deliverer and the receiver. For he that delivereth knowledge
desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as
may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather
present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt,
than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open his weakness,
and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength.
(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought to be
delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method wherein
it was invented: and so is it possible of knowledge induced. But in this
same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man knoweth how he came to
the knowledge which he hath obtained. But yet, nevertheless, _secundum
majus et minus_, a man may revisit and descend unto the foundations of
his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it into another, as it grew
in his own mind. For it is in knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean
to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots—but if you mean to remove
it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the
delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees
without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But
if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body
of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots. Of which
kind of delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath
some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in
inquisition, and therefore note it for deficient.
(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some affinity with
the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but
disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it
as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is
enigmatical and disclosed. The pretence whereof is, to remove the vulgar
capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledges, and to
reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can
pierce the veil.
(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great, is the
delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods; wherein we may observe
that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a few axioms or
observations upon any subject, to make a solemn and formal art, filling
it with some discourses, and illustrating it with examples, and digesting
it into a sensible method. But the writing in aphorisms hath many
excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not approach.
(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid:
for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of
the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off;
recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is
cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off. So there remaineth
nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and
therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write
aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded. But in methods,
“Tantum series juncturaque pollet,
Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,”
as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were disjointed,
would come to little. Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent or
belief, but less fit to point to action; for they carry a kind of
demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and
therefore satisfy. But particulars being dispersed do best agree with
dispersed directions. And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge
broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the
show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest.
(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great weight, is
the handling of knowledge by assertions and their proofs, or by questions
and their determinations. The latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately
followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning as it is to the
proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold.
For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise pursued, those
smaller things will come in of themselves: indeed a man would not leave
some important piece enemy at his back. In like manner, the use of
confutation in the delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to
serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to
minister and excite disputatious and doubts.
(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject or matter
which is handled. For there is a great difference in delivery of the
mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy,
which is the most immersed. And howsoever contention hath been moved,
touching a uniformity of method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how
that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards
learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain
empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks and shells of
sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture
and press of the method. And, therefore, as I did allow well of
particular topics for invention, so I do allow likewise of particular
methods of tradition.
(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and teaching of
knowledge is, according unto the light and presuppositions of that which
is delivered. For that knowledge which is new, and foreign from opinions
received, is to be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable
and familiar; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus,
doth in truth commend him, where he saith “If we shall indeed dispute,
and not follow after similitudes,” &c. For those whose conceits are
seated in popular opinions need only but to prove or dispute; but those
whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the one
to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate. So
that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and
translations to express themselves. And therefore in the infancy of
learning, and in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial
were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for
paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood or judged.
So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are, for
it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not consonant to presuppositions
must pray in aid of similitudes.
(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and received: as
that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or systasis, of
concealment or cryptic, &c. , which I do allow well of, though I have
stood upon those which are least handled and observed. All which I have
remembered to this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one
general inquiry (which seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of
tradition.
(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth further
belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a work, but also
the several beams and columns thereof; not as to their stuff, but as to
their quantity and figure. And therefore method considereth not only the
disposition of the argument or subject, but likewise the propositions:
not as to their truth or matter, but as to their limitation and manner.
For herein Ramus merited better a great deal in reviving the good rules
of propositions—Καθολον πρωτον, κυτα παντος &c. —than he did in
introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet (as it is the condition of
human things that, according to the ancient fables, “the most precious
things have the most pernicious keepers”) it was so, that the attempt of
the one made him fall upon the other. For he had need be well conducted
that should design to make axioms convertible, if he make them not withal
circular, and non-promovent, or incurring into themselves; but yet the
intention was excellent.
(13) The other considerations of method, concerning propositions, are
chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which limit the dimensions of
sciences: for every knowledge may be fitly said, besides the profundity
(which is the truth and substance of it, that makes it solid), to have a
longitude and a latitude; accounting the latitude towards other sciences,
and the longitude towards action; that is, from the greatest generality
to the most particular precept. The one giveth rule how far one
knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of another, which is
the rule they call Καθαυτο; the other giveth rule unto what degree of
particularity a knowledge should descend: which latter I find passed over
in silence, being in my judgment the more material. For certainty there
must be somewhat left to practice; but how much is worthy the inquiry?
We see remote and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge to
scorn of practical men; and are no more aiding to practice than an
Ortelius’ universal map is to direct the way between London and York.
The better sort of rules have been not unfitly compared to glasses of
steel unpolished, where you may see the images of things, but first they
must be filed: so the rules will help if they be laboured and polished by
practice. But how crystalline they may be made at the first, and how far
forth they may be polished aforehand, is the question, the inquiry
whereof seemeth to me deficient.
(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a method, which is
not a lawful method, but a method of imposture: which is, to deliver
knowledges in such manner as men may speedily come to make a show of
learning, who have it not. Such was the travail of Raymundus Lullius in
making that art which bears his name; not unlike to some books of
typocosmy, which have been made since; being nothing but a mass of words
of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms
might be thought to understand the art; which collections are much like a
fripper’s or broker’s shop, that hath ends of everything, but nothing of
worth.
XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration
of tradition, comprehended in that science which we call rhetoric, or art
of eloquence, a science excellent, and excellently well laboured. For
although in true value it is inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to
Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, “Aaron shall be
thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God”), yet with people it is the
more mighty; for so Solomon saith, _Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens_,
_sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet_, signifying that profoundness of
wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence
that prevaileth in an active life. And as to the labouring of it, the
emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the
experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of rhetoric exceed
themselves. Again, the excellency of examples of eloquence in the
orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the
precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art; and
therefore the deficiences which I shall note will rather be in some
collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the rules or
use of the art itself.
(2) Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots of this
science, as we have done of the rest, the duty and office of rhetoric is
to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will. For we
see reason is disturbed in the administration thereof by three means—by
illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or
impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or affection,
which pertains to morality. And as in negotiation with others, men are
wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by vehemency; so in this
negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences,
solicited and importuned by impressions or observations, and transported
by passions. Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as
that those powers and arts should have force to disturb reason, and not
to establish and advance it. For the end of logic is to teach a form of
argument to secure reason, and not to entrap it; the end of morality is
to procure the affections to obey reason, and not to invade it; the end
of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second reason, and not to
oppress it; for these abuses of arts come in but _ex oblique_, for
caution.
(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out
of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric
but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome
meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the
taste. For we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning that
which is good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is no man
but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think; and it was
excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that because he used to hold
on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing
against eloquence and good speech, knowing that no man can speak fair of
courses sordid and base. And therefore, as Plato said elegantly, “That
virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection;” so
seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the next
degree is to show her to the imagination in lively representation; for to
show her to reason only in subtlety of argument was a thing ever derided
in Chrysippus and many of the Stoics, who thought to thrust virtue upon
men by sharp disputations and conclusions, which have no sympathy with
the will of man.
(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to
reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and
insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and proofs; but
in regard of the continual mutinies and seditious of the affections—
“Video meliora, proboque,
Deteriora sequor,”
reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions did
not practise and win the imagination from the affections’ part, and
contract a confederacy between the reason and imagination against the
affections; for the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good,
as reason doth. The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely
the present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time. And,
therefore, the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly
vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made
things future and remote appear as present, then upon the revolt of the
imagination reason prevaileth.
(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more charged with the
colouring of the worst part, than logic with sophistry, or morality with
vice; for we know the doctrines of contraries are the same, though the
use be opposite. It appeareth also that logic differeth from rhetoric,
not only as the fist from the palm—the one close, the other at large—but
much more in this, that logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and
rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions and manners.
And therefore Aristotle doth wisely place rhetoric as between logic on
the one side, and moral or civil knowledge on the other, as participating
of both; for the proofs and demonstrations of logic are toward all men
indifferent and the same, but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric
ought to differ according to the auditors:
“Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion. ”
Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far that if a
man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he should speak to
them all respectively and several ways; though this politic part of
eloquence in private speech it is easy for the greatest orators to want:
whilst, by the observing their well-graced forms of speech, they leese
the volubility of application; and therefore it shall not be amiss to
recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it
here or in that part which concerneth policy.
(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as I said,
are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom and diligence of
Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a collection of the popular
signs and colours of good and evil, both simple and comparative, which
are as the sophisms of rhetoric (as I touched before). For example—
“Sophisma.
Quod laudatur, bonum: quod vituperatur, malum.
Redargutio.
Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces. ”
_Malum est_, _malum est_ (_inquit emptor_): _sed cum recesserit_, _tum
gloriabitur_! The defects in the labour of Aristotle are three—one, that
there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are not annexed;
and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use of them: for their
use is not only in probation, but much more in impression. For many
forms are equal in signification which are differing in impression, as
the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp and that
which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same. For
there is no man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said,
“Your enemies will be glad of this”—
“Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ. ”
than by hearing it said only, “This is evil for you. ”
(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before, touching
provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness
of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts: the one in resemblance
to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made
up; both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request.
The former of these I will call _antitheta_, and the latter _formulæ_.
(8) _Antitheta_ are theses argued _pro et contra_, wherein men may be
more large and laborious; but (in such as are able to do it) to avoid
prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast
up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be as
skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be
used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.
“_Pro verbis legis_.
Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quæ recedit a litera:
Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.
_Pro sententia legis_.
Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur singula. ”
(9) _Formulæ_ are but decent and apt passages or conveyances of speech,
which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of preface,
conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &c. For as in buildings
there is great pleasure and use in the well casting of the staircases,
entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech, the conveyances and
passages are of special ornament and effect.
“_A conclusion in a deliberative_.
So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences
future. ”
XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge,
the one critical, the other pedantical. For all knowledge is either
delivered by teachers, or attained by men’s proper endeavours: and
therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth
chiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading
of books; whereunto appertain incidently these considerations. The first
is concerning the true correction and edition of authors; wherein
nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice. For these critics
have often presumed that that which they understand not is false set
down: as the priest that, where he found it written of St. Paul _Demissus
est per sportam_, mended his book, and made it _Demissus est per portam_;
because _sporta_ was a hard word, and out of his reading: and surely
their errors, though they be not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are of
the same kind. And therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most
corrected copies are commonly the least correct.
The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors, which
resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein it is over usual to
blanch the obscure places and discourse upon the plain.
The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great light
to true interpretations.
The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the authors;
that men thereby may make some election unto themselves what books to
read.
And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies; that
men may know in what order or pursuit to read.
(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of tradition
which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers considerations of
great fruit.
As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what to
initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.
Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to press the more
difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for it is one method
to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing with
heavy shoes.
A third is the application of learning according unto the propriety of
the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual, but
seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies: as, for example,
if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention,
the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be
caught away but a moment, one is new to begin. And as sciences have a
propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or powers
have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy profiting: and
therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what kinds of wits and
natures are most apt and proper for what sciences.
Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence to
hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in exercising their
faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise their faults and get
ill habits as well as good; so as there is a great judgment to be had in
the continuance and intermission of exercises. It were too long to
particularise a number of other considerations of this nature, things but
of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy. For as the wronging or
cherishing of seeds or young plants is that that is most important to
their thriving, and as it was noted that the first six kings being in
truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the
principal cause of the immense greatness of that state which followed, so
the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible (though
unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time or contention of labour
can countervail it afterwards. And it is not amiss to observe also how
small and mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall into
great men or great matters, do work great and important effects: whereof
we see a notable example in Tacitus of two stage players, Percennius and
Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian armies into
an extreme tumult and combustion. For there arising a mutiny amongst
them upon the death of Augustus Cæsar, Blæsus the lieutenant had
committed some of the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon
Vibulenus got to be heard speak, which he did in this manner:—“These poor
innocent wretches appointed to cruel death, you have restored to behold
the light; but who shall restore my brother to me, or life unto my
brother, that was sent hither in message from the legions of Germany, to
treat of the common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by
some of his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
executioners upon soldiers. Answer, Blæsus, what is done with his body?
The mortalest enemies do not deny burial. When I have performed my last
duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain
besides him; so that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true
hearts to the legions, may have leave to bury us. ” With which speech he
put the army into an infinite fury and uproar: whereas truth was he had
no brother, neither was there any such matter; but he played it merely as
if he had been upon the stage.
(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational knowledges;
wherein if I have made the divisions other than those that are received,
yet would I not be thought to disallow all those divisions which I do not
use. For there is a double necessity imposed upon me of altering the
divisions. The one, because it differeth in end and purpose, to sort
together those things which are next in nature, and those things which
are next in use. For if a secretary of estate should sort his papers, it
is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort together things of
a nature, as treaties, instructions, &c. But in his boxes or particular
cabinet he would sort together those that he were like to use together,
though of several natures. So in this general cabinet of knowledge it
was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the nature of things;
whereas if myself had been to handle any particular knowledge, I would
have respected the divisions fittest for use. The other, because the
bringing in of the deficiences did by consequence alter the partitions of
the rest. For let the knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be
fifteen. Let the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty; the parts of
fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three
and five; the parts of twenty are two, four, five, and ten. So as these
things are without contradiction, and could not otherwise be.
XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the
appetite and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, _Ante omnia_, _fili_,
_custodi cor tuum_: _nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ_. In the handling
of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a
man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of
alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions
for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters. So have they
made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and
portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well
described as the true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires. But
how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will
of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it
over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably. For it is not the
disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by
nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines
and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and the
like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence of this
part.
(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock
whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast
away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and
common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the
wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties),
but contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain
resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to
the subtlety of disputatious, or to the eloquence of discourses. But
Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence, _Nocet illis eloquentia_,
_quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit_, _sed sui_. Doctrine should be such
as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher;
being directed to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s
commendation. And therefore those are of the right kind which may be
concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel, _Quæ si feceritis_, _non
oratorem dumtaxat in præsentia laudabitis_, _sed vosmetipsos etiam non
ita multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore_.
(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a
fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who
got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of
the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas:
“Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem. ”
And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure
that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn
action and active life, these Georgics of the mind, concerning the
husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical
descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the main and
primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or
platform of good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one
describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue,
apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.
(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good considereth it
either simple or compared; either the kinds of good, or the degrees of
good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputatious which were
touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude,
or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen
divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged. And as Aristotle saith,
“That young men may be happy, but not otherwise but by hope;” so we must
all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope
of the future world.
(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the philosopher’s
heaven, whereby they feigned a higher elevation of man’s nature than was
(for we see in what height of style Seneca writeth, _Vere magnum_,
_habere fragilitatem hominis_, _securitatem Dei_), we may with more
sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and labours.
Wherein for the nature of good positive or simple, they have set it down
excellently in describing the forms of virtue and duty, with their
situations and postures; in distributing them into their kinds, parts,
provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like: nay further, they
have commended them to man’s nature and spirit with great quickness of
argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched
them (as much as discourse can do) against corrupt and popular opinions.
Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also
excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the comparisons
between a contemplative and an active life, in the distinction between
virtue with reluctation and virtue secured, in their encounters between
honesty and profit, in their balancing of virtue with virtue, and the
like; so as this part deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.
(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received
notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had
stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good and
evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a
great light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted
with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound:
which being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much
confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.
(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of good—the one, as
everything is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it is a
part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the
greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a
more general form. Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy
moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it
forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth
to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies; so may we
go forward, and see that water and massy bodies move to the centre of the
earth; but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of
nature, they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking
their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world. This
double nature of good, and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven
upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the
public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and
being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being
in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded
with great vehemency and instance by his friends about him, that he
should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only
to them, _Necesse est ut eam_, _non ut vivam_. But it may be truly
affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other
discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is
communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as
the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the same God that gave the
Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate
creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of
God have wished themselves anathematised and razed out of the book of
life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion.
(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and determine
most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant. For
first, it decideth the question touching the preferment of the
contemplative or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle. For all
the reasons which he bringeth for the contemplative are private, and
respecting the pleasure and dignity of a man’s self (in which respects no
question the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike
to that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying
of philosophy and contemplation, who being asked what he was, answered,
“That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner, that
some came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some came as merchants
to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer and meet
their friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of them that
came to look on. ” But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life
it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on. Neither could
the like question ever have been received in the Church, notwithstanding
their _Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus_, by which place
they would exalt their civil death and regular professions, but upon this
defence, that the monastical life is not simple contemplative, but
performeth the duty either of incessant prayers and supplications, which
hath been truly esteemed as an office in the Church, or else of writing
or taking instructions for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses
did when he abode so long in the mount. And so we see Enoch, the seventh
from Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with God, yet did
also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude citeth. But for
contemplation which should be finished in itself, without casting beams
upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not.
(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates, and
their schools and successions, on the one side, who placed felicity in
virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises whereof do chiefly
embrace and concern society; and on the other side, the Cyrenaics and
Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in
some comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits)
to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served and
attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed it in
serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation; as if they would have
deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when there
was no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and
season; and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the
disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming
things according to the clearness of the desires, or the reluctation;
which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, measuring
things according to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or
wavering of belief; all which are manifest to tend to private repose and
contentment, and not to point of society.
(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which presupposeth
that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power, lest
we be liable to fortune and disturbance; as if it were not a thing much
more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends for the public, than to
obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune: as
Consalvo said to his soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he had
rather die one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for long by
one foot of retreat. Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath
signed, who hath affirmed that “a good conscience is a continual feast;”
showing plainly that the conscience of good intentions, howsoever
succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature than all the provision
which can be made for security and repose.
(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew general
about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or
profession; as if the purpose had been, not to resist and extinguish
perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a
particular kind and course of life to that end; introducing such a health
of mind, as was that health of body of which Aristotle speaketh of
Herodicus, who did nothing all his life long but intend his health;
whereas if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of
body is best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities,
so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go through the
greatest temptations and perturbations. So as Diogenes’ opinion is to be
accepted, who commended not them which abstained, but them which
sustained, and could refrain their mind _in præcipitio_, and could give
unto the mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn.
(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in some
of the most ancient and reverend philosophers and philosophical men, that
did retire too easily from civil business, for avoiding of indignities
and perturbations; whereas the resolution of men truly moral ought to be
such as the same Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, _e telâ
crassiore_, and not so fine as that everything should catch in it and
endanger it.
XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into the
division of good active and passive; for this difference of good (not
unlike to that which amongst the Romans was expressed in the familiar or
household terms of _promus_ and _condus_) is formed also in all things,
and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the one
to preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or multiply
themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the worthier; for in nature
the heavens, which are the more worthy, are the agent, and the earth,
which is the less worthy, is the patient. In the pleasures of living
creatures, that of generation is greater than that of food. In divine
doctrine, _beatius est dare quam accipere_. And in life, there is no
man’s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the effecting of somewhat that he
hath fixed in his desire, more than sensuality, which priority of the
active good is much upheld by the consideration of our estate to be
mortal and exposed to fortune. For if we might have a perpetuity and
certainty in our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price.
But when we see it is but _magni æstimamus mori tardius_, and _ne
glorieris de crastino_, _nescis partum diei_, it maketh us to desire to
have somewhat secured and exempted from time, which are only our deeds
and works; as it is said, _Opera eorum sequuntur eos_. The pre-eminence
likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection which is natural
in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the pleasures of the
sense, which is the principal part of passive good, can have no great
latitude. _Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris_; _cibus_, _somnus_, _ludus per
hunc circulum curritur_; _mori velle non tantum fortis_, _aut miser_,
_aut prudens_, _sed etiam fastidiosus potest_. But in enterprises,
pursuits, and purposes of life, there is much variety; whereof men are
sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils,
reintegrations, approaches and attainings to their ends. So as it was
well said, _Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est_. Neither hath this
active good an identity with the good of society, though in some cases it
hath an incidence into it. For although it do many times bring forth
acts of beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to a man’s own
power, glory, amplification, continuance; as appeareth plainly, when it
findeth a contrary subject. For that gigantine state of mind which
possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla and
infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy
as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world,
according to their own humours (which is the true theomachy), pretendeth
and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth furthest from good of
society, which we have determined to be the greater.
(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of conservative
and effective. For let us take a brief review of that which we have
said: we have spoken first of the good of society, the intention whereof
embraceth the form of human nature, whereof we are members and portions,
and not our own proper and individual form; we have spoken of active
good, and supposed it as a part of private and particular good. And
rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple desire or
appetite proceeding from love to themselves: one of preserving and
continuing their form; another of advancing and perfecting their form;
and a third of multiplying and extending their form upon other things:
whereof the multiplying, or signature of it upon other things, is that
which we handled by the name of active good. So as there remaineth the
conserving of it, and perfecting or raising of it, which latter is the
highest degree of passive good. For to preserve in state is the less, to
preserve with advancement is the greater. So in man,
“Igneus est ollis vigor, et cælestis origo. ”
His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the
perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which good is
that which is the tempest of human life; while man, upon the instinct of
an advancement, formal and essential, is carried to seek an advancement
local. For as those which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up and
down and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove
internal, so is it with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to
exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their
place. So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative or
perfective.
(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth in
the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; it seemeth to be
most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and lowest.
And
this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged of,
nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour
of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the
one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good.
Whether of these is the greater good is a question controverted; but
whether man’s nature may not be capable of both is a question not
inquired.
(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a sophist,
Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of mind, and the
sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell from argument to
ill words: the sophist saying that Socrates’ felicity was the felicity of
a block or stone; and Socrates saying that the sophist’s felicity was the
felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but itch and scratch.
And both these opinions do not want their supports. For the opinion of
Socrates is much upheld by the general consent even of the epicures
themselves, that virtue beareth a great part in felicity; and if so,
certain it is, that virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then
in compassing desires. The sophist’s opinion is much favoured by the
assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is greater than good
of simple preservation; because every obtaining a desire hath a show of
advancement, as motion though in a circle hath a show of progression.
(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the former
superfluous. For can it be doubted, but that there are some who take
more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some other, and yet,
nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them? So as
this same, _Non uti ut non appetas_, _non appetere ut non metuas_, _sunt
animi pusilli et diffidentis_. And it seemeth to me that most of the
doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautious than the
nature of things requireth. So have they increased the fear of death in
offering to cure it. For when they would have a man’s whole life to be
but a discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men think
that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of preparing.
Better saith the poet:—
“Qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat
Naturæ. ”
So have they sought to make men’s minds too uniform and harmonical, by
not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions; the reasons whereof I
suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated to a private,
free, and unapplied course of life. For as we see, upon the lute or like
instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many changes,
yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops and passages, as
a set song or voluntary; much after the same manner was the diversity
between a philosophical and civil life. And, therefore, men are to
imitate the wisdom of jewellers: who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or
an ice which may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone,
they help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too much, they
will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity as they
destroy not magnanimity.
(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private and
particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good of man
which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term duty; because
the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed
towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind well formed
and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue
without some relation to society, nor duty without an inward disposition.
This part may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic; but
not if it be well observed. For it concerneth the regiment and
government of every man over himself, and not over others. And as in
architecture the direction of framing the posts, beams, and other parts
of building, is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting
the building; and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame an
instrument or engine is not the same with the manner of setting it on
work and employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one
you incidently express the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine of
conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their conformity
thereunto.
(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common duty of
every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the respective or
special duty of every man in his profession, vocation, and place. The
first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said. The
second likewise I may report rather dispersed than deficient; which
manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge to be
best. For who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue,
challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and place?
For although sometimes a looker on may see more than a gamester, and
there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, “That the vale best
discovereth the hill;” yet there is small doubt but that men can write
best and most really and materially in their own professions; and that
the writing of speculative men of active matter for the most part doth
seem to men of experience, as Phormio’s argument of the wars seemed to
Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage. Only there is one vice which
accompanieth them that write in their own professions, that they magnify
them in excess. But generally it were to be wished (as that which would
make learning indeed solid and fruitful) that active men would or could
become writers.
(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, _honoris causa_, your Majesty’s
excellent book touching the duty of a king; a work richly compounded of
divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts;
and being in some opinion one of the most sound and healthful writings
that I have read: not distempered in the heat of invention, nor in the
coldness of negligence; not sick of dizziness, as those are who leese
themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in
matters impertinent; not savouring of perfumes and paintings, as those do
who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth; and chiefly well
disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth and apt for
action; and far removed from that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted
those that write in their own professions to be subject—which is, that
they exalt it above measure. For your Majesty hath truly described, not
a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory, but a Moses or a
David, pastors of their people. Neither can I ever leese out of my
remembrance what I heard your Majesty in the same sacred spirit of
government deliver in a great cause of judicature, which was, “That kings
ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of nature; and ought as
rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative as God doth His power of
working miracles. ” And yet notwithstanding in your book of a free
monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude
of the power and right of a king, as well as the circle of his office and
duty. Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your
Majesty, as a prime or eminent example of tractates concerning special
and respective duties; wherein I should have said as much, if it had been
written a thousand years since. Neither am I moved with certain courtly
decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in presence. No, it is
flattery to praise in absence—that is, when either the virtue is absent,
or the occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural, but forced,
either in truth or in time. But let Cicero be read in his oration _pro
Marcello_, which is nothing but an excellent table of Cæsar’s virtue, and
made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent persons,
wiser a great deal than such observers; and we will never doubt, upon a
full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.
(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of this part,
touching the duties of professions and vocations, a relative or opposite,
touching the frauds, cautels, impostures, and vices of every profession,
which hath been likewise handled; but how? rather in a satire and
cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit
to deride and traduce much of that which is good in professions, than
with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt. For, as
Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to
scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no
matter for his instruction: _Quærenti derisori scientiam ipsa se
abscondit_; _sed studioso fit obviam_. But the managing of this argument
with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be
one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be
planted. For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk—that if he see you
first, you die for it; but if you see him first, he dieth—so is it with
deceits and evil arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their
life; but if they prevent, they endanger. So that we are much beholden
to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought
to do. For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the
columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the
serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and
lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest—that is, all forms and
natures of evil. For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay,
an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them,
without the help of the knowledge of evil. For men of corrupted minds
presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and
believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men’s exterior language. So
as, except you can make them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of
their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality. _Non recipit
stultus verba prudentiæ_, _nisi ea dixeris quæ_, _versantur in corde
ejus_.
(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also appertain the
duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant.
So likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil bond of
companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other
proportionate duties; not as they are parts of government and society,
but as to the framing of the mind of particular persons.
(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth handle it
also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto belongeth the
weighing of duties between person and person, case and case, particular
and public. As we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own
sons, which was so much extolled, yet what was said?
“Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata minores. ”
So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides. Again, we see
when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose opinions
they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their associates,
and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant being a
usurper, they were divided in opinion; some holding that servitude was
the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better than a civil
war: and a number of the like cases there are of comparative duty.
Amongst which that of all others is the most frequent, where the question
is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice. Which Jason of
Thessalia determined against the truth: _Aliqua sunt injuste facienda_,
_ut multa juste fieri possint_. But the reply is good: _Auctorem
præsentis justitiæ habes_, _sponsorem futuræ non habes_. Men must pursue
things which are just in present, and leave the future to the Divine
Providence. So then we pass on from this general part touching the
exemplar and description of good.
XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of life, it
remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth thereunto, without
which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image or
statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and
motion; whereunto Aristotle himself subscribeth in these words: _Necesse
est scilicet de virtute dicere_, _et quid sit_, _et ex quibus gignatur_.
_Inutile enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem nosse_, _acquirendæ autem ejus
modos et vias ignorare_. _Non enum de virtute tantum_, _qua specie sit_,
_quærendum est_, _sed et quomodo sui copiam faciat_: _utrumque enum
volumeus_, _et rem ipsam nosse_, _et ejus compotes fieri_: _hoc autem ex
voto non succedet_, _nisi sciamus et ex quibus et quomodo_. In such full
words and with such iteration doth he inculcate this part. So saith
Cicero in great commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied
himself to philosophy, _Non ita disputandi causa_, _sed ita vivendi_.
And although the neglect of our times, wherein few men do hold any
consultations touching the reformation of their life (as Seneca
excellently saith, _De partibus vitæ quisque deliberat_, _de summa
nemo_), may make this part seem superfluous; yet I must conclude with
that aphorism of Hippocrates, _Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non
sentiunt_, _iis mens ægrotat_. They need medicine, not only to assuage
the disease, but to awake the sense. And if it be said that the cure of
men’s minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral
philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble
handmaid. For as the Psalm saith, “That the eyes of the handmaid look
perpetually towards the mistress,” and yet no doubt many things are left
to the discretion of the handmaid to discern of the mistress’ will; so
ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of
divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself (within due limits) many
sound and profitable directions.
(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I cannot but
find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to written inquiry; the
rather, because it consisteth of much matter, wherein both speech and
action is often conversant; and such wherein the common talk of men
(which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass) is wiser than their
books. It is reasonable, therefore, that we propound it in the more
particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit
ourselves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost incredible,
and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those themselves that have
written. We will, therefore, enumerate some heads or points thereof,
that it may appear the better what it is, and whether it be extant.
(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical we
ought to cast up our account, what is in our power, and what not; for the
one may be dealt with by way of alteration, but the other by way of
application only. The husbandman cannot command neither the nature of
the earth nor the seasons of the weather; no more can the physician the
constitution of the patient nor the variety of accidents. So in the
culture and cure of the mind of man, two things are without our command:
points of Nature, and points of fortune. For to the basis of the one,
and the conditions of the other, our work is limited and tied. In these
things, therefore, it is left unto us to proceed by application:—
“Vincenda est omnis fertuna ferendo:”
and so likewise,
“Vincenda est omnis Natura ferendo. ”
But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and
neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which
draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth
adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we call accommodating
or applying. Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the
exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto
which we do apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take
measure of the body.
(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set down sound
and true distributions and descriptions of the several characters and
tempers of men’s natures and dispositions, specially having regard to
those differences which are most radical in being the fountains and
causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture;
wherein it is not the handling of a few of them in passage, the better to
describe the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention.
For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which are
proportioned to great matters, and others to small (which Aristotle
handleth, or ought to have bandied, by the name of magnanimity), doth it
not deserve as well to be considered that there are minds proportioned to
intend many matters, and others to few? So that some can divide
themselves: others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be but in
few things at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as
well as a pusillanimity. And again, that some minds are proportioned to
that which may be dispatched at once, or within a short return of time;
others to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with length of
pursuit:—
“Jam tum tenditqus fovetque. ”
So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly
also ascribed to God as a magnanimity. So further deserved it to be
considered by Aristotle, “That there is a disposition in conversation
(supposing it in things which do in no sort touch or concern a man’s
self) to soothe and please, and a disposition contrary to contradict and
cross;” and deserveth it not much better to be considered. “That there
is a disposition, not in conversation or talk, but in matter of more
serious nature (and supposing it still in things merely indifferent), to
take pleasure in the good of another; and a disposition contrariwise, to
take distaste at the good of another? ” which is that properly which we
call good nature or ill nature, benignity or malignity; and, therefore, I
cannot sufficiently marvel that this part of knowledge, touching the
several characters of natures and dispositions, should be omitted both in
morality and policy, considering it is of so great ministry and
suppeditation to them both. A man shall find in the traditions of
astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men’s natures, according to
the predominances of the planets: lovers of quiet, lovers of action,
lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts,
lovers of change, and so forth. A man shall find in the wisest sort of
these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures
of the several cardinals handsomely and lively painted forth. A man
shall meet with in every day’s conference the denominations of sensitive,
dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, _huomo di prima impressione_,
_huomo di ultima impressione_, and the like; and yet, nevertheless, this
kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.
For the distinctions are found (many of them), but we conclude no
precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both
history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where these
observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our hands, but
no man bringeth them to the confectionary that receipts might be made of
them for use of life.
(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which are imposed
upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and
sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and
not extern; and again, those which are caused by extern fortune, as
sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy,
privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune,
rising _per saltum_, _per gradus_, and the like. And, therefore, we see
that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, _benignitas
hujis ut adolescentuli est_. Saint Paul concludeth that severity of
discipline was to be used to the Cretans, _increpa eos dure_, upon the
disposition of their country, _Cretensus semper mendaces_, _malæ bestiæ_,
_ventres_. Sallust noteth that it is usual with kings to desire
contradictories: _Sed plerumque regiæ voluntates_, _ut vehementes sunt_,
_sic mobiles_, _sæpeque ipsæ sibi advers_. Tacitus observeth how rarely
raising of the fortune mendeth the disposition: _solus Vespasianus
mutatus in melius_. Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and
sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men _qui magnam felicitatem
concoquere non possunt_. So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep a
measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune;
_Divitiæ si affluant_, _nolite cor apponere_. These observations and the
like I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in
his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses; but they
were never incorporate into moral philosophy, to which they do
essentially appertain; as the knowledge of this diversity of grounds and
moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of
complexions and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to
follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to
all patients.
(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the
affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to
know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases;
and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of
the divers characters of men’s natures, it followeth in order to know the
diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the
perturbations and distempars of the affections. For as the ancient
politiques in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea,
and the orators to the winds; because as the sea would of itself be calm
and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would
be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in
working and agitation: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the
nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as
winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And here again I
find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written divers
volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which is the
principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are
considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may be moved
by speech), he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the
quantity; but where their true place is he pretermitteth them. For it is
not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this
inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light
can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to
the particular affections as light is to particular colours. Better
travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I
can gather by that which we have at second hand. But yet it is like it
was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a
subject of this nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
descriptions and observations. So likewise I find some particular
writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections: as of
anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance,
and other. But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors
of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great life, how
affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and
how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify:
how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and
encounter one with another; and other the like particularities. Amongst
the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I
say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another;
even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which
otherwise percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation
is erected that excellent use of _præmium_ and _pæna_, whereby civil
states consist: employing the predominant affections of fear and hope,
for the suppressing and bridling the rest. For as in the government of
states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so
it is in the government within.
(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command, and
have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite,
and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled custom,
exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company,
friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these
as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind
suffereth, and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and
described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate
of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine: of which number we
will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it
were too long to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and
habit to speak of.
(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of
those things which consist by Nature, nothing can be changed by custom;
using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times up it
will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or hearing we do not
learn to see or hear the better. For though this principle be true in
things wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we cannot now
stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein Nature admitteth
a latitude. For he might see that a strait glove will come more easily
on with use; and that a wand will by use bend otherwise than it grew; and
that by use of the voice we speak louder and stronger; and that by use of
enduring heat or cold we endure it the better, and the like: which latter
sort have a nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he handleth,
than those instances which he allegeth. But allowing his conclusion,
that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more to
have taught the manner of superinducing that habit: for there be many
precepts of the wise ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of
ordering the exercises of the body, whereof we will recite a few.
(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either
too high a strain or too weak: for if too high, in a diffident nature you
discourage, in a confident nature you breed an opinion of facility, and
so a sloth; and in all natures you breed a further expectation than can
hold out, and so an insatisfaction in the end: if too weak, of the other
side, you may not look to perform and overcome any great task.
(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two several
times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst
disposed; that by the one you may gain a great step, by the other you may
work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make the middle times the
more easy and pleasant.
(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way, which
is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto we are by
nature inclined; like unto the rowing against the stream, or making a
wand straight by bending him contrary to his natural crookedness.
(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything better, and
with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not
first in the intention, but _tanquam aliud agendo_, because of the
natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint. Many other
axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and custom, which
being so conducted doth prove indeed another nature; but, being governed
by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of Nature, and bringeth forth
that which is lame and counterfeit.
(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and
operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great
caution and direction appertaining thereunto? Did not one of the fathers
in great indignation call poesy _vinum dæmonum_, because it increaseth
temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions? Is not the opinion of
Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, “That young men are no
fit auditors of moral philosophy, because they are not settled from the
boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and
experience”? And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and
discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded unto
virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and majesty, and
popular opinions against virtue in their parasites’ coats fit to be
scorned and derided), are of so little effect towards honesty of life,
because they are not read and revolved by men in their mature and settled
years, but confined almost to boys and beginners? But is it not true
also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of policy,
till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and morality; lest
their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think that there are no
true differences of things, but according to utility and fortune, as the
verse describes it, _Prosperum et felix scelus virtus vocatur_; and
again, _Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit_, _hic diadema_: which the
poets do speak satirically and in indignation on virtue’s behalf; but
books of policy do speak it seriously and positively; for so it pleaseth
Machiavel to say, “That if Cæsar had been overthrown, he would have been
more odious than ever was Catiline;” as if there had been no difference,
but in fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world? Again, is there
not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities
themselves (some kinds of them), lest they make men too precise,
arrogant, incompatible; as Cicero saith of Cato, _In Marco Catone hæc
bona quæ videmus divina et egregia_, _ipsius scitote esse propria_; _quæ
nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non a natura_, _sed a magistro_? Many
other axioms and advices there are touching those proprieties and
effects, which studies do infuse and instil into manners. And so,
likewise, is there touching the use of all those other points, of
company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the beginning in
the doctrine of morality.
(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more
accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground; that
the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at
other times in a state more depraved. The purpose, therefore, of this
practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to
obliterate and take forth the evil. The fixing of the good hath been
practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and observances or
exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as because
they keep the mind in continual obedience. The obliteration of the evil
hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of
that which is past, and an inception or account _de novo_ for the time to
come. But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all
good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to religion.
(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of all
other means the most compendious and summary, and again, the most noble
and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate;
which is, the electing and propounding unto a man’s self good and
virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his
compass to attain. For if these two things be supposed, that a man set
before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute,
constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould himself
into all virtue at once. And this indeed is like the work of nature;
whereas the other course is like the work of the hand. For as when a
carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereupon he worketh; as
if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude
stone still, till such times as he comes to it. But contrariwise when
nature makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all
the parts at one time. So in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man
practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude, nor the like
but when he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look, what
virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth commend
unto him, he is invested of a precedent disposition to conform himself
thereunto. Which state of mind Aristotle doth excellently express
himself, that it ought not to be called virtuous, but divine. His words
are these: _Immanitati autem consentaneum est opponere eam_, _quæ supra
humanitatem est_, _heroicam sive divinam virtutem_; and a little after,
_Nam ut feræ neque vitium neque virtus est_, _swic neque Dei_: _sed hic
quidem status altius quiddam virtute est_, _ille aluid quiddam a vitio_.
And therefore we may see what celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus
attributeth to Trajan in his funeral oration, where he said, “That men
needed to make no other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue
as good lords to them as Trajan had been;” as if he had not been only an
imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it. But these be heathen
and profane passages, having but a shadow of that divine state of mind,
which religion and the holy faith doth conduct men unto, by imprinting
upon their souls charity, which is excellently called the bond of
perfection, because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together.
And as it is elegantly said by Menander of vain love, which is but a
false imitation of divine love, _Amor melior Sophista lœvo ad humanam
vitam_—that love teacheth a man to carry himself better than the sophist
or preceptor; which he calleth left-handed, because, with all his rules
and preceptions, he cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that
facility to prize himself and govern himself, as love can do: so
certainly, if a man’s mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth work
him suddenly into greater perfection than all the doctrine of morality
can do, which is but a sophist in comparison of the other. Nay, further,
as Xenophon observed truly, that all other affections, though they raise
the mind, yet they do it by distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or
excesses; but only love doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same
instant doth settle and compose it: so in all other excellences, though
they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess. Only charity
admitteth no excess. For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power,
the angels transgressed and fell; _Ascendam_, _et ero similis altissimo_:
by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell;
_Eritis sicut Dii_, _scientes bonum et malum_: but by aspiring to a
similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever
transgressed, or shall transgress. For unto that imitation we are
called: _Diligite inimicos vestros_, _benefacite eis qui oderunt vos_,
_et orate pro persequentibus et calumniantibus vos_, _ut sitis filii
Patris vestri qui in cœlis est_, _qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos
et malos_, _et pluit super justos et injustos_. So in the first platform
of the divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, _Optimus
Maximus_: and the sacred Scriptures thus, _Miscericordia ejus super omnia
opera ejus_.
(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge, concerning the
culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any man, considering the
arts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is but to
collect into an art or science that which hath been pretermitted by
others, as matter of common sense and experience, he judgeth well. But
as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes, “You may not marvel (Athenians)
that Demosthenes and I do differ; for he drinketh water, and I drink
wine;” and like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of
sleep—
“Sunt geminæ somni portæ: quarum altera fertur
Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes:”
so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure maxim in
knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor (“of wine”) is the more
vaporous, and the braver gate (“of ivory”) sendeth forth the falser
dreams.
(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human philosophy,
which contemplateth man segregate, and as he consisteth of body and
spirit. Wherein we may further note, that there seemeth to be a relation
or conformity between the good of the mind and the good of the body. For
as we divided the good of the body into health, beauty, strength, and
pleasure, so the good of the mind, inquired in rational and moral
knowledges, tendeth to this, to make the mind sound, and without
perturbation; beautiful, and graced with decency; and strong and agile
for all duties of life. These three, as in the body, so in the mind,
seldom meet, and commonly sever. For it is easy to observe, that many
have strength of wit and courage, but have neither health from
perturbations, nor any beauty or decency in their doings; some again have
an elegancy and fineness of carriage which have neither soundness of
honesty nor substance of sufficiency; and some again have honest and
reformed minds, that can neither become themselves nor manage business;
and sometimes two of them meet, and rarely all three. As for pleasure,
we have likewise determined that the mind ought not to be reduced to
stupid, but to retain pleasure; confined rather in the subject of it,
than in the strength and vigour of it.
XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which of all
others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom.
Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said, “That the Romans were like sheep,
for that a man were better drive a flock of them, than one of them; for
in a flock, if you could get but some few go right, the rest would
follow:” so in that respect moral philosophy is more difficile than
policy. Again, moral philosophy propoundeth to itself the framing of
internal goodness; but civil knowledge requireth only an external
goodness; for that as to society sufficeth. And therefore it cometh oft
to pass that there be evil times in good governments: for so we find in
the Holy story, when the kings were good, yet it is added, _Sed adhuc
poulus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum suorum_. Again,
states, as great engines, move slowly, and are not so soon put out of
frame: for as in Egypt the seven good years sustained the seven bad, so
governments for a time well grounded do bear out errors following; but
the resolution of particular persons is more suddenly subverted. These
respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil knowledge.
(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary
actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation, and government.
For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection; and they be
three wisdoms of divers natures which do often sever—wisdom of the
behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.
(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected, but
much less despised; for it hath not only an honour in itself, but an
influence also into business and government. The poet saith, _Nec vultu
destrue verba tuo_: a man may destroy the force of his words with his
countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero, recommending to his
brother affability and easy access; _Nil interest habere ostium apertum_,
_vultum clausum_: it is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and
to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance. So we see Atticus,
before the first interview between Cæsar and Cicero, the war depending,
did seriously advise Cicero touching the composing and ordering of his
countenance and gesture. And if the government of the countenance be of
such effect, much more is that of the speech, and other carriage
appertaining to conversation; the true model whereof seemeth to me well
expressed by Livy, though not meant for this purpose: _Ne aut arrogans
videar_, _aut obnoxius_; _quorum alterum est àlienæ libertatis obliti_,
_alterum suæ_: the sum of behaviour is to retain a man’s own dignity,
without intruding upon the liberty of others. On the other side, if
behaviour and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may pass
into affectation, and then _Quid deformius quam scenam in vitam
transferre_—to act a man’s life? But although it proceed not to that
extreme, yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too much. And
therefore as we use to advise young students from company keeping, by
saying, _Amici fures temporis_: so certainly the intending of the
discretion of behaviour is a great thief of meditation. Again, such as
are accomplished in that form of urbanity please themselves in it, and
seldom aspire to higher virtue; whereas those that have defect in it do
seek comeliness by reputation; for where reputation is, almost everything
becometh; but where that is not, it must be supplied by _puntos_ and
compliments. Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an
over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of decency, which is
time and season. For as Solomon saith, _Qui respicit ad ventos_, _non
seminat_; _et qui respicit ad nubes_, _non metet_: a man must make his
opportunity, as oft as find it. To conclude, behaviour seemeth to me as
a garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a garment. For it
ought to be made in fashion; it ought not to be too curious; it ought to
be shaped so as to set forth any good making of the mind and hide any
deformity; and above all, it ought not to be too strait or restrained for
exercise or motion. But this part of civil knowledge hath been elegantly
handled, and therefore I cannot report it for deficient.
(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been hitherto
collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning and the
professors of learning. For from this root springeth chiefly that note
or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect, that there
is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom. For of the three
wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom of
behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised, as an
inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; for wisdom of government,
they acquit themselves well when they are called to it, but that
happeneth to few; but for the wisdom of business, wherein man’s life is
most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered
advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of this subject.
For if books were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned
men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without
learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.
(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge should
be so variable as it falleth not under precept; for it is much less
infinite than science of government, which we see is laboured and in some
part reduced. Of this wisdom it seemeth some of the ancient Romans in
the saddest and wisest times were professors; for Cicero reporteth, that
it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general
wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at
certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that would use
their advice; and that the particular citizens would resort unto them,
and consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, or of the employing
of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or of an accusation, and every
other occasion incident to man’s life. So as there is a wisdom of
counsel and advice even in private causes, arising out of a universal
insight into the affairs of the world; which is used indeed upon
particular causes propounded, but is gathered by general observation of
causes of like nature. For so we see in the book which Q. Cicero writeth
to his brother, _De petitione consulatus_ (being the only book of
business that I know written by the ancients), although it concerned a
particular action then on foot, yet the substance thereof consisteth of
many wise and politic axioms, which contain not a temporary, but a
perpetual direction in the case of popular elections. But chiefly we may
see in those aphorisms which have place amongst divine writings, composed
by Solomon the king, of whom the Scriptures testify that his heart was as
the sands of the sea, encompassing the world and all worldly matters, we
see, I say, not a few profound and excellent cautions, precepts,
positions, extending to much variety of occasions; whereupon we will stay
a while, offering to consideration some number of examples.
(6) _Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes aurem tuam_,
_ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem tibi_. Here is commended the
provident stay of inquiry of that which we would be loth to find: as it
was judged great wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he burned Sertorius’
papers unperused.
_Vir sapiens_, _si cum stulto contenderit_, _sive irascatur_, _sive
rideat_, _non inveniet requiem_. Here is described the great
disadvantage which a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than
himself; which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to
jest, or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no ways
quit himself well of it.
_Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum_, _postea sentiet eum
contumacem_. Here is signified, that if a man begin too high a pitch in
his favours, it doth commonly end in unkindness and unthankfulness.
_Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo_? _coram regibus stabit_, _nec erit
inter ignobiles_. Here is observed, that of all virtues for rising to
honour, quickness of despatch is the best; for superiors many times love
not to have those they employ too deep or too sufficient, but ready and
diligent.
_Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole_, _cum adolescente secundo
qui consurgit pro eo_. Here is expressed that which was noted by Sylla
first, and after him by Tiberius. _Plures adorant solem orientem quam
occidentem vel meridianum_.
