Book VII.

CHAPTER I.

The Division of Moral Knowledge into the Exemplar or Platform of Good, and the Georgics or Culture of the Mind. The Division of the Platform of Good, into Simple and Com* parative Good. The Division of Simple Good into Individual Good, and Good of Communion.

WE come now, most excellent king, to moral knowledge, which respects and considers the will of man. The will is governed by right reason, seduced by-apparent good, having for its spurs the passions, for its ministers the organs and voluntary motions; wherefore Solomon says, “Above all things keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”¹. In the handling of this science, the writers seem to me to have done as if a man who, professing to teach the art of writing, had exhibited only fair copies of letters, single and joined, without giving any direction for the carriage of the pen and framing of the characters. So have these writers set forth good and fair copies, and accurate draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, and felicity, as the true objects for the will and desires of man to aim at. But though the marks themselves be excellent and well placed, how a man may best take his aim at them; that is, by what method and course of education the mind may be trained and put in order for the attainment of them, they pass over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably. We may discourse as much as we please that the moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit, and not by nature, and we may make a formal distinction that generous spirits are won by doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment; or we may give it in precept that the mind like a crooked stick must be straightened by bending it the contrary way² and the like scattered glances and touches; but they would be very far from supplying the place of that which we require.

The reason of this neglect I suppose to be that hidden rock whereupon both this and so many other barks of knowledge have struck and foundered; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters which are neither subtle enough for disputation, nor illustrious enough for ornament. It is hard to compute the extent of the evil thus introduced; namely, how from innate pride and vainglory men have chosen those subjects of discourse, and those methods of handling them, which rather display their own genius than benefit the reader. Seneca says well, “Eloquence is injurious to those whom it inspires with a fondness for itself, and not for the subject³”; for writings should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher. They therefore are on the right path, who can say the same of their counsels as Demosthenes did of his, and conclude with this sentence, “If you do what I advise you will not only praise the orator at the time, but in no long time yourselves also, by reason of the better condition of your affairs”⁴. For myself, most excellent king, I may truly say that both in this present work, and in those I intend to publish hereafter, I often advisedly and deliberately throw aside the dignity of my name and wit (if such thing be) in my endeavour to advance human interests; and being one that should properly perhaps be an architect in philosophy and the sciences, I turn common labourer, hodman, anything that is wanted; taking upon myself the burden and execution of many things which must needs be done, and which others through an inborn pride shrink from and decline. But to return to the subject: moral philosophers have chosen for themselves a certain glittering and lustrous mass of matter, wherein they may principally glorify themselves for the point of their wit, or the power of their eloquence; but those which are of most use for practice, seeing that they cannot be so clothed with rhetorical ornaments, they have for the most part passed over.

Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune which the poet Virgil promised to 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 honorem⁵.

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 are no less worthy to be had in honour than the heroical descriptions of virtue, goodness, and felicity, whereon so much labour has been spent.

Wherefore I will divide moral knowledge into two principal parts; the one the Exemplar or Platform of Good,” the other “the Regiment or Culture of the Mind,” which I also call the Georgics of the Mind; the one describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to accommodate the will of man thereunto.

The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good, considers good either Simple or Comparative; either the kinds of good, or the degrees of good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputations and speculations touching the supreme degree thereof, which they termed “Felicity,” “Beatitude,” or the “Highest Good ” (which were as the heathen Divinity), are by the Christian faith removed and discharged. And as Aristotle says, “ That young men may be happy, but only by hope ”⁶, so we, instructed by the Christian faith, must all acknowledge our minority, and content ourselves with that felicity which rests in hope.

Freed therefore happily, and delivered from this doctrine of the heathen heaven, whereby they certainly imagined a higher elevation of man's nature than it is really capable of (for we see in what height of style Seneca writes, “It is true greatness to have the frailty of a man and the security of a god ”⁷), we may with more sobriety and truth receive the rest of what they have delivered concerning the doctrine of the Exemplar; wherein, for the nature of good Positive or Simple, they have painted it excellently and to the life, as in a picture, diligently representing the forms of virtues and duties, their situations and their postures, kinds, relations, parts, subjects, provinces, actions, administrations, and the like; nay further, they have commended and insinuated them into 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 nature of Comparative Good, they have also excellently well handled it, in their triplicity of good⁸; in the comparison between a contemplative and active life; in the distinction between virtue with reluctation, and virtue settled and secured; in their encounters between honesty and profit; in their balancing of virtue with virtue, as to which outweighs the other, and the like; so that I find that this part is excellently laboured, and that the ancients have done their work admirably therein, yet so as the pious and earnest diligence of divines, which has been employed in weighing and determining duties, moral virtues, cases of conscience, the bounds of sin, and the like, has left the philosophers far behind.

Notwithstanding (to return to the philosophers), 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 those questions which followed; and especially if they had consulted with the nature of things, as well as moral axioms, they had made their doctrines less prolix, and more profound; which being by them in part omitted, and in part handled with much confusion, I will briefly resume; and endeavour to open and cleanse the fountains of morality, before I come to the knowledge of the culture of the mind, which I set down as deficient. For this will in my opinion reinforce the doctrine of the exemplar with new strength.

There is formed and imprinted in everything an appetite toward two natures 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 tends to the conservation of a more general form. The former of these may be termed “Individual or Self-good,” the latter the “Good of Communion”. Iron in particular sympathy moves to the loadstone, but yet if it exceed a certain quantity it forsakes its affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moves to the earth, which is the region and country of its connaturals; so again, compact and massy bodies move to the earth, the great collection of dense bodies; and yet rather than suffer a divulsion in nature and create a vacuum, they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking their duty to the earth in regard to their duty to the world. Thus it is ever the case, that the conservation of the more general form controls and keeps in order the lesser appetites and inclinations. This prerogative of the communion of good is much more engraven upon man, if he be not degenerate; according to that memorable speech of Pompey, 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, “It is needful that I go, not that I live”⁹, so that the love of life, which is the predominant feeling in the individual, did not with him outweigh affection and fidelity to the commonwealth. But why do I dwell on this point? for never in any age has there been any philosophy, sect, religion, law, or other discipline, which did so highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as the Holy Christian Faith; well declaring that it was the same God who gave the Christian law to men, that gave also those laws of Nature to inanimate creatures; whence we read that some of the elected saints of God have wished, rather than that their brethren should not obtain salvation, that they themselves should be anathematized and erased out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion¹⁰.

This being set down and strongly planted, judges and determines of some the most important controversies in moral philosophy. For first it decides the question touching the preferment of the contemplative or active life, and decides it against Aristotle. For all the reasons which he brings for the contemplative respect private good, and the pleasure or dignity of a man's self; in which respects no question the contemplative life has the pre-eminence, being not much unlike that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying of philosophy and contemplation; who, being asked by Hiero 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”¹¹. But men must know that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and Angels to be lookers on¹²; neither could the like question ever have been raised in the Church (notwithstanding it has been in the mouths of many, “Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints”¹³, by which text they used to exalt that civil death of theirs, and the orders and rules of the life monastic); were it not true withal that the monastical life is not simply contemplative, but engaged also in the performance of certain ecclesiastical duties, such as continual prayer, and votive sacrifices offered to God, and the leisurely writing of theological books for advancing the knowledge of the divine law; as Moses did, when he abode so long in the Mount. And so we see, that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, who seems to have been the first contemplative (for he is said to have walked with God¹⁴), yet also endowed the Church with a book of prophecy, which St. Jude cites¹⁵. But for mere contemplation which should be finished in itself without casting beams of heat and light upon society, assuredly divinity knows it not. It decides also the question so earnestly argued between the schools of Zeno and Socrates on the one hand, who placed felicity in virtue simple or attended, which is ever chiefly concerned with the duties of life; and on the other hand, the numerous other sects, as the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in some comedies, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits) to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be properly served and attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which pronounced felicity to be nothing else than the tranquillity and serenity of a mind free from perturbation (as if they would have deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn with the Golden Age, when there was neither summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and season); and lastly, that exploded school of Pyrrho and Herillus, who placed felicity in the removal from the mind of all doubts and scruples, admitting no fixed and consistent nature of good and evil, but esteeming actions good or evil according as they proceed from the mind acting clearly and regularly, or with reluctance and aversion; which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, who measured all things according to the notions or instincts of the spirit, and the constancy or wavering of belief. Now all the points above enumerated manifestly regard private repose and contentment, and not the good of society.

It censures also the philosophy of Epictetus, who presupposes that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power, lest we be subject to fortune and disturbance¹⁶; 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 private fortune; as Gonsalvo, addressing his soldiers and pointing to Naples, nobly protested, “He had rather die one foot forwards, than secure a long life by one foot of retreat¹⁷ “Whereunto agrees the wisdom of that heavenly leader, who has affirmed” that a good conscience is a continual feast¹⁸”, showing plainly that the conscience of good intentions howsoever failing in success imparts a joy truer, surer, and more agreeable to nature, than all the provisions which a man can make either for the satisfying of his desires or for the repose of his mind.

It censures likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew general about the times of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or profession, as if the business of philosophy had been not to resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes and occasions 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 cultivated by Herodicus, of whom Aristotle tells us that he did nothing all his life long but attend his health, and accordingly abstained from an infinite variety of things, depriving himself as it were of the use of his body in the meantime¹⁹. Whereas, if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that state of body is most to be desired which is best able to endure and overcome all changes and extremities; so likewise that mind is to be esteemed truly and properly healthy which can go through the greatest temptations and perturbations: so that Diogenes's opinion seems excellent, who commended that strength of mind which enabled a man not to abstain but to sustain, and which could refrain its impetuosity even in the steepest precipices, and give it the property of a well broken horse, that of stopping and turning most quickly and suddenly²⁰.

Lastly, it censures also the tenderness and want of compliance in some of the most ancient and reverend philosophers, who retired too easily from civil business that they might avoid indignities and perturbations, and live (as they thought) more pure and saint-like; whereas the resolution of men truly moral ought to be such as the same Gonsalvo required in a soldier, “whose honour,” he said, “should be of a stouter web, and not so fine as that everything should catch in it, and rend it ”.

CHAPTER II.

The Division of Individual or Self-good into Active and Passive Good.—The Division of Passive Good into Conservative and Perfective Good.—The Division of the Good of Communion, into General and Respective Duties.

To resume then, and pursue first private and self good, we will divide it into Good Active and Good 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 multiply and propagate themselves; whereof the latter, which is active and as it were the promus, seems to be the stronger and more worthy; and the former, which is passive and as it were the condus, seems to be inferior. For in the universe, the heavenly nature is mostly the agent, the earthly nature the patient; in the pleasures of living creatures, that of generation is greater than that of food; in divine doctrine, “ It is more blessed to give than to receive”¹; and in common life there is no man's spirit so soft and effeminate but esteems the effecting of somewhat that he has fixed in his desire more than any pleasure or sensuality. And this pre-eminence of the active good is infinitely raised by the consideration that the condition of man is mortal, and exposed to the blows of fortune; for if we might have a certainty and perpetuity in our pleasures, the certainty and continuance of them would advance their price. But when we see it is but thus with us, “We count it much to postpone death for awhile”²; “Boast not thyself of the morrow; Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth”³; it is no wonder that we earnestly pursue such things as are secured and exempted from the injuries of time, which are only our deeds and our works; as it is said, “Their works follow them”⁴. There is also another important pre-eminence of the active good, produced and upheld by that affection which is inseparable from human nature; the love of novelty and variety; which in the pleasures of the sense (which is the principal part of passive good) is very confined, and can have no great latitude⁵. “Only think how often you do the same thing over and over. Food, Sleep, Play, come round in a perpetual circle; a man might wish to die, not only from fortitude or misery or wisdom, but merely from disgust and weariness of life.” But in enterprises, pursuits and purposes of life there is much variety; whereof men are sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, rests, recoils, reintegrations, approaches, and attainings to their ends; so as it was well said, “Life without a purpose is unsettled and languid”⁶. And this befalls as well the wise as the foolish; as Solomon says, “A heady man seeks to satisfy his desire, and intermeddles with everything”⁷. And we see that the greatest kings who might have at command everything which can gratify the sense, have yet sometimes affected mean and frivolous pursuits (as was the passion of Nero for the harp, of Corn-modus for gladiatorial combats, of Antoninus for chariot-driving, and the like); which nevertheless they esteemed more of than of the whole abundance of sensual pleasures; so much pleasanter is it to be doing than to be enjoying.

But here it must be more carefully observed, that this active individual good has no identity with the good of society, though in some case it has an incidence into it: for although it many times produces and brings forth acts of beneficence (which is a virtue of communion), yet there is this difference, that these acts are mostly done not with a view to the benefit and happiness of others, but to a man's own power and greatness; as plainly appears when this kind of active good strikes on a subject contrary to the good of society. For that gigantean state of mind, which possesses the troublers of the world (such as was Lucius Sylla, and infinite others in smaller model, who are bent on having all men happy or unhappy as they are their friends or enemies⁸, and would shape the world according to their own humours, which is the true Theomachy), this I say aspires to the active good of the individual (apparent good at least), though it recedes farthest of all from the good of society.

But Passive good is subdivided into Conservative and Perfective. For there is impressed on all things a triple desire or appetite, in respect of self or individual good; one of preserving, another of perfecting, and a third of multiplying and spreading themselves: whereof the last is that which we have just handled by the name of “Active good”, so that there remain only the two other goods which we have mentioned; whereof that of perfecting is the highest; for to preserve a thing in its existing state is the less, to raise the same to a higher nature is the greater. For in all things there are some nobler natures to the dignity and excellence whereof inferior natures aspire as to their sources and origins. So it was not unfitly said of men “that they have a fiery vigour and a heavenly origin”⁹, for the assumption or approach of man to the Livine or Angelical nature is the perfection of his form; the false and preposterous imitation of which perfective good is the very plague and stormy whirlwind of human life, which carries off and destroys everything; while men upon the instinct of an advancement formal and essential are carried by a blind ambition to seek an advancement merely local. For as those who are sick, and find no remedy, tumble up and down and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove internal, and get away from themselves and from the disease that is within them; so is it in ambition, when men possessed by a false idea of exalting their nature obtain nothing else but an eminence and exaltation of place.

The good of conservation consists in the reception and fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; which, though it seems to be the most pure and natural of pleasures, is yet the softest and the lowest. And this also receives a difference, which has in part been weakly judged, in part not examined; for the good of fruition, or (as it is commonly termed) pleasure, is placed either in the sincerity of the fruition, or in the vigour of it; the one of which is the result of equality; the other of variety and vicissitude; the one having less mixture of evil, the other a stronger and more lively impression of good. Which 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. The former question being debated in a dispute 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 arguments to ill words; the sophist saying that “Socrates's felicity was the felicity of a block or stone¹⁰”, 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 Epicureans, who did not deny that virtue bears a great part in felicity; and if so, certain it is, that virtue has more use in clearing perturbations than in compassing desires. But the sophist's opinion is somewhat favoured by the assertion we last spoke of, “that good of advancement is greater than good of simple preservation”, because every obtaining a desire has a show of advancing nature towards perfection; which though it be not really the case, yet motion even in a circle has a show of progression.

But the second question (as to whether a man's nature may not be capable of tranquillity of mind and vigour of fruition both), decided in the true way, makes the former superfluous. For do we not often see some minds so constituted, as to take the greatest delight in enjoying pleasures when present, and yet nevertheless little annoyed at the loss and leaving of them? So that the philosophical progression, “Enjoy not, that you may not desire; desire no t, that you may not fear,” is the precaution of cowardice and pusillanimity. And indeed most of the doctrines of the philosophers seem to me to be more fearful and cautionary than the nature of things requires: thus they increase 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 die¹¹, they must needs make men think that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of preparing. Better says the poet (for a heathen):—

Fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem Qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat Naturæ¹².

So have philosophers sought in all things to make men's minds too uniform and harmonical, not breaking them to contrary motions and extremes; the reason whereof I suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated to a private life, free from business and from the necessity of applying themselves to other duties. But men should rather imitate the wisdom of jewellers, who, if there be a grain or a cloud or an ice in a jewel, which may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone, they remove it: otherwise they will not meddle with it. And in like manner men ought so to procure serenity, as they destroy not magnanimity. And so much for Individual good.

Having, therefore, discussed self-good (which we also term “Private” “Particular” and “Individual” good), let us resume the good of communion, which respects and beholds 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. This part may seem at first glance to pertain to science civil and politic, but not if it be well observed; for it concerns the regimen and government of every man over himself, and not over others. And as in architecture it is one thing to direct the framing the posts, beams, and other parts of the building, and another thing to join and fasten them; and as in mechanics it is one thing to direct how to frame an instrument or engine, and another to set it on work and employ it; so the doctrine of the conjugation of men in the state or society, differs from that which teaches them to conform and be well-disposed to the advantages thereof.

This part of duty is likewise subdivided into two parts; whereof the one treats of “the common duty of every man” as a member of a state; the other treats of “the respective or special duties of every man, in his profession, vocation, rank, and character.” The first of these is extant and well laboured, as has been said; the second likewise I may report as handled dispersedly, though not digested into an entire body of science; not that I object to this manner of dispersed writing, which on the contrary in this kind of argument I acknowledge to be best. For who is there with such clearness or confidence that he can take upon him to write skilfully and accurately of the proper and relative duty of every several vocation and place? But treatises on matters of this kind which do not savour of experience, but are only drawn from a general scholastic knowledge of the subject, are for the most part empty and unprofitable. For although sometimes a looker-on may see more than a player, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, concerning the censure of the people on the actions of their superiors, “That the vale best discovers the hill”; yet it were much to be wished that only men of most practice and experience should meddle with such arguments; for the writing of speculative men on active matter for the most part seems to men of experience, as Phormio's arguments of the wars seemed to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage¹³. Only there is one vice which accompanies those who write on their own arts and professions, that they can not refrain from adorning and magnifying in excess those little Sparta's of theirs¹⁴.

In which kind it were inexcusable not to mention (honoris causâ) your Majesty's excellent book touching the duties of a king¹⁵, a work richly compounded of many known and secret treasures of divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts, and being in my opinion one of the most sound and healthful writings that I have read; not distempered in the heat of invention, nor chilled in the coldness of negligence; not subject to fits of dizziness, and so falling into confusion and disorder; not distracted by digressions, so as to embrace in a discursive narrative things impertinent to the purpose¹⁶; not savouring of perfumes and paintings, as those do, who attend more to the pleasure of the reader than the nature of the argument; above all, being a book as good in spirit as in body, since it is both agreeable to truth, and apt for action. And it is moreover quite free from that vice which I have noted above (which, if it were tolerated in any, certainly it would be so in a king, writing of the authority of a king), seeing it does not exalt invidiously or above measure the height and summit of kingly power; for your Majesty has represented, not a king of Assyria, or Persia, in the glitter of outward pride and glory; but truly a Moses or a David, that is, shepherds of their people. Neither can I ever forget the observation so truly worthy of a king, which your Majesty delivered¹⁷, in the same sacred spirit of government, in deciding a great cause of judicature; which was, “That kings ruled by the laws of their kingdoms, as God did by the laws of Nature, and ought as rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative, as God does his power of working miracles ”. And yet, notwithstanding, in your other book of a free monarchy¹⁸ it well appears that you no less perceive and understand the plenitude of the power of a king, and the ultimities (as the schoolmen say) of regal rights, than the circle and bounds of his office and duty. Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your Majesty, as a prime or eminent example of treatises concerning special and respective duties; wherein I should have said as much if it had been written by any king a thousand years since. Nor am I moved with that rule of manners which is usually laid down, “that one should not praise in presence”; provided that the praise be not beyond the truth, and bestowed unseasonably, or without occasion. Surely Cicero, in that brilliant oration for Marcellus, was but exhibiting an excellent picture of Cæsar's praises, though he was speaking before his face. And the like did Pliny the younger to Trajan¹⁹.

But to return to our purpose. There belongs further to the handling of this part, touching the respective duties of vocations and professions, a relative or opposite doctrine touching the frauds, cautions, impostures, and vices of every profession; for corruptions and vices are opposed to duties and virtues. And it is true that these are not altogether passed over, but there are many treatises and writings in which they are touched upon at least in passing; but how? rather in a satire, and cynically after the manner of Lucian, than seriously and wisely. For men have rather sought by wit to traduce much that is good or useful in professions, and expose it to ridicule, than to discover and sever that which is vicious and corrupt. But Solomon says well, “A scorner seeks wisdom, and finds it not, but knowledge offers itself unto him that is desirous thereof²⁰ ”; for he who comes to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure will be sure to find matter enough for his humour, but very little for his instruction. But the serious handling of this argument with integrity and sincerity ought, as it appears to me, to be reckoned among the best fortifications for honesty and virtue. For as the fable goes of the basilisk, that if he see you first, you die for it, but if you see him first, he dies; so is it with deceits, impostures, and evil arts, which, if they be first espied, they lose their life, but if they prevent, they endanger; so that we are much beholden to Machiavelli and other writers of that class, who openly and unfeignedly declare or describe what men do, and not what they ought to do. For it is not possible to join the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove, except men be perfectly acquainted with the nature of evil itself; for without this, virtue is open and unfenced; nay, a virtuous and honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to correct and reclaim them, without first exploring all the depths and recesses of their malice²¹. For men of corrupted minds presuppose that honesty grows out of an ignorance or simplicity of manners, and believing of preachers, schoolmasters, books, moral precepts, common discourses, and opinions; so as, except they plainly perceive that you know as much of their corrupt opinions and depraved principles as they do themselves, they despise all honesty of manners and counsel; according to the excellent proverb of Solomon, “The fool receives not the word of the wise, unless thou speakest the very things that are in his heart²²”. But this part, touching respective cautions and vices, we set down as deficient, and will call it by the name of “Serious Satire”, or the Treatise of the Inner Nature of Things.

Unto this part, touching respective duty, do also appertain the mutual duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant; so likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil bonds of companies, colleges, neighbourhood, and the like; but it must ever be kept in mind, that they are here handled, not as they are parts of civil society (for that is referred to policy), but as to the framing and predisposing of the minds of particular persons towards the preservation of those bonds of society.

The knowledge concerning good respecting Society (as well as that which respects Individual good) handles it not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto belongs the weighing of duties between person and person, case and case, particular and public, present and future; as we see in the stern and severe proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own sons, how it was generally extolled to the sky; and yet what did another say of it? “It was an unhappy deed, whatever posterity might say of it²³”.

And we see the same in that supper to which Marcus Brutus, Caius Cassius, and others were invited. When to make trial of their opinions touching the intended murder of Cæsar, the question was cunningly raised, “whether the killing of a tyrant were lawful,” they were divided in opinion; some holding that it was clearly lawful, for servitude was the extreme of evils; others, not so, for tyranny was better than a civil war; while a third set affirmed, according to the doctrine of Epicurus, that it was unfit for wise men to endanger themselves in the cause of fools²⁴. But there are a number of like cases of comparative duties; amongst which, that is most frequent where the question is, whether injustice may be committed in order to save one's country, or for some great future advantage of that kind; touching which, Jason of Thessaly used to say, “ Some things must be done unjustly, that many may be done justly²⁵”. But the reply is good; “Present justice is in your power, for that which is to come you have no security.” Men must pursue things which are good and just at present, leaving the future to the Divine Providence. And so much for the knowledge touching the exemplar and description of good.

CHAPTER III.

The Division of the Doctrine concerning the Culture of the Mind, into the Doctrine concerning the Characters of the Mind, the Affections, and the Remedies or Cures.—An Appendix of this same Doctrine, touching the Congruity between the Good of the Mind and the Good of the Body.

Now therefore that I have spoken of the fruit of life (understanding it in a philosophical sense), it remains to speak of the husbandry which belongs thereto; without which the former part seems to be no better than a fair image or statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and motion; whereunto Aristotle eloquently subscribes in these words, “It is necessary then to speak of virtue, both what it is, and whence it proceeds, for it were almost useless to know what virtue is, but to be ignorant of the ways and means of acquiring it; therefore we must inquire not only to what kind virtue belongs, but also how it may be obtained; for we wish both to be acquainted with the thing itself, and to gain possession of it; wherein we shall not fully succeed, unless we know both the whence and the how¹”. In such express words and with such iteration does he inculcate this part, although he does not himself pursue it. This likewise it is which Cicero bestows on Cato the younger as no ordinary praise; that he had applied himself to philosophy, “not for the sake of disputing as most do, but for the sake of living according to its rules²”. And although through the negligence of our times, wherein few men take any care touching the cultivation and disposition of the mind, and the framing of their life to any fixed rule, (as Seneca³ excellently says, “Everyone takes thought about the parts of life, no one about the whole”): this part may seem superfluous, yet I will not on that account pass it by untouched, but rather conclude with that aphorism of Hippocrates, “That they who are sick and feel no pain are sick in their mind⁴ ”; they need medicine not only to assuage the disease, but to awake the sense. And if it be objected that the cure of men's minds belongs to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral philosophy may be admitted into the train of theology, as a wise servant and faithful handmaid to be ready at her beck to minister to her service and requirements. For as the Psalm says, “That the eyes of the handmaid look perpetually to the hands of her mistress⁵ ”, and yet no doubt many things are left to the care and discretion of the handmaid; so ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of divinity, and be obedient to them, and yet so as it may yield of itself within its own limits many sound and profitable directions.

This part therefore, when I recall the excellency thereof, I cannot but find exceeding strange that it is not yet reduced to written inquiry. Wherefore seeing I set it down among the deficients, I will according to my custom sketch out some of the heads and points thereof.

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 either the nature of the soil or the seasons of the weather; no more can the physician either the natural temper and constitution of the patient, or the variety of accidents. Now in the culture of the mind and the cure for its diseases three things are to be considered; the different characters of dispositions, the affections, and the remedies; just as in the treatment of the body three things are observed; the complexion or constitution of the sick man, the disease, and the cure; but of these three, only the last is in our power, the two former are not. Yet the inquiry into things beyond our power ought to be as careful as into those within it; for the exact and distinct knowledge thereof is the groundwork of the doctrine of remedies, that they may be more conveniently and successfully applied; and we cannot fit a garment, except we first take measure of the body.

So then the first article of this knowledge is concerned with the different characters of natures and dispositions. And we are not here speaking of the common inclinations either to virtues and vices, or to disorders and passions, but of those which are more profound and radical. And in truth I cannot sometimes but wonder that this part of knowledge should for the most part be omitted both in Morality and Policy, considering it might shed such a ray of light on both sciences. In the traditions of astrology men's natures and dispositions are not unaptly distinguished according to the predominances of the planets; for some are naturally formed for contemplation, others for business, others for war, others for advancement of fortune, others for love, others for the arts, others for a varied kind of life; so among the poets (heroic, satiric, tragic, comic) are everywhere interspersed representations of characters, though generally exaggerated and surpassing the truth. And this argument touching the different characters of dispositions, is one of those subjects in which the common discourse of men (as sometimes though very rarely happens) is wiser than books. But far the best provision and material for this treatise is to be gained from the wiser sort of historians, not only from the commemorations which they commonly add on recording the deaths of illustrious persons, but much more from the entire body of history as often as such a person enters upon the stage; for a character so worked into the narrative gives a better idea of the man, than any formal criticism and review can; such is that of Africanus and Cato the Elder in Livy, of Tiberius, and Claudius, and Nero in Tacitus, of Septimius Severus in Herodian, of Louis XI., King of France, in Philip de Comines, of Ferdinand of Spain, the Cæsar Maximilian, and the Popes Leo and Clement in Francesco Guicciardini. For these writers, having the images of those persons whom they have selected to describe constantly before their eyes, hardly ever make mention of any of their actions without inserting something concerning their nature. So some of the relations which I have met with touching the conclaves of the popes, present good characters of the Cardinals⁶; as the letters of ambassadors do likewise of the councillors of princes. Wherefore out of these materials (which are surely rich and abundant) let a full and careful treatise be constructed. Not however that I would have these characters presented in ethics (as we find them in history or poetry or even in common discourse), in the shape of complete individual portraits, but rather the several features and simple lineaments of which they are composed, and by the various combinations and arrangements of which all characters whatever are made up, showing how many, and of what nature these are, and how connected and subordinate one to another; that so we may have a scientific and accurate dissection of minds and characters, and the secret dispositions of particular men may be revealed; and that from the knowledge thereof better rules may be framed for the treatment of the mind.

And not only should the characters of dispositions which are impressed by nature be received into this treatise, but those also which are imposed on the mind by sex, by age, by region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like; and again, those which are caused by fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, and the like. For we see that Plautus makes it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, “His beneficence is that of a young man⁷”. St. Paul advising that severity of discipline should be used towards the Cretans (“Reproach them severely”), accuses the disposition of their country; citing the poet's censure, “the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies⁸”. Sallust notes that it is usual with kings to desire contradictories, “the desires of kings, as they are violent, so are they generally changeable and often contrary to themselves⁹.” Tacitus observes that honours and fortune more often alter men's dispositions to the worse than to the better; “Vespasian alone was changed for the better¹⁰”. Pindar makes the observation that great and sudden good fortune for the most part defeats and enervates men's minds. “There be, that are not able to digest great prosperity¹¹”. The Psalm shows it is more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase thereof, “If riches increase, set not your heart upon them¹²”. These observations and the like I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle in his Rhetoric, and here and there in some other men's writings, but they have never been incorporated into moral philosophy, to which they principally appertain; no less than the knowledge of the diversity of grounds and moulds does to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of complexions and constitutions does to medicine. It should be done however now, except we mean to follow the indiscretion of empirics, who minister the same medicines to all patients of every constitution.

Next in order is the knowledge touching the affections and perturbations, which are, as I have said, the diseases of the mind. For as the ancient politicians in popular states 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 agitatiqn¹³: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in its own nature would be temperate and staid; if the affections, as winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And here again I find it strange, that Aristotle should have written divers volumes of ethics, and neyer handled the affections, as a principal portion thereof; yet in his Rhetoric, where they are considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may be moved and excited by speech), he finds a place for them, and handles them acutely and well, for the quantity thereof. For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this inquiry: no more than he who should generally handle the nature of light can be said to handle the nature of particular colours; for pleasure and pain are to the particular affections, as light is to particular colours. Better pains, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I can gather by that which remains of them; but yet I conceive it was rather in subtlety of definitions than in any full and ample description. So likewise I find some particular writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections, as of anger, of tenderness of countenance, and some few others¹⁴. But to speak the real truth, the poets and writers of history are the best doctors of this knowledge, where we may find painted forth with great life and dissected, how affections are kindled and excited, and how pacified and restrained, and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves, though repressed and concealed; how they work; how they vary; how they are enwrapped one within another; how they fight and encounter one with another; and many other particularities of this kind; amongst which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to use the aid of one to master another; like hunters and fowlers who use to hunt beast with beast, and catch bird with bird, which otherwise perhaps without their aid man of himself could not so easily contrive; upon which foundation is erected that excellent and general use in civil government of reward and punishment, whereon commonwealths lean; seeing those predominant affections of fear and hope suppress and bridle all the rest. For as in the government of states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so it is in the internal government of the mind.

I now come to those points which are within our own command, and have operation on the mind to affect and influence the will and appetite, and so have great power in altering manners; wherein philosophers ought carefully and actively to have inquired of the strength and energy of custom, exercise, habit, education, imitation, emulation, company, friendship, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies, and the like. For these are the things that rule in morals; these the agents by which the mind is affected and disposed; and the ingredients of which are compounded the medicines to preserve or recover the health of the mind, as far as it can be done by human remedies; of which number I will select some one or two, upon which to insist, as patterns of the rest. I will therefore make a few observations on Custom and Habit.

The opinion of Aristotle seems to me to savour of negligence and narrowness of contemplation, when he asserts that custom has no power over those actions which are natural; using for example, “that if a stone be thrown up a thousand times, it will not learn to ascend of itself; and that by often seeing or hearing we do not learn to see or hear the better”¹⁵. For though this principle be true in some things, wherein nature is peremptory (the reasons whereof we have not now leisure to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein nature admits, within certain limits, intension and remission. For he might see that a tight glove will come on more easily with use; that a wand by use and continuance will be bent contrary to its natural growth, and after a while will continue in the same position; that by use of the voice it becomes stronger and louder; that by custom we can better bear heat and cold, and the like; which two latter examples have a nearei resemblance to the subject, than those instances which he alleges. But however it be, the more true it is that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more to have taught the rules for acquiring or removing that habit; for there may be many precepts for the wise ordering of the exercises of the mind, as well as of the body; whereof I will recite a few.

The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either a greater or a smaller task than the case requires. For if too great a burden be imposed, in a diffident nature you discourage; in a confident nature you breed an opinion, whereby a man promises to himself more than he is able to perform, which produces sloth; and in both these natures the trial will fail to satisfy the expectation, a thing which ever discourages and confounds the mind. But if the tasks be too weak, progress will be much retarded.

The second precept shall be, that to practise any faculty by which a habit may be acquired, two several times should be observed; 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 through strenuous exertion work out the knots and obstacles of the mind, and so make the middle times the more easy and pleasant.

The third precept shall be that which Aristotle mentions by the way. “To bear ever with all our strength, so it be without vice, towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto we are by nature inclined¹⁶”; as when we row against the stream, or straighten a wand by bending it contrary to its natural crookedness.

The fourth precept depends on that axiom, which is most true; that the mind is brought to anything with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not first in the intention, but be obtained as it were by the way while you are attending to something else; because of the natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint. Many other useful precepts there are, touching the regulation of custom; for custom wisely and skilfully conducted proves indeed, according to the saying, a second nature; but governed unskilfully and by chance it will be but an ape of nature, imitating nothing to the life, but bringing forth only that which is lame and counterfeit.

So, if we should handle books and studies and what influence and operation they should have upon manners, are there not divers precepts and directions of great profit appertaining thereunto? Did not one of the fathers¹⁷, in great indignation, call poesy “the wine of demons,” because it engenders temptations, desires, and vain opinions? Is not the opinion of Aristotle very wise and worthy to be regarded, “that young men are not fit auditors of moral philosophy”¹⁸, because the boiling heat of their affections is not yet settled, nor tempered with time and experience? And to say the truth, does it not hereof come that those excellent books and discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have per-suaded unto virtue most effectually by representing her in state and majesty, and popular opinions against virtue as clad in parasites' cloaks, fit to be scorned and derided) are of so little effect towards honesty of life and amendment of evil manners, 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 are young men fit auditors of matters of policy, till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion, morality, and duty, lest their judgments be corrupted and made apt to think that there are no true and real differences of things; but all things are to be measured by utility and fortune; as the poet says:—

Prosperum et felix scelus virtus vocatur¹⁹;

and again,

Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic diadema²⁰;

which the poets speak satirically and in indignation, but some books of policy speak seriously and positively. For so it pleases Machiavelli²¹ 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 alone between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the unconverted world. And how necessary it is for men to be fully imbued with pious and moral knowledge before they take any part in politics we see from this; that they who are brought up from their infancy in the courts of kings and affairs of state scarce ever attain to a deep and sincere honesty of manners; how much less chance have they then, if to this be added the like discipline in books? Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities themselves, at least some kinds of them, lest they make men too precise, arrogant, and incompatible? as Cicero says of Marcus Cato, “The divine and noble qualities we see in him, be sure are his own; the defects which we sometimes find, proceed not from his nature, but from his instructors²²”. Many other axioms there are touching those properties which studies and books infuse into men's minds; for the saying is true, “that studies pass into manners²³”, as may likewise be said of all those other points, of company, fame, laws, and the rest, which I a little before recited.

But there is a kind of culture of the mind, which seems 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 and intention of this practice is to cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and take forth the evil out of the calendar. The fixing of the good has been practised by two means; vows or constant resolutions of the mind, and observances or exercises, which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as because they keep the mind in continual duty and obedience. The obliteration of the evil can likewise be practised by two means; some kind of redemption or expiration of that which is past, and an inception or new account of life for the time to come. But this part seems clearly to belong to religion, and justly so; for all true and sincere moral philosophy, as was said before, is but a handmaid to religion.

Wherefore I will conclude this part of the culture of the mind with that remedy, which is of all other means the most compendious and summary; and again the most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind into virtue, and placing it in the state nearest to perfection; which is, the electing and propounding unto a man's self good and virtuous ends of his life and actions; 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 his mind be resolute and constant to pursue and obtain them, it will follow that his mind shall address and mould itself to all virtues at once. And this indeed is like the work of Nature; whereas the other courses I have mentioned are like the work of the hand. For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereon he works, and not the rest (as if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude and unshaped stone still, till such time as he comes to it); but contrariwise, when Nature makes a flower or living creature, she forms and produces rudiments of all the parts at one time; so in obtaining virtue by habit, while we practise temperance, we do not advance much in fortitude, nor the like; but when we dedicate and apply ourselves entirely to good and honest ends, what virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends suggests and enjoins, we shall find ourselves invested with a precedent disposition and propensity to conform thereto. And this is the state of mind excellently described by Aristotle, and distinguished by him as having a character not of virtue but of divinity; his words are these: “To brutality we may not unaptly oppose that heroic or divine virtue which is above humanity²⁴”; and a little after, “For as beasts are incapable of virtue or vice, so likewise is the Deity; for this latter state is something higher than virtue, as the former is somewhat other than vice”. Again, Pliny the younger using the license of heathen grandiloquence sets forth the virtue of Trajan, not as an imitation, but rather as a pattern of the divine, where he says, “That men needed not to make any other prayers to the gods, but that they would show themselves as good and kind lords to them, as Trajan had been²⁵”. But these be heathen and profane passages, which grasp at shadows greater than the substance; but the true religion and holy Christian faith lays hold of the reality itself, by imprinting upon men's souls, Charity, which is excellently called “the bond of Perfection²⁶”, because it comprehends and fastens all virtues together. And it is elegantly said by Menander²⁷ of stn-sual love (which is but a false imitation of divine love), “That love is a better teacher for human life than a left-handed sophist,” whereby he means that comeliness of manner is better taught by love than by a clumsy preceptor or sophist, whom he calls left-handed; because with all his laborious rules and precepts he cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that facility to prize and govern himself in all things, as love can do. So certainly if a man's mind be truly inflamed with charity, it raises him to greater perfection than all the doctrines of morality can do; which is but a sophist in comparison of the other. Nay further, as Xenophon truly observed, “ that all other affections though they raise the mind yet they distort and disorder it by their ecstasies and excesses, but only love at the same time exalts and composes it²⁸ ”;so all the other qualities which we admire in man, though they advance nature, are yet subject to excess; whereas Charity alone admits of no excess. The Angels aspiring to be like God in power, transgressed and fell: “I will ascend, and be like unto the most High²⁹”. Man aspiring to be like God in knowledge, transgressed and fell: “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil³⁰”; but by aspiring to a similitude of God in goodness or love, neither angel or man ever transgressed or shall transgress; for unto that imitation we are called, “Love your enemies, bless them which hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be children of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends his rain on the just and the unjust³¹”. So in the first platform of the divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaks thus, “Optimus Maximus,” but the sacred Scriptures thus, “His mercy is over all His works³²”.

Here then I conclude this part of moral knowledge concerning the Georgics of the mind, wherein if any man, from viewing the parts thereof which I have enumerated, judge that my labour is but to collect into an art or science that which has been omitted by other writers as matter of common sense and experience, and sufficiently clear and self-evident, he is welcome to his opinion; but in the mean while let him remember that I am in pursuit, as I said at.first, not of beauty but of utility and truth: and let him withal call to mind the 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 ni tens elephanto, Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia Manes³³.

Great no doubt is the magnificence of the ivory gate, but the true dreams pass through the gate of horn.

To these observations concerning moral philosophy may be added, That there seems to be a relation or conformity between the good of the mind and the good of the body. For as I said that the good of the body consisted of health, beauty, strength and pleasure; so the good of the mind considered according to the precepts of moral knowledge tends to this; to make the mind sound and without perturbation; beautiful and graced with decency; and strong and agile for all the duties of life; lastly, not stupid, but retaining a lively sense of pleasure and comfort in an honest way. These three as in the body so in the mind seldom all meet together. For it is easy to observe that many have strength of wit and courage, who are yet disordered by perturbations and have little beauty and decency in their manners; some again have an elegance and fineness of carriage, who have neither honesty of will nor strength for action; and some again have honest and reformed minds who can neither become themselves nor manage business: while others, though perhaps endowed with all these three, yet from a Stoical severity and insensibility have no pleasure in the virtuous actions which they practise. But though it happen that of these four two or three of them sometimes meet, yet the meeting of them all is, as I have said, very rare. I have now handled that general part of human philosophy which contemplates man as he consists of body and spirit, but segregate and apart from society.

¹ Prov. iv. 23.

² Arist. Nic. Eth. ii. 9.

³ Seneca, Epist. 52. Seneca is speaking of the auditors of popular lecturers on philosophy. The only kind of applause which he would allow the lecturer to affect or the audience to bestow, is that of young men so stirred by the matter that they cannot refrain.—J. S.

⁴ Demosth. Olynth, ii.

⁵ Virg. Georg, iii. 289:—

How hard the task, alas, full well I know, With charms of words to grace a theme so low.

⁶ Arist. Nic. Eth. i. 10.

⁷ Seneca, Epist. 53.

⁸ Namely the good which relates respectively to mind, body and estate. See Aristot. Nicom. Eth. i. 8. 2.

⁹ Plut, in Pomp. c. 50.

¹⁰ St. Paul, Romans, ix. 3; and Exod. xxxii. 32. Bacon here touches on what theologians call the conditional sacrifice of salvation—a matter frequently referred to in the unhappy controversy between Bossuet and Féneloa. The 33rd of the Articles of Issy, which they both signed, sanctions the notion of this conditional sacrifice. It appears, however, that the article in question was one of the four added at Fénelon's suggestion to Bossuet's original draft, and that the latter did not consent without reluctance to its introduction. Fénelon's own views on the subject are developed in his Instruction Pastorale, etc., sec. 10, and elsewhere. St. Chrysostom, according to a passage quoted by Fénelon, disapproved greatly of those who held that St. Paul speaks merely of temporal death.

¹¹ Iamblichus in Vitâ, and Cic. Tusc. Quœest. v. 3. “Hiero” is a mistake for Leo (tyrant of Phliuns). The story of the interview between him and Pythagoras is told by Cicero, Tusc. Quœst. v. 3. Compare Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras, in which, though the same sentiment is ascribed to him, it is not put in a dramatic form.

¹² Compare St. Augustine, speaking of St. Paul, De Civ. Dei, xiv. 9.

¹³ Psalm cxvi. 15.

¹⁴ Gen. v. 24.

¹⁵ Jude, 14.

¹⁶ The moral philosophy of the Stoics is misunderstood when it is said that they placed happiness in that which is in the wise man's power, in order that he may be happy. They set out from the inquiry, “What is the end and purpose, the summum bonum, of man's life?” in which is involved the assumption that it has an end and purpose, and that this is in its own nature attainable. And this assumption may be developed into an answer to the inquiry in which it is involved. For as the wise man, who is the representative of humanity in its best estate, must be capable of attaining the true end of his being, they concluded that whatever might in virtue of outward circumstances be to him unattainable, must be, with reference to that end, a thing indifferent; or, in other words, that the summum bonum must be looked for in that which is in his own power. That felicity in this sense is always in the wise man's power is thus not an arbitrary assertion, but results from the principle that life is not merely a purposeless dream.

¹⁷ “Desiderare piuttosto di avere al presente la sua sepoltura un palmo di terreno più avanti, che col ritirarsi indietro poche braccie allungare la vita cento anni.”—Guicciard. vi. 2.

Fernandez Gonsalvo of Cordova, commonly called the Great Captain, and certainly one of the most successful soldiers of the age in which he lived, was employed by the King of Spain in his Italian wars. He died at [Granada] in [December, 1515]. See, for the testimony to his merits of apparently an unwilling witness, Branto 's Vies des Grands Capitaines, and for a panegyrical biography, Paulus Jovius.

¹⁸ prov. xv. 15.

¹⁹ Rhet. i. 5. 10. See also Plato's Republic, b. iii.

²⁰ [The reference may be to Diogenes Laërt. in Diogen. § 4.]

¹ Luke, xiv. 12–14; Acts, xx. 35.

² Seneca, Nat. Quœst. ii. 59.

³ Prov. xxvii. 1.

⁴ Rev. xiv. 13.

⁵ Seneca, Ep. 77.

⁶ Seneca, Ep. 95.

⁷ Cf. Prov. xviii. 1.

⁸ The epitaph which Plutarch says Sylla made for himself was probably in Bacon's mind. It boasted that no man had surpassed him in doing good to his friends or evil to his enemies. See Plut, in Sylla.

⁹ Virg. Æn. vi. 7. 30:—

Igneus est ollis vigor et cœlestis origo.

¹⁰ Plato, Gorgias, p. 494.

¹¹ Said by Socrates in the Phaedo. Contrast Spinoza, Fthtca, iv. 67.

¹² juv. x. 357:—

Give me a soul which can grim death defy, And count it Nature's privilege to die.

Bacon substitutes finem for the spatium of the original.

¹³ Cic. de Orat. lib. ii. 18.

¹⁴ Cf. Erasm. Adag. ii. 5. 1

¹⁵ The proper title of this work is Basilicon Boron. It contains three books. The first is, “Of a king's Christian duetie towards God;” the second, “Of a king's duetie in his office;” and the last, “Of a king's behaviour in things indifferent.”

¹⁶ Compare the corresponding passage in the A advancement:—“not sick of dizziness as those are who leese themselves in their order; nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in matters impertinent”.—J. S.

¹⁷ Probably in the case of Sir Francis Goodwin in 1604, when the question was whether it belonged to the House of Commons or the Court of Chancery to judge of the validity of an election.—J. S.

¹⁸ This second work of James's is, “The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, or the recip-rock and mutual duetie betwixt a free King and his naturall Subjects,” free being nearly equivalent to absolute. This work was at first published anonymously, but is included in the edition of King James's works which appeared in 1616.

¹⁹ In his Panegyrica.

²⁰ Prov. xiv. 6.

²¹ Compare Charron De la Sagesse, liv. ii. c. 10.:—“Il faut temperer et marier I'innocence colombine en n'offensant personne avec la prudence et astuce serpentine en se tenant sur ses gardes et se preservant des finesses, trahisons, et ambuches d'autrui.” The whole chapter is worth comparing with Bacon's remarks on the art of self-advancement.

²² Prov. xviii. 2. The words are accurately quoted from the Vulgate: the authorised version is wholly dissimilar.

²³ Virg. æn. vi. 823: Infelix, utcumque ferent ea facta minores.

²⁴ Plutarch in Brut.

²⁵ plut. Reip. ger, prœcep. 817.

¹ Pro Muræna, c. 30.

² Magn. Mor. lib. i. 1.

³ Sen. Ep. 71.

⁴ Aph. ii. 6.

⁵ Psalm cxxiii. 2.

⁶ For an account of the writings here referred to, which were generally composed by the “Conclavisti,” but sometimes by one of the Cardinals, see Ranke's work “Die Römischen Päpste, sect. 5. of the Appendix. Among the Litter a Legatorum, those of the Venetians are especially valuable. They are, properly speaking, reports made to the Senate on the ambassador's return.

⁷ Mil. Glor. iii. 1. 40.

⁸ Ep. Tit. i. 12. The poet referred to is Epimenides.

⁹ In Jugurth. c. 113.

¹⁰ Tac. Hist. i. 50.

¹¹ Cf. Pind. Olymp, i. 88.

¹² Psalm lxii. 10.

¹³ Cicero Pro Cluent. c 49.

¹⁴ Bacon was probably thinking of Plutarch's tract On Shamefacedness, which is I think the only one on this subject which has come down to us from antiquity. On anger there are two special treatises; Plutarch's and Seneca's.

¹⁵ Nic Eth. ii. 1.

¹⁶ Nic. Eth. ii. 9.

¹⁷ St. Augustine. Cf. Agrippa de Incert. c. 4.

¹⁸ Nic. Eth. i. 1. Aristotle, however, speaks not of moral but of political philosophy. It is interesting to observe that the error of the text, which occurs also in the Advancement of Learning, has been followed by Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida:—

“ Not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.”

See Hector's speech in the second scene of the second act.

¹⁹ Senec. Herc. Fur. 251.:—

Successful guilt will borrow virtue's name.

²⁰ Juv. xiii. 105.:—

Success is all; and for the self-same thing, One dies a felon, the other lives a king.

²¹ Machiavelli, Discorsi, i. 10.

²² Cic. Pro Murœnâ, c. 29.

²³ Ovid. Epist. xv. 83.

²⁴ Nic. Eth. vii. 1.

²⁵ Pliny, Paneg. i. c. 74.

²⁶ Coloss. iii. 14.

²⁷ Anaxandrides, not Menander.

²⁸ Xenoph. Sympos.

²⁹ Isaiah, xiv. 14.

³⁰ Gen. iii. 5.

³¹ St. Matt. v. 44.

³² Psalm cxlv. 9.

³³ Virg. Æn. vi. 894:—

Two gates the entrance of Sleep's house adorn: Of ivory one, the other simple horn; Through horn a crowd of real visions streams, Through ivory portals pass delusive dreams.