we cannot take too much pains, nor study too much, to obtain and preserve it: but the grief is, that the whole care is laid out for the body, and none at all for the mind; that we are so jealous of every alteration in our constitution, of every light indisposition of our body, that we too commonly apply cures when there are no diseases, and cause the sickness we would prevent: when, at the same time, there are twenty visible diseases and distempers of our mind, which we never look after nor take care of, though they would be more easily cured than the other, and being cured, would yield that infinite pleasure and satisfaction to the body, that sickness itself could not deprive it of. Dost thou find laziness and excess of sleep affect thy body? And dost thou find exercise and moderate labour revive thy spirits, and increase thy appetite? Examine thy mind, whether it hath not too much emptiness, whether it can cogitandi ferre laborem, whether it can bear the fatigue of thinking, and produce any conclusion from thence; and then administer a fit diet of books to it, and let it take air and exercise in honest and cheerful conversation, with men that can descend and bow their natures and their understandings to the capacity and to the

indisposition and weakness of other men. A sour and morose companion is as unnatural a prescription to such a patient, as the exercise of tennis is to a man who hath broken a vein, when any violent motion may be mortal. If thy mind be loose, and most delighted with vain and unclean discourses and unchaste desires, prescribe it a diet of contemplation upon the purity of the nature of God, and the injunction he hath given us to live by, and the frequent conquest men have made thereby upon their own most corrupt and depraved affections; and let it have its exercise and recreation with men of that severity, that restrain all ill discourse by the gravity of their presence, and yet of that candour as may make them agreeable to those who must by degrees be brought to love them, and to find another kind of pleasure, yet pleasure that hath a greater relish in their company, than in those they have been most accustomed to. Men give over the diseases of the mind as incurable; call them infirmities of nature, which cannot be subdued, hardly corrected; or substantial parts of nature, that cannot be cut off, or divided from our humanity; that anger is the result of a generous nature, that will not, ought not to submit to injuries.

and affronts; that lust is so inseparable from our nature, that nothing but want of health can allay it; that there is no other way to cure the disease but to kill the patient; that it proceeds not from any virtuous habit of the mind, where these natural affections and appetites do not prevail, but from some depraved constitution of the body, which stifles and suppresses those desires, for want of that moisture and heat that should nourish them; and that conscience hath no more to do in the conquest, than courage hath an operation in him who takes an enemy prisoner who lies prostrate at his feet: whereas all those, and other diseases of the mind, for diseases they are, are much more curable than those of the body, and so much the more as they are most subject to our own administration; when we must resort to the skill and ability of other men to devise and compound proper remedies for the other cure. Many accidents of heat or cold or diet, or the very remedies prescribed, very often make the diseases of the body incurable, and the recovery impossible; whereas the application to the mind, though unskilfully and unseasonably made, does no harm if it does no good, and the mind remains still as capable of the same or

Nor is

ether medicines as it was before. there any enormous or unruly infirmity so annexed to or rooted in our nature, but that the like hath been frequently severed from or eradicated out of it, by virtuous and conscientious precepts and practice; and every man's observation and experience supplies him with examples enough, of men far from sobriety, who, to comply with some infirmity, have forborne all wine and intemperance for some months; and of others of no restrained appetites, who upon the obligation of a promise or virtuous resolution, have abstained a longer time from any acts of uncleanness; and whosoever can impose such a law upon himself for so many months, can do the same for so many years; a firm and magnanimous resolution can exercise that discipline upon the mind, that it shall never make any excursions from reason and good behaviour. If they can be brought but laborem ferre cogitandi, the worst is over, and their recovery is not desperate.

Since then it is and may be made evident enough, that the greatest infirmities and deformities of the mind may be reformed and rectified by industry and reasonable applications, there can be but one reason why there is so little used in those cases, since all

men desire to be wise, or to be reputed wise; and that is, that there is no need of it: nature's store and provision is sufficient; conversation with witty men, and an ordinary observation of the current and conduct of business, will make men as wise as they need to be; and the affectation of books doth but introduce pedantry into the manners of men, and make them impertinent and troublesome; that men of great learning in books are frequently found to be the most incompetent judges or advisers in the most important transactions of the affairs of the world, and of the interest of states. And by this unreasonable jolly discourse, and contempt of the learned languages, there seems to be a combination entered into against learning, and against any such education as may dispose them to it; as if the excellent endowments of nature would be eclipsed by reading books, and would hinder them from learning more in the company they might keep than they can obtain from other, and that the other method makes them men much sooner: and upon this ground, which hath gotten too much countenance in the world, the universities and inns of court, which have been the seminaries out of which our ancestors have grown