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.

A CONCLUSION IN A DELIBERATIVE.

"So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences future."

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

Malum est, malum est, inquit emptor: sed cum reces- reading of books; whereunto appertain incidently serit, tum gloriabitur."

The defects in the labour of Aristotle are three: one, that there be but a few of many; another, that their 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 Atrida:"

than by hearing it said only, "This is evil for you."

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.

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 skains or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be used; applying authorities and examples by reference.

PRO VERBIS LEO

"Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quæ recedit, a literâ : Cum receditur a literâ, judex transit in legislatorem."

PRO SENTENTIA LEGIS.

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 was 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, are yet 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 annota

tions 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.

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 knowledge; 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 diffi

"Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus, qui interpretatur cult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for singula."

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. VOL. I.-28

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

T

wit be caught away out a moment, one is to begin | the divisions other than those that are received, anew. And as sciences have a propriety towards yet would I not be thought to disallow all those 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.

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 state 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 deficiencies did by consequence alter the partitions of the rest: for let the knowledge extant, for demonstration sake, be fifteen; let the knowledge with the deficiencies 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.

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 professeth to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giv

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 there is a great judgment to be had in the continuance and intermission of exercises. It were too long to particularize 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 WE proceed now to that knowledge which conmen or great matters, do work great and import-sidereth of the Appetite and Will of Man, whereof ant 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 muti-ing any precepts or directions for the carriage of neers, 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 beside 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.

But to return: we are now come to a period of Rational Knowledges; wherein if I have made

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.

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 or subtilties,) but contrariwise they have compounded sciences

chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and admimatter, chosen to give glory either to subtilty of nistrations, and the like: nay farther, they have disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses. commended them to man's nature and spirit, with But Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence; great quickness of argument and beauty of per"Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupi- suasions; yea, and fortified and intrenched them, ditatem facit, sed sui." Doctrine should be such as much as discourse can do, against corrupt and as should make men in love with the lesson, and popular opinions. Again, for the degrees and not with the teacher; being directed to the auditor's comparative nature of good, they have also excelbenefit, and not to the author's commendation: lently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the and therefore those are of the right kind, which comparison between a contemplative and an acmay be concluded as Demosthenes concludes tive life, in the distinction between virtue with his counsel, “Quæ si feceritis, non oratorem reluctation and virtue secured, in their encounters duntaxat in præsentia laudabatis, sed vosmetipsos between honesty and profit, in their balancing of etiam non ita multo post statu rerum vestrarum virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part meliore." deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.

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."

Georg. ii. 289. 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.

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 disputations 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.

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 a 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

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 especially 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.

There is formed in every thing a double nature of good: the one, as every thing 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 to 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 parti

cular, 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 speak of before; for we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves anathematized and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion.

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, who 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.

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 Gonsalvo 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.

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 It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy, have been received in the church, (notwithstand- which grew general about the time of Epictetus, ing their "Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sancto- in converting it into an occupation or profession; rum ejus," by which place they would exalt their as if the purpose had been, not to resist and extincivil death and regular professions,) but upon this guish perturbations, but to fly and avoid the defence, that the monastical life is not simply con- causes of them, and to shape a particular kind templative, but performeth the duty either of in- and course of life to that end; introducing such cessant prayers and supplications, which hath a health of mind, as was that health of body of been truly esteemed as an office in the church, or which Aristotle speaketh of Herodicus, who did else of writing or in taking instructions for writ-nothing all his life long but intend his health: ing concerning the law of God, as Moses did whereas if men refer themselves to duties of when he abode so long in the mount. And so we society, as that health of body is best, which is see Enoch the seventh from Adam, who was the ablest to endure all alterations and extremities: first contemplative, and walked with God, yet so likewise that health of mind is most proper, did also endow the church with prophecy, which which can go through the greatest temptations St. Jude citeth. But for contemplation which and perturbations. So as Diogenes's opinion is should be finished in itself, without casting beams to be accepted, who commended not them which upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not. abstained, but them which sustained, and could It decideth also the controversies between Zeno refrain their mind "in præcipitio," and could give and Socrates, and their schools and successions, unto the mind, as is used in horsemanship, the on the one side, who placed felicity in virtue sim- shortest stop or turn. ply 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

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 Gonsalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, "e telâ crassiore," and not so fine as that every thing should catch in it and endanger it.

vision of conservative and perfective. 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 cœlestis origo."

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 æsti- His approach or assumption to divine or angelimamus mori tardius," and "Ne glorieris de cras- cal nature is the perfection of his form; the error tino, nescis partum diei," it maketh us to desire or false imitation of which good is that which is to have somewhat secured and exempted from the tempest of human life; while man, upon the time, which are only our deeds and works: as it instinct of an advancement formal and essential, is is said, "Opera eorum sequuntur eos." The pre- carried to seek an advancement local. For as those eminence likewise of this active good is upheld which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up by the affection which is natural in man towards and down and change place, as if by a remove variety and proceeding; which in the pleasures local they could obtain a remove internal; so is of the sense, which is the principal part of pas-it with men in ambition, when failing of the means sive good, can have no great latitude: "Cogita to exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuaquamdiu 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 case 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, The former question being debated between and infinite other in smaller model, who would Socrates and a sophist, Socrates placing felicity have all men happy or unhappy as they were their in an equal and constant peace of mind, and the friends or enemies, and would give form to the sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they world, according to their own humours, which is fell from argument to ill words: the sophist saythe true theomachy,) pretendeth and aspireth to ing that Socrates's felicity was the felicity of a active good, though it recedeth farthest from good block or stone; and Socrates saying that the soof society, which we have determined to be the phist's felicity was the felicity of one that had the greater. itch, who did nothing but itch and scratch. And To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdi-both these opinions do not want their supports;

tion to exalt their place. So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative or perfective.

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 the most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and the 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 the quality, the other by vicissitude; the one having less mixture of evil, the other more 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.