OF WISDOM THREE BOOKS WRITTEN IN FRENCH by PETER CHARRON Doct of Law in Paris. Translated by Samson Lennard AT LONDON PRINTED For Edward Blount & Will Aspley Gulielmus Hole fecit The subject and order of these three Books. THe First Book teacheth the knowledge of ourselves and our human condition, which is the foundation of Wisdom, by five great and principal considerations of man, and containeth 62. Chapters. The Second containeth the principal rules of Wisdom, the privileges and proper qualities of a wise man, and hath 12. Chapters. The Third, in a Discourse of the four Moral virtues, Prudence, justice, Fortitude, Temperance, setteth down the particular instructions of Wisdom in 43. Chapters. TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY Prince, HENRY, Prince of GREAT BRITAIN, Son and Heir apparent to our Sovereign Lord the King. DEceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil, but to the Counsellors of peace shall be joy. It is the saying (most excellent Prince) of the wisest Prince: that ever lived; and it is the unspeakable happiness of us that live under the gracious government of your renowned Father, that he doth not only approve what he said, but practise it too, and in the whole course of his government finds it to be true: for peace he counseleth, and joy, and peace, and content he enjoyeth: nay, it is by his wisdom and provident care that we are all at peace with the whole world, and the whole world with us: a blessing that few Kingdoms of the earth do truly enjoy; and the greatness whereof we know not because we enjoy it. It is an Argument unto myself of that inward peace that his Highness hath with God and his own soul: for, Pax a nobis incipit, quia dum lex carnis repugnat legimentis, non modò alteri sed nec nobis possumus esse pacifici: sed postquam intus spiritus imperat ut totus homo spiritui seruiat, tunc pax ad alios derivatur, ut pacem cum omnibus habeamus. And he that never spoke but wisely saith, When the ways of a man please the Lord, he will make all his enemies at peace with him. Ever may all his enemies be at peace with him, and he with his enemies: and let all that love the peace of our Jerusalem say, A men. This peace (right excellent Prince) whose nature it is to turn swords into mattocks, soldiers into husbandmen, (for as much as my education made me not fit for that) hath turned my sword into a pen. Then my profession was arms, and I fought for peace; which since we now enjoy, I thought I should dishonour so honourable a profession too much, to be idle, and abuse so excellent a blessing as peace is, by making it the mother of so untoward a child. hereupon I hung up my sword to rust in the scabbard till good occasion might draw it forth again; and long I had not thought with myself which way I might serve my King and my Country in these peaceable times, but this book fell into my hands; which when I had read, I thought worthy the translation: and though I had no reason to think the translation worthy your highness protection, yet the matter fittest for a Prince, and your Princely clemency to others in the like kind, have emboldened me to become humble petitioner to your Highness, that you would be pleased to honour the excellency of the work with your patronage, and protect my infirmities. The subject of this work is Wisdom: And what fit for a Prince? If you honour it, it will honour you as it hath done your royal Father, whom it hath crowned with honour as with a garland, made the mirror of Princes, and the wonder of the world. Long may you live an heir apparent to his virtues and to his Kingdoms, and when God shall have turned his earthly crown into a crown of glory, long may you reign a glorious Son of so glorious a Father. Your HIGHNESS in all humbleness of duty to be commanded, Samson Lennard. To the Reader. I Doubt not (gentle Reader) but some there are that will not gently censure these my labours; for I am not ignorant how hard a thing it is to please all. Some are curious, whom if I should endeavour to please, I should displease myself: Some are envious, and those I care not whether I please or no. As for the judicious Reader, I confess I would willingly content him, because if he be truly judicious he will judge of my faults as if they were his own, and rather commend my good endeavours, than condemn my infirmities. This is the man whom I desire to satisfy, and must give to understand that I have used a plain English phrase, because the gravity of the matter required it; and I love not to smell of the inkhorn: and of all others I have avoided the French, wherein it was written, because I would not have it seem to be a translation. The Latin I have left untouched; and if that be a fault, I disburden it upon the Author: He did it; and why not I? And if he thought all French men understood it; why should not I have as good a conceit of my Countrymen? If he thought none fit to read his book, but such as understood it, it is no fault in me if I think so too. Howsoever, or whatsoever my oversights may be (which I doubt not but a curious eye may make too many) let it suffice that I acknowledge mine own weakness, and both in respect of the tongue and weight of the matter if self, should not have presumed to have undergone so heavy a burden, had I not been encouraged by my learned, judicious and honest friend M. Roger web, sometime student and fellow of S. john's College in Oxford; from whose fullness I am not ashamed to confess I have received that little sufficiency, whatsoever it be, that is in me, and whose learned assistance I have used both in the cull, and altering of such points as were either erroneous, or not otherwise fit to pass the press. If any man shall think, that by this ingenious acknowledgement of his worthiness I detract from mine own sufficiency, it sufficeth my turn, if I add unto mine own honesty by yielding this thankful requital of his love towards me, and his labours bestowed upon me; which forasmuch as they were not mercenary, but friendly and neighbourly, they do bind me the rather with my labours to honour him. Touching the Author of this Work I can say little, because I knew him not, let his work commend him; and as for the work, let it commend itself: for I had rather with silence pass that over which I can not sufficiently commend, than derogate any thing from the worth thereof by speaking too little. Let me only say, That if I have any way wronged him in these my labours (by turning him out of his holy days suit into his worky-dayes apparel) I am sorry for it; it was not my purpose so to do, but to honour him. And howsoever our English attire may alter him in the outward appearance, yet my hope is, that he that prieth into him with a single impartial eye, shall find him no changeling, but one and the same. S. L. A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS of these three Books of Wisdom. THe Preface containing a Discourse of the name, subject, purpose and method of this work, with an advertisement unto the Reader. The First Book, of the knowledge of ourselves and human condition. An exhortation to the study and knowledge of ourselves. The Preface of the First Book. The first Consideration of man, which is natural, by all the parts whereof he is composed. CHAP. 1 OF the frame of man. PAGE. 7 CHAP. 2 The first and general distinction of man. PAGE. 10 CHAP. 3 Of the body, & first, of all the parts thereof with their places. PAGE. 12 CHAP. 4 Of the singular properties of the body of man. PAGE. 15 CHAP. 5 Of the goods of the body, Health, Beauty, etc. PAGE.. 16 CHAP. 6 Of the vestments of the body. PAGE. 20 CHAP. 7 Of the soul in general. PAGE. 22 CHAP. 8 Of the soul in particular, & first of the vegetative faculty. PAGE. 34 CHAP. 9 Of the sensitine faculty. PAGE. 35 CHAP. 10 Of the senses of Nature. PAGE. 37 CHAP. 11 Of Sight, Hearing, and Speech. PAGE. 42 CHAP. 12 Of the other faculties, imaginative, memorative, appetitive. PAGE. 45 CHAP. 13 Of the intellective and truly human faculty. PAGE. 46 CHAP. 14 Of the human spirit, the parts, functions, qualities, reason, invention, verity thereof. PAGE. 54 CHAP. 15 Of Memory. PAGE. 65 CHAP. 16 Of the imagination and opinion. PAGE. 66 CHAP. 17 Of the will.. PAGE. 69 Of Passions and Affection, with an Advertisement. PAGE. 70 CHAP. 18 Of Passions in general. PAGE. 71 Of Passions in particular, with an Advertisement. PAGE. 75 CHAP. 19 Of Love in general. PAGE. 75 CHAP. 20 Of Ambition. PAGE. 76 CHAP. 21 Of Covetousness and her counterpassion. PAGE. 80 CHAP. 22 Of carnal love. PAGE. 83 CHAP. 23 Desires, Lust, or Concupiscence. PAGE. 85 CHAP. 24 Hope, Despair. PAGE. 86 CHAP. 25 Of Choler. PAGE. 87 CHAP. 26 Hatred. PAGE. 90 CHAP. 27 Envy. PAGE. 91 CHAP. 28 jealousy. PAGE. 91 CHAP. 29 Revenge. PAGE. 92 CHAP. 30 Cruelty. PAGE. 94 CHAP. 31 Sadness or heaviness of heart. PAGE. 94 CHAP. 32 Compassion. PAGE. 98 CHAP. 33 Fear. PAGE. 99 CHAP. 34 The second Consideration of man, by comparing him with all other creatures. PAGE. 101 The third Consideration of man, which is by his life. PAGE. 113 CHAP. 35 The estimation, brevity, description of the life of man, and the parts thereof. PAGE. 113 The fourth Consideration of man moral, by his manners, humours, conditions, very lively and notable. PAGE. 118 The Preface. CHAP. 36 Vanity. PAGE. 119 CHAP. 37 Weakness or infirmity. PAGE. 124 CHAP. 38 Inconstancy. PAGE. 136 CHAP. 39 Misery. PAGE. 137 CHAP. 40 Presumption. PAGE. 152 The fift and last Consideration of man, by the great varieties and differences which are in him, and their comparisons. PAGE. 161 CHAP. 41 Of the difference and inequality of men in general. PAGE. 161 CHAP. 42 The first natural and essential difference of men, drawn from the diversity of the site or situation of the world. PAGE. 163 CHAP. 43 The second distinction and more subtle difference of the spirits and sufficiencies of men. PAGE. 168 CHAP. 44 The third distinction and difference of men accidental, of their degrees, estates, and charges. PAGE. 171 Of the estates and degrees of men in particular, with an Advertisement. PAGE. 173 CHAP. 45 Of commanding and obeying. PAGE. 174 CHAP. 46 Of Marriage. PAGE. 175 CHAP. 47 Of Parents and Children. PAGE. 184 CHAP. 48 Of Lords and slaves, Masters and servants. PAGE. 187 CHAP. 49 Of the State, Sovereignty, and Sovereigns. PAGE. 189 CHAP. 50 Of Magistrates. PAGE. 196 CHAP. 51 Of Lawyers, Doctors and Teachers. PAGE. 197 CHAP. 52 Of the people or vulgar sort. PAGE. 198 The fourth distinction & difference of men drawn from their divers professions and conditions of life. The Preface. PAGE. 201 CHAP. 53 A distinction and comparison of the three sorts and degrees of life. PAGE. 202 CHAP. 54 A comparison of the civil & sociable life with the solitary. PAGE. 203 CHAP. 55 A comparison betwixt the life led in common and in private. PAGE. 205 CHAP. 56 A comparison betwixt the country life and the citizens. PAGE. 206 CHAP. 57 Of the military profession. PAGE. 207 The fift and last distinction and difference of men drawn from the favours and disfavors of Nature and Fortune. Preface. PAGE. 209 CHAP. 58 Of Liberty and servitude. PAGE. 209 CHAP. 59 Of Nobility. PAGE. 210 CHAP. 60 Of Honour. PAGE. 213 CHAP. 61 Of Science. PAGE. 215 CHAP. 62 Of Riches and Poverty. PAGE. 217 THe Second Book, containing the instructions and general rules of Wisdom. The Preface, wherein is contained a general description of Wisdom, and the sum of this Book. 219 CHAP. 1 AN exemption and freedom from errors & the vices of the world & of passions. The first disposition to wisdom. PAGE. 223 CHAP. 2 An universal and plain liberty of spirit, both in judgement and will. The second disposition unto wisdom. PAGE. 230 CHAP. 3 A true and essential honesty, the first and fundamental part of wisdom. PAGE. 252 CHAP. 4 To have a certain end and form of life, the second foundation of wisdom. PAGE. 271 CHAP. 5 To study true piety, the first office of wisdom. PAGE. 274 CHAP. 6 To govern his desires and pleasures, the second office of wisdom. PAGE. 290 CHAP. 7 To carry himself moderately and equally in prosperity and adversity, the third office of wisdom. PAGE. 296 CHAP. 8 To obey and observe the laws, customs and ceremonies of the country, how and in what sense, the fourth office of wisdom. PAGE. 305 CHAP. 9 To carry himself well with another, the fift office of wisdom. PAGE. 316 CHAP. 10 To carry himself wisely in his affairs, the sixth office of wisdom. PAGE. 320 CHAP. 11 To keep himself always ready for death, a fruit of wisdom. PAGE. 328 CHAP. 12 To maintain himself in true tranquility of Spirit, the fruit and crown of wisdom, and conclusion of this Book. PAGE. 346 THe Third Book, wherein are handled the particular documents of wisdom by the four moral virtues. The Preface. 349 Of Prudence, the first virtue. CHAP. 1 OF Prudence in general. PAGE. 350 Of the politic Prudence of a Sovereign to govern a State. The Preface. PAGE. 353 CHAP. 2 The first part of this politic Prudence and government of a State, which is Provision. PAGE. 354 CHAP. 3 The second part of this politic Prudence and government of a State, which concerneth the action and government of the Prince. PAGE. 378 CHAP. 4 Of that Prudence which is required in difficult affairs and ill accidents, public and private. Preface. PAGE. 403 1 Of the evils and accidents which threaten us. PAGE. 404 2 Of evils and accidents present, pressing & extreme. PAGE. 404 3 Doubtful and ambiguous affairs. PAGE. 406 4 Difficult and dangerous affairs. PAGE. 406 5 Conjurations. PAGE. 407 6 Treason. PAGE. 409 7 Popular commotions. PAGE. 410 8 Faction and confederacy. PAGE. 411 9 Sedition. PAGE. 412 10 Tyranny and rebellion. PAGE. 414 11 Civil wars. PAGE. 415 12 advisements for particular persons touching the foresaid public divisions. PAGE. 416 13 Of private troubles and divisions. PAGE. 419 Of justice the second virtue. CHAP. 5 Of justice in general. PAGE. 419 CHAP. 6 Of the justice and duty of a man towards himself. PAGE. 422 Of the justice and duty of a man towards man, with an Advertisement. PAGE. 428 The first part, which is of the general and common duties of all towards all, and first CHAP. 7 Of Love or friendship. PAGE. 429 CHAP. 8 Of Faith, fidelity, treachery, secrecy. PAGE. 436 CHAP. 9 Verity and free admonition. PAGE. 439 CHAP. 10 Of flattery, lying and dissimulation. PAGE. 441 CHAP. 11 Of benefits, obligation, and thankfulness. PAGE. 446 The second part, which concerneth the special duties of certain men towards certain men, by certain and special obligation. The Preface. PAGE. 453 CHAP. 12 The duty of married folk. PAGE. 454 CHAP. 13 Household husbandry. PAGE. 456 CHAP. 14 The duty of Parents and children. PAGE. 457 CHAP. 15 The duty of Masters and servants: PAGE.. 486 CHAP. 16 The duty of Sovereigns and subjects. PAGE. 488 CHAP. 17 The duty of Magistrates. PAGE. 491 CHAP. 18 The duty of great and small. PAGE. 497 Of Fortitude, the third virtue. Preface. PAGE. 498 CHAP. 19 Of Fortitude or valour in general, PAGE. 499 Of Fortitude or valour in particular. PAGE. 503 CHAP. 20 The first part of outward evils. PAGE. 504 CHAP. 21 Of outward evils considered in their effects and fruits. PAGE. 509 Of outward evils in themselves and particularly. An Advertisement. PAGE. 510 CHAP. 22 Of Sickness and grief. PAGE. 511 CHAP. 23 Of Captivity and imprisonment. PAGE. 513 CHAP. 24 Of Banishment and exile. PAGE. 515 CHAP. 25 Of Poverty, want, loss of goods. PAGE. 516 CHAP. 26 Of Infamy. PAGE. 518 27 Of the loss of friends. PAGE. 519 CHAP. Of Death. PAGE. 520 The second part of inward evils, etc. The Preface. PAGE. 520 CHAP. 28 Against Fear. PAGE. 521 CHAP. 29 Against Sorrow. PAGE. 522 CHAP. 30 Against Compassion and mercy. PAGE. 523 CHAP. 31 Against Choler. PAGE. 524 CHAP. 32 Against Hatred. PAGE. 528 CHAP. 33 Against Envy. PAGE. 528 CHAP. 34 Against Revenge. PAGE. 529 CHAP. 35 Against jealousy. PAGE. 530 Of Temperance the fourth virtue. CHAP. 36 Of Temperance in general. PAGE. 532 CHAP. 37 Of Prosperity, and counsel thereupon. PAGE. 533 CHAP. 38 Of Pleasure, and advice thereupon. PAGE. 534 CHAP. 39 Of Eating and drinking, Abstinence and sobriety. PAGE. 539 CHAP. 40 Of Riot and excess in apparel and ornaments, and of frugality. PAGE. 541 CHAP. 41 Carnal pleasure, chastity, continency. PAGE. 542 CHAP. 42 Of Glory and ambition. PAGE. 545 CHAP. 43 Of temperancy in speech, and of Eloquence. PAGE. 547 The end of the Table. OF WISDOM Three Books. THE PREFACE: Where the Name, Subject, Purpose, and Method of this Work is set down, with an Advertisement to the Reader. IT is required at the first entry into 1 Of the word Wisdom. this Work, that we know what this Wisdom is; and since it beareth that name and title, how we purpose to speak thereof. All men in general at the first view of the simple word itself, do easily conceive and imagine it to be some quality, sufficiency, or habit, not common or vulgar, but excellent, singular, and elevated above that which is common and ordinary, be it good or evil: For it is taken and used (though perhaps improperly) in both kinds: Sapientes sunt ut faciant mala: and signifieth not Hierem. 4. Arist. lib. 5. Metaphy. properly a good and laudable quality, but exquisite, singular, excellent in whatsoever it be. And therefore we do as well say, A wise Tyrant, Pirate, Thief; as A wise King, Pilot, Captain: that is to say, Sufficient, prudent, advised; not simply and vulgarly, but excellently: For there is opposite unto Wisdom not only folly, which is an irregularity or looseness of life, and Wisdom a regularity or moderation, well measured and proportioned: but also common baseness and vulgar Simplicity: For Wisdom is high, strong, and excellent; yea, whether it be in good or evil it containeth two things: Sufficiency, that is, Provision or furnture for whatsoever is required and necessary; and that it be in some high degree of excellency. So that you see what the simpler sort imagine Wisdom to be at the first view and the simple sound of the word; whereby they conclude, That there are few wise men, that they are rare as every excellency is; and that to them by right it appertaineth to command and govern others; that they are as Oracles: from whence is that saying, Believe others, and refer thyself to the wise. But well to define this thing and according to truth, and to distinguish it into his true parts, all men know not, neither are they of one accord, nor is it easy; for otherwise do the common people, otherwise the Philosophers, otherwise the Divines speak thereof. These are the three floors and degrees of the world. The two latter proceed by order, and rules, and precepts: the former confusedly and very imperfectly. Now than we may say, That there are three sorts 2 The division of Wisdom. and degrees of wisdom, Divine, human, Mundane, which correspond unto God; Nature pure and entire; Nature vitiated and corrupted. Of all these sorts and every of them do all these three orders of the world, which before we speak of, writ and discourse, every one according to his own manner and fashion; but properly and formally the common sort, that is to say, the world of worldly wisdom, the Philosopher of human, the Divine of divine wisdom. Worldly wisdom, and of the three the more base, 3 Worldly wisdom. (which is divers according to the three great Captains and Leaders of this inferior world, opulency, Pleasure, Glory, or rather Avarice, Luxury, Ambition: Quicquid est in mundo est concupiscentia oculorum, 1. john 3. concupiscentia carnis, superbia vitae; for which cause it is called by S. james, Terrena, Animalis, Diabolica) james 3. is reproved by Philosophy and Divinity, which pronounceth it folly before God: Stultam fecit 1. Cor. 1. Deus sapientiam huius mundi. Of this wisdom therefore we speak not in this Book, except it be to dispraise and condemn it. Divine wisdom, and of the three the highest, is defined 4 Divine wisdom. and handled by Philosophers and Divines, but somewhat diversly. As for the common or worldly wisdom I disdain it, and pass by whatsoever may be spoken thereof as profane and too unworthy in this Treatise to be read. The Philosophers make it altogether Speculative, saying, That it is the knowledge of the principles, first causes, and highest power to judge of all things, even of the most Sovereign, which is God himself: and this wisdom is Metaphysical, and resideth wholly in the understanding, as being the chief good and perfection thereof: it is the first and Thom. 1. 2. quaest. 57 2. 2. q. 19 highest of the five intellectual virtues, which may be without either honesty, action, or other moral virtue. The Divines make it not altogether so speculative, but that it is likewise in some sort Practic, for they say, That it is the knowledge of Divine things, from which there ariseth a judgement and rule of human actions; and they make it twofold, The one acquired by study, and comes near to that of the Philosophers; which I am to speak of: The other infused and given by God, De sursum descendens. This is the first of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, Spiritus Domini, spiritus sapientiae, which is not found but only in those that are just and free from sin, In malevolam animam Sap. 1. non introibit sapientia. Of this Divine wisdom likewise our purpose is not here to speak, it is after some sort and measure handled in my first Verity, and in my Discourses of Divinity. It followeth therefore, that it is human wisdom 5 human. which in this Book we are to deliver unto you, and whereof it takes the name, and of which in this place we must give some brief and general view, which may be as an Argument and summary of this whole work. The common descriptions are divers and insufficient; Wisdom according to the common sort. Some and the greatest part think that it is only a wisdom, discretion, and advised carriage in a man's affairs and conversation. This may well be called common, as respecting nothing but that which is outward and in action, and considereth not at all any other thing than that which outwardly appeareth. It is altogether in the eyes and ears of men, without any respect or very little of the inward motions of the mind: so that according to their opinion wisdom may be without essential piety or probity, that is, a beautiful cunning, a sweet and modest subtlety. Others think that it is a rude, unreasonable, rough singularity, a kind of sullen frowning and frampold austerity in opinions, manners, words, actions and fashion of life; and therefore they call them that are wounded and touched with that humour Philosophers, that is to say, in their counterfeit language, fantastical, divers, different and declining from the customs of other men. Now this kind of wisdom according to the doctrine of our book is rather a folly and extravagancy. You must therefore know, that this wisdom whereof we speak is not that of the common people, but of Philosophers and Divines, whereof both have written in their moral learn. The Philosophers more at According to Philosophers and Divines. large, and more professedly as being their true and proper dish they feed on, and formal subject they writ of, because they apply themselves to that which concerneth Nature and Action. Divinity mounteth A comparison betwixt Divinity & Philosophy. much higher, and is occupied about virtues infused, Contemplative and Divine, that is to say, about Divine wisdom and Belief. So that Philosophers are more stayed, dispersed more certain, and more common, ruling and instructing not only the particular knowledge or actions of men, but the common and public, teaching that which is good and profitable to Families, Corporations, Commonweals, Empires. Divinity is more sparing and silent in this point, looking principally into the eternal good and salvation of every one. Again, the Philosopher handleth this subject more sweetly and pleasingly, the Divine more austerely and drily. Again, Philosophy which is the elder (for Nature is more ancient than Grace, and the Natural than the Supernatural) seemeth to persuade graciously, as being willing to please in profiting, as the Poet speaketh: Simul & jucunda & idonea dicere vita Horace. Lectorem delect ando, pariterque monando. It is enriched with discourses, reasons, inventions, examples, similitudes, decked with speeches, Apothegms, sententious mots, adorned with Eloquence and Arte. theology, which came after, altogether austere, it seemeth to command and imperiously like a Master to enjoin. And to conclude, the virtue and honesty of Divines is too anxious, scrupulous, deject, sad, fearful and vulgar. Philosophy, such as this Book teacheth, is altogether pleasant, free, buxom, and if I may so say, wanton too; and yet notwithstanding, puissant, noble, generous, and rare. Doubtless the Philosophers have herein been excellent, not only in writing and teaching, but in the rich and lively representation thereof in their honourable and heroical lives. I understand here by Philosophers and Wise men, not only those that have carried the name of Wise men, such as Thales, Solon, and the rest of that rank, that lived in the time of Cyrus, Croesus, Pisistrates; nor those that came afterwards, and have publicly taught it, as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aristippus, Zenon, Antisthenes, all chief Professors apart, and many other their Disciples different and divided in sects; but also all those great men who have made singular and exemplary profession of virtue and wisdom, as Photion, Aristides, Pericles, Alexander, whom Plutarch called as well a Philosopher as a King, Epaminondas, and divers other Greeks: The Fabricij, Fabiuses, Camilli, Catoni, Torquati, Reguli, Lelij, Scipioni, Romans, who for the most part have been Generals in armies. And these are the reasons why in this my Book I do more willingly and ordinarily follow the advice and sayings of Philosophers, not in the mean time omitting or rejecting those of the Divines: For both in substance they do all agree, and are very sold me different, and Divinity doth nothing disdain to employ, and to make good use of the wise sayings of Philosophy. If I had undertaken to instruct the cloister, and the retired life, that is, that profession which attendeth the secrets evangelical, I must necessarily have followed adamussim the advice of the Divines: but our Book instructeth a civil life, formeth a man for the world, that is to say, to human wisdom, not divine. We say then naturally and generally both with the 6 A general description of human wisdom. Philosopher and the Divine, that this human wisdom is a kind of law or reason, a beautiful and noble composition of the entire man, both in his inward part and his outward, his thoughts, his words, his actions, and all his motions. It is the excellency and perfection of man as he is man, that is to say, according to that which the first fundamental and natural law doth require; as we say, That that work is well wrought and excellent, that is complete and perfectin all the parts thereof, and wherein all the rules of Art have been observed; that man is accounted a wise man, that best knoweth after the best and most excellent manner to play the man, that is to say, (to give a more particular picture thereof) that knowing himself and the condition of man, doth keep and preserve himself from all vices, errors, passions and defects as well inward and proper to himself, as outward and common to other men, maintaining his spirit pure, free, universal, considering and judging of all things without band or affection, always ruling and directing himself in all things according to nature, that is to say, that first reason and universal law and light inspired by God, and which shineth in us, unto which he doth apply and accommodate his own proper and particular light, living in the outward view of the world, and with all men according to their laws, customs and ceremonies of the country where he is, without the offence of any, carrying himself wisely and discreetly in all affairs, walking always uprightly, constant, comfortable, and content in himself, attending peaceably whatsoever may happen, and at the last death itself. All these parts or qualities, which are many, for our better ease and facility may be drawn to four principal heads; Knowledge of ourselves, Liberty of spirit pure and generous, Imitation of Nature, (this hath a very large field, and alone might almost suffice) True contentment. These can no where be found but in him that is wise: and he that wanteth any of these can not be wise. He that hath an erroneous knowledge of himself, that subiecteth his mind to any kind of servitude, either of passions or popular opinions, makes himself partial; and by enthralling himself to some particular opinion is deprived of the liberty and jurisdiction of discerning, judging and examining all things. He that striveth against Nature, under what pretence soever it be, following rather opinion or passion than reason; he that carrieth himself troubledly, disquietly, malcontent, fearing death, is not wise. Behold here in a few words the picture of human wisdom and folly, and the sum of that which I purpose to handle in this Work, especially in the Second Book, which expressly containeth the rules, treatise, and offices of Wisdom, which is more mine than the other two, and which I once thought to have published by itself. This verbal description of Wisdom is represented unto the eye even at the entrance or threshall of this Book by a woman all naked, in a place void and empty, resting herself upon nothing, in her pure and simple nature beholding herself in a glass, her countenance cheerful, merry and manly, upright, her feet close joined, upon a square pillar, and embracing herself, having under her feet enchained four other women as slaves unto her, that is to say, Passion with a changed and hideous countenance; Opinion with wandering eyes, inconstant, giddy, borne upon the heads of the people; Superstition, astonished and in a trance, and her hands fastened the one to the other; Virtue or Honesty and Pedantical Science with a sullen visage, her eyelids elevated reading in a Book, where was written, Yea, No. All this needs no other explication, than that which hereafter followeth, but hereof more at large in the Second Book. To attain unto this wisdom there are two means, 7 Two ways to attain this wisdom. the first is in the original forming and first temper, that is to say, in the temperature of the seed of the Parents, the milk of the Nurse, and the first education; whereby a man is said to be either well borne, or ill borne, that is to say, either well or ill form and disposed unto wisdom. A man would little think of what power and importance this beginning is, for if men did know it, there would be more care taken, and diligence used therein than there is. It is a strange and lamentable thing, that so reckless a carelessness should be in us of the life and good life of those whom we desire to make our other selves, when in matters of less importance we take more care, use more diligence, more counsel than we should, never thinking of our greatest affairs and most honourable, but by hazard and peradventure. Who is he that taketh counsel with himself, or endeavoureth to do that which is required for the preserving and preparing of himself as he ought to the generation of male-childrens, healthful of spirit, and apt for wisdom? For that which serveth for the one, serveth for the other, and Nature after one manner attendeth them all. This is that which men think of least, yea little or not at all (in the act of generation) doth it enter into their thoughts to frame a new creature like themselves, but only like beasts to satisfy their lustful pleasures. This is one of the most important faults and of greatest note in a Common weal, whereof there is not one that thinketh or complaineth, neither is there concerning it either law, or rule, or public advice. It is most certain, that if men did herein carry themselves as they ought, we should have other men, of more excellent spirit and condition than we have amongst us. What is required herein, and to the first nourishment and education, is briefly set down in our Third Book, Chap. 14. The second means to attain wisdom is the study 8 Acquired. of Philosophy, I mean not of all the parts thereof, but Moral (yet not forgetting the Natural) which is the light, the guide, the rule of our life, which explaineth and representeth unto us the law of Nature, instructeth man universally in all things, both public and private, alone and in company, in all domestical and civil conversation, taketh away all that savage nature that is in us, sweeteneth and tameth our natural rudeness, cruelty and wildness, and worketh and fashioneth it to wisdom. To be brief, it is the true science of man; all the rest in respect of it is but vanity, or at the leastwise not necessary or little profitable: for it giveth instructions to live and to die well, which is all in all; it teacheth us perfect wisdom, an apt judicious well advised honesty. But this second mean is almost as little practised and as ill employed as the first: for no man careth greatly for this wisdom, so much are all given to that which is worldly. Thus you see the two principal means to attain to wisdom, the Natural and Acquired. He that hath been fortunate in the first, that is to say, that hath been favourably form by Nature, that is, of a good and sweet temperature, which bringeth forth a great goodness in nature, and sweetness in manners, hath made a fair march without great pain to the second: But that man with whom it is otherwise, must with great and painful study of the second beautify and supply that which is wanting, as Socrates one of the wisest said of himself, That by the study of Philosophy he had corrected and reform his natural infirmities. There are contrariwise two formal lets or hindrances 9 The lets to Wisdom, and means to folly are two. to wisdom, and two counter-meanes or powerful ways unto folly, Natural and Acquired. The first, which is natural, proceedeth from the original temper and temperature, which maketh the brain either too soft, moist, and the parts thereof gross and 1 Natural. material, whereby the spirits remain sottish, feeble, less capable, plain diminished, obscure, such as that is, for the most part, of the common sort of people; or too hot, ardent, and dry, which maketh the spirits foolish, audacious, vicious. These are the two extremes, Sottishness and Folly, Water and Fire, Led and Mercury, altogether improper or unapt to wisdom, which requireth a spirit full of vigour and generous, and yet sweet, pliant, and modest: but the second is more easily amended by discipline than the former. The second, which is Acquired, proceedeth either 2 Acquired. from no culture and instruction, or from that which is evil, which amongst other things consisteth in an obstinate and sworn prejudicate prevention of opinions, wherewith the mind is made drunken, and taketh so strong a tincture, that it is made unapt and uncapable to see or to find better whereby to raise and enrich itself. It is said of these kind of men, That they are wounded and stricken, that they have a hurt or blow in the head: unto which wound if likewise learning be joined, because that puffeth up, it bringeth with it presumption and temerity, and sometimes arms to maintain and defend those anticipated opinions: it altogether perfecteth the form and frame of folly, and maketh it incurable. So that natural weakness, and acquired prevention are two great hindrances; but science, if it do not wholly cure them, which seldom it doth, strengtheneth them and maketh them invincible, which turneth not any way to the dishonour of learning (as a man may well think) but to the greater honour thereof. Science or Learning is a very good and profitable 10 Of Learning. staff or waster, but which will not be handled with all hands; and he that knows not well how to rule it, receiveth thereby more hurt than profit. It besotteth and maketh foolish (saith a great learned writer) the weak See hereof Li. 3. ca 14. and sick spirit, it polisheth and perfecteth the naturally strong and good. The feeble spirit knows not how to possess science, how to handle it, and how to make use thereof as he should; but contrariwise is possessed and ruled by it, whereby he submits himself and remains a slave to it, like a weak stomach overcharged with more victuals than it can digest. A weak arm wanting power and skill well to wield a waster or staff that is somewhat too heavy for it, wearieth itself and fainteth. A wise and courageous spirit overmastereth his wisdom, enjoyeth it, useth it, and employeth it to his best advantage, informeth his own judgement, rectifieth his will, helpeth and fortifieth his natural light, and maketh himself more quick and active; whereas the other is made thereby more sottish, more unapt, and therewithal more presumptuous: so that the fault or reproach is not in learning, no more than that wine or other good drug is faulty which a man knoweth not how to apply and accommodate to his own needs: Non est culpa vini, sed culpa bibentis. Now then against such spirits weak by nature, preoccupated, puffed up, and hindered by acquired wisdom I make open war in this Book, and that often times under the word Pedante, not finding any other more Of the word Pedante or Schoolmaster. proper, and which by many good Authors is used in this sense. In it own Greek Original it was taken in the better sense, but in other later languages, by reason of the abuse, and bad carriage of such men in the profession of their learning, it is accounted base, vile, questuous, contentious, opinative, vainglorious and presumptuous, by too many practised, and used but by way of injury and derision, and is in the number of those words that by continuance of time have changed their signification, as Tyrant, Sophister, and divers other. Le sieur de Bellay, after the rehearsal of many notorious vices, concludeth as with the greatest, But of all the rest, Knowledge pedantical I detest. And in another place: Said I thou didst live but to eat and drink, Then poor were my revenge, thy faults scanty: But that which most doth make thy name to stink, Is, to be short, thou art a Pedantie. It may be some will take offence at this word, thinking An advertisement. it likewise toucheth them, and that I thereby have a will to tax or scoff the Professors and Teachers of learning; but let them be pleased to content themselves with this free and open declaration which I here make, That it is no part of my meaning to note by this word any gownsmen or learned profession whatsoever: yea I am so far from it, that Philosophers are in so high esteem with me, that I should oppose myself against myself, because I account myself one of them, and profess the same learning: only I touch a certain degree and quality of spirits, before deciphered, that is, such as have natural capacity and sufficiency after a common and indifferent manner, but afterwards not well tilled, preoccupated, possessed with certain opinions; and these are men of all fortunes, all conditions, and go as well in short garments as in long gowns: Vulgum tam chlamidatos, quàm coronam voco. If any man can furnish me with any other word as significant as this to express these kind of spirits, I will willingly forego this. After this my declaration, he that findeth himself aggrieved, shall but accuse and show himself too scrupulous. It is true that a man may find other opposites to a wise man besides a Pedante, but it is in some particular sense, as the common, profane, vulgar sort of people; and often times I use these opposites: but this is as the low is opposite to the high, the weak to the strong, the valley to the hill, the common to the rare, the servant to the master, the profane to the holy; as also a fool, which indeed according to the true sound of the word, is his truest opposite: but this is a moderate man to an immoderate, a glorious opinative man to a modest, the part to the whole, the prejudicate and tainted to the neat and free, the sick to the sound: but this word Pedante in that sense we take it, comprehendeth all these and more too, for it noteth and signifieth him that is not only unlike & contrary to a wise man, as those before mentioned, but such a one as arrogantly and insolently resisteth it to the face, and as being armed on all sides raiseth himself against it, speaking out of resolution and authority. And forasmuch as after a sort he feareth it, by reason that he seethe himself discovered even from the top to the bottom, and his sport troubled by it, he prosecuteth it with a certain intestine hatred, he taketh upon him to censure it, to defame it, to condemn it, accounting and carrying himself as the truly wise, though he be a fool without peer and an ignorant self-conceited Gull. After the purpose and argument of this Work, we 11 The method of this book. come to the order and method thereof. There are three Books: The First is wholly in the knowledge of ourselves and human condition, as a preparative unto wisdom, which is handled at large by five main and principal considerations, each one including in it divers others. The Second Book containeth in it the treatises, offices, and general and principal rules of wisdom. The Third, the particular rules and instructions of wisdom, and that by the order and discourse of four principal and moral virtues, Prudence, justice, Fortitude, Temperance; under which four is comprised the whole instruction of the life of man, and all the parts of duty and honesty. Finally, I here handle this matter, not Scholarlike or Pedantically, nor with enlarged discourse, and furniture of Eloquence or other Art; (For wisdom (quae si oculis ipsis cerneretur mirabiles excitaret amores sui) needs no such helps to commend itself, being of itself so noble and glorious) but rudely, openly, and ingeniously, which perhaps will not please all. The propositions and verities are compact, but many times dry and sour, like Aphorisms, overtures and seeds of discourse. Some think this Book too foolhardy and free 12 An Advertisement & Apology to the Reader. to contradict and wound the common opinions, and are offended therewith, whom in four or five words I thus answer: First, that wisdom which is neither common nor vulgar hath properly this liberty and authority, jure suo singulari, to judge of all, (it is the privilege of a wise and spiritual man, spiritualis omnia dijudicat, & a nemine judicatur) and in judging to censure and condemn (as for the most part erroneous) common and vulgar opinions. What then should she do? for the case standing thus, it can not be, but she must incur the disgrace and envy of the world. In another place I complain of these kind of men, and reprove their popular weakness and feminine daintiness as unworthy, being overtender and delicate, to understand any thing of worth, and altogether uncapable of wisdom. The hardest and hardiest propositions are best befitting a hardy and elevated spirit, and there can nothing seem strnage unto him that doth but know what the world is. It is weakness to be astonished at any thing, we must rouse up our hearts, confirm and strengthen our minds, harden and enure ourselves to hear, to know, to understand, to judge of all things seem they never so strange. All things are agreeing and well befitting the palate of the spirit, so a man be not wanting unto himself, and neither do any thing, or yield his consent to whatsoever is not good and truly fair, no though the whole world persuade him unto it. A wise man showeth equally in them both his courage, his delicates are not capable of the one or the other, there being a weakness in them both. Thirdly, in all that I shall propose, my meaning is not to bind any man unto it, I only present things, and lay them out as it were upon a stall; I grow not into choler with any man that gives me no credit, or dislikes my ware, that were to play the Pedante. Passion witnesseth that it is not reason so to do, and he that out of passion doth any thing out of reason can not do it. But why are they angry with me? Is it because I am not altogether of their opinion? Why, I am not angry with them because they are not of mine. Is it because I speak something which is not pleasing to their taste, or to the palate of the vulgar sort? Why therefore I speak it. I speak nothing without reason, if they knew how to understand it, how to relish it. If they can bring better reason to disprove mine, I will hearken unto it with delight and thanks to him that shall show it me. But yet let them not think to beat me down with authorities, multitudes, and allegations of other men, for these have but small credit in my jurisdiction, save in matter of Religion, where only authority prevails without reason. This is authorities true Empire, reason only bearing sway in all other Arts without it, as S. Augustine doth very well acknowledge. For it is an unjust tyranny and an enraged folly to subject and in thrall our spirits to believe and to follow whatsoever our Ancestors have said, and what the vulgar sort hold to be true, who know neither what they say, nor what they do. There are none but fools that suffer themselves to be thus led by the noses: and this Book is not for such, which if it should popularly be received and accepted of the common sort of people, it should fail much in it first purpose and designment. We must hear, consider, make account of our ancient Writers, not captivate ourselves unto them but with reason. And if a man would follow them, what should he do? for they agree not among themselves. Aristotle who would seem to be the most sufficient amongst them, and hath adventured to challenge & to censure all that went before him, hath uttered more gross absurdities than them all, and is at no agreement with himself, neither doth he know many times where he is; witness his Treatises of the Soul of man, of the Eternity of the world, of the Generation of the winds and waters, and so forth. It is no cause of wonder or astonishment, that all men are not of one opinion; but it were rather strange and wonderful, that all men were of one opinion: for there is nothing more befitting Nature and the spirit of man than variety. That wise Divine S. Paul giveth us this liberty, in that he Rom. 14. willeth every man to abound in his own understanding, not judging or condemning that man that doth otherwise, or think otherwise. And he speaketh it in a matter of greater moment and more ticklish, not in that which consisteth in outward action and observation, wherein we say we are to conform ourselves to the common sort, and to that which is prescribed and accustomed to be done, but also in that which concerneth Religion, that is, the religious observance of ●●ands and days: whereas all that liberty and boldness of speech which I challenge unto myself, is but in thoughts, judgements, opinions, in which no man is quartermaster but he that hath them, every man about himself. Not withstanding all this, many things which may seem too harsh and brief, too rude and difficult for the simpler sort (for the stronger and wiser have stomachs warm enough to concoct and digest all) I have for the love of them explicated, enlightened and sweetened in this second Edition, reviewed, and much augmented. I would willingly advertise the Reader that shall undertake to judge of this Work, to take heed that he fall not into any of these seven oversights, as some others have done; that is: To refer that unto law and duty, which is proper unto action; that unto action, which is only to be censured; that to resolution and determination, which is only proposed, consulted of, and problematically and Academically disputed; that to me and mine opinions, which I deliver from report, and is the opinion of another man; that to the outward state, profession, and condition, which is proper to the spirit and inward sufficiency; that to religion and faith, which is but the opinion of man; that to grace and supernatural inspiration, which is proper to natural and moral virtue and action. All passion and preoccupation being taken away, he shall find in these seven points well understood how to resolve himself in his doubts, how to answer all objections, made by himself or by others, and inform himself touching my intention in this work. And if nevertheless after all this, he will neither rest satisfied and contented, nor approve what I have written, let him boldly and speedily disprove it (for only to speak ill, to bite, to slander the name of another man, though it be easy enough, yet it is base and pedantical) and he shall as speedily receive either a free confession and assent, (for this Book doth glory and feast itself in the truth and ingenuity thereof) or an examination of the impertinencies and follies thereof. FINIS. OF WISDOM, THE FIRST BOOK, Which is the knowledge of ourselves and our human condition. An exhortation to the study and knowledge of ourselves. THE PREFACE TO THE First Book. THE most excellent and divine counsel, 1 The knowledge of ourselves, the first thing. the best and most profitable advertisement of all others, but the least practised, is to study and learn how to know ourselves: This is the foundation of Wisdom and the high way to whatsoever is good; and there is no folly comparable to this, To be painful and diligent to know all things else whatsoever rather than ourselves: for the true science and study of man, is man himself. God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, and exhort 2 Enjoined to all by all reason. him both by word and deed to the study and knowledge of himself. God eternally and without intermission beholdeth, considereth, knoweth himself. The world hath all the lights thereof contracted and united within itself, and the eyes open to see and behold itself. It is as necessary for man to learn how to know himself, as it is natural unto him to think, or to be near unto himself: Nature hath enjoined this work unto all. To meditate & to entertain our thoughts therein is a thing above all things easy, ordinary, natural; it is the food, sustentation, life of the spirit, Cuius vivere est cogitare. Now where can a man begin, or continue his meditations more truly, more naturally than with himself? Is there any thing that toucheth him more nearly? Doubtless, to study other learn, and to forget ourselves, is a thing both unnatural and unjust. The true and principal vacation of every man is to employ his thoughts upon himself, and to tie himself to himself; for so doth every thing else, setting bounds and limits to their other business and desires. And thou man which wilt seem to contain the whole universe, to know all things, to control, to judge, neither knowest nor endevourest the knowledge of thyself; and so going about to make thyself skilful and a judge of Nature, thou provest the only fool of the world: thou art of all other the most beggarly, the most vain and miserable; and yet most proud and arrogant. Look therefore into thyself, know thyself, hold thyself to thyself; thy spirit and will which is else where employed, reduce it unto thyself. Thou forgettest thyself, and losest thyself about outward things; thou betrayest and disrobest thyself; thou lookest always before thee; gather thyself unto thyself, and shut up thyself within thyself: examine, search, know thyself. Nosce teipsum: nec te quaesiveris extra. Respue quod non es. Tecum habita & noris quam sit tibi curta supellex. Tu te consul. Teipsum concute, nunquid vitiorum Inseverit olim natura, aut etiam consuetudo mala. By the knowledge of himself man arriveth sooner and better 3 The ladder to the knowledge of the divine nature. to the knowledge of God, than by any other means, both because he findeth in himself better helps, more marks and footsteps of the divine nature, than in whatsoever beside he can any way know, and because he can better understand and know that which is in himself than in another thing. Formasti me & posuisti super me manum tuam, ideo mirabilis Psalm. facta est scientia tua, id est, tui, ex me: And therefore there was engraven in letters of gold over the Porch of the Temple of Apollo the god (according to the paynim) of Knowledge and Light, this sentence, KNOW THYSELF, as a salutation and advertisement of God unto all; signifying unto them, that he that would have access unto that Divinity, and entrance into that Temple, must first know himself, and could not otherwise be admitted. Si te ignoras ô pulcherrima Cantic. egredere, & abi post hoedos tuos. To become truly wise, and to lead a life more regular and 4 Disposition unto wisdom. pleasant, there needs no other instruction but from ourselves: and doubtless, if we were good scholars, there are no books could better instruct us, than we teach ourselves. He that shall call to mind, and consider the excess of his passed choler, even how far this fever and frenzy hath carried him, shall better be persuaded of the foul deformity of this passion, than by all the reason that Aristotle or Plato can allege against it: and so of all other passions and motions of the soul whatsoever. He that shall call to mind how often he hath miscarried in his judgement, and been deceived by his memory, shall learn thereby to trust it no more. He that shall note how often he hath held an opinion, and in such sort understood a thing even to the engaging of his own credit, and the satisfying of himself and any other therein, and that afterwards time hath made him see the truth even the contrary to that he formerly held, may learn to distrust his own judgement, and to shake off that importunate arrogancy and querulous presumption; a capital enemy to discipline & truth. He that shall well note and consider all those evils that he hath run into, that have threatened him; the light occasions that have altered his courses and turned him from one estate to another; how often repentances and mislikes have come into his head; will prepare himself against future changes, learn to know his own condition; will preserve his modesty, contain himself within his own rank, offend no man, trouble nothing, nor enterprise any thing that may pass his own forces: And what were this but to see justice and peace in every thing? To be brief, we have no clearer looking glass, no better book than ourselves, if as we ought we do study ourselves, always keeping our eyes open over us, and prying more narrowly into ourselves. But this is that which we think least of, Nemo in se tentat 5 Against such as misknow themselves. descendere: whereby it cometh to pass that we fall many times to the ground, and tumble headlong into the same fault, neither perceiving it, nor knowing to what course to betake us: we make ourselves fools at our own charges. Difficulties in every thing are not discerned, but by those that know them: and some degree of understanding is necessary even in the marking of our own ignorance. We must knock at the door to know whether the door be shut: for when men see themselves resolved & satisfied of a thing, and think they sufficiently understand it, it is a token they understand nothing at all: for if we know ourselves well, we would provide far better for ourselves and our affairs; nay, we should be ashamed of ourselves and our estate, and frame ourselves to be others than we are. He that knows not his own infirmities, takes no care to amend them; he that is ignorant of his own wants, takes as little care to provide for them; he that feels not his own evils and miseries, adviseth not with himself of helps, nor seeks for remedies. Deprehendas te oportet priusquam emendes: sanitatis initium sentire sibi opus esse remedio. And here behold our unhappiness: for we think all things goes well with us, and we are in safety, and we live in content with ourselves, and so double our miseries. Socrates was accounted the wisest man of the world, not because his knowledge was more complete, or his sufficiency greater than others, but because his knowledge of himself was better than others; in that he held himself within his own rank, and knew better how to play the man. He was the king of men, as it is said, that he that hath but one eye is a king in respect of him that hath never an eye; that is to say, doubly deprived of his sense: for they are by nature weak and miserable, and therewithal proud, and feel not their misery. Socrates was but purblind, for being a man as others were, weak and miserable, he knew it, and ingeniously acknowledged his condition, and lived, and governed himself according unto it. This is that which the Truth itself spoke unto those which were full of presumption, and by way of mockery said unto him, Are we blind also? If ye were blind, saith he, that is, if joh. 9 you thought yourselves blind, you should see, but because ye think ye see, therefore you are blind; therefore your sin remaineth. For they that in their own opinion see much, are in truth stark blind; and they that are blind in their own opinion see best. It is a miserable thing in a man, to make himself a beast by forgetting himself to be a man. Homo enim cum sis, id fac semper intelligas. Many great personages as a rule or bridle to themselves have ordained that one or other should ever buzz into their ears that they were men. O what an excellent thing was this, if it entered aswell into their hearts, as it sounded in their ears? That Mot of the Athenians to Pompey the Great, Thou art so much a God, as thou acknowledgest thyself to be a man, was no ill saying: for at the least to be an excellent man, is to confess himself to be a man. The knowledge of ourselves (a thing as difficult and rare 6 False means to know ourselves. as to misdeem and deceive ourselves easy) is not obtained by any other, that is to say, by the comparison, rule, or example of another; Plus alijs de te quam tu tibi credere noli. much less also by our speech and judgement, which oftentimes cometh short to discern, and we disloyal and fearful to speak: nor by any singular act, which sometimes unawares hath escaped a man, pricked forward by some new, rare, and accidental occasion, and is rather a trick of Fortune, or an eruption of some extraordinary lunacy than any production of fruit truly ours. A man judgeth not of the greatness or depth of a river, by that water which by reason of some sudden inundation of neighbour rivers overfloweth the banks. One valiant act makes not a valiant man, nor one just a just man. The circumstances and source of occasions doth import much and alter us, and oftentimes a man is provoked to do good by vice itself: So hard a thing is it for man to know man. Nor likewise by all those outward things that are outwardly adjacent unto us, as offices, dignities, riches, nobility, grace, and applause of the greatest peers and common people. Nor by the carriages of a man in public places is a man known; for as a king at chess so he standeth upon his guard, he bridleth and contracteth himself; fear, and shame, and ambition, and other passions make him play that part that you see: But truly to know him we must look into his inward part, his privy chamber, and there not how to day, but every day he carrieth himself. He is many times a different man in his house from that he is in the country, in the palace, in the market place; another man amongst his domestical friends from that he is amongst strangers: when he goeth forth of his house into some public place, he goeth to play a Comedy, and therefore stay not thou there, for it is not himself that playeth, but another man, and thou knowest him not. The knowledge of a man's self is not acquired by all these 7 True means. four means, neither must we trust them, but by a true, long, and daily study of himself, a serious and attentive examination not only of his words, and actions, but of his most secret thoughts (their birth, progress, continuance, repetition) and whatsoever is in him, even his nightly dreams, prying narrowly into him, trying him often and at all hours, pressing and pinching him even to the quick. For there are many vices hid in us and are not felt for want of force and means; so that the venomous serpent that is benumbed with cold, suffereth himself to be handled without danger: neither doth it suffice afterwards to acknowledge the fault by tale or piecemeal, and so think to mend it by marring it, but he must in general reacknowledge his weakness, his misery, and come to a universal amendment and reformation. Now if we will know man we must take more than ordinary 8 The Proposition & division of this Book. pains in this first book, taking him in all senses, beholding him with all visages, feeling his pulse, sounding him to to the quick, entering into him with a candle and a snuffer, searching and creeping into every hole, corner, turning, closet, and secret place, and not without cause. For this is the most subtle and hypocritical covert and counterfeit of all the rest, and almost not to be known. Let us then consider him after five manners set down in this table, which is the sum of the book: There are five considerations of man & human condition: The first, Natural, of all the parts whereof he is composed, and their appurtinances. The second, Natural and Moral, by comparison of man with beasts. The third, of his life in declining state. The fourth, Moral, of his manners, humours, conditions, which are referred to five things: 1 Vanity. 2 Weakness. 3 Inconstancy. 4 Misery. 5 Presumption. The fift, Natural and Moral, of the differences that are between men in their 1 Natures. 2 Spirits and sufficiencies. 3 Charges and degrees of superiority, inferiority. 4 Professions and conditions of life advantages and disadvantages Natural. Acquired. Casual. The first Consideration of Man, which is natural, by all the parts and members whereof he is composed. CHAPTER I. Of the frame or formation of man.. IT is twofold and to be considered after a twofold manner, the first and original, once immediately by God in his supernatural creation, the second and ordinary in his natural generation. According to that description which Moses setteth down touching the workmanship and creation of the world (the boldest 1 Man made last. Gen. 1. 2. etc. and richest piece of work that ever man brought unto light, I mean the history of the nine first chapters of Genesis, which is of the world newly borne and reborn) man was made of God not only after all other creatures as the most perfect, the master and superintendant of all, Vt praesit piscibus maris, volatilibus coeli, be stijs terrae. And in the self same day wherein the fowre-footed beasts of the earth that come nearest unto him were created (although those two that resemble him most are for the inward parts the Swine, for the outward the Ape) but also after all was done and ended, as the closing up, seal, and sign of his works, he hath also there imprinted his arms, and his portrait, Exemplumque Dei quisquis est in imagine parva. Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, As a Summary recapitulation of all things, and an Epitome of the world, which is all in man, but gathered into a small volume, whereby he is called the little world, as the whole universe may be called the great man: as the tie and ligament of Angels and beasts, things heavenly and earthly spiritual and corporal: and in one word, as the last hand, the accomplishment, the perfection of the work, the honour and miracle of Nature. The reason is because God having made him with deliberation, counsel and preparation, & dixit faciamus hominem ad imaginem & similitudinem nostram, he rested. And this rest also was made for man, Sabbathum propter hominem, non contra. And afterwards he had nothing to make new, but to make himself man, and that he did likewise for the love of man, propter nos homines & proter nostram salutem. Whereby we see that in all things God hath aimed at man, finally in him and by him, brevi manu, to accommodate all unto himself, the beginning and end of all. Secondly, he was created all naked, because more beautiful 2 Naked. than the rest, being pure, neat, and delicate, by reason of his thin humours well tempered and seasoned. Thirdly upright, but little touching the earth, his head 3 Upright. directly tending unto heaven, whereon he gazeth, and sees and knows himself as in a glass, quite opposite unto the plant, which hath it head and root within the earth, so that man is a divine plant that flourisheth & grows up unto heaven: a beast as in the middle betwixt a man and a plant, goes as it were athwart having his two extremes towards the bounds or extremities of the Horizon more or less. The cause of this uprightness in man besides the will of his Master-workman, is not properly the reasonable soul, as we see in those that are crookbacked, crupshouldered, lame, nor in the strait line of the backbone, which is likewise in serpents, nor in the natural or vital heat, which is equalled or rather greater in divers beasts, although all these may perhaps serve to some purpose; but this upright gate is due and belonging to man, both as he is man the holiest & divinest creature, Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae: and as king in this lower region. To small and particular royalties there belong certain marks of Majesty, as we see in the crowned Dolphin, the Crocodile, the Lion with his collar, the colour of his hair, and his eyes; in the Eagle, the king of the Bees: so man the universal king of these lower parts walketh with an upright countenance as a master in his house ruling, and by love or force taming every thing. His body was first framed of virgin earth, and red, from whence he took his proper name, Adam for the appellative 4 How framed. Gen. 2. was Is: And that being not yet moistened with rain, but with the water of the fountain — Mixtam flwialibus undis Finxit in effigiem. By reason the body is the first born or elder than the soul, as the matter than the form; the house must be made and trimmed before it be inhabited, the shop before the workman can use it. Afterwards the Soul was by divine inspiration infused, and so the body by the soul made a living creature, inspiravit infaciem eius spiraculum vitae etc. In that ordinary and natural generation and formation, which is made of the seed in the womb of the woman, the 5 He is made in the matrix. self same order is observed: The body is first form as well by the elementary force of the Energy and forming virtue which is in the seed, aiding in some sort the heat of the matrix, as the celestial, which is the influence and virtue of the Sun, Sol & homo generant hominem, In such order that the Conceived of coagulated seed. seven first days the seed of the father and mother do mingle, unite, and curdle together like cream, and are made one body, which is the conception, Nun sicut lac mulsisti me, & sicut caseum me coagulasti. The next seven days this seed is concocted, Changed. thickened, and changed into a mass of flesh and indigested formless blood, which is the proper matter of a human body. The third seven days following, of this mass or lump is made and fashioned the body in gross; so that Form in gross. about the twentieth day are brought forth the three noble and heroical parts, the Liver, Heart, brain, distant an oval length, or as the Hebrews say, holding themselves by thin commisures or joints, which afterwards fill themselves with flesh after the fashion of an ant, where there are three grosser parts joined by two thin. The fourth seven days which end near thirty, the whole body is ended, perfected, jointed, organized; and so it begins to be no more an embryon, jointed, organized. First furnished with fit instruments for sense. that is, unperfect in shape, but capable, as a matter prepared to it form, to receive the soul; which faileth not to insinuate and invest itself into the body towards the seven and thirtieth or fortieth day after the five weeks ended. Doubling this term, that is to say, at the third month, this infant endowed with a soul, hath motion and sense, the hair Endowed with soul, motion. Brought forth. and nails begin to come. Tripling this term, which is at the ninth month, he cometh forth, and is brought into the light. These terms or times are not so justly prefixed, but that they may either be hastened or prolonged according to the force or feebleness of the heat both of the seed and of the matrix; for being strong it hasteneth, being weak it sloweth: whereby that seed that hath less heat and more moisture, where of women for the most part are conceived, requireth longer time, and is not endowed with a soul until the fortieth day or after, and moveth not till the fourth month, which is near by a quarter more late than that of the male children. CHAP. II. The first and general distinction of man. MAn as a prodigious creature is made of parts quite contrary 1 The division of man in two parts. and enemies to themselves. The soul is a little god, the body as a beast, as a dunghill. Nevertheless, these two parts are in such sort coupled together, have such need the one of the other to perform their functions, Alterius sic altera poscit opem res, & coniurat amicè, and do so with all their complaints embrace each other, that they neither can continue together without wars, nor separate themselves without grief and torment; and as holding the Wolf by the ears, each may say to other, I can neither live with thee nor without thee, Nec tecum nec sine te. But again, forasmuch as there are in this soul two parts very different, the high, pure, intellectual, and divine, wherein the beast hath no part, and the base, sensitive, and brutish, which hath body and matter, and is as an indifferent mean betwixt the intellectual part and body; a man may by a distinction more moral and politic, note three parts and degrees Into three parts. in man: The Spirit, the Soul, the Flesh: where the Spirit and Flesh hold the place of the two extremes, as heaven and earth; the Soul the middle region, where are engendered the Metheors, tumults and tempests. The Spirit the highest and most heroical part, a diminutive, a spark, an image, and dew of the Divinity, is in man as a King in his Commonweal, it breatheth nothing but good, and heaven to which it tendeth; the Flesh contrariwise as the dregs of a people besotted and common sink of man tendeth always to the matter and to the earth; the Soul in the middle, as the principal of the people betwixt the best and the worst, good and evil, is continually solicited by the spirit and the flesh, and according unto that part towards which it apply itself, it is either spiritual and good, or carnal and evil. Hear are lodged all those natural affections, which are neither virtuous nor vicious, as the love of our parents and friends, fear of shame, compassion towards the afflicted, desire of good reputation. This distinction will help much to the knowledge of 3 The utility thereof. man, and to discern his actions, that he mistake not himself as it is the manner to do, judging by the bark and outward appearance, thinking that to be of the Spirit which is of the Soul, nay, of the flesh; attributing unto virtue that which is due unto nature, nay, unto vice. How many good and excellent actions have been produced by passion, or at least by a natural inclination, Vt seruiant genio, & suo indulgeant animo? CHAP. III. Of the body, and first of all the parts thereof and their places. THe body of man consisteth of a number of parts inward 1 The division of the body. and outward, which are all for the most part round and orbicular, or coming near unto that figure. The inward are of two sorts: the one in number and quantity 2 Inward and many. spread thorough the whole body, as the bones, which are as the bases and upholding pillars of the whole building, and within them for their nourishment the marrow; the muscles for motion and strength; the veins issuing from the liver as channels of the first and natural blood; the arteries coming from the heart as conduits of the second blood more subtle and vital. These two mounting higher than the liver and the heart their original sources, are more straight than those that go downwards, to the end they should help to mount the blood, for that narrowness more straightened, serves to raise the humours, the sinews proceeding by couples, as instruments of sense, motion, and strength of body, and conduits of the animal spirits, whereof some are soft, of which there are seven pairs which serve the senses of the head, Sight, Hearing, Taste, Speech; the other are hard, whereof there are thirty couples, proceeding from the reins of the back to the muscles; The tendrils, Ligaments, gristles; The four Humours, Blood, Choler which worketh, provoketh, penetrateth, hindereth obstructions, casteth forth the excrements, bringeth cheerfulness; Melancholy which provoketh an appetite to every thing, moderateth sudden motions; Fleame which sweeteneth the force of the two Cholers, and all other heats; The Spirits which are as it were the fumigations that arise from the natural heat and radical humour, and they are in three degrees of excellency, the Natural, Vital, Animal; The Fat which is the thickest and grossest part of blood. The other are singular (save the kidneys and stones, which are double) and assigned to a certain place. Now there are 3 Singular. Four regions of the body. four places or regions, as degrees of the body, shops of nature, where she exerciseth her faculties and powers. The first and lowest is for generation, in which are the privy parts serving thereunto. The second near unto that, in which are the entrails, viscera, that is to say, the stomach yielding more to the left side, round, straighter in the bottom than at top, having two orifices or mouths, the one above to receive, the other beneath, which answereth the bowels, to cast forth and discharge itself. It receiveth, gathereth together, mingleth, concocteth the victuals and turns them into Chyle, that is to say, a kind of white Suc fit for the nourishment of the body, which is likewise wrought within the Meseraique veins by which it passeth unto the Liver. The Liver hot and moist inclining towards the right side, the storehouse of blood, the chief or rather fountain of the veins, the seat of the natural nourishing faculty, or vegetative soul, made and engendered of the blood of that Chyle, which it draweth from the Meseraique veins, and receiveth into it lap by the vena porta, which entereth into the concavities thereof, and afterwards is sent and distributed thorough the whole body by the help of the great vena cava, which ariseth from the bunch and branches thereof, which are in great number as the rivers of a fountain. The Spleen towards the left side which receiveth the discharge and excrements of the Liver: The Reins, the entrails which though they are all in one, yet are distinguished by six differences and names, equalling seven times the length of a man, as the length of a man is equalled by seven foot. In these two first parts or degrees which some take to be but one (although there are two faculties very different, the one generative for the continuance of the kind, the other nutritive for every particular person, and they make it to answer to the lowest and elementary part of the world, the place of generation and corruption) is the concupiscible soul. The third degree compared to the Aetherian region, separated from the former by the Diaphragma or Midrife, and from that above by the narrowness of the throat; in which is the irascible soul, and the pectoral parts Praecordia, that is to say, the Heart, very hot, placed about the fift rib, having his point under the left pap or dug, the original fountain of the Arteries, which are always moved, and cause the Pulse to beat, by which as by channels it sendeth and distributeth thorough the whole body the vital blood which it hath concocted, and by it the spirit and virtue vital. The Lungs, of substance very soft and spongeous, supple to draw to and enforce forth like a pair of bellows, instruments both of respiration whereby the heart is refreshed, drawing unto it the blood, the spirits, the air, and disburdening itself of those fumes and excrements which oppress it, and of the voice by mean of the rough Artery. The fourth and highest, which answereth to the celestial region, is the head which containeth the Brain, cold and spongeous, wrapped within two skins, the one more hard and thick which toucheth the brainpan, Dura matter; the other more easy and thin which includeth the Brain, Pia matter: from it do issue & are derived the Smowes and marrow that descendeth and falleth down into the reins of the back. This Brain is the seat of the reasonable soul, the source of sense and motion, and of the most noble animal spirits, composed of the vital, which being raised from the heart by the Arteries unto the brain are concocted and reconcocted, elaborated and made subtle by the help of the multiplicity of small Arteries, as fillets diversly woven and interlaced by many turnings and windings, like a labyrinth or double net, Rete mirabile; within which this vital spirit being retained and sojourning, often times passing and repassing, is refined and perfected, and becomes a creature, spiritual in an excellent degree. The outward and visible parts, if they be single, are in the middle as the Nose which serveth for respiration, smell, 3 Outward parts singular. and the comfort of the brain, and the disburdening thereof, in such sort that by it the air entereth and issueth both down into the lungs and up into the brains. The Mouth which serveth to eat and to speak, and therefore hath many parts serviceable thereunto; without, the lips; within, the tongue soft and very subtle which judgeth of savours; the Teeth which bruise and grind the victuals; the Navel, the two sinks or ways to ease and disburden the body. If they be double and alike, they are collaterals and equal, as the two eyes, planted in the highest stage as sentinels, composed 4 Double and equal. of many and divers parts; three humours, seven tunicles, seven muscles, divers colours, of many fashions and much art. These are the first and most noble outward parts of the body, in beauty, utility, mobility, activity, yea in the action of love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they are to the visage that which the visage is to the body, they are the face of the face: and because they are tender, delicate and precious, they are fenced and rampaired on all parts with skins, lids, brows, hair. The ears in the self same height that the eyes are, as the scouts of the body, Porters of the spirit, the Receivers and judgers of sounds which always ascend; they have their entrance obliqne and crooked, to the end the air and the sound should not enter at once, whereby the sense of hearing might be hindered and judge the worse. The arms and hands, the worke-masters of all things and universal instruments. The legs and feet, the props and pillars of the whole building. CHAP. FOUR Of the singular properties of the body of man. THe body of man hath many singularities, and some peculiar 1 Peculiar properties in the body of man. and proper unto themselves, not common with other creatures. The first and principal are speech, upright stature, the form or feature, the port or carriage, whereof the wise, yea the Stoics themselves made such account, that they were wont to say, That it was better to be a fool in a human shape, than wise in the form of a beast. The hand is a miracle (that of the Ape is not to be termed a hand.) His natural nakedness, laughter, crying. The Sense of tickling, hair on the lower lid of the eye, a visible navel, the point of the heart on the left side. The toes of the feet not so long as the fingers of the hand. Bleeding at nose, a strange thing considering that he carrieth his head upright, and a beast downwards. To blush for shame, wax pale for fear. To be an ambidexter; disposed at all times to the sports of Venus. Not to move the ears, which bewrayeth in beasts the inward affections, but man doth sufficiently make them known, by his blushing, paleness, motion of the eyes and nose. The other properties are likewise peculiar unto man, but 2 Peculiar properties by way of excellency. not wholly but by way of excellency; for they are also in beasts, but in a less degree, that is to say, multitude of muscles and hair in the head. The pliant facility of the body and the parts thereof to all motion and every sense. The elevation of the breasts. The great abundance of the brain. The greatness of the bladder. The form of the foot long forward, short backward. The quantity and pure subtlety of the blood. The mobility and agility of the tongue. The multitude and variety of dreams, insomuch that he seemeth the only dreamer. sneezing. And to be short, the many motions of the eyes, the nose, the lips. There are also habits proper and peculiar, but different; some are gestures, motions, and artificial and affected countenances 3 divers habits. ; others are so proper and natural, that they that have them neither feel them nor know them in themselves, as to go stooping: but all have that which proceedeth not so much from reason, as a pure, natural and ready impulsion, that is, to put forth a man's hands before him when he falleth. CHAP. V Of the goods of the body: Health, Beauty, &c: THe goods of the body are Health, Beauty, cheerfulness, 1 The praise of Health. Srength, Vigour, a prompt readiness and disposition: but of all these Health is the first, and passeth all the rest. Health is the most beautiful and rich present that Nature can bestow upon us, and above all other things to be preferred, not only Science, Nobility, Riches, but Wisdom itself, which the austerest amongst the wise do affirm. It is the only thing that deserveth our whole employment, yea our life itself to attain unto it; for without it life is no life, but a death, virtue and wisdom grow weak and faint. What comfort can all the wisdom of the world bring to the greatest man that is, if he be thoroughly stricken with an Apoplexy? Doubtless there is nothing to be preferred before this bodily health, but Honesty which is the health of the Soul. Now it is common unto us with beasts, yea many times it is greater and far more excellent in them than in us: and notwithstanding it be a gift of Nature, gaudeant bene nati, given in the first formation, yet that which afterward followeth, The milk, Good government, which consisteth in sobriety and moderate exercises, lightness of heart, and a continual avoidance of all passions do preserve it much. Grief and sickness are the contraries unto it, which are the greatest if not the only evils that follow man, whereof we shall speak hereafter. But in the preservation hereof, beasts likewise simply following nature which hath given them health do far exceed men, they often times forgetting themselves, though afterwards they pay dearly for it. Next followeth Beauty, a good of great account in the society 2 Beauty. of men. It is the first mean of reconciling or uniting one to another, and it is very likely that the first distinction that hath been of one man from another, and the first consideration that giveth pre-eminence to one above another, hath been the advantage of beauty. It is likewise a powerful quality, there is none that surmounteth it in credit, or that hath so great a part in the society of men; for there is none so barbarous, none so resolute, that hath not been beaten by it. It presenteth itself unto the view, it seduceth and preoccupateth the judgement, it makes deep impressions, and presseth a man with great authority; and therefore Socrates called it a short tyranny, and Plato the privilege of Nature: for it seemeth that he that carrieth in his countenance the favours of Nature imprinted in a rare and excellent beauty, hath a kind of lawful power over us, and that we turning our eyes towards him, he likewise turneth our affections, and enthrawleth them in despite of ourselves. Aristotle saith that it appertaineth to those that are beautiful to command; that they are venerable next to the gods themselves; that there are none, but such as are blind, but are touched with it. Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, three great Commanders, have made great use thereof in their greatest affairs, yea Scipio the best of them all. Fair and good are near neighbours, and are expressed by the self same words both in Greek and in the Scriptures. Many great Philosophers have attained to their wisdom, by the assistance of their beauty. It is likewise considerable and much required in beasts themselves. 3 The distinction of Beauty. There are in Beauty divers things to be considered: That of men is properly the form and feature of the body, as for other beauties they belong unto women. There are two sorts of beauties, the one settled which moveth not at all, and it consisteth in the due proportion and colour of the members, a body that is not swollen or puffed up, wherein the sinews and veins appear not from far, nor the bones press not the skin, but full of blood and spirits, and in good state, having the muscles elevated, the skin smooth, the colour vermilion: the other movable, which is called a good grace, and is the true guiding or carriage of the motion of the members, and above all, the eyes. The former beauty of itself is as it were dead, this active and full of life. There are beauties that are rude, fierce, sour, others that are sweet, yea though they be fading. Beauty is properly to be considered in the visage. There 4 Of the visage. is nothing more beautiful in man than his soul; and in the body of man than his visage, which is as it were the soul abbreviated, that is, the pattern or image of the soul, that is, her Escutcheon with many quarters, representing the collection of all her titles of honour, planted and placed in the gate and forefront, to the end that men may know that here is her abode and her palace. By the countenance it is that we know the person of a man; and therefore art which imitateth nature, takes no care to represent the person of man, but only to paint or carve the visage. There are many special singularities in the visage of man, which are not in beasts (for to say the truth they have no visage) 5 Seven singularities in the visage of man. nor in the rest of the body of man; As the number and diversity of the parts and forms of them, in beasts there is neither chin, nor cheeks, nor forehead, much less any form or fashion of them. Variety of colours, as in the eye only there is black, white, green, blue, red, crystalline. Proportion, for the senses are there double, answering the one to the other, and in such a manner, that the greatness of the eye is the greatness of the mouth, the largeness of the forehead the length of the nose, the length of the nose that of the chin and lips. An admirable diversity of countenances, and such, that there are hardly found two faces in all respects like one another: this is a chief point of workmanship, which in no other thing can be found. This variety is very profitable, yea necessary for human society; first to know one another, for infinite evils, yea the dissipation of human kind must needs follow, if a man should mistake himself by the semblance and similitude of divers visages, yea it would be a confusion worse than that of Babel. A man would take his daughter for his sister, for a stranger, his enemy for his friend. If our faces were all alike, we should not discern a man from a beast; and if they were not all unlike one another, we could not know how to discern a man from a man. Besides, it was an excellent art of Nature to place in this part some secret that might give contentment to one another thorough the whole world: for by reason of this variety of faces, there is not a person that in some part is not beautiful. The dignity and honour of it round figure, form upright and elevated on high, naked and uncovered without hair, feathers, scales, as in other creatures, looking up unto heaven. Grace, sweetness, a pleasant and decent comeliness, even to the giving up of a man's Soul, and the ravishing of his will, as hath been showed before. To be brief, the visage is the throne of beauty and love; the seat of laughter and kissing, two things very proper and agreeable unto man, the true and most significant symbols of amity and good discretion. Finally, it is apt for all alterations, to declare the inward motions and passions of the soul, as joy, Heaviness, Love, Hatred, Envy, Malice, Shame, choler, jealousy, & so forth. It is as the hand of a dial, which noteth the hours and moments of time, the wheels and motions themselves being hid within. And as the air which receiveth all the colours & changes of the time, showeth what the weather is, so saith one, the air of a man's countenance. Corpus animum tegit & detegit, in fancy legitur homo. The beauty of the face consisteth in a large, square, well 6 A description of the beauty of the face. extended and clear front, eyebrows well ranged, thin and subtle, the eye well divided, cheerful, sparkling: as for the colour I leave it doubtful, the nose lean, the mouth little, the lips coraline, the chin short and dimpled, the cheeks somewhat rising and in the middle the pleasant gelasin, the ears round and well compact, the whole countenance with a lively tincture white and vermilion. Nevertheless, this description of Beauty is not generally received, the opinions of Beauty are different according to the diversity of nations. With the Indians the greatest Beauty consisteth in that which we account the greatest deformity, that is, in a tawny colour, thick and swollen lips, a flat and large nose, teeth spotted with black or red, great ears and hanging, a little low forehead, dugs great and pendant, to the end they may give their little ones suck over their shoulders, and to attain to this form of beauty, they use all manner of art. But not to wander so far, in Spain the chiefest beauty is lean and neatly count; in Italy fat, corpulent and solid: the soft, and delicate, and flattering please the one; the strong, vigorous, fierce, and commanding the other. The Beauty of the body, especially the visage, should in 7 The beauty of the soul and body. all reason demonstrate and witness the beauty of the soul, (which is a quality and rule of opinions and judgements, with a certain steadfastness and constancy) for there is nothing that hath a truer resemblance, than the conformity and relation of the body to the spirit: and when this is not, we must needs think, that there is some accident that hath interrupted the ordinary course, as it comes to pass, and we often times see it: for the milk of the Nurse, the first institution, conversation bring great alterations to the original nature of the soul, whether in good or evil. Socrates confessed that the deformity of his body did justly accuse the natural deformity of his soul, but that by industry and institution he had corrected that of the soul. This outward countenance is a weak and dangerous surety, but they that bely their own physiognomy, are rather to be punished than others, because they falsify and betray that good promise that Nature hath planted in their front, and deceive the world. CHAP. VI Of the vestments of the Body. THere is great likelihood that the custom or fashion of Nakedness is natural. going naked, as yet continued in a great part of the world, was the first and original amongst men, and that of covering and adorning the body with garments was artificial, and invented to help and enlarge nature, as they which by artificial light go about to increase the light of the day: for Nature having sufficiently provided for all other creatures a covering, it is not to be believed that she hath handled man worse than the rest, and left him only indigent, and in such a state that he could not help himself without foreign succours, and therefore those reproaches that are made against Nature as a stepmother, are unjust. If men from the beginning had been clothed, it is not likely that they would ever have disrobed themselves and gone naked, both in regard of their health, which could not but be much offended with that change, and shame itself: and nevertheless, it is done and observed amongst many nations. Neither can it be alleged that we cloth ourselves either to cover our nakedness or privy parts, or to defend us against cold (for these are the two reasons pretended; for against heat there is no appearance of reason) because Nature hath not taught us, that there is any thing in our nakedness that we should be ashamed of; it is we that by our own fault and fale have told it ourselves: Quis indicavit tibi quod nudus esses, nisi quod ex ligno quod praeceperam tibi ne comederes comedisti: and Nature hath already sufficiently hid them, put them far from our eyes, and covered them. And therefore it is less needful to cover those parts only, as some do in those countries where they go all naked, and ordinarily are not covered: for why should he that is the lord of all other creatures, not daring to show himself naked unto the world, hide himself under the spoils of another, nay adorn himself? As for cold and other particular and local necessities, we know that under the self same air, the self same heaven, one goes naked, another appareled; and we have all the most delicate part uncovered: and therefore a wandering person being asked, How he could go so naked in Winter, answered, That our faces are always naked, and he was all face: Yea, many great personages have ever gone with their heads uncovered, Massinissa, Caesar, Hannibal, Severus, and many nations there are, which go to the wars and fight all naked: and the counsel that Plato giveth for the continuance of health is, never to cover either head or feet. And Varro saith, That when it was first ordained that men should uncover their heads in the presence of the gods and of the magistrate, that it was rather for health's sake, and to harden themselves against the injuries of the times, than for reverence. Lastly, the invention of covers and houses against the injuries of heaven and men, is more ancient, more natural, more universal, than of garments, and common with many creatures, but an industrious search for victual more natural than either. Of the use of garmen and aliment hereafter. Lib. 3. c. 43. CHAP. VII. Of the Soul in general. Behold here a matter of all others most difficult, handled The Preface. and discoursed by the wisest of all Nations, especially Egyptians, Greeks, Arabians and Latins, by our latter Writers more shallowly as all other Philosophy, but with great diversity of opinions, according to the diversity of Nations, Religions, Professions, without any certain accord or resolution. The general knowledge and discourse thereof may be referred to these ten points: The Definition, Essence or Nature, Faculties and Actions, Unity or Plurality, Source, Entrance into the body, Residence therein, Seat, Sufficiency to exercise her functions, the End and Separation from the body. It is first very hard to define, or truly to say what the soul 1 The Definition very difficult. is, as generally all other forms because they are things relative which subsist not of themselves, but are parts of a whole: and this is the reason why there is such and so great diversity of definitions of them, whereof there is not any received without contradiction. Aristotle hath confuted twelve that were before him, and could hardly make good his own. It is easy to say what it is not: That it is not Fire, air, 2 easy to say what it is not. Water; Nor the temperature of the four Elements, or qualities, or humours, which is always changeable, without which a creature is and lives; and besides that, this is an accident, the Soul a substance. Again, Metals and things inanimate have likewise a temperature of the four Elements and first qualities. Neither is it blood, (for there are many things animate and living without blood, and many creatures die without the shedding of a drop of blood.) Nor the beginning and cause of motion (for divers things inanimate move, as the adamant moves the iron, amber or jet straw; medicines and roots of trees being cut and dried draw and move.) Neither is it the act, or life, or Energy, or perfection (for that word Entelechia is diversly taken and interpreted) of a living body: for all this is but the effect or action of the Soul, and not the Soul itself, as to live, to see, to understand is the action of the Soul. And it would likewise follow, that the Soul should be an accident not a substance, and could not subsist without that body whereof it is the act and perfection, no more than the cover of an house may be without the house, and a relative without his correlative. To be brief, it is to say what the soul doth and is to another, not what it is in itself. But to say what the Soul is, is very difficult: A man may 3 Hard to say what it is. simply say that it is an essential quickening form, which giveth to the plant the vegetative or growing life; to a beast a sensible life, which comprehendeth the vegetative; to a man an intellectual life, which comprehendeth the other two, as in numbers the greater contains the less, and in figures the Pentagone contains the Tetragone, & this the Trigone. I call it the intellective soul rather than the reasonable, which is comprehended in the intellective as the less in the great: for the reasonable in some sense and measure, according to the opinion of the greatest Philosophers and experience itself, is likewise in beasts, but not the intellective as being more high. Sicut equus & mulus in quibus non est intellectus. The Soul than is not the beginning or source, that word doth properly belong to the sovereign first author, but an inward cause of life, motion, sense, understanding. It moveth the body, & itself is not moved; as contrarily, the body is moved, and moveth not at all: it moveth I say the body, & not itself, for nothing but God moveth itself; and whatsoever moveth itself is eternal and Lord of itself: and in that it moveth the body it hath it not of itself, but from an higher cause. Concerning the nature and essence of the Soul, I mean a human Soul (for the Soul of a beast is without all doubt 4 The nature and essence of the soul. corporal, material, bred and borne with the matter, and with it corruptible) there is a question of greater importance than it seemeth: for some affirm it to be corporal, some incorporal: and this is very agreeable to reason, if a man be not opinative. That it is corporal, see what the grounds are; Spirits and Devils, good and ill, which are wholly separated from all matter are corporal, according to the opinion of all Philosophers and our greatest Divines, Tertulltan, Origen, S. In homil. l. de spir. l 3. de lib. arb. Hom. de Epith. Basil, Gregory, Augustine, Damascene; how much more the Soul of man, which hath society and is united to a matter? Their resolution is, that whatsoever is created, being compared unto God, is gross, corporal, material, and only God is incorporal; that every spirit is a body and hath a bodily nature. Next unto authority almost universal the reason is irrefragable. Whatsoever is included in this finite world is finite, limited both in virtue and substance, bounded with a superficies, enclosed and circumscribed in a place, which are the true and natural conditions of a body: for there is nothing but a body which hath a superficial part, and is barred and fastened in a place. God only is wholly infinite, incorporal, the ordinary distinctions, circumscriptiuè, definitiuè, effectiuè, are but verbal, and in nothing either help or hurt the cause: for it always stands good that spirits are in such sort in a place, that at the self same time that they are in a place they can not be elsewhere; and they are not in a place either infinite, or very great, or very little, but equal to their limited and finited substance and superficies. And if it were not so, spirits could not change their place, nor ascend or descend, as the Scripture affirmeth that they do: and so they should be immovable, indivisible, indifferently in all. Now if it appear that they change their place, the change convicteth that they are movable, divisible, subject unto time and to the succession thereof, required in the motion and passage from one place to another, which are all the qualities of a body. But because many simple men under this word corporal, do imagine visible, palpable, and think not that the pure air, or fire without the flame or coal are bodies, have therefore likewise affirmed, That spirits both separated and human are not corporal, as in truth they are not in that sense: for they are of an invisible substance, whether airy as the greatest part of Philosophers and Divines affirm, or celestial as some Hebrews and Arabiques teach, calling by the self same name both the heaven and the spirit an essence proper to immortality; or whether (if they will have it so) of a substance more subtle and delicate, yet they are always corporal, since limited by place, movable, subject to motion and to times. Finally, if they were not corporal, they should not be passable and capable of suffering as they are: the human receiveth from his body pleasure and displeasure, sorrow and delight in his turn, as the body from the spirit and his passions many good qualities, many bad, virtues, vices, affections, which are all accidents: and all as well the spirits separated and Devils, as human, are subject to punishment and torments. They are therefore corporal: for there is nothing passable, that is not corporal, and it is only proper unto bodies to be subject to accidents. Now the Soul hath a great number of virtues and faculties, as many almost as the body hath members: There are 3 The faculties and actions of the Soul. some in plants, more in beasts, most in man, to know, to live, to feel, to move, to desire, to allure, to assemble, to retain, to concoct, to digest, to nourish, to grow, to reject, to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to speak, to breath, to engender, to think, to reason, to contemplate, to consent, dissent, to remember, judge; all which are no parts of the Soul: for so it should be divisible, and should consist upon accidents, but they are her natural qualities. The actions come after and follow the faculties, and so there are three degrees, according to the doctrine of great S. Denys followed of all, that is, we must consider in spiritual creatures three things, Essence, Faculty, Operation: By the latter which is the action we know the faculty, and by it the essence. The actions may be hindered and wholly cease without any prejudice at all unto the soul, and her faculties, as the Science and faculty of Painting remaineth entire in the Painter, although his hands be bound, and so be made unable to paint: But if the faculties themselves perish, the Soul must needs be gone, no otherwise then Fire is no longer fire having lost the faculty of warming. The essence and nature of the Soul being after a sort explicated, The unity of the soul. one of the busiest questions that belongeth unto the Soul offereth itself to our consideration, that is, whether there be in a creature especially in man one soul or many? Touching which point there are divers opinions, but may be reduced into three. Some of the Greeks', and almost all the Arabiques imitating them, have thought (not only in every particular man, but generally in all men) that there was but one immortal Soul. The Egyptians for the most part held an opinion quite contrary, that there was a plurality of souls in every creature, all divers and distinct, two in every beast, and three in man, two mortal, the vegetative & sensible, and the third intellective, immortal. The third opinion as the mean betwixt the two former, and most followed, being held by many of all nations is, that there is but one Soul in every creature, not more. In every of these opinions there is some difficulty. I leave the first as being already sufficiently confuted and rejected. The plurality of souls in every creature and man, on the one side seemeth very strange and absurd in Philosophy, for that were to give many forms to one and the same thing, and to say that there are many substances and subjects in one, two beasts in one, three men in one; on the other side it giveth credit and helpeth much our belief touching the immortality of the intellectual Soul; for there being three souls, there can follow no inconvenience, that two of them should die, and the third continue immortal. The unity of the Soul seemeth to resist the immortality thereof; for how can one and the same indivisible, be in a mortal part and an immortal? as nevertheless Aristotle would have it. Doubtless it seemeth that of necessity the Soul must be either altogether mortal, or altogether immortal, which are two very foul absurdities. The first abolisheth all religion and sound Philosophy: the second maketh beasts likewise immortal. Nevertheless it seems to be more true that there is but one Soul in every creature, for the plurality and diversity of faculties, instruments, actions, neither derogateth any thing at all, nor multiplieth in any thing this unity, no more than the diversity of rivers the unity of one spring or fountain, nor the diversity of effects in the Sun, to heat, to enlighten, to melt, to dry, to whiten, to make black, do dissipate the unity and simplicity of the Sun; for should they, there would be a great number of souls in one man and Suns in one world. Neither doth this essential unity of the Soul any thing hinder the immortality of the human Soul in her essence, notwithstanding the vegetative and sensitive faculties, which are but accidents, die, that is to say, cannot be exercised without the body, the Soul not having a subject or instrument whereby to do it, but the third intellectual Soul is always well, because for it there is no need of the body, though whilst it is within it, it make use thereof to exercise itself; insomuch that if it did return unto the body, it were only again to exercise her vegetative and sensitive faculties, as we see in those that are raised unto life to live here below, not in those that are raised to live elsewhere, for such bodies need not to live by the exercise of such faculties: Even as there is no want or decay in the Sun, but it continueth in itself wholly the same, though during a whole eclipse it neither shine nor warm, nor perform his other effects in those places that are subject unto it. Having showed the unity of the soul in every subject, let The source of the soul. us see from whence it cometh, and how it entereth into the body. The original beginning of souls is not held to be the same of all, I mean of human souls; for the vegetative and sensitive, of Plants and Beasts, is by the opinion of all, altogether material, and in the seed, for which cause it is likewise mortal. But concerning the Soul of man there are four celebrated opinions. According to the first which is of the Stoics, held by Philo judeus, and afterward by the Manichees, Priscilianists, and others, it is transferred and brought forth as a part or parcel of the substance of God, who inspireth it into the body, alleging to their best advantage the words of Moses, Inspiravit in faciem eius spiraculum vitae: The second opinion, held by Tertullian, Apollinaris, the Luciferians and other Christians, affirmeth that the Soul proceedeth and is derived from the souls of our parents with the seed, as the Soul of a beast. The third opinion which is that of the Pythagorians and Platonists held by many rabbins and Doctors of the jews, and afterwards by Origen and other Doctors, teacheth that the souls of men have been from the beginning all created of God, made of nothing and reserved in heaven, afterwards to be sent into the lower parts, as need should require, and that the bodies of men are form and disposed to receive them; and from hence did spring the opinion of those that thought that the souls of men here below, were either well or ill handled, and lodged in bodies either sound or sick, according to that life which they had led above in heaven, before they were incorporate. And truly the master of Wisdom himself showeth, that the Soul, of the two, was the elder, and before the body, Eram puer, bonam indolem sortitus, imo bonus cum essem, corpus incontaminatum reperi. The fourth opinion received and held through all Christendom is, that they are all created of God, and infused into bodies prepared, in such manner that the creation and infusion is done at one and the same instant. These four opinions are all affirmative, but there is a fift much retained which determineth nothing, and is content to say, that it is a secret unknown unto men; of which opinion was S. Austin, Greg. and others, who nevertheless De orig. Epl. 28. 157. thought the two latter affirmative opinions more like to be true than the former. Let us now see when and how the Soul entereth into the 6 The entrance of the soul into the body. body, whether altogether at one instant, or successively; I mean the human Soul: for of that of a beast there is no doubt, since it is natural in the seed, according to Aristotle (whom most do follow) that is by succession of times and by degrees, as an artificial form which a man maketh by pieces, the one after the other; the head, afterwards the throat, the belly, the legs: insomuch that the vegetative and sensitive Soul altogether material and corporal, is in the seed, and with the descent of the parents, which fashioneth the body in the matrix: and that done, the reasonable Soul arriveth from without. And therefore there are neither two nor three souls; neither together nor successively, neither is the vegetative corrupted by the arrival of the sensitive, nor the sensitive by the arrival of the intellectual; but it is but one Soul which is made, finished and perfected in that time which nature hath prescribed. Others are of opinion, that the soul entereth with all her faculties at one instant, that is to say then, when all the body is furnished with organs, form, and wholly finished, and that until then there was no Soul, but only a natural virtue and Energy, an essential form of the seed, which working by the spirits which are in the said seed, with the heat of the matrix and material blood, as with instruments, do form and build up the body, prepare all the members, nourish, move, and increase them: which being done, this Energy and seminal form vanisheth, and is quite lost, so that the seed ceaseth to be seed, losing it form, by the arrival of another more noble, which is the human Soul, which causeth that which was seed, or an Embryon, that is, a substance without shape, to be no longer seed but a man. The Soul being entered into the body, we are likewise to 7 The residence of the Soul in the Body. know what kind of existence therein it hath, and how it is there resident. Some Philosophers not knowing what to say, or how to join and unite the Soul with the body, make it to abide and reside therein, as a Master in his house, a Pilot in his ship, a Coachman in his coach: but this were to destroy all, for so the Soul should not be the form, nor inward and essential part of a creature, or of a man, it should have no need of the members of the body to abide there, nor any feeling at all of the contagion of the body, but it should be a substance wholly distinct from the body, of itself subsisting, which at it pleasure might come and go, and separate itself from the body, without the distinction, and diminution of all the functions thereof, which are all absurdities. The Soul is in the body as the form in the matter, extended and spread throughout the body, giving life, motion, sense to all the parts thereof, and both of them together make but one Hypostasis, one entire subject, which is the creature, and there is no mean or middle that doth unite and knit them together: for betwixt the matter and the form, there is no middle, according to all Philosophy. The Soul than is all, in all the body; I add not (though it be commonly said) and all in every part of the body: for that implieth a contradiction, and divideth the Soul. Now notwithstanding the Soul, as it is said, be diffused 8 The seat & instruments of the soul. and spread thorough the whole body, yet nevertheless, to excite and exercise it faculties, it is more specially and expressly in some parts of the body, than in others; in which it is said to have place, yet not to be wholly there, lest the rest should be without Soul without form. And as it hath four principal and chief faculties, so men give it four seats, that is, those four regions, which we have noted before in the composition of the body, the four first principal instruments of the soul, the rest refer themselves unto them, as also all the faculties to these, that is to say, the engendering faculty to the engendering parts, the natural to the liver, the vital to the heart, the animal and intellectual to the brain. We are now come to speak in general of the exercise of 9 The sufficiency of the Soul for the exercise of her faculties. the faculties of the Soul, whereunto the soul of itself is wise and sufficient, insomuch that it faileth not to produce that which it knoweth, & to exercise it functions, as it ought, if it be not hindered, and that the instruments thereof be well disposed. And therefore it was well and truly said of the wise, that Nature is wise, discreet, industrious, a sufficient mistress which maketh a man apt to all things: Insita sunt nobis omnium artium, ac virtutum semina, magisterque ex occulto Deus producit ingenium: which is easily showed by induction. The vegetative soul without instruction formeth the body in the matrix with excellent art, afterwards it nourisheth it, and makes it grow, drawing the victual unto it, retaining and concocting it, afterwards casting out the excrements, it engendereth and reformeth the parts that fail; these are things that are seen in plants, beasts, and men. The sensitive Soul of itself without instruction, maketh both beasts and men to move their feet, their hands, and other members, to stretch, to rub, to shake, to move the lips, to press the dug, to cry, to laugh. The reasonable of itself, not according to the opinion of Plato by the remembrance of that which it knew before it entered into the body, nor according to Aristotle by reception and acquisition, coming from without by the senses, being of itself, as a white paper void of impression, although that serve to good purpose, but of itself without instruction, imagineth, understandeth, retaineth, reasoneth, discourseth. But because this of the reasonable Soul seemeth to be more difficult than the other, and woundeth in some sort Aristotle himself, it shall be handled again in his place, in the discourse of the intellectual Soul. It remaineth that we speak of the last point, that is, of 10 The separation of the body twofold. the separation of the Soul from the body, which is after a divers sort and manner; the one, and the ordinary is natural by death, and this not the same in beasts and men: for by the death of beasts, the Soul dieth, and is annihilated, áccording unto that rule, by the corruption of the subject the form perisheth, 1. Natural and ordinary. the matter remaineth: by the death of man the Soul is separated from the body, but is not lost, but remaineth inasmuch as it is immortal. The immortality of the Soul is a thing universally, religiously, 2. The immortality of the Soul. (for it is the principal foundation of all religion) and peaceably received and concluded upon throughout the world, I mean by an outward and public profession; seriously and inwardly, not so, witness so many Epicures, Libertines, and mockers in the world: yea the Saduces, the greatest Lords of the jews, did not stick with open mouth to deny it; though a thing profitable to be believed, and in some sort proved by many natural and human reasons, but properly and better established by the authority of religion than any other way. It seemeth that there is in a man a kind of inclination and disposition of nature to believe it, for man desireth naturally to continue and perpetuate his being, from whence likewise proceedeth that great, yea furious care and love of our posterity and succession. Again two things there are that give strength thereunto, and make it more plausible, the one is the hope of glory and reputation, and the desire of the immortality of our name, which how vain soever it be, carrieth a great credit in the world: the other is an impression, that vice which robbeth a man of the view and knowledge of human justice, remaining always opposite to the divine justice, must thereby be chastised, yea after death: so that beside that a man is altogether carried and disposed by nature to desire it, and consequently to believe it, the justice of God doth conclude it. From hence we are to learn that there are three differences 3 The proof. and degrees of Souls, an order required even to the perfection of the universe. Two extremes, the one is that which being altogether material, is plunged, and overwhelmed in the matter, and inseparable from it, and therewithal corruptible, which is the Soul of a beast: the other quite contrary, is that which hath not any commerce, or society with the matter or body, as the soul of immortal Angels or Devils. In the middle as the mean betwixt these two, is the human soul, which is neither wholly tied to the matter, nor altogether without it, but is joined with it, and may likewise subsist and live without it. This order and distinction is an excellent argument of immortality; for it were a vacuum, a defect, a deformity too absurd in nature, dishonourable to the author, and a kind of ruin to the world, that betwixt two extremes, the corruptible and incorruptible, there should be no middle; that is, partly the one and partly the other: there must needs be one that ties and joins the two ends or extremes together, and that can be none but man. Below the lowest and wholly material, is that which hath no Soul at all, as stones; above the highest and immortal, is the eternal only God. The other separation not natural nor ordinary, and which 4 2. Not natural. is done by strange impulsions and at times, is very difficult to understand, and perplex. It is that which is done by ecstasies and ravishments, which is divers and done by different means: for there is a separation that is divine, such as the Scripture reporteth unto us, of Daniel, Zachary, Esdras, Ezechiel, S. Paul. There is another that is demoniacal, procured by devils, and good spirits and bad, as we read of many, as of john D'vns, called Lescot, who being in his ecstasy a long time held for dead, was carried into the air, and cast down upon the earth; but so soon as he felt the blow that he received by the fall, he came to himself: but by reason of the great store of blood which he lost, his head being broken, he died outright. Cardan telleth it of himself, and of his father, and it continueth authenticly verified in many and divers parts of the world, of many, and those for the most part of the vulgar sort, weak and women possessed, whose bodies remain not only without motion, and the beating of the heart and arteries, but also without any sense or feeling of the greatest blows, either with iron or fire, that could be given them, and afterwards their souls being returned they have felt great pain in their limbs, and recounted that which they have seen and done in places far distant. Thirdly, there is a human separation, which proceedeth either from that malady which Hipocrates calleth Sacer, commonly called The falling sickness, Morbus comitialis, the sign whereof is a foaming at the mouth, which is not in those that are possessed; but in stead thereof they have a stinking savour, or it is occasioned by stiptickes, stupefying and benumbing medicines; or ariseth from the force of imagination, which enforcing and bending itself with too deep an attention about a thing, carrieth away the whole strength and power of the Soul. Now in these three kinds of ecstasies or ravishments, Divine, Diabolical, human, the question is, Whether the Soul be truly and really separated from the body; or if remaining in it, it be in such sort employed and busied about some outward thing which is forth of the body, that it forgetteth it own body; whereby followeth a kind of intermission and vacation of the actions and exercise of the functions thereof. Touching the divine ecstasy, the Apostle speaking of himself and his own act; dares not define any thing, Si in corpore vel extra corpus nescio, Deusscit. An instruction that may serve for all others, and for other separations of less quality. Touching the demoniacal ecstasy, as not to feel a blow be it never so great, to report what hath been done two or three hundred leagues off, are two great and violent conjectures of a true separation from the body, but not altogether necessary: for the devil can so alienate and occupy the soul within the body, that it shall not seem to have any action or commerce with the body for some certain time, and in that time so beforteth the soul by presenting things unto the imagination that have been done afar off, that a man may speak and discourse thereof: for to affirm that certainly the Soul doth wholly departed and abandon the body, Nature is too bold and foolhardy: to say that it doth not wholly departed, but that the imaginative or intellectual is carried out, and that the vegetative soul remaineth, were more to entangle ourselves; for so the Soul in it essence should be divided, or the accident only should be carried out, and not the substance. Touching the human ecstasy, doubtless there is no separation of the Soul, but only a suspension of the patent and outward actions thereof. What becomes of the Soul, and what the state thereof is 11 The estate of the Soul after death. after the natural separation by death, divers men think diversly: and this point belongeth not to the subject of this book. The Metempsychose and transanimation of Pythagoras hath in some sort been embraced by the Academics, Stoics, Egyptians, and others; but yet not of all in the same sense: for some do admit it only for the punishment of the wicked, as we read of Nebuchadnezar, who was changed into a beast by the judgement of God. Others, and some great, have thought that good souls, being separated, become Angels, the wicked, Devils. It had been more pleasing to have said Like unto them; Non nubent, sed erunt sicut Angeli. Some have affirmed, that the souls of the wicked, at the end of a certain time, were reduced to nothing. But the truth of all this we must learn from Religion and Divines, who speak hereof more clearly. CHAP. VIII. Of the Soul in particular; and first of the vegetative faculty. AFter this general description of the Soul, in these ten points we must speak thereof more particularly, according 1 The faculties of the Soul. to the order of the faculties thereof, beginning at the basest, that is, the Vegetative, Sensitive, Apprehensible or Imaginative, Appetible, Intellective, which is the sovereign Soul and truly human. Under every one of these there are divers others which are subject unto them, and as parts of them, as we shall see, handling them in their rank. Of the vegetable and basest Soul, which is even in plants, I will not speak much; it is the proper subject of Physicians, 2 Of the vegetable & her subalternals. of health and sickness. Let me only say, that under this there are contained other three great faculties, which follow one the other: for the first serveth the second, and the second the third; but the third neither of the former. The first than is the nourishing faculty, for the conservation of the Individuum or particular person, which divers others do serve, as the Attractive of the victual, the Concoctive, the Digestive, separating the good & proper, from the nought and hurtful; the Retentive and the Expulsive of superfluities: The second, the increasing or growing faculty, for the perfection and due quantity of the Individuum: The third, is the Generative, for the conservation of the kind. Whereby we see, that the two first are for the Individuum, and work within in the body; the third is for the kind, and hath it effect and operation without in another body, and therefore is more worthy than the other, and cometh nearer to a faculty more high, which is the Sensitive. This is a great height of perfection, to make another thing like itself. CHAP. IX. Of the Sensitive faculty. IN the exercise of this faculty and function of the Senses Six things required to the exercise of this faculty. these six things do concur, whereof four are within and two without. That is to say, the Soul, as the first efficient cause. The faculty of Sense (which is a quality of the Soul, and not the Soul itself) that is, of perceiving and apprehending outward things; which is done after a five-folde manner, which we call The five Senses (of this number we shall speak hereafter) that is to say, Hearing, Seeing, Smelling, Tasting, Touching. The corporal instrument of the Sense, whereof there are five, according to the number of the Senses; the Eye, the Ear, the high concavity of the Nose, which is the entrance to the first ventricles of the brain, the Tongue, the whole Skin of the body. The Spirit which ariseth from the brain the fountain of the sensitive Soul, by certain sinews in the said instruments, by which spirit and instrument the soul exerciseth her faculty. The sensible Species, or object offered unto the instruments, which is different according to the diversity of the sense. The object of the eye or sight according to the common opinion is colour, which is an adherent quality in bodies, whereof there are six simple, as White, Yellow, Red, Purple, green and Blue; some add a seventh, which is black; but to say the truth, that is no colour, but a privation, being like unto darkness, as the other colours more or less unto the light. Of compound colours the number is infinite: but to speak more truly, the true object is light, which is never without colour, and without which the colours are invisible. Now the light is a quality which cometh forth of a luminous body, which makes both itself visible and all things else; and if it be terminated and limited by some solid body, it reboundeth and redoubleth it beams: otherwise if it pass without any stop or termination, it can not be seen except it be in the root of that light or luminous body from whence it came, nor make any thing else to be seen. Of the Ear or Hearing, the object is a sound, which is a noise proceeding from the encounter of two bodies, and it is divers: the pleasant and melodious sweeteneth and appeaseth the spirit, and for it sake the body too, and drives away maladies from them both: the sharp and penetrant doth contrariwise trouble and wound the spirit. Of Tasting, the object is a favour or smack, whereof there are six divers simple kinds, Sweet, Sour, Sharp, Tart, Salt, Bitter; but there are many compounds. Of Smell, the object is an odour or sent, which is a fume rising from an odoriferous object ascending by the nose to the first ventricles of the brain: the strong and violent hurteth the brain, as an ill sound the ear: the temperate and good doth contrariwise rejoice, delight and comfort. Of the sense of Touching, the object is heat, cold, drought, moisture either pleasant and polite, or sharp and smarting, motion, rest, tickling. The middle or space betwixt the object and the instrument, which is the Air neither altered nor corrupted, but such as it ought to be. So that sense is made, when the sensible species presenteth itself by the middle to an instrument sound and well disposed, and that therein the spirit assisting, receiveth it and apprehendeth it in such sort, that there is there both action and passion; and the senses are not purely passive: for notwithstanding they receive, and are stricken by the object, yet nevertheless in some sense and measure they do work or react in apprehending the species and image of the object proposed. In former times and before Aristotle, they did make a difference betwixt the sense of Seeing and the rest of the senses, and they all held, that the sight was active, and was made by emitting or sending forth of the eye, the beams thereof unto the outward objects, and that the other senses were passive, receiving the sensible object: but after Aristotle, they are made all alike, and all passive, receiving in the organ or instrument, the kinds and images of things, and the reasons of the Ancients to the contrary are easily answered. There is more and more excellent matter to be delivered of the senses hereafter. Now besides these five particular senses which are without, there is within, the common sense; where all the divers objects apprehended by it, are assembled and gathered together, to the end they may afterward be compared, distinguished, and discerned the one from the other, which the particular senses could not do, being every one attentive to his proper object, and not able to take knowledge thereof, of his companion. CHAP. X. Of the senses of Nature. ALl knowledge is begun in us by the senses; so say our 1 The importance of the natural senses. Schoolmen: but it is not altogether true, as we shall see hereafter. They are our first masters: it beginneth by them, and endeth with them: they are the beginning and end of all. It is not possible to recoil farther back: every one of them is a captain and sovereign lord in his order, and hath a great command, carrying with it infinite knowledges. The one dependeth not, or hath need of the other, so are they equally great, although the one have a far greater extent, and train, and affairs, than the other, as a little king is as well a sovereign in his little narrow command, as a great in his great estate. It is an opinion amongst us, that there are but five senses of Nature, because we mark but five in us; but yet there 2 The number. may very well be more, and it is greatly to be doubted that there are; but it is impossible for us to know them, to affirm them, or to deny them, because a man shall never know the want of that sense which he hath never had. There are many beasts which live a full and perfect life, which want some one of our five senses; and a creature may live without the five senses, save the sense of Feeling, which is only necessary unto life. We live very commodiously with five, and yet perhaps we do want one, or two, or three, and yet it can not be known. One sense can not discover another: and if a man want one by nature, yet he knows not which way to affirm it. A man borne blind can never conceive that he seethe not, nor desire to see, nor delight in his sight: it may be he will say that he would see, but that is because he hath heard say and learned of others, that it is to be desired: the reason is because the senses are the first gates, and entrances to knowledge. So man not being able to imagine more than the five that he hath, he can not know how to judge whether there be more in Nature; yet he may have more. Who knoweth whether the difficulties that we find in many of the works of Nature, and the effects of creatures, which we can not understand, do proceed from the want of some sense that we have not? Of the hidden properties which we see in many things, a man may say that there are sensible faculties in Nature proper to judge and apprehend them; but yet he must confess that we have them not, and that the ignorance of such things proceedeth from our own default. Who knoweth whether it be some particular sense, that discovereth in the Cock the hour of midnight and morning, and that moves him to crow? Who taught some beasts to choose certain herbs for their cure, and many such like wonders as these are? No man can affirm or deny, say this it is, or that it is. Some have assayed to give a reason of this number of the five senses, and to prove the sufficiency of them, by distinguishing 3 Their sufficiency. and diversly comparing their outward objects; which are, either all near the body or distant from it: if near but yet remaining without, it is the sense of Touching; if they enter, it is Taste; if they be more distant and present by a right line, it is the Sight; if obliqne and by reflection, it is the Hearing. A man might better have said thus, That these five senses being appointed for the service of an entire man, some are entirely for the body, that is to say, Taste and Touching; that, in that it entereth; this, in that it remains without. Others first and principally for the soul, as sight and hearing: the Sight for invention, the Hearing for acquisition and communication, and one in the middle, for the middle spirits, and ties of the soul and body, which is the Smell. Again, they answer to the four Elements, and their qualities: The sense of Feeling to the earth; of Hearing to the air; of Taste to the water and moisture; the Smell to the fire. The Sight is a compound, and partakes both of water and fire, by reason of the bright splendour of the eye. Again they say that there are so many senses, as there are kinds of sensible things, which are colour, sound, odour, taste or savour, and the fift which hath no proper name, the object of Feeling, which is heat, cold, rough, plain, and so forth. But men deceive themselves, for the number of the senses is not to be judged by the number of sensible things, which are no cause that there are so many. By this reason there should be many more, and one and the same sense should receive many divers heads of objects, and one and the same object be apprehended by divers senses: so that the tickling of a feather, and the pleasures of Venus are distinguished from the five Senses, and by some comprehended in the sense of Feeling: But the cause is rather, for that the spirit hath no power to attain to the knowledge of things, but by the five Senses, and that Nature hath given it so many, because it was necessary for it end and benefit. Their comparisons are divers in dignity and nobility. The 4 Comparison. Sense of Seeing excelleth all the rest in five things: It apprehendeth farther off, and extendeth itself even to the fixed stars. It hath more variety of objects, for to all things & generally in all there is light and colour the objects of the eye. It is more exquisite, exact and particular even in the least and finest things that are. It is more prompt and sudden, apprehending even in a moment and without motion, even the heavens themselves: in the other senses there is a motion that requireth time. It is more divine, and the marks of Divinity are many. Liberty incomparable above others, whereby the eye seethe, or seethe not, and therefore it hath lids ready to open and to shut: power not to turmoil itself, and not to suffer itself to be seen; Activity and ability to please or displease, to signify and insinuate our thoughts, wills and affections: for the eye speaketh and striketh, it serveth for a tongue and a hand; the other Senses are purely passive. But that which is most noble in this Sense is, that the privation of the object thereof, which is darkness, brings fear, and that naturally; and the reason is, because a man findeth himself rob of so excellent a guide: and therefore whereas a man desireth company for his solace, the Sight in the light is in place of company. The sense of Hearing hath many excellent singularities, it is more spiritual, and the service thereof more inward. But the particular comparison of these two, which are of the rest the more noble, and of speech, shall be spoken in the Chapter following. As for pleasure or displeasure, though all the Senses are capable thereof, yet the Sense of Feeling receiveth greatest grief, and almost no pleasure; and contrarily the Taste great delight, and almost no grief. In the organ and instrument, the Touch is universal, spread thorough the whole body, to the end the body should feel heat and cold; the organs of the rest are assigned to a certain place & member. From the weakness and incertitude of our senses comes ignorance, error and mistake: for sithence that by their 5 The weakness and uncertainnesse of the Senses. means and mixture we attain to all knowledge, if they deceive us in their report, we have no other help to stick unto. But who can say, or accuse them, that they do deceive us, considering that by them we begin to learn and to know? Some have affirmed that they do never deceive us, and when they seem to do it, the fault proceedeth from some thing else; and that we must rather attribute it to any other thing than to the senses. Others have said clean contrary, that they are all false, and can teach us nothing that is certain. But the middle opinion is the more true. Now whether the Senses be false or not, at the least it is 6 The mutual deceit of the spirit and senses. certain that they deceive, yea ordinarily enforce the discourse, the reason, and in exchange are again mocked by it. Do then but consider what kind of knowledge and certainty a man may have, when that within, and that without is full of deceit and weakness, and that the principal parts thereof, the essential instruments of science do deceive one another. That the senses do deceive and enforce the understanding, it is plain in those senses whereof some do kindle with fury, others delight & sweeten, others tickle the Soul. And why do they that cause themselves to be let blood, lanced, cauterised and burnt, turn away their eyes, but that they do well know that great authority that the Senses have over their reason? The sight of some bottomless depth, or precipitate downfall, astonisheth even him that is settled in a firm and sure place: and to conclude, doth not the Sense vanquish and quite overcome all the beautiful resolutions of virtue, and patience? So on the other side, the senses are likewise deceived by the understanding, which appeareth by this, that the Soul being stirred with Choler, Love, Hatred, or any other passion, our senses do see, and hear every thing others then they are, yea sometimes our senses are altogether dulled by the passions of the Soul, and it seemeth that the Soul retireth and shutteth up the operation of the Senses, and that the spirit being otherwise employed, the eye discerneth not that which is before it, and which it seethe: yea the sight and the reason judge diversly of the greatness of the Sun, the stars, nay of the figure of a staff any thing distant. In the Senses of Nature the beasts have as well part, as we, 7 The senses common to man and beast, but diversly. and sometimes excel us: for some have their hearing more quick than man, some their sight, others their smell, others their taste: and it is held, that in the sense of Hearing, the Hart excelleth all others; of Sight, the Eagle; of Smell, the Dog; of Taste, the Ape; of Feeling, the Tortuis: nevertheless, the pre-eminence of that sense of Touch is given unto man, which of all the rest is the most brutish. Now if the Senses are the means to attain unto knowledge, and that beasts have a part therein, yea sometimes the better part, why should not they have knowledge? But the Senses are not the only instruments of knowledge, 8 The judgement of the Senses hard and dangerous. neither are our Senses alone to be consulted or believed: for if beasts by their Senses judge otherwise of things than we by ours, as doubtless they do; who must be believed? Our spittle cleanseth and drieth our wounds, it killeth the Serpent; What then is the true quality of our spittle? To dire and to cleanse, or to kill? To judge well of the operation of the senses, we must be at some agreement with the beasts, nay with ourselves: for the eye pressed down and shut, seethe otherwise than in it ordinary state; the ear stopped, receiveth the objects otherwise than when it is open: an infant seethe, heareth, tasteth, otherwise than a man; a man than an old man; a sound than a sick; a wise than a fool. In this great diversity and contrariety what shall we hold for certain? Seeing that one sense belieth another, a picture seemeth to be held up to the view, and the hands are folded together. CHAP. XI. Of Sight, Hearing and Speech. THese are the three most rich and excellent jewels of all those that are in this muster, and of whose pre-eminency 1 A comparison of the three. it is disputed. Touching their Organs, that of the Sight in it composition and form is admirable, and of a lively and shining beauty, by reason of the great variety and subtlety of so many small parts or pieces; and therefore it is said that the eye is one of those parts of the body which do first begin to be form, and the last that is finished: and for this very cause it is so delicate, and said to be subject to six score maladies. Afterwards comes that of Speech, which helpeth the sense of Hearing to many great advantages. For the service of the body, the Sight is most necessary, and therefore doth more import a beast than Hearing. But for the spirit, the Hearing challengeth the upper place. The Sight serveth well for the invention of things, which by it have almost all been discovered, but it bringeth nothing to perfection. Again, the Sight is not capable but of corporal things and particular, and that only of their crust or superficial part, it is the instrument of ignorant men and unlearned, qui moventur ad id quod adest, quodque praesens est. The Ear is a spiritual Sense, it is the Intermeddler, and Agent 2 The pre-eminency of hearing. of the understanding, the instrument of wise and spiritual men, capable not only of the secrets and inward parts of particular bodies, whereunto the Sight arriveth not, but also of the general kinds, and of all spiritual things and divine, in which the Sight serveth rather to disturb than to help: and therefore we see not only many blind, great and wise, but some also that are deprived of their sight to become great Philosophers: but of such as are deaf we never heard of any. This is the way by which a man entereth the fortress, and makes himself master of the place, and employeth his spirit in good or ill; witness the wife of King Agamemnon, who was contained in her duty of chastity by the sound of a Harp: and David by the self same mean chased away the evil spirit from Saul, and restored him to health: and that skilful player on the Flute, that sweetened the voice of that great Orator Gracchus. To be brief, Science, Truth, and Virtue have no other entrance into the Soul, but by the Ear: Christianity itself teacheth that faith and salvation cometh by Hearing, and that the Sight doth rather hurt, than help thereunto; that faith is the belief of those things that are not seen, which belief is acquired by hearing; and it calleth such as are apprentices or novices therein, Auditors, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, catechised. Let me add this one word, that the Hearing giveth succour and comfort in darkness, and to such as are asleep, that by the sound they may be awaked, and so provide for their preservation. For all these reasons have the wisest so much commended Hearing, the pure and virgin guardian from all corruption, for the health of the inward man, as for the safety of a City, the gates and walls are guarded that the enemy enter not. Speech is peculiarly given unto man, an excellent present and very necessary, in regard of him from whom it proceedeth 3 The force & authority of Speech. : it is the interpreter and image of the soul, animi index, & speculum, the messenger of the heart, the gate by which all that is within issueth forth, and committeth itself to the view, all things come forth of darkness and secret corners into the light, and the spirit itself makes itself visible: and therefore an ancient Philosopher said once to a child, Speak that I may see thee, that is to say, the inside of thee. As vessels are known whether they be broken or whole, full or empty, by the sound, and metals by the touch; so man by his speech. Of all the visible parts of the body which show themselves outward, that which is nearest the heart is the tongue by the root thereof; so that which comes nearest unto our thought, is our speech: for from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. In regard of him which receiveth it, it is a powerful master, an imperious commander, which entereth the fortress, possesseth itself of the possessor, stirreth him up, animateth, exasperateth, appeaseth him, maketh him sad, merry, imprinteth in him whatsoever passion, it handleth and feedeth the Soul of the hearer, and makes it pliable to every sense; it makes him blush, waxpale, laugh, cry, tremble for fear, mad with choler, to leap for joy, and pierceth him thorough with passion. In regard of all, Speech is the hand of the spirit, wherewith, as the body by his, it taketh and giveth, it asketh counsel and succour and giveth it. It is the great Intermeddler and Huckster: by it we traffic, Merx a Mercurio peace is handled, affairs are managed, Sciences and the goods of the spirit are distributed, it is the band and cement of human society (so that it be understood: For, saith one, a man were better to be in the company of a dog that he knoweth, than in the company of a man whose language he knoweth not, ut externus alieno, non sit hominis vice.) To be brief, it is the instrument of whatsoever is good or ill, vita & mors in manibus linguae: there is nothing better, Of a good & evil tongue. nothing worse than the tongue. The tongue of a wise man is the door of a royal Cabinet, which is no sooner opened, but incontinently a thousand diversities present themselves to the eye, every one more beautiful than other, come from the Indies, Peru, Arabia; So a wise man produceth and rangeth them in good order, sentences, and Aphorisms of Philosophy, similitudes, examples, histories, wise sayings drawn from all the mines, and treasuries old and new, qui profert de thesauro suo nova & vetera, which serve for a rule of good manners, of policy, and all the parts both of life and of death, which being applied in their times and to good purpose, bring with it great delight, great beauty and utility, mala aurea in lectis argenteis, verba in tempore suo. The mouth of a wicked man is a stinking and contagious pit, a slanderous Proverb. tongue murdereth the honour of another, it is a sea and University of evils, worse than fetters, fire, poison, death, hell, Vniversitas iniquitatis, malum inquietum, venenum mortiferum, ignis incendens omnia, mors illius nequissima, utilis potius infernus quàm illa. Now these two, Hearing and Speech answer and are accommodated the one to the other, there is a great alliance betwixt 4 The correspondency of Hearing and Speech. them, the one is nothing without the other, as also by nature in one and the same subject, the one is not without the other. They are the two great gates, by which the soul doth traffic, and hath her intelligence: By these two, the souls are powered the one into the other, as vessels when the mouth of the one is applied to the entry of the other: So that if these two gates be shut, as in those that are deaf and dumb, the spirit remaineth solitary and miserable: Hearing is the gate to enter, by it the spirit receiveth all things from without, and conceiveth as the female: Speech is the gate to go forth, by it the spirit acteth and bringeth forth as the male. From the communication of these two, as from the stroke of two flints or irons together, there comes forth the sacred fire of truth, for they rubbing and polishing the one the other, they shake off their rust, and purify and cleanse themselves, and all manner of knowledge comes to perfection. But Hearing is the first, for there can nothing come forth of the soul, but that which first entered, and therefore he that by nature is altogether deaf, is likewise dumb. It is necessary that first the spirit be furnished with movables and utensils, by the sense of Hearing, to the end it may by speech distribute them, so that the good and ill of the tongue and almost of the whole man, dependeth upon the ear: He that hears well, speaks well, and he that hears ill speaks ill. Of the use and government of the tongue hereafter. Lib. 3. Chap. 43. CHAP. XII. Of the other faculties, Imaginative, Memorative, Appetitive. THE fantastic or imaginative faculty, having recollected, and withdrawn the kinds and images apprehended by the senses, retaineth and reserveth them; in such sort that the objects being absent and far distant, yea a man sleeping, and his senses being bound and shut up, it presenteth them to the spirit and thought, Phantasmata idola, seu imagines dicuntur, and doth almost work that within in the understanding, which the object doth without in the sense. The memorative faculty is the Guardian and Register of all the species or kinds and images, apprehended by the sense, retired and sealed up by the imagination. The Appetitive faculty seeketh and pursueth those things, which seem good and convenient. CHAP. XIII. Of the Intellective faculty and truly humane. TWO things are to be known, before we enter into this discourse, the seat or instrument of this intellective faculty, and the Action. The seat of the reasonable soul, ubi sedet pro tribunali, is the brain and not the heart, as before Plato and Hypocrates it was commonly thought, for the heart The seat and instrument of the reasonable Soul. having feeling and motion, is not capable of wisdom. Now the brain which is far greater in man then in all other creatures, if it be well and in such manner made and disposed, that the reasonable, soul may work and exercise it powers, it must come near unto the form of a ship, and must not be round, nor too great nor too little, although the greater be less vicious. It must be composed of a substance and parts subtle, delicate and delicious, well joined and united without separation, having four little chambers or ventricles, whereof three are in the middle, ranged in front, and collaterals between and behind them, drawing towards the hinder part of the head; the fourth is alone, wherein is framed the preparation and conjunction of the vital spirits, afterwards to be made animal and carried to the three ventricles before, wherein the reasonable soul doth exercise it faculties, which are three, Understanding, Memory, Imagination, which do not exercise their powers apart and distinctly, each one in each ventricle, as some have commonly thought, but in common all three together in all three, and in every of them, according to the manner of the outward senses, which are double and have two ventricles, in each of which the senses do wholly work; whereby it comes to pass that he that is wounded in one or two of these ventricles (as he that hath the palsy) ceaseth not nevertheless to exercise all the three; though more weakly, which he could not do, if every faculty had his chamber or ventricle apart. Some have thought that the reasonable Soul was not organical, 2 The reasonable Soul is organical. that is, had no need of any corporal instrument to exercise it functions, thinking thereby the better to prove the immortality of the Soul: But not to enter into a labyrinth of discourse, ocular and ordinary experience disproveth this opinion, and convinceth the contrary; For it is well known that all men understand not, nor reason not alike and after one manner, but with great diversity; yea one and the same man, may be so changed, that at one time he may reason better than at another; in one age, one estate and disposition better than in another; such a one better in health than in sickness, and another better in sickness than in health; one and the same man, at one and the same time, may be strong in judgement and weak in imagination. From whence can these diversities and alterations proceed, but from the change and alteration of the state of the organ or instrument? From whence cometh it that drunkenness, the bite of a mad dog, a burning fever, a blow on the head, a fume rising from the stomach, and other accidents pervert and turn topsie turuy the judgement, intellectual spirit, and all the wisdom of Greece, yea constrain the Soul to dislodge from the body? These accidents being purely corporal cannot touch nor arrive to this high spiritual faculty of the reasonable soul, but only to the organs or instruments, which being corrupted, the Soul cannot well and regularly act & exercise it functions, & being violently enforced, is constrained either to absent itself, or departed from the body. Again, that the reasonable soul should have need of the service of the instruments, doth no way prejudice the immortality thereof: for God maketh use thereof, & accommodates his actions; & as according to the diversity of the air, region and climate, God brings forth men very divers in spirit and natural sufficiency, as in Greece and Italy men more ingenious, than in Muscovy and Tartary: So the spirit according to the diversity of the organical dispositions, and corporal instruments, discourseth better or worse. Now the instrument of the reasonable Soul, is the brain, and the temperature thereof, whereof we are to speak. Temperature is the mixture and proportion of the four first qualities, Hot, Cold, Dry, Moist, and it may be a fift besides, 3 Of the Temperature of the brain, and the faculties thereof. which is the Harmony of these four. Now from the Temperature of the brain proceedeth all the state and action of the reasonable Soul, but that which is the cause of great misery unto man, is, that the three faculties of the reasonable Soul, Understanding, Memory, Imagination, do require and exercise themselves by contrary temperatures. The temperature which serveth, and is proper to the understanding is dry, whereby it comes to pass that they that The understanding dry. Old age. are stricken in years, do excel those in their understanding that are young, because in the brain as years increase, so moisture decreaseth. So likewise melancholic men, such as are afflicted with want, and fast much (for heaviness and fasting are driers) are wise and ingenious, Splendour ficcus, animus saptentissimus, vexatio dat intellectum: And beasts that are of a dry temperature, as Aunts, Bees, Elephants, are wise and ingenious, as they that are of a moist temperature are stupid and without spirit, as Swine: And the Southern people Southernes'. of the world are dry, and moderate in the inward heat of the brain, by reason of their violent outward heat. The temperature of the memory is moist, whereof it is 2 The Memory moist. Infancy. Septentrionals. that infants have better memory than old men, and the morning after that humidity that is gotten by sleep in the night, is more apt for memory, which is likewise more vigorous in Northern people. I here understand a moisture that is not waterish or distilling, wherein no impression may be made, but airy, viscous, fat, and oilly, which easily receiveth, and strongly retaineth, as it is seen in pictures wrought in oil. The temperature of the imagination is hot, from whence it cometh that frantic men, and such as are sick of burning 3 The imagination hot Youth. maladies, are excellent in that that belongs to imagination, as Poetry, Divination, and that it hath greatest force in young men, and of middle years (Poets and Prophets have flourished in this age) and in the middle parts betwixt North The middle region. and South. By this diversity of temperatures it cometh to pass, 4 A comparison of the temperatures. that a man may be indifferent in all the three faculties, but not excellent; and that he that is excellent in any one of the three, is but weak in the rest: that the temperatures of the memory and understanding are very different and contrary, it is clear, as dry and moist; as for the imagination, it seemth not to be so contrary from the others, because heat is not incompatible with drought and moisture: and yet notwithstanding experience showeth, that they that excel in imagination, are sick in understanding and memory, and held for fools and mad men: but the reason thereof is, because the great heat that serveth the imagination, consumeth both the moisture which serveth the memory, and the subtility of the spirits and figures which should be in that dryness which serveth the understanding, and so it is contrary, and destroyeth the other two. By that which hath been spoken it appeareth, that there 5 Three only temperatures. are but three principal temperatures, which serve and cause the reasonable Soul to work, and distinguish the spirits, that is to say, Heat, Dryness, Moisture: Cold is not active, nor serveth to any purpose, but to hinder all the motions and functions of the Soul: and when we find in some authors, that Cold serveth the understanding, and that they that have cold brains, as Melancholic men and the Southern, are wise and ingenious; there Cold is taken not simply, but for a great moderation of heat: for there is nothing more contrary to the understanding and to wisdom, than great heat, which contrariwise serveth the imagination. According to the three temperatures, there are three faculties of the reasonable Soul; but as the temperatures, so the faculties receive divers degrees, subdivisions and distinctions. There are three principal offices and differences of understanding, 6 Subdivision of the faculties. to Infer, to Distinguish, to Chase: these Sciences which appertain to the understanding, are Schoole-divinitie, the theoric of Physic, Logic, Philosophy natural and moral. There are three kinds of differences of memory, easily to receive and lose the figures, easily to receive and hardly to lose, hardly to receive and easily to lose. The Sciences of the memory are Grammar, the theoric of the Law, Positive Divinity, cosmography, Arithmetic. Of the imagination there are many differences, and a far greater number than either of the memory or understanding: to it do properly appertain, Inventions, Merry-conceits and jests, Tricks of subtlety, Fictions and Lies, Figures and comparisons, Neatness, Elegancy, Gentility: because to it appertain, Poetry, Eloquence, Music, and generally whatsoever consisteth in Figure, Correspondency, Harmony and Proportion. Hereby it appeareth that the vivacity, subtlety, promptitude, and that which the common sort call wit, belongs to a 7 The propriety of the faculties and their order. hot imagination; solidity, maturity, verity, to a dry understanding. The imagination is active and stirring, it is it that undertaketh all, and sets all the rest a work: the understanding is dull and cloudy: the memory is purely passive, and see how: The imagination first gathereth the kinds and figures of things both present, by the service of the five senses, and absent by the benefit of the common sense: afterwards it presenteth them, if it will, to the understanding, which considereth of them, examineth, ruminateth, and judgeth; afterwards it puts them to the safe custody of the memory, as a Scrivener to his book, to the end he may again, if need shall require, draw them forth (which men commonly call Reminiscentia, Remembrance) or else, if it will, it commits them to the memory before it presents them to the understanding: for to recollect, represent to the understanding, commit unto memory, and to draw them forth again, are all works of the imagination; so that to it are referred, the common Sense, the Fantasy, the Remembrance, and they are not powers separated from it, as some would have it, to the end they may make more than three faculties of the reasonable Soul. The common sort of people, who never judge aright, do 8 Their comparison in dignity. more esteem of memory, and delight more in it, than in the other two, because they have much use of counting, and it makes greater show and stir in the world; and they think, that to have a good memory is to be wise, esteeming more of Science than of Wisdom; but yet of the three it is the least, being such as may be even in fools themselves: for very seldom is an excellent memory joined with understanding and wisdom, because their temperatures are contrary. From this error of the common people comes that ill course, which every where we see, in the instruction of our youth, who are always taught to learn by heart (so they term it) that which they read in their books, to the end they may afterwards See of this lib. 3. c. 14. be able to repeat it; and so they fill and charge the memory with the good of another, and take no care to awaken and direct the understanding, and to form the judgement, whereby he may be made able to make use of his own proper good, and his natural faculties, which may make him wise and apt to all things: so that we see that the greatest scholars, that have all Aristotle and Cicero in their heads, are the veriest sots, and most unskilful in public affairs, and the world is governed by those that know nothing. It is the opinion of all the wisest, that the understanding is the first, the most excellent and principal piece of harness: if that speed well, all goes well, and a man is wise; and contrariwise, if that miscarry, all goes across. In the second place is the imagination: the memory is the last. All these differences, it may be, will be better understood 9 An image of the three faculties of the Soul. by this similitude, which is a picture or imitation of the reasonable Soul. In every Court of justice there are three orders or degrees; the highest are the judges, with whom there is little stir but great action, for without the moving or stirring of themselves, they judge, decide, order, determine of all things: this is the image of judgement the highest part of the Soul. The second are the Advocates and Proctors, in whom there is great stir and much ado, without action, for it lies not in their power to dispatch or order any thing, only they hatch and prepare the business: this is the picture of the imagination, an undertaking, unquiet faculty, which never resteth, no not in the profoundest sleep; and it makes a noise in the brain, like a pot that seetheth, but never settleth. The third and last degree is the Scribe or Register of the Court, with whom there is no stir nor action, but pure passion, as the Guardian or Custos of all things: and this representeth the memory. The action of the reasonable Soul is the knowledge and 10 The action of the reasonable Soul. understanding of all things: The Spirit of man is capable of understanding all things, visible, muisible, universal, particular, sensible, insensible, intellectus est omnia: but itself either it understands not at all, as some are of opinion (witness so great and almost infinite diversity of opinions thereof, as we have seen before by those doubts and objections that have always crossed it) or very darkly, imperfectly, and indirectly, by reflection of the knowledge of things upon themselves, by which it perceiveth and knoweth that it understandeth, and hath power and faculty to understand: this is the manner whereby the spirit knows itself. The first sovereign Spirit, GOD, doth first know himself, and afterwards in himself all things; the latter Spirit, Man, quite contrary, all other things rather than himself, and is in them as the eye in a glass: how then should it act or work in itself without mean, and by a straight line? But the question is concerning the mean whereby it 11 The mean whereby it worketh. knoweth and understandeth things. The common received opinion that came from Aristotle himself is, that the Spirit knoweth and understandeth by the help and service of the Senses; that it is of itself as a white empty paper, that nothing cometh to the understanding, which doth not first pass the Senses, Nil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit prius in sensu. But this opinion is false: first because (as all the wisest have affirmed, and hath been before touched) the seeds of all sciences and virtues are naturally dispersed and insinuated into our spirits, so that they may be rich and merry with their own: and though they want that tillage that is fit, yet than they sufficiently abound. Besides it is injurious both to God and Nature: for this were to make the state of the reasonable Soul worse than that of other things, than that of the vegetative and sensitive, which of themselves are wise enough to exercise their functions, as hath been said; for beasts without the discipline of the senses know many things, the universals by the particulars, by the fight of one man they know all men, and are taught to avoid the danger of things hurtful, and to seek and to follow after that which is fit for them and their little ones. And it were a thing shameful and absurd, that this so high and so divine a faculty should beg it good of things so vile and corruptible as the senses, which do apprehend only the simple accidents, and not the forms, natures, essence of things, much less things universal, the secrets of Nature, and all things insensible. Again, if the Soul were made wise, by the aid of the senses, it would follow, that they that have their senses most perfect and quick, should be most witty, most wise; whereas many times we see the clean contrary, that their spirits are more dull, and more unapt, and that many have of purpose deprived themselves of the use of some of them, to the end the soul might better, and more freely execute it own affairs. And if any man shall object, that the soul being wise by nature, and without the help of the senses, all men must necessarily be wise, and always understand and reason alike: which being so, how cometh it about that there are so many dull pates in the world, and that they that understand, exercise their functions more weakly at one time than at another, the vegetative soul far more strongly in youth, the reasonable soul more weakly than in old age, and in a certain state of health or sickness than at another time? I may answer, that the argument is not good: for as touching the first, that is, That all men must be wise: I say that the faculty and virtue of understanding is not given alike unto all, but with great inequality, and therefore it is a saying as ancient as honourable, even of the wisest, that the acting understanding was given but to few; and this inequality proveth that Science comes not of sense: for as it hath been said, they that excel others in their senses, come short of others in their understanding and Science. Touching the second, The reason why a man doth not exercise his functions always after one manner, is because the instruments whereby the Soul must necessarily work, can not always be disposed as they should; and if they be for some special kind of faculties or functions, yet not for others. The temperature of the brain, by which the Soul worketh, is divers and changeable; being hot and moist, in youth it is good for the vegetative, nought for the reasonable; and contrarily, being cold and dry, in old age it is good for the reasonable, ill for the vegetative. The brain by a hot and burning malady being heated and purified, is more fit for invention and divination, unfit for maturity and soundness of judgement and wisdom. By that which hath been spoken let no man think, that I affirm that the spirit hath no service from the senses, which I confess to be great especially in the beginning, in the discovery and invention of things: but I say in the defence of the honour of the spirit, that it is false that it dependeth upon the senses, and that we can not know any thing, understand, reason, discourse without the sense: for contrariwise all knowledge comes from it, and the senses can do nothing without it. The Spirit in this understanding faculty proceedeth diversly, and by order: It understandeth at the first instant, simply and directly a Lion to be a Lion, afterwards by consequents that he is strong: for seeing the effects of his strength, it concludeth that he is strong. By division or negative, it understandeth a Hare to be fearful; for seeing it fly and hide itself, it concludeth that a Hare is not strong, because fearful. It knoweth some by similitude, others by a collection of many things together. CHAP. XIIII. Of the human Spirit, the parts, functions, qualities, reason, invention, verity thereof. THis human Spirit, and Oeconomie of this great and high intellectual part of the soul, is a depth of obscurity, full of creeks and hidden corners, a confused and involved labyrinth, and bottomless pit, consisting of many parts, faculties, actions, divers motions, having many names, doubts and difficulties. The first office thereof, is simply to receive and apprehend the images and kinds of things, which is a kind of passion and impression of the Soul, occasioned by the objects and the presence of them: this is imagination and apprehension. The force and power thereof, to feed, to handle, to stir, to concoct, to digest the things received by the imagination, this is reason, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The action and office, or exercise of this force and power, which is to assemble, conjoin, separate, divide the things received, and to add likewise others: this is discourse, reasoning, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The subtle facility, and cheerful readiness to do all these things, and to penetrate into them, is called Spirit, Ingenium; and therefore to be ingenious, sharp, subtle, piercing, is all one. The repetition and action of ruminating, reconcocting, trying by the whetstone of reason, and reworking of it, to frame a resolution more solid: this is judgement. The effect in the end of the understanding: this is knowledge, intelligence, resolution. The action that followeth this knowledge and resolution, which is to extend itself, to put forward, and to advance the thing known: this is will. Intellectus extensus & promotus. Wherefore all these things, Understanding, Imagination, Reason, Discourse, Spirit, judgement, Intelligence, Will, are one and the same Essence, but all divers in force, virtue and action: for a man may be excellent in one of them, and weak in another: and many times he that excelleth in Spirit and subtlety, may be weak in judgement and solidity. I let no man to sing, and set forth the praises and greatness 2 The general description & commendation of the Spirit. of the Spirit of man, the capacity, vivacity, quickness thereof: let it be called the image of the living God, a taste of the immortal substance, a stream of the Divinity, a celestial ray, whereunto God hath given reason, as an animated stern to move it by rule and measure, and that it is an instrument of a complete harmony; that by it there is a kind of kindred betwixt God and man, and that he might often remember him, he hath turned the root towards the heavens, to the end he should always look towards the place of his nativity: to be brief, that there is nothing great upon the earth but man, nothing great in man but his spirit: if a man ascend to it, he ascendeth above the heavens. These are all pleasing and plausible words whereof the Schools do ring. But I desire that after all this we come to sound and to study 3 The dispraise. how to know this spirit, for we shall find after all this, that it is both to itself and to another a dangerous instrument, a ferret that is to be feared, a little trouble-feast, a tedious and importune parasite, and which as a juggler & player at fast and lose, under the shadow of some gentle motion, subtle and smiling, forgeth, inventeth, and causeth all the mischiefs of the world: & the truth is, without it there are none. There is far greater diversity of spirits than of bodies, 4 Diversity of distinctions of the spirit. See hereof more Chap. 39 so is there likewise a larger field to enter into, more parts and more forms or fashions to be spoken of: we may make three classes or forms, whereof each one hath many degrees: The first which is the lowest are those weak, base, and almost brutish spirits, near neighbours to beasts themselves, whether by reason of the first temper, that is to say, of the seed and temperature of the brain, either too cold or too moist, as amongst other creatures fishes are the lowest, or by reason that they have not been in some sort removed and reviewed, but suffered to rust, and grow dull and stupid. Of these we make no great account, as being unfit to be ordered and settled into any certain and constant society; because both for their own particular they cannot possibly endure it, and it were necessary they should always be under the tuition of another, this is the common and base people, qui vigilans stertit; mortua cui vita est; prope iam vivo atque videnti; which understands not, judgeth not itself. The second which is the highest, are those great and rare spirits, rather devils than ordinary men, spirits well borne, strong and vigorous. Of these kind of people, there was never age yet could tell how to build a commonweal. The third which is the middle, are all those indifferent spirits, whereof there are infinite degrees: of these almost is the whole world composed. Of this distinction and others, hereafter more at large. But we are to touch more particularly the conditions and nature of this spirit, as hard to be known, as a countenance 5 The particular description. Agent perpetual. to be counterfeited to the life, which is always in motion. First therefore it is a perpetual agent, for the spirit cannot be without action, but rather than it will, it forgeth false and fantastical subjects, in earnest deceiving itself, even to it own discredit. As idle and unmannured grounds, if they be fat and fertile, abound with a thousand kinds of wild and un. profitable herbs, until they be sowed with other seeds; and women alone without the company of men, bring forth sometimes great abundance of unformed, indigested lumps of flesh: so the Spirit, if it be not busied about some certain object, it runs riot into a world of imaginations, and there is no folly nor vanity that it produceth not; and if it have not a settled limit, it wandereth and loseth itself. For to be every where is to be no where. Motion and agitation is the true life and grace of the Spirit, but yet it must proceed from elsewhere, than from itself. If it be solitary, and wanteth a subject to work on, it creepeth along and languisheth; but yet it must not be enforced. For too great a contention and intention of the Spirit over bent, and strained, deceiveth and troubleth the Spirit. It is likewise universal, it meddleth and mingleth itself with all, it hath no limited subject or jurisdiction. There is 6 Universal. not any thing wherewith it playeth not his part, as well to vain subjects and of no account, as high and weighty, as well to those we can understand, as those we understand not: For to know that we cannot understand, or pierce into the marrow or pith of a thing, but that we must stick in the bone and bark thereof, is an excellent sign of judgement; for science, yea truth itself, may lodge near us without judgement, and judgement without them, yea to know our own ignorance, is a fair testimony of judgement. Thirdly, it is prompt and speedy running in a moment 7 prompt and sudden. from the one end of the world to the other, without stay or rest, stirring itself and penetrating through every thing, Nobilis & inquieta mens homini data est, nunquam se tenet; spargitur vaga, quiet is impatiens, novitate rerum laetissima. Non mirum ex illo caelesti spiritu descendit, caelestium autem naturasemper in motuest. This great speed and quickness, this agility, this twinkling of the eye, as it is admirable, and one of the greatest wonders that are in the spirit, so it is a thing very dangerous, a great disposition and propension unto folly and madness, as presently you shall hear. By reason of these three conditions of the spirit, that is, a perpetual agent without repose, universal, prompt and sudden, it hath been accounted immortal, and to have in itself some mark, and sparkle of divinity. The action of the Spirit is always to search, ferret, contrive 8 The action of the Spirit. without intermission; like one famished for want of knowledge, to inquire and seek, and therefore Homer calls men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. There is no end of our inquisitions: the pursuits of the spirit of man are without limits, without form: the food thereof is double ambiguity; it is a perpetual motion without rest, without bound. The world is a school of inquisition; agitation and hunting is it proper dish: to take, or to fail of the pray, is another thing. But it worketh and pursueth it enterprises, rashly, and irregularly, without order, and without measure, it is a wandering 9 It worketh rashly. instrument, movable, diversly turning; it is an instrument of lead and of wax, it boweth and straitneth, apply itself to all, more supple and facile than the water, the air, flexibilis omni humore obsequentior, & ut spiritus qui omni materia facilior ut tenuior; it is the shoe of Theramenes, fit for all. The cunning is to find where it is, for it goes always athwart, and cross, as well with a lie, as with a truth: it sporteth itself and findeth a seeming reason for every thing; for it maketh that 10 Reason hath divers faces. which is impious, unjust, abominable in one place, piety, justice and honour in another: neither can we name any law or custom, or condition, that is either generally received of all, or rejected; the marriage of those that are near of blood, the murder of infants, parents, is condemned in one place, lawful in another. Plato refused an embroidered and perfumed rob offered him by Dionysius, saying that he was a man, and therefore would not adorn himself like a woman. Aristippus accepted of that rob, saying the outward acoutrement can not corrupt a chaste mind. Diogenes washing his colewarts and seeing Aristippus pass by, said unto him, If thou knewest how to live with colewarts, thou wouldst never follow the Court of a Tyrant. Aristippus answered him, If thou knewest how to live with Kings, thou wouldst never wash colewarts. One persuaded Solon to cease from the bewailing the death of his sons, because his tears did neither profit nor help him. Yea therefore, saith he, are my tears just, and I have reason to weep. The wife of Socrates redoubled her grief, because the judges put her husband to death unjustly: What, saith he, wouldst thou rather I were justly condemned? There is no good, saith a wise man, but that, to the loss whereof a man is always prepared, In aequo enim est dolor amissae rei, & timor amittendae. Quite contrary, faith another, we embrace and lock up that good a great deal the more carefully, which we see less sure, and always fear will be taken from us. A Cynique Philosopher demanded of Antigonus the King, a dram of silver. That, saith he, is no gift fit for a King. Why then give me a talon, saith the Philosopher. And that, saith the King, is no gift fit for a Cynique. One said of a King of Sparta that was gentle and debonair, He is a good man even to the wicked. How should he be good unto the wicked, saith another, if he be not wicked with the wicked. So that we see that the reason of man hath many visages: it is a twoedged sword, a staff with two pikes, Ogni medaglia ha il suo riverso. There is no reason but hath a contrary reason, saith the soundest and surest Philosopher. Now this volubility and flexibility proceedeth from many causes; from the perpetual alteration and motion of the body, which is never twice in a man's life in one and the same estate; from the objects which are infinite, the air itself, and the serenity of the heaven, Tales sunt hominum mentes quali pater ipse jupiter auctiferas lustravit lampide terras, and all outward things: inwardly from those shake and tremble which the Soul gives unto itself by the agitation, and stirreth up by the passions thereof: insomuch that it beholdeth things with divers countenances; for whatsoever is in the world hath divers lustures, divers considerations. Epictetus' said it was a pot with two hands. He might better have said with many. The reason hereof is, because it entangleth itself in it 12 The reason of this entanglement. own work like the silk-worm: for as it thinketh to note from far, I know not what appearance of light, and imaginary truth, and flies unto it: there are many difficulties that cross the way, new scents that inebriate and bring it forth of the way. The end at which it aimeth is twofold, the one more common and natural, which is Truth, which it searcheth and 13 The end is verity which it can neither attain nor find. pursueth; for there is no desire more natural than to know the truth: we assay all the means we can to attain unto it, but in the end all our endeavours come short; for Truth is not an ordinary booty, or thing that will suffer itself to be gotten and handled, much less to be possessed by any human Spirit. It lodgeth within the bosom of God, that is her chamber, Read before Chap. 9 her retiring place. Man knoweth not, understandeth not any thing aright, in purity and in truth as he ought: appearances do always compass him on every side, which are as well in those things that are false as true. We are borne to search the truth, but to possess it, belongeth to a higher and greater power. Truth is not his that thrusts himself into it, but his that runs the fairest course towards the mark. When it falls out that he hits upon a truth, it is by chance and hazard, he knows not how to hold it, to possess it, to distinguish it from a lie. Errors are received into our soul, by the self same way and conduit that the truth is; the spirit hath no means either to distinguish or to choose: and as well may he play the sot, that tells a truth as a lie. The means that it useth for the discovery of the truth, are reason and experience, both of them very weak, uncertain, divers, wavering. The greatest argument of truth, is the general consent of the world: now the number of fools doth far exceed the number of the wise, and therefore how should that general consent be agreed upon, but by corruption and an applause given without judgement and knowledge of the cause, and by the imitation of some one that first began the dance. The other end less natural, but more ambitious, is Invention, 14 The second end Invention. unto which it tendeth as to the highest point of honour, to the end it may raise itself and prevail the more: this is that which is in so high account, that it seemeth to be an image of the Divinity. From the sufficiency of this invention, have proceeded all those works, which have ravished the whole world with admiration; which if they be such as are for the public benefit, they have deified their Authors. Those works that show rather fineness of wit than bring profit with them, are painting, carving, Architecture, the art Perspective, as the vine of Zeuxis, the Venus of Apelles, the image of Memnon, the horse of A●●ain, the wooden pigeon of Architas, the cow of Myron, the fly and the eagle of Montroyall, the sphere of Sapor King of the Persians, and that of Archimedes with his other engines. Now art and invention The praise of invention. seem not only to imitate Nature, but to excel it, and that not only in the individuum or particular (for there is not any body either of man or beast, so universally well made, as by art may be showed) but also many things are done by art, which are not done by nature: I mean beside those compositions and mixtures, which are the true diet, and proper subject of art, those distillations of waters and oils, made of simples, which Nature frameth not. But in all this there is no such cause of admiration as we think; and to speak properly and truly, there is no invention but that which God revealeth: for such as we account and call so, are but observations of natural things, arguments and conclusions drawn from them, as Painting and the art Optic from shadows, Sun-dials from the shadows of trees, the graving of seals from precious stones. By all this that hath before been spoken, it is easy to see 15 The Spirit very dangerous. how rash and dangerous the spirit of man is, especially if it be quick and vigorous: for being so industrious, so free and universal, making it motion's so irregularly, using it liberty so boldly in all things, not tying itself to any thing; it easily shaketh the common opinions, and all those rules whereby it should be bridled and restrained as an unjust tyranny: it will undertake to examine all things, to judge the greatest part of things plausibly received in the world, to be ridiculous and absurd; and finding for all an appearance of reason, will defend itself against all, whereby it is to be feared that it wandereth out of the way and loseth itself: and we can not but see that they that have any extraordinary vivacity and rare excellency (as they that are in the highest roof of that middle Classis before spoken of) are for the most part lawless both in opinions and manners. There are very few of whose guide and conduct a man may trust, and in the liberty of whose judgements a man may wade without temerity, beyond the common opinion. It is a miracle to find a great and lively spirit, well ruled and governed: it is a dangerous sword which a man knows not well how to guide; for from whence come all those disorders, revolts, heresies and troubles in the world, but for this? Magni errores non nisi ex magnis ingenijs: nihil sapientiae o diosius acumine nimio. Doubtless that man lives a better time, and a longer life, is more happy and far more fit for the government of a Commonwealth, saith Thucydides, that hath an indifferent spirit, or somewhat beneath a mediocrity, than he that hath a spirit so elevated and transcendent, that it serves not for any thing but the torment of himself and others. From the firmest friendships do spring the greatest enmities, and from the soundest health the deadliest maladies: and even so, from the rarest and quickest agitation of our souls the most desperate resolutions and disorderly frenzies. Wisdom and folly are near neighbours; there is but a half turn betwixt the one and the other; which we may easily see in the actions of mad men. Philosophy teacheth, that Melancholy is proper to them both. Whereof is framed the finest folly, but of the finest wit? And therefore, saith Aristotle, there is no great spirit without some mixture of folly. And Plato telleth us, that in vain a temperate and sound spirit knocketh at the door of Poetry. And in this sense it is, that the wisest and best Poets do love sometimes to play the fool, and to leap out of the hinges. Insanire jucundum est, dulce desipere in loco: non potest grand & sublime quidquam nisi mota mens, & quamdiu apud se est. And this is the cause why man hath good reason to keep it within narrow bounds, to bridle and bind it with Religions, 16 It must be bridled, & why. , Laws, Customs, Sciences, Precepts, threatenings, Promises mortal and immortal, which notwithstanding yet we see, that by a lawless kind of liberty it freeth itself, and escapeth all these; so unruly is it by nature, so fierce, so opinative: and therefore it is to be led by art, since by force it can not. Natura contumax est animus humanus, in contrarium atque arduum nitens, sequiturque faciliùs quam ducitur, ut generosi Seneca. & nobiles equi melius facili fraeno reguntur. It is a surer way gently to tutor it, and to lay it asleep, than to suffer it to wander at it own pleasure: for if it be not well and orderly governed, (as they of the highest classis which before we spoke of) or weak, and soft and pliant (as those of the lower rank) it will lose itself in the liberty of it own judgement: and therefore it is necessary that it be by some means or other held back, as having more need of lead than wings, of a bridle than of a spur; which the great Lawyers and Founders of States did especially regard, as well knowing, that people of an indifferent spirit, lived in more quiet and content, than the over-quicke and ingenious. There have been more troubles and seditions in ten years in the only city of Florence, than in five hundred years in the countries of the Heluetians and the Retians. And to say the truth, men of a common sufficiency are more honest, better citizens, more pliant, and willing to submit themselves to the yoke of the laws, their superiors, reason itself, than those quick and clear sighted men, that can not keep themselves within their own skins. The finest wits are not the wisest men. The Spirit hath it maladies, defects, tars or refuse as well 17 The defect of the spirit. as the body and much more, more dangerous and more incurable: but that we may the better know them, we must distinguish them: Some are accidental, and which come from Accidental proceeding from three causes. elsewhere, and those arise from three causes; the disposition of the body, for it is manifest that the bodily malady which altar the temperature thereof, do likewise alter the spirit and judgement; or from the ill composition of the substance of 1. The body. the brain, and organs of the reasonable Soul, whether it be by reason of their first formation, as in those that have their heads ill made, either too round, or too long, or too little, or by accident of some blow or wound. The second is the universal contagion of vulgar and erroneous opinions in the 2. The world. world, wherewith the Spirit being preoccupated, tainted, and overcome, or which is worse, made drunken, and manacled with certain fantastical opinions, it ever afterwards followeth & judgeth according to them, without regard either of farther inquiry, or recoiling back: from which dangerous deluge all spirits have not force and strength to defend themselves. The third much more near, is the malady and corruption 3. The passions. of the will, and the force of the passions, this is a world turned topsie turuy: the will is made to follow the understanding as a guide and lamp unto it; but being corrupted and seized on by the force of the passions (or rather by the fall of our first father Adam) doth likewise perhaps corrupt the understanding, and so from hence come the greatest part of our erroneous judgements: Envy, Malice, Hatred, Love, Fear, make us to respect, to judge, to take things others than they are, & quite otherwise than we ought, from whence cometh that common cry, judge without passion. From hence it is that the beautiful and generous actions of another man are obscured by vile and base misconstructions, that vain and wicked causes & occasions are feigned. This is a great vice and a proof of a malignant nature and sick judgement, in which there is neither great subtlety nor sufficiency, but malice enough. This proceedeth either from the envy they bear to the glory of another man, or because they judge of others according to themselves, or because they have their taste altered and their sight so troubled, that they cannot discern the clear splendour of virtue in it native purity. From this self same cause and source it cometh, that we make the virtues and vices of another man to prevail so much, and extend them farther than we ought, that from particularities we draw consequents and general conclusions: if he be a friend, all sits well about him, his vices shall be virtues: if he be an enemy or of a contrary faction, there is nothing good in him: insomuch that we shame our own judgement, to smooth up our own passions. But this rests not here, but goeth yet farther; for the greatest part of those impieties, heresies, errors in our faith and religion, if we look well into it, is sprung from our wicked and corrupt wills, from a violent and voluptuous Exod. 31. 2. Paral. 15. 3. Reg. 15. August. lib. 2. De civitate Dei. passion, which afterwards draweth unto it the understanding itself, Sedit populus manducare & bibere &c. quod vult non quod est credit, qui cupit errare: in such sort that what was done in the beginning with some scruple and doubt, hath been afterwards held and maintained for a verity and revelation from heaven: that which was only in the sensuality, hath taken place in the highest part of the understanding: that which was nothing else but a passion and a pleasure, hath been made a religious matter and an article of faith: so strong and dangerous is the contagion of the faculties of the Soul amongst themselves. These are the three outward causes of the faults and miscarriages of the Spirit, judgement and understanding of man, The body, especially the head, sick, or wounded, or ill fashioned; The world with the anticipated opinions and suppositions thereof; The ill estate of the other faculties of the reasonable Soul, which are all inferior unto it. The first are pitiful, and some of them to be cured, some not: the second are excusable and pardonable: the third are accusable and punishable for suffering such a disorder so near them as this is; those that should obey the law, to take upon them to give the law. There are other defects of the Spirit, which are more natural unto it, and in it. The greatest and the root of all the rest 18 Natural. is pride and presumption (the first and original fault of all the world, the plague of all spirits, and the cause of all evils) by which a man is only content with himself, will not give place to another, disdaineth his counsels, reposeth himself in his own opinions, takes upon him to judge and condemn others, yea even that which he understands not. It is truly said, that the best and happiest distribution that God ever made, is of judgement, because every man is content with his own, and thinks he hath enough. Now this malady proceedeth from the ignorance of ourselves. We never understand sufficiently and truly the weakness of our spirit: but the greatest disease of the spirit is ignorance, not of Arts and Sciences, and what is included in the writings of others, but of itself, for which cause this first book hath been written. CHAP. XV. Of Memory. MEmory is many times taken by the vulgar sort for the sense and understanding, but not so truly and properly: for both by reason (as hath been said) and by experience, the excellency of the one is ordinarily accompanied with the weakness of the other, and to say the truth it is a faculty very profitable for the world, but yet comes far short of the understanding and of all the parts of the Soul is the more delicate, and most frail. The excellency thereof is not very requisite, but to three sorts of people: Merchants or men of Trade, great talkers, (for the storehouse of the memory is more full and furnished, than that of invention, for he that wants it comes short, and must be feign to frame his speech out of the forge of his own invention) and liars, mendacem oportet esse memorem. From the want of memory proceed these commodities: to lie seldom, to talk little, to forget offences. An indifferent memory sufficeth for all. CHAP. XVI. Of the imagination and opinion. THe imagination is a thing very strong and powerful, it is it that makes all the stir, all the clarter, yea the perturbation of the world proceeds from it (as we have said before, it is either the only, or at least the most active and stirring The effects of the imagination marvelous. faculty of the Soul). The effects thereof are marvelous and strange: it worketh not only in it own proper body and Soul, but in that of another man, yea it produceth contrary effects: it makes a man blush, wax pale, tremble, dote, to waver; these are the least and the best: it takes away the power and use of the engendering parts, yea when there is most need of them, and is the cause why men are more sharp and austere, not only towards themselves but others, witness those ties and bands whereof the world is full, which are for the most part impressions of the apprehension and of fear. And contrariwise, without endeavour, without object, & even in sleep it satisfieth the amorous desires, yea changeth the sex, witness Lucius Cossitius, whom Pliny affirmeth to have seen to be changed from a woman to a man, the day of his marriage; and divers the like: it marketh sometimes ignominiously, yea it killeth and makes abortive the fruit within the womb; it takes away a man's speech, and gives it to him that never had it, as to the son of Croesus: it taketh away motion, sense, respiration. Thus we see how it worketh in the body. Touching the Soul: it makes a man to lose his understanding, his knowledge, judgement; it turns him fool and madman, witness Gallus Vibius, who having over-bent his spirits in comprehending the essence and motions offollie, so dislodged and disjointed his own judgement, that he could never settle it again: it inspireth a man with the foreknowledge of things secret and to come, and causeth those inspirations, predictions, and marvelous inventions, yea it ravisheth with ecstasies: it killeth not seemingly but in good earnest, witness that man whose eyes being covered to receive his death, and uncovered again to the end he might read his pardon, was found stark dead upon the scaffold. To be brief, from hence spring the greatest part of those things which the common sort of people call miracles, visions, enchantments. It is not always the devil, or a familiar spirit, as now adays the ignorant people think, when they can not find the reason of that they see; nor always the spirit of God (for these supernatural motions we speak not of here) but for the most part it is the effect of the imagination, or long of the agent who saith & doth such things; or of the patiented and spectator, who thinks he seethe that he seethe not. It is an excellent thing and necessary in such a case, to know wisely how to discern the reason thereof, whether it be natural or supernatural, false or true, Discretio spirituum, and not to precipitate our judgements, as the most part of the common people do by the want thereof. In this part and faculty of the soul doth opinion lodge, which is a vain, light, crude and imperfect judgement of things drawn from the outward senses, and common report, settling and holding itself to be good in the imagination, and never arriving to the understanding, there to be examined, sifted, and laboured; and to be made reason, which is a true, perfect and solid judgement of things: and therefore it is uncertain, inconstant, fleeting, deceitful, a very ill and dangerous guide, which makes head against reason, whereof it is a shadow and image, though vain and untrue. It is the mother of all mischiefs, confusions, disorders: from it spring all passions, all troubles. It is the guide of fools, sots, the vulgar sort, as reason of the wise and dexterious. It is not the truth and nature of things which doth thus 3 The world is lead by opinion. stir and molest our souls, it is opinion, according to that ancient saying; Men are tormented by the opinions that they have of things, not by the things themselves. Opinion saepiùs, quàm re laboramus: plura sunt quae nos tenent, quàm quae premunt. The verity and Essence of things entereth not into us, nor lodgeth near us of itself, by it own proper strength and authority: for were it so, all things should be received of all, all alike, and after the same fashion; all should be of like credit, and truth itself, which is never but one and uniform, should be embraced throughout the whole world. Now forasmuch as there is so great a variety, yea contrariety of opinions in the world, and there is not any thing concerning which all do generally accord, no not the wisest and best borne and bred; it giveth us to understand, that things enter into us by composition, yielding themselves to our mercy and devotion, and lodging themselves near unto us, according to our pleasure, and humour and temper of our souls. That which I believe, I can not make my companion believe; but, which is more, what I do firmly believe to day, I can not assure myself that I shall believe to morrow: yea it is certain that at another time I shall judge quite otherwise. Doubtless every thing taketh in us such place, such a taste, such a colour, as we think best to give unto it, and such as the inward constitution of the soul is, omnia munda mundis, immunda immundis. As our apparel and accoutrements do as well warm us, not by reason of their heat, but our own, which they preserve, as likewise nourish the coldness of the ice and snow; we do first warm them with our heat, and they in recompense thereof preserve our heat. Almost all the opinions that we have, we have not but from authority: we believe, we judge, we work, we live, we die and all upon credit, even as the public use and custom teacheth us; and we do well therein: for we are too weak to judge and choose of ourselves; no the wise do it not, Lib. 1. chap. 1. & 2. as shall be spoken. CHAP. XVII. Of the Will. THe Will is a great part of the reasonable soul, of very The pre-eminence and importance of the will. great importance, and it standeth us upon above all things to study how to rule it, because upon it dependeth almost our whole estate and good. It only is truly ours, and in our power; all the rest, understanding, The comparison thereof with the understanding. Doubtful, if not erroneous. memory, imagination may be taken from us, altered, troubled with a thousand accidents: not the will. Secondly, this is that, that keepeth a man entire, and importeth him much: for he that hath given his will, is no more his own man, neither hath he any thing of his own. Thirdly, this is it whereby we are made and called good or wicked, which giveth us the temper and the tincture. As of all the goods that are in man, virtue or honesty is the first and principal, and which doth far excel knowledge, dexterity; so we can not but confess, that the will where virtue and goodness lodgeth, is of all others the most excellent: and to say the truth, a man is neither good nor wicked, honest nor dishonest, because he understandeth and knoweth those things that are good, and fair, and honest, or wicked and dishonest; but because he loveth them, and hath desire and will towards them. The understanding hath other pre-eminences: for it is unto the will as the husband to the wife, the guide and light unto the traveler, but in this it giveth place unto the will. The true difference betwixt these faculties is, in that by the understanding things enter into the soul, and it receiveth them (as those words, to apprehend, conceive, comprehend, the true offices thereof do import) but they enter not entire and such as they are, but according to the proportion and capacity of the understanding: whereby the greatest and the highest do recoil and divide themselves after a sort, by this entrance, as the Ocean entereth not altogether into the Mediterrane sea, but according to the proportion of the mouth of the Straight of Gibraltar. By the will, on the other side, the soul goeth forth of itself, and lodgeth and liveth elsewhere in the thing beloved, into which it transformeth it self; and therefore beareth the name, the title, the livery, being called virtuous, vicious, spiritual, carnal: whereby it followeth, that the will is ennobled by loving those things that are high and worthy of love; is vilified, by giving itself to those things that are base and unworthy; as a wife honoureth or dishonoureth herself by that husband that she hath taken. Experience teacheth us, that three things do sharpen our will, Difficulty, Rarity, and Absence, or fear to lose the thing; as the three contrary dull it, Facility, Abundance, or Satiety, and daily presence or assured fruition. The three former give price and credit to things, the three latter engender contempt. Our will is sharpened by opposition, it opposeth itself against denial. On the other side, our appetite contemneth and letteth pass that which it hath in possession, and runs after that which it hath not, permissum fit vile nefass: quod licet ingratum est, quod non licet acrius urit: yea it is seen in all sorts of pleasures, omnium rerum voluptas ipso quo debet fugare periculo cresit: insomuch that the two extremes, the defect and the abundance, the desire and the fruition do put us to like pain. And this is the cause why things are not truly esteemed as they ought, and that there is no Prophet in his own country. How we are to direct and rule our wills, shall be said hereafter. PASSIONS and AFFECTIONS. An advertisement. THe matter of the passions of the mind is very great and Lib. 2. cap. 6. & 7. lib. 3. in the virtues of fortitude and temperance. plentiful, and takes up a great room in this doctrine of Wisdom. To learn how to know them, and to distinguish them, is the subject of this book. The general remedies to bridle, rule, and govern them, the subject of the second book. The particular remedies of every one of them, of the third book, following that method of this book, set down in the Preface. Now that in this first book we may attain the knowledge of them, we will first speak of them in general in this first Chapter, afterward in the Chapters following particularly of every one of them. I have not seen any that painteth them out more richly, and to the life, than Le Sieur du Vair in his little moral books, whereof I have made good use in this passionate subject. CHAP. XVIII. Of the passions in general. PAssion is a violent motion of the Soul in the sensitive 1 The description of passions. part thereof, which is made either to follow that which the Soul thinketh to be good for it, or to fly that which it takes to be evil. But it is necessary that we know how these motions are made, how they arise and kindle themselves in us; which a man may represent by divers means and comparisons: first in regard of their agitation and violence. The Soul which 1. Their agitation. is but one in the body hath many and divers powers, according to the divers vessels wherein it is retained, the instruments whereof it maketh use, and the objects which are presented unto it. Now when the parts wherein it is enclosed, do not retain and occupy it, but according to the proportion of their capacity, and as far forth as it is necessary for their true use; the effects thereof are sweet, benign, and well governed: but when contrariwise the parts thereof have more motion and heat than is needful for them, they change and become hurtful; no otherwise than the beams of the Sun, which wandering according to their natural liberty, do sweetly and pleasingly warm; if they be recollected and gathered into the concavities of a burning glass, they burn and consume that they were wont to nourish and quicken. Again, they have divers degrees in their force of agitation; and as they have more or less, so they are distinguished; the indifferent suffer themselves to be tasted and digested, expressing themselves by words and tears; the greater and more violent astonish the soul, oppress it, and hinder the liberty of it actions. Curae leues loquuntur, ingentes stupent. Secondly, in regard of the vice, disorder, and injustice that is in these passions, we may compare man to a Commonweal, 3 2. Of their vice and irregularity. and the state of the soul to a state royal, wherein the Sovereign for the government of so many people hath under-magistrates, unto whom for the exercise of their charges he giveth laws and ordinances, reserving unto himself the censuring of the greatest and most important occurrents. Upon this order dependeth the peace and prosperity of the state: and contrariwise, if the magistrates, which are as the middle sort betwixt the Prince and the people, shall suffer themselves either to be deceived by facility, or corrupted by favour; and without respect either of their Sovereign, or the laws by him established, shall use their own authority in the execution of their affairs, they fill all with disorder and confusion. Even so in man, the understanding is the Sovereign, which hath under it a power estimative, and imaginative, as a magistrate, both to take knowledge, and to judge by the report of the senses of all things that shallbe presented, and to move our affections, for the better execution of the judgements thereof: for the conduct and direction whereof in the exercise of it charge, the law and light of Nature was given unto it: and moreover, as a help in all doubts, it may have recourse unto the counsel of the superior and sovereign, the understanding. And thus you see the order of the happy state hereof: but the unhappy is when this power which is under the understanding, and above the senses, whereunto the first judgement of things appertaineth, suffereth itself for the most part to be corrupted and deceived, whereby it judgeth wrongfully and rashly, and afterwards manageth and moveth our affections to ill purpose, and filleth us with much trouble and unquietness. That which molesteth and corrupteth this power, are first the senses, which comprehend not the true and inward nature of things, but only the face and outward form, carrying unto the soul the image of things, with some favourable commendation, and as it were a foreiudgement and prejudicate opinion of their qualities, according as they find them pleasing and agreeable to their particular, and not profitable and necessary for the universal good of man: and secondly, the mixture of the false and indifferent judgement of the vulgar sort. From these two false advisements and reports of the Opinion. Senses, and vulgar sort, is form in the soul an inconsiderate opinion, which we conceive of things, whether good or ill, profitable or hurtful, to be followed or eschewed; which doubtless is a very dangerous guide, and rash mistress: for it is no sooner conceived, but presently without the committing of any thing to discourse and understanding, it possesseth itself of our imagination, and as within a Citidell, holdeth the fort against right and reason, afterwards it descendeth into our hearts, and removeth our affections, with violent motives of hope, fear, heaviness, pleasure. To be brief, it makes all the fools, and the seditions of the soul, which are the passions, to arise. I will likewise declare the same thing, by another similitude of military policy. The Senses are the Sentinels of the Soul, watching for the preservation thereof, and messengers or scouts to serve as ministers and instruments to the understanding the sovereign part of the Soul. And for the better performance hereof, they have received power to apprehend the things, to draw the forms, and to embrace or reject them, according as they shall seem agreeable or odious unto their nature. Now in exercising their charge, they must be content to know, and to give knowledge to others of what doth pass, not enterprising to remove greater forces, lest by that means they put all into an alarm and confusion. As in an army, the sentines many times by want of the watch word, and knowledge of the design and purpose of the Captain that commandeth, may be deceived, and take for their succour their enemies disguised which come unto them, or for enemies those that come to secure: So the Senses by not apprehending whatsoever is reason, are many times deceived by an appearance, and take that for a friend which is our enemy. And when upon this thought and resolution, not attending the commandment of reason, they go about to remove the power concupiscible and irascible, they raise a sedition and tumult in our souls, during which time, reason is not heard, nor the understanding obeyed. 4 The distinction of the Passions according to their object and subject. By this time we see their regiments, their ranks, their general kinds and special. Every passion is moved by the appearance and opinion, either of what is good, or what is ill. If by that which is good, and that the soul do simply so consider of it, this motion is called love. If it be present and such whereof the Soul in itself taketh comfort, it is called pleasure Of the concupiscible six. and joy: if it be to come, it is called desire: if by that which is evil, it is hate: if it be present in ourselves, it is sorrow and grief: if in another, it is pity: if it be to come, it is fear. And these which arise in us by the object of an apparent evil, which we abhor and fly from, descend more deeply into our hearts, and arise with greater difficulty. And this is the first band of that seditious rout, which trouble the rest and quiet of our souls, that is, in the concupiscible part, the effects whereof notwithstanding they are very dangerous, yet they are not so violent as those that follow them: for these first motions form in this part, by the object which presenteth itself, do pass incontinently into the irascible part, that is to say, into that compass where the soul seeketh the means to obtain or avoid that which seemeth unto it either good or ill. And then even as a wheel that is already in motion, receiving another motion by a new force, turns with far greater speed; so the Soul being already moved by the first apprehension, joining a second endeavour to the first, carrieth itself with far more violence than before, and is stirred up by passions more puissant and difficult to be tamed; inasmuch as they are doubled, and now coupled to the former, uniting themselves, and backing the one the other by a In the irascible five. mutual consent: for the first passions, which are form upon an object of an appearing good, entering into consideration of means whereby to obtain it, stir up in us either hope or despair. They that are form upon an object of an evil to come, stir up in us either fear, or the contrary, which is audacity; of a present evil, choler and courage: which passions are strangely violent, and wholly pervert the reason which they find already shaken. Thus you see the principal winds from whence arise the tempests of our Soul, and the pit whereout they rise is nothing else but the opinion (which commonly is false, wandering, uncertain, contrary to nature, verity, reason, certainty) that a man hath, that the things that present themselves unto us, are either good or ill: for having conceived them to be such, we either follow them, or with violence fly from them. And these are our passions. OF PASSIONS IN PARTICULAR. An Advertisement. WE will entreat of their natures, that we may thereby see their follies, vanity, misery, injustice, & that foulness that is in them, to the end we may know & learn how justly to hate them. The counsel that is given for the avoidance of them is in the books following. These are the two parts of Lib. 3. in the virtue of Fortitude & Temperance. physic, to show the malady, and to give the remedy. It remaineth therefore that here we first speak of all those that respect the appearing good, which are love and the kinds thereof, desire, hope, despair, joy; and afterwards all those that respect the ill, which are many, choler, hatred, envy, jealousy, revenge, cruelty, fear, sadness, compassion. CHAP. XIX. Of Love in general. THe first and chief mistress of all the passions is Love, The distinction of love and comparison. which consisteth of divers subjects, and whereof there are divers sorts and degrees. There are three principal kinds unto which all the rest are referred (we speak of the vicious and passionate love, for of the virtuous, which is Amity, Charity, Dilection, we will speak in the virtue of justice) Lib. 3. that is to say, Ambition or Pride, which is the love of greatness and honour; Covetousness, the love of riches; and voluptuous or carnal love. Behold here the three gulfs, and precipitate steeps, from which, few there are that can defend themselves: the three plagues and infections of all that we have in hand, the mind, body and goods: the armouries of those three captain enemies of the health and quiet of mankind, the Devil, the flesh, the world. These are in truth three powers, the most common and universal passions: and therefore the Apostle hath divided into these three, whatsoever is in the world, Quicquid est in mundo, est concupiscentia oculorum, aut carnis, aut superbia vitae. Ambition, as more spiritual, so it is more high and noble than the others. Voluptuous love, as more natural and universal (for it is even in beasts themselves, where the rest are not) so it is more violent, and less vicious: I say simply violent, for sometimes Ambition excels it: but this is some particular malady. Covetousness of all the rest is the sickest and most sottish. CHAP. XX. Of Ambition. AMbition (which is a thirst after honour and glory, a 1 The description. gluttonous and excessive desire of greatness) is a sweet and pleasing passion, which distilleth easily into generous spirits, but is not without pain got forth again. We think it is our duties to embrace what is good, and amongst those good things, we account of honour more than them all. See here the reason, why with all our strength we run unto it. An ambitious man will always be the first, he never looks backward, but still forward to those that are before him: and it is a greater grief unto him to suffer one to go beyond him, than it is pleasure unto him, to leave a thousand behind him. Habet hoc vitium omnis ambitio, non respicit. It is twofold: Seneca. the one of glory and honour, the other of greatness and command: that is profitable to the world, and in some sense permitted, as shall be proved: this pernicious. The seed and root of ambition is natural in us. There is a 2 It is natural. proverb that saith, That Nature is content with a little: and another quite contrary, That Nature is never satisfied, never content: but it still desireth, hath a will to mount higher, and to enrich itself, and it goeth not a slow pace neither, but with a lose bridle it runneth headlong to greatness and glory. Natura nostra imperij est avida, & ad implendum cupiditatem praeceps. And with such force and violence do some men run, that they break their own necks, as many great men have done, even at the dawning as it were, and upon the point of entrance and full fruition of that greatness which hath cost them so dear. It is a natural and very powerful passion, and in the end is the last that leaveth us: and therefore one calleth it, The shirt of the soul: because it is the last vice it putteth off. Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima Tacitus. exuitur. Ambition, as it is the strongest and most powerful passion that is, so is it the most noble and haughty; the force and puissance The force and primacy thereof. thereof is showed, in that it mastereth and surmounteth all other things, even the strongest of the world, yea all other passions and affections, even love itself, which seemeth nevertheless to contend with it for the Primacy. As we may see in all the great men of the world, Alexander, Scipio, Pompey, and many other, who have courageously refused to touch the most beautiful damosels, that were in their power, burning nevertheless with ambition; yea that victory they had over love, served their ambition, especially in Caesar: For never was there a man more given to amorous delights, even of all sexes, and all sorts of people, witness so many exploits both at Rome and in strange countries, nor more careful and curious in adorning his person; yet ambition did always so carry him, that for his amorous pleasures he never lost an hour of time which he might employ to the enlargement of his greatness, for ambition had the sovereign place in him, and did fully possess him. We see on the other side that in Marcus Antonius and others, the force of love hath made them to forget the care and conduct of their affairs. But yet both of them being weighed in equal balance, ambition carrieth away the price. They that hold that love is the stronger, say that both the soul and the body, the whole man, is possessed by it, yea that health itself dependeth thereupon. But contrariwise it seemeth that ambition is the stronger, because it is altogether spiritual. And in as much as love possesseth the body, it is therefore the more weak, because it is subject to satiety, and therefore capable of remedies, both corporal, natural and strange, as experience showeth of many, who by divers means have allayed, yea quite extinguished the force and fury of this passion; but ambition is not capable of satiety, yea it is sharpened by the fruition of that it desireth, and there is no way to extinguish it, being altogether in the soul itself and in the reason. It doth likewise vanquish love and robbeth it, not only of it health and tranquillity (for glory & tranquillity are things 4 The care of life. that cannot lodge together) but also of it own proper life, as Agrippina the mother of Nero doth plainly prove, who desiring and consulting with others to make her son Emperor, and understanding that it could not be done, but with the loss of her own life, she answered, as if ambition itself had spoken it, Occidar modò imperet. Thirdly, Ambition enforceth all the laws, and conscience itself; the learned have said of ambition, that it is the part 5 The laws. of every honest man always to obey the laws, except it be in a case of sovereignty for a kingdom which only deserveth a dispensation, being so dainty a morsel, that it cannot but break a man's fast, Si violandum est ius, regnandi caussa violandum est, in caeteris pietatem colas. It likewise trampleth under foot and contemneth the reverence 6 Religion. & respect of religion, witness jeroboam, Mahumet, who never took thought for religion, but tolerated all religions so he might reign: and all those arch-heretics who have liked better to be chief leaders in errors and lies with a thousand disorders, than to be disciples of the truth: and therefore saith the Apostle, that they that suffer themselves to 1. Tim. 6. be puffed up with this passion and affection, make shipwreck, and wander from the faith, piercing themselves thorough with many sorrows. To be short, it offereth violence even to the laws of Nature itself. This hath been the cause of so many murders 7 It enforceth Nature. of parents, infants, brothers; witness Absalon, Abimelech, Athalias, Romulus, Sei King of the Persians, who killed both his father and brother, Soliman the Great Turk his two brothers. So that nothing is able to resist the force of ambition, it beats all to the ground, so high and haughty is it. It lodgeth only in great minds, even in the Angels themselves. Ambition is not the vice or passion of base companions, 8 It is a lofty passion. nor of common or small attempts, and daily enterprises: Renown and glory doth not prostitute itself to so base a price; it pursueth not those things that are simply and solely good and profitable, but those that are rare, high, difficult, strange and unusual. That great thirst after honour and reputation, that casts down a man, and makes him a beggar, and to duck and stoop to all sorts of people, & by all means, yea the most abject, at what base price soever, is vile and dishonourable: it is a shame and dishonour so to be honoured. A man must not be greedy of greater glory than he is capable of; and to swell and to be puffed up for every good and profitable action, is to show his tail while he lifts up his head. Ambition hath many and divers ways, and is practised by divers means: there is one way straight and open, such as 9 It hath divers ways. Alexander, Caesar, Themistocles took; there is another obliqne and hidden, which many philosophers and professors of piety have taken, who go forwards by going backward, go before others by going behind them, not unlike to wiredrawers, who draw and go backward; they would feign be glorious by contemning glory. And to say the truth, there is greater glory in refusing and trampling glory under foot, than in the desire and fruition thereof, as Plato told Diogenes. And ambition is never better carried, better guided, than by wandering, and unusual ways. Ambition is a folly and a vanity, for it is as much as if a 10 It is a folly. man should run to catch the smoke in stead of the light, the shadow in stead of the body, to fasten the contentment of his mind upon the opinion of the vulgar sort, voluntarily to renounce his own liberty, to follow the passions of others, to enforce himself to displease himself; for the pleasure of the beholders, to let his own affections depend upon the eyes of another; so far forth to love virtue as may be to the liking of the common sort; to do good not for the love of good, but reputation. This is to be like unto vessels when they are pierced, a man can draw nothing forth before he give them a vent. Ambition hath no limits, it is a gulf that hath neither 11 It is insatiable. brink nor bottom; it is that vacuity which the Philosophers could never find in Nature; a fire which increaseth by that nourishment that is given unto it. Wherein it truly payeth his master: for ambition is only just in this, that it sufficeth for his own punishment, and is executioner to itself. The wheel of Ixion is the motion of his desires, which turn and return up and down, never giving rest unto his mind. They that will flatter ambition, say it is a servant or help unto virtue, and a spur to beautiful actions; for it quitteth 12 The excuses of ambition vain. a man of all other sins, and in the end, of himself too; and all for virtue: but it is so far from this, that it hideth sometimes our vices, but it takes them not away, but it covereth or rather hatcheth them for a time under the deceitful cinders of a malicious hypocrisy, with hope to set them on fire altogether, when they have gotten authority sufficient to reign publicly and with impiety. Serpents lose not their venom, though they be frozen with cold, nor an ambitious man his vices though with a cold dissimulation he cover them: for when he is arrived to that pitch of height that he desired, he than makes them feel what he is. And though ambition quit a man of all other vices, yet it never taketh away itself. An ambitious man putteth himself forth to great and honourable actions, the profit whereof returneth to the public good, but yet he is never the better man that performs them, because they are not the actions of virtue but of passion, no though that saying be often in his mouth, We are not borne for ourselves but the weal public. The means men use to mount themselves to high estate, and their carriages in their states and charges, when they are arrived thereunto, do sufficiently show what men they are, and their own consciences tells the most that follow that dance, that howsoever the public good be their outward colour, yet their own particular is that they intent. Particular advisements and remedies against this evil you shall find Lib. 3. cap. 42. CHAP. XXI. Of Covetousness and her counterpassion. TO love and affect riches is covetousness; not only the 1 What it is. love and affection, but also every over-curious care and industry about riches; yea their dispensations themselves and liberty, with art and too much attention procured, have a sent of covetousness: for they are not worthy an earnest care and attention. The desire of goods and the pleasure we take in possessing 2 The force thereof. of them is grounded only upon opinion. The immoderate desire to get riches is a gangrene in our soul, which with a venomous heat consumeth our natural affections, to the end it might fill us with virulent humours. So soon as it is lodged in our hearts, all honest and natural affection which we own either to our parents or friends, or ourselves, vanisheth away. All the rest in respect of our profit seemeth nothing, yea we forget in the end, and contemn ourselves, our bodies, our minds, for this transitory trash, and as the Proverb is, We sell our horse to get us hay. Covetousness is the vile and base passion of vulgar fools, 3 The folly & misery of covetousness in fine points who account riches the principal good of man, and fear poverty as the greatest evil; and not contenting themselves with necessary means, which are forbidden no man, weigh that is good in a Goldsmith's balance, when nature hath taught us to measure it by the ell of necessity. For what greater folly can there be, than to adore that which Nature itself hath put under our feet, and hidden in the bowels of the earth as unworthy to be seen, yea rather to be contemned, and trampled under foot? This is that that the only sin of man hath torn out of the entrails of the earth, and brought unto light, to kill himself. In lucem propter quae pugnaremus excutimus: nonerube scimus summa apud nos haberi, quae fuerunt ima terrarum. Nature seemeth even in the first birth of gold, and womb from whence it proceedeth, after a sort to have presaged the misery of those that are in love with it: for it hath so ordered the matter, that in those countries where it groweth, there grows with it neither grass, nor plant, nor other thing that is worth any thing, as giving us to understand thereby, that in those minds where the desire of this metal grows, there can not remain so much as a spark of true honour and virtue: for what thing can be more base, than for a man to disgrade, and to make himself a servant and a slave to that, which should be subject unto him? Apud sapientem divitiae sunt in servitute, apud stultum in imperio. For a covetous man serves his riches, not they him, and he is said to have goods as he hath a fever, which holdeth and tyranniseth over a man, not he over it. What thing more vile than to love that which is not good, neither can make a good man, yea is common, and in the possession of the most wicked of the world, which many times pervert good manners, but never amend them? Without which so many wise men have made themselves happy, and by which many wicked men have come to a miserable end. To be brief, what thing more miserable than to bind the living unto the dead, as Mezentius did, to the end their death might be languishing and the more cruel; to tie the spirit to the excrement and scum of the earth; to pierce throw his own soul with a thousand torments, which this amorous passion of riches brings with it; and to entangle himself with the ties and cords of this malignant thing, as the Scripture calleth them, which doth likewise term them thorns, and thieves which steal away the heart of man, snares of the Devil, idolatry, and the root of all evil. And truly he that shall see the Catalogue of those envies and molestations which riches engender within the heart of man, as their proper thunderbolt and lightning, they would be more hated than they are now loved. Desunt inopiae multa, avaritiae omnia: in nullum avarus bonus est, in se pessimus. There is another contrary passion to this, and vicious, to hate riches, and to spend them prodigally; this is to refuse 4 The counterpassion to covetousness. the means to do well, to put in practise many virtues, and to fly that labour which is far greater in the true command and use of riches, than in not having them at all; to govern himself better in abundance than in poverty. In this there is but one kind of virtue, which is, not to faint in courage, but to continue firm and constant. In abundance there are many, Temperance, Moderation, Liberality, Diligence, Prudence, and so forth. There, more is not expressed, but that he look to himself: here, that he attend first himself, and then the good of others. He that is spoiled of his goods hath the more liberty to attend the more weighty affairs of the spirit: and for this cause many, both Philosophers and Christians, out of the greatness of their courage, have put it in practice. He doth likewise discharge himself of many duties and difficulties that are required in the good and honest government of our riches, in their acquisition, conservation, distribution, use and employment: but he that quitteth himself of his riches for this reason, slieth the labour and business that belongs unto them; and quite contrary doth it not out of courage, but cowardice: and a man may tell him, that he shakes off his riches, not because they are not profitable, but because he knoweth not how to make use of them, how to use them. And not to be able to endure riches, is rather weakness ofminde, than wisdom, saith Seneca. CHAP. XXII. Of carnal love. Carnal Love is a fever and furious passion, and very dangerous 1 It is strong, natural and common. unto him that suffereth himself to be carried by it: For what becomes of him? He is no more himself; his body endureth a thousand labours in the search of his pleasure; his mind a thousand hells to satisfy his desires, and desire itself increasing, grows into fury. As it is natural, so is it violent and common to all, and therefore in the action thereof it equalleth and coupleth fools and wise men, men and beasts together. It maketh all the wisdom, resolution, contemplation & operation of the soul beastly and brutish. Hereby, as likewise by sleep, Alexander knew himself to be a mortal man, because both these suppress the faculties of the soul. Philosophy speaketh freely of all things, that it may the better find out their causes, govern and judge of them; so 2 Why ignominious. doth Divinity, which is yet more chaste and more straight. And why not, since that all things belong unto the jurisdiction and knowledge thereof? The Sun shines on the dunghill, and is neither infected, nor annoyed therewith. To be offended with words is a token either of great weakness, or some touch or guilt of the same malady. Thus much be spoken for that which followeth, or the like if it shall happen. Nature on the one side with violence thrusteth us forward unto this action; all the motion of the world resolveth and yieldeth to this copulation of the male and female: on the other side it causeth us to accuse, to hide ourselves, to blush for shame, as if it were a thing ignominious and dishonest. We call it a shameful act, and the parts that serve thereunto our shameful parts. But why shameful, since natural, and (keeping itself within it own bounds) just, lawful, and necessary? Yea, why are beasts exempted from this shame? Is it because the countenance seems foul and deformed? Why foul, since natural? In crying, laughing, champing, gaping, the visage is more distorted: Is it to the end it may serve as a bridle and a stay to such a kind of violence? Why then doth Nature cause such a violence? Or contrariwise: Is it because shame serveth as a spur, and as sulfur; or that the instruments thereof move without our consent, yea against our wills? By this reason beasts likewise should be bashful: and many other things move of themselves in us without our consent, which are neither vicious nor shameful; not only inward and hidden (as the pulse & motion of the heart, arteries, lungs, the instruments and parts that serve the appetite, of eating, drinking, discharging the brain, the belly, and their shutting and openings, are beside, nay many times, against our wills, (witness those sneezings, yawnings, tears, hoquets and fluxions, that are not in our own power, and this of the body: the spirit forgetteth, remembreth, believeth, misbeleeveth, and the will itself, which many times willeth that which we would it willed not) but outward and apparent: the visage blusheth, waxeth pale, wan, the body groweth fat, lean, the hair turneth grey, black, white, grows, stands on end, without and against our consent. Is it that hereby the poverty and weakness of man may be the more truly showed? That is as well seen in our eating and drinking, our griefs, weariness, the disburdening of our bodies, death, whereof a man is not ashamed. Whatsoever the reason be, the action in itself and by nature is no way shameful, it is truly natural; so is not shame: witness the beasts. Why say I beasts? The nature of man, saith Divinity, maintaining itself in it first original state, had never known what shame was, as now it doth; for from whence cometh shame but from weakness, and weakness but from sin, there being nothing in nature of itself shameful? The cause then of this shame not being in nature, we must seek it elsewhere. It is therefore artificial. It is an invention forged in the closet of Venus to give the greater prize to the business, and to enkindle the desire thereof the more. This is with a little water to make the fire burn the clearer, as Smiths use to do, to inflame the desire to see what it is that is hidden; to hear and know what it is that is muttered and whispered. For to handle things darkly as if they were mysteries, and with respect and shame, giveth taste and estimation unto them. Contrariwise, a lose, free and open permission and commodity, derogateth from the worth, and taketh away the true relish and delight thereof. This action then in itself, and simply taken, is neither 3 In what sense vicious. shameful nor vicious, since it is natural and corporal, no more than other the like actions are: yea, if it be well ordered, it is just, profitable, necessary, at the least, as it is to eat and drink. But that which doth so much discredit it, is, that moderation is seldom kept therein; and that to attain thereunto, we make great stirs; and many times use bad means, whereby it draweth after it, if it go not before, many evils all worse than the action itself. The charge riseth above the principal, and this is to fish (as it is said) with threads of gold and purple. And all this is purely human. Beasts that follow simple nature, are quit from all these troubles. But the art of man on the one side sets a straight guard about it, planteth at the gate shame to give it a relish: on the other side (o the cozenage of men!) it inflameth and sharpeneth the desire, it deviseth, removeth, troubleth, turneth all topsy-turvy to attain unto it, (witness Poetry, which sportteh not itself in any thing so much as in this subject) and findeth every entrance unto it to be better, than by the gate, and the lawful way, and followeth every wandering way, rather than the common way of marriage. CHAP. XXIII. Desires, Concupiscence. THere arise not so many billows and waves in the sea, as 1 The bottomless depth of desire. desires in the heart of man: it is a bottomless depth, it is infinite, divers, inconstant, confused, and irresolute, yea many times horrible and detestable, but ordinarily vain, and ridiculous in it own desires. But first it shall not be amiss to distinguish them. Some 2 Their distinction. Natural necessary. lib. 2. cap. 6. are natural, and they are just and lawful: they are likewise in beasts, they have their limits and bounds, a man may see the end of them; and living according to those, there is no man a beggar. Of these shall be spoken hereafter more at large: for (to say the truth) these are not passions. Others Not natural. are beside nature proceeding from our opinion and fantasy, artificial, superfluous, which we may, for distinctions sake, call Concupiscences or Lusts. These are purely human, beasts know not what they are, only man is immoderate in his appetites: these are without limits, without end, and are nought else but confusion. Desideria naturalia finita sunt, ex falsa opinione nascentia, ubi desinant non habent. Nullus enim Seneca. terminus falso est: via eunti aliquid extremum est error immensus est. And therefore living according to these, there is no man can be rch and contented. Of these it is properly that we have spoken in the beginning of this Chapter, and that we farther intend in this matter of the passions. It is for these that a man sweats, and travels, ad superuacua sudatur, that a man iourneyeth by sea and by land, goeth to war, kills himself, drowns, betrays, loseth himself: and therefore it was well said, That concupiscence is the root of all evil. Now it falleth out many times (a just punishment) that when a man seeketh how to satisfy his desires, and to glut himself with the goods and pleasures of Fortune, he loseth and is deprived of those of Nature: and therefore Diogenes having refused that money that Alexander offered him, desired him to give him that he had taken from him, to go out of the Sun. CHAP. XXIIII. Hope, Despair. Our desires and concupiscences gather heat and redouble their force by hope, which inflameth with the soft and gentle air thereof our foolish desires, kindleth in our minds a fire, from whence ariseth a thick smoke, which blindeth our understanding; carrieth with it our thoughts, holds them hanging in the clouds, makes us dream waking. So long as our hopes endure, or desires endure with them: it is a play-game wherewith Nature busieth our minds. Contrariwise, when despair is once lodged near us, it tormenteth our souls in such sort, with an opinion of never obtaining that we desire, that all business beside must yield unto it. And for the love of that which we think never to obtain, we lose even the rest of whatsoever we possess. This passion is like unto little children, who to be revenged of him that hath taken one of their play-games from them, cast the rest into the fire. It is angry with itself, and requireth of itself the punishment of it own folly and infelicity. After those passions that respect the apparent good, come we to those that respect the evil. CHAP. XXV. Of Choler. CHoler is a foolish passion which putteth us wholly out 1 The description. of ourselves, and with seeking the means to withstand and beat back the evil which it threateneth us, or hath already procured us, maketh the blood to boil in our hearts, and stirreth up furious vapours in our spirits, which blind us and cast us headlong to whatsoever may satisfy the desire which we have of revenge. It is a short fury, a way to madness: by the prompt and ready impetuosity and violence thereof, it carrieth and furmounteth all passions. Repentina & vis universa eius est. The causes that dispose and move unto choler are first 2 The causes thereof. weakness of spirit, as we see by experience in women, old men, infants, scke men, who are commonly more choleric than others. Inualidum omne, natura quaerulum est. A man deceiveth himself to think that there is courage where there is violence: violent motions are like the endeavours of children and old men, who run when they think to go: for there is nothing more weak than an immoderate motion: and a great imbecility is it in a man to be choleric. Secondly, the malady of the mind, whereby it is made overtender to bear blows, as the ulcerate parts of the body, where the sound being interessed therein, are astonished and wounded with light matters. Nusquam sine quaerela aegra tanguntur. The loss of a penny, or the omission of a gain, puts into choler a covetous man; a laughter or glance of his wife stirs this passion in a jealous man. Thirdly, lust, vain niceness, self-love, which makes a man anxious and angry, puts him into choler for the least cause that may be. Nulla res magis iracundiam alit quam luxuria. This love of trifles, of a glass, a dog, a bird, is a kind of folly that troubleth us much, and stirs up this choleric passion in us. Fourthly, too much curiosity, qui nimis inquirit, seipsum inquietat. This is to seek occasions, and out of the lightness of the heart to cast a man into choler, not attending any cause thereof. Saepe ad nos ira venit, saepius nos ad illam. Fiftly, lightness in believing what comes first to the ear. But the principal and formal cause is, an opinion of contempt and misusage, either by word, deed, countenance. These are the reasons whereby we pretend to justify our choler. The signs and symptoms are very manifest, and more than of any other passion; and so strange, that they altar and 3 The signs. change the whole estate of man, they transform and disfigure him, ut sit difficile utrum magis detestabile vitium, aut deform. Some of them are outward, the face red and deformed, the eyes fiery, the looks furious, the ear deaf, the mouth foaming, the heart panting, the pulse beating, the veins swollen, the tongue stammering, the teeth gnashing, the voice loud and hoarse, the speech imperfect, and to be brief, it puts the whole body into a fire and a fever. Some have broken their veins, suppressed their urine, whereby present death hath ensued. What then can the estate of the spirit be within, when it causeth so great a disorder without. Choler at the first blow driveth away and banisheth reason and judgement, to the end it may wholly possess the place; afterwards it fills all with fire, and smoke, and darkness, and noise, like unto him that puts the master out of the house, and then sets fire and burns himself alive within; or like unto a ship, that hath neither stern, nor Pilot, nor sails, nor oars, which commits it fortune to the mercy of the waves, winds, and tempest in the midst of a furious sea. The effects thereof are great, many times miserable and lamentable. Choler first enforceth us to injustice, for it is kindled 4 The effects. and sharpened by a just opposition, and by the knowledge that a man hath of the little reason he hath to be angry. He that is moved to anger upon a false occasion, if a man yield him any good reason why he should not be angry, he is presently more incensed even against the truth and innocency itself, Pertinaciores nos facit iniquitas irae, quasi argumentum sit justè irascendigraviter irasci. The example of Piso is very notable and proves this true, who excelling otherwise in virtue (the history is very well known) being moved to choler, did unjustly put three to death, and by a subtle accusation caused them to be found guilty, only because they acquitted one as unguilty whom he by his former sentence had condemned. It is likewise sharpened by silence and cold reply, as gathering thereby that it proceedeth out of a contempt both of him and his choler; which is proper unto women, who many times are angry to the end they may stir up that passion in another, and increase their choler even to fury, when they see that a man vouchsafeth not to nourish that humour in them, by chiding with them. So that Choler showeth itself to be more savage than a beast, since neither by defence or excuse, nor by silence and patience without defence, it will not be won nor pacified. The injustice thereof is likewise in this, that it will be both a judge and a party, that it will that all take part with it, and grows to defiance with as many as will seem to contradict it. Secondly, forasmuch as it is inconsiderate and heady, it casteth us headlong into great mischiefs, and sometimes even into those which most fly, and do wish and would willingly procure another man, that poenas dum exigit, or far worse. This passion is fitly compared to great ruins, which burst themselves in pieces upon that which they fall, it pursueth with such violence the ill of another, that it heeds not the avoiding of it own. It intrappeth and entangleth us, makes us to speak and to do things, shameful, uncomely, unworthy ourselves. Lastly, it carrieth us so beyond ourselves, that it makes us to do things scandalous, dangerous, and irrevocable, murders, poison, treasons, whereby follow great and too late repentances: witness Alexander the great after he had slain Clitus, and therefore Pythagoras was wont to say, that the end of Choler was the beginning of repentance. This passion feeds upon itself, flattereth and tickleth it self, with a persuasion that it hath reason, that it is just, excusing itself upon the malice and indiscretion of another, but the injustice of another cannot make that just; nor the loss that we receive by another make that profitable unto us: it is too rash and inconsiderate to do any thing that is good: it would cure an evil with an evil; for to yield the correction of an offence to Choler, is to correct a vice by itself. Reason which should have the command over us, needs no such officers as of their own heads execute laws, not attending her ordinance; she would have all things done according to nature by measure, and therefore violence doth no way befit it. But what, shall virtue see the insolency of vice and not be angry with it? shall the liberty thereof be so bridled as not to dare to be moved against the wicked? virtue desires no indecent liberty, it needs not turn it own strength against itself, nor that the wickedness of another should trouble it: a wise man must as well bear the vices of a wicked man without choler, as his prosperity without envy. He must endure the indiscretions of rash and inconsiderate men, with the self same patience that Physicians do the injuries of mad men. There is no greater wisdom, nor more profitable in the world, than to endure the folly of another, for otherwise by not suffering it with patience, we make it our own. That which hath heretofore been spoken touching Choler, may likewise be spoken of these passions following, hatred, envy, revenge, which are made or form Cholers. Particular advisements and remedies against this evil are Lib. 3. cap. 31. CHAP. XXVI. Hatred. HAtred is a strange passion, which strangely and without reason troubleth us: and to say the truth, what is there in the world that tormenteth us more? By this passion we put ourselves into the power of him that we hate, to afflict and vex us; the sight of him moveth our senses, the remembrance stirreth our spirits both waking and sleeping; yea we never present him to our memories but with despite and gnashing of teeth, which puts us beside ourselves, and tears our own hearts; whereby we suffer in ourselves, the punishment of that evil we wish unto another. He which hateth is the patiented, he that is hated, the agent: contrary to the sound of the words, the hater is in torment, the hated in ease. But what do we hate? Men, or their matters and affairs? Doubtless we hate nothing that we should; for if there be any thing to be hated in this world, it is hate itself, and such like passions, contrary to that which should command in us. Particular considerations and remedies against this evil, are Lib. 3. cap. 32. CHAP. XXVII. Envy. Envy is cousen-germaine to Hatred; a miserable passion and outrageous beast, which in torment excelleth hell itself. It is a desire of that good that another possesseth, which gnaweth our heart, and turneth the good of another man to our own hurt. But how should it torment us, since it is as well against that which is ill, as that which is good? Whilst an envious man looketh obliquely upon the goods of another man, he loseth what is good in himself, or at leastwise takes no delight in it. Particular advisements and remedies against this evil, are Lib. 3. cap. 33. CHAP. XXVIII. jealousy. Jealousy is a passion like almost, both in nature and effect, 1 What it is. unto Envy, but that it seemeth that Envy considereth not what is good, but in as much as it is in the possession of another man, and that we desire it for ourselves; and jealousy concerneth our own proper good, whereof we fear another doth partake. jealousy is a weak malady of the soul, absurd, vain, 2 The weakness thereof. terrible and tyrannical, it insinuateth itself under the title of amity; but after it hath gotten possession, upon the selfsame foundation of love and good will, it buildeth an everlasting hate. Virtue, health, merit, reputation, are the incendiaries of this rage, or rather the fuel unto this fury. It is likewise the Gaul that corrupteth all the Honey of 3 The venom thereof. our life: it is commonly mingled with the sweetest and pleasantst actions, which it maketh so sharp and sour as nothing more: it changeth love into hate, respect into disdain, assurance into diffidence: it engendereth a pernicious curiosity and desire in a man to clear himself of that evil, which being past remedy, by too much stirring stinketh the more: For what doth he but publish, put out of all doubt, bring into the light, sound with a trumpet his own shame and misery, and the dishonour of his own children? Particular considerations and remedies against this evil, are Lib. 3. cap. 35. CHAP. XXIX. Revenge. THe desire of Revenge is first a cowardly and effeminate 1 A cowardly passion. passion, proceeding from a base, weak and abject mind, which experience telleth us to be true: for we commonly see the weakest minds the most malicious and revengeful, as women and children. The valiant and generous mind doth little feel this passion, but contemneth and disdaineth it, either because the injury toucheth him not, or because he that offereth the injury is not worthy his revenge, as not daining so far to debase himself: indignus Caesaris ira. The hail, thunder, and tempests, and those fearful motions that are in the air, do neither trouble nor touch the superior celestial bodies, but only the weak and inferior: and even so the indiscretions and childish brawls of fools wound not great and high minds. All the great men of the world, Alexander, Caesar, Epaminondas, Scipio, have been so far from revenge, that quite contrary, they have done good unto their enemies. Secondly, it is a boiling and biting passion, and like a 2 Biting. worm it gnaweth the hearts of those that are infected with it; it molesteth them by day, and by night keeps them awaked. It is likewise full of injustice, for it tormenteth the innocent, 3 Unjust. and addeth affliction. It is to make the party offending, to feel that evil and punishment, which the desire of revenge giveth to a man's heart; and the party offended goes to lay on the burden, as if he had not already hurt enough by the injury received; in such sort, that many times and ordinarily, whilst he tormenteth himself to seek means of revenge, he that hath committed the offence laughs and makes himself merry with it. But it is also far more unjust in the means of the execution, which many times is wrought by treasons and villainous practices. Lastly, the execution is not only painful but dangerous 4 Dangerous. too; for experience telleth us, that he that seeks to be revenged, doth not that which he would, and what his blow intendeth, but commonly that which he would not comes to pass, and thinking to put out the eye of his enemy, he putteth out both his own. The fear of justice tormenteth him, and the care to hide him those that love him. Again, to kill and to make an end of his enemy, is not revenge, but mere cruelty, which proceedeth from cowardliness 5 To kill is not to revenge. and fear. To be revenged is to beat his enemy, to make him stoop; not to kill him: for by killing he feels not the power of his wrath, which is the end of revenge. And this is the reason why a man cares not to be revenged upon a dog or a beast, because he can no way taste or conceit his revenge. In true revenge there must be a kind of pleasure and delight in the revenger; and he upon whom he is revenged must feel the weight of his displeasure, suffer pain, & repent him of the cause, which being killed he cannot do: yea he is rather freed thereby from all misery, and contrariwise he that is the revenger endureth many times that torment & fear which he wished to his enemy. To kill then is a token of cowardliness and fear, lest his enemy feeling the force of his revenge should live to requite him with the like; which though it make an end of the quarrel, yet it woundeth his reputation, it is a trick of precaution and not of courage, and is the way to proceed safely but not honourably. Qui occidit long non ulciscitur, nec gloriam assequitur. Particular advisements and remedies against this evil, are Lib. 3. cap. 34. CHAP. XXX. Cruelty. Cruelty is a villainous and detestable vice, and against nature, and therefore it is likewise called Inhumanity. It proceedeth from weakness, omnis ex infirmitate feritas est, and it is the daughter of cowardliness: for a valorous man doth always exercise his strength against a resisting enemy, whom he hath no sooner at his mercy, but he is satisfied: Romana virtus, parcere subiectis, debellare superbos. Forasmuch therefore as cowardly weakness can not be of this rank, to the end it may yet get the name of valour, it makes blood and massacres the proof thereof. Murders in victories are commonly executed by common people, and the officers of the baggage. Tyrant's are bloody, because they fear, not knowing how to secure themselves, but by rooting out those that may offend them; and therefore they exercise their cruelty against all, even women too, because they fear all, cuncta ferit, dum cuncta timet. Cowardly dogs bite and tear with their teeth, within the house, the skins of those wild beasts, which in the open field they durst not look upon. What makes civil wars so cruel, but that tie wherewith the common people are led and linked, who like dogs that are backed by their master back one another? The Emperor Mauritius being told that one Phocas a soldier should kill him, inquired what he was, and of what nature and condition; and being told by his son in law Philip that he was a base cowward: Why then, saith he, no marvel if he be a murderer and cruel. It proceedeth likewise from the inward malignity of the soul, which feedeth and delighteth itself with the hurt of another. Monsters, like Caligula. CHAP. XXXI. Sadness, or Heaviness of heart. Sadness is a languishing feebleness of the spirit, and a 1 The description. kind of discouragement engendered by the opinion that we have of the greatness of those evils that afflict us. It is a dangerous enemy to our rest, which presently weakeneth and quelleth our souls, if we take not good heed; and taketh from us the use of reason and discourse, and the means whereby to provide for our affairs, and with time it rusteth and fenoweth the soul, it corrupteth the whole man, brings his virtues asleep, even then when he hath most need to keep them awaked, to withstand that evil which oppresseth them: but we must discover the foulness and folly, the pernicious effects, yea the injustice that is in this cowardly, base, and feeble passion, to the end we may learn with all our might to fly and avoid it, as most unworthy the wisest men, according to the doctrine of the Stoics; which is not so easy to be done, because it excuseth and covereth itself with many beautiful colours of nature, piety, goodness, yea the greatest part of the world it draws to honour and favour it, making it an ornament to wisdom, virtue, conscience. First than it is so far from being natural (as it would 2 Not natural. Public mournings, make men believe) that it is formal, and an enemy to nature, as may easily be proved. Touching ceremonious sorrows and public mournings, so much affected and practised in former times, and likewise at this present (my meaning is not to touch the honesty and moderation of obsequies and funerals, nor that sorrow that belongs to piety and religion) what greater imposture or deceitful cozenage can there be in any thing beside? How many feigned and artificial counterfeit cousenages are there with no small cost and charges, both in those whom it concerneth, the authors of the sport, and those whose offices they make use of in that business? For to give the better credit to their juggling tricks they hire people to lament, and to send up their shrieking cries and lamentations, which all men know to be feigned and extorted for money, tears that are not shed but to be seen, and so soon as they are out of sight are dried up; where is it that nature hath taught us this? Nay what is there that nature doth more abhor and condemn? It is a tyrannical, false and vulgar opinion (the worst, as hath been said, almost of all the passions) that teacheth us to weep and lament in such a case. And if a man cannot find occasion of tears & a heavy countenance in himself, he must buy it at a dear price in another, in such sort that to satisfy this opinion, he must enter into a great charge whereof nature if we would credit it, would willingly discharge us. Is not this willingly and publicly to betray reason, to enforce and to corrupt nature, to prostitute his own manhood, to mock both the world and himself, to satisfy the vulgar sort, which produce nothing but error, and account of nothing that is not counterfeit and disguised? Neither are those more particular sorrows natural, as it seems to many; for if they did proceed from nature, they should Particular. be common to all men, and almost touch all men alike. Now we see that the self same things that are causes of sorrow to some, give occasion of joy unto others, that one Province, one person laugheth at that whereat another weary; that they that are conversant with those that lament, exhort them to resolution, and to quit themselves of their tears. Yea the greatest part of those that thus torment themselves, when you have talked with them, or that themselves have had the leisure but to discourse upon their own passions, they confess that it is but a folly thus to afflict themselves, and praise those who in the like adversities, have made head against fortune, and with a manly and generous courage have withstood their afflictions. And it is certain that men do not accommodate their mourning to their cause of sorrow, but the opinion of those with whom they live. And if a man mark them well, he shall find that it is opinion, which the more to annoy us presenteth the things unto us which torment us either more than they should, or by anticipation, fear, and prevention of that which is to come, sooner than they should. But it is against nature, inasmuch as it polluteth and defaceth 3 Against nature. whatsoever nature hath made beautiful and amiable in us, which is drowned by the force of this passion, as the beauty of a pearl is dissolved in vinegar. We make ourselves hereby spectacles of pity, we go with our heads hanging, our eyes fastened on the earth, our mouths tongueless, our members immovable, our eyes serve for no other use than to weep, that you may say we are nothing but sweeting statues, turned (as the Poets feign) like Niobe into a stone by the power of this passion. Now it is not only contrary and an enemy unto nature, but 4 Injust and impious. God himself: for what other thing is it, but a rash and outrageous complaint against the Lord and common law of the whole world, which hath made all things under the Moon changeable and corruptible? If we know this law, why do we torment ourselves? If we know it not, whereof do we complain, but of our own ignorance, in that we know not that which Nature hath written in all the corners and creatures of the world? We are here not to give a law, but to receive it, and to follow that which we find established: for to torment ourselves by contradicting it, doth but double our pain. Besides all this, it is pernicious and hurtful unto man, and by so much the more dangerous, because it killeth when we 5 Pernitican. think it comforts, hurteth under the colour of doing good; under a false pretence of plucking the iron out of the wound, it drives it to the heart: and the blows thereof are so much the more hardly avoided, and the enterprises broken, because it is a domestical enemy brought up with us, which we have engendered for our own punishment. Outwardly, by a deformed and new countenance wholly 6 Outwardly. altered and counterfeited; it dishonoureth and defameth man. Do but consider when it entereth into us, it filleth us with shame, in such sort, that we dare not to show ourselves in public place, no not privately to our dearest friends; and after we are once possessed of this passion, we do nothing but seek corners to hide ourselves from the sight of men. What is this to say, but that it condemneth itself, and acknowledgeth how indecent it is? For it is for a woman that is taken in her wantonness to hide herself, and to fear to be known. Again, do but consider the vestments and habits of sorrow, how strange and effeminate they are; which showeth, that it taketh away whatsoever is manly and generous in us, and puts upon us the countenances and infirmities of women: and therefore the Thracians adorned those men that mourned, like women. And some say, that sorrow makes men eunuchs. The first and more manly and generous laws of the Romans forbade these effeminate lamentations, finding it an horrible thing, that men should so degenerate from their own natures, and do things contrary to manhood; allowing only of those first tears, which proceed from the first encounter of a fresh and new grief, which may fall even from the eyes of Philosophers themselves, who keep with their humanity their dignity: and may fall from the eyes, virtue not falling from the heart. Now it doth not only alter the visage, change, and dishonestly 7 Inwardly. disguise a man outwardly, but piercing even to the marrow of the bone, Tristitia exsiecat ossa, it weakeneth likewise the soul, troubleth the peace thereof, makes a man unapt to good and honourable enterprises, taking away the taste, the desire, and the disposition to do any thing that is profitable either to himself or to another, and not only to do good but to receive it: For even those good fortunes that light upon him displease him; every thing is tart unto his soul, as victuals to a corrupted stomach: and lastly, it maketh bitter our whole life, and poisoneth all our actions. It is twofold, great and extreme, or at leastwise, though 8 The distinction. not great in itself, yet great when by reason of a sudden surprise, and furious unexpected alarm it seizeth upon the hart of a man, pierceth it thorough, depriveth him of motion and sense, like a stone, & not unlike that miserable mother Niobe, Diriguit visu in medio, calor ossa reliquit, Labitur, & longo vix tandem tempore fatur. And therefore the Painter diversly and by degrees presenting unto us the sorrow and miserable estate of the parents and friends of Iphygenia when she was sacrificed, when he came to her father, he painted him with his face covered, as confessing his art not sufficient to express in the visage a grief of that degree. Yea, sometimes a sorrow may be such, that it killeth outright. The second degree is the indifferent sorrow, which though perhaps it may be greater than the former, yet in time it is lessened and eased, and is expressed by tears, sobs, sighs and lamentations: Curae leues loquuntur, ingentes stupent. Particular advisements and remedies against this evil, are Lib. 3. cap. 29. CHAP. XXXII. Compassion. WE sigh with those that are afflicted, and with a fellowlike feeling pity their miseries, either because by a secret consent we participate one the others evils, or because we fear that in ourselves, which hath happened to others. But this is done two ways, whereby there is likewise a twofold compassion; the one good, when a man with a good will, not troubling or afflicting himself, not effeminating his own nature, and without impeachment of equity or honour, doth freely and effectually secure those that are afflicted. This is that virtue so much commended in religion, found in the holiest and wisest in the world: the other is a passion of a feeble mind, a sottish and feminine pity, which proceedeth from a delicate tenderness, a troubled spirit, proper to women, infants, and to cruel and malicious minds (which are consequently base and cowardly, as hath been proved in the Chapter of Cruelty) who pity the punishments of offenders, which produceth unjust effects, not respecting the depth and merit of the cause, but the present fortune, state and condition. advisements and remedies against this evil, you shall find Lib. 3. cap. 30. CHAP. XXXIII. Fear. Fear is the apprehension of an evil to come, which holdeth 1 The description. us in a continual care, and runs before those evils that fortune threateneth us. We speak not here of that fear of God so much commended in Scripture, nor of that fear which proceedeth from love, and is a sweet respect towards the thing beloved, commendable in subjects and all inferiors towards their superiors; but of that vicious fear that troubleth and afflicteth, which is the seed of sin, the twin of shame, both of one womb, sprung from that close and cursed marriage of the spirit of man with a diabolical persuasion. Timeo, eò quòd nudus essem, & abscondi me. It is a deceitful and malicious passion, and hath no other power over us, but to mock and seduce us: it serves it turn 2 The malice and tyranny thereof. with that which is to come, where though we seem to foresee much, we see nothing at all; and in that doubtful darkness it holdeth us, as in a dark place, as thieves do by night, to the end they may rob a man and not be known, and give a great and sudden affright with a small number. And therefore it tormenteth us with masks and shows of evils, as men fear children with bugbeares; evils that have nothing but a simple appearance, and have nought in themselves whereby to hurt us, yea, are not evils, but that we think them so. It is the only apprehension which we have, which makes that evil to us which is not so, and draweth evil even from our own good to afflict us withal. How many do we see every day, that with fear to become miserable, become that they fear, and turn their vain fear into certain miseries? How many have lost their friends, by distrusting their friends; have got diseases, by fearing them? One hath in such sort conceived an opinion that his wife hath played false play with him, that for grief he languisheth; another hath in such sort apprehended such a conceit of poverty, that he falleth sick: and to be brief, some have died for fear to die. And even so may a man say almost of whatsoever we fear: for fear seemeth not to other end, than to make us find that which we fly from. Doubtless, fear is of all other evils the greatest and most tedious: for other evils are no longer evils than they continue, and the pain endureth no longer than the cause; but fear is of that which is, and that which is not, and that perhaps which never shall be, yea sometimes of that which can not possible be. Behold then a passion truly malicious and tyrannical, which draweth from an imaginary evil true and bitter sorrows, and is overgreedie by thought and opinion to overtake, nay outrun them. Fear doth not only fill us with evils, and many times by false appearances, but it likewise spoileth all the good that we have, and all the pleasure of our life, as an enemy to our rest. A man can take no delight in the fruition of that good which he feareth to lose; life itself can not be pleasant, if a man fear to die. Nothing good (saith an ancient writer) can bring pleasure with it, but that against the loss whereof a man is always prepared. It is also a strange passion, indiscreet and inconsiderate, and proceeds as often from the want of judgement, as of heart. It ariseth from dangers, and many times casteth us into dangers; for it engendereth in us such an inconsiderate desire to get out, that it astonisheth, troubleth, and hindereth us from taking that order that is fit to get out. It bringeth a violent kind of trouble, whereby the soul being affrighted, withdraweth itself into itself, and debateth with itself how to avoid that danger that is presented. Besides that great discouragement that it bringeth, it seizeth on us with such an astonishment, that we lose our judgement, & there is no longer reason or discourse in us: it maketh us to fly when no man pursueth, yea many times our own friends and succours: adeo pavor etiam auxilia formidat. Many have run mad herewith, yea the senses themselves have hereby lost their use: we have our eyes open, and see not; one speaks to us, and we harken not unto him; we would fly, and we can not go. An indifferent fear puts wings to our heels; a great nails fast our feet, and entangles them. Fear perverteth and corrupteth the entire man, both the spirit, Pavor sapientiam omnem mihi ex animo expectorat, and the body, Obstupui steteruntque comae, vox hausibus haesit. Sometimes it makes us desperate, and therefore resolute, like that Roman Legion under the conduct of the Cousull Sempronius against Hannibal, Audacem fecerat ipse timor. There are fears and affrightments without any apparent cause, and as it were by some celestial impulsion, which they call Panic terrors, Terrores de coelo, Luc. 21. arescentibus hominibus prae timore, such as once happened in the city of Carthage, and wherewith whole people and armies have been confounded. Particular advisements and remedies against this evil, are Lib. 3. cap. 28. The second Consideration of Man, by comparing him with all other creatures. CHAP. XXXIIII. We have considered man wholly and simply in 1 A profitable and difficult comparison, wherein man is suspected. himself: now let us consider him by comparing him with other creatures, which is an excellent means to know him. This comparison hath a large extent, and many parts that bring much knowledge of importance, and very profitable, if it be well done. But who shall do it? Shall man? He is a party and to be suspected; and to say the truth, deals partially therein: which may easily be proved, because he keeps neither measure nor mediocrity. Sometimes he placeth himself far above all, he terms himself a Master, and disdaineth the rest; divides unto them their morsels, distributeth such a portion of faculties and powers unto them as shall seem good unto him. Sometimes as it were in despite, he debaseth himself beneath all; he murmureth, complaineth, wrongeth Nature as a cruel stepmother, makes himself the outcast and most miserable of the world. Now both these extremes are equally against reason, verity, modesty. But how would you have him to walk uprightly & evenly with all other creatures, when he doth it not with man his companion, nor with God himself, as shall be showed? This comparison is also difficult to do; for how In the chap. of presumption. can a man know the inward and secret carriages of creatures, that which moveth within them? But yet let us do our endeavour to do it without passion. First, the policy of the world is not so unequal, so deformed and irregular, neither is there so great a disproportion between the parts thereof, but that they that are near neighbours and touch one another have a resemblance, some more, some less. So is there a great vicinity and kindred betwixt man and other creatures: they have many things alike and common to each other, and they have differences likewise, but not so far distant and unlike, but that they may hold together. Man is neither altogether above, nor beneath the rest: All that is under heaven, saith the Wisdom of God, Ecclesiast. runs the same fortune. Let us first speak of those things that are common to all, and almost alike, which are to engender, nourish, to do, move, 3 Things common. live, die: Idem interitus hominis & iumentorum, & aequa utriusque conditio. And this is against those that find themselves aggrieved, saying, that man is the most contemptible creature of Nature, abandoned, left naked upon the naked earth, Eccles. 4. without covert, without armour, bound, swaddled, without instruction of what is fit for him: whereas all other creatures are clothed and covered with shells, husks, hair, wool, feathers, scales: armed with teeth, horns, talons, both to assail and to defend: taught to swim, to run, to fly, to sing, to seek their relief, and man knows neither how to go, nor to speak, nor to eat, nor any thing but cry, without an apprenticeship and much labour. All these complaints to him that considereth the first composition and natural condition, are unjust and false: our skin is as sufficiently provided against 1. Nakedness. cap. 5. the injuries of times and seasons as theirs, witness many nations (as hath been said) that never knew what garments meant: yea those parts that we think good we keep uncovered, yea the most tender and sensible, as the face, the hands, the stomach, and the delicatest damosels their breasts. Bands and swaddling clothes are not necessary, witness the 2. Swaddling clothes. Lacedæmonians, and in these days the Swissers, Almains, which dwell in cold countries, the Bisques & vagabonds that are called Egyptians. Crying is likewise common unto beasts: all creatures almost complain, and groan for a time after they 3. Crying. come into the world. As for armour, we want not that which 4. Arms. is natural, and have more motion of our members, use their service more naturally and without instruction. If some beasts excel us in this, we in the same excel divers others. The use of eating is both in them and in us natural and without 5. Eating. instruction. Who doubteth that an infant, being once able to feed himself, knows how to seek his sustenance? And the earth likewise bringeth forth and offereth enough unto him for his necessity, without other culture or Art, witness so many nations, which without labour, industry and care live plenteously. As for speech, a man may well say that 6. Speech. if it be not natural, it is not necessary: but it is common to man with other creatures. What else but speech is that faculty we see in them of complaining, rejoicing, of calling others to their succour, of making love? And as we speak by gestures and motion of the eyes, the head, the shoulders, the hands (wherein deaf men are very cunning) so beasts, as we see in those which have no voice, who nevertheless do interchange their mutual offices; and as in some kind of measure beasts understand us, so we them. They flatter us, threaten us, entreat us and we them, we speak to them, and they to us, and if we perfectly understand not one another, where is the fault? in us or in them? That is to be determined. They may as well account us beasts by that reason, as we them, yea they reproach us for that we ourselves understand not one another. We understand not the Bisques, the Britons, and they all understand the one the other, not only of the same, but which is more of a divers kind. By a certain barking of the dog, the horse knoweth that he is in choler, and by another voice he knoweth he is not. Again they have their intelligence with us. In the wars 7. Mutual intelligence. in the midst of the fight, Elephants, Dogs, Horses understand with us, they frame their motions according to the occasion, they pursue, they make their stand, they retire, nay they have their pay, and divide the booty with us, as it hath been practised in the new conquests of the Indies. And these are those things that are common to all, and alike. Let us now come to those differences and advantages that 4 Differences and advantages. the one hath over the other. Man is singular and excellent in some things above other creatures, and in others, beasts have the superiority, to the end that all things might thereby be knit and enchained together in this general policy of the world and of nature. The certain advantages or excellencies of man, are those great faculties of the soul; the subtility, vivacity, Of man. & sufficiency of the spirit to invent, to judge, to choose, speech to demand and to offer aid and succour, the hand to execute that the spirit hath invented either of itself, or learned from another. The form also of the body, the great diversity of the motions of the members, whereby his body doth him better service. The certain advantages that beasts have over men, and 5 Of Beasts general. such as are past all doubt, are either general or particular. The general are health, and strength of body far more perfect, constant, & strong in them, among whom there are no blind, deaf, lame, mute, diseased, defective, and ill born, as amongst men. The Sereno hurts them nor, they are not subject to rheums from whence proceed almost all other diseases; from which man though he cover his head with a hat and a house too, can hardly defend himself. Moderation in diet and other actions, innocency, safety, peace and tranquillity of life, a plain and entire liberty without shame, fear, or ceremony in things natural and lawful (for it is only man that hath cause to hide himself in his actions, and whose faults and imperfections offend others). Exemption from so many vices and disorders, superstition, ambition, avarice, envy, yea mighty dreams trouble not them as they do men, nor so many thoughts and fantasies. The particular advantages are the pure, high, healthful, pleasant habitation, and abode of Particular. birds in the air. Their sufficiency in some arts, as the swallow and other birds in building, the Spider in spinning and weaving, divers beasts in Physic, and the Nightingale in Music. marvelous effects and properties, not to be imitated, no not imagined, as the property of the fish Remora to stay the greatest vessels of the sea, as we read of the chief galley of Marcus Antonius, and the self same of Caligula; of the Torpedo or Crampe-fish, to benumb and dead the members of another, though far distant, and not touching him; of the Hedgehog, to foresee the winds; of the Chameleon, to change his colours. Prognostications, as of birds in their passages from country to country, according to the diversity of the seasons; of all beasts that are dams, in knowing which of their young is the best; for some hap falling out of defending them from danger, or conveying them to their nests, they always begin with that they know and foresee to be the best. In all these things man is far their inferior, and in some of them he hath no skill at all. A man may add unto this, if he will, the length of their lives, which in some beasts doth seven or eight times exceed the longest term of the life of man. Those advantages that man pretendeth to have above beasts, but are yet disputable, and perhaps as well in beasts 6 Disputable advantages. as men, are many: First, the reasonable faculties, discourse, reasoning, discipline, judgement, prudence. There are here 1 Reason. two things to be spoken, the one of the verity of the thing itself. It is a great question, whether beasts be deprived of all these spiritual faculties. The opinion that they are not deprived but have them, is the more true and the more authentic. It is defended by many great Philosophers, especially by Democritus, Anaxagoras, the Stoics, Galen, Porphyry, Plutarch, and maintained by this reason. The composition of the brain, which is that part which the soul makes use of, and whereby it reasoneth, is all alike as the same in beasts and men, confirmed by experience. Beasts from particulars conclude generals, by the sight of one only man they know all men, they know how to join, and divide, and distinguish the good from the ill, for the safeguard of their lives, liberty, and little ones. Yea, we read and see, if we would but mark and consider it, many things done by beasts, that do far excel the sufficiency, subtlety, and all the wit and cunning of the common sort of men: some of those that are best worth the noting, I will note unto you. The Fox being to pass over a river that is frozen with ice, apply his ear unto the ice, to find whether he can hear any noise, and that the water do run under it, that thereby he may resolve either to go forward, or to retire back; of whom the Thracians have learned the same cunning, being to pass their frozen rivers. A Dog, to the end he may know which way of three either his master or that beast he hunteth is gone, having assured himself by scenting them, that he hath not passed by two of them, because he finds not the trace, without the setting of his nose to the ground or farther traversing, he runneth mainly into the third. The Mule of the Philosopher Thales crossing a river with a sack of salt on his back, and being plunged into the deep with his burden, his salt dissolved in the water, and made his burden the lighter; which the Mule (falling into the deep by chance) having found, being afterwards loaden with wool, used the same remedy, and sunk the more. Plutarch reporteth, that he saw a Dog in a ship casting stones into a pipe of oil, to make the oil to mount, that he might the better come at it. As much is reported of the Crows of Barbary, who by that means raise the water when it is too low, that they may drink. So likewise Elephants gather stones and sticks, and cast them into that ditch whereinto their companion is fallen, to help him to get out. The Oxen of the King's gardens of Suze being taught to go in a wheel a just hundred turns, to draw water to water the gardens, they would never exceed that just number, and were never deceived in their account. All these thnigs, how can they be done, without discourse and reason, addition and division? To say they know not this, were to deny that we see they do. What should we think of that dexterity that is in the Elephant in plucking those darts and javelins forth of his body with little or no pain at all? of the Dog that Plutarch speaketh of, which in a public play upon a scaffold counterfeited death, drawing towards his end, trembling, afterwards growing stiff, and suffering himself to be carried forth, by little and little coming to himself, and lifting up his head counterfeited a new resurrection? of so many apish imitations and strange tricks that the dogs of Players and jugglers do? of the policies and inventions wherewith beasts defend themselves against the assaults we make upon them? of the husbandry and great providence of the Ant in laying abroad his grain to dry, lest it take moisture and so corrupt, in nipping the ends thereof that it grow not? of the policy of the Bee, where there is such diversity of offices and charges so firmly established? To beat down all this, some do maliciously attribute these things to a natural, servile and forced inclination; as if 7 An opposition of the natural instinct. beasts did perform their actions by a natural necessity, like things inanimate, as the stone falleth downward, the fire mounteth upward. But besides that, that can not be, nor enter into our imagination; for there must be a numbering of the parts, comparison, discourse by addition and division, and consequents; they likewise know not what this natural inclination and instinct is; they be words which they abuse to small purpose, that they may not be deaf and mute altogether. Again, this saying is retorted against them: for it is beyond all comparison more noble, honourable, and resembleth more the Divinity to work by nature than by art and apprenticeship; to be led and directed by the hand of God, than by our own; regularly to act by a natural and inevitable condition, than regularly by a rash and casual liberty. By this objection of the natural instinct, they would likewise deprive them of instruction and discipline both active and passive, but experience gives them the lie; for they do both receive it: witness the Pie, the Parrot, the Blackbird, the Dog, the Horse, as hath been said, and they give it, witness the Nightingale, and above all other the Elephant, which excelleth all other beasts in docility, and all kind of discipline and sufficiency. As for this faculty of the spirit whereof man doth so much glory, which is to spiritualize things corporal and absent, robbing them of all accidents, to the end it might conceive them after it own manner, nam intellectum est in intelligente ad modum intelligentis; beasts themselves do the like. The Horse accustomed to the wars sleeping in his stable, trembleth and groaneth as if he were in the midst of the fight; conceiveth the sound of the drum, the trumpet, yea an army itself. The Hare in her sleep panting, lifteth up her scut, shaking her legs, conceiveth a spiritual Hare. Dogs that are kept for guard, in their sleep do snarre, and sometimes bark outright, imagining a stranger to be come. To conclude this first point, we must confess that beasts do reason, have the use of discourse and judgement, but more weakly and imperfectly than man; they are inferior unto men in this, not because they have no part therein at all; they are inferior unto men, as amongst men some are inferior unto others; and even so amongst beasts there is such a difference: but yet there is a greater difference between men; for (as shall be said hereafter) there is a greater distance between a man and a man, than a man and a beast. But for all this we must not hereby infer, a kind of equality or parity betwixt a beast and a man (though as Aristotle saith, there are some men so weak and blockish, that they differ from a beast only in figure) and that the soul of a beast is immortal as that of a man, or the soul of a man mortal as that of a beast: for these are but malicious illations. For besides that in this reasoning faculty, man hath a very great advantage above beasts, so hath the other faculties more high and wholly spiritual, whereby he is said to be like unto God himself, and is capable of immortality, wherein beasts have no part, and are signified by that understanding, which is more than a simple discourse. Nolite fieri sicut equus & mulus in quibus non est intellectus. The other point which we are to speak of in this matter is, that this pre-eminence and advantage of understanding, and other spiritual faculties that man pretendeth, is sold him at a dear rate, and brings with it more hurt than good: for it is the principal source of all those evils that oppress him; of vices, passions, maladies, irresolution, trouble, despair, which beasts want, by the want of this great advantage: witness the Hog of Pyrrho, which did eat his meat peaceably in the ship in the midst of a great tempest, when all the men were almost dead for fear. It seemeth that these great parts of the soul have been denied unto beasts, or at leastwise lessened, and given them more feeble, for their great good and quiet, and bestowed upon man for his torment: for it is long of them that he toileth and traveleth, tormenteth himself with what is past, and that which is to come; yea he imagineth, apprehendeth, and feareth those evils that are not, nor ever shall be. Beasts apprehend nothing that is ill until they feel it; and being escaped, they are presently in security and at peace. So that we see that man is most miserable even in that wherein he thought himself most happy: whereby it seemeth that it had been better for man, not to have been endued and adorned with all those beautiful and celestial arms, since he turneth them against himself, even to his own destruction. And to say the truth, we see those that are most stupid and feeble of spirit, live at best content, and feel not their evil accidents in so high a degree, as those that are more spiritual. Another advantage that man pretendeth above beasts is a signory and power of commanding, which he thinketh he 10 2. Signory and command. hath over beasts: but beside, that it is an advantage that men themselves have and exercise the one over the other, this is not true. For where is this command of man, this obedience of the beasts? It is a monster that was never seen, yea men do more fear beasts, than beasts them. It is true that man hath a great pre-eminence over beasts, ut praesit piscibus maris, volatilibus coeli, bestijs terrae. And this by reason of his beautiful Gen. 1. and upright form, of his wisdom and the prerogative of his spirit: but not that he should either command, or they obey. There is likewise another advantage, near neighbour to 11. 3. Liberty. this, pretended by man, which is a plain liberty, reproaching beasts with their servitude, captivity, subjection: but this is to small purpose. There is far greater reason why man should reproach man; witness those slaves, not only made by force, and such as descend from them, but also those that are voluntary, who either sell for money their liberty or give it, out of the lightness of their hearts, or for some commodity, as the ancient fencers sold outright women to their mistresses, soldiers to their captains. Now there is none of all this in beasts, they never serve one another, nor yield themselves to any servitude either active or passive, either to serve or to be served, and are in every thing more free than men. And as man goeth to the chase, taketh, killeth, eateth the beasts; so is he taken, killed, eaten by them in his turn, and more honourably too, by main strength, not by wit and art, as man doth: and not only by them is he killed, but by his companion, by another man, a thing base and dishonourable. Beasts assemble not themselves in troops to go to kill, to destroy, to ransack, to enthrall another troup of their kind, as men do. The fourth and greatest advantage pretended by man, is in virtue; but of moral it is disputable (I mean moral materially 12 4. Virtue. by the outward action): for formally the morality good or evil, virtue and vice, can not be in a beast. Kind acknowledgement, officious amity, fidelity, magnanimity, and many other virtues, which consist in society and conversation, are more lively, more express and constant, than can be in the common sort of people. Hircanus' the dog of Lysimachus continued upon the bed of his dead master, refusing all kind of sustenance, and afterwards cast himself into that fire wherein his master was burnt, and there died with him. The self same did another belonging to one Pyrrhus. That dog of wise Hesiodus discovered the murder of his master. Another in like sort in the presence of King Pyrrhus, and his whole army. Another which never ceased, as Plutarch affirmeth, going from city to city, until that sacrilegious Robber of the Temple of Athens was apprehended and brought to judgements That history is famous, of the lion that was host and nurse to Androdus the slave and his Physician, which would not touch him being cast out unto him: which Appion affirmeth to have seen at Rome. An Elephant having in choler killed his governor, repenting himself of it, refused any longer to eat, drink, or live. Contrariwise, there is not a creature in the world, more unjust, unthankful, traitorous, perfidious, lying and deceitful, than man. Again, forasmuch as virtue consisteth in the moderation of our appetites, and the bridling of our pleasures, beasts are much more moderate therein than we, and do better contain themselves within the limits of nature. For they are not only not touched with unnatural, superfluous and artificial passions and desires, which are all vicious and infinite, as men who for the most part are plunged in them; but also in the natural, as eating and drinking, the acquaintance betwixt the male and the female, they are far more moderate and stayed. But that we may see which is the more virtuous or vicious a man or a beast, and in good earnest to shame a man more than a beast, let us take the virtue most proper and agreeable unto man, that is, as the word itself importeth, humanity: as the most strange and contrary vice is cruelty. Now herein beasts Humanity. Cruelty. have advantage enough even to make men blush for shame. They never assail, and seldom offend those of their kind, maior serpentum ferarumque concordia quàm hominum: They never fight but for great and just causes, as the defence and preservation of their lives, liberty, and their little ones: and that they do with their natural and open arms, by their only force and valour, and that one to one, as in single combats, and not in troops, nor by designments. Their combats are short and soon ended, until one of them be either wounded or yieldeth, and the combat ended, the quarrel, hatred, and choler is likewise at an end. But man hath no quarrel but against man, for not only light, vain and frivolous causes, but many times unjust, with artificial and traitorous arms, by deceits and wicked means, in troop and assembly gathered by assignment; and lastly his wars are long and never ended but with death, and when he is able no longer to hurt, yet the hatred and choler endureth. The conclusion of this comparison is, that untruly and 12 The conclusion of this second consideration. vainly doth man glorify himself above beasts. For if man have in him something more than they, as especially the vivacity of the spirit and understanding, and those great faculties of the soul; so likewise in exchange is he subject to a thousand evils from which the beasts are freed, inconstancy, irresolution, superstition, a painful care of things to come, ambition, avarice, envy, curiosity, detraction, lying, and a world of disordered appetites, discontentments, emulations. This spirit wherewith man maketh himself so merry, brings him a thousand inconveniences, and then most, when it is most stirred and enforced. For it doth not only hurt the body, trouble, break and weaken the bodily forces and functions, but also it hurts and hindereth itself. What casteth man into folly and madness, but the sharpness, agility, and proper force of the spirit? The most subtle follies and excellent lunacies proceed from the rarest and quickest agitations of the spirit, as from greatest amities spring greatest enmities, and from soundest healths mortal maladies. Melancholy men, saith Plato, as they are more capable of knowledge and wisdom, so likewise of folly. And he that well marketh it, shall find, that in those elevations and sallies of a free soul, there is some mixture of folly; for to say the truth, these things are near neighbours. Touching a simple life and such as is according to nature, beasts do far exceed men; they live more freely, securely, 13 An exhortation. moderately, contentedly. And that man is wise that considereth hereof, and benefiteth himself by making them an instruction unto himself, which doing, he frameth himself to innocency, simplicity, liberty, and that natural sweetness which shineth in beasts, and is wholly altered and corrupteth in us by our artificial inventions, and unbridled licentiousness, abusing that wherein we say we excel them, which is the spirit and judgement. And therefore God doth many times send us to school, to birds, beasts themselves, to the kite, the grasshopper, the swallow, the turtle, the ant, the ox, the ass, and divers others. Lastly, we must remember that there is a kind of commerce betwixt beasts & us, a certain relation & mutual obligation, whereof there is no other reason, but that they belong to one & the same master, and are of the same family that we are. It is an unworthy thing to tyrannize over them, we own justice unto men, and pity and gentleness to such other creatures as are capable thereof. The third Consideration of Man, which is by his life. CHAP. XXXV. The estimation, brevity, description, of the life of man, and the parts thereof. IT is a great and principal point of wisdom, truly to know 1 Of the estimation and worth of life. how to esteem of life, to hold and preserve it, to lose or to take it away, to keep and direct it, as much as after such a manner as is fit; there is not perhaps any thing wherein a man faileth more, or is more hindered. The vulgar unlearned sot accounteth it a sovereign good, and preferreth it above all things; yea he will not stick to redeem and prolong it by all the delays that may be, upon what conditions soever, thinking it can never be bought too dear: for it is all in all with him, his mot is Vita nihil carius. He esteemeth and loveth his life for the love of itself: he lives not but to live. It is no marvel if he fail in all the rest, if he be wholly compounded of errors, since from his very entrance, and in this fundamental point he mistakes himself so grossly. It may be likewise with some less esteemed, and more basely accounted of than it should, either by reason of some insufficiency in judgement, or a proud misknowledge thereof: for falling into the hands of those that are good and wise, it may be a profitable instrument both to themselves and others. And I can not be of their opinion (as it is simply taken) that say it is best of all, not to be at all; and that the best is the shortest life: optimum non nasci aut quàm citissimè aboleri. And it is neither well nor wisely said, What hurt or what matter had it been if I had never been? A man may answer him with the like question: Where had that good been which is come, and being not come, had it not been evil not to have been? It is a kind of evil that wanteth good, whatsoever it be, yea though not necessary. These extremities are too extreme and vicious, though not equally: but that seems true that a wise man spoke, That life is such a good as a man would not take, if he knew well what it were before he took it: Vitam Seneca. nemo acciperet, si daretur scientibus. It is well that men are within before they see the entrance, and that they are carried hoodwinked into it. Now when they are within, some do so cocker and flatter themselves therein, that upon what condition soever they will not go forth again; others do nothing but murmur and vex themselves: but the wiser sort seeing it to be a market that is made without themselves (for a man neither lives nor dies when and how he will) and that though the way be rough and hard, yet nevertheless it is not always so, without winsing, or striving and troubling any thing, they accommodate themselves unto it as they may, and so pass their life in quietness, making of necessity a virtue; which is a token of wisdom and industry: and so doing, they live as long as they should, and not like fools, as long as they can. For there is a time to live, and a time to die: and a good death is far better than an ill life. A wise man lives no longer, than See hereof lib. 2. ca 11. that his life may be worth more than his death: for the longest life is not always the better. All men do much complain of the brevity of the life of 2 Of the length and brevity of life. man; not only the simple vulgar sort, who wish it would never have end, but also (which is more strange) the greatest and wisest make it the principal ground of their complaints. To say the truth, the greatest part thereof being diverted and otherwise employed, there remains little or nothing for itself: for the time of our infancy, old age, sleep, maladies of mind and body, and many other times, both unprofitable and unfit for any good, being taken away, that which remaineth is little or nothing at all. Nevertheless, without opposing the contrary opinion to them that hold a short life to be a great good and gift of Nature, their complaint seemeth to have little equity and reason, and rather to proceed from malice. For to what end serveth a long life? Simply to live, to breath, to eat, to drink, to see this world: for all this what needs so long time? We have seen, known, tasted all in a short space; and knowing it, to desire so long a time to practise it, and still to reiterate the same thing, to what end is it? Who will not be satisfied, nay wearied, to do always one and the same thing? If it be not tedious and irksome, at the least it is superfluous: it is a turning wheel where the same things come and go: it is always to begin where we end, and to respinne the same web. But perhaps they will say they desire a long life to learn and to profit the more, and to proceed to a greater perfection of knowledge and virtue. Alas good souls that we are, what should we know, or who should teach us? We employ but badly that little which is given us, not only in vanities and those things that yield us no profit, but in malice and sin; and then we cry out and complain, that we have not enough given unto us. And to say the truth, to what end serves so great store of knowledge and experience, since in the end we must leave it and dislodge it; and having dislodged it altogether, forget and lose it all, or know it better and otherwise? But you will say, that there are beasts that do triple and quadruple the life of man. To omit those fables that are told hereof; Be it so: but yet there are a number that live not a quarter of that time that man doth, and few neither, that live out their time. By what right or reason, or privilege, can man challenge a longer life than other creatures? Is it because he doth better employ it in matters more high and more worthy life? By this reason he should live less time than all other creatures; for there is none comparable to man in the ill employment of his life, in wickedness, ingratitude, intemperance, and all manner of disorder and immodesty in manners, as hath been showed before in the comparison of man with beasts: so that as I asked even now, to what end a long life served; now I ask, what evils there would be in the world, if the life of man were long? What would he not enterprise, since the shortness of life, which cuts off his way, and (as they say) interrupts his cast, and the uncerteinty thereof, which takes away all heart and courage, can not stay him, living as if he should live ever? On the one side he feareth perceiving himself to be mortal, but notwithstanding that, he can not bridle himself from not coveting, hoping, enterprising, as if he were immortal. Tanquam semper victuri vivitis, nunquam vobis fragilitas vestra Seneca. succurrit: omnia tanquam mortales timetis, tanquam immortales concupiscitis. And to say the truth, what need hath Nature of all these great and godly enterprises and employments, whereby man challengeth a longer life than other creatures? Man therefore hath no subject whereof to complain, but to be angry with himself. We have life enough, but we are not good husbands, we manage it not well; life is not short, but we make it so; we are not in want, but prodigal; non inopes vitae, sed prodigi: we lose it, we dissipate it, we vilify it, as if it were nought worth, as if we had more than enough: we all fall into one of these three faults, either we employ it ill, or about nothing, or in vain. Magna vitae pars elabitur male Seneca.. Look lib. 3. cap. 6. agentibus, maxima nihil agentibus, tota aliud agentibus. One man studieth not to live, but rather busieth himself in any other thing; he shall never know how to do a thing well by acquitting himself of labour, but by care and attention. Others reserve their lives until they can live no longer, then take comfort in life when there is nothing left but the lees and dregs thereof. Oh what folly, what misery is this! Yea there are some that have sooner ended than begun to live, and life is past before they thought of it. Quidam vivere incipiunt, cùm desinendum; quidam antè desierunt, quàm inciperent. Inter caetera mala, hoc quoque habet stultitia, semper incipit vivere. Our present life is but the entrance and end of a Tragedy, 3 A description of the life of man. a perpetual issue of errors, a web of unhappy adventures, a pursuit of divers miseries enchained together on all sides; there is nothing but evil that it distilleth, that it prepareth; one evil drives forward another evil, as one wave another; torment is ever present, and the shadow of what is good deceiveth us; blindness and want of sense possesseth the beginning of our life, the middle is ever in pain and travel, the end in sorrow; and beginning, middle, and end in error. The life of man hath many discommodities and miseries common, ordinary and perpetual; it hath likewise some particular and distinct, according to the diversity of the parts, ages and seasons; infancy, youth, virility, old age, every one have their proper and particular discommodities. The greatest part of the world speak more honourably & 5 A comparison betwixt youth and old age. favourably of old age, as the more wise, ripe, moderate, accusing and shaming youth as vicious, foolish, licentious, but very unjustly: for in truth the infirmities and vices of old age are more in number, more great and troublesome than those of youth, it fills the mind more with wrinkles, than the visage; and there is not a soul growing old, grows not sour and rotten. With the body the spirit is used, and the worse for the use; and at the last returns to infancy again: bis pueri senes. Old age is a necessary and puissant malady, which loadeth us insensibly with many imperfections. It were absurd to term wisdom a difficulty of humours, an anxiety and distaste of things present, an impotency to do as in former times: wisdom is too noble to be served with such officers. To wax old is not to wax wise, nor to take away vices; but to change them into worse. Old age condemneth pleasure, but it is because it can not taste or relish it aright, like Esop's dog, it saith it will none of it, but it is because it can not joy in it: for old age leaveth not pleasure properly, but pleasure disdains old age; for it is always wanton and sporting: and it is no reason that impotency should corrupt judgement, which should in youth know vice in pleasure, and in old age pleasure in vice. The vices of youth are temerity, indiscreet forwardness, and unbridled liberty and overgreedie desire of pleasure; which are natural things proceeding from the heat of the blood and natural vigour, and therefore the more excusable; but the vices of old age are far otherwise. The lighter are a vain and frail protervity, an enurous prattling, insociable humours, superstition, care to get riches, even then when the use of them is lost, a sottish avarice, and fear of death, which proceedeth properly, not from the want of spirit and courage, as they say, but because old men are long acquainted and as it were cockered in this world, whereby their affections are knit unto it; which is not in young men: but besides these they are envious, froward, unjust: but that which is most sottish and ridiculous in them, is that they would not only be reverenced but feared, and therefore they put upon them an austere look and disdainful, thinking thereby to extort fear and obedience: but they are therein much deceived, for this stately and furious gesture is received of youth with mockery and laughter, being practised only to blind their eyes, and of purpose to hide and disguise the truth of things. There are in old age so many faults on the one side, and so many impotencies on the other, and therefore so fit for contempt, that the best way to compass their desires is love and affection: for command and fear are no longer fit arms for them. It ill befits them to make themselves to be feared: and though they could do it, yet love and honour is a fairer purchase. The fourth Consideration of Man, moral by his manners, humours, conditions, very lively and notable. THE PREFACE. ALl the descriptions the wise, and such as have taken greatest pains in the study of human knowledge, have given unto man, seem all to note in man four things, Vanity, Weakness, Inconstancy, Misery; calling him the spoil of times, the play-game of Fortune, the image of inconstancy, the example and spectacle of infirmity, the balance of envy and misery, a dream, a fantasy, ashes, a vapour, a morning dew, a flower that presently fadeth and withereth, a wind, grass, a bladder or bubble, a shadow, leaves of trees carried with the wind, unclean seed in his beginning, a sponge of ordures, a sack of miseries in his middle age, a stench and meat for worms in his end; and to conclude, the most miserable and wretched thing in the world. job, one of the most sufficient in this matter, as well in the practice as contemplation thereof, hath well and at large described him, and after him, Solomon, in their Books. To be short, Pliny seemeth very properly to have deciphered him, in calling him the most miserable, and yet the most arrogant creature of the world, Solum ut certum sit nihil esse certi, nec miserius quicquam homine aut superbius. By the first word (miserable) he comprehendeth all those former descriptions, and as much as all the rest have said; but by the other (the most proud) he toucheth another chief point very important: and he seemeth in these two words to have uttered whatsoever can be said. These are those two things that seem to hurt and hinder one the other, Misery and Pride, Vanity and Presumption. See then how strange and monstrous a patch-coat man is. Forasmuch as man is composed of two divers parts, the soul and the body, it is a matter of difficulty well to describe him entire in his perfection and declining state. Some refer unto the body whatsoever ill can be spoken of man; they make him an excellent creature, and in regard of his spirit extol him above all other creatures: but on the other side, whatsoever is ill, either in man, or in the whole world, is forged and proceedeth from this spirit of man, and in it there is far more vanity, inconstancy, misery, presumption, than in the body, wherein there is little matter of reproach in respect of the spirit, and therefore Democritus calleth it a world of hidden miseries, and Plutarch proveth it in a book written of that subject. Now let us consider man more according to the life, than heretofore we have done, and pinch him where it itcheth not, referring all to these five points, vanity, weakness, inconstancy, misery, and presumption, which are his more natural and universal qualities, but the two latter touch him more nearly. Again there are some things common to many of these five, which a man knows not to which to attribute it, and especially, imbecility and misery. CHAP. XXXVI. 1. Vanity. VAnity is the most essential and proper quality of human nature. There is nothing so much in man, be it malice, infelicity, inconstancy, irresolution (and of all these there is always abundance) as base feebleness, sottishness and ridiculous vanity. And therefore Democritus met better with it, with a kind of disdain of human condition, mocking and laughing at it, than Heraclitus that wept and tormented himself, whereby he gave some testimony, that he made some account thereof; and Diogenes who scorned it, than Timon that hater and flyer of the company of men. Pindarus hath expressed it more to the life than any other, by the two vainest things in the world, calling it the dream of ashadow, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. This is that, that hath wrought in the wisest so great a contempt of man, that hearing of some great designment and honourable enterprise, and judging it such, were wont nevertheless to say that the world was not worthy a man's labour and pains, (so answered Statilius to Brutus, talking with him about the conspiracy against Caesar) and that a wise man should do nothing but for himself, for it is not reason that wise men, and wisdom should put themselves in danger for fools. This vanity is showed and expressed many ways, and after 2 Thoughts. a divers manner, first in our thoughts and private imaginations, which are many times more than vain, frivolous, and ridiculous, wherein nevertheless we spend much time, and yet perceive it not. We enter into them, we dwell in them, and we come forth again insensibly, which is a double vanity, and a great forgetfulness of ourselves. One walking in a hall considereth how he may frame his paces after a certain fashion upon the boards of the flower: another discourseth in his mind, with much time, and great attention, how he should carry himself if he were a king, a Pope, or some other thing that he is assured can never come to pass; and so he feedeth himself with wind, yea less than wind, that, that neither is, nor ever shall be. Another dreameth how he shall compose his body, his countenances, his gestures, his speech after an affected fashion, and pleaseth himself therein, as with a thing that wonderfully becomes him, and that every man should take delight in. But what a vanity and sottish weakness in our desires is this, that brings forth beliefs and hopes far more vain? And all this falleth out not only when we have nothing to do, when we are swallowed up with idleness, but many times in the midst of our most necessary affairs: so natural and powerful is vanity, that it robbeth and plucketh out of our hands, the truth, solidity, and substance of things, and fills us with wind, yea with nothing. Another more sottish vanity is a troublesome care of what shall here fall out when we are dead. We extend our desires 3 Care for times to come. and affections beyond ourselves, and our being; we would provide that some thing should be done unto us, when we know not what is done unto us; own desire to be praised after our death, what greater vanity? It is not ambition, as it seemeth & a man may think it, for that is the desire of a sensible and perceptible honour: if this praise of ourselves when we are gone, might any way profit either our children, our parents, or our friends that survive us, it were well, there were some benefit, though not to ourselves; but to desire that as a good, which shall no way touch us, nor benefit others, is a mere vanity, like that of those who fear their wives will marry after their departure: and therefore they desire them with great passion to continue unmarried, and bind them by their wills so to do, leaving unto them a great part of their goods upon that condition. This is vanity and many times injustice. It was contrariwise a commendable thing in those great men in times past, which dying exhorted their wives to marry speedily for the better increase of the Commonwealth. Others ordain, that for the love of them and for their sakes a friend keep such and such a thing, or that he do this or that unto their dead bodies; which rather showeth their vanity, than doth any good to soul or body. See here another vanity, we live not but by relation unto another; we take not so much care what we are in ourselves in effect and truth, as what we are in the public knowledge of men; in such sort, that we do many times deceive and deprive ourselves of our own goods and commodities, and torment ourselves, to frame our outward appearances to the common opinion. This is true, not only in outward things and such as belong to the body, and the expense and charge of our means, but also in the goods of the spirit, which seem unto us to be without fruit, if others enjoy them not, and they be not produced to the view and approbation of strangers. Our vanity is not only in our simple thoughts, desires, and discourses, but it likewise troubleth, shaketh and tormenteth 5 Agitations of the spirit. both soul and body. Many times men trouble and torment themselves more for light occasions and matters of no moment, than for the greatest and most important affairs that are. Our soul is many times troubled with small fantasies, dreams, shadows, fooleries, without body, without subject; it is entangled and molested with choler, hatred, sorrow, joy, building castles in Spain. The remembrance of a farewell of some particular grace or action afflicteth us more than a whole discourse of a matter of greater importance. The sound of names and certain words pronounced with a pitiful voice, yea with sighs and exclamations pierceth even to the quick, as Orators and Players, and other that sell wind and smoke do well know and practise. And this wind catcheth and carrieth away many times men that are most constant and settled, if they stand not upon their guard: so puissant is vanity over men. And not only light and little things do shake and trouble us, but also lies and impostures, even those we know to be such (a strange thing) in such sort, that we take pleasure to deceive ourselves in good earnest, to feed our fantasies with tales, with nothing (ad fallendum nosmetipsos ingeniosissimi sumus): witness they that weep and afflict themselves hearing a relation, or seeing a Tragedy, which they know to be an invention made for delight, even of those things that never were. I could tell you of one that was so besotted, that he died for one whom he knew to be foul, old, deformed, not because he loved her, but because she was well painted, and plastered or coloured with other impostures, though he always knew them to be such. Let us come from the particular vanity of every particular 6 Visitations and offices of courtesy. man in his common life, to see how much this vanity is tied to the nature of man, not only as a private and personal vice. What vanity and loss of time is there in those visitations, salutations, congees and mutual enterteinments, those offices of courtesy, orations, ceremonies, offers, praises, promises! How many hyperbolical speeches, hypocrisies and impostures are there in the sight and knowledge of all, both of those that give them, that receive them, that hear of them! insomuch that it seemeth to be a match and market made together, to mock, lie, and deceive one another. And that which is worth all the rest, he that knows that a man doth impudently lie unto him, must yet give him thanks; and he that knows that when he lies he is not believed, sets a bold face upon the matter, attending and observing one the other, who shall first begin or end; when they could both be content they were both asunder. What inconveniences doth man endure? He feigneth, counterfeiteth, disguiseth himself; he endureth heat, cold, troubleth his rest, afflicteth his life for those courtly vanities, and leaveth his weighty affairs for the wind. We are vain at the charge of our own ease, yea of our health and of our life. The accidents and the lighter things trample under foot the substance, and the wind carrieth the body, so much is man a slave to vanity: and he that will do otherwise shall be held for a fool and a man that understands not the world. It is dexterity well to play this Comedy, and folly not to be vain. Being entered into speech and familiar discourse, how many vain and unprofitable, false, fabulous tales are there (not to say wicked and pernicious, which are not of this count) how many vaunts and vain boastings! Man desireth and delighteth to speak of himself and that which is his, and if he think he have either done or said, or possess any thing that is worthy estimation, he is not at ease until he hath uttered it, and made it known to others: when a commodity first cometh he entereth into an account thereof, he valueth it, he raiseth the price, nay he will not seem to attend his commodity, though he seek it with industry; and then to hear what the speech of the people is abroad, he thrusts himself into company, and it tickleth him at the heart to hear his happy success spoken of, and that men esteem of him the more, and of what he esteems. But better to make known what credit and command this vanity hath over the nature of man, let us call to mind that 7 Public and universal agitations. the greatest alterations of the world, the most general and fearful agitations of States and Empires, armies, battles, murders, have risen from light, ridiculous and vain causes: witness the wars of Troy and Greece, of Sylla and Marius, Caesar and Pompey, Augustus and Antony. The Poets signify as much, when they set all Greece and Asia on fire for an apple. The first occasions and motives arise of nothing, afterwards they grow and increase: a testimony of the vanity and folly of man. Many times the accident doth more than the principal, the lesser circumstances touch more to the quick than the greatest, nay the causes and subjects themselves. The rob of Caesar troubled Rome more than his death did, or those 22 stabs with a poignard that were given him. Lastly, the crown and perfection of the vanity of man is 8 Felicity and contentment. showed in that which he most affecteth and seeks after; he pleaseth himself and placeth his whole felicity in those vain and frivolous goods, without which he may well and commodiously live, and takes not that care that he should for the true and essential: his chance is wind, his whole good nothing but opinion and dreams, wherein he is matchless. God hath all good things in essence, all evil in understanding; man quite contrary possesseth his good things by fantasy, his evil in essence. Beasts content not, nor feed themselves with opinions and fantasies, but with that which is present, palpable and in verity. Vanity hath been given unto man as his proper part or condition; he runs, he stirs, he hunts up and down, he catcheth a shadow, he adoreth the wind, he flies, he dies, and a mote at the last is the heir of his days work. Vanitati creatura subiecta est etiam nolens, universa vanitas omnis homo vivens. CHAP. XXXVII. debility or Infirmity. Behold here the second head of this Consideration and human knowledge: for how should vanity be other than frail and feeble? This weakness is confessed, and proved by all that account many things easy to be understood of all, but is not taken to be such in those things it should, as in such wherein a man seemeth, to be most strong, and least weak; in desiring, possessing, and using those things that he hath and holdeth, and in every good and evil; and to be short, in such wherein he glorieth most, wherein he thinketh to excel others, and to be some thing. These are the true testimonies of his weakness: but we shall see this better apart. First, touching desire, a man can not settle his contentment in any thing, no not his own desire and imagination. It is 2 In desiring & choosing. not in our power to choose that we should: and whatsoever we have desired or obtained, it satisfies us not: but we go bleating after things unknown and to come, because things present content us not, and we more esteem of things absent. If one should put a man to his own choice, make him his own carver, it is not in his power so to choose, as that he repent not his choice, or which he will not add unto, or take from, or alter some way or other; for he desires that which he knows not how to express: and at the last nothing can content him, but he is angry and falleth out with himself. The weakness of man doth more appear, and is greater 3 In possessing and using. in the possession and use of things, and that divers ways: first, in that he can not make use of any thing in it own purity and simple nature; but he must disguise, altar and corrupt them before he can accommodate them to his use: the elements, metals, and all things else in their own nature are not fit for use. Good things, delights and pleasures can not be enjoyed without some mixture of evil and discommodity: Medio de font leporum surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat. The highest pleasure that is hath a sigh and a complaint to accompany it; and being come to perfection is but debility, a dejection of the mind, languishment. An extreme and full contentment hath more moderate severity than wanton delight: Ipsa foelicitas, se nisi temperate, premit: and therefore it was well said of him, That God sells unto us whatsoever good thing he sends us: that is to say, That he giveth nothing unto us purely good, but that we buy it at the scales with an addition of some evil to make up weight. So likewise, sorrow is never pure without the alliance of some pleasure: Labour voluptasque dissimillima natura, societate quadam naturali inter se sunt juncta; est quaedam flere voluptas. So all things in this world are mingled and compounded with their contraries: those motions and wrinkles in the visage that serve to laugh, serve to weep, as Painters teach us: and we see that the extremity of laughter is mingled with tears. There is no good thing in us that hath not some vicious tincture with it, omnes justitiae nostrae sunt tanquam pannus menstruatae, as anon shallbe showed in his due place; nor no evil without some good: nullum sine authoramento malum est. Misery itself always serves to some end: for there is no evil without good, no good in man without evil: all is mingled, and there is nothing pure in our hands. Secondly, whatsoever happeneth unto us, we take and enjoy with an ill hand; our taste is unresolved and uncertain, it knows not how to hold and possess any thing after a good manner: and from thence sprang that undetermined question of the sovereign good. The better things many times in our hands, by our infirmities, vice, insufficiency, are made worse, are corrupted, become nothing, are unprofitable unto us, yea sometimes hurtful and contrary. But human imbecility is more richly displayed in good and evil, in virtue and vice: hence it is, that man can not be, 4 In good and evil. when it seems good unto himself, either wholly good or wholly wicked, but he hath his weakness, his impotencies in them both. Touching virtue, three points are to be considered: the first is, That it is not in the power of man to do all good, to put in practise all virtues; insomuch that many virtues are incompatible, and can not be together, at least in one and the same subject, as filial or maidenly continency and vidual, which are wholly different; the married and unmarried state; the two second of widowhood and marriage, being more painful and busy, and having more difficulty and virtue than the two first of virginity and the unmarried estate, which have more purity, grace and ease: Virgo felicior, vidua laboriosior, in illa gratia, in ista virtus coronatur: that Tertull. constancy which is in poverty, want, adversity, and that which is in abundance and prosperity: patience in beggary and liberality. And this is more true in vices, which are opposite one against the other. The second point is, That many times a man can not perform that which belongs to one virtue, without the scandal and offence either of another virtue, or of itself; insomuch that they hinder one the other: whereby it comes to pass that a man can not satisfy the one but at the charge of the other; which we must not attribute unto virtue, or think that the virtues cross and contrary one another, for they agree well enough; but unto the weakness of our human condition, all the sufficiency and industry thereof being so short and so feeble, that it can not find any certain, universal and constant rule, whereby to make an honest man: and such order can not be taken, but that the means to do well do many times hinder one the other. Let us take for example, Charity and justice: if I encounter my father or my friend in the wars, on the enemy's part, in justice I ought to kill him, but in charity I should spare and save him. If a man be wounded to the death and past all remedy, and that there remaineth nothing but a grievous languishment, it were a deed of charity to make an end of him, as he did that killed Saul at his earnest entreaty; but this charity is punished by justice, as he was by David, and that justly, David being the minister of public justice, not private charity: yea, to be found near unto a man in such a case, in a suspicious place, and where there is doubt of the murderer, although he be there to perform some office of humanity, is very dangerous; and the best thing that can happen unto him, is to be called into question, and put to answer to that accident whereof he is innocent. So that we see that justice doth not only offend charity, but it hampereth and hindereth itself: and therefore it was very well said and truly, Summum ius, summa iniuria. The third point and the most notable is, that a man is constrained many times to use bad means for the better avoidance of some great evil, or the execution of what is good, in such sort that he must sometimes approve as lawful, not only those things that are not good, but that are stark nought; as if to be good, it were necessary to be somewhat wicked. And this is seen in every thing, in Policy, justice, Verity, Religion. In Policy, how many evils are there permitted and publicly acted, not only by connivence or permission, but also by 7 Policy. the approbation of the laws themselves? as shall hereafter be said in his due place; ex senatusconsultis & plebescitis scelera exercentur. To disburden a State or Commonweal either of too great a number of people, or of such as are inflamed with a desire of wars, which the state, like a body replete with bad or abundant humours, cannot bear, it is the manner to send them elsewhere, and to ease themselves at the charge or disease of another. As the French, Lombard's, Goths, Vandals, Tartarians, Turks have been accustomed to do. To avoid a civil war, it is the manner to entertain a strange war. To instruct others in the virtue of Temperance, Lycurgus caused the Ilotes their servants to be made drunk, that by the ugly deformity of their superfluous inundation, others might grow into a horror and detestation of that sin. The Romans to prepare their people to valour, and a contempt of the dangers of death, ordained of purpose those furious spectacles of the fencers, which at the first they ordained for offenders, afterwards for slaves or servants, but innocents, and lastly for freemen that gave themselves thereunto. Brothel houses in great Cities, usuries, divorces, under the law of Moses, and in divers other nations, and religions, have been permitted for the better avoiding of greater mischiefs, ad duritiem cordis eorum. In justice, which cannot subsist, cannot be executed, without 8 justice. the mixture of some wrong, not only justice commutative, for that is not strange: it is after a sort necessary, and men could not live and traffic together, without mutual damage, without offence, and the laws allow of the loss which is under the moiety of the just price. But also justice distributive, as itself confesseth: Summum ius, summa iniuria: & omne magnum exemplum habet aliquid ex iniquo, quod contra singulos, utilitate publica rependitur. Plato alloweth, and it is not against the law, by deceits and false hopes of favour and pardon, to draw the offender to confess his fault. This is by injustice, deceit and impudency to do justice. And what should we say of the invention of tortures, which is rather Of tortures. a proof of patience, than verity? For both he that can suffer them, and cannot, will conceal the truth. For why should grief cause a man rather to speak that which is, than that which is not? If a man think that an innocent is patiented enough to endure torments, why should not he that is guilty, being a means to save his life? Illa tormenta gubernat dolour, moderatur natura, cuiusque tum animi, tum corporis regit quaesitor, flectit libido, corrumpit spes, infirmat metus, ut in tot rerum angustijs nil veritati loci relinquatur. In defence hereof it is said, that tortures do astonish and quell the guilty, and extort from him a truth; and contrariwise strengthen the innocent: but we do so often see the contrary, that this may be doubted; and to say the truth, it is a poor means full of uncertainty, full of doubt. What will not a man say, what will he not do, to avoid such torment? etenim innocentes mentiri cogit dolour, in such sort that it falleth out that the judge which giveth the torture, to the end an innocent should not die, causeth him to die an innocent and tortured too. A thousand and a thousand have falsely accused their own heads, either to shorten their torments or their lives. But in the foot of this account is it not a great injustice and cruelty to torment and to rack a man in pieces for that offence which is yet doubted of? To the end they may not kill a man without just cause, they do worse than kill him: if he be innocent and bear the punishment, what amends is made him for his unjust torture? He shall be quit, a goodly recompense, and much reason he hath to thank you. But it is the lesser evil that the weakness of man could invent. If man be weak in virtue, much more is he in verity, whether it be eternal and divine, or temporal and human. 9 Verity. That astonisheth him with the lightning, & beats him down with the thunder thereof, as the bright beams of the sun, the weak eye of the owl: if he presume to behold it, being oppressed, he presently fainteth, qui scrutator est maiestatis, opprimetur a gloria: in such sort that to give himself some breath, some taste, he must disguise, temper, and cover it with some shadow or other. This, that is, human verity, offendeth and woundeth him, and he that speaks it, is many times holden for an enemy, Veritas odium parit. It is a strange thing, man desireth naturally to know the truth, and to attain thereunto he removeth all lets whatsoever, and yet he can not attain it: if it be present, he can not apprehend it; if he apprehend it, he is offended with it. The fault is not in the truth, for that is always amiable, beautiful, worthy the knowledge; but it is human imbecility that can not endure the splendour thereof. Man is strong enough to desire, but too weak to receive and hold what he desireth. The two principal means which he useth to attain to the knowledge of truth, are Reason and Experience. Now both of them are so feeble & uncertain (though Experience the more weak) that nothing certain can be drawn from them. Reason hath so many forms, is so pliable, so wavering, as hath been said, Cap. 14. and Experience much more, the occurrents are always unlike; there is nothing so universal in Nature as diversity, nothing so rare and difficult, and almost impossible, as the likenesle and similitude of things: and if a man can not note this dissimilitude, it is ignorance and weakness; I mean this perfect, pure, and entire similitude and dissimilitude: for to say the truth, they are both whole and entire, there is no one thing that is wholly like or dislike to another. This is an ingenious and marvelous mixture of Nature. But after all this, what doth better discover this human imbecility than Religion? yea the very intention thereof is 10 Religion. to make man feel his own evil, his infirmity, his nothing, and to make him to receive from God his good, his strength, his all things. First it preacheth it unto him, it beats it into our memory, it reproacheth man, calling him dust, ashes, earth, flesh, blood, grass. Afterwards it insinuateth it into him, and makes him feel it after an excellent and goodly fashion; bringing in God himself, humbled, weakened, debased for the love of him, speaking, promising, swearing, chiding, threatening; and to be brief, conversing and working with man after a base, feeble human manner, like a father that counterfeits his speech, and plays the child with his children. The weakness of man being such, so great, so invincible, that to give it some access and commerce with the Divinity, and to unite it unto God, it was necessary that God should debase himself to the bafest: Deus quia in altitudine sua a nobis paruulis apprehendi non poterat, ideo se stravit hominibus. Again, it makes him see his own weakness by ordinary effects; for all the principal and holiest exercises, the most solemn actions of religion, are they not the true symptoms and arguments of human imbecility and sickness? Those sacrifices that in former times have been used throughout Sacrifices. the world, and yet in some countries continue, not only of beasts, but also of living men, yea of innocents, were they not shameful marks of human infirmity and misery? First, because they were signs and symbols of his condemnation and malediction (for they were as public protestations, that he had deserved death, and to be sacrificed as those beasts were) without which there had never been any bloody offerings or propitiatory and expiatory sacrifices. Secondly, because of the baseness of the purpose and intent, which was to think to appease, flatter and gratify God by the massacre and blood of beasts and of men: Sanguine non colendus Deus, quae enim ex trucidatione immerentium voluptas est? It is true, that God in those first ages, yet the feeble infancy of the world and nature remaining simple, did well accept of them at the hands of religious men, even for their devotion, or rather Christ his sake: Respexit Dominus ad Abel, & ad munera eius, taking in good part that which was done with an intent to honour and serve him: and also afterwards, the world being as yet in it apprenticeship, sub paedagogo, was wholly seasoned in this opinion so universal, that it was almost thought natural. I touch not here that particular mystery of the religion of the jews, who used them for figures (that is a point that belongs to religion) and with whom it was common to convert that which was human or natural and corporal to a holy and sacred use, and to gather from thence a spiritual fruit. But this was not because God took pleasure in them, nor because it was by any reason in itself good: witness the Prophets, and the clearest sighted amongst them, who have always freely said, Sivoluisses sacrificium dedissem, utique holocaustis non delectaberis, sacrificium & oblationem noluisti, holocaustum pro peccato non postulasti, non accipiam de domo tua vitulos etc. and have called back and invited the world to another sacrifice more high, spiritual and worthy the Divinity, Sacrificium Deo spiritus: aures autem perforasti mihi ut facerem voluntatem tuam, & legem tuam in medio cordis mei: Immola Deo sacrificium laudis: misericordiam volo non sacrificium. At the last, the son of God, the Doctor of Truth, being come to secure and free-denize the world, did abolish them wholly: which he had not done, if it had been a thing in itself and essentially good, and that it had pleased his father: for contrarily, Pater non tales quaerit, sed tales qui adorent in spiritu & veritate. And to say the truth, it is one of the goodliest effects and fruits of Christianity after the abolition of Idols. And therefore julian the Emperor, his capital enemy, as in despite of him, offered more sacrifices than ever any other did in the world, attempting to set them up again with idolatry. Wherefore let us here leave them, and let us see those other principal parts of religion. The Sacraments in a matter base and common, bread and Sacraments. wine, and an outward action as base, are they not testimonies of our poverty and baseness? Repentance, the universal remendie Repentance of our maladies, is a thing in itself shameful, feeble, yea evil: for to repent, to be sorry, to afflict the spirit, is evil, though by consequent it be good. An oath, what is it, but a An oath. symptom and shameful mark of distrust, infidelity, ignorance, human infirmity, both in him that requires it, that gives it, that ordains it? Quod amplius est a malo est. See then how religion healeth our evils by means not only small and feeble, our weakness so requiring, stulta & infirma mundi eligit Deus; but such as by no means are of any value, nor are good in themselves, but good in that they serve and are employed against evil, as medicines are: they sprang from an ill cause, yet they drive away ill: they are good, as gibbets and wheels are in a Commonwealth, as vomits and other discharges proceeding from ill causes are to the body: to be brief, they are such good things, as that it had been far better we had never had them; and never had we had them, if man had been wise, and preserved himself in that estate wherein God had placed him; neither shall he have them any more, so soon as he is delivered from this captivity, and arrived to his perfection. All this showeth how great this human weakness is to any 11 In evil. thing that is good, in Policy, justice, Verity, Religion towards God, but that which is more strange is, that this weakness is as great in what is evil: for man though he be willing to be wicked, yet he can not be wholly such, but when he hath done his worst there will be more to do. There is always some remorse and fearful consideration, that mollifieth the will and maketh it relent, and still reserveth something to be done; which hath been the cause of the ruin of many, although perhaps they made it a project for their safety. This is imbecility and sottishness, and from hence did arise that Proverb at their cost, That a man must not play the fool by halves. A speech uttered with judgement, but that may have both a good and an ill sense. To say that a man, when he is once in, must still proceed to worse and worse, without any reservation or respect, it is a very pernicious doctrine: and the Proverb saith well against it: The shorter follies are the better. But yet in some certain cases the middle way is very dangerous, as when a man hath a strong enemy by the throat, like one that holdeth a wolf by the ears, he must either win him altogether by courtesy or utterly undo him & extinguish him; which was always the practice of the Romans, and that very wisely: among others, concerning the Latins or Italians, at the exhortation of Camillus, Pacem in perpetuum parere vel seruiendo vel ignoscendo: for in such a case to do things by halves, is to lose all, as the Samnites did, who for want of putting in practice that counsel given them by an old weatherbeaten soldier, concerning the Romans, whom they had then enclosed and shut up, paid dearly for it; aut conciltandus aut tollendus hostis. The former course of courtesy is the more noble, honourable, and rather to be chosen; and we ought not come to the second but in extremities, and then when the enemy is not capable of the first. By this that hath been said, is showed the extreme imbecility of man in good and evil, and that good or evil which he either doth or flieth, is not purely and entirely good or evil: so that it is not in his power to be wholly deprived of all good, nor altogether wicked. Let us likewise note many other effects and testimonies of 12 Reprehensions and repulses. human weakness. It is imbecility and pusillanimity not to dare or not to be able to reprehend another, or to be reprehended: he that is feeble or courageous in the one, is so in the other. Now it is a strange kind of delicateness, to deprive either himself or another of so great a fruit, for so light and verbal a wound, that doth only touch and pierce the ear. near neighbour unto this it is, not to be able to give a denial with reason, nor to receive and suffer a repulse with patience. In false accusations and wicked suspicions, which are done 13 False suspicions and accusations. in place of justice and judgement, there is double imbecility; the one in those that are accused and suspected, and that is in justifying and excusing themselves too carefully, and as it were ambitiously. Mendax infamia terret quem nisi mendacem? This is to betray their own innocency, to put their conscience and their right to compromise and arbitrement; for by such plea perspicuitas argumentatione elevatur. Socrates in judgement itself would not do it, neither by himself nor by another, refusing to use the learned plea of great Lysias, and chose rather to die. The other is in a contrary case, that is, when the accused is so courageous that he takes no care to excuse or justify himself, because he scorneth the accusation and accuser, as unworthy his answer and justification; and he will not do himself that wrong to enter the lists. This course hath been practised by generous men, by Scipio above all others, many times out of the marvelous constancy of his mind. Now others are offended herewith, thinking it too great a confidence and pride, and it stingeth them, that he hath too sensible a feeling of his innocency, and will not yield himself; or imputing this silence and contempt to the want of heart, distrust of the law, and inability to justify himself. O feeble humanity! the accused or suspected, whether he defend or defend not himself, it is imbecility and cowardness. We wish a man courage to defend himself, and when he hath done it, we show our own weakness by being offended with it. Another argument of imbecility is, when a man shall subject and addict himself to a certain particular form of life; 14 Tenderness & delicacy. this is a base kind of tenderness, and effeminate delicacy, unworthy an honest man, and makes us unprofitable, different in conversation, and may be hurtful too in a case where change of manners and carriage is necessary. It is likewise a shame, either not to dare or not to be able to do that which he seethe every man to do besides himself. It were fittest that such people should live and hide themselves in the chimney corner in their private houses. The fairest form of living is to be pliable to all, even to excess itself, if need be; to be able, to dare, to know how to do all things, and yet to do nothing but what is good. It is good to know all, not to use all. It is likewise imbecility, and a great & vulgar sottishness, to run after strange and scholastical examples, after allegations, 15 Search of books. never to settle an opinion without testimonies in print, nor to believe men but such as are in books, nor truth itself but such as is ancient. By this reason fooleries and toys if they once pass the press, they have credit and dignity enough. Now there are every day many things done before our eyes, which if we had but the spirit and sufficiency well to collect, to search with dexterity to judge of, and to apply to their times, we should frame and find miracles and marvelous examples, which yield not in any thing to those of times past, which we so much admire, and therefore we admire because they are ancient and in print. Again another testimony of weakness is, that man is not 16 Extremities. capable but of indifferent things, and cannot endure extremities; for if they be small and in outward show base, he contemneth and disdaineth them as unworthy, and it is offensive unto him to consider of them: if they be very great and oversplendent, he fears them, he admires them, and is offended with them. The first doth principally concern great and high minds: the second as common with those that are weak. This weakness doth likewise appear in our hearing, 17 Sudden occurrents. sight, and in the sudden stroke of a new unexpected occurrent, which surpriseth and seizeth upon us unawares. For they do in such sort astonish us, that they take from us both our sense and speech, Diriguit visu in medio, calor ossa reliquit, Labitur & longo vix tandem tempore fatur, yea, sometimes life itself: whether they be good, witness that Roman dame, who died for joy seeing her son return safe from the wars; Sophocles and Dionysius the tyrant: or whether they be evil, witness Diodorus, who died in the field for shame, because he was not able to resolve a doubt, nor answer an argument. Yet there is another imbecility, and it is twofold, and after 18 Braveries and submissions. two contrary manners. Some yield and are overcome by the tears and humble supplcations of another, and their courage & gallantry is wounded with their words: others quite contrary are not moved by all the submissions and complaints that may be, but are rather more obdurate and confirmed in their constancy and resolution. There is no doubt but the former proceeds of weakness, and it is commonly found in effeminate and vulgar minds; but the second is not without difficulty, and is found in all sorts of people. It should seem that to yield unto virtue, and to manly & generous strength and vigour, is the part of a valorous and generous mind. It is true if it be done in a reverent esteem of virtue, as Scanderbag did receiving into grace a soldier whom he had seen to carry himself valorously in fight even against himself; or as Pompey did, pardoning the city of the Mammertines, for the virtue of Zenon a citizen thereof; or as the Emperor Conradus did, forgiving the Duke of Bauiers, and others besieged with him, for the magnanimity of their women, who privily conveyed them away, and took the danger upon their own heads. But if it be done with a kind of astonishment and affright of the power of virtue, as the people of Thebes, who lost their hearts hearing Epaminondas then accused, recount unto them his honourable acts, and severely reproaching them with their ingratitude, it is debility and cowardice. The fact of Alexander containing the brave resolution of Betis taken with the city of Gaza where he commanded, was neither weakness nor courage, but choler, which in him had neither bridle, nor moderation. CHAP. XXXVIII. 3. Inconstancy. MAn is a subject wonderfully divers, and wavering, upon whom it is very difficult to settle an assured judgement, I say a judgement universal and entire; by reason of the great contrariety and disagreement of the parts of our life. The greatest part of our actions, are nothing else but eruptions and impulsions enforced by occasions, and that have reference to others. Irresolution on the one part, and afterwards inconstancy and instability, are the most common and apparent vices in the nature of man. Doubtless our actions do many times so contradict one the other in so strange a manner, that it seems impossible they should all come forth of one and the same shop; we altar and we feel it not, we escape as it were, from ourselves, and we rob ourselves, ipsi nobis furto subducimur. We go after the inclinations of our appetite, and as the wind of occasions carrieth us, not according to reason; at nil potest esse aequabile, quod non a certa ratione proficiscatur. Our spirits also and our humours are changed with the change of time. Life is an unequal motion, irregular, of many fashions. In the end we stir and trouble ourselves by the instability of our behaviour. Nemo non quotidiè consilium mutat & votum: modò uxorem vult, modò amicam; modò regnare vult, modò non est eo officiosior servus; nunc pecuniam spargit, nunc rapit; modò frugi videtur & gravis, modò prodigus & vanus; mutamus subinde personam. Quod petijt, spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit, Aestuat, & vitae disconuenit ordine toto. Man is a creature of all others the most hard to be sounded and known, for he is the most double and artificial covert and counterfeit, and there are in him so many cabinets and blind corners, from whence he comes forth sometimes a man, sometimes a satire; so many breathing holes, from whence he breathes sometimes heat, sometimes cold, and from whence comes forth so much smoke: all his carriage and motion is a perpetual race of errors; in the morning to be borne, in the evening to die; sometimes in the rack, sometimes at liberty; sometimes a god, sometimes a fly; he laughs and weeps for one and the same thing; he is content and discontent; he will, and he will not; and in the end he knows not what he will: now he is filled with joy and gladness, that he can not stay within his own skin, and presently he falleth out with himself, nay dares not trust himself, modò amore nostri, modò taedio laboramus. CHAP. XXXIX. 4. Misery. BEhold here the main and principal line and lineament of the picture of man, he is (as hath been said) vain, 1 Misery proper unto man. feeble, frail, inconstant in good, in felicity, in pleasure, but strong, constant and hardened in misery: he is misery itself quick and incarnate; and this is in a word to express humanity, for in man is all misery, and without him there is not any in the world. It is the property of man to be miserable, only man and all man is always miserable, Homo natus de muliere brevi vivens tempore repletur multis miserijs. He that will take upon him to represent unto us all the parts of human misery, had need to discover his whole life, his substance, his entrance, his continuance, his end. I do not therefore undertake this business, it were a work without end; and beside, it is a common subject handled by all: but I will here only quote certain points which are not common nor taken for miseries, either because they are not felt, or sufficiently considered of, although they be such as press man most, if he knew how to judge of them. The first point and proof of the misery of man is his 2 In his beginning and his end. birth; his entrance into the world is shameful, vile, base, contemptible; his departure, his death, ruin, glorious and honourable: whereby it seemeth that he is a monster and against nature, since there is shame in making him, honour in destroying him. Nostri nosmet poenitet & pudet. Hereof a word or two. The action of planting and making man is shameful, and all the parts thereof, the congredients, the preparations, the instruments, and whatsoever serves thereunto is called and accounted shameful, and there is nothing more unclean in the whole nature of man. The action of destroying and killing him honourable, and that which serves thereunto glorious: we gilled it, we enrich it, we adorn ourselves with it, we carry it by our sides, in our hands, upon our shoulders. We disdain to go to the birth of man: every man runs to see him die, whether it be in his bed, or in some public place, or in the field. When we go about to make a man, we hide our selves, we put out the candle, we do it by stealth. It is a glory and a pomp to unmake a man, to kill him; we light the candles to see him die, we execute him at high noon, we sound a trumpet, we enter the combat, and we slaughter him when the sun is at highest. There is but one way to beget, to make a man; a thousand and a thousand means, inventions, arts to destroy him. There is no reward, honour or recompense assigned to those that know how to increase, to preserve human nature; all honours, greatness, riches, dignities, empires, triumphs, trophies are appointed for those that know how to afflict, trouble, destroy it. The two principal men of the world, Alexander and Caesar, have unmade, have slain, each of them (as Pliny reporteth) more than a million of men, but they made none, left none behind them. And in ancient times, for pleasure only and pastime, to delight the eyes of the people, there were public slaughters and massacres of men made. Homo sacra res per iocum & lusum Seneca. Tertull. de Spectac. occiditur: satis spectaculi in homine mors est: innocentes in ludum veniunt, ut publicae voluptatis hostiae fiant. There are some nations that curse their birth, bless their death. How monstrous a creature is this, that is made a horror unto himself! None of all this is in any other creature, no not in the whole world beside. The second point and testimony of the misery of man is the diminishing of his pleasures, even those small and slight ones that appertain unto him, (for of such as are great and sound he is not capable, as hath been showed in his weakness) and the impairing of the number and sweetness of them. If it be so, that he do it not for God's cause, what a monster is this, that is an enemy unto himself, robs, and betrays himself, to whom his pleasures are a burden and a cross! There be some that fly from health, joy, comfort, as from an evil thing. O miseri quorum gaudia crimen habent! We are not ingenious but to our own hurt, it is the true diet of the force of the spirit. But there is yet that which is worse, the spirit of man is not only a diminisher of his joy, a trouble-feast, an enemy to his 4 Forging of evils. small, natural and just pleasures, as I mean to prove, but also a forger of those that are evil; it feigneth, feareth, flieth, abhorreth as great mischiefs, things that are not any way evil in themselves; and in truth, which beasts themselves fear not, but that by his own proper discourse and imagination they are feigned to be such, as not to be advanced in honour, greatness, riches, as cuckoldship, sterility, death: for to say the truth, there is nothing but grief itself that is evil and which is felt. And though some wise men seem to fear these things, yet it is not for their own sakes, but because of that grief which sometimes doth accompany them afterwards: for many times it is a forerunner of death, and sometimes followeth the loss of goods, of credit, of honour. But take from these things grief, the rest is nothing but fantasy, which hath no other lodging but in the head of man, which quits itself of other business to be miserable; and imagineth within it own bounds, false evils besides the true, employing and extending his misery in stead of lessening and contracting it. Beasts feel not these evils, but are exempted from them, because nature judgeth them not to be such. As for sorrow, which is the only true evil, man is wholly borne thereunto, and it is his natural property. The Mexicanes 5 He is borne to sorrow. thus salute their infants coming forth of the womb of their mother: Infant thou art come into the world to suffer: endure, suffer, and hold thy peace. That sorrow is natural unto man, and contrariwise, pleasure but a stranger, it appeareth by these three reasons. All the parts of man are capable of sorrow; very few of delight. The parts capable of pleasure can not receive more than one or two sorts, but all can receive the greatest number of griefs all different, heat, cold, pricking, rubbing, trampling, flaying, beating, boiling, languishing, extension, oppression, relaxation, and infinite others, which have no proper name, (to omit those of the soul) in such sort, that man is better able to suffer them, than to express them. Man hath no long continuance in pleasure: for that of the body is like a fire of straw: and if it should continue, it would bring with it much envy and displeasure: but sorrows are more permanent, and have not their certain seasons as pleasures have. Again, the empire and command of sorrow is far more great, more universal, more powerful, more durable, and (in a word) more natural, than that of pleasure. To these three a man may add other three: Sorrow and grief is more frequent, and falls out often; Pleasure is rare. Evil comes easily of itself, without seeking; Pleasure never comes willingly, it must be sought after, and many times we pay more for it than it is worth. Pleasure is never pure, but always distempered, and mingled with some bitterness, and there is always some thing wanting; but sorrow and grief is many times entire and pure. After all this, the worst of our market, and that which doth evidently show the misery of our condition, is, that the greatest pleasures touch us not so near, as the lightest griefs. Segnius homines bona, quàm mala sentiunt, we feel not so much our soundest health, as the least malady that is, pung it in cute vix summa violatum plagula corpus, quando valere, nil quenquam monet. It is not enough that man be indeed and by nature miserable, 6 By memory and anticipation. and beside true and substantial evils he feign & forge false and fantastical, as hath been said; but he must likewise extend and lengthen them, and cause both the true and false to endure and to live longer than they can, so amorous is he of iniserie; which he doth divers ways. First by the remembrance of what is past, and the anticipation of what is to come, so that we cannot fail to be miserable, since that those things which are principally good in us, and whereof we glory most, are instruments of misery: futuro torquemur & praeterito, mult a bona nostra nobis nocent, timoris tormentum memoria reducit, providentia anticipat, nemo praesentibus tantùm miser est. It is not enough to be miserable, but we must increase it by a continual expectation before it come, nay seek it and provoke it to come, like those that kill themselves with the fear of death, that is to say, either by curiosity or imbecility, and vain apprehension, to preoccupate evils and inconveniences, and to attend them with so much pain & ado, even those which peradventure will never come near us? These kind of people will be miserable before their time, and double miserable, both by a real sense or feeling of their misery, and by a long premeditation thereof, which many times is a hundred times worse than the evils themselves, Minùs afficit sensus fatigatio quàm cogitatio. The essence or being of misery endureth not long, but the mind of man must lengthen and extend it, and entertain it before hand. Plùs dolet quàm necesse est qui antè dolet quàm necesse est. Quaedam magis, quaedam antequam debeant, quaedam cùm omninò non debeant, nos torquent. Aut augemus dolorem, aut fugimus, aut praecipimus. Beasts do well defend themselves from this folly and misery, and are much bound to thank nature that they want that spirit, that memory, that providence that man hath. Caesar said well that the best death was that which was least premeditated. And to say the truth, the preparation before death hath been to many a greater torment, than the execution itself. My meaning is not here to speak of that virtuous and philosophical premeditation, which is that temper, whereby the soul is made invincible, & is fortified to the proof against all assaults and accidents, whereof we shall speak hereafter: but Lib. 2. ca 7. of that fearful and sometimes false, and vain apprehension of evils that may come, which afflicteth and darkeneth, as it were with smoke, all the beauty and serenity of the soul, troubleth all the rest and joy thereof, insomuch that it were better to suffer itself to be wholly surprised. It is more easy and more natural not to think thereof at all. But let us leave this anticipation of evil, for simply every care and painful thought bleating after things to come by hope, desire, fear, is a very great misery. For besides that we have not any power over that which is to come, much less over what is past; (and so it is vanity, as it hath been said) there doth still remain unto us that evil and damage, Calamitosus est animus, futuri anxius, which robbeth our understanding, and taketh from us the peaceable comfort of our present good, and will not suffer us to settle and content ourselves therein. But this is not yet enough. For to the end man may never want matter of misery, yea that he may always have his 7 By unquiet search. full, he never ceaseth searching and seeking with great study, the causes and aliments of misery. He thrusteth himself into business even with joy of heart, even such as when they are offered unto him, he should turn his back towards them; and either out of a miserable disquiet of mind, or to the end he may show himself to be industrious, a man of employment and understanding, that is a fool and miserable too, he enterpriseth, moveth, and removeth new business, or else he putteth himself into that of other men's. To be short, he is so strongly and incessantly molested with care, and thoughts not only unprofitable and superfluous, but painful and hurtful, tormented with what is present, annoyed with what is past, vexed with that which is to come, that he seemeth to fear nothing more, than that he shall not be sufficiently miserable. So that a man may justly cry out, O poor and wretched creatures that you are, how many evils do you willingly endure, besides those necessary evils that nature hath bestowed upon you? But what? Man contenteth himself in misery, he is obstinate to ruminate & continually to recall to mind his passed evils. Complaints are common with him, and his own evils and sorrows seem many times dear unto him, yea it is a happy thing for small and light occasions to be termed the most miserable of all others: est quaedam dolendi voluptas. Now this is a far greater misery to be ambitiously miserable, than not to know it, not to feel it at all. Homo animal querulum, cupidè suis incumbens miserijs. We will not account it a human misery, since it is an evil 8 By incompatibility. common to all men, and not to beasts, that men can not accommodate themselves, and make profit of one another, without the loss and hurt, the sickness, folly, sin, death of one another. We hinder, wound, oppress one the other in such manner, that the better sort even without thought or will thereunto, out of an insensible desire and innocently thirst after the death, the evil, the pain and punishment of another. So that we see man miserable both naturally and voluntarily, 9 In the remedies of misery. in truth and by imagination, by obligation and willingness of heart. He is too miserable, and yet he fears he is not miserable enough, and laboureth to make himself more miserable. Let us now see how. When he feels any evil, and is annoyed with some certain misery (for he is never without many miseries that he feels not) he endeavoureth to quit himself thereof; but what are his remedies? Truly such as importune him more than the evil itself which he would cure; in such sort, that being willing to get forth of one misery, he doth but change it into another, and perhaps into a worse. But what of that, the change itself perhaps delighteth him, or at least yields him some solace: he thinketh to heal one evil with another evil, which proceedeth from an opinion which the bewitched and miserable world holdeth; that is, That there is nothing profitable, if it be not painful. That is worth nought that costs nothing, yea ease itself is much suspected. This doth likewise proceed from an higher cause. It is a strange thing, but true, and which convicteth man to be miserable, That no evil can be taken away, but by another evil, whether it be in body or in soul. Spiritual maladies and corporal are not cured and chased away, but by torment, sorrow, pain. The spiritual by repentance, It was erroneous, but corrected. watchings, fastings, imprisonments, which are truly afflictions, and such as gaul us too, notwithstanding the resolution and devotion willingly to endure them: for if we use them either for pleasure or profit, they can work no effect, but are rather exercises of pleasure, of covetousness, of household government, than of repentance and contrition of heart. The corporal in like sort be medicines, incisions, cauteries, diets, as they well feel that are bound to medicinal rules, who are troubled on the one side with the disease that afflicts them, on the other with that rule, the thought whereof continually annoys them. So likewise other evils, as ignorance is cured by great, long and painful study: Qui addit scientiam, addit & laborem: want and poverty, by great care, watchings, travel, sweatings: In sudore vultus tui. So that both for the soul and for the body, labour and travel is as proper unto man, as it is for a bird to fly. All these miseries above mentioned are corporal, or common 10 Spiritual miseries. both to the spirit and to the body, and mount little higher than the imagination and fantasy. Let us consider of the more subtle and spiritual, which are rather to be called miseries, as being erroneous and malignant, more active and more our own, but less felt and confessed, which makes a man more, yea doubly miserable, because he only feeleth those evils that are indifferent, and not the greater; yea a man dares not touch them, or speak of them, so much is he confirmed, and so desperate in his miseries. We must therefore by the way as it were, and gently say something, at least with the finger point afar off, to give him occasion to consider and think thereof, since of himself he hides it not. First, in regard of the understanding, is it not a strange and a lamentable misery of human nature, that it should wholly be composed of error and blindness? The greater part of common and vulgar opinions, yea the more plausible, and such as are received with reverence, are false and erroneous; and which is worse, the greater part unprofitable for human society. And although some of the wisest, which are but few in number, understand better than the common sort, and judge of these opinions as they should, nevertheless sometimes they suffer themselves to be carried, if not in all and always, yet in some and sometimes. A man had need be firm and constant, that he suffer not himself to be carried with the stream, yea sound and prepared to keep himself clear from so universal a contagion. The general opinions received with the applause of all, and without contradiction, are as a swift river which carrieth all with it: Proh superi quantum mortalia pectora caecae noctis habent! O miseras hominum mentes & pectora caeca, qualibus in tenebris vita, quantisque periclis degitur hoc aevi quodcunque est! Now it were too long and too tedious a thing to run over all those foolish opinions by name, wherewith the whole world is made drunken: yet let us take a view of some few of them, which in their due place shall be handled more at large. 1 To judge of advice and counsel by the events, which See lib. 3. cap. 1. are no way in our own hands, and which depend upon the heavens. 2 To condemn and reject all things, manners, opinions, Lib. 2. ca 8. laws, customs, observations as barbarous and evil, not knowing what they are, or seeing any inconvenience in them, but only because they are unusual, and different from such as are ordinary and common. 3 To esteem and commend things, because of their novelty, Lib. 2. ca 3. or rarity, or strangeness, or difficulty, four messengers which have great credit in vulgar spirits: and many times such things are vain, and not to be esteemed, if they bring not with them goodness and commodity. And therefore that Prince did justly contemn him that glorified himself because he could from far cast a grain of millet thorough the eye of a needle. 4 Generally all those superstitious opinions wherewith children, women, and weak minds are infected. 5 To esteem of men for their riches, dignities, honours, and to contemn those that want them, as if a man should judge of a horse by the saddle and bridle. 6 To account of things not according to their true, natural and essential worth, which is many times inward and hidden, but according to the outward show or common report. 7 To think to be revenged of an enemy by killing him: for that is to put him in safety, and to quit him from all ill, and to bring a vengeance upon himself: it is to take from his enemy all sense of revenge, which is the principal effect thereof. This doth likewise belong unto weakness. 8 To account it a great injury, or to think a man miserable because he is a cuckold: for what greater folly in judgement can there be, than to esteem of a man the less for the vice of another, which he never allowed? As much may be said of a bastard. 9 To account less of things present, and that are our own, and which we peaceably enjoy; and to esteem of them most, when a man hath them not, or because they are another man's, as if the presence and possession of them did lessen their worth, and the want of them increase it. Virtutem incolumem odimus, Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi. And this is the cause why a Prophet is not esteemed in his own country. So likewise, mastership and authority engendereth contempt of those that are subject to that authority: husbands have a careless respect of their wives, and many fathers of their children. Wilt thou (saith the good fellow) love her no more, then marry her? We esteem more the horse, the house, the servant of another, because he is another's and not ours. It is a thing very strange to account more of things in imagination, than in substance, as a man doth all things absent and that are not his, whether it be before he have them, or after he hath had them. The cause hereof in both cases may be, because before a man possess them, he esteemeth not according to that they are worth, but according to that which he imagineth them to be, or they have by another been reported to be; and possessing them, he esteems them according to that good and benefit he getteth by them; and after they are taken from him, he considereth and desireth them wholly in their perfection and declination, whereas before he enjoyed them and used them, but by piecemeal successively: for a man thinketh he shall always have time enough to enjoy them, and by that means they are gone before he was aware that he had them. And this is the reason why the grief is greater in having them not, than the pleasure in possessing them. But herein there is as much imbecility as misery. We have not the sufficiency to enjoy, but only to desire. There is another vice clean contrary to this, and that is, when a man settleth himself in himself, and in such sort conceits himself and whatsoever he hath, that he prefers it before all, and thinks nothing comparable to his own. Though these kind of people be no wiser than the other, yet they are at least more happy. 10 To be overzealous in every question that is proposed, to bite all, to take to the heart, and to show himself importunate and opinative in every thing, so he have some fair pretext of justice, religion, the weal public, the love of the people. 11 To play the mourner, the afflicted person, to weep See cap. 27. for the death, or unhappy accident of another, to think that not to be moved at all, or very little, is for want of love and affection. There is also vanity in this. 12 To esteem and make account of actions that are done Lib. 2. ca 10. with rumour, clatter, and clamour, and to contemn those that are done otherwise, and to think that they that proceed after so sweet and calm a manner, do nothing, are as in a dream without action; and to be briese, to esteem Art more than Nature. That which is puffed up, swollen, and elevated by study, fame, report, and striketh the sense (that is to say, artificial) is more regarded and esteemed, than that which is sweet, simple, plain, ordinary, that is to say, Natural: that awaketh, this brings us asleep. 13 To give an ill and wrong interpretation of the honourable actions of another man, and to attribute them to base and vain, or vicious causes or occasions; as they that attributed the death of young Cato to the fear he had of Caesar, wherewith Plutarch seems to be offended, and others more foolishly, to ambition. This is a great malady of the judgement, which proceedeth either from malice, and corruption of the will and manners, or envy against those that are more worthy than themselves, or from that vice of bringing their own credit to their own door▪ and measuring another by their own foot; or rather than all this, from imbecility and weakness, as not having their sight so strong and so certain to conceive the brightness of virtue in it own native purity. There are some that think they show great wit and subtlety in depraving and obscuring the glory of beautiful and honourable actions, wherein they show much more malice than sufficiency. It is a thing easy enough to do, but base and villainous. 14 To defame and to chastise over-rigorously, and shamefully, certain vices as crimes in the highest degree villainous and contagious, which are nevertheless but indifferent, and have their root and excuse in nature: and not so much to detest, and to chastise with so greedy ado those vices that are truly great, and against nature, as pretended and plotted murders, treasons, and treachery, cruelty, and so forth. 15 Behold also after all this a true testimony of spiritual misery, but which is wily & subtle, and that is, that the spirit of man in it best temper, and peaceable, settled, and soundest estate, is not capable but of common, ordinary, natural, and indifferent things. To be capable of divine and supernatural, as of divination, prophesy, reuclation, invention, and as a man may say, to enter into the cabinet of the gods, he must be sick, displaced from his natural seat, and as it were corrupted, correptus, either by extravagancy, ecstasy, inspiration, or by dreaming; insomuch that the two natural ways to attain thereunto are either fury, or dead sleep. So that the spirit is never so wise, as when it is a fool, nor more awaked, than when it sleepeth: it never meeteth better, than when it goes on one side, or crosseth the way; it never mounts or flies so high, as when it is most dejected. So that it must needs be miserable, because to be happy, it must be, as it were lost, and without itself. This toucheth not in any sort the divine disposition, for God can to whom, and when it pleaseth him, reveal himself, man in the mean time continuing settled in his sense and understanding, as the scripture makes mention of Moses and divers others. 16 To conclude, can there be a greater fault in judgement, than not to esteem of judgement, not to exercise it, and to prefer the memory, and imagination, or fantasy before it? We see those great, goodly and learned orations, discourses, lectures, sermons, books, which are so much esteemed and admired, written by men of greatest learning in this age (I except some few) what are they all, but a heap and collection of allegations, and the labours of other men (a work of memory and reading, and a thing very easy, being all culled and disposed to their hands, and hereof are so many books composed) with some few points handled, with a good instruction or two (a work of imagination) and here is all? This is many times a vanity, and there appeareth not in it any spark of judgement, or excellent virtue: so likewise the authors themselves are many times weak and common in judgement, and in will corrupted: how much better is it, to hear a country swain, or a merchant talking in his countinghouse, discoursing of many goodly propositions and verities, plainly and truly without art or form and giving good and wholesome counsel, out of a sound, strong, and solid judgement? In the will there are as many, or rather more miseries, and 11 Of the Will. more miserable; they are without number, among which these following are some few of them. 1 To be willing rather to seem an honest man, than to be, and rather to be such to another, than to himself. 2 To be far more ready and willing to revenge an offence, than to acknowledge a good turn, in such sort, that it is a corsive to his heart to acknowledge, pleasure and gain to revenge, a proof of a malignant nature, gratia oneri est, ultio in quaestu habetur. 3 To be more apt to hate, than to love, to slander, than to commend; to feed more willingly and with greater pleasure upon the evil, than the good of another, to enlarge it more, to display it more in his discourse, and the exercise of his style; witness Lawyers, Orators, and Poets, who in reciting the good of any man, are idle, eloquent in evil. The words, inventions, figures, to speak ill, to scoff, are far otherwise, more rich, more emphatical and significant, than to praise, or speak well. 4 To fly from evil, to do what is good, not properly for the good effect by natural reason, and for the love of virtue, but for some other strange consideration, sometimes base and idle, of gain and profit, vainglory, hope, fear, of custom, company; and to be brief, not simply for himself and his duty, but for some other outward occasion and circumstance: all are honest men by occasion and accident. And this is the reason why they are such unequally, diversly, not perpetually, constantly, uniformly. 5 To love him the less whom we have offended, and that because we have offended him; a strange thing, and which proceedeth not always from fear that he will take occasion to be revenged, for it may be he wisheth us never the worse; but it is because his presence doth accuse us, and brings to memory our fault and indiscretion. And if the offender love not the offended the worse, it is because the offence he committed was against his will; for commonly he that hath a will to offend, loves him the less whom he hath offended, Chi offend, may non perdona, He that offends, never forgives. 6 As much may be said of him to whom we are much bound for courtesies received, his presence is a burden unto us, he putteth us in mind of our band and duty, he reproacheth unto us our ingratitude and inabilities, and we wish he were not, so we were discharged of that duty. Villains by nature, Quidam quo plus debent, magis oderunt: leave aes alienum debitorem facit, grave inimicum. 7 To take pleasure in the evil, hurt, and danger of another, to grieve and repine at his good, advancement, prosperity (I mean when it is without cause of hatred, or private quarrel, for it is another thing when it proceedeth from the ill desert of a man) I speak here of that common and natural condition, whereby without any particular malice, men of indifferent honesty, take pleasure to see others adventure their fortunes at sea, and are vexed to see them thrive better than themselves, or that fortune should smile more upon others then them, and make themselves merry with the sorrow of another: this is a token of a malicious seed in us. To conclude, that I may yet show you how great our 12 The conclusion of these spiritual miseries. misery is, let me tell you that the world is replenished with three sorts of people, who take up much room therein, and carry a great sway both in number and reputation: the superstitious, formalists, Pedanties, who notwithstanding they are in divers subjects, jurisdictions, and theatres (the three principal, religion, life or conversation, and doctrine) yet they are all of one stamp, weak spirits, ill borne, or very ill instructed, a very dangerous kind of people in judgement, and touched with a disease incurable. It is lost labour to speak to these kind of people, or to persuade them to change their minds, for they account themselves the best and wisest in the world, opinative obstinacy is there in his proper seat; he that is once stricken and touched to the quick with any of these evils, there is little hope of his recovery: Who is there more sottish, and withal more brainsick and heady than these kind of people? Two things there are that do much hinder them (as hath been spoken) natural imbecility, and incapacity, and afterwards an anticipated opinion to do as well and better than others. I do here but name them, and point them with the finger, for afterwards in their places here quoted their faults shall be showed more at large. The Superstitious, injurious to God, and enemies to true religion, cover themselves with the cloak of piety, zeal and 1 Superstitious See Lib. 2. Cap. 5. love towards God, even to the punishing and tormenting of themselves more than is needful, thinking thereby to merit much, and that God is not only pleased therewith, but indebted unto them for the rest. What would you do to these kind of people? If you tell them that they do more than they need, and that they receive things with the left hand, in not understanding them aright, they will not believe you, but tell you, that their intent is good (whereby they think to save themselves) and that they do it for devotion. Howsoever, they will not quit themselves of their gain, nor the satisfaction which they receive, which is to bind God unto them. The Formalists do wholly tie themselves to an outward form and fashion of life, thinking to be quit of blame in the 2 Formalists. pursuit of their passions and desires, so they do nothing against the tenor of the laws, and omit none of their formalities. See here a miserable churl which hath overthrown and brought to a desperate state many poor families; but this hath fallen out by demanding that which he thought to be his own, and that by way ofiustice. Who then can affirm that he hath done ill? O how many good works have been omitted, how many evils committed, under this cloak of forms, which a man sees not! And therefore it is very truly said, That the extremity of law is the extremity of wrong: and as well said, God shield us from Formalists. The Pedantie or household schoolmaster having with great study and pains filched from other men's writings their 3 Pedanties. Lib. 3. cap. 13. learning, they set it out to the view and to sale, and with a questuous and mercenary ostentation they disgorge it, and let it fly with the wind. Are there any people in the world so sottish in their affairs, more unapt to every thing, and yet more presumptuous and obstinate? In every tongue and nation, Pedante, Clerke, Master, are words of reproach. To do any thing sottishly, is to do it like a Clerk. These are a kind of people that have their memories stuffed with the wisdom of other men, and have none of their own: their judgements, wills, consciences are never the better, they are unapt, simple, unwise, in such sort, that it seems that learning serves them for no other use than to make them more fools, yea more arrogant prattlers: they diminish or rather swallow up their own spirits, and bastardise their understanding, but puff up their memory. Hear is that misery seated which we now come to speak of, and is the last of those of the understanding. CHAP. XL. 5. Presumption. Behold here the last and leawdest line or lineament of this picture; it is the other part of that description given by Pliny; the plague of man, and the nurse of false and erroneous opinions, both public and particular: and yet a vice both natural and original in man. Now this presumption must be considered diversly, and in all senses, high, low, collateral, inward and outward, in respect of God, things high and celestial; in regard of things base, as of beasts, man his companion, of himself, and all may be reduced to these two, To esteem too much of himself, and not to esteem sufficiently of another: Qui in se considebant, & aspernabantur alios. A word or two of either. Lue. 18. First in respect of God (and it is a horrible thing) all superstition 1 Presumption in regard of God. and want in religion, or false service of God, proceedeth from this, That we esteem not enough of God, we understand him not; and our opinions, conceits and beliefs of the Divinity are not high and pure enough. I mean not by this enough, proportion answerable to the greatness of God, which being infinite receiveth not any proportion; for it is impossible in this respect to conceit or believe enough: but I mean enough in respect of what we can and aught to do. We soar not high enough, we do not elevate and sharpen sufficiently the point of our spirit, when we enter into an imagination of the Divinity: we over-basely conceit him, our services are unworthy his majesty: we deal with him after a base manner than with other creatures; we speak not only of his works, but of his majesty, will, judgements, with more confidence and boldness than we dare to do of an earthly Prince or man of honour. Many men there are that would scorn such kind of service and acknowledgement, and would hold themselves to be abused, and their honours in some sort violated, if a man should speak of them, or abuse their names in so base and abject a manner. We enterprise to lead God, to flatter him, to bend him, to compound or condition with him; that I may not say, to brave, threaten, despite, murmur against him. Caesar willed his Pilot not to fear to hoist up sails, and commit himself to the fury of the seas even against destiny and the will of the heavens, with this only confidence, That it was Caesar whom he carried. Augustus' See lib. 2. cap. 10. having been beaten with a tempest at sea, defied god Neptune, and in the chiefest pomp of the Circean sports caused his image to be taken down, from where it was placed amongst the rest of the gods, to be revenged of him. The Thracians when it thundereth and lighteneth, shoot against heaven, to bring God himself into order. Xerxes' scourged the sea, and writ a bill of defiance against the hill Athos. And one telleth of a Christian King a near neighbour of ours See lib. 2. cap. 18. , who having received a blow from God, swore he would be revenged: and gave commandment, that for ten years no See lib. 3. cap. 1. man should pray unto him, or speak of him. Audax japeti genus Nil mortalibus arduum. Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia, neque Per nostrum patimur scelus Iracunda iovem ponere fulmina. But to leave these strange extravagancies, all the common sort of people do they not plainly verify that saying of Pliny, That there is nothing more miserable, and therewithal more glorious than man? For on the one side he feigneth lofty and rich opinions of the love, care and affection of God towards him, as his minion and only beloved, and in the mean time he returneth him no duty or service worthy so great and loving a God. How can a life so miserable, and a service so negligent on the one side, agree with an opinion and belief so glorious and so haughty on the other? This is at one and the same time, to be an angel and a swine: and this is that wherewith a great Philosopher reproached the Christians, that there were no people more fierce & glorious in their speech, and in effect more dissolute, effeminate and villainous. It was an enemy that spoke it perhaps to wrong and abuse us, but yet he spoke but that which doth justly touch all hypocrites. It likewise seemeth unto us, that we burden and importune God, the world, and nature, that they labour and travel 2 In respect of Nature. in our affairs, they watch not but for us, and therefore we wonder and are astonished with those accidents that happen unto us, and especially at our deaths. Few there are that resolve and believe, that it is their last hour, and almost all do even then suffer themselves to be mocked with vain hopes. This proceedeth from presumption, we make too much of ourselves, and we think that the whole world hath great interest in our death, that things fail us according to that measure that we fail them, or that they fail themselves, according to that measure that they fail us; that they go the selfsame dance with us, not unlike those that row upon the water, think the heavens, the earth, yea cities themselves to move, when they move; we think to draw all with us, and there is no man amongst us that sufficiently thinks he is but one. Besides all this, man believeth that the heaven, the stars, 3 Of Heaven. all this great celestial motion of the world, is only made for him, Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes Deos. And the poor miserable wretch is in the mean time ridiculous: he is here beneath lodged in the last and worst stage of the world, most distant from the celestial vault, in the sink of the world, amongst the filth and lees thereof; with creatures of base condition, made to receive all those excrements and ordures, which rain down and fall from above upon his head; nay he lives not but by them, and to endure all those accidents that on all sides happen unto him; and yet he makes himself believe that he is the master and commander of all, that all creatures, yea those great luminous incorruptible bodies, whereof he knows not the least virtue, and which he is constrained with astonishment to admire, move not but for him, and to do him service. And because he beggeth (wretch that he is) his living, his maintenance, his commodities, from the beams, light and heat of the Sun, from the rain and other distillations of heaven, and the air, he sticks not to say, that he enjoyeth the heavens and the elements, as if all had been made, and still move only for him. In this sense a gosling may say as much, and perhaps more justly and peremptorily. For man who many times receiveth many discommodities from above, and of all that he receiveth hath nothing in his own power or understanding, nor can divine of them, is in continual doubt and fear, lest those superior bodies should not move aright, and to that end and purpose which he hath proposed, and that they procure unto him sterility, sickness, and whatsoever is contrary to his designment, and so he trembleth under this burden; whereas beasts receive whatsoever cometh from above, without stir or apprehension of what shall happen unto them, and without complaint of that which is happened, which man cannot do. Non Senec. nos causa mundo sumus hiemem aestatemque referendi: suas ista leges habent, quibus divina exercentur: minus nos suspicimus si digni nobis videmur, propter quos tanta moveantur. non tanta coelo nobiscum societas est, ut nostro fato sit ille quoque siderum fulgor. In respect of things base and earthly, that is to say, all other creatures, he disdaineth and contemneth them, as if they did 4 Of Creatures. not appertain to the same master-workeman, and came not of the same mother, did not belong to the same family with him, as if they did not any way concern him, or had any part or relation unto him. And from hence proceedeth that common abuse and cruelty that is practised against them; a thing that reboundeth against that common and universal master which hath made them, which hath care of them, and hath ordained laws for their good and preservation, hath given them pre-eminence in certain things, and sent man unto them as to a school. But this belongs to the subject of the chapter following. Now this derogateth not any thing at all from that common doctrine, that the world is made for man, and man for God: for besides the instruction that man draweth in general from every high and low thing, whereby to know God, himself, his duty, he also draweth in particular from every thing either profit, pleasure, or service. That which is above him, which he hath least in understanding, and nothing at all in his power, the azured heaven so richly decked and counterpointed with stars, and rolling torches never ceasing over our heads, he only enjoyeth by contemplation, he mounteth and is carried with admiration, fear, reverence of the author and sovereign Lord of all: and therefore in this sense it was truly said by Anaxagoras, that man was created to contemplate the heaven and the sun, and as truly by other Philosophers was he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from base and inferior things, he draweth help, service, commodity; but for a man to persuade himself that in the framing of all these things no other thing was thought upon but man, and that he is the only end and butt of all these luminous and incorruptible bodies, it is a greatfolly and an overbold presumption. Finally but especially, this presumption is to be considered in man himself, that is to say, in regard of himself, and of 6 Of man himself. man his companion, both within, in the progress of his judgement and opinions; and without in his communication and conversation with another. Concerning which, we are to consider three things, as three heads which follow one the other, Three degrees of human presumption. where humanity bewrayeth in a sottish imbecility the foolish presumption thereof. The first in believing or misbelieving (here is no question of religion, nor of faith and belief theological, and therefore we must still call to mind the advertisement given in the Preface) where we are to note two contrary vices, which are common in human condition; 1 To believe mis-beleeve. the one and the other more ordinary, is a kind of lightness, qui citò credit, levis est cord, and too great a facility to believe and to entertain whatsoever is proposed, with any kind of appearance of truth or authority. This belongeth to the folly, simplicity, tenderness and imbecility of the weaker sort of people, of spirits effeminate, sick, superstitious, astonished, indiscreetly zealous, who like wax do easily receive all impressions, suffer themselves to be taken and lead by the ears. And this is rather an error and weakness, than malice, and doth willingly lodge in minds gentle and debonair. Credulitas error est magis quàm culpa, & quidem in optimi cuiusque mentem facilè irrepit. We see almost the whole world led and carried with opinions and beliefs, not out of choice and judgement, yea many times before they have either years or discretion to judge, but out of the custom of the country, or instruction in youth received, or by some sudden encounter as with a tempest, whereby they are in such sort fastened, subjecteth and enthralled, that it is a matter of great difficulty ever to unlearn them again. Veluti tempestate delati ad quamcunque disciplinam tanquam ad saxum adhaerescunt. Thus is the world lead, we trust ourselves too much, and then persuade others to believe us. unusquisque mawlt credere quàm judicare; versat nos & praecipitat traditus per manus error, ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa & lubrica. Now this popular facility, though it be in truth weakness and imbecility, yet it is not without presumption. For so lightly to believe and hold for truth and certainty that which we know not, or to inquire of the causes, reasons, consequents, and not of the truth itself, is to enterprise to presume too much. For from what other cause proceeds this? If you shall answer, from a supposition that it is true; why this is nothing: a man handleth and stirreth the foundations and effects of a thousand things which never were, whereby both pro and contra are false. How many fables, false and supposed miracles, visions, revelations, are there received in the world that never were? And why should a man believe a miracle, a thing neither human nor natural, when he is able by natural and human means to confute, and confound the truth thereof? Truth and lying have like visages, like carriage, relish, gate, and we behold them with one and the same eye, it a sunt finitima falsa veris, ut in praecipitem locum non debeat se sapiens committere. A man ought not to believe that of a man which is not human, except he be warranted by supernatural and superhumane approbation, which is only God, who is only to be believed in that he saith, only because he saith it. The other contrary vice is an audacious temerity to condemn and reject as false all things that are not easily understood, and that please not the palate. It is the property of those that have a good opinion of themselves, which play the parts of men of dexterity and understanding, especially heretics, Sophists, Pedanties: for they finding in themselves some special point of the spirit, and that they see a little more clearly than the common sort, they assume unto themselves law and authority to decide and determine all things. This vice is far greater and more base than the former: for it is an enraged folly to think to know as much as possibly is to be known, the jurisdiction and limits of nature, the capacity of the power and will of God, to frame unto himself and his sufficiency the truth and falsehood of things, which must needs be in so certain and assured resolution and definition of them: for see their ordinary language, that is false, impossible, absurd: and how many things are there which at one time we have rejected with laughter as impossible, which we have been constrained afterwards to confess and approve, yea and others too, more strange than they? And on the other side how many things have we received as articles of our faith, that have afterwards proved vanities and lies? The second degree of presumption, which followeth and commonly proceedeth from the former, is certainly and obstinately 2 To affirm and condemn. to affirm or disprove that which he hath lightly believed or misbelieved. So that it addeth unto the first obstinacy in opinion, and so the presumption increaseth. This facility to believe with time is confirmed, and degenerateth into an obstinacy invincible and uncapable of amendment, yea a man proceeds so far in this obstinacy, that he defends those things that he knows and understands least: Maiorem fidem homines adhibent ijs quae non intelligunt: cupiditate humani ingenij lubentius obscura creduntur: he speaks of all things with resolution. Now affirmation and opinative obstinacy are signs of negligence and ignorance accompanied with folly and arrogancy. The third degree which followeth these two, and which 8 3. To persuade. is the height of presumption, is to persuade others to receive as canonical whatsoever he believeth, yea imperiously to impose a belief as it were by obligation, and inhibition to doubt. What tyranny is this? Whosoever believeth a thing, thinks it a work of charity to persuade another to believe the same; and that he may the better do it, he feareth not to add of his own invention so much as he seethe necessary for his purpose to supply that want, and unwillingness which he thinks to be in the conceit of another of that he tells. There is nothing unto which men are commonly more prone, than to give way to their own opinions: Nemo sibi tantùm errat, sed alijs erroris causa & author est. Where the ordinary mean wanteth, there a man addeth commandment, force, fire, sword. This vice is proper unto dogmatists, and such as will govern, and give laws unto the world. Now to attain to the end hereof, and to captivate the beliefs of men unto themselves they use two means: First they bring in certain general and fundamental propositions, which they call principles and presuppositions, whereof they say we must neither doubt nor dispute; upon which they afterwards build whatsoever they please; and lead the world at their pleasure: which is a mockery whereby the world is replenished with errors and lies. And to say the truth, if a man should examine these principles, he should find as great or greater untruths and weaknesses in them, than in all that which they would have to depend upon them, and as great an appearance of truth in propositions quite contrary. There have Copernicus. Paracelsus. been some in our time that have changed and quite altered the principles and rules of our Ancients and best Professors in Astronomy, Physic, Geometry, in nature, and the motion of the winds. Every human proposition hath as much authority as another, if reason make not the difference. Truth dependeth not upon the authority and testimony of man: there are no principles in man if Divinity have not revealed them; all the rest is but a dream and smoke. Now these great master's will that whatsoever they say should be believed and received, and that every man should trust them, without judging or examining what they teach: which is a tyrannical justice. God only (as hath been said) is to be believed in all that he saith, because he saith it: Qui a semetipso loquitur mendax est. The other mean is by supposition of some miraculous thing done, new and celestial revelation and apparition, which hath been cunningly practised by Lawmakers, Generals in the field, or private Captains. The persuasion taken from the subject itself possesseth the simpler sort, but at the first it is so tender and frail, that the least offence, mistaking or imprudency that shall happen, undoth all: for it is a great marvel how from so vain beginnings and frivolous causes there should arise the most famous impressions. Now this first impression being once gotten, doth wonderfully grow and increase, in such sort that it fasteneth even upon the most expert and skilful, by reason of the multitude of believers, witnesses, years, wherewith a man suffereth himself to be carried, if he see not well into it, and be not well prepared against it: for than it is to small purpose to spurn against it, or to inquire farther into it, but simply to believe it. The greatest and most powerful mean to persuade, and the best touchstone of truth, is multitude of years and believers: now fools do win the game, sanitatis patrocinium est insanientium turba. It is a very difficult thing for a man to resolve and settle his judgement against the common opinion. All this may easily appear by those many impostures and fooleries which we have seen to go for miracles, and ravish the whole world with admiration, but instantly extinguished by some accident, or by the exact inquiry of such as are quick sighted, who have cleared and discovered the cozenage; which if they had had but time to ripen, and to have fortified in nature, they had continued for ever, been generally received and adored. And even such are divers others, which by the favour of Fortune have passed for currant, and gained public belief, whereunto men afterwards accommodate themselves, without any farther desire to know the thing in it first form and original, nusquam ad liquidum fama perducitur. And this is the reason why there are so many kinds of religions in the world, so many superstitious customs of the Pagans, which are yet remaining even in Christendom, and concerning which we can not wholly assure the people. By this whole discourse we see what we are, and to what we tend, since we are lead by such guides. The fift and last Consideration of Man, by those varieties and great differences that are in him, and their comparisons. CHAP. XLI. Of the difference and inequality of men in general. THere is nothing in this lower world wherein there is found so great difference as amongst men, and where the differences are so distant and divers in one and the same subject and kind. If a man should believe Pliny, Herodotus, Plutarch, there are shapes of men in some countries, that have very little resemblance with ours, and some that are of a mixed and doubtful kind betwixt men and beasts. There are some countries where men are without heads, carrying their eyes and mouths in their breasts, where they are Hermaphrodites, where they go with four feet, where they have one eye in the forehead, and a head liker to a dog's head than a man's, where they are fish from the navel downwards, and live in the water; where their women bear children at five years of age, and live but eight; where they have their head and forehead so hard, that iron can not pierce them; where they do naturally change into wolves and other beasts, and afterwards into men again; where they are without a mouth, nourishing themselves with the smell of certain odours; where they yield a seed that is black; where they are very little and dwarves; where they are very great and giants; where they go always naked; where they are all hairy; where they speak not, but live in woods like beasts, hidden in caves and hollow trees. And in our times we have discovered, seen with the eye, and touched with our fingers, where the men are without beards, without use of fire, corn, wine; where that is held to be the greatest beauty, which we account the greatest deformity, as hath been said before. Touching the diversity of manners we shall speak elsewhere. And to omit many of these strange wonderments, we know that as touching the visage, it is impossible to find two in all things alike; it may fall out that we may mistake, and take the one for the other, because of the great resemblance that may be between two; but this must be in the absence of the one, for in the presence of them both it is easy to note a difference, though a man know not how to express it. In the souls of men there is a far greater difference, for it is not only greater without comparison betwixt a man and a man, than betwixt a beast and a beast: but there is greater difference betwixt a man and a man, than a man and a beast; for an excellent beast comes nearer to a man of the basest sort and degree, than that man to another great and excellent parsonage. This great difference of men proceedeth from the inward qualities, and from the spirit, where there are so many parts, so many jurisdictions, so many degrees beyond number, that it is an infinite thing to consider. We must now at the last learn to know man by those distinctions and differences that are in him, which are divers, according to the many parts in man, many reasons, and means to compare and consider of him. We will here set down five principal, unto which all the rest may be referred, and generally all that is in man, Spirit, body natural, acquired, public, private, apparent, secret: and so this fift and last consideration of man shall have five parts, which are five great and capital distinctions of men, that is to say: The first natural, essential, and universal of all men, soul and body. The second natural and essential principally, and in some sort acquired, of the force and sufficiency of the spirit. The third accidental of the estate, condition and duty of man, drawn from superiority and inferiority. The fourth accidental of the condition and profession of life. The fift and last of the favours and disfavours of Nature and of Fortune. CHAP. XLII. The first distinction and difference of men natural and essential, drawn from the divers situation of the world. THe first most notable and universal distinction of men, 1 The diversity of men proceedeth from the divers situation of the world. which concerneth the soul and body, and whole essence of man, is taken and drawn from the divers site of the world, according to which the aspect and influence of heaven, and the sun, the air, the climate, the country, are divers. So likewise not only the colour, the feature, the complexion, the countenance, the manners, are divers, but also the faculties of the soul, plaga coeli non solùm ad robur corporum, sed & animorum facit. Athenis tenue caelum, ex quo etiam acutiores Attici; crassum Thebis, ideo pingues Thebani & valentes. And therefore Plato thanked God that he was an Athenian, and not a Theban. As fruits and beasts are divers, according to the divers countries wherein they are: so men are borne more and less warlike, just, temperate, docible, religious, chaste, ingenious, good, obedient, beautiful, sound, strong. And this is the reason why Cyrus would not agree to the Persians to abandon their sharp and hilly country, to go to another more plain and pleasant, saying, that fat countries and delicate, made men soft and effeminate, and fertile grounds barren and infertile spirits. Following this foundation, we may in gross divide the world into three parts, and all men into three kinds of nature: 2 The division of the world into three parts. we will make three general situations of the world, which are, the two extremities South, and North, and the middle betwixt them both; every part and situation shall have sixty degrees. The Southern part which is under the Aequator, hath thirty degrees on this side the line, thirty on that, that is to say, all that part which is betwixt the two tropicks or somewhat more, where are the hot and Southern countries, Africa and Aethiope, in the middle betwixt the East and the West; Arabia, Calicut, the Moluques, Jane's, Taprobana towards the Orient; Peru and the great Seas towards the Occident. The other middle part hath thirty degrees beyond the Tropics both on this side the line and on that, towards the Poles, where are the middle and temperate regions, all Europe with the Mediterrane Sea in the middle betwixt the East and West; all Asia both the less and the greater which is towards the East, with China, japan, and America, towards the West. The third which is the thirty degrees which are next to the two Poles on both sides, which are the cold and Icy countries, the Septentrional people, Tartary, Muscony, Estotilan, Magelan, which is not yet thoroughly discovered. Following this general partition of the world, the natures of men are likewise different in every thing, body, soul, religion, 3 Their natures. manners, as we may see in this little Table: For the Northern people are Middle are Southern are 1 In their Bodies. High and great, phlegmatic, sanguine, white, and yellow, sociable, the voice strong, the skin soft and hairy, great eaters and drinkers, puissant. Indifferent and temperate in all those things as neuters, or partakers a little of those two extremities, & participating most of that region to which they are nearest neighbours. Little, melancholic, cold, and dry, black. Solitary, the voice shrill, the skin hard, with little hair, and curled, abstinent, feeble. 2 Spirit. Heavy, obtuse, stupid, sottish, facile, light, inconstant. Ingenious, wise, subtle, opinative. 3 Religion. Little religious and devout. Superstitious, contemplative. 4 Manners. Warriors, valiant, painful, chaste, free from jealousy, cruel and inhuman. No warriors, idle, unchaste, jealous, cruel, and inhuman. All these differences are easily proved. As for those of the body, they are known by the eye, and if there be any exceptions, 4 The proofs of these differences of the Body. they are rare, and proceed from the mixture of the people, or from the winds, the waters, and particular situation of the place, whereby a mountain is a notable difference in the selfsame degree, yea the selfsame country and city. They of the higher part of the city of Athens, were of a quite contrary humour, as Plutarch affirmeth, to those that dwelled about the gate of Pyreus: and they that dwell in the North side of a mountain differ as much from those that dwell on the South side, as they do both differ from those in the valley. As for the differences of the spirit, we know that mechanical 2 The spirit. and manual arts belong to the North, where men are made for labour; Speculative sciences came from the South. Caesar and other ancients of those times called the Egyptians ingenious, and subtle: Moses is said to be instructed in their wisdom: and Philosophy came from thence into Greece. Greatness began rather with them, because of their spirit and subtlety. The guards of Princes (yea in the Southern parts) are Northern men, as having more strength, and less subtlety and malice. So likewise the Southern people are endued with great virtues, and subject to great vices, as it is said of Hannibal: The Northern have goodness and simplicity. The lesser and middle sciences, as policies, laws, and eloquence, are in the middle nations, wherein the greatest Empires and policies have flourished. As touching the third point, religions have come from the South, Egypt, Arabia, Chaldea; more superstition in 3 Religion. Africa than the whole world beside, witness their vows so frequent, their temples so magnificent. The Northern people, saith Caesar, have little care of religion, being wholly given to the wars and to hunting. As for manners, and first touching wars, it is certain that the greatest armies, arts, military instruments and inventions 4 Manners. have come from the North. The Scythians, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Tartarians, Turks, Germans, have beaten and conquered all other nations, and ransacked the whole world; and therefore it is a common saying, that all evil comes from the North. Single combats came from them. The Northern people adore a sword fastened in the earth, saith Solinus. To other nations they are invincible, yea to the Romans, who having conquered the rest of the world, were utterly destroyed by them. They grow weak and languish with the Southern winds, and going towards the South; as the Southern men coming into the North redouble their forces. By reason of their warlike fierceness, they will not endure to be commanded by authority, they love their liberty, at leastwise elective commanders. Touching chastity and jealousy in the North, saith Tacitus, one woman to one man; yea, one woman sufficeth many men, saith Caesar. There is no jealousy, saith Munster, where men and women bathe themselves together with strangers. In the South Polygamy is altogether received. All Africa adoreth Venus, saith Solinus. The Southerns die with jealousy, and therefore they keep eunuchs as guardians to their wives, which their great Lords have in great number, as they have stables of horses. Touching cruelty, the two extremes are alike cruel, but the causes are divers, as we shall see anon, when we come to speak of the causes. Those tortures of the wheel, and staking of men alive, came from the North: The inhumanities' of the Moscovites and Tartars, are too well known. The Almains, saith Tacitus, punish not their offenders by law, but cruelly murder them as enemies. The Southerns flay their offenders alive, and their desire of revenge is so great, that they become furious if they be not glutted therewith. In the middle regions they are merciful and human: The Romans punished their greatest offenders with banishment. The Greeks used to put their offenders to death with a sweet drug made of a kind of Hemlock which they gave them to drink: And Cicero saith, that humanity and courtesy were the conditions of Asia minor, and from thence derived to the rest of the world. The cause of all these corporal and spiritual differences, is the inequality and difference of the inward natural heat, 5 The cause of the aforesaid differences. which is in those countries and peoples, that is to say, strong and vehement in the Northerns, by reason of the great outward cold which encloseth and driveth the heat into the inward parts, as caves and deep places are hot in winter, so men's stomachs, ventres hieme culidiores. Weak and feeble is the Southerns, the inward heat being dispersed and drawn into the outward parts, by the vehemency of the outward heat, as in Summer vaults and places under the earth are cold. Mean and temperate in the middle regions. From this diversity, I say, and inequality of natural heat; proceed these differences not only corporal, which are easy to note, but also spiritual; for the Southerns by reason of their cold temperature, are melancholic, and therefore stayed, constant, contemplative, ingenious, religious, wise; for wisdom is in cold creatures, as Elephants, who as they are of all other beasts the most melancholic, so are they more wise, docile, religious, by reason of their cold blood. From this melancholy temperature it likewise cometh, that the Southerns are unchaste, by reason of that frothy, fretting, tickling melancholy, as we commonly see in Hares; and cruel, because this fretting sharp melancholy doth violently press the passions and revenge. The Northernes' are of a phlegmatic and sanguine temperature, quite contrary to the Southern; and therefore have contrary qualities, save that they agree in this one, that they are likewise cruel and inhuman, but by another reason, that is, for want of judgement, whereby like beasts, they know not how to contain and govern themselves. They of the middle regions are sanguine and choleric, tempered with a sweet, pleasant, kindly disposed humour; they are active. We could likewise more exquisitely represent the divers natures of these three sorts of people, by the application and comparison of all things, as you may see in this little Table, where it appeareth that there doth properly belong, and may be referred to the Northern, Midlers, Southern. The common sense, Discourse & reasoning, Understanding Qualities of the soul. Force as of Bears and other beasts. Reason and justice of men. subtlety of foxes, & religion of divines. Mars war The moon hunting jupiter emperors. Mercury orators. Saturn contemplation. Venus' love. Planets. Art and handicrafts. Prudence, knowledge of good and evil. Knowledge of truth and falsehood. Actions and parts of the Commonweal. Labourers, artificers, soldiers, to execute & obey. Magistrates, provident, to judge, command. Prelates, Philosophers, to contemplate. Young men unapt. Perfect men, managers of affairs. Grave old men, wise, pensive. The other distinction more particular may be referred to this general of North and South: for we may refer to the conditions of the Northern those of the West, and that live in mountains, warriors, fierce people, desirous of liberty, by reason of the cold which is in mountains. So likewise, they that are far distant from the sea are more simple and innocent. And contrarily to the conditions of the Southernes', we may refer the Easterlings, such as live in valleys, effeminate and delicate persons, by reason of the fertility of the place, which naturally yieldeth pleasure. So likewise they that live upon the sea coasts are subtle, deceivers by reason of their commerce and traffic with divers sorts of people and nations. By all this discourse we may see that generally those of the North do excel in body, have strength for their part; and they of the South in spirit, and have for their part subtlety; they of the middle Regions partake of both, and are temperate in all. So likewise we may see that their manners, to say the truth, are neither vices nor virtues, but works of nature, which to amend or renounce altogether is more than difficult; but to sweeten, temper and reduce the extremities to a mediocrity, is a work of virtue. CHAP. XLIII. The second distinction, and more subtle difference of the spirits and sufficiences of men. THis second distinction which respecteth the spirit and ● Three sorts and degrees of people in the world. sufficiency, is not so plain, and perceptible as the other, and comes as well from nature as achievement; according unto which there are three sorts of people in the world, as three conditions and degrees of spirits. In the one and the lowest are the weak and plain spirits, of base and slender capacity, borne to obey, serve, and to be led, who in effect are simply men. In the second and middle stage are they that are of an indifferent judgement, make profession of sufficiency, knowledge, dexterity; but do not sufficiently understand and judge themselves, resting themselves upon that which is commonly held, and given them at the first hand, without further enquiry of the truth and source of things, yea with a persuasion that it is not lawful; and never looking farther than where they be, but thinking that it is every where so, or aught to be so, and that if it be otherwise, they are deceived, yea, they are barbarous. They subject themselves to opinions, and the municipal laws of the place where they live, even from the time they were first hatched, not only by observance and custom, which all aught to do, but even from the very heart and soul, with a persuasion that that which is believed in their village is the true touchstone of truth (here is nothing spoken of divine revealed truth, or religion) the only, or at least the best rule to live well. These sorts of people are of the school and jurisdiction of Aristotle, affirmers, positive men, dogmatists, who respect more utility than verity, according to the use and custom of the world, than that which is good and true in itself. Of this condition there are a very great number, and divers degrees, the principal and most active amongst them govern the world, and have the command in their hand. In the third and highest stage are men endued with a quick and clear spirit, a strong, firm, and solid judgement, who are not content with a bare affirmation, nor settle themselves in common received opinions, nor suffer themselves to be won and preoccupated by a public and common belief, whereof they wonder not at all, knowing that there are many cousenages, deceits & impostures received in the world with approbation and applause, yea public adoration and reverence: but they examine all things that are proposed, sound maturely, and seek without passion the causes, motives, and jurisdictions even to the root, loving better to doubt, and to hold in suspense their belief, than by a lose and idle facility or lightness, or precipitation of judgement to feed themselves with lies, and affirm or secure themselves of that thing whereof they can have no certain reason. These are but few in number, of the School of Socrates and Plato, modest, sober, stayed, considering more the verity and reality of things than the utility; who if they be well borne, having with that above mentioned probity and government in manners, they are truly wise, and such as here we seek after. But because they agree not with the common sort, as touching opinions, see more clearly, pierce more deeply, are not so facile and easily drawn to believe, they are suspected and little esteemed of others, who are far more in number, and held for fantastics and philosophers; a word which they use in a wrong sense, to wrong others. In the first of these three degrees or orders there is a far greater number than in the second, and in the second, than in the third. They of the first and last, the lowest and highest trouble not the world, make no stir, the one for insufficiency and weakness, the other by reason of too great sufficiency, stability, and wisdom. They of the middle make all the stir, the disputations that are in the world, a presumptuous kind of people, always stirred, and always stirring. They of the lower range, as the bottom, the lose, the sink, resemble the earth, which doth nothing but receive and suffer that which comes from above. They of the middle resemble the region of the air, wherein are form all the meteors, thunderings, and alterations are made, which afterwards fall upon the earth. They of the higher stage resemble the firmament itself, or at least the highest region next unto heaven, pure, clear, neat, and peaceable. This difference of men proceedeth partly from the nature of the first composition and temperature of the brain, which is different, moist, hot, dry, and that in many degrees, whereby the spirits and judgements are either very solid, courageous, or feeble, fearful, plain: and partly from instruction and discipline; as also from the experience and practise of the world, which serveth to put off simplicity, and to become more advised. Lastly, all these three sorts of people are found under every rob; form and condition both of good and evil men, but diversly. There is another distinction of spirits and sufficiencies, for some there are that make way themselves, and are their own 2 Another distinction. guides and governors. These are happy, of the higher sort, and very rare; others have need of help, and these are of two sorts. For some need only a little light, it is enough if they have a guide and a torch to go before them, they will willingly and easily follow. Others there are that must be drawn, they need a spur, and must be led by the hand. I speak not of those that either by reason of their great weakness cannot, as they of the lower range, or the malignity of their nature will not, as they of the middle, who are neither good to follow, nor will suffer themselves to be drawn and directed, for these are a people past all hope. CHAP. XLIIII. The third distinction and difference of men accidental, of their degrees, estates and charges. THis accidental distinction, which respecteth the estates and charges, is grounded upon two principles and foundations of human society, which are, to command and obey, power and subjection, superiority and inferiority; imperio & obsequio omnia constant. This distinction we shall better see, first in gross in this Table. All power and subjection is either Private, which is either in Families and household government, and it is fourfold: Marriage, of the husband and The first general division. the wife. This is the source of human society. Paternal of parents over their children. This is truly natural. Herile, which is twofold, of Lords, over their slaves. Masters, over their servants. Patronall, of patrons over their pupils: the use whereof is less frequent. Corporations and Colleges, Civil communities over the particular members of that community. Public, which is either Sovereign, which is threefold, and they are three sorts of estates, cunctas nationes & urbes, populus aut primores, aut singuli regunt. i. Monarchy, of one. aristocraty, of a few. Democritie, of all. Subaltern, which is in those who are superiors and inferiors, for divers reasons, places, persons, as Particular lords in many degrees. Officers of the sovereignty, whereof there are divers sorts. This public power whether it be sovereign, or subaltern, The subdivision of the sovereign power. hath other subdivisions necessary to be known. The sovereign, which, as hath been said, is threefold, in regard of the manner of government is likewise threefold; that is to say, every one of these three is governed after a threefold manner, and is therefore called Royal, or Signoriall, or Tyrannical. Royal, wherein the sovereign (be it one, or many, or all) obeying the laws of nature, preserveth the natural liberty and propriety of the goods of his subjects. Adreges potestas omnis pertinet, ad singulos proprietas: omnia Rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio. Seignoriall or lordly, where the sovereign is lord both of men and goods, by the right of arms, governing his subjects as slaves. Tyrannical where the sovereign contemning all laws of Nature, doth abuse both the persons and goods of his subjects, differing from a lord, as a thief from an enemy in war. Of the three sovereign states, the Monarchy, & of the three governments, the Lordly, are the more ancient, great, durable and majestical, as in former times Assyria, Persia, Egypt, and now Ethiopia the most ancient that is, moscovie, Tartary, Turkey, Peru. But the better and more natural state and government is the Monarchy Royal. The most famous Aristocraties hath sometimes been that of the Lacedæmonians, and now the Venetians. The Democrities, Rome, Athens, Carthage, Royal in their government. The public subaltern power, which is in particular lords, is of many kinds and degrees, principally five, that is to say, 3 Of particular lords. Lords Tributaries, who pay only tribute. Feudetaries, simple Vassals, who own faith and homage for the tenure of their land. These three may be sovereigns'. Vassals bound to do service, who besides faith and homage own likewise personal service, whereby they cannot truly be sovereigns'. Natural subjects, whether they be Vassals or Censors, or otherwise, who own subjection and obedience, and can not be exempted from the power of their sovereign: and these are Lords. The public subaltern power which is in the officers of the sovereignty, is of divers kinds, and both in regard of the 4 Of offices. honour and the power may be reduced to five degrees. The first and basest are those ignominious persons, which should remain without the city, the last executioners of justice. The second, they that have neither honour nor infamy, Sergeants, Trumpeters. The third, such as have honour without knowledge and power, Notaries, Receivers, Secretaries. The fourth, they that have with honour, power and knowledge, but without jurisdiction, the King's servants. The fift, they that have with the rest jurisdiction; and these are properly called Magistrates: of whom there are many distinctions, and especially these five, which are all double: 1 Majors, Senators. Minors, judges. 2 Politics. Militaries. 3 Civil. Criminal. 4 Titularies in offices of form, who have it by inheritance. Commissaries. 5 Perpetual, as the lesser both in number and otherwise should be. Temporal and movable, as the greater should be. OF THE ESTATES AND DEGREES OF MEN in particular following this precedent Table. An Advertisement. Here we are to speak in particular of the parts of this Table, and the distinctions of powers and subjections (beginning with the private and domestical) that is to say, of every estate and profession of men, to the end we may know them; and therefore this may be called The Book of the Knowledge of man: for the duties of every one shall be set down in the Third Book, in the virtue of justice; where in like manner and order, all these estates and chapters shall be resumed and examined. Now before we begin, it shall be necessary summarily to speak of commanding and obeying, two foundations and principal causes of these diversities of estates and charges. CHAP. XLV. Of commanding and obeying. THese, as hath been said, are the two foundations of all human society, and the diversity of estates and professions. They are Relatives, they do mutually respect, engender and conserve one the other, and are alike required in all assemblies and communities; but are yet subject to a natural kind of envy, and an everlasting contestation, complaint and obtrectation. The popular estate make the Sovereign of worse condition than a Carter. The Monarchy placeth him above God himself. In commanding is the honour, the difficulty (these two commonly go together) the goodness, the sufficiency, all qualities of greatness. Command, that is to say, sufficiency, courage, authority, is from heaven and of God, imperium non nisi divino fato datur: omnis potestas a Deo est: And therefore Plato was wont to say, That God did not appoint and establish men, that is to say, men of a common sort and sufficiency, and purely human, to rule others, but such as by some divine touch, singular virtue, and gift of heaven, do excel others: and therefore they are called Heroes. In obeying is utility, proclivity, necessity, in such sort, that for the preservation of the weal public it is more necessary than well to command; and the denial of obedience, or not to obey as men should, is far more dangerous than for a Prince not to command as he should. Even as in marriage, though the husband and the wife be equally obliged to loyalty and fidelity, and have both bound themselves by promise in the same words, the same ceremonies and solemnities, yet notwithstanding the inconveniences are incomparably far greater, in the fact of adultery, in the wife than the husband: even so, though command and obedience are equally required in every state and company, yet the inconveniences of disobedience in subjects are far more dangerous than of ill government in a Commander. Many States have a long time continued and prospered too under the command of wicked Princes and Magistrates, the subjects obeying and accommodating themselves to their government: and therefore a wise man being once asked why the Commonwealth of Sparta was so flourishing, and whether it were because their Kings commanded well? Nay rather, saith he, because the Citizens obey well. For if the subjects once refuse to obey, and shake off their yoke, the state must necessarily fall to the ground. CHAP. XLVI. Of Marriage. NOtwithstanding the state of marriage be the first, more ancient and most important, and as it were the foundation and fountain of human society, whence arise families, and from them Commonweals, Prima societas in coniugio est, quod principium urbis, seminarium Reipublicae; yet it hath been contemned and defamed by many great personages, who have judged it unworthy men of heart and spirit, and have framed many objections against it. First, they account the band and obligation thereof unjust, 2 Objections against marriage. a hard and overstreight captivity, insomuch, that by marriage a man is bound and enthralled to the cares and humours of another. And if it fall out, that he have mistaken in his choice, and have met with a hard bargain, more bone than flesh, his life is ever afterwards most miserable. What iniquity and injustice can there be greater than for one hours folly, a fault committed without malice, and by mere oversight, yea many times to obey the advice of another, a man should be bound to an everlasting torment? It were better for him to put the halter about his neck, and to cast himself into the sea, his head downward, to end his miserable life, than to live always in the pains of hell, and to suffer without intermission on his side, the tempest of jealousy, of malice, of rage, of madness, of brutish obstinacy, and other miserable conditions: and therefore one sticks not to say, That he that invented this knot and tie of marriage, had found a goodly and beautiful means to be revenged of man, a trap or gin to entangle beasts, and afterwards to make them languish at a little fire. Another saith, That to marry a wise man to a fool, or a fool to a wise man, is to bind the living to the dead, which was the cruelest death invented by Tyrants, to make the living to languish and die by the company of the dead. Secondly, they say that marriage is a corruption and adulterating of good and rare spirits; insomuch that the flatteries and smooth speeches of the party beloved, the affection towards children, the care of household affairs, and advancement of their famelies, do lessen, dissolve, and mollify the vigour and strength of the most lively and generous spirit that is, witness Samson, Solomon, Marc. Antony. And therefore howsoever the matter go, we had not need to marry. But those that have more flesh than spirit, strong in body, and weak in mind, tie them to the flesh, and give them the charge of small and base matters, such as they are capable of. But such as are weak of body, have their spirits great, strong, and puistant, is it not then a pity to bind them to the flesh, and to marriage, as men do beasts in a stable? We see that beasts the more noble they are, the stronger and fit for service, as horses and dogs, the more are they kept asunder from the company and acquaintance of the other sex, and it is the manner to put beasts of least esteem at random together. So likewise such men and women as are ordained to the most venerable and holiest vocation, and which ought to be as the cream and marrow of Christianity, Churchmen and religigious, are (though not by any warrant from the word of God) excluded from marriage. And the reason is, because marriage hindereth and averteth those beautiful and great elevations of the soul, the contemplation of things, high, celestial, and divine, which is incompatible with the troubles and molestations of domestical affairs; for which cause the Apostle preferreth the solitary continent life before marriage. Utility may well hold with marriage, but honesty is on the other side. Again, it troubleth beautiful and holy enterprises: as Saint Austin reporteth, that having determined with some other his friends, among whom there were some married, to retire themselves from the city, and the company of men, the better to attend to the study of wisdom and virtue, their purpose was quickly broken and altered by the wives of those that were married. And another wiseman did not doubt to say, that if men could live without women, they should be visited and accompanied by Angels. Moreover, marriage is a hindrance to such as delight in travel and to see strange countries, whether to learn to make themselves wise, or to teach others to be wise, and to publish that to others which they know. To conclude, marriage doth not only corrupt and deject good and great spirits, but it robbeth the weale-publicke of many beautiful and great things, which cannot manifest themselves remaining in the bosom and lap of a woman, or being spent about young children. But is it not a goodly sight, nay a great loss, that he that is able for his wisdom and policy to govern the whole world, should spend his time in the government of a woman and a few children? And therefore it was well answered by a great parsonage being solicited to marry, That he was borne to command men, not a woman, to counsel Kings and Princes, not little children. To all this a man may answer, that the nature of man is 3 The answer to the aforesaid objections, Cap. 4. not capable of perfection, or of any thing against which nothing may be objected, as hath elsewhere been spoken. The best and most expedient remedies that it hath, are in some degree or other but sickly, mingled with discommodities: They are all but necessary evils. And this is the best that man could devise for his preservation and multiplication. Some (as Plato, and others) would more subtly have invented means to have avoided these thorny inconveniences; but besides that they built castles in the air, that could not long continue in use, their inventions likewise if they could have been put in practice, would not have been without many discommodities and difficulties. Man hath been the cause of them, and hath himself brought them forth by his vice, intemperancy, and contrary passions; and we are not to accuse the state, nor any other but man, who knows not well how to use any thing. Moreover a man may say, that by reason of these thorns and difficulties, it is a school of virtue, an apprenticeship, and a familiar and domestical exercise: and Socrates a doctor of wisdom did once say to such as hit him in the teeth with his wives pettish frowardness, That he did thereby learn even within his own doors, to be constant and patiented every where else, and to think the crosses of fortune to be sweet and pleasant unto him. It is not to be denied but that he that can live unmarried, doth best: but yet for the honour of marriage, a man may say, that it was first instituted by God himself in Paradise before any other thing, and that in the state of innocency and perfection. See here four commendations of marriage, but the fourth passeth all the rest, and is without reply. Afterwards the Son of God approved it, and honoured it with his presence at the first miracle that he wrought, and that miracle done in the favour of that state of marriage and married men; yea he hath honoured it with this privilege, that it serveth for a figure of that great union of his with the Church, and for that cause it is called a mystery and great. Without all doubt, marriage is not a thing indifferent: It is either wholly a great good, or a great evil, a great content, or 4 Wholly good, or wholly ill. a great trouble, a paradise or a hell: It is either a sweet and pleasant way, if the choice be good, or a rough and dangerous march, and a galling burdensome tie, if it be ill: It is a bargain where truly that is verified which is said, Homo homini deus, aut lupus. Marriage is a work that consisteth of many parts; there must be a meeting of many qualities, many considerations 5 A good marriage, a rare good. besides the parties married. For whatsoever a man say, he marrieth not only for himself; his posterity, family, alliance, and other means, are of great importance, and a grievous burden. See here the cause why so few good are found; and because there are so few good found, it is a token of the price and value thereof: it is the condition of all great charges: Royalty is full of difficulty, and few there are that exercise it well and happily. And whereas we see many times that it falleth not out so luckily, the reason thereof is the licentious liberty, and unbridled desire of the persons themselves, and not in the state and institution of marriage: and therefore it is commonly more commodious, and better fitted in good, simple, and vulgar spirits, where delicacy, curiosity, and idleness are less troublesome: unbridled humours and turbulent wavering minds are not fit for this state or degree. Marriage is a step to wisdom, a holy and inviolable band, an honourable match. If the choice be good and well ordered 6 A simple description and summary of marriage. there is nothing in the world more beautiful: It is a sweet society of life, full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of profitable offices and mutual obligations: It is a fellowship not of love, but amity. For love and amity are as different, as the burning sick heat of a fever, from the natural heat of a sound body. Marriage hath in itself amity, utility, justice, honour, constancy, a plain pleasure, but sound, firm, and more universal. Love is grounded upon pleasure only, and it is more quick, piercing, ardent. Few marriages succeed well that have their beginnings and progress from beauty and amorous desires. Marriage hath need of foundations more solid and constant; and we must walk more warily; this boiling affection is worth nothing: yea marriage hath a better conduct by a third hand. Thus much is said summarily and simply; but more exactly to describe it, we know that in Marriage there are two 7 A description more exact. things essential unto it, and seem contraries, though indeed they be not; that is to say, an equality sociable, and such as is between Peers: and an inequality, that is to say, superiority and inferiority. The equality consisteth in an entire and perfect communication and community of all things, souls, wills, bodies, goods, the fundamental law of Marriage, which in some places is extended even to life and death, in such sort, that the husband being dead, the wife must incontinently follow. This is practised in some places by the public laws of the countries, and many times with so ardent affection, that many wives belonging to one husband, they contend, and publicly plead for the honour to go first to sleep with their spouse (that is their word) alleging for themselves the better to obtain their suit, and preferment herein, their good service, that they were best beloved, had the last kiss of their deceased husband, and have had children by him. Et certamen habent lethi, quae viva sequatur coniugium; pudor est non licuisse mori. Ardent victrices, & flammae pectora praebent, Imponuntque suis ora perusta viris. In other places it was observed, not by public laws, but private compacts and agreements of marriage, as betwixt Marc. Antony, and Cleopatra. This equality doth likewise consist in that power which they have in common over their family, whereby the wife is called the companion of her husband, the mistress of the house and family, as the husband the master and lord: And their joint authority over their family is compared to an Aristocracy. The distinction of superiority and inferiority consisteth in this, that the husband hath power over the wife, and the 8 Inequality. wife is subject to the husband. This agreeth with all laws and policies; but yet more or less according to the diversity of them. In all things the wife, though she be far more noble, and more rich, yet is subject to the husband. This superiority and inferiority is natural, founded upon the strength and sufficiency of the one, the weakness and insufficiency of the other. The Divines ground it upon other reasons drawn from the Bible: Man was first made by God alone and immediately, expressly for God his head, and according to his image, and perfect, for nature doth always begin with things perfect. The woman was made in the second place, after man, of the substance of man, by occasion and for another thing, mulier est vir occasionatus, to serve as an aid and as a second to man, who is her head, and therefore imperfect. And this is the difference by order of generation. That of corruption and sin proveth the same, for the woman was the first in prevarication, and by her own weakness and will did sin, man the second, and by occasion of the woman; the woman then the last in good and in generation, and by occasion, the first in evil and the occasion thereof, is justly subject unto man, the first in good, and last in evil. This superiority and power of the husband hath been in some places such as that of the father, over life and death, as 9 The power of the husband. Dion. Halicar. l. 2. Lib. 2. Lib. 6. bell. Gal. with the Romans by the law of Romulus: and the husband had power to kill his wife in four cases, Adultery, Suborning of children, counterfeiting of false keys, and drinking of wine. So likewise with the Greeks, as Polybius, and the ancient French, as Caesar affirmeth, the power of the husband was over the life and death of his wife. Elsewhere, and there too, afterwards this power was moderated; but almost in all places the power of the husband and the subjection of the wife doth infer thus much, That the husband is master of the actions and vows of his wife, and may with words correct her and hold her to the stocks (as for blows, they are unworthy a woman of honour or honesty, saith the Law) and the wife is bound to hold the condition, follow the quality, country, family, habitation and rank of her husband, she must accompany and follow him in all things, in his journeys if need be, his banishment, his imprisonment, yea a wandering person, a vagabond, a fugitive. The examples hereof are many and excellent, of Sulpitia, who followed her husband Lentulus being banished into Cicilie; Erithrea her husband Phalaris; Ipsicrates the wife of King Mithridate vanquished by Pompey, who wandered thorough the world. Some add unto this, That wives are to follow their husbands even in the wars, and into those provinces whither the husband is sent with public charge. Neither can the wife bring any thing into question of law, whether she be plaintiff or defendant, without Corn. Tacit. the authority of her husband, or of the judge, if he refuse; neither can she call her husband into judgement, without the permission of the Magistrate. Marriage is not carried after one and the same fashion, neither 10 The divers rules of marriage. hath it in every place the same laws and rules, but according to the diversity of religions and countries, it hath rules either more easy or more straight: according to the rules of Christianity of all others the straightest, marriage is more subject, and held more short. There is nothing but the entrance left free, the continuance is by constraint, depending of some thing else than our own wills. Other nations and religions, to make marriage more easy, free, and fertile, have received and practised Polygamy and repudiation, liberty to take and leave wives: they accuse Christianity for taking away these two, by which means amity and multiplication, the principal ends of marriage, are much prejudiced, inasmuch as amity is an enemy to all constraint, and they do better maintain themselves in an honest liberty; and multiplication is made by the woman, as Nature doth richly make known unto us in wolves, of whom the race is so fertile in the production of their young, even to the number of twelve or thirteen, that they far excel all other profitable creatures: of these there are great numbers killed every day, by which means there are but few, and they though of all others the most fertile, yet by accident the most barren: the reason is because of so great a number as they bring, there is one only female, which for the most part beareth not by reason of the multitude of males that concur in the generation, of which the greatest part die without fruit, by the want of females. So likewise we may see how much Polygamy helpeth to multiplication in those nations that receive it, jews, Turks and other Barbarians, who are able to raise forces of three or four thousand fight men fit for wars. Contrariwise, in Christendom there are many linked together in matrimony, the one of which, if not both, are barren, which being placed with others, both the one and the other may happily leave great posterity behind them. But to speak more truly, all his fertility consisteth in the fertility of one only woman. Finally, they object, That this Christianlike restraint is the cause of many lascivious pranks and adulteries. To all which we may answer, That Christianity considereth not of marriage by reasons purely human, natural, temporal; but it beholds it with another visage, and weigheth it with reasons more high and noble, as hath been said. Add unto this, That experience showeth in the greatest part of marriages, that constraint increaseth amity, especially in simple and debonair minds, who do easily accommodate themselves where they find themselves in such sort linked. And as for lascivious and wicked persons, it is the immodesty of their manners that makes them such, which no liberty can amend. And to say the truth, Adulteries are as common where Polygamy and repudiation are in force; witness the jews and David, who for all the wives that he had could not defend himself from it: and contrariwise, they have been a long time unknown in policies well governed, where there was neither Polygamy nor repudiation; witness Sparta and Rome a long time after the foundation. And therefore it is absurd to attribute it unto religion, which teacheth nothing but purity and continency. The liberty of Polygamy which seemeth in some sort natural, 11 Polygamy divers. is carried diversly according to the diversity of nations and policies. In some, all the wives that belong to one husband live in common, and are equal in degree; and so are their children. In others, there is one who is the principal and as the mistress, whose children inherit the goods, honours, and titles of the husband: the rest of the wives are kept apart, and carry in some places the titles of lawful wives, in others of concubines, and their children are only pensioners. The use of repudiation in like sort is different: for with 12 Repudiation divers. some, as the Hebrews, Greeks, Armenians, the cause of the separation is not expressed, and it is not permitted to retake the wife once repudiated, but yet lawful to marry another. But by the law of mohammed, the separation is made by the judge, with knowledge taken of the cause (except it be by mutual consent) which must be adultery, sterility, incompatibility of humours, an enterprise on his, or her part against the life of each other, things directly and especially contrary to the state and institution of marriage: and it is lawful to retake one another as often as they shall think good. The former seemeth to be the better, because it bridleth proud women, and over-sharp and bitter husbands: The second, which is to express the cause, dishonoureth the parties, & discovereth many things which should be hid. And if it fall out that the cause be not sufficiently verified, and that they must continue together, poisonings and murders do commonly ensue, many times unknown unto men: as it was discovered at Rome before the use of repudiation, where a woman being apprehended for poisoning of her husband, accused others, and they others too to the number of threescore and ten, which were all executed for the same offence. But the worst law of all others hath been, that the adulterer escapeth almost every where without punishment of death, and all that is laid upon him is divorce & separation of company, brought in by justinian, a man wholly possessed by his wife, who caused whatsoever laws to pass that might make for the advantage of women. From hence doth arise a danger of perpetual adultery, desire of the death of the one party, the offender is not punished, the innocent injured remaineth without amends. The duty of married folk, See Lib. 3. Cap. 12. CHAP. XLVII. Of Parents and Children. THere are many sorts and degrees of authority and human power, Public, and Private; but there is none 1 Fatherly power. more natural, nor greater, than that of the father over his children, (I say father, because the mother who is subject unto her husband, cannot properly have her children in her power and subjection) but it hath not been always, and in all places alike. In former times almost every where it was absolute and universal over the life and death, the liberty, the goods, the honour, the actions and carriages of their children, as to plead, to marry, to get goods: as namely with the Romans by the express law of Romulus, parentum in liberos omne ius esto, relegendi, vendendi, occidendi; except only children under Dion. Halic. li 2. antiq. Rom l. in ●uis ff. de lib. & post. Aul. Gell. lib. 20. Lib. 8. Eth. cap. 20. Lib 6. Bel. Gal. Prosper. Aquitan. in Epist. Sigism. the age of three years, who as yet could not offend either in word or deed; which law was afterwards renewed by the law of the twelve tables, by which the father was allowed to sell his children to the third time: with the Persians according to Aristotle; the ancient French as Caesar and Prosper affirm; with the Muscouits and Tartars, who might sell their children to the fourth time. And it should seem by that fact of Abraham going about to kill his son, that this power was likewise under the law of nature: for if it had been against his duty, and without the power of the father, he had never consented thereunto, neither had he ever thought that it was God that commanded him to do it, if it had been against nature. And therefore we see that Isaac made no resistance, nor alleged his innocency, knowing that it was in the power of his father: which derogateth not in any sort from the greatness of the faith of Abraham, because he would not sacrifice his son by virtue of his right or power, nor for any demerit of Isaac, but only to obey the commandment of God. So likewise it was in force by the law of Moses, though somewhat Deut. 21. moderated. So that we see what this power hath been in ancient times in the greatest part of the world, and which endured unto the time of the Roman Emperors. With the Greeks it was not so great and absolute, nor with the Egyptians: nevertheless, if it fell out, that the father had killed his sons wrongfully and without cause, he had no other punishment, but to be shut up three days together with the dead body. Now the reasons and fruits of so great and absolute a power 2 The reasons and fruits thereof. of fathers over their children, necessary for the culture of good manners, the chase away of vice, and the public good, were first to hold the children in awe and duty: and secondly, because there are many great faults in children, that would escape unpunished, to the great prejudice of the weal public, if the knowledge and punishment of them were but in the hand of public authority, whether it be because they are domestical and secret, or because there is no man that will prosecute against them: for the parents who know them and are interessed in them will not discredit them; besides that, there are many vices and insolencies that are never punished by justice. Add hereunto, that there are many things to be tried, and many differences betwixt parents and children, brothers and sisters, touching their goods or other matters, which are not fit to be published, which are extinct and buried by this fatherly authority. And the law did always suppose, that the father would never abuse this authority, because of that great love which he naturally carrieth to his children, incompatible with cruelty; which is the cause that in stead of punishing them with rigour, they rather become intercessors for them, when they are in danger of the law: and there can be no greater torment to them, than to see their children in pain. And it falleth out very seldom or never, that this power is put in practice without very great occasion; so that it was rather a scarecrow to children and very profitable, than a rigour in good earnest. Now this fatherly power (as oversharp and dangerous) is almost of itself lost and abolished (for it hath rather happened 3 The declination. by a kind of discontinuance than any express law) and it began to decline at the coming of the Roman Emperors: for from the time of Augustus, or shortly after, it was no more in force, whereby children became so desperate and insolent against their parents, that Seneca, speaking to Nero, Lib. 1. de Clem said, That he had seen more parricides punished in five years past, than had been in seven hundred years before; that is to say, since the foundation of Rome. In former times, if it fell out that the father killed his children, he was not punished, Sallust. in bell. Catil. Valer. Maxim. as we may see by the example of Fuluius the Senator, who killed his son because he was a partner in the conspiracy of Catiline: and of divers other Senators, who have made criminal process against their children in their own houses, and have condemned them to death, as Cassius Tratius; or to perpetual exile, as Manlius Torquatus his son Sillanus. There were afterwards laws ordained, that enjoined the father to present unto the judge his children offending, that they might be punished, and that the judge should pronounce such a sentence as the father thought fit; which is still a kind of footstep of antiquity: and going about to take away the power of the father, they durst not do it but by halves, and not altogether and openly. These latter laws come somewhat near the law of Moses, which would, That at the only complaint of the father made before the judge, without any other knowledge taken of the cause, the rebellious and contumacious child should be stoned to death; requiring the presence of the judge, to the end the punishment should not be done in secret or in choler, but exemplarily. So that according to Moses this fatherly power was more free and greater, than it hath been after the time of the Emperors; but afterwards under Constantine the Great, and Theodosius, and finally under justinian, it was almost altogether extinct. From whence it is, that children have learned to deny their obedience to their parents, their goods, their aid, yea to wage law against them; a shameful thing to see our Courts full of these cases. Yea, they have been dispensed herewith under pretext of devotion and offerings, as with the jews before Christ, wherewith he reproacheth them: Matt. 15. and afterwards in Christianity; according to the opinion of some: yea, it hath been lawful to kill them either in their own defence, or if they were enemies to the Commonweal: although, to say the truth, there should never because just enough for a son to kill his father. Nullum tantum scelus admitti potest a patre, quod sit parricidio vindicandum, & nullum scelus rationem habet. Now we feel not what mischief and prejudice hath happened to the world, by the abolishing and extinction of this fatherly power. The Commonweals wherein it hath been in force have always flourished. If there were any danger or evil in it, it might in some sort be ruled and moderated; but utterly to abolish it, as now it is, is neither honest nor expedient, but hurtful and inconvenient, as hath been said. Of the reciprocal duty of parents and children, See Lib. 3. Cap. 14. CHAP. XLVIII. Lords and slaves, Masters and servants. THe use of slaves, and the full and absolute power of Lords and Masters over them, although it be a thing common 1 The use of slaves universal and against nature. throughout the world and at all times (except within these four hundred years, in which time it hath somewhat decayed, though of late it revive again) yet it is a thing both monstrous and ignominious in the nature of man, and such as is not found in beasts themselves, who consent not to the captivity of their like neither actively nor passively. The law of Moses hath permitted this as other things, ad duritiam cordis eorum, but not such as hath been elsewhere: for it was neither so great, nor so absolute, nor perpetual, but moderated within the compass of seven years at the most. Christianity hath left it, finding it universal in all places, as likewise to obey idolatrous Princes and Masters, and such like matters as could not at the first attempt and altogether be extinguished, they have abolished. There are four sorts, Natural, that is, slaves borne; Enforced, 2 Distinction. and made by right of war; Just termed slaves by punishment by reason of some offence, or debt, whereby they are slaves to their Creditors, at the most for seven years, according to the law of the jews, but always until payment and restitution be made, in other places; Voluntaries, whereof there are many sorts, as they that cast the dice for it, or sell Tacit. de mort German. their liberty for money, as long sithence it was the custom in Almaigne, and now likewise in some parts of Christendom, where they do give and vow themselves to another for ever, as the jews were wont to practise, who at the gate bored a hole in their ear in token of perpetual servitude. And this kind of voluntary captivity, is the strangest of all the rest, and almost against nature. It is covetousness that is the cause of slaves enforced; and lewdness the cause of voluntaries. They that are Lords and 3 The cause of Slaves. Masters have hoped for more gain and profit by keeping, than by killing them: and indeed the fairest possessions and the richest commodities, were in former times slaves. By this means Crassus became the richest among the Romans, who had beside those that served him five hundred slaves, who every day brought gain and commodity by their gainful arts and mysteries, and afterwards when he had made what profit by them he could, he got much by the sale of them. It is a strange thing to read of those cruelties practised by Lords upon their slaves, even by the approbation and permission 4 The cruelties of Lords against their slaves. of the laws themselves: They have made them to till the earth being chained together, as the manner is in Barbary at this day; they lodge them in holes and ditches; and being old, or impotent, and so unprofitable, they sell them, or drown them, and cast them into lakes to feed their fish withal: They kill them not only for the least fault that is, as the breaking of a glass, but for the least suspicion, yea, for their own pleasure and pastime, as Flaminius did, one of the honestest men of his time: And to give delight unto the people, they were constrained in their public theatres to kill one another. If a Master happened to be killed in his house by whomsoever, the innocent slaves were all put to death, insomuch that Pedonius the Roman being slain, although the murderer were known, yet by the order of the Senate, four hundred of his slaves were put to death. On the other side, it is a thing as strange, to hear of the rebellions, insurrections, and cruelties of slaves against their 5 The cruelties of Slaves against their Lords. Lords, when they have been able to work their revenge, not only in particular by surprise and treason, as it fell out one night in the City of tire, but in set battle both by sea and land; from whence the proverb is, So many slaves, so many enemies. Now as Christian religion, and afterwards Mahumetism 6 Diminution of Slaves. did increase, the number of slaves did decrease, and servitude did cease, insomuch that the Christians, and afterwards the Turks, like apes imitating them, gave freedom and liberty to all those that were of their religion; in such sort, that about the twelve hundred year, there were almost no slaves in the world, but where these two religions had no authority. But as the number of slaves diminished, the number of beggars and vagabonds increased: for so many slaves being 7 The increase of poor people and vagabonds. set at liberty, come from the houses and subjection of their Lords, not having wherewithal to live, and perhaps having children too, filled the world with poor people. This poverty made them return to servitude, and to become 8 Return to servitude. voluntary slaves, paying, changing, selling their liberty, to the end they might have their maintenance and life assured, and be quit of the burden of their children. Besides this cause and this voluntary servitude, the world is returned to the use of slaves, because the Christians and Turks always maintaining wars one against the other, as likewise against the Gentiles both oriental and occidental, although by the example of the jews they have no slaves of their own nation, yet they have of others, whom, though they turn to their religion, they hold slaves by force. The power and authority of masters over their servants, is not very great, nor imperious, and in no sort can be prejudicial to the liberty of servants; only they may chastise and correct them with discretion and moderation. This power is much less over those that are mercenary, over whom they have neither power nor correction. The duty of Masters and Servants, See lib. 3. cap. 15. CHAP. XLIX. Of the State, Sovereignty, Sovereigns. Having spoken of private power, we come to the public, 1 The description and necessity of the state. that of the state. The state, that is to say, Rule, dominion, or a certain order in commanding and obeying, is the prop, the cement, and the soul of human things: It is the bond of society, which cannot otherwise subsist; It is the vital spirit, whereby so many millions of men do breath, and the whole nature of things. Now notwithstanding it be the pillar and prop of all, yet it is a thing not so sure, very difficult, subject to changes, ardwin 2 The nature of the state. Tacit. & subiectum fortunae cuncta regendi onus, which declineth and sometimes falleth by hidden and unknown causes, and that altogether at an instant, from the highest step to the lowest, and not by degrees, as it useth to be long arising. It is likewise exposed to the hatred both of great and small, whereby it is gauled, subject to ambushments, underminings, and dangers, which happeneth likewise many times by the corrupt and wicked manners of the sovereigns, and the nature of the sovereignty, which we are about to describe. Sovereignty is a perpetual and absolute power, without constraint either of time or condition. It consisteth in a power 3 The description of sovereignty. to give laws to all in general, and to every one in particular, without the consent of any other, or the gift of any person. And as another saith (to derogate from the common law) Sovereignty is so called, and absolute, because it is not subject to any human laws, no not his own. For it is against nature to give laws unto all, and to command himself in a thing that dependeth upon his will, Nulla obligatio consistere potest, quae a voluntate promittent is statum capit; nor of another, whether living, or of his predecessors, or the country. Sovereign power is compared to fire, to the sea, to a wild beast; it is a hard matter to tame it, to handle it, it will not be crossed, nor offended, but being is very dangerous, potestas res est quae moneri, docerique non vult, & castigationem aegrè ferat. The marks and properties thereof, are, to judge the last appeals, to ordain laws in time of peace and war, to create 4 The properties. and appoint magistrates and officers, to give graces and dispensations against the law, to impose tributes, to appoint money, to receive homages, ambassages, oaths. But all this is comprehended under the absolute power to give and make laws according to their pleasure. Other marks there are of less weight, as the law of the sea and shipwreck, confiscation for treason, power to change the tongue, title of Majesty. Greatness and Sovereignty is so much desired of all, because all the good that is in it appeareth outwardly, and all the ill is altogether inward: As also because to command others, is a thing as beautiful and divine, as great and difficult; and for this cause they are esteemed and reverenced for more than men. Which belief in the people, and credit of theirs is very necessary and commodious to extort from the people due respect and obedience, the nurse of peace and quietness. But in the end they prove to be men cast in the same mould that other men are, and many times worse borne, and worse qualified in nature than many of the common sort of people. It seemeth that their actions because they are weighty and important, do proceed from weighty and important causes: but they are nothing, and of the same condition that other men's are. The same occasion that breeds a brawl betwixt us and our neighbour, is ground enough of a war betwixt Princes: and that offence for which a Lackey deserves a whipping, lighting upon a King, is the ruin of a whole province. They will as lightly as we, and we as they, but they can do more than we: the selfsame appetites move a fly and an elephant. Finally, besides these passions, defects, and natural conditions which they have common with the meanest of those that do adore them, they have likewise vices and discommodities which their greatness and sovereignty bears them out in, peculiar unto themselves. The ordinary manners of great personages are, untamed 6 The manners of Sovereigns. pride, durus est veri insolens, ad recta flecti regius non vult tumour; violence too licentious, id esse regni maximum pignus putant, si quicquid alijs non licet, solis licet: quod non potest, vult posse, qui nimium potest: Their mott that best pleaseth them is, Senec. Tacit. quod libet, licet: suspicion, icalousie, suapte natura, potentiae anxij, yea even of their own infants, suspectus semper, invisusque dominantibus quisquis proximus destinatur, adeo ut displiceant etiam civilia filiorum ingenia: whereby it falleth out that they are many times in alarm and fear, ingenia regum prona ad formidinem. The advantages of Kings and sovereign Princes above 7 The miseries and discommodities. their people, which seem so great and glittering, are indeed but light, and almost imaginary; but they are repaid with great, true, and solid disadvantages and inconveniences. The name and title of a sovereign, the show and outside is beautiful, pleasant, and ambitious; but the burden and the inside is hard, difficult, and irksome. There is honour enough, but little rest and joy, or rather none at all: It is a public and honourable servitude, a noble misery, a rich captivity, Aureae & fulgidae compides, clara miseria; witness that which Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Pertinax, Diocletian, have said and done, and the end that almost all the first twelve Caesar's made, and many others after them. But because few there are that believe this, but suffer themselves to be deceived by the beautiful show, I will more particularly quote the inconveniences and miseries that accompany great Princes. First, the great difficulty to play their part, and to quit themselves of their charge: for can it be but a great burden 8 1 In their charge. to govern so many people, since in the ruling of himself there are so many difficulties? It is an easier matter and more pleasant to follow, than to guide; to travel in a way that is already traced, than to find the way; to obey, than to command; to answer for himself only, than for others too; ut satius multo iam sit parere quietum, quàm regere imperio res velle. Add hereunto that it is required that he that commandeth must be a better man, than he that is commanded: so said Cyrus a great Commander. How difficult a thing this is, we may see by the paucity of those that are such as they ought to be. Vespasian, saith Tacitus, was the only Prince that in goodness excelled his predecessors: and another sticks not to say, that all the good Princes may be graven in a ring. Secondly in their delights and pleasures, wherein it is thought they have a greater part than other men. But they 9 2 In the pleasures and actions of their life. are doubtless of a worse condition than the pleasures of private men: for besides that the lustre of their greatness makes them unfit to take joy in their pleasures, by reason that they are too clear and apparent, and made as a butt and subject to censure, they are likewise crossed and peered into even to their very thoughts, which men take upon them to divine and judge of. Again, the great ease and facility that they have to do what pleaseth them, because all men apply themselves unto them, taketh away the taste, & soureth that sweet which should be in their pleasures; which delight no man but those that taste them, with some scarcity and difficulty. He that gives no time to be thirsty, knows not what a pleasure it is to have drink: Satiety is noisome, and goes against the stomach. Pinguis amor nimiumque potens in taedia nobis Vertitur: & stomacho dulcis ut esca nocet. There is nothing more tedious and loathsome than abundance, yea they are deprived of all true and lively action, which can not be without some difficulty and resistance. It is not going, living, acting in them, but sleeping and an insensible sliding away. The third inconvenience that followeth Princes, is in their 10 3 In their marriages. marriages. The marriages of the vulgar sort are more free and voluntary, made with more affection, liberty and contentment. One reason hereof may be, that the common sort of men find more of their degree to choose, whereas Kings and Princes, who are not of the rout, as we know, have no plentiful choice. But the other reason is better, which is, that the common sort in their marriages look but into their own affairs, and how they may accommodate it best unto themselves; but the marriages of Princes are many times enforced for public necessity: they are great parts of the State, and instruments serving for the general good and quiet of the world. Great personages and sovereign's marry not for themselves, but for the good of the State, whereof they must be more amorous and jealous, than of their wives and children: for which cause they many times harken unto marriages where there is neither love nor delight; and matches are made between persons, who neither know nor have seen one another, much less affect: yea, such a great man takes such a great lady, whom if he were not so great, he would not take: but this is to serve the weal-public, to assure the States, and to settle peace amongst their people. The fourth is, That they have no true part in the attempts that men make one against the other in emulation of honour 11 4 Attempt of honour. and valour, in the exercises of the mind and of the body, which is one of the most delightful things in the commerce and conversation of men. The reason hereof is, because all the world gives place unto them, all men spare them, and love rather to hide their own valour, to betray their own glory, than to hurt or hinder that of their Sovereign, especially where they know he affects the victory. This, to say the truth, is by force of respect to handle men disdainfully and injuriously, and therefore one said, that the children of Princes learned nothing by order and rule, but to manage a horse, because in all other exercises every one bows unto them, and gives them the prize: but the horse who is neither flatterer nor Courtier, casts as well the Prince to the ground as the Esquire. Many great personages have refused the praises and approbations offered them, saying, I would accept and esteem of them, and rejoice in them, if they came from free men, that durst say the contrary, and tax me if there were cause. The fift is, that they are deprived of the liberty to travel in the world, being as it were imprisoned within their own 12 5 Liberty of travel. countries, yea within their own palaces, being always enclosed with people, suitors, gazers, and lookers on, and that wheresoever they be, and in all actions whatsoever, prying even through the holes of their chair: whereupon Alphonsus the King said, that in this respect the estate of an ass was better than the condition of a King. The sixth misery is, that they are deprived of all amity and mutual society, which is the sweetest and perfectest fruit of 13 6 Mutual and hearty amity. human life, and cannot be but betwixt equals, or those betwixt whom the difference is but small. This great disparity puts them without the commerce and society of men; all humble services, and base offices, are done unto them by those that cannot refuse them, and proceed not from love, but from subjection, or to increase their own greatness, or of custom and countenance; which is plain, because wicked Kings are as well served and reverenced as the good; they that are hated, as they that are beloved, there is no difference, the selfsame apparel, the selfsame ceremony: Whereupon julian the Emperor answered his Courtiers, that commended him for his justice, Perhaps I should be proud of these praises, if they were spoken by such as durst to accuse me, and to dispraise my actions when they shall deserve it. The seventh misery, worse perhaps than all the rest, and 14 7 Ignorance of things. more dangerous to the weale-publicke, is, that they are not free in the choice of men, nor in the true knowledge of things. They are not suffered truly to know the state of their affairs, and consequently not to call and employ such as they would, and as were most fit and necessary. They are shut up, and beset with a certain kind of people, that are either of their own blood, or by the greatness of their houses and offices, or by prescription, are so far in authority, power, and managing of affairs before others, that it is not lawful, without putting all to hazard, to discontent, or in any sort to suspect them. Now these kind of people that cover, and hold as it were hidden the Prince, do provide that all the truth of things shall not appear unto him, and that better men, and more profitable to the state come not near him, lest they be known what they are. It is a pitiful thing not to see but by the eyes, not to understand, but by the ears of another, as Princes do. And that which perfecteth in all points this misery, is, that commonly, and as it were by destiny, Princes and great personages are possessed by three sorts of people, the plagues of human kind, Flatterers, Inventors of imposts or tributes, Informers, who under a fair and false pretext of zeal and amity towards the Prince, as the two first, or of loyalty and reformation as the latter, spoil and ruinated both Prince and State. The eight misery is, that they are less free, and masters of their own wills than all other, for they are enforced in their 15 8 Not maesters of their wills. proceed by a thousand considerations and respects, whereby many times they must captivate their designments, desires, and wills; in maxima fortuna, minima licentia. And in the mean time in stead of being plaintiffs, they are more rudely handled and judged than any other: For men will not stick to divine of their designs, penetrate into their hearts and inventions, which they cannot do, Abditos principis sensus, & si quid occultius parat exquirere: illicitum anceps nec ideo assequare: and looking into things with another visage, where they understand not sufficiently the affairs of the state, they require of their Princes what they think should be done, blame their actions, & refusing to submit themselves to what is necessary, they commonly proceed in their business rudely enough. Finally, it falleth out many times, that they make a miserable end, not only tyrants and usurpers, for it belongs to 16 9 A miserable end. them, but such as have a true title to their Crown; witness so many Roman Emperors after Pompey the Great, and Caesar, and in our time Mary Queen of Scotland, who lost her life by the hand of an executioner; and Henry the third, wilfully murdered in the middle of forty thousand armed men, by a little Monk, and a thousand the like examples. It seemeth that as lightning and tempests oppose themselves against the pride and height of our buildings, so there are likewise spirits that envy and emulate greatness below upon earth. Vsque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam Obterit, & pulchros fasces, saevasque secures Proculcare, ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur. To conclude, the condition of Sovereigns is hard and dangerous: Their life if it be innocent, is infinitely painful; 17 The conclusion of their miseries. if it be wicked, it is subject to the hate and slander of the world, and in both cases exposed to a thousand dangers: for the greater a Prince is, the less may he trust others, and the more must he trust himself. So that we see, that it is a thing as it were annexed to sovereignty, to be betrayed. Of their duty, See the third book, Chap. 16. CHAP. L. Magistrates. THere are divers degrees of Magistrates as well in honour as power, which are the two things to be considered in 1 The distinction. the distinction of them, and which have nothing common the one with the other: and many times they that are more honourable have less power, as Counsellors of the privy Counsel, the Secretaries of the state. Some have but one of the two; others have both, and that of divers degrees, but they are properly called Magistrates that have both. The Magistrates that are in the middle betwixt the Sovereign & the particulars, in the presence of their Sovereigns have no power to command. As rivers lose both their name and power at the mouth or entrance into the sea, and the stars their light in the presence of the sun; so all power of Magistrates is but upon sufferance in the presence of their Sovereign: as also the power of inferiors and subalternate Magistrates in the presence of their superiors. Amongst equals there is neither power nor superiority, but the one may hinder the other by opposition and prevention. All Magistrates judge, condemn and command either according to the law, and then their sentence is but the execution of the law; or according to equity, and such judgement is called the office or duty of the Magistrate. Magistrates can not change nor correct their judgements, except the Sovereign permit it, under pain of injustice: they may revoke their commands or make stay of them, but not that which they have judged and pronounced with knowledge of the cause. Of the duty of Magistrates, See lib. 3. CHAP. LI. Lawyers, Doctors, Teachers. IT is one of the vanities & follies of man, to prescribe laws and rules that exceed the use and capacity of men, as some Philosophers and Doctors have done. They propose strange and elevated forms or images of life, or at leastwise so difficult and austere, that the practice of them is impossible at least for a long time, yea the attempt is dangerous to many. These are castles in the air, as the Commonwealth of Plato, and More, the Orator of Cicero, the Poet of Horace, beautiful and excellent imaginations; but he was yet never found that put them in use. The sovereign and perfect Lawgiver and Doctor took heed of this, who both in himself, his life and his doctrine, hath not sought these extravagancies and forms divided from the common capacity of men; and therefore he calleth his yoke easy, and his burden light. jugum meum suave, & onus meum leave. And they that have instituted and ordered their company under his name, have very wisely considered of the matter, that though they make special profession of virtue, devotion, and to serve the weal-public above all others, nevertheless they differ very little from the common and civil life. Wherein there is first great justice: for there must always be kept a proportion betwixt the commandment and the obedience, the duty and the power, the rule and the workmaster: and these bind themselves and others to be necessarily in want, cutting out more work than they know how to finish: and many times these goodly Lawmakers are the first Law-breakers: for they do nothing, and many times do quite contrary to that they enjoin others, like the pharisees, Imponunt onera gravia, & nolunt ea digito movere. So do some Physicians and Divines: so lives the world; rules and precepts are enjoined, and men not only by an irregularity of life and manners, but also by contrary opinion and judgement follow others. There is likewise another fault full of injustice, they are far more scrupulous, exact, and rigorous in things free and accidental than in necessary and substantial, in positive and human than in natural and divine; like them that are content to lend, but not to pay their debts: and all like the pharisees, as the great and heavenly Doctor telleth them to their reproach. All this is but hypocrisy and deceit. CHAP. LII. People or vulgar sort. THe people (we understand here the vulgar sort, the popular rout, a kind of people under what covert soever, of base, servile, and mechanical condition) are a strange beast with many heads, and which in few words can not be described, inconstant and variable, without stay, like the waves of the sea: they are moved and appeased, they allow and disallow one and the same thing at one and the same instant: there is nothing more easy than to drive them into what passion he will: they love not wars for the true end thereof, nor peace for rest and quietness, but for variety's sake, and the change that there is from the one to the other: confusion makes them desire order, and when they have it, they like it not: they run always one contrary to another, and there is no time pleaseth but what is to come: high vulgi mores, odisse praesentia, ventura cupere, praeterita celebrare. They are light to believe, to gather together news, especially such as are most hurtful; holding all reports for assured truths. With a whistle, or some sonnet of news, a man may assemble them together like bees at the sound of a basin. Without judgement, reason, discretion. Their judgement and wisdom is but by chance, like a cast at dice, unadvised and headlong of all things, and always ruled by opinion or custom, or the greater number, going all in a line, like sheep that run after those that go before them, and not by reason and truth. Plebi non judicium, non veritas: ex opinione multa, Tacit. Cic. ex veritate paucae judicat. Envious and malicious, enemies to good men, contemners of virtue, beholding the good hap of another with an ill eye, favouring the more weak and the more wicked, and wishing all ill they can to men of honour they know not wherefore, except it be because they are honourable and well spoken of by others. Treacherous and untrue, amplifying reports, smothering of truths, and always making things greater than they are, without faith, without hold. The faith or promise of a people, and the thought of a child, are of like durance, which change not only as occasions change, but according to the difference of those reports that every hour of the day may bring forth. Mutinous, desiring nothing but novelties and changes, seditious, enemies to peace and quietness: ingenio mobili, seditiosum, discordiosum, cupidum rerum novarum, quieti & otio adversum, Sallust. especially when they meet with a leader: for then even as the calm sea, of nature tumbleth, and foameth, and rageth, being stirred with the fury of the winds; so do the people swell, and grow proud, wild, and outrageous: but take from them their leader, they become deject, grow wild, are confounded with astonishment, sine rectore praeceps, pavidus, socors: nil ausura plebs principibus amotis. Procurers and favourers of broils and alterations in household affairs, they account modesty simplicity, wisdom rusticity: and contrariwise, they give to fiery and heady violence the name of valour and fortitude. They prefer those that have hot heads and active hands, before those that have a settled and temperate judgement, and upon whom the weight of the affairs must lie; boasters and prattlers before those that are simple and stayed. They care neither for the public good nor common honesty, but their private good only; and they refuse no base offices for their gain and commodity. Privata cuique stimulatio, vile decus publicum. Always muttering and murmuring against the State, always belching out slanders and insolent speeches against those that govern and command. The meaner and poorer sort have no better pastime, than to speak ill of the great and rich, not upon cause and reason, but of envy, being never content with their governors, nor the present State. They have nothing but a mouth, they have tongues that cease not, spirits that bouge not: they are a monster whose parts are all tongues, they speak all things, but know nothing; they look upon all, but see nothing; they laugh at all, and weep at all; fit to mutiny and rebel, not to fight. Their property is rather to assay to shake off their yoke, than to defend their liberty: procacia plebis ingenia, impigrae linguae, Tacit. ignavi animi. Sallust. They never know how to hold a measure, nor to keep an honest mediocrity. Either like slaves they serve over-basely, or like lords they are beyond all measure insolent and tyrannical. They can not endure a soft and temperate bit, nor are pleased with a lawful liberty; they run always to extremities, either out of hope too much trusting, or too much distrusting out of fear. They will make you afeard, if you fear not them: when they are frighted, you chock them under the chin, and you leap with both feet upon their bellies. They are audacious and proud, if a man show not the cudgel; and therefore the proverb is, Tickle them, and they will prick thee; prick them, and they will tickle thee. Nil in vulgo modicum terrere ni paveant, ubi pertimuerint impunè contemni: audacia turbidum nisi ubi metuat aut seruit humiliter, aut superbè dominatur: libertatem, quae media, nec spernere nec habere. Very unthankful towards their benefactors. The recompense of all those that have deserved well of the Commonwealth, have always been banishment, reproach, conspiracy, death. Histories are famous, of Moses and all the Prophets, Socrates, Aristides, Photion, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Themistocles. And the Truth itself hath said, That he being one that procured the good and health of the people escaped not: and contrariwise, they that oppress them, are dearest unto them. They fear all, they admire all. To conclude, the people are a savage beast, all that they think, is vanity; all they say, is false and erroneous; that they reprove, is good; that they approve, is nought; that which they praise is infamous; that which they do and undertake, is folly: Non tam bene cum rebus humanis geritur ut Seneca. meliora pluribus placeant: argumentum pessimi turba est. The vulgar multitude is the mother of ignorance, injustice, inconstancy, idolatry, vanity, which never yet could be pleased: their mot is, Vox populi, vox Dei; but we may say, Vox populi, vox stultorum. Now the beginning of wisdom, is for a man to keep himself clear and free, and not to suffer himself to be carried with popular opinions. This belongs to the second Lib. 2. ca 1. book, which is now near at hand. The fourth distinction and difference of men, drawn from their divers professions and conditions of life. THE PREFACE. Behold here another difference of men, drawn from the diversity of their professions, conditions and kinds of life. Some follow the civil and sociable life, others fly it, thinking to save themselves in the solitary wilderness; some love arms, others hate them; some live in common, others in private; it pleaseth some best to have charge, and to lead a public life, others to hide and keep themselves private; some are Courtiers, attending wholly upon others, others court none but themselves; some delight to live in the city, others in the fields affecting a country life; whose choice is the better, and which life is to be preferred, It is a difficult thing simply to determine, and it may be impertinent. They have all their advantages and disadvantages, their good and their ill. That which is most to be looked into and considered herein, as shall be said, is, That every man know how to choose that which best befits his own nature, that he might live the more easily and the more happily. But yet a word or two of them all, by comparing them together: but this shall be after we have spoken of that life that is common to all, which hath three degrees. CHAP. LIII. The distinction and comparison of the three sorts of degrees of life. THere are three sorts of life, and as it were three degrees, one private of every particular man within himself, and in the closet of his own heart, where all is hid, all is lawful: the second, in his house and family, in his private and ordinary actions, where there is neither study nor art, and whereof he is not bound to give any reason: the third is public in the eyes of the world. Now to keep order and rule in this first low and obscure stage, it is very difficult, and more rare than in the other two; and in the second, than in the third: the reason is, because where there is neither judge nor controller, nor Regarder, and where we have no imagination either of punishment or recompense, we carry ourselves more loosely and carelessly, as in private lives, where conscience and reason only is our guide, than in public; where we are still in check and as a mark to the eyes and judgement of all; where glory, fear of reproach, base reputation, or some other passion doth lead us (for passion commands with greater power than reason) whereby we keep ourselves ready, standing upon our guard: for which cause it falleth out, that many are accounted holy, great, and admirable in public, who in their own private have nothing commendable. That which is done in public is but a fable, a fiction, the truth is secret and in private; and he that will well judge of a man, must converse every day with him, and pry into his ordinary and natural carriage; the rest is all counterfeit; Vniversus mundus exercet histrioniam: and therefore said a wise man, That he is an excellent man, who is such within and in himself which he is outwardly for fear of the laws, and speech of the world. Public actions thunder in the ears of men, to which a man is attentive, when he doth them; as exploits in war, sound judgement in counsel, to rule a people, to perform an embassage. Private and domestical actions are quick and sure, to chide, to laugh, to sell, to pay, to converse with his own, a man considers not of them, he doth them not thinking of them: secret and inward actions much more, to love, to hate, to desire. Again, there is here another consideration, and that is, that that is done by the natural hypocrisy of men, which we make most account of, and a man is more scrupulous in outward actions, that are in show, but yet are free, of small importance, and almost all in countenances and ceremonies, and therefore are of little cost, and as little effect; than in inward and secret actions that make no show, but are yet requisite and necessary, and therefore they are the more difficult. Of those depend the reformation of the soul, the moderation of the passions, the rule of the life; yea, by the attainment of these outward, a man becomes careless of the inward. Now of these three lives, inward, domestical, public, he that is to lead but one of them, as Hermits, doth guide and order his life at a better rate, than he that hath two, and he that hath but two, his condition is more easy, than he that hath all three. CHAP. liv. A comparison of the evil and sociable life with the solitary. THey that esteem and commend so much the solitary and retired life, as a great stay and sure retreat from the molestations and troubles of the world, and a fit means to preserve and maintain themselves pure and free from many vices, in as much as the worse part is the greater, of a thousand there is not one good, the number of fools is infinite, contagion in a press is dangerous, they seem to have reason on their side: for the company of the wicked is a dangerous thing, and therefore they that adventure themselves upon the sea, are to take heed that no blasphemer, or dissolute and wicked person enter their ship; one only jonas with whom God was angry had almost lost all; Bias to those that were in the ship with him crying out in a great danger for help unto their gods, pleasantly said, Hold you your peace, for the gods perceive not that you are here with me. Albuquerque the Viceroy of the Indies for Emmanuel king of Portugal, in a great danger at sea, took upon his shoulders a little child, to the end that his innocency might serve as a surety to God for his sins. But to think that a solitary life is better, more excellent and perfect, more fit for the exercise of virtue, more difficult, sharp, laborious and painful, as some would make us believe, they grossly deceive themselves: for contrarily it is a great discharge and ease of life, and it is but an indifferent profession, yea a simple apprenticeship and disposition to virtue. This is not to enter into business, troubles, and difficulties, but it is to fly them, and to hide themselves from them, to practise the counsel of the Epicures (Hid thyself) it is to run to death, to fly a good life. It is out of all doubt, that a King, a Prelate, a Pastor, is a far more noble calling, more perfect, more difficult, than that of a Monk, or a Hermit. And to say the truth, in times past the companies of Monks were but seminaries and apprenticeships, from whence they drew those that were fit for Ecclesiastical charge, and their preparatives to a greater perfection. And he that lives civilly having a wife, children, servants, neighbours, friends, goods, business, and so many divers parts which he must satisfy, and truly and loyally answer for, hath without comparison far more business, than he that hath none of all these, hath to do with none but himself: Multitude and abundance is far more troublesome, than solitariness and want. In abstinency there is but one thing, in the conduct and use of many, divers things, there are many considerations, divers duties. It is an easier thing to part from goods, honours, dignities, charges, than to govern them well, and well to discharge them. It is easier for a man to live altogether without a wife, than in all points duly to live, and to maintain himself with his wife, children, and all the rest that depend upon him: so is the single life more easy than the married state. So likewise to think that solitariness is a sanctuary and an assured haven against all vices, temptations, and impediments, is to deceive themselves; for it is not true in every respect. Against the vices of the world, the stir of the people, the occasions that proceed from without, it is good; but solitariness hath it inward and spiritual affairs and difficulties: juit in desertum ut tentaretur à diabolo. To imprudent and unadvised young men, solitariness is a dangerous staff, and it is to be feared, that whilst he walks alone he entertains worse company than himself, as Crates said to a young man who walked all alone far from company. It is there where fools contrive their wicked designments, begin their own overthrows, sharpen their passions and wicked desires. Many times to avoid the gulf of Charybdis, they fall into Scylla; to fly is not to escape, it is many times to increase the danger, and to lose himself, non vitat, sed fugit: magis autem periculis patemus aversi. A man had need be wife and strong, and well assured of himself when he falls into his own hands, for it falls out many times that there are none more dangerous than his own, Guarda me, dios de mi, saith the Spanish proverb very excellently; nemo est ex imprudentibus qui sibi relinqui debeat; solitudo omnia mala persuadet. But for some private and particular consideration, though good in itself (for many times it is for idleness, weakness of spirit, hatred, or some other passion) to fly and to hide himself, having means to profit another, or to do good to the weale-publick, is to be a fugitive, to bury his talon, to hide his light, a fault subject to the rigour of judgement. CHAP. LV. A comparison betwixt the life lead in common, and in private. SOme have thought that the life led in common, wherein nothing is proper to any man, whereby he may say, this is mine, or that is thine, but where all things are common, tendeth most to perfection, and hath most charity and concord. This may take place in the company of a certain number of people, lead and directed by some certain rule, but not in a state and commonweal; and therefore Plato having once allowed it, thinking thereby to take away all avarice and dissension, did quickly alter his opinion, and was otherwise advised: for as the practice showeth, there is not only not any hearty affection towards that that is common to all, and as the proverb is, The common ass is always ill saddled, but also the community draweth unto itself contentions, murmurings, hatreds, as it is always seen, yea even in the primitive Church: Crescente numero discipulorum, factum est murmur Luc. Acts 6. Graecorum adversus Hebraeos. The nature of love is such as that of great rivers, which being overcharged with abundance of waters, being divided, are quit of that charge; so love being divided to all men, and all things, loseth it force and vigour. But there are degrees of community; to live, that is to say, to eat and drink together is very good, as the manner was in the better and most ancient commonweals of Lacedaemon and Crete; for besides that modesty and discipline is better retained amongst them, there is also a very profitable communication; but to think to have all things common, as Plato for a while would, though he were afterwards otherwise advised, is to pervert all. CHAP. LVI. The comparison of the countrie-life with the Citizens. THis comparison to him that loveth wisdom is not hard to make, for almost all the commodities and advantages are on one side, both spiritual and corporal, liberty, wisdom, innocency, health, pleasure. In the fields the spirit is more free and to itself: in Cities, the persons, the affairs, both their own and other men's, the contentions, visitations, discourses, entertainments, how much time do they steal from us? amici fures temporis. How many troubles bring they with them, avocations, allurements to wickednesses? Cities are prisons to the spirits of men, no otherwise than cages to birds and beasts. This celestial fire that is in us, will not be shut up, it loveth the air, the fields; and therefore Columella saith, that the country life is the cousin of wisdom, consanguinea, which can not be without beautiful & free thoughts and meditations; which are hardly had and nourished among the troubles and molestations of the city. Again, the country life is more neat, innocent and simple. In city's vices are hid in the rout, and are not perceived, they pass and insinuate themselves pellmell, the use, the aspect, the encounter so frequent and contagious is the cause. As for pleasure and health, the whole heavens lie open to the view, the sun, the air, the waters, and all the elements are free, exposed and open in all parts, always sustaining us, the earth discovereth itself, the fruits thereof are before our eyes; and none of all this is in cities in the throng of houses: so that to live in cities is to be banished in the world and shut from the world. Again, the country life is wholly in exercise, in action, which sharpeneth the appetite, maintaineth health, hardeneth and fortifieth the body. That which is to be commended in cities, is commodity either private, as of merchants and artificers; or public, to the managing whereof few are called, and in ancient times heretofore they were chosen from the country life, who returned having performed their charge. CHAP. LVII. Of the military profession. THe military profession is noble in the cause thereof, for there is no commodity more just, nor more universal 1 The praise thereof. than the protection of the peace and greatness of his country; noble in the execution, for valour is the greatest, the most generous and heroical virtue of all others; honourable, for of all human actions, the greatest & most glorious is the warriors, and by which all other honours are judged and discerned; pleasant, the company of so many noble men, young, active, the ordinary view of so many accidents and spectacles, liberty and conversation without art, a manly fashion of life without ceremony, the variety of divers actions, a courageous harmony of warlike music, which entertains us and stirs our blood, our ears, our soul; those warlike commotions which ravish us with their horror and fear, that confused tempest of sounds and cries, that fearful ordering of so many thousands of men, with so much fury, ardour and courage. But on the other side, a man may say, that the art and experience of undoing one another, of killing, ruinating, destroying 2 The dispraise. our own proper kind, seems to be unnatural and to proceed from an alienation of our sense and understanding; it is a great testimony of our weakness and imperfection, and it is not found in beasts themselves, in whom the image of nature continueth far more entire. What folly, what rage is it, to make such commotions, to torment so many people, to run thorough so many dangers and hazards both by sea and land, for a thing so uncertain and doubtful as the issue of war, to run with such greediness and fierceness after death, which is easily found every where, and without hope of sepulture, to kill those he hates not, nor ever saw? But whence proceedeth this great fury and ardour, for it is not for any offence committed? What frenzy and madness is this for a man to abandon his own body, his time, his rest, his life, his liberty, and to leave it to the mercy of another? to expose himself to the loss of his own members, and to that which is a thousand times worse than death, fire and sword, to be trodden, to be pinched with hot iron, to be cut, to be torn in pieces, broken, and put to the galleys for ever? And all this, to serve the passion of another, for a cause which a man knows not to be just, and which is commonly unjust: for wars are commonly unjust, and for him whom a man knows not, who takes so little care for him that fights for him, that he will be content to mount upon his dead body to help his own stature, that he may see the farther. I speak not here of the duty of subjects towards their Prince and country, but of voluntaries and mercenary soldiers. The fift and last distinction and difference of men, drawn from the favours and disfavors of Nature and Fortune. THE PREFACE. THis last distinction and difference is apparent enough and sufficiently known, and hath many members and considerations, but may all be reduced to two heads, which a man may call with the vulgar sort, Felicity or good fortune, and Infelicity or ill fortune, Greatness or littleness. To Felicity and greatness belong health, beauty, and the other goods of the body, liberty, nobility, honour, dignity, science, riches, credit, friends. To Infelicity or littleness belong all the contraries, which are privations of the other good things. From these things doth arise a very great difference, because a man is happy in one of these, or in two, or in three, and not in the rest, and that more or less by infinite degrees: few or none at all are happy or unhappy in them all. He that hath the greatest part of these goods, and especially three, Nobility, Dignity, or Authority and riches, is accounted great; he that hath not any of these three, little. But many have but one or two, and are accounted midling betwixt the great and the little. We must speak a little of them all. Of Health, beauty, and other natural goods of the body Chap. 11. hath been spoken before; as likewise of their contraries, Chap. 6. Sickness, Grief. CHAP. LVIII. Of Liberty and Servitude. Liberty is accounted by some a sovereign good, and Servitude an extreme evil, insomuch that many have chosen rather to die a cruel death, than to be made slaves, or to see either the public good or their own private endangered. But of this there may be too much, and of these too many, as of all other things. There is a twofold liberty: the true, which is of the mind or spirit, and is in the power of every one, and can not be taken away, nor endamaged by another, nor by Fortune itself: contrariwise, the servitude of the spirit is the most miserable of all others, to serve our own affections, to suffer ourselves to be devoured by our own passions, to be led by opinions. o pitiful captivity! The corporal liberty is a good greatly to be esteemed, but subject to Fortune: and it is neither just nor reasonable (if it be not by reason of some other circumstance) that it should be preferred before life itself, as some of the ancients have done, who have rather made choice of death, than to lose it; and it was accounted a great virtue in them: so great an evil was servitude thought to be: servitus obedientia est fracti animi & abiecti arbitrio carentis suo. Many great and wise men have served, Regulus, Valerianus, Plato, Diogenes, even those that were wicked, and yet dishonoured not their own condition, but continued in effect and truth more free than their masters. CHAP. LIX. Nobility. Nobility is a quality every where not common, but honourable, brought in and established with great reason and for public utility. It is divers, diversly taken and understood, and according to divers nations and judgements it hath divers kinds. According The description of nobility. to the general and common opinion and custom it is a quality of a race or stock. Aristotle saith, that it is the antiquity of a race and of riches. Plutarch calleth it the virtue of a race, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, meaning thereby a certain habit and quality continued in the lineage. What this quality or virtue is, all are not wholly of one accord, saving in this, that it is profitable to the weal-public. For to some and the greater part this quality is military, to others it is politic, literarie of those that are wise, palatine of the officers of the Prince. But the military hath the advantage above the rest: for besides the service which it yieldeth to the weal-public as the rest do, it is painful, laborious, dangerous; whereby it is accounted more worthy and commendable. So hath it carried with us by excellency the honourable title of Valour. There must then according to this opinion be two things in true and perfect nobility, profession of this virtue, and quality profitable to the commonweal, which is as the form; and the race as the subject and matter, that is to say, a long continuance of this quality by many degrees and races, and time out of mind, whereby they are called in our language Gentlemen, that is to say, of a race, house, family, carrying of long time the same name, and the same profession. For he is truly and entirely noble, who maketh a singular profession of public virtue, serving his Prince and Country, and being descended of parents and ancestors that have done the same. There are some that separate these two, and think that one of them sufficeth to true nobility, that is, either only virtue 3 the distinction. and quality, without any consideration of race or ancestors. This is a personal and acquired nobility, & considered with rigour it is rude, that one come from the house of a Butcher or Vintner should be held for noble, whatsoever service he hath done for the Commonweal. Nevertheless, this opinion hath place in many nations, namely with the Turks, contemners of ancient nobility, and esteeming of no other but personal, and actual military valour; or only antiquity of race without profession of the quality; this is in the blood and purely natural. If a man should compare these two simple and imperfect nobilities together, that which is purely natural (to judge aright) 4 Natural nobility. it is the less, though many, out of their vanity have thought otherwise. The natural is another man's quality, and not his own, genus & proavos & quae non fecimus ipsi, vix ea nostra puto: nemo vixit in gloriam nostram; nec quod ante nos fuit nostrum est. And what greater folly can there be, than to glory in that which is not his own? This honour may light upon a vicious man, a knave, and one in himself a true villain. It is also unprofitable to another, for it communicateth not with any man, neither is any man bettered by it, as science, justice, goodness, beauty, riches do. They that have nothing else commendable in them but this nobility of flesh and blood, make much of it, they have it always in their mouths, it makes their cheeks swell and their hearts too (they will be sure to manage that little good that they have) it is the mark by which they are known, and a token that they have nothing else in them, because they rest themselves wholly upon that. But this is vanity, for all their glory springeth from frail instruments, ab utero, conceptu, partu, and is buried under the tomb of their ancestors. As offenders being pursued have recourse to altars and the sepulchres of the dead, and in former times to the statues of Emperors; so these men being destitute of all merit and subject of true honour, have recourse to the memory and armouries of their ancestors. What good is it to a blind man, that his parents have been well sighted, or to him that stammereth, that his Grandfather was eloquent? and yet these kind of people are commonly glorious, high minded, contemners of others; Contemptor animus & superbia commune nobilitatis malum. Sallust. The personal and acquired honour hath conditions altogether contrary and very good. It is proper to the possessor 5 Acquired and personal honour. thereof, it is always a worthy subject, and profitable to others. Again, a man may say that it is more ancient and more rare, than the natural, for by it the natural began; and in a word, that is true honour which consisteth in good and profitable effects, not in dreams and imagination, vain and unprofitable, and proceedeth from the spirit, not the blood, which is the same in noble men that is in others. Quis generosus? ad virtutem à natura bene compositus animus facit nobilem, cui ex quacunque conditione supra fortunam licet surgere. Senec. But they are both oftentimes, and very willingly together, and so they make a perfect honour: The natural is a way 6 Natural and acquired. and occasion to the personal; for things do easily return to their first nature and beginning. As the natural hath taken his beginning and essence from the personal, so it leadeth and conducteth his to it, fortes creantur fortibus: hoc unum in nobilitate bonum, ut nobilibus imposita necessitudo videatur, ne à maiorum virtute degenerent; To know that a man is sprung from honourable ancestors, and such as have deserved well of the Commonweal, is a strong obligation and spur to the honourable exploits of virtue. It is a foul thing to degenerate, and to bely a man's own race. The nobility that is given by the bounty and letters patent of the Prince, if it have no other reason, it is shameful, and rather dishonourable than honourable. It is an nobility in parchment, bought with silver or favour, and not by blood as it ought: If it be given for merit, and notable services, it is personal and acquired as hath been said. CHAP. LX. Of Honor. SOme say (but not so well) that honour is the prize and recompense of virtue, or not so ill, an acknowledgement of 1 The description of honour. virtue, or a prerogative of a good opinion, and afterwards of an outward duty towards virtue; It is a privilege that draweth his principal essence from virtue. Others have called it the shadow of virtue, which sometimes followeth, sometimes goeth before it, as the shadow the body. But to speak truly, it is the rumour of a beautiful and virtuous action, which reboundeth from our souls to the view of the world, and by reflection into ourselves, bringeth unto us a testimony of that which others believe of us, which turneth to a great contentment of mind. Honour is so much esteemed and sought for by all, that to attain thereunto a man enterpriseth, endureth, contemneth whatsoever beside, yea life itself; nevertheless, it is a matter of small and slender moment, uncertain, a stranger, and as it were separated in the air, from him that is honoured; for it doth not only not enter into him, nor is inward and essential unto him, but it doth not so much as touch him (being for the most part either dead or absent, and who feeleth nothing) but settleth itself and stayeth without at the gate, sticks in the name, which receiveth and carrieth all the honours and dishonours, praises and dispraises, whereby a man is said to have either a good name or a bad. All the good or evil that a man can say of Caesar is carried by his name. Now the name is nothing of the nature and substance of the thing, it is only the image which presenteth it, the mark which distinguisheth it from others, a summary which containeth it in a small volume, mounteth it, and carrieth it whole and entire, the mean to enjoy it and to use it (for without the names there would be nothing but confusion, the use of things would be lost, the world would decay, as the history of the tower of Babel doth richly teach us) to be brief, the stickler and middle of the essence of the thing, and the honour or dishonour thereof, for it is that that toucheth the thing itself, and receiveth all the good or ill that is spoken Now honour before it arrive to the name of the thing, it goes a course almost circular, like the Sun, performed and perfected in three principal sites or places, the action or work, the heart, the tongue: for it gins and is conceived, as in the matrix and root, in that beauty, goodness, profit of the thing honoured which comes to light and is produced, this is (as hath been said) the rumour of a beautiful or honourable action. Coeli enarrant gloriam dei: pleni sunt coeli & terra gloria tua (for whatsoever valour worth and perfection the thing have in itself and inwardly, if it produce nothing that is excellent, it is altogether uncapable of honour, and is as if it were not at all) from thence it entereth into the spirit and understanding, where it takes life, and is form into a good, haughty, and great opinion: finally sallying forth from thence, and being carried by the word verbal or written, it returns by reflection, and as it were, dissolveth and endeth in the name of the author of this beautiful work, where it had the beginning, as the Sun in the place from whence it departed, and then it bears the name of honour, praise, glory, and renown. But the question is, what those actions are to which honour is due. Some think that it is generally due to those that perform their duty in that which belongs to their profession, although it be neither famous nor profitable, as he that upon a Stage plays the part of a servant, well, is no less commended than he that presenteth the person of a King, and he that cannot work in statues of gold, cannot want those of leather or earth wherein he may as well show the perfection of his art. All cannot employ themselves, neither are they called to the managing of great affairs, but the commendation is to do that well, that he hath to do. This is too much to lessen and vilify honour, which is not a common and ordinary guest for all persons, and all just and lawful actions. Every chaste woman, every honest man is not honourable. The wisest men require also thereunto two or three things, the one is difficulty, labour or danger, the other is public utility, and this is the reason why it is properly due to those that administer, and well acquit themselves of great charges; that be the actions as privately and generally good and profitable as they will, they shall have approbation and sufficient renown which those that know them, and the safety and protection of the laws; but not honour, which is public, and hath more dignity, fame, and splendour. Some add unto these a third, and that is, that it be not an action of obligation, but of supererogation. The desire of honour and glory, and the approbation of 4 Desire of honour, chap. 20. another, is a vicious, violent, powerful passion, whereof we have spoken in the passion of ambition; but very profitable to the weal-public, to contain men in their duty, to awaken and inflame them to honourable actions, a testimony of weakness and human insufficiency, which for want of good money useth light and false coin. Now in what, and how Lib. 3. in the virtue of temperancy. far-foorth is it excusable, and when not commendable, and that honour is not the recompense of virtue, shall be said hereafter. The marks of honour are very divers, but the better and more beautiful are they that are without profit and gain, 5 Marks of honour. and are such as a man may not strain, and apply to the vicious, and such as by some base office have served the weal-public. These are the better and more esteemed: they are in themselves more vain, that have nothing of worth in them but the simple mark of men of honour and virtue, as almost in all policies, crowns, laurel garlands, oak, a certain form of accoutrements, the prerogative of some surname, precedency in assemblies, orders of Knighthood. And it falleth out sometimes, that it is a greater honour not to have these marks of honour, having deserved them, than to have them. It is more honourable unto me, said Cato, that every man should ask me, why I have not a statue erected in the Marketplace, than they should ask why I have it. CHAP. LXI. Science. SCience, to say the truth, is a beautiful ornament, a very profitable instrument to him that knows well how to use it; but in what rank to place it, or how to prize it, all are not of one opinion: and therein they commit two contrary faults, some by esteeming it too much, some too little. Some make that account of it, that they prefer it before all other things, and think that it is a sovereign good, some kind and ray of Divinity, seeking it with greediness, charge and great labour; others contemn it, and despise those that profess it: the mediocrity betwixt both is the more just and most assured. For my part I place it far beneath honesty, sanctity, See lib. 3. cap. 14. wisdom, virtue, yea beneath dexterity in affairs: and yet I dare to range it with dignity, natural nobility, military valour, and I think they may very well dispute of the precedency: and if I were called to speak my opinion, I should make it to march either side by side with them, or incontinently after. As sciences are different in their subjects and matters, in the apprenticeship and acquisition, so are they in their utility, honesty, necessity, as also in their gain and glory: some are Theoricks and in speculation only, others are practic and in action: again, some are Reals, occupied in the knowledge of things that are without us, whether they be natural or supernatural; other are particular, which teach the tongues to speak, and to reason. Now without all doubt, those sciences that have most honesty, utility, necessity, and least glory, vanity, mercenary gain, are far to be preferred before others. And therefore the practic are absolutely the better, which respect the good of man, teaching him to live well, to die well, to command well, to obey well; and therefore they are diligently to be studied by him that endeavoureth to be wise: whereof this work is a brief and summary, that is to say, Moral Science, Economical, Political. After these is Natural, which serveth to the knowledge of whatsoever is in the world fit for our use, as likewise to admire the greatness, goodness, wisdom, power of the chief workmaster. All other knowledges are vain, and are to be studied cursorily, as appendents unto these, because they are no ways beneficial to the life of man, and help not to make us honest men. And therefore it is a loss and a folly to employ therein so much time, so much cost, so much labour as we do. It is true that they serve to heap up crowns, and to win reputation with the people, but it is in policies that are not wholly sound goods. CHAP. LXII. Of riches and poverty. THese are the two sources and elements of all discords, 1 The causes of troubles. troubles, and commotions that are in the world: for the excessive riches of some do stir them up to pride, to delicacies, pleasures, disdain of the poor; to enterprise and attempt: the extreme poverty of others, provokes them to envy, extreme jealousy, fury, despair, and to attempt fortunes. Plato calleth them the plagues of a Commonwealth. But which of the two is the more dangerous, is not thoroughly resolved amongst all. According to Aristotle it is abundance, for a State needs not doubt of those that desire but to live, but of such as are ambitious and rich. According to Plato it is poverty, for desperate poor men are terrible and furious creatures; for wanting either bread or work to exercise their arts and occupation, s or too excessively charged with imposts, they learn that of the mistress of the school Necessity, which of themselves they never durst to have learned, and they dare because their number is great. But yet there is a better remedy for these than for the rich, and it is an easy matter to hinder this evil; for so long as they have bread and employment to exercise their mysteries, and live, they will never stir. And therefore the rich are to be feared for their own sakes, their vice and condition: the poor by reason of the imprudency of governors. Now many Lawmakers and great Statesmen have gone 2 Against the equality & inequality of riches. about to take away these two extremities, and this great inequality of goods and fortunes, and to bring in a mediocrity and equality, which they called the noursing-mother of peace and amity; and others likewise have attempted to make all things common, which could never be but by imagination. But besides that, it is impossible to establish an equality, by reason of the number of children which increase in one family, and not in another; and that it can hardly be put in practice, although a man be enforced, and it cost much to attain thereunto; it were also inexpedient, and to small purpose, and by another way to fall into the same mischief: for there is no hatred more capital than betwixt equals; the envy and jealousy of equals is the seminary of troubles, seditions, and cruel wars. Inequality is good, so it be moderate. Harmony consisteth not of like sounds, but different and well according. Nihil est aequalitate inaequalius. This great and deformed inequality of goods proceedeth from many causes, especially two: the one is from unjust lones, as usuries and interests, whereby the one eat the other, and grow fat with the substance of another: qui devorant plebem sicut escam panis. The other from dispositions, whether amongst the living, as alienations, donations, endowments in marriages; or testamentaries by reason of death. By both which means some do excessively increase above others, who continue poor. The heirs of rich men marry with those that are rich, whereby some houses are dismembered and brought to nothing; and others made rich and exalted. All which inconveniences must be ruled and moderated by avoiding excessive extremities, and in some sort approaching to some mediocrity and reasonable equality: for to have either entire, is neither possible, nor good nor expedient, as hath been said. And this shall be handled in the virtue of justice. FINIS. OF WISDOM, THE SECOND BOOK, Containing the general instructions and rules of Wisdom. THE PREFACE. Wherein is contained a general portrait of Wisdom, and the sum of this Book. Having in the First Book laid open unto man many and divers means to know himself and our human condition, which is the first part, and a great introduction to Wisdom, we are now to enter into the doctrine, and to understand in this Second Book the general rules and opinions thereof, reserving the more particular to the Third and last Book. It is worthiest consideration, and as a Preamble to the rest, to call man unto himself, to taste, sound, study himself, to the end he may know and understand his defects and miserable condition, and so make himself capable of wholesome and necessary remedies, which are the advisements and instructions of wisdom. But it is a strange thing, that the world should take so little care of it own good and amendment. What wit is it for a man to be utterly careless that his business be well done? Man would only live, but he ears not to know how to live well. That which a man should especially, and only know, is that which he knows least, and cares least to know. Our inclinations, designments, studies, are (as we see) from our youth divers, according to the diversity of natures, companies, instructions, occasions, but there is not any that casteth his eyes to the other side, that endeavoureth to make himself wise, not any that ruminateth hereupon, or that doth so much as think thereon. And if perhaps sometimes he do, it is but by chance, and as it were passing by, and he attendeth it, as news that is told, which concerneth him not at all. The word pleaseth some well, but that is all, the thing itself is neither accounted of, nor sought for in this world of so universal corruption and contagion. To understand the merit and worth of wisdom, some kind of air or tincture of nature is necessary; for men are willing to use study and endeavour, rather for those things that have their effects and fruits glorious, outward, and sensible, such as ambition, avarice, passion have, than for wisdom whose effects are sweet, dark, inward, and less visible. O how much doth the world err in this account, it loveth better the wind with noise, than the body itself, the essence without it, opinion and reputation than verity! Man (as hath been said in the first book) is nothing but vanity and misery, uncapable of wisdom. Every man hath a taste of that air which he breatheth, and where he liveth, followeth the train and custom of living followed by all, how then should he advise himself of any other? We follow the steps of another, yea we press and inflame one another, we invest our vices and passions one into another; no man stays us, or cries hola unto it, so much do we fail and mistake ourselves. We have need of some special favour from heaven, and withal a great and generous force and constancy of nature to note that common error which no man findeth, in advising and consulting of that which no man considereth, and resolving ourselves quite contrary to the course of other men. There are some though rare, I see them, I understand them, I smell them with pleasure and admiration; but what, they are all Democrites or Heraclites; the one sort do nothing but mock and gibe, thinking they show truth & wisdom enough in laughing at error and folly. They laugh at the world, for it is ridiculous, they are pleasant, but not good and charitable. The other are weak and poor, they speak with a low voice, their mouths half open, they disguise their language, they mingle and stuff their propositions, to make them pass more currently, with so many other things, and with such art, that they are hardly discerned. They speak not distinctly, clearly, assuredly, but doubtfully like oracles. I come after them and under them, but I speak in good sooth that which I think and believe clearly and perspicuously. I give here a picture, with certain lessons of wisdom, which perhaps may seem to some new and strange, and such as no man in former time hath given in such a fashion; and I doubt not but malicious people, who have neither patience, nor power to judge truly and wisely of things, maliciously condemn whatsoever agrees not with their palate, and with that which they have already received. But that is all one, for who is he that can assure himself of the good opinion of all? But my hope is that the simple and debonairie, the Aetherian and sublime spirits will judge indifferently. These are the two extremities and stages of peace and serenity; In the middle are the troubles, tempests, and meteors, as hath been Lib. 1. said. To the end we may have some rude and general knowledge The division of this Book into 4. parts. of that which is handled in this book, and the whole doctrine of wisdom, we may divide this matter into four points or considerations. The first are preparatives to wisdom, which are two, the one an exemption and freedom from all that may hinder the attainment thereof, which are 1 Preparatives. either the external errors and vices of the world, or inward, as passions: the other is a plain, entire, and universal liberty of the mind. These two first, and the more difficult make a man capable and apt for wisdom, because they empty and cleanse the place, to the end it may be more ample & capable to receive a thing of so great importance as wisdom is, magna & spatiosares est sapientia, vacuo illi loco opus est, superuacua ex animo tollenda sunt. And this is the first. Afterwards they make him open, free, & always ready to receive it. This is the second. The second are foundations of wisdom, which are likewise two, true and essential probity, and to have a certain 2 Foundations. end and course of life. These two respect nature, they rule and accommodate us thereunto; the first to the universal nature, which is reason; for probity or honesty, as shall be said, is no other thing: the second to the particular of every one of us; for it is the choice of the kind of life proper and fit for the nature of every one. The third belongs to the raising of this building, that is to say, offices and functions of wisdom, which are six, whereof 3 Offices. the three first are principally for every one in himself, which are piety, inward government of our desires and thoughts, and a sweet carriage in all accidents of prosperity and adversity: the other three respect another, which are such an observation as is necessary of laws, customs, and ceremonies, a sweet conversation with another, and prudence in all affairs. These six do correspond and comprehend the four moral virtues, the first, fourth, and fift do properly appertain to justice, and to that which we own to God and our neighbour; the second and third to Fortitude and Temperance, the sixth to Prudence. And therefore these six, are the matter and subject of the third book, which handleth at large the four moral virtues, and in particular the offices and duties of a wise man, but in this book they are handled in general. The fourth are the effects and fruits of wisdom, which are two, to be always ready for death, and to maintain a 4 Fruits. man's self in true tranquility of spirit, the crown of wisdom, and the sovereign good. These are in all twelve rules and lessons of wisdom, divided into so many Chapters, which are the proper and peculiar footsteps and offices of a wise man, which are not found elsewhere. I mean in that sense wherein we take them, and now describe them: For although some of them, as honesty, the observation of the laws, seem to be found in others of the common and profane sort, yet not such as we here require and decipher them to be. He than is wise, who maintaining himself truly free and noble, is directed in all things according to nature, accommodating his own proper and particular to the universal, which is God; living and carrying himself before God, with all, and in all affairs, upright, constant, cheerful, content, and assured, attending with one and the same foot, all things that may happen, and lastly, death itself. CHAP. I. Exemption and freedom from errors and the vices of the world, and from passions. The first disposition to Wisdom. IT is here necessary for the first lesson and instruction unto wisdom to not the knowledge of ourselves and our human condition; for the first in every thing is well to know the subject, wherewith a man hath to do, and which he handleth and manageth to bring to perfection. But we hold that to be already done, for it is the subject of our first book: We can only say here, as a summary repetition of all that hath been spoken, that a man aspiring unto wisdom, should above all things, and before all other works, sufficiently know himself, and all men beside. This is the true science of man, very profitable, a matter of great study, fruit, and efficacy, for man is all in all: It is proper to a wise man, for only he that is wise knows himself, and he that knows himself well is wise: It is very difficult, for man is extremely counterfeited and disguised, not only man with man, but every man with himself. Every one takes a delight to deceive himself; to hide, to rob, to betray himself, Ipsi nobis furto subducimur; flattering and tickling himself to make himself laugh, extenuating his defects, setting a high price of whatsoever is good in himself, winking of purpose lest he should too clearly see himself: It is very rare and sought for by a few, and therefore no marvel if wisdom be so rare, for they are very few that do well know this first lesson, or that do study it; there is not a man that is master to himself, much less to another. In things not necessary and strange, there are many masters, many disciples. In this point we are never with, nor within ourselves, we always muse of outward things, and man better knoweth all things than himself. O misery, O madness! To be wise in this point, it is necessary that we know all sorts of men, of all airs, climates, natures, ages, estates, professions, (to this end serves the traveler and the history) their motions, inclinations, actions; not only public, (they are least to be regarded, being all feigned and artificial) but private, and especially the more simple and peculiar, such as arise from their proper and natural jurisdiction; as likewise all those that concern them particularly, for in these two their nature is discovered: afterwards that we confer them all together to make an entire body and universal judgement; but especially that we enter into ourselves, taste and attentively sound ourselves, examine every thought, word, action. Doubtless we shall in the end learn that man is in truth on the one side a poor, weak, pitiful, and miserable thing, and we cannot but pity him; and on the other, we shall find him swollen and puffed up with wind, presumption, pride, desires, and we cannot but disdain and detest him. Now he hath been sufficiently deciphered and presented unto us even to the life, in the first book, by divers means, in all senses, and according to all his visages: and this is the reason why we speak no more of this knowledge of man, and of ourselves in this place, but we set down here for the first rule of wisdom the fruit of this knowledge, to the end, that the end and fruit of the first book might be the beginning and entrance of the second. This fruit is to defend and preserve men from the contagion of the world and of themselves; these are the two evils and formal hindrances of wisdom, the one outward, as popular opinions & vices, the general corruption of the world; the other inward, that is, our passions. Now we are to see how difficult this is, and how a man may defend himself against these two. Wisdom is difficult and rare, and the greatest, yea almost the only endeavour that we have to attain unto it, is to set at liberty, & to free ourselves from that miserable double captivity, public and domestical, of another and of ourselves: this being attained, the rest will be easy. Let us speak of these two evils distinctly and apart. As concerning the outward, we have before sufficiently diplayed the vulgar nature, the strange humours of the world, 2 Exemption of vulgar errors. and the common sort of people, whereby it is easy enough to know what can proceed from them; for since they are worshippers of vanity; envious, malicious, unjust; without judgement, discretion, mediocrity; what can they deliberat, think, judge, resolve, speak, do well and justly? We have likewise as it were by example reported and quoted (in presenting the misery of mankind) many great faults, which the world doth generally commit in judgement and will, whereby it is easy to know, that it is wholly composed of error and vice; whereunto all the sayings of the wisest of the world do accord, affirming, that the worse part is the greater: of a thousand there is not one good; the number of fools are infinite, and contagion is most dangerous in a press. And therefore they counsel us not only to preserve ourselves neat and clear from popular opinions, designments, and affections, as being all base, feeble, indigested, impertinent, and very often false, at the least imperfect: but also to fly above all things the multitude, the company and conversation of the vulgar sort, because a man cannot approach near unto it without some loss and impeachment. The frequentation of the people is contagious and very dangerous even to the wisest and best settled men that are: for who is able to withstand the force and charge of vices coming with so great a troup? One example of covetousness or incontinency doth much harm. The company of one delicate effeminate person, doth soften and make nice by little and little those that live with him. One rich neighbour gives light and life to our covetousness. One dissolute person worketh (if I may so say) and apply his vice, like rust into the neatest and purest minds. What then can we look for from such manners, after which the world runneth, as it were with a lose bridle? But what? it is very rare and difficult so to do. It is a plausible thing, and that hath great appearance of goodness and justice, to follow the way approved by all; the great beaten way doth easily deceive, lata est via ad mortem, & multi per eam; mundus in maligno positus: we go one after another like beasts for company; we never dive into the reason, the merit, the equity of the cause; we follow examples and customs, and as it were of envy and emulation, we stumble, and fall one upon another; we throng one another, and draw every one to a headlong downfall. We borrow our own overthrow, and perish upon credit, alienis perimus exemplis. Now he that would be wise, must always suspect whatsoever pleaseth, and is approved by the people by the greater number, and must look into that that is true and good in itself, and not into that which seemeth to them, and that is most used and frequented, and not suffer himself to be cunny-catcht and carried by the multitude, which should not be accounted but for one, unus mihi pro populo, & populus pro uno. And when to stop his mouth, and to beat him down at a blow it shall be said, that the whole world saith it, believes it, doth it, he must say in his heart, it is so much the worse, it is but a simple and a wicked caution; I esteem it the less, because the world esteems it so much; like wise Photion, who seeing the people highly to applaud something which he had spoken, turned to his friends that stood by him, and said unto them, Hath any folly unwitting to myself escaped my mouth, or any lose or wicked word, that all this people do so approve me? Quis placere potest populo, cui placet virtus? malis artibus quaeritur popularis favour. We must then as much as is possible fly the haunt and company of the sottish, illiterate, ill-composed people, but above all preserve ourselves from their judgements, opinions, vicious behaviour, and without any stir keep always our own thoughts apart by themselves: Quod scio non probat populus, quod probat populus ego nescio: Sapiens non respicit quid homines iudicent; non it quâ populus sed ut sidera mundi contrarium iter intendunt, it a hic adversus opiniones omnium vadit: remaining in the world, without being of the world, like the kidneys covered with fat, but have none themselves: non estis de mundo, ideo odit vos mundus: odi prophanum vulgus & arceo. This is that solitariness so much commended by the wise, which is to disburden the soul of all vices and popular opinions, and to free it from this confusion and captivity, to draw it to itself, and to set it at liberty. The other evil and hindrance to wisdom, which a man must carefully avoid, and which is inward, and therefore the 5 The second part, exemption of passions. more dangerous, is the confusion and captivity of his passions, and turbulent affections; whereof he must disfurnish and free himself, to the end he may be empty and neat, like a white paper, and be made a subject more fit to receive the tincture and impressions of wisdom, against which the passions do formally oppose themselves: and therefore the wisest were wont to say, that it was impossible even for jupiter himself to love, to be in choler, to be touched with any passion, and to be wise at one time. Wisdom is a regular managing of our soul with measure and proportion: It is an equability, and sweet harmony of our judgements, wills, manners, a constant health of our mind; whereas the passions are contrariwise but the furious reboundings, accessions and recessions of folly, violent and rash sallies and motions. We have sufficiently deciphered the passions in the first 6 General remedies against the passions. book, and said enough to bring us into horror and detestation of them: the general means and remedies to overcome them (for the particular in every one are in the third book, in the virtue of fortitude and temperancy) are many and different, good and evil. And not to speak of that goodness and felicity of nature, so well tempered and seasoned, that it maketh us calm and clear, exempt and quit from strong passions and violent motions, and keepeth us in good case, equal, united, firm, and as strong as steel against the assault of our passions, a thing very rare; for this is not a remedy against this evil, but an exemption of evil, and health itself: but of the remedies against them we may note four. The first improper and by no means commendable, is a kind of stupidity and insensibleness in not perceiving and 7 Stupidity. apprehending of things; a brutish pampering food of base minds, or such as have their apprehension wholly dulled; a spiritual leprosy, which seemeth to have some show of health, but hath it not; for it is not possible there should be wisdom and constancy, where there is not knowledge and understanding, and employment in affairs; so that it is only a complexion, and not a virtue. This is not to feel the disease, and therefore not to cure it: nevertheless this estate is nothing so bad, as to know, and feel, and understand, and yet to suffer himself to be gulled and overcome: — Praetulerim delirus inersque videri, Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant, Quam sapere & ringi.— The second remedy is little better than the evil itself, but yet more in use, that is, when a man conquereth and extinguisheth 8 Counterpassion. one passion by a stronger than it: for passions are never of equal force, but there is always one or other (as in the humours of the body) which is the predominant, which ruleth and devoureth the rest; and we attribute many times very untruly that unto virtue and wisdom which ariseth from passion: but yet it is enough in these men, when those passions that bear sway in them are not of the worst. The third remedy and good (though it be not the best) is wise and artificial, whereby a man avoideth, flieth, and hideth 9 Precaution. himself from all such accidents whatsoever, as may stir, awaken, or kindle his passions. This is a kind of study and art, whereby a man prepareth himself before the occasions, in diverting of evils, and providing that he feel them not; like that King who broke a beautiful and rich cup that one gave him, to take away in a good hour all matter of brawl and anger that might happen about it. The prayer of these kind of people is, ne nos inducas in tentationem. By this remedy, he that sets himself forward to the sport, sport's not himself; men of honour, prompt and choleric, fly contentions, altercations, and stay themselves at the first onset and occasion of passion. For when a man is once entered, it is no easy matter to carry himself wisely and discretely: We guide our affairs in the beginning, and hold them at our mercy, but after they are once afoot and throughly heated, they guide and carry us. Passions are far more easily avoided than moderated, excinduntur animo faciliùs quam temperantur, because all things are in their first birth feeble and tender. In their weakness we discover not the danger, and in their full growth and strength we know not how to withstand them; as we may see in divers, who easily and lightly enter into quarrels, and law, and contentions, but are afterwards enforced to get out as they can with shame enough, and to come to any agreement, be it never so base and dishonourable, yea, to seek false interpretations, to bely themselves, to betray their own hearts, to plaster and cover the fact, which are all remedies a hundred times worse than the evil they go about to heal; melius non incipient, quàm desinent; from the want of wisdom, they fall into want of heart: This is contrary to that saying of Bias, Enterprise coldly, pursue ardently. It is like fools, who out of a vicious shame are easily persuaded to agree to whatsoever a man demands, and as easily fly from their words and revoke that they have spoken. We must therefore in all our affairs and commerce with men, from the beginning be prudent and advised. The fourth and best remedy of all, is a lively virtue, resolution, and constancy of the mind, whereby a man seethe and 10 Virtue. confronteth all accidents without trouble, he wrestleth and entereth into combat with them. It is a valiant, noble, and glorious impassibility, quite contrary to the first which we have spoken of, base stupidity. Now to form it, and to attain unto it, there is nothing more necessary than a precedent discourse. Discourse is the master of our passions, premeditation is that which giveth the temper to the soul, and makes it hard and steely and impenetrable against whatsoever would wound, or hurt it. The proper means to appease and sweeten these passions, is to know them well, to examine, to judge what power they have over us, and we over them. But above all, the sovereign remedy is to believe, and not to suffer himself to be carried with opinion, which is that which cherisheth and kindleth our passions, and is (as hath been said) false, foolish, inconstant, and uncertain, the guide of fools and the vulgar sort; but to suffer himself to be sweetly led by reason and nature, which is the guide of the wiser sort, ripe, solid, and settled. But hereof, hereafter more at large. But above all other passions, it is necessary that we do carefully 11 Presumption. guard and defend ourselves from that self-love presumption, and foolish dotage of ourselves, the plague of mankind, the capital enemy of wisdom, the true gangrene and corruption of the soul, whereby we adore ourselves, and rest contented with ourselves, we hearken to none other, and believe none other but ourselves. Now we should know that we are not in greater danger in the hands of any, than of ourselves. It is an excellent mott originally come from the Spanish tongue, O God keep myself, from myself. This presumption and foolish love of ourselves proceeds from the ignorance we have of ourselves, of our weakness, and that little that is in us, not only in general of the infirmity and misery of mankind, but also of our own proper and personal imperfections: but whosoever he be that hath the least grain or touch of this folly, shall never attain unto wisdom. Faith, modesty, a hearty and serious acknowledgement of that little that we have, is a great testimony of a good and sound judgement, of a right will, and is an excellent disposition unto wisdom. CHAP. II. A universal and plain liberty of spirit both in judgement and will, the second disposition to Wisdom. THe other disposition unto Wisdom, which followeth the first (which doth quit us from this outward and inward captivity and confusion, popular and passionate) is a plain, entire, generous, and lordlike liberty of the mind, which is twofold, that is to say, of judgement, and will. The first, of judgement, consisteth in the consideration, judgement, examination of all things, and in not tying himself 1 The first part, liberty of judgement. to any one, but remaining free in himself, universal, ready, and open for all. And this is the highest point, the proper law and true privilege of a wise and active man. But few they are that will understand it, and acknowledge it, fewer that practise it as they should: and this is the reason why we must here establish it, against such as are incapable of wisdom. And first, to avoid all miscountings, we explain the words, & give the sense. There are here three things which maintain, cause, and conserve one the other, that is, to judge of all things, not to be married or bound to any, to continue open and ready for all. When I say to judge, my meaning is not to resolve, affirm, determine: this were contrary to the second, which is, not to bind ourselves to any thing: but it is to examine, and weigh the reasons and counter-reasons on all parts, the weight and merit of them, and thereby work out the truth. So likewise not to bind ourselves to any thing, is not to settle ourselves, and to remain short of that we should, bleating in the air, and to cease our endeavours, and to proceed in our necessary actions and deliberations: For I will that in all outward and common actions of our life, and in whatsoever is ordinarily used, a man should agree and accommodate himself to the common sort; for our rule extendeth not itself to that which is outward, and to the action, but to that which is within, the thought, and secret, and inward judgement: yea and therein likewise I consent, that a man settle and apply himself to that which seemeth most agreeable to the truth, most honest and profitable; but yet that it be without determination, resolution, affirmation, or condemnation of contrary or divers judgements, old, or new; but always to hold himself ready to entertain better if it appear; yea not to be offended if another shall contest with him against that which he thinketh better, but rather desire to hear what may be said; for this is the mean, to exercise the first, which is to judge, and always to enter into the search of the truth. These three I say, do maintain and conserve one the other; for he that judgeth well, and without passion of all things, findeth in every thing appearances of reason, which hinder his resolution, whereby he feareth to settle his judgement, and so remaineth undetermined, indifferent, and universal: whereas contrariwise, he that resolveth, judgeth no more, but settleth and resteth himself upon that which he holdeth, and so makes himself a partaker and a particular. To the former, fools, simple and weak people are contrary: to the second, obstinate opinative affirmers: to the third, both of them, which are particulars: but all three are practised by the wise, modest, discreet, and temperate searcher of the truth and true Philosophy. It remaineth for the explication of this our proposition, that I let you know, that by all things, and some thing (for it is said, to judge of all things, not to be assured of any) we understand not those divine verities which have been revealed unto us, which we are to receive simply with all humility and submission, and without all controversy and discussion, submit ourselves, and captivate our minds thereunto, captivantes intellectum ad obsequium fidei, but we understand hereby all other things without exception. This simple explication would be sufficient perhaps to persuade an indifferent spirit to receive this rule of wisdom; but I see and perceive a sort of people, glorious, resolute, affirmative, which would rule the world, and command it as it were with a rod, and as others in former times have sworn to certain principles, and married themselves to certain opinions, so they would that all others should do the like, whereby they oppose themselves to this noble liberty of the spirit. It shall be necessary therefore to establish it more amply, and by order to confirm and handle these three points and members thereof. The first is to judge of all. It is the property of a wise and 2 The first, to judge of all. spiritual man; saith one of the first and wisest of the world, Spiritualis omnia dijudicat, & à nemine judicatur: The true office of man, his most proper and natural exercise, his worthiest profession is to judge. Why is he a man discoursing, reasoning, understanding? Why hath he a spirit, to build (as they say) castles in the air, and to feed himself with fooleries and vanities, as the greatest part of the world doth? Quis unquam oculos tenebrarum causâ habuit? No doubtless, but to understand, to judge of all things, and therefore he is called the governor, the superintendant, the keeper of nature, of the world, of the works of God. To go about to deprive him of this right, is to make him no more a man, but a beast; to do it singularly, excellently, is the part of a wise man: If not to judge, hurts the simple and proper nature of man, what shall it do in a wise man, who is as far above the common sort of men, as a common man is above beasts? It is then strange that so many men (I speak not of idiots, and the weaker sort, who have not the faculty and mean to exercise it) who either are, or make show of understanding and sufficiency, deprive themselves willingly of this right and authority so natural, so just, and excellent, who without the examining or judging of any thing, receive and approve whatsoever is presented, either because it hath a fair semblance & appearance, or because it is in authority, credit, and practise; yea, they think that it is not lawful to examine or doubt of any thing, in such sort do they debase and degrade themselves: they are forward and glorious in other things, but in this, they are fearful and submiss, though it do justly appertain unto them, and with so much reason. Since there are a thousand lies for one truth, a thousand opinions of one and the same thing, and but one that is true, why should not I examine with the instrument of reason which is the better, the truer, the more reasonable, honest, and profitable? Is it possible that amongst so many laws, customs, opinions, different manners, and contrary to ours, as there are in the world, there are none good but ours? Hath all the world beside been mistaken? Who dares to say so, and who doubteth but others say as much of ours, and that he that thus condemneth others, if he had been there borne and brought up, would think them better, and prefer them before those he now accounteth the only good, and all because he hath been accustomed unto them? To conclude, to him that shall be so foolhardy to say it, I do answer, that this rule shall at the least be good for all others, to the end that they judging and examining all, may find ours to be the better. Go to then, the wise man shall judge of all, nothing shall escape him which he bringeth not to the bar, and to the balance. It is to play the part of profane men and beasts, to suffer themselves to be lead like oxen. I will that men live, and speak, and do, as others, and the common sort do; but not that they judge like the common sort, but judge them. What can a wise man, or a holy man have above a profane, if he must have his spirit, his mind, his principal and heroical part a slave to the vulgar sort? The public and common should content itself, if a man conform himself thereunto in all apparent things; what hath it to do with our inside, our thoughts, and judgements? They shall govern as long as they will my hand, my tongue, but not my spirit, for that, by their leave, hath another master. It is a hard thing to bridle the liberty of the spirit, and if a man would do it, it is the greatest tyranny that may be: a wise man will take heed thereof actively and passively, will maintain himself in his liberty, and not trouble that of other men. Now a wise man enjoying this his right to judge and examine all things, it many times comes to pass, that the judgement 3 The effect of this first treatise. A wise man one within, another without. and the hand, the mind and the body, contradict one another, and that he will carry himself outwardly after one manner, and judge inwardly after another, will play one part before the world, and another in his mind, which he must do to preserve equity and justice in all. That general saying, universus mundus exercet histrioniam, should properly and truly be understood of a wise man, who is another man within than he outwardly shows. If he were without such as he is within, he should not be accounted of, but in all things offend the world: If he were within such as without, he should be no more a wise man, he should judge amiss, be corrupted in his mind. He must do, and carry himself outwardly, for public reverence, and so as he offend no man, according to the law, custom, and ceremony of the country; and inwardly judge of the truth as it is, according to the universal reason, whereby it many times comes to pass that he condemneth that which outwardly he doth. Sapiens faciet quae non probabit, ut ad maiora transitum inveniat, nec relinquet bonos mores, sed tempori aptabit omnia quae imperiti faciunt, & luxuriosi, faciet: sed non eodem modo, nec eodem proposito, multa sapientes faciunt quâ homines sunt, non quâ sapientes. He will carry himself in things and actions, as Cicero in words, who said, I leave the use or custom of speech to the people, and observe the true science and knowledge of words, Loquendum & extrà vivendum ut multi, sapiendum ut pauci. Some few examples hereof, and first of things of less moment. In all humility I take off my hat, and keep my head uncovered before my superior, for so doth the custom of my country require; but yet I will not leave to judge, that the custom of the East is far better, to salute and do reverence, by laying the hand upon the breast, without uncovering the head, to the prejudice of our health, and other inconveniences. Contrariwise, if I were in the East, I would take my repast, sitting upon the earth, or leaning on the elbow, or half lying looking upon the table sideways as they do there, and as our Saviour with his Apostles did use to do, recumbentibus, discumbentibus: and yet I would not cease to judge, that the manner of sitting upright at table, our faces towards it, as the custom is here, is more honest, more fit, and commodious. These examples are of small weight, and there are a thousand the like: let us take another of better importance. I will and I yield my consent that the dead be interred and left to the mercy of the worms, of rottenness and stench, because it is now the common custom almost everywhere; but yet I will not cease to judge, that the ancient manner of burning them, and gathering their ashes together, is more noble and more neat, to commit and commend them to the fire, the excellentest element, enemy to putrefaction and stench, neighbour to heaven itself, a sign of immortality, a shadow of the divinity, and whereof the use is proper and peculiar unto man, rather than to the earth, which is the ordure, lees, dregs of the elements, the sink of the world, the mother of corruption, and to the worms which is the extremest ignominy and horror, and so to couple and handle alike a man and a beast. Religion itself teacheth and commandeth to dispose after this manner of all things, as of the Paschall lamb which might not be eaten, and (where popery beareth sway) the consecrated host, and divers the like; why then should not the like respect be had of our bodies? What can a man do that is more dishonourable to the body, than to cast it into the earth there to corrupt? It seemeth to me to be the uttermost punishment that can be inflicted upon infamous persons and heinous offenders, and that the carcasies of honest and honourable men should be handled with better respect. Doubtless of all the manners in disposing of dead bodies, which may be reduced to five, that is, to commit them to the four elements, and the bowels of wild beasts, the vilest, and basest, and most shameful is to inter them, the most noble and honourable to burn them. Again, I will and consent, that this my Wise man in things natural be modest, that he hide and cover those parts and actions that are called shameful, dishonourable; and he that should do otherwise, I would detest, and think hardly of him, because it is almost the custom of the whole world; but yet I will nevertheless that he judge that simply in themselves, and according to nature, they are no more shameful than the nose or the mouth, to drink and to eat: Nature, that is, God, having made nothing shameful, but it is for another cause, not from nature, that is to say, from the enemy of nature, which is sin. Divinity also more chaste than Philosophy telleth us, that in entire nature, not yet altered by the sin of man, these parts and actions were not shameful, for then shame was not, it is the enemy of nature, the fruit of sin. I consent to apparel myself like those of my country and profession, and if I had been borne in those countries where they go naked, I would have gone so too: but yet I cease not to judge, that neither of the two fashions is very good; and if I were to choose, and ordain, I would choose a fashion indifferent betwixt both, out of those countries where they cover themselves with one only and simple covering, light and easy enough, without fashion, or cost; for our manner of attiring is not good, yea worse than to go naked, to be so fast wrapped and bound, with such a multitude and variety of coverings of divers stuffs, even to the number of four, five, six, one upon another, and whereof some are double, that they hold us priest and packed up with so many ties, binding, butnings (not to speak of that dissolute and abominable excess condemned by all good laws) that we can hardly stir ourselves in them. I will content myself with these examples. The selfsame a man may say of all laws, customs, manners, and of that which is de facto, and much more of opinions, and that which is de iure. If any man shall say that I have judged amiss in these examples; and that generally, if liberty be given to judge of all 4 An objection. things, the spirit will wander and lose itself, filling and furnishing itself with follies and false opinions; I answer to the first, which toucheth me in particular, that it is very easy to err in finding the truth in all these instances, and yet it is over-boldnes to accuse any man; for it is as much as if he should say, that a man knows where and what the truth is in things, which who can perfectly know or judge of? Now not to find the truth, is not to judge amiss; to judge amiss, is to weigh, and balance, and compare amiss, that is to say, not to examine the reasons, and to ponder them according to the first and universal nature, (both which though a man do, yet it followeth not that he must needs find out the truth.) Now I believe nothing that is but simply affirmed, if it be not likewise proved; but if any man by contrary reasons more strong and forcible shall make good what he saith, of all others he is the welcomest man unto me, and the man I look for; for oppositions and contradictions well urged, and with reason, are the true means to exercise this judging office. I had never set down these opinions, but that I looked that some one or other should abrogate them, and help me to better, and to answer more effectually; and to that general objection of the danger that there is in this liberty, besides that which hath been spoken, and shall more expressly be said in the third lesson of Wisdom and Chapter following, that the rule which we ought to hold in judging, and in all things is nature, natural and universal reason, following which a man can never err. See here the other member of this judicious liberty which we are about to handle, which will furnish us with a remedy against this pretended danger. The other point of this lordlike liberty of spirit, is an indifferency of taste, and a differing of a settled resolution, 5 2 Not to bind ourselves to any thing. whereby a wise man considering coldly and without passion all things, as is said, is not obstinate, doth not swear, tie, bind himself to any opinion; keeping himself always ready to receive the truth, or that which seems to him to have best semblance of truth; and saying in his inward and secret judgement, that which our ancients were wont to say in their outward and public, it a videtur, it seemeth so; there is great appearance of truth on this side; and if any man do contradict and oppose himself, with patience he is ready to understand the contrary reasons and to receive them, finding them more strong & better; and when he hath heard what he can hear, he still thinketh that either there is, or may be better, though as yet it appeareth not. This dilation and putting off of a man's judgement is founded first upon those propositions so much celebrated among the wise, That there is nothing certain; that we know nothing; that there is nothing in nature but doubt; nothing certain but incertainty, Solum certum, nihil esse certi; hoc unum scio, quòd nihilscio; That of all things a man may dispute alike; that we do nothing but search, inquire, and grope after appearances, scimus nihil, opinamur verisimilia; That verity is not a thing of our own invention and purchase, and when it yields itself into our hands, we have nothing in ourselves whereby we may challenge it, possess it, or assure ourselves of it; That truth and falsehood enter into us by one and the same gate, and there hold the same place and credit, and maintain themselves by the same means; That there is no opinion held by all, or currant in all places, none that is not debated and disputed, that hath not another held and maintained quite contrary unto it; That all things have two handles and two visages, and there is reason for all, and there is not any that hath not his contrary, it is of lead, it turneth and accommodateth itself to whatsoever a man will have it: To be short, it is the doctrine and practice of all the wisest, greatest, and most noble Philosophers, who have made profession of ignorance, doubting, inquiring, searching. Others notwithstanding they have been dogmatists, and affirmers, yet it hath been of gestures and words only, and that to show how far they could wade in the purchase and search of the truth, quam docti fingunt magis quàm norunt; giving unto all things no other nor stronger title, than probability and true likelihood, and handling them diversly, sometimes with one visage and in one sense, sometimes in another, by problematical questions, rather inquiring than instructing; and many times showing that they speak not in earnest, but in sport and for exercise; non tam id sensisse quod dicerent, quàm exercere ingenia materiae difficultate voluisse videntur. And who will believe that it was the purpose of Plato to tie men to his Commonwealth and his Idees, of Pythagoras to his numbers, of Epicurus to his Atoms, or to give them for currant coin? They took pleasure to solace their spirits with pleasant and subtle inventions, quae ex ingenio finguntur, non ex scientiae vi. Sometimes likewise they have studied after difficulty, to cover the vanity of their subject, and to employ the curiosity of their spirits. And Aristotle the most resolute of all the rest, the prince of dogmatists, and peremptory affirmers, the god of pedanties, how often hath he been crossed in his opinions, not knowing what to resolve in that point of the soul, wherein he is almost always unlike to himself, and in many other things more base which he knew not how to find or understand, ingeniously confessing sometimes the great weakness of man in finding and knowing the truth. They that have come after, of a pedantical and presumptuous spirit, who make Aristotle and others say what they 6 Objects. please, and are more obstinate in their opinions than ever they were, disavowing those for disciples that faint in their opinions, hate & arrogantly condemn this rule of wisdom, this modesty, and academical staidness, glorying in their obstinate opinions, whether they be right or wrong; loving better a heady froward affirmer against their own opinions, and against whom they may exercise their wit and skill, than a modest peaceable man, who doubteth and maketh stay of his judgement, against whom their wits are dulled, that is to say, a fool than a wise man; like to women, who love better to be contradicted, even with injury, than that a man either out of the coldness of his nature, or contempt should say nothing to them, whereby they imagine they are either scorned or condemned, wherein they show their iniquity. For why should it not be as lawful to doubt, and consider of things as doubtful, not determining of any thing, as it is to them to affirm? Why should it not be lawful ingenuously to confess that which a man knoweth not, since in verity he knoweth it not, and to hold in suspense that which he is not assured of, and against which there are many reasons and oppositions? It is certain according to the opinion of the wisest, that we are ignorant of much more than we know, that all our knowledge is the lesser part, and almost nothing, in regard of that we know not: the causes of our ignorances are infinite, and both in respect of the things themselves either too far from us, or too near, too great, or too little, too durable, or not durable enough, perpetually changing, and in respect of ourselves, and the manner of knowing them, which as yet is not sufficiently learned. And that which we think we know, we know not, neither can we hold it well, for with violence it is got from us, and if it may not be gotten because our obstinacy in opinion is strong, yet we are contended with, and much troubled. Now how should we be capable to know more or less, if we grow resolute in our opinions, settle and repose ourselves in certain things, and in such manner, that we seek no farther, nor examine any more that which we think to hold? They think this suspension a shame and a weakness, because they know not what it is, and they perceive not that the greatest men that are have made profession thereof; they blush, and have not the heart freely to say, I know not, so much are they possessed with the opinion and presumption of science; and they know not that there is a kind of ignorance & doubt, more learned, and more certain, more noble and generous, than all their science and certainty. This is that that hath made Socrates so renowned and held for the wisest man: It is the science of sciences, and the fruit of all our studies: It is a modest, mild, innocent, and hearty acknowledgement of the mystical height of truth, and of the poverty of our human condition full of darkness, weakness, uncertainty; cogitationes mortalium timidae, incertae adinuentiones nostrae: Deus novit cogitationes hominum quoniam vanae sunt. Hear I would tell you, that I caused to be graven over the gate of my little house which I built at Condom in the year 1600, this word, I know not. But they will needs that we submit ourselves in all duty to certain principles, which is an unjust tyranny. I yield my consent, that a man employ them in all judgement, and make use of them, but yet not so as that a man may not spurn against them, for against that opinion I oppose myself. Who is he in the whole world, that hath right to command, and give laws to the world, to subject the spirits of men, and to give principles which may be no more examined, that a man may no more deny or doubt of, but God himself the sovereign spirit, and true principle of the world, who is only to be believed because he saith it? All other things are subject to trial and opposition, and it is weakness to subject ourselves unto it. If they will that I submit myself to principles, I will say to them as the Curate said to his parishioners in a matter of time, and as a Prince of ours to the Secretaries of this age in a point of religion, Do you first agree to these principles, and then I will submit myself unto them. Now there is as great doubt and dispute in the principles, as in the conclusions, in the Theses, as in the Hypotheses, whereby there are so many sects among them, that if I yield myself to the one, I offend all the rest. They say likewise, that it is a great affliction not to be resolved, to remain always in doubt, yea, that it is a matter of difficulty for a man to continue long in that state. They have reason to say it, for they find it so in themselves, being the property of fools, and weak minds, of presumptuous fools, passionate and obstinate in certain opinions, who condemn all others, and although they be overcome, never yield themselves, vexing and putting themselves into choler, never acknowledging any reason. If they be constrained to change their opinions, being altered, they are as resolute and obstinate in their new, as they were before in their first opinion, not knowing how to hold any thing without passion, and never disputing to learn and find the truth, but to maintain that which they have sworn and bound themselves unto. These kind of people know nothing, neither know they what it is to know, because they think to know and to hold the truth in their sleeve: Because thou thinkest thou seest, thou seest nothing, saith the Doctor of truth to the joh. 9 glorious and presumptuous man; Si quis existimet se scire aliquid, nondum cognovit quemadmodum oporteat cum scire. It is fit 2. Cor. 8. that weak men that have not strength, to keep themselves upright upon their feet, be kept up with props, they cannot live but in bonds, nor maintain themselves free, a people borne to servitude, they fear bugbeares, or that the Wolf will eat them if they be alone. But in wise, modest, and stayed men it is quite contrary, the surest stay and most happy estate of the spirit, which by this means keepeth itself firm, upright, constant, inflexible, always free and to itself: hoc liberiores & solutiores sumus, quia integra nobis judicandi potestas manet. It is a very sweet, peaceable, and pleasant sojourn or delay, where a man feareth not to fail or miscount himself, where a man is in the claim, under covert, and out of danger of participating so many errors produced by the fantasy of man, and whereof the world is full of entangling himself in complaints, divisions, disputes, of offending divers parts, of belying and gainsaying his own belief, of changing, repenting, and readuising himself. For how often hath time made us see that we have been deceived in our thoughts, and hath enforced us to change our opinions? To be brief, it is to keep the mind in peace and tranquility, far from agitations and vices, which proceed from that opinion of science which we think to have in things; for from thence do spring pride, ambition, immoderate desires, obstinacy in opinion, presumption, love of novelties, rebellion, disobedience: from whence come troubles, sects, heresies, seditions, but from men fierce, obstinate, & resolute in opinion? not from Academiques, neuters, modest, indifferent, stayed, that is to say, wisemen. Moreover let me tell them, that it is a thing that doth more service to piety, religion, and divine operation, than any thing whatsoever. I say service as well in the generation and propagation, as the conservation thereof. Divinity, yea the mystical part thereof, teacheth us, that well to prepare our souls for God and the receiving of his holy spirit, we must empty, cleanse, purify them, and leave them naked of all opinion, belief, affection; make them like a white paper, dead to itself and to the world, that God might live and work in it, drive away the old master, to establish the new, expurgate vetus fermentum, exuite veterem hominem: So that it seemeth, that to plant and establish Christianity among infidels, or misbelieving people, as in these days in China, it were a very excellent method to begin with these propositions and persuasions: That all the wisdom of the world is but vanity and leasing: That the world is wholly composed, torn, and vilefied with the forged fantastical opinions of every private man's brain: That God hath created man to know the truth, but that he cannot know it of himself, nor by any human means: And That it is necessary that God himself, in whose bosom it resideth, and who hath wrought a desire thereof in man, should reveal it as he doth. But That the better to prepare himself for this revelation, man must first renounce and chase away all opinions and beliefs, wherewith the spirit is already anticipated and besotted, and present himself white, naked, and ready to receive it. Having well beaten and gained this point, and made men as it were Academics and Pyrrhonians, it is necessary that we propose the principles of Christianity as sent from heaven, brought by the Ambassador and perfect messenger of the divinity, authorised and confirmed in his time by so many marvelous proofs and authentical testimonies. So that we see that this innocent and modest delay from resolution, is a great means to true piety, not only to receive it, as hath been said, but to preserve it, for with it there never are heresies, and selected particular extravagant opinions. An Academic or Pyrrhonian was never heretic, they are things opposite. It may be some man will say that he will never be either good Christian or Catholic, because he will as well be a neuter and irresolute in the one, as the other. This is to understand amiss that which hath been spoken, because there is no delay to be made, nor place to judge, nor liberty in that which concerneth God, but we must suffer him to put and engrave that which pleaseth him, and none other. I have made here a digression for the honour of this our rule against such as contradict it. Let us now return to the matter. After these two, to judge of all, to be slow in determining, there cometh in the third place, the universality of spirit, 7 3. The third part, universality of spirit. whereby a wise man taketh a view and entereth into consideration of the whole Universe, he is a citizen of the world like Socrates, he containeth in his affection all humanekind, he walketh through all, as if they were near unto him; he seethe like the sun, with an equal, settled, and indifferent regard, as from a high watchtower all the changes and interchangeable courses of things, not changing himself; but always continuing one and the same, which is a livery of the divinity, and a high privilege of a wise man, who is the image of God upon earth. Magna & generosares animus humanus, nullos sibi poni nisi communes & cum Deo terminos patitur. Non idem sapientem qui caeteros terminos includit, omnia illi secula ut Deo serviunt. Nullum seculum magnis ingenijs clausum, nullum non cogitationi pervium tempus. Quam naturale in immensum mentem suam extendere, in hoc a natura formatus homo ut paria dijs velit. ac se in spatium suum extendat. The most beautiful and greatest spirits are the more universal, as the more base and blunt are the more particular. It is a sottish weakness to think that a man must believe, do, live in all respects as at home in his own village and country, or that the accidents that fall out here, concern and are common with the rest of the world. A fool, if a man tell him that there are divers manners, customs, laws, opinions, contrary to those which he seethe in use, either he will not believe them, and saith they are fables; or he presently refuseth and condemneth them as barbarous, so partial is he, and so much enthralled with those his municipal manners, which he accounteth the only true, natural, universal. Every man calleth that barbarous that agreeth not with his palate and custom, and it seemeth that we have no other touch of truth and reason, than the example and the idea of the opinions and customs of that country where we live. These kind of people judge of nothing, neither can they, they are slaves to that they hold, a strong prevention and anticipation of opinions doth wholly possess them, they are so besorted, that they can neither say, nor do otherwise. Now partiality is an enemy to liberty, and overlulleth the mind already tainted and preoccupated with a particular custom, that it cannot judge aright of others; an indifferent man judgeth all things. He that is fastened to one place, is banished and deprived from all others. The paper that is blurred with another colour, is no more capable of any other, whereas the white is fit to receive any. A judge that hears a cause! with a prejudicate opinion, and inclineth to one part more than to another, cannot be a just, upright, and true judge. Now a wise man must free himself from this brutish blockishness, and present unto himself as in a table this great image of our mother Nature in her entire majesty, mark and consider her in a Realm, an Empire, yea in this whole visible world, as in the figure of a small point, and there read that general and constant variety in all things, so many humours, judgements, beliefs, customs, laws; so many alterations of states, changes of fortune; so many victories and conquests buried and forgotten, so many pomps and greatnesses vanished, as if they had never been. Hereby a man may learn to know himself, to admire nothing, to think nothing new, or strange, to settle and resolve himself in all things. For the better attaining of this universal spirit, this general indifferency, we are to consider these four or five points. The great inequality and difference of men in their nature, form, composition, whereof we have spoken. The great diversity of laws, customs, manners, religions, opinions, whereof we will speak hereafter. The divers opinions, reasons, sayings of Philosophers, touching the unity and plurality, the eternity and temporality, the beginning and end, the durance and continuance, the ages, estates, changes, and interchangeable courses of the world and the parts thereof. The Egyptian priests told Herodotus that since their first King (which was above eleven thousand years before, the picture and statue of whom, and of all that succeeded him, they showed him drawn to the life) the Sun had changed his course four times. The Chaldeans in the time of Diodorus (as he saith) & Cicero, had a register of seven hundred thousand years. Plato saith they of the city of Sais, had memorials in writing of eight thousand years; and that the city of Athens was built a thousand years before the said city of Sais. Zoroaster, Pliny, and others have affirmed, that Socrates lived six thousand years before the time of Plato. Some have said, that the world hath been from all eternity, mortal, and growing and being again by interchangeable courses. Others and the more noble Philosophers, have held the world for a god, made by another god greater than it, or as Plato averreth; and others argue from the motions thereof, that it is a creature composed of a body and of a soul, which soul lodging in the centre thereof, disperseth and spreadeth itself by musical numbers into the circumference, and parts thereof, the heaven, the stars, composed of bodies and of a soul, mortal by reason of their composition, immortal by the decree and determination of the Creator. Plato saith, that the world changeth countenance in all respects: that the heaven, the stars, the sun change and quite alter by turns their motions, in such sort, that that which was first is last, the East is made the West; and according to the ancient and most authentical opinion, and of the more famous spirits, worthy the greatness of God, and founded upon reason, there are many worlds, in so much that there is nothing one and only in this world, all kinds are multiplied in number, whereby it seemeth not to have semblance of truth, that God hath made this only work, without companion, and that all is concluded in this one individuum; at the least divinity saith that God could make many, and infinite worlds, for if he could make no more but this one visible, his power should be finite, because the world is such. By that which we have learned of the discovery of the new world, the East and West Indies, we see first that all our ancient writers have been deceived, thinking to have found the measure of the habitable earth, and to have comprehended the whole cosmography, except some scattered islands, doubting of the Antipodes: for now behold another world, almost such as ours is, and that all upon firm land, inhabited, peopled, politicly governed, distinguished by realms, and Empires, beautified with cities, that excel in beauty, greatness, opulency, all those of Asia, Africa, Europe, many thousand years ago: And who doubteth but that in time hereafter there will be discovered divers others? If Ptolemy and other our ancient Writers have been heretofore deceived, why should not he be likewise deceived that affirmeth, that all is already found and discovered? Say it he that will, I will believe him as I list. Secondly, we see that the Zones which were thought inhabitable by reason of their excessive heat and cold, are habitable. Thirdly, that in these new countries, almost all things which we so much esteem of here, and hold that they were first revealed and sent from heaven, were commonly believed and observed (from whence they came, I will not say, who dares determine it?) Yea many of them were in use a thousand years before we heard any tidings of them, both in the matter of religion, as the belief of one only man the father of us all, of the universal deluge, of one God, who sometimes lived in the form of a man undefiled and holy, of the day of judgement, the resurrection of the dead, circumcision like to that of the jews, and Mahumet: And in the matter of policy, as that the elder son should succeed in the inheritance, that he that is exalted to a dignity, loseth his own name & takes a new; tyrannical subsidies, armouries, tumblers, musical instruments; all sorts of sports, Artillery, Printing. From all these discourses we may easily draw these conclusions: That this great body which we call the world, is not that which we think and judge it to be; That neither in the whole, nor parts thereof, it is always the same, but in perpetual flux and reflux; That there is nothing said, held, believed at one time and in one place, which is not likewise said, held, believed in another, yea and contradicted, reproved, condemned elsewhere; the spirit of man being capable of all things, the world always tumbling, sometime the same, sometimes divers; That all things are settled and comprehended in this course and revolution of nature, subject to increase, changing, ending, to the mutation of times, places, climates, heavens, airs, countries. And from these conclusions we learn, to marry ourselves, to swear to nothing, to admire, to trouble ourselves at nothing; but whatsoever shall happen, whatsoever men talk of and trouble themselves about, to resolve upon this point, that it is the course of the world, that it is nature that worketh these things; but yet wisely to provide that nothing hurt us by our own weakness and dejection of mind. Enough is said of this perfect liberty of judgement, established by these three parts, to judge of all, to judge nothing, to be universal, wherein I have the rather insisted, because I know that it pleaseth not the palate of the world, it is an enemy to pedanterie as well as wisdom, but yet it is a fair flower or ornament of wisdom, which preserveth us from two contrary rocks, whereon the vulgar sort do commonly lose themselves, that is to say, from being heady, opinative, shameful gainsayers, repenters, mutable; and a man maintaineth himself in a sweet, peaceable, and assured modesty and great liberty of spirit, noble and magnifical universality. This is that great quality and sufficiency of Socrates, the Coricaeus of the wise, by the confession of all, of whom it is said as Plutarch discourseth, That he never brought forth, but serving as a Midwife, he made others to bring forth. This is very near and in some sense the disorder of the Pyrhonians, the neutrality and indifferency of the Academics, from whence proceedeth, not to be astonished at any thing, not to admire any thing, the sovereign good of Pythagoras, the magnanimity of Aristotle. Nil admirari, prope res est, una Numici Solaque quae possit facere, & servare beatum. It is a strange thing that man will not so much as taste it, yea is offended to hear speech thereof, loveth better to continue a slave to run from one part to another, than to be to himself, to live of his own, to be above all, and to pass equally through all. 5. Hath he not reason to cry with Tiberius, and far more justly, O homines ad servitutem nati? What monster is this, to desire to have all things free, his body, his members, his goods, and not his spirit, which nevertheless is only borne unto liberty? A man will willingly make benefit of whatsoever is in the world, that comes from the East or the West, for the good and service of his body, nourishment, health, ornament, and accommodate it all unto his use, but not for the culture of his spirit, benefit and enriching, giving his body the liberty of the fields, and holding his spirit in close prison. The other liberty which is of the will, must likewise be in high esteem with a wise man. We speak not here of the 7 2 The second part, liberty of will. free will of man, according to the manner of Divines: we say, that a wise man to maintain himself in rest and liberty, must manage his will and his affections, in giving himself and affecting but few things, and those just (for the just are but few in number if a man judge well) and that without violence and asperity. There enter here into combat (or to speak more mildly, there are to be explicated and understood) two popular and plausible opinions in the world; the one teacheth to be ready and willing in the service of another, to forget ourselves for our neighbour, and principally for the weal-public, in respect whereof the particular is not to be respected: the other to carry ourselves courageously with activity, zeal, affection. He that doth not the first, is accused not to have any charity; He that doth not the second, suspected to be cold, not to be a friend, and not to have that zeal or sufficiency that he ought. Some would have these two opinions to prevail beyond reason and measure, and there is not any thing which hath not been spoken hereof: for the heads or Cheeftaines many times preach things according to that use for which they serve, not according as they are: And many times the truest opinions are not the more profitable. And afterwards seeing we hold ourselves too much to ourselves, and with a tie too natural, they would distract us and draw us along, as they that go about to straighten a crooked staff, bend it as much more the contrary way. But these opinions ill understood and ill taken, as they are by divers, bring with them injustice, trouble, pain, and much 8 The description of others. evil, as a man may see in those who backbite and detract from all, giving themselves to hire, and the service of another: They do not only suffer themselves to be carried, and feased upon, but they likewise thrust themselves into all matters, as well into those that concern them not, as those that do, as well into small as great, and many times for no other cause, but to employ and busy themselves, in negotijs sunt negotij causa; and because they cannot hold and stay themselves, asif they had nothing to do, with and within themselves, and that for want of inward, essential, proper and domestical affairs, they seek and undergo those that are strange unto them. They are good husbands and frugal enough of their purse, but prodigal of their souls, their lives, their time, affection, and wills, the good husbandry whereof is only profitable and commendable. And if they give themselves to any thing, it is with such passion and violence, that they are no more their own men, so wholly do they engage and insinuate themselves thereinto. Great men seek after such people, that will grow into passion and kill themselves for them, and they allure them with fair promises and much Art, to win them unto them; and they always find fools enough that believe them, but thev that are wise will take heed of them. This is first unjust, it wholly troubleth the state, drives away the rest, and liberty of the spirit. It is, not to know that which every one ought to know, and by how many offices every man is obliged unto himself; whilst they seek to be officious and serviceable to another, they are unjust to themselves. We have all business enough with and within ourselves, and need not seek means to lose ourselves without, and to give ourselves unto others: every man must hold him to himself. He that knows not how to live honestly, healthfully, and merrily, is ill advised, and takes an ill and unnatural course, if he think to do it by serving another. He must affect and tie himself but to a few things and those just. Secondly, this sharp intention and passionate affection, troubleth all, and hindereth the conduct of those affairs to which he so much giveth himself; as in a precipitate pace too much haste makes a man stumble and enterfeare, and so stays him whether he will or no: Ipsa se volocitas implicat, unde festinatio tarda est. Qui nimium properat seriùs absoluit. So likewise a man being drunken with this violent intention, he entangleth and fettereth himself, commits many indiscretions and wrongs, grows into hard conceits and suspicions of others, becomes impatient in cross or slow occurrents that fall not out according to his own desire: malè cuncta ministrat impetus. This is seen not only in serious affairs, but also vain and frivolous, as in play, where he that is carried with an ardent thirst of gaining, troubleth himself, and the more he troubleth himself, the more he loseth. He that walks moderately, is always with himself, directeth his business with better advantage, and more suredly and cheerfully: he dissembleth, apply, deferreth all to his own leisure, and as his occasions shall fall out: if he chance to be convicted in a matter, it is without torment and affliction, being always ready for a new charge: he always marcheth with the bridle in his hand, festinat lentè. Thirdly, this violent affection infecteth and corrupteth even the judgement itself: for following one part and desiring the advantage thereof, they wax mad if they be contradicted, attributing to their party false praises and conditions, and to the contrary false accusations; interpreting all prognostications and occurrents at their own pleasure, and making them serve their own designments. All that are of the contrary part, must needs be wicked and of contrary conditions, yea and they that speak any good, or descry any good thing in them, are likewise suspected to be of their part. Can it not possibly be that a man honest in all things else, or at least in some thing, may follow a wicked person, maintain a wicked cause? It is enough that passion enforce the will, but that it carry likewise the judgement, and make that a fool, this is too much. It is the sovereign and last part that should always maintain it own authority; and we must ingenuously, and in good sooth acknowledge the good that is in our adversaries, and the evil that is in those whom we follow. The ground and foundation of the controversy being laid aside we must keep moderation and indifferency, and out of the business itself banish all choler, all discontent. And thus we see the evils that this overgreat affection to any thing whatsoever bringeth with it; of all, yea of goodness and wisdom itself a man may have too much. But for a rule herein, we must remember, that the principle 12 An advisement. and most lawful charge that we have, is in every man the conduct and guide of himself. The reason why we are here, is, that we should maintain ourselves in tranquility and liberty. And to do this, the best remedy is, to lend ourselves to others, and to give ourselves to none but to ourselves; to take our affairs into our hands, not to place them in our hearts; to take business upon us, but not incorporate them into us; to be diligent, not passionate, not to tie ourselves but to a few, but rather always to reserve ourselves unto ourselves. This counsel condemneth not those offices due to the weal-public, to our friends, our neighbour, yea it is so far from it, that a wise man must be officious and charitable, apply unto himself the customs of other men and the world, and the rather to do it, he must contribute to public society those offices and duties which concern him. Qui sibi amicus est, hunc omnibus scito esse amicum. But I require a double moderation and discretion herein; the one, that a man apply not himself to all that is presented unto him, but to that which is just and necessary; and that is not hard to be done: the other, that it be without violence and trouble. He must desire little, and that little moderately; busy himself little, and that peaceably: and in those charges that he undertaketh, employ his pace, his speech, his attentions, his sweatings, his means, and if need be, his blood, his life; but yet without vexation and passion, keeping himself always to himself in health and tranquility. A man may perform his duty sufficiently without this ardency, and this so great contention of will. And they deceive themselves very much, that think that a business is not well done, and there is no manner of affection, if it be not done with tempest, clamour and clatter: for contrariwise, it is that that hindereth and troubleth the good guide and conduct thereof, as hath been said. O how many men hazard their lives every day in those wars which no way concern them, and thrust themselves into the danger of that bartell, the loss whereof doth no way trouble their sleep: and all to the end they may not fail in their duty! whilst there is another in his own house, that dares not enter the danger, or look the enemy in the face, is more affected with the issue of that war, and hath his mind more troubled than the soldier that adventureth his blood and life in the field. Finally, we must know how to distinguish and separate ourselves from our public charges: every one of us playeth two parts, two persons; the one strange and apparent, the other proper and essential: we must discern the skin from the shirt. An active man will perform his charge, and yet withal not leave to judge of the folly, vice, deceit that is therein: he will conform himself to every thing, because the custom of his country requireth it, it is profitable to the weal-public: the world lives so, and therefore it must be done. A man must serve and make use of the world such as he findeth it; in the mean time, he must likewise consider it as a thing estranged from itself, know how to keep and carry himself apart, and to communicate himself to his own trusty good, howsoever things fall out with himself. CHAP. III. True and essential honesty, the first and fundamental part of wisdom. Having prepared and disposed our scholar to wisdom by these precedent advisements, that is to say, having purified and freed him from all evils, and placed him in a good estate, of a full and universal liberty, to the end he may have a perfect view, knowledge and power over all things (which is the privilege of a wise and spiritual man, spiritualis omnia dijudicat) it is now time to give him instructions and general rules of wisdom. The two first shall be as preambles and foundations, whereof the first and principal is honesty or probity. It will not be, perhaps, any matter of difficulty, to make good this proposition, That honesty is the first principal and fundamental part of wisdom: for all (whether in truth and good earnest, or in outward show, for shame or fear to say the contrary) do applaud it; they always honour it in the first place, confessing themselves servitors and affectionate followers thereof: but it will cost me some labour to show and persuade, which is that true and essential probity we here require. For that which is in authority and credit, wherewith the whole world contenteth itself, that which is only known, sought for, and possessed (I always except some few of the wiser) is bastardly, artificial, false, and counterfeit. First we know that many times we are lead & pricked forward 2 Masques of honesty. to virtue and honourable actions, by wicked and condemned means, by default & natural impotency, by passion, and vice itself; chastity, sobriety, temperancy may be in us by reason of our corporal imbecility; the contempt of the world, patience in adversity, constancy in danger, proceed many times from want of apprehension and judgement: valour, liberality, justice itself, from ambition: discretion, prudence, from fear, from avarice. And how many beautiful actions hath presumption and temerity brought forth? So that the actions of virtue are many times no other but masks, they carry the outward countenance, but they have not the essence; they may very well be termed virtuous in consideration of another, and of the visage they carry outwardly and in public, but in truth and with the actor himself they are nothing so; for it will appear at the last, that profit, glory, custom, and other the like strange causes have induced him to do them. Sometimes they arise from stupidity and brutish sottishness, and therefore it is said, that wisdom and sottish simplicity do meet in one and the same point, touching the bearing and suffering of human actions. It is then very dangerous to judge of the probity or improbity of a man by his actions: we must sound him within, from what foundation these motions do arise: wicked men perform many times many good and excellent actions, and both good and evil preserve themselves alike from doing evil, oderunt peccare boni & mali. To discover therefore and to know which is the true Honesty, we must not stay in the outward action, that is but the sign, the simplest token, and many times a cloak and mask to cover villainy: we must penetrate into the inward part, and know the motive which causeth the strings to play, which is the soul and the life that giveth motion to all. It is that whereby we must judge, it is that wherein every man should provide to be good and entire, and that which we seek. That honesty which is commonly accounted true, and so much preached and commended of the world, whereof they 3 Vulgar honesty, and according to the style of the world. make express profession, who have the title and public reputation to be men of honesty and settled constancy, is scholastical, and pedantical, servant to the laws, enforced by hope, and fear, acquired, learned and practised out of a submission too, & a consideration of the religion, laws, customs, commands of superiors, other men's examples, subject to prescript forms, effeminate, fearful, and troubled with scruples and doubts; sunt quibus innocentia nisi metu non placet: which is not only in respect of the world divers and variable, according to the diversity of religions, laws, examples, forms, (for the jurisdictions changing, the motions must likewise alter) but also in itself unequal, wavering, deambulatorie, according to the access, recess, and success of the affairs, the occasions which are presented, the persons with whom a man hath to do, as a ship driven with the winds and the oars, is carried away with an unequal tottering pace, with many blows, blasts, and billows. To be brief, these are honest men by accident and occasion, by outward and strange events, and not in verity and essence; they understand it not, and therefore it is easy to discover them, and to convince them, by shaking of a little their bridle, and sounding them somewhat nearer, but above all, by that inequality and diversity which is found in them: for in one and the same action they will give divers judgements, and carry themselves altogether after a divers fashion, going sometimes a slow pace, sometimes running a main gallop. This unequal diversity proceedeth from this, that the outward occasions which move and stir them, do either puff them up, multiply and increase them, or make them lukewarm and deject them, more or less like accidents, quae recipiunt magis & minus. Now that true honesty, which I require in him that will be wise, is free, manly, and generous, pleasant, and cheerful, equal 4 The description of true honesty. , uniform, and constant, which marcheth with a stayed pace, stately and haughty, going always his own way, neither looking on this side, or behind him, without staying or altering his pace, or gate for the wind, the times, the occasions, which are changed, but that is not, I mean in judgement and will, that is in the soul, where honesty resideth and hath it seat. For outward actions, especially the public have another jurisdiction, as shall be said in his place: This honesty I will describe in this place, giving you first to understand, that following the designment of this book declared in the Preface, I speak of human honesty and wisdom, as it is human, whereby a man is called an honest man and a wise, and not of Christian, though in the end I may chance to speak a word or two thereof. The jurisdiction of this honesty is Nature, which bindeth 5 Nature enjoineth honesty. every man to be, and to make himself such as he ought, that is to say, to conform and rule himself according unto it. Nature is together both a mistress which enjoineth and commandeth honesty, and a law and instruction which teacheth it unto us. As touching the first, there is a natural obligation inward and universal in every man to be honest, just, upright, following the intention of his author and maker. A man ought not to attend or seek any other cause, obligation, instinct, or motive of this honesty; and he can never know how to have a more just and lawful, more powerful, more ancient, it is altogether as soon as himself, borne with himself. Every man should be, or should desire to be an honest man, because he is a man, and he that takes no care to be such is a monster, renounceth himself, belieth, destroyeth himself, by right he is no more a man, and in effect should desist to be a man. It is necessary that honesty grow in him by himself, that is to say, by that inward instinct which God hath put in him, and not from any other outward and strange cause, any occasion, or induction. A man will not, out of a just and regular will, any thing that is depraved, or corrupt, or other than it own nature requireth, it implieth a contradiction to desire or accept a thing, and nothing to care whether it be worth the caring for; a man would have all his parts good and sound, his body, his head, his eyes, his judgement, his memory, yea his hose and shoes; and why will he not like wise have his will, and his conscience good, that is to say, be wholly good and sound? I will therefore that he be good, and have his will firm and resolved to equity and honesty, for the love of himself, and because he is a man, knowing that he can be no other, without the renouncing and destruction of himself, and so his honesty shall be proper, inward, essential, even as his own essence is unto him, and he unto himself. It must not then be for any outward consideration, and proceeding from without, whatsoever it be, for such a cause being accidental and outward, may happen to fail, grow weak, and alter, and consequently all that honesty that is grounded thereupon, must do the like. If he be an honest man, for honour, or reputation, or other recompense, being in a solitary place, where he hath no hope to be known, he either ceaseth to be honest, or putteth it in practice very coldly and negligently. If for fear of the laws, magistrates, punishments, if he can deceive the laws, cirumvent the judges, avoid or disprove the proofs, and hide himself from the knowledge of another, there is an end of his honesty. And this honesty is but frail, occasioned, accidental and miserable; and yet it is that which is in authority and use, no man knows of any other, there is not an honest man, but such as is enforced or invited by some cause, or occasion, nemo gratis bonus est. Now I would have in this my wise man an essential and invincible honesty, which dependeth of itself, and ariseth from it own root, and may as hardly be separated, and rooted out, as humanity from a man. I will that he never consent unto evil, and though his honesty be not made known to any, yet if he know it himself, what needs any more? If all the world beside should know it, it is not so much, quid tibi prodest non habere con●●ium, habenti conscient iam? And what though he receive no great recompense for it? For what may it be that concerneth him so near, as his own proper essence? This were not to care how bad the horse is, so the saddle be fair. I will then that those things be inseparable, to be, and to consent to live a man, to be, and to be willing to be an honest man. This first hath been sufficiently pressed. Let us come to the second. Now the pattern and rule to be honest, is this nature it 6 Nature teacheth honesty. self, which absolutely requireth that we be such, it is, I say, this equity and universal reason which shineth in every one of us. He which worketh according to it, worketh truly according to God, for it is God, or at least, his first fundamental and universal law, which hath brought it into the world, and which came first from God; for God and nature are in the world, as in a state, the king, the author and founder, and the fundamental law which he hath made for the preservation and government of the said estate. This is a lightning and ray of the divinity, a stream and dependence of the eternal law, which is God himself and his will: quid natura nisi Deus, & divina ratio toti mundo, & partibus eius inserta? He worketh also according to himself, for he worketh according to the stern, and animated instinct, which he hath within himself moving and stirring him: and so he is an honest man essentially, and not by accident and occasion; for this law and light is essential and natural in us, and therefore it is called Nature, and the law of nature. He is also by consequent an honest man, always and perpetually, uniformly and equally at all times and in all places: for this law of equity, and natural reason is perpetual in us, edictum perpetuum, inviolable, which can never be extinct nor defaced, quam nec ipsa delet iniquitas; vermis eorum non morietur, universal and constant in all things, and always the same, equal uniform, which neither time nor place can alter nor disguise, receiveth neither access nor recess, more nor less, substantia non recipit magis & minus. What seckest thou elsewhere, either law or rule in the world? What may a man say or allege which thou hast not about thee and within, if thou wilt but feel and hearken to thyself? A man may say to thee, as to a bad debtor, who asked for what the debt is, and will see the bill which he hath about him, Quod petis intus habes; Thou demandest that which thou hast in thy own bosom. Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui. Gentes naturaliter Psal. 4. Rom. 1. August. quae legis sunt faciunt: ostendunt opus legis scriptum in cordibus suis; lex scripta in cordibus nostris. The law of Moses in his decalogue, is an outward and public copy, the law of the twelve tables, and the Roman law, the moral instructions of divines and Philosophers, the advisements and counsels of Lawyers, the edicts and ordinances of Princes are no other but petty and particular pourtraies thereof: so that if there be any law, that straveth the least that may be from this first and original mistress, it is a monster, falsehood, and error. To be brief, all the laws of the world, are no other but copies and abstracts brought forth into judgement, against thee that holdest hidden the original, and makest as if thou knewest it not, extinguishing as much as in thee lieth this light, which enlighteneth thee within, qui veritatem dei detinent in iniustitia, for these laws had never been published abroad, but because that law which was inward, wholly celestial and divine, hath been too much contemned and forgotten. These are all rivers, but such as neither have so much water, nor so pure as the source and invisible fountain, which is within thee, if thou suffer it not to perish, and to be lost: I say not so much water, Quam multa pietas, humanitas, liberalitas, fides exigunt, quae extra tabulas sunt. O the miserable honesty of formalists, who hold themselves to the words of the law, and so think themselves discharged! How many duties are there required beside? Quam angusta innocentia ad legem bonum esse: latius officiorum patet quam juris regula. The rule of our duty is far larger than that of the law, which is neither so strong, nor so lively, witness this one thing, that well to understand and know their intention to quit ourselves of ambiguity, difficulty, contrariety, we must bring them to the source, and reentring into the inward part, put them to the touch and rule of nature, Anima leg is ratio. Behold then an essential, radical, and fundamental honesty, sprung in us from it own proper roots by the seed of that universal reason which is in the soul, as the spring and balance in a clock, as the natural heat in the body, maintaining itself of itself strong and invincible, whereby a man worketh according to God, according to himself, nature, the universal order and policy of the world, quietly, sweetly, and as silently without noise, as a Ship that is not driven but by the natural and ordinary course of the water: All other is engrafted by art and by accidental discipline, as the heat and cold offevers, acquired and conducted by strange occasions and considerations, working with clamour and clatter ambitiously. This is the reason why the doctrine of all the Sages doth 7 We must follow nature. teach, that to live well, is to live according to nature, that the chiefest good in this world is to consent to nature, that in following nature as our guide and mistress, we can never err, Naturam si sequaris ducem nusquam aberrabis: bonum est quod secundùm naturam, omnia vitia contra naturam sunt: Idem beatè vivere & secundum naturam: understanding by nature that equity and universal reason which shineth in us, which containeth and hatcheth in it the seeds of all virtues, probity, justice, and is the matrix from whence all good and excellent laws do spring and arise, yea those true and just judgements that are sometimes pronounced by the mouth of an idiot. Nature hath disposed all things in the best state that they could be, and hath given them the first motion to good, and the end which they should seek, in such sort, that he that will follow her, need not obtain and possess his own good and his own end, Sapientia est in naturam converti, & eò restitui unde publicus error expulerit; Ab illa non deerr are, ad illius legem exemplumque formari sapientia est. Men are naturally good, and follow not evil, but for profit or pleasure, and therefore lawmakers to induce them to follow their natural and good inclination, and not to enforce their wills, have proposed two contrary things, punishment and reward. Doubtless, Nature in every one of us is sufficient, and a sweet Mistress and rule to all things, if we will hearken unto 8 As a good and sufficient mistress. her, employ and awaken her; and we need not seek elsewhere, nor beg of Art and the Sciences, the means, the remedies, and the rules which we have need of: Every one of us if he will, may live at his pleasure of his own. To live content and happy, a man need not be wise, a courtier, nor so active; all this sufficiency that is beyond the common and natural is vain and superfluous, yea it bringeth more evil with it than good. We see ignorant people, idiots, and simple men, lead their lives more sweetly and cheerfully, resist the assaults of death, of want, of sorrow, more constantly and contentedly, than the wisest men and most active. And if a man mark it well, he shall find among persants and other poor people examples of patience, constancy, equanimity, more pure than all those that are taught in Schools; they follow simply the reason and conduct of nature, they travel quietly and contentedly in their affairs, not inflaming or elevating themselves, and consequently more sound: Others mount themselves upon their great horses, play the light horsemen, bandy themselves one against the other, keep their brains always in work and agitation. A great master and admirable doctor in nature was Socrates, as Aristotle in art and science. Socrates by simple and natural discourses, by vulgar similitudes and inductions, speaking like a country swain, did furnish us with precepts and rules of good life, and remedies against all evils, so substantial and strong, that all the art and science of the world could not devise better or the like. But we do not only not hearken unto it, believe and follow 9 We altar it wholly. By violence. it according to the counsel of the wise, but also (not to speak of those monsters who by the violence of their vices, inordinate and perverse delights and pleasures suffocate and extinguish, as much as in them lieth, the light, mortify the seed thereof) we endeavour to avoid it, we suffer it to sleep and to cease, loving better to beg elsewhere our first rudiments, to run to study and art, than to content ourselves By art. with that which is bred within us. We have a busy troublesome spirit, which offereth itself to rule and govern in all things, and which carrieth itself after our own wills, disguiseth, changeth, and troubleth all, will add, invent, altar, and can not stay itself in home-born simplicity, it thinketh nothing good wherein there is not craft and subtlety, simplex illa & aperta virtus in obscuram & solertem scientiam versa est. And it is a vice common amongst us, not to account of any thing that is in us, we esteem only of that which is bought, which is costly, and is brought from far: we prefer art before nature, we shut the windows at highnoone, and light candles. This fault and folly proceedeth from another, that is, that we esteem not of things according to their true and essential value, but according to the show and report. How many are there more scrupulous and exact in those things that belong to the positive and municipal law, than the natural? Truly almost all, yea even in the ceremonial, and law of civility, which we have framed to ourselves, in respect By ceremonis. whereof we disdain and are ashamed of nature. We speak little, we make a fair show, and carefully keep a decorum or decency, and make no difficulty to go directly against nature, duty, conscience. So that the shadow is more unto us than the body, the root, the countenance more than the substance and sound verity. That we may not offend a ceremony, we cover and hide things natural; we dare not name, and we blush at the sound of things, which we do in no sort fear to do, both lawful and unlawful. We dare not speak that which is permitted to do, we dare not directly to name our own proper members, and yet we fear not to employ them in all manner of wickedness: we pronounce, speak, and do, without fear and without shame, wicked things, and such as are against nature and reason, forswear, betray, assail, kill, deceive; and we blush to speak of things good, natural, necessary, just and lawful. There is not a husband, which is not more ashamed to embrace his wife in the open view of the world, than to kill, lie, assail; nor a woman that will not rather utter any wickedness in the world, than name that wherein she taketh most delight, and may lawfully do. Even to treasons and murders, they tie themselves to the laws of a ceremony, and there fasten their devoirs. A strange thing, that injustice should complain of incivility, malice of indiscretion! The act of a ceremony, doth it not prevail against nature? The ceremony forbiddeth us to express natural things and lawful, and we give credit thereunto: Nature and reason forbiddeth us things unlawful, and no man believes it: A man sends his conscience to the brothell-house, and keeps his outward countenance in order. All this is monstrous, and the like is not found amongst beasts. I will not for all this say (as I perceive malice doth already mutter) that ceremony and decency ought not carefully be kept, which is the salt and seasoning of our actions and conversations. Amo verecundiam, in ea ornatus vitae, & Cicer. vis decori. But I say to them as our Saviour to men of the like spirit: O hypocritae excelantes culicem, camelum deglutientes, Matth. 23. qui minima curatis, graviora spernitis: Haec oportet primùm facere, tum illa non omittere. From this general and universal alteration and corruption 10 In such sort, that it is no more known in man. it is come to pass, that there is nothing of Nature known in us. If we must say what the laws thereof are, and how many they are, we are much hindered. The ensign & mark of a natural law is the university of approbation: for that which Nature shall have truly ordained for us, we with a common consent shall follow without doubting; and not only every nation, but every particular person. Now there is not any thing in the world which is not denied and contradicted, not by one nation, but by divers: and there is not any thing so strange and unnatural in the opinion of divers, which is not approved and authorised in many places by common use. The little care of having children, the murder of parents, of children, of himself, marriage of the nearest in blood, theft, public merchandise of their liberty and bodies, as well of males as females, are received by public use in many nations. Doubtless there remaineth no more any image or trace of nature in us, we must go seek it in beasts, where this troublesome 11 And we must seek it elsewhere. and unquiet spirit, this quicksilver, neither art, nor beautiful ceremony hath power to alter it; they have it pure and entire, if it be not corrupted by our usage and contagion, as sometimes it is. All the world followeth nature, the first and universal rule which the author thereof hath given and established, except man only who troubleth the policy and state of the world with his gentle spirit, and his freewill to wickedness; he is the only irregular creature, and enemy of nature. So then the true honesty (the foundation and pillar of wisdom) is to follow nature, that is to say, reason. The good and 12 True honesty. the end of man, in whom consisteth his rest, his liberty, his contentment, and in a word, his perfection in this world, is, to live and do according to nature, when that which is the most excellent thing in him commandeth, that is to say, reason. True honesty is a right and firm disposition of the will to follow the counsel of reason: And as the heedle touched with the adamant never resteth itself until he see the north point, and thereby ordereth and directeth the navigation; so a man is never well, yea, he is as it were undone, and dislocated, until he see this law, and directeth the course of his life, his manners, his judgements and wills, according to the first, divine, natural law, which is an inward domestical light, whereof all the rest are but beams. But to effect it, and to come to the practice, it is far more easy to some, than to others. There are some that have their 13 The distinction of true honesty. particular nature, that is to say, their temper and temperature so good and pleasing (which especially proceedeth from the first formation in the womb of the mother, and afterwards from the milk of the nurse, and this first and tender education) that they find themselves without endeavour, and without art or discipline, wholly carried and disposed to goodness and honesty, that is to say, to follow and conform themselves to the universal nature, whereby they are termed well-born; gaudeant bene nati. This kind of natural and easy honesty, and as it were Natural goodness. borne with us, is properly called goodness, a quality of a soul well borne and well governed, it is a sweetness, facility, and debonairie mildness of nature: and not (lest any body should be deceived) a softness, a feminine, sottish calmness and vicious facility, whereby a man delighteth to please all, and not to displease or offend any, although he have a just and a lawful cause, and it be for the service of reason and justice; whereby it comes to pass, that they will not employ themselves in lawful actions, when it is against those that take offence thereat; nor altogether refuse the unlawful, when they please thereby those that consent thereunto. Of these kind of people it is said (and this commendation is injurious) He is good, since he is good even to the wicked; and this accusation true, How should he be good, since he is not evil, to those that are evil? We should rather call this kind of goodness innocency, as men call little children sheep, and the like, innocent creatures. But an active, valiant, manly, and effectual goodness is that I require, which is a ready, easy, and constant affection unto that which is good, right, just, according to reason and nature. There are others so ill borne and bred, that it seemeth (that like monsters) their particular natures are made, as it were in despite of the universal nature, so cross and contrary are they thereunto. In this case the remedy to correct, reform, sweeten, make tame, and amend this evil, rough, savage, and crooked nature, to bend it and apply it to the rule of this general and great mistress the universal nature, is to have recourse to the study of philosophy (as Socrates did) and unto Acquired virtue. virtue, which is a combat and painful endeavour against vice, a laborious study, which requireth time, labour, and discipline. Virtus in arduo & circa difficile: ad ianuam virtutis excubant labour & sudor. Dij mortalibus virtutem laboris pretio vendiderunt. This is not to bring in a new, strange, or artificial honesty, and so accidental, and such, as I have said before, is not the true; but it is by taking away the lets and hindrances, to stir up and enlighten this light almost extinct and languishing, and to revive those seeds almost choked by the particular vice, and ill temperature of the particular person; as by taking away the moat from the eye, the sight is recovered, and the dust from off the glass, a man seethe the clearer. By all this that hath been said, it appeareth that there are 14 Three degrees of perfection. two sorts of true honesty; the one natural, sweet, easy, just, called goodness; the other acquired, difficult, painful, and laborious, called virtue. But to say the truth, there is also a third, which is, as it were, composed of the two, and so there should be three degrees of perfection. The lowest of the three is a facile and debonairie nature, distasted by itself by reason of vice; we have named it goodness, innocency. The second more high, which we have named virtue, is with a lively force to hinder the progress of vice, and having suffered himself to be surprised, with the first motions of the passions, to arm and bend himself to stay their course, and to overcome them. The third and chiefest, is out of a high resolution, and a perfect habit, to be so well framed, that temptations cannot so much as grow in him, and the seeds of vice are wholly rooted out, in so much that his virtue is turned into a complexion, and into nature. This last may be called perfection. That & the first, which is called goodness, do resemble one the other, and differ from the second, in that they are without stir, pain, or endeavour. This is the true tincture of the soul, her natural and ordinary course, which costeth nothing. The second is always in care and in awe. The last and perfect is acquired by the long study and serious exercise of the rules of philosophy, joined to a beautiful and rich nature. For both are necessary, the natural and the acquired. This is that those two sects did so much study, the Stoics and much more the Epicures (which would have seemed strange if Seneca and other ancient Philosophers did not testify it, who are rather to be credited, than all the other more modern) who made asport and play game of shame, want, sickness, griefs, tortures, death: They did not only contemn, patiently endure and vanquish all asperities and difficulties, but they fought them, they took pleasure and delight in them, and all to keep their virtue in breath, and in action, which made them not only firm, constant, grave and severe, as Cato and the Stoics, but cheerful, merry, wanton, and if a man may so say, foolhardy too. By the comparison of these three together, it seemeth to some (who understand not the height and value of the third) that the second, which we call virtue, by reason of the difficulties, dangers, endeavours thereof, carrieth the honour, and that as Metellus said, to do evil is an idle and a base thing; to do good where there is neither pain nor danger, is a common thing and too easy; but to do good where there is danger and pain, is the part of an honest man, and of virtue: it is the mot of that divine Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. But to speak in truth that which it is, besides that difficulty (as elsewhere hath been said) is no true, not just and lawful cause, why a thing should be the more esteemed, it is certain that in the like thing the natural is more worth than the acquired, that it is far more noble, more excellent and divine to work by nature than by Art, easily, equally, uniformedly, than painfully, unequally, with doubt and danger. God is good after the first manner, that is, the natural and essential goodness, we dare not call him virtuous, nor the Angels and spirits fortunate they are called good. But because virtue maketh a greater clamour and stir, and worketh with greater vehemency than goodness, it is more admired and esteemed of the vulgar sort (who are but foolish judges) but wrongfully. For these great exalters and extravagant productions; which seem to be all zeal and fire, are no part of the play, and do not in any sore appertain to true honesty; they are rather maladies and furious entrances, fair distant from that wisdom we here require, which is sweet, equal, & uniform. Thus much be spoken in gross of honesty; for the parts thereof and the duties shall be handled in the third booken especially in the virtue of justice I will here add a word or two (according to promise) to rebate and blunt the point of detraction, and to stay the plaints of those, that dislike that I attribute so much to nature (although it be God as hath been said, and this book speaketh not but of the natural and human) as if that were all, and there were nothing else to be required. Wherefore besides all that hath been said, there remaineth yet one thing to make this work complete and perfect, and that is the grace of God, whereby this honesty, goodness, virtue, hath life, is brought forth in his due tune, and receiveth it last and perfect portrait, it is elevated, christened, crowned, that is to say, accepted, verified, approved by God, and made (after a sort) worthy it due reward. Honesty is like to a good Organist, who toucheth well and truly according to art: the grace and spirit of God, is the blast and wind which expresseth the touch, giveth life, and maketh the instrument to speak, and to make a pleasant melody. Now this good consisteth not in long discourse, precepts and instructions, neither is it attained by our own proper act and labour, it is a free gift from above, whereof it taketh the name, Grace: but we must desire it, ask, implore it, both humbly and ardently: O God, vouchsafe of thy infinite goodness to look upon me with the eye of thy clemency, to accept & to like of my desire, mine essay, my little work, which comes originally from thee, by that obligation and instruction, which thou hast given me in the law of nature, which thou hast planted in me, to the end it may return unto thee, and that thou mayest end that thou hast begun, that so thou mayest be both my α and ω Sprinkle me with thy grace, keep me, and account me thine, and so forth. The better to obtain it, that is to say to incline God unto us, is this Art. 14. honesty (as hath been said in the Preface, whither (that I may not iterate it) I resend the reader) the matter being well prepared, is the fit for the 〈◊〉, the grace, it is not contrary, neither doth it enforce or destroy nature, but sweetly it relieveth and perfecteth it, so that it must not oppose itself thereunto as to it contrary, but put it on as a crown. They are both of God, they must not therefore be confounded; every one hath his jurisdiction, his action apart: The organist and he that worketh at the bellows are two, so are honesty and grace, the action good in itself naturally, rhorhlly, humainly, and that by grace made acceptable. That may well be without this, and hath his worth, as in those philosophers & great men in times past, admirable in nature, and in all kind of moral virtue, and is likewise found in misbelievers or Infidels; but this cannot be without that, no more than the covering, the crown and perfection can be without the entire body. The player or organist may in every point exercise his art, without the bellowes-blower, and so likewise honesty without grace. It is true that this cannot be but aes sonans, and cymbulum tinniens, but this requireth that ● wherein I see many to mistake themselves very grossly, who never have any taste, or do ever conceive the image of true honestle, and continue puffed up with a persuasion of grace, which they think to practise, to attract, to attain by certain easy & idle means, after the manner of the pharisees, where with they rest contented, not troubling themselves any further for the true honesty, promotiper saltum, Masters without apprenticeship, Doctors and nobles in parchment. Now I see many of these kind of people in the would, but very few such as Aristides, Bhotion, Cato, Regulus, Socrates; Scipio, Epaminondas, that is to say, professors of an exact, true, and solid moral virtue, and philosophical probity. That complaint and reproach so frequent of the sovereign Doctor of the truth, against hypocritical Pharifies, will always have place, for such people will never be wanting, no not amongst the Censors and refourcers of the world. Now having spoken much of honesty, we must likewise in a word or two touch the contrary thereunto. Wickedness i●s against nature, it is foul; deformed, and unprofitable, it offendeth every good judgement, fit breedeth a 17 The description of wickedness. hatred of itself being well known, whereupon some have said, that it was bred and brought forth by idleness and ignorance. Again, wickedness engendereth offence and repentance in the soul, which like an ulcer in the flesh, eateth and fretteth it, malice and mischief buildeth up torments against itself: malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit: malum consilium consultori possimum: like the wasp, which with his sting offendeth another but much more himself, for he leaveth behind him, and that for ever, both his sting and his strength: vice both pleasure in it, otherwise it would not be received, nor find place in the world, nemo enim animi causu malus est; but it doth withal engender displeasure and offence, pain followeth firm, saith Plato, yea it groweth with it, saith Hesiodus, which is quite contrary to the will and to virtue, which rejoiceth and contenteth. There is a congratulation, a pleasing contentment and satisfaction in well doing; it is the true and essential reward of a good soul, which can never fail him, and wherewith he must content himself in this world. There is no man maketh a doubt, whether vice be to be avoided, and hated above all things; but it is a question, whether 18 Whether it be never permitted to sin. there may be any such profit or pleasure, as may carry with it a sufficient excuse for the committing of such or such a fin. It seemeth to divers, that there may. Touching prosin, if it be public, there is no doubt (but yet with limitation, as shall be said in the virtue of politic prudence) but some will say as much of particular profit and pleasure. A man ● Lib. 3. cap. 2. might speak and judge hereof more certainly, if some certain fact on example were proposed: but to speak simply, we are firmly to hold the negative. That sin can not inwardly furnish us with such pleasure and content, as honesty doth, there is no doubt; but that it 19 Whether all sin engender repentance. The distinction of vice or wickedness. tormendth (as hath been said) it is not universally and in all senses true: we must therefore distinguish it. There are three sorts of wickedness and wicked people some are incorporated into evil, by discourse and resolution, or by long habit, in such sort, that their understanding itself approveth it and consenteth there unto. This falleth out, when sin having met with a strong and vigorous heart, is in such sort rooted therein, that it is there form and as it were naturalised, and the soul infected and wholly tainted therewith. Others contrariwise do ill by impulsions, according as the violent wind of temptation troubleth, stirreth and precipitateth the soul unto sin, and as they are surprised and carried by the force of passion. The third, as midling betwixt these two, account their vice such as it is, they accuse and condemn it, contrary to the first, and they are not carried by passion or temptation as the second; but in cold blood, having well thought thereof, they enter into the market, they balance it with some great pleasure or profit, and in the end at a certain price and measure they yield thereunto, and they think they have some excuse to do it. Of this sort of sins are usuries, obscenities or venereous pleasures, and other sins many times resumed, consulted, deliberated, as also the sins of complexion. Of these three, the first do never repent, without some extraordinary 20 Their comparison. touch from heaven: for being settled and hardened in wickedness, they feel not the prick and sting thereof: for since the understanding approveth it, and the soul is wholly tainted therewith, the will hath no will to gainsay it. The third repent, or seem in a certain fashion, that is to say, simply considering the dishonest action in itself, but afterwards weighing it with profit or pleasure, they repent not at all: and to say the truth, and to speak properly, they do not repent, since both their reason and conscience willeth and consenteth to the fault. The second are they that repent and readuise themselves, and of whom properly it is called repentance; whereof I will here take occasion to speak a word or two. Repentance is a disavowing or denial, and a retractation 21 Of repentance. of the will, that is, a sorrow or grief engendered in us by reason, which driveth away all other sorrows and griefs which proceed from outward causes. Repentance is inward, inwardly engendered, and therefore more strong than any other, as the heat and cold of a fever is more violent than that which is outward. Repentance is the medicine of the soul, the death of sin, the cure of our wills and consciences: but it is necessary that we well know it. First, it is not of every sin, as hath been said, not of that which is inveterate, habituated, authorized by the judgement itself, but of the accidental, and that which happeneth either by surprise or by force; nor of things that are not in our power, whereof we are sorry we cannot repent; neither can it be in us, by reason of bad issues, and contrary to our counsels and designments. If a matter fall out besides a man's thought, conceit, and advice; for that he must not repent him of his counsel and advice, if he therein carry himself as he ought, for a man cannot divine of events; and if a man did know them, yet he hath no place to consult of them; and we never are to judge of counsels by their issues; neither must it grow in him by the age, impotency, & distaste of things, this were to suffer his judgement to be corrupted: for the things are not changed, because we are changed, by age, sickness, or other accidents. The growing wise, or amendment, which comes by anxiety, distaste, or feebleness, is not true and religious, but idle and languishing. The weakness of the body is no fit post to carry us to God, and to our duty and repentance, but true repentance is the gift of God, which toucheth our heart, and must grow in us not by the weakness of the body, but by the force of the soul and of reason. Now from true repentance there ariseth a true, free, and religious confession of our faults. As in the maladies of the body 22 Of confession and excuse. we see two kinds of remedies, the one which healeth, taking away the cause and root of the malady, the other which doth only cover it and bring it asleep, and therefore the former is more forcible and more wholesome. So likewise in the maladies of the soul, the true remedy which cleanseth and healeth, is a serious and modest confession of our faults; the other false which doth only disguise and cover, is excuse, a remedy invented by the author of evil itself, whereof the proverb is, That sin soweth itself a garment, that is, excuse, the garment made of fig leaves by the first offenders, who covered themselves both with words and deeds, but it was a garment without warmth. We should therefore learn to accuse ourselves, boldly to confess all our actions & thoughts; for besides that it were a fair and generous liberty, it were likewise a mean not to do or think any thing, which were not honest and fit to be published: for he that will be content to be bound to tell all, will be likewise content to bind himself to do nothing that a man is constrained to hide; but contrarily, every man is discreet and secret in confession, but not in action. Boldness to sin, is in some sort bridled by boldness to confess. If it be undecent to do a thing, it is far more undecent not to dare to avouch it. Many great and holy men, as Saint Austin, Origen, Hypocrates, have published the errors of their opinions, and we should do the like of our manners. By going about to hide them, a man falleth many times into greater evils, as he that solemnly denieth that he hath abused his body with another, by thinking to mend the matter mars it, at leastwise multiplies his sin. This is not to excuse vice, but to add thereunto. CHAP. FOUR To have a certain end and form of life, the second foundation of Wisdom. AFter this first foundation of true and inward honesty, there cometh as it were by way of preamble, a second foundation, necessary for the government of our life, which is to prepare and frame ourselves to a certain and assured course of life, to make choice of that calling which doth best befit us, and is proper unto us; that is to say, which our particular nature (following always the universal, our great and general mistress and governor) doth willingly accommodate and apply itself unto. Wisdom is a sweet and regular conduct and carriage of our soul, guiding it with measure and proportion, and consisteth in an equality of life and manners. This choice than is a matter of great difficulty, wherein a 2 This choice a difficult thing, wherein a man carrieth himself diversty. man carrieth himself very diversly, and wherein he findeth himself hindered by divers considerations, which draw him into divers parts, and many times hurt and hinder one another. Some are happy therein, who by a great goodness and felicity of nature, have known both speedily and easily how to choose, and either by a certain good hap, without any great deliberation, are, as it were, wholly carried into that course of life, which doth best befit them, in such sort that fortune hath been their chooser, and led them unto it, or by the friendly and provident hand of another, they have been guided and directed. Others contrarily are unhappy, who having failed even from the entrance, and wanting the spirit or industry to know themselves, and in a good hour to be readuifed how they might cunningly withdraw their stake in the midst of the game, are in such sort engaged, that they can no more recall themselves, and so constrained to lead a life full of inconvenience and repentance. But it likewise proceedeth many times from the great default of him that deliberateth, either in not knowing himself well, and presuming too much of himself, whereby it falleth out that he must either shamefully desist from that which he hath undertaken, or endure much pain and torment in persisting therein. He must remember that to carry a burden, it is necessary there be more strength than burden, otherwise a man is constrained either to leave it, or to sink under it. A wise man doth never charge himself with more business, than he knoweth how to go thorough: or in not settling himself in any thing, but changing from day to day, as they do that are never pleased nor satisfied with any thing, but that which they have not, every thing discontenteth them, as well ease, as business, to command as to obey. These kind of people live miserably, and without rest, as men constrained. The other likewise cannot hold themselves quiet, they cease not to go and come to no purpose, they seem to do much and do nothing; the actions of a wise man do always tend to some certain end, Magnam rem puta unum hominem agere, praeter sapientem nemo unum agit, multiformes sumus. But the most part do not deliberate, and consult of any thing, they suffer themselves to be led like oxen, or carried according to the times, company, occasion, and they know not how to give a reason, why they are rather of this calling than another, except it be because their father professed the same, or that they were unawares carried into it, and so have continued therein, in such sort, that as they did never well consider of their entrance, so they know not which way to get out, Pauci sunt qui consilio se suaque disponant, caeteri eorum more qui fluminibus innatant, non eunt sed feruntur. Now that a man may carry himself well herein, choose well, and well acquit himself, he must know two things and 3 Counsel in chose afairs. two natures; his own, that is, his complexion, his port and capacity, his temperature, in what a man excelleth, in what he is feeble, what he is fit for, for what he is unfit: For to go against his own nature, is to tempt God, to spit against the heavens, to leave the business undone, because he cannot do it, nec quidquam sequi quod assequi nequeas, and to expose himself to laughter and mockery. Afterwards he must know that which belongs to his affires, that is to say, the estate, profession, and kind of life that is proposed. There are some wherein the affairs are great and weighty, others where they are dangerous, others where they are not so great, but are mingled, and full of entaglements, and that draw after them many other businesses; these charges do much afflict the spirit. Every profession requireth more specially one certain faculty of the soul, one the understanding, another the imagination, another the memory. Now to know these two natures, his own, and that of the profession and course of life, that which hath been said of the divers temperatures of the inward parts and faculties, will help much. Knowing these two natures, we must compare them together, to see whether they can well join and endure together, for it is necessary that they agree; if a man be to contest with his own nature, and to enforce it for the service and performance of a function and charge which he undertaketh; or contrarily, if to follow his nature, whether willingly, or that by force and insensibly it draw him, a man happen to fail or err in his duty, what disorder is there? Where is equity? Where is decency? Si quicquam decorum, nihil profectò magis quàm aequabilitas vitae universae, & singularum actionum, quam conseruare non possis: si aliorum imiteris naturam, omittas tuam. This is the account we must make, when we think to do any thing that hath worth or grace in it, if nature itself be wanting, Tu nihil invita dices faciesue Minerva: Id quemque decet quod est suum maximè: sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam universam nil contendamus, ea seruata propriam sequamur. And if it fall out, that by mishap, imprudency or otherwise a man find himself engaged in a vocation and course of life painful and unprofitable, and that a man cannot fly back; it is the part of wisdom, to resolve to bear it, to sweeten it, to accommodate it unto himself as much as he can; doing as in a game at hazard, according to the counsel of Plato, wherein if the die or card fall not out to be good, a man taketh it patiently, and endeavoureth to mend his ill chance by his good play; and like Bees, who from Time, a sharp and dry herb, gather sweet honey, and as the proverb is, make a virtue of necessity. CHAP. V To study true piety, the first office of Wisdom. THe preparatives made, and the two foundations laid, it is time to build, and to set down the rules of wisdom, whereof the first and most noble concerneth the religion and worship of God. Piety holdeth the first place in the rank of our duties, and it is a thing of great importance, wherein it is dangerous and very easy to err and be mistaken. It is necessary therefore to be advised, and to know how he that studieth wisdom should govern himself; which we purpose to do having a little discoursed of the state and success of religions in the world, referring the rest unto that which I have said in my three Verities. It is first a very fearful thing, to consider the great diversity of religions which have been and are in the world, and 1 Diversity of religions. much more of the strangeness of some of them, so fantastical and exorbitant, that it is a wonder that the understanding of man should be so much besotted and made drunken with impostures; for it seemeth, that there is nothing in the world high or low, which hath not been deified in some place or other, and that hath not found a place wherein to be worshipped. They all agree in many things, and have likewise taken their beginning in the same climate. Palestina and Arabia 2 That all agree in many principles. which join together (I mean the more renowned and famous mistress of the rest) have their principles and foundations almost alike; The belief of one God the author of all things, of his providence and love towards mankind, the immortality of the soul, reward for the good, chastisement for the wicked after this life, a certain outward profession of praying, invocating, honouring and serving God. To win them credit, and that they may be received, they allege and furnish themselves, whether indeed and in verity, as the true, or by imposture and fair semblance, with revelations, apparitions, prophets, miracles, prodigies, holy mysteries, Saints. All have their fountain and beginning small, feeble, humble, but by little and little by the imitation and contagious acclamation of the people, with some fictions as forerunners, they have taken footing, and been authorised, in so much that they all are held with affirmation and devotion, yea the absurdest amongst them. All hold and teach that God is appeased and won by prayers, presents, vows, and promises, and the like: All believe that the principal and most pleasant service of God, and the powerfullest mean to appease him, and to obtain his grace, is to punish, to cut themselves, to impose upon themselves some painful and difficult labour; witness throughout the world, and almost in all religions, and rather in the false than in the true, in Mahumetism, than Christianity, so many orders, companies, hermitages and friaries destinated to certain and divers exercises very painful and of a strict profession, even to the lancing and cutting of their bodies, thinking thereby to merit much more than the common sort, who purify not themselves with afflictions and torments as they do, and every day they provide new: and the nature of man doth never cease to invent means of pain and torment, which proceedeth from the opinion that God taketh pleasure, and is pleased with the torment and ruin of his creatures; which opinion is founded upon the sacrifices, which were universal throughout the world before the birth of Christianity, and exercised not only upon innocent beasts, which were masacred, with the effusion of their blood, for a precious present unto God, but (a strange thing that man should be so sottish) upon infants, innocents, and men, as well good and honest as offenders, a custom practised with great religion almost in all nations: As the Getae a people of Scythia, who among other ceremonies and sacrifices dispatched unto their god Zamolxis, from five years to five, a man amongst them to demand things necessary for them. And because it was thought necessary that one should die suddenly, at an instant, and that they did expose themselves unto death after a doubtful manner, by running themselves upon the points of three javelins, whereby it fell out, that many were dispatched in their order, until there came one that lighted upon a mortal wound, and died suddenly, accounting him the fittest messenger, and in greatest favour with their god, and not the rest: as the Persians, witness that fact of Amestris the mother of Xerxes, who at one instant buried alive fourteen young men of the best houses, according to the religion of the country: as the ancient Gauls, the Carthaginians, who sacrificed to Saturn their children, their fathers and mothers being present: the Lacedæmonians, who flattered their goddess Diana, by whipping their youths in favour of her, many times even to death: the Greeks, witness the sacrifice of Iphigenia: the Romans, witness the two Deccis; quae fuit tanta iniquitas deorum ut placari pop. Rom. non possent, nisi tales viri occidissent: Turks, who so massacre their visage, their breasts, their members, to gratify their Prophet: the new East and West Indies; and in Themistitan, where they cement their idols with the blood of children. What madness was this, to think to flatter the Divinity with inhumanity; to content the Divine Goodness with our affliction, and to satisfy the justice of God with cruelty! justice then thirsting after human blood, innocent blood, drawn and shed with so much pain and torment, Vt sic dij placentur quemadmodum ne homines quidem saeviunt. From Seneca. whence can this opinion and belief spring, that God taketh pleasure in torment, and in the ruin of his works, and human nature? Following this opinion, of what nature should God be? But all this hath been abolished throughout Christendom, as before hath been said. They have also their differences, their particular articles, whereby they are distinguished amongst themselves, and 3 They differ. every one prefers itself above the rest, assuring himself it is the better, and more true than the rest, reproaching the one the other with some things, and so condemn and reject one another. But no man doubteth, neither is it a matter of labour to know which is the truest, the Christian religion having so 4 Christian religion above all. many advantages and privileges, so high and so authentical above others, and especially these. It is the subject of my second verity, where is showed how far all others are inferior unto it. Now as they spring up one after another, the younger doth always build upon the more ancient and next precedent, 5 The latter are built upon the former. which from the top to the bottom it doth not wholly disprove & condemn; for than it could not be heard or take footing: but it only accuseth it either of imperfection, or of the end, and that therefore it cometh to succeed it and to perfect it; and so by little and little overthroweth it, and enricheth itself with the spoils thereof: as the judaical, which hath retained many things of the Gentile Egyptian religion the elder, the Hebrews not being easily purified of their customs: the Christian built upon the verities and promises of the judaical; the Turkish upon them both, retaining almost all the verities of Christ jesus, except the first and principal, which is his Divinity: so that if a man will leap from judaisme to Mahumatisme, he must pass by Christianity: and such there have been among the Mahumatists as have exposed themselves to torments, to maintain the truth of Christian religion, as a Christian would do to maintain the truth of the Old Testament. But yet the elder and more ancient do wholly condemn the younger, and hold them for capital enemies. All religions have this in them, that they are strange and 6 All are strange to nature. horrible to the common sense; for they propose and are built and composed of parts, whereof some seem to the judgement of man base, unworthy and unbefitting, wherewith the spirit of man somewhat strong and vigorous, jesteth and sporteth itself; others too high, bright, wonderful, and mystical, where he can know nothing, wherewith it is offended. Now the spirit of man is not capable but of indifferent things, it contemneth and disdaineth the small, it is astonished and confounded with the great; and therefore it is no marvel if it be hardly persuaded at the first onset to receive all religion, where there is nothing indifferent and common, and therefore must be drawn thereunto by some occasion: for if it be strong, it disdaineth and laugheth at it; if it be feeble and superstitious, it is astonished and scandalised: praedicamus jesum crucifixum, judaeis scandalum, gentib us stultitiam. Whereof it comes to pass, that there are so many misbelievers and irreligious persons, because they consult and hearken too much to their own judgements, thinking to examine and judge of the affairs of religion according to their own capacity, and to handle it with their own proper and natural instruments. We must be simple, obedient, and debonair, if we will be fit to receive religion, to believe and live under the law, by reverence and obedience to subject our judgement, and to suffer ourselves to be led and conducted by public authority, Captivantes intellectum ad obsequium fidei. But it was required so to proceed, otherwise religion should not be respected and had in admiration as it ought; now it is necessary that it be received and sworn to, as well authentically and reverently, as difficultly: If it were such as were wholly pleasing to the palate and nature of man without strangeness, it would be thought more easily, yet less reverently received. Now the religions and beliefs being such as hath been said, strange unto the common sense, very far exceeding all the 7 Why they are not to be gotten by human means. reach and understanding of man, they must not, nor cannot be gotten nor settled in us by natural and human means (for then among so many great minds as there have been rare and excellent, some had attained thereunto) but it must needs be, that they be given us by extraordinary and heavenly revelation, gotten and received by divine inspiration, and as sent from heaven. In this manner likewise all do affirm, that they hold their religion and believe it, not from men, or any other creature, but from God. But to say the truth and not to flatter or disguise, this is 8 And yet they are gotten by human means. nothing; they are, whatsoever some say, held by human hands and means, which is true in every respect, in false religions, being nothing but prayers, and human or diabolical inventions: the true, as they have another jurisdiction, so are they both received and held by another hand; nevertheless we must distinguish. As touching the receiving of them, the first and general publication and installation of them hath been domino cooperant, sermonem confirmante sequentes signis, divine and wonderful, the particular is done by human hands and means; the nation, country, place, gives the religion, and that a man professeth which is in force in that place and among those persons where he is borne, and where he liveth; He is circumcised, baptised, a jew, a Christian, before he knows that he is a man; for religion is not of our choice or election, but man without his knowledge is made a jew or a Christian, because he is borne in judaisme or Christianity; and if he had been borne elsewhere among the Gentiles, or Mahumetans, he had been likewise a Gentile or a Mahometan. As touching the observation, the true and good professors thereof, besides the outward profession, which is common to all, yea to misbelievers, they attribute to the gift of God, the testimony of the Holy Ghost within; but this is a thing not common nor ordinary, what fair colour soever they give it, witness the lives and manners of men, so ill agreeing with their belief, who for human occasions and those very light, go against the tenor of their religion. If they were held & planted with a divine hand, nothing in the world could shake us, such a tie would not be so easily broken: If it had any touch or ray of divinity, it would appear in all, it would produce wonderful effects that could not be hid, as Truth itself hath said, If you have but as much faith as a mustard seed, you should remove mountains. But what proportion or agreement is there betwixt the persuasion of the immortality of the soul, and a future reward so glorious and blessed, or so inglorious and accursed, and the life that a man leadeth? The only apprehension of those things that a man saith he doth firmly believe, will take his senses from him: The only apprehension and fear to die by justice, and in public place, or by some other shameful and dishonourable action, hath made many to lose their senses, and cast them into strange trances: and what is that in respect of the worth of that which religion teacheth us is to come? But is it possible in truth to believe, to hope for that immortality so happy, and yet to fear death a necessary passage thereunto? to fear and apprehend that infernal punishment, and live as we do? These are things as incompatible as fire and water. They say they believe it, they make themselves believe they believe it, and they will make others believe it too; but it is nothing, neither do they know what it is to believe. For a belief, I mean such as the scripture calleth historical, is diabolical, dead, informed, unprofitable, and which many times doth more hurt than good: Such believers (saith an ancient Writer) are mockers and impostors; and another saith, that they are in one respect, the most fierce and glorious, in another the most lose, dissolute, and villainous of the world; more than men in the articles of their belief, and worse than swine in their lives. Doubtless if we hold ourselves unto God, and our religion, I say not by a divine grace as we should, but only after a simple and common manner, as we believe a history, or a friend or companion, we should place them far above all other things for that infinite goodness that shineth in them, at the least they should be put in the same rank or degree with honour, riches, friends. Now there are very few that do not fear less to commit an offence against God, and any point of his religion, than against his father, his master, his friend, his equals. All this hurteth not the dignity, purity, and height of Christianity, no more than the dunghill infecteth the beams of the Sun, which shines upon it; for as one saith, Fides non à personis, sed contrà: But a man cannot pronounce so great a Vae against those false hypocrites, whom Matth. 23. Verity itself so much condemneth, as they belch out of their own mouths against themselves. The better to know true piety, it is necessary first to separate it from the false, feigned and counterfeit, to the end we 9 A distinction betwixt the true and false religion. may not equivocate as the most part of the world doth. There is nothing that maketh a fairer show, and that taketh greater pains to resemble true piety and religion, and yet that is more contrary and enemy thereunto, than superstition: like the Wolf, which doth not a little resemble the dog, but yet hath a spirit and humour quite contrary: and the flatterer who counterfetteth a zealous friend, and is nothing less; or like false coin which maketh a more glittering show than the true. Gens superstitioni obnoxia, religionibus adversae. It is likewise envious and jealous like an amorous adulteress, Tacit. who with her smooth speeches makes show of greater affection, and care of the husband, than the true and lawful wife, whom she endeavoureth to make odious unto him. Now the notable differences of these two are, that religion loveth and honoureth God, settleth a man in peace and rest, and lodgeth in a liberal, free and generous soul: Superstition troubleth a man, and makes him wild, and iniureth God himself, teaching to fear with horror and astonishment, to hide himself, and to fly from him, if it were possible; it is a weak, poor, and base malady of the soul; Superstitio error insanus, August. amandos timet, quos colit violate: morbus pusilli animi, qui superstitione imbutus est, quietus esse nusquam potest. Varro ait Deum a religioso vereri, a superstitioso timeri. Let us speak of them both apart. A superstitious man suffereth neither God nor man to live 10 Superstition described. in peace. He apprehendeth God as one anxious, spiteful, hardly contented, easily moved, with difficulty appeased, examining our actions after the human fashion of a severe judge, that watcheth our steps; which he proveth true by his manner of serving him, which is all after one fashion. He trembleth for fear, he is never secure, fearing he never doth well enough, and that he hath left something undone, by the omission whereof all is worth nothing that he hath done; he doubteth whether God be well content, and laboureth to flatter him, to the end he may appease and win him; he importuneth him with prayers, vows, offerings; he feigneth to himself miracles, easily believeth and receiveth such as are counterfeited by others, and interpreteth all things though purely natural, as expressly sent and done by God; and runneth after whatsoever a man saith with all the care that may be, duo superstitionis propria, nimius timor, nimius cultus. What is all this but by punishing himself, vilely, basely, and unworthily to deal with God, and more mechanically, than a man would do with a man of honour? Generally all superstition and fault in religion, proceedeth from this, that we make not that account of God that we should, we revoke him, and compel him into order, we judge of him according to ourselves, we put upon him our humours. O what blasphemy is this! Now this vice and malady is almost natural unto us, and 11 It is natural. we have all a kind of inclination thereunto. Plutarch deploreth the infirmity of man, who never knoweth how to keep a measure, or to settle himself upon his feet: for it leaneth and degenerateth either into superstition and vanity, or into a contempt and carelessness of divine things. We are like to an ill advised husband, besotted and cozened with the coining subtleties of a light woman, with whom he converseth more by reason of her artificial flatteries, than with his honest spouse, who honoureth and serveth him with a simple and natural shamefastness: and even so superstition pleaseth us more than true religion. It is likewise vulgar, it proceedeth from a weakness of the soul, an ignorance or mis-knowledge of God, and that very 12 Popular. gross, and therefore it is most commonly found in children, women, old men, sick and such as have been assaulted with some violent accident. To be brief, it is in barbarous natures, Inclinant natura ad superstitionem barbari. Of this than it is Plutarch. in sectorio. said, and not of true religion, that it is true that Plato affirmeth, that the weakness and idleness of men hath brought in religion, and made it prevail, whereby children, women, and old men should be most capable of religion, more scrupulous and devout: this were to wrong true religion to give it so poor and frail a foundation. Besides these seeds and natural inclinations to superstition, there are many that shake hands with it, and favour it 13 Nourished and maintained by human reason. greatly for the great gain and profit they receive by it. Great men likewise and mighty, though they know what it is, will not trouble nor hinder it, because they know it is a very fit instrument to lead a people withal, and therefore they do not only inflame and nourish that which is already grafted in nature, but when need requireth they forge and invent new, as Scipio, Sertorius, Sylla, and others, qui faciunt animos humiles formidine diuûm, depressosque premunt ad terram. Nulla res multitudinem efficaciùs regit, quàm superstitio Curtius. . Now quitting ourselves of this foul and base superstition (which I would have him to abhor, whom I desire to instruct 14 An entrance to the discourse of true religion. unto wisdom) let us learn to guide ourselves to true religion and piety, whereof I will give some grounds and pourtraites as lesser lights thereunto. But before we enter thereinto, let me here say in general, and by way of preface, that of so many divers religions, and manners of serving God, which are, or may be in the world, they seem to be the most noble, and to have greatest appearance of truth, which without great external and corporal service, draw the soul into itself, and raise it by pure contemplation to admire and adore the greatness and infinite majesty of the first cause of all things, and the essence of essences, without any great declaration or determination thereof, or prescription of his service; but acknowledging it indefinitely, to be goodness, perfection, and infiniteness, wholly incomprehensible & not to be known, as the Pythagoreans, and most famous Philosophers do teach. This is to approach unto the religion of the angels, and to put in practise that word of the son of God, to adore in spirit and truth, for God accounteth such worshippers the best. There are others on the other side, and in another extremity, who will have a visible Deity, capable by the senses, which base and gross error hath mocked almost all the world, even Israel in the desert, in framing to themselves a molten calf. And of these they that have chosen the sun for their god, seem to have more reason than the rest, because of the greatness, beauty, and resplendent and unknown virtue thereof, even such as enforce the whole world to the admiration and reverence of itself. The eye seethe nothing that is like unto it, or that approacheth near unto it in the whole universe, it is one sun, and without companion. Christianity, as in the middle, tempereth the sensible and outward with the insensible and inward, serving God with spirit and body, and accommodating itself to great and little, whereby it is better established, and more durable. But even in that too, as there is a diversity, and degrees of souls, of sufficiency and capacity of divine grace; so is there a difference in the manner of serving of God; the more high & perfect incline more to the first manner more spiritual and contemplative, and less external, the less and imperfect quasi sub paedagogo remain in the other, and do participate of the outward and vulgar deformities. Religion consisteth in the knowledge of God, and of ourselves: (for it is a relative action between both) the office 15 divers descriptions of religion. thereof is to extol God to the uttermost of our power, and to beat down man as low as low may be, as if he were utterly lost, and afterwards to furnish himself with means to rise again, to make him feel his misery & his nothing, to the end he may put his whole confidence in God alone. The office of religion is to join us to the author and principal cause of all our good, to reunite, and fasten man to his first cause, as to his root, wherein so long as he continueth firm and settled, he preserveth himself in his own perfection; and contrariwise when he is separated, he instantly fainteth and languisheth. The end and effect of religion is faithfully to yield all the honour and glory unto God, and all the benefit unto man. All good things may be reduced to these two; The profit, which is an amendment, and an essential and inward good, is due unto poor, wretched, and in all points miserable man: the glory, which is an outward ornament, is due unto God alone, who is the perfection and fullness of all good, whereunto nothing can be added, Gloria in excelsis Deo, & in terra pax hominibus. Thus much being first known, our instruction to piety is 18 An instruction to piety. 1. To know God. first to learn to know God: for from the knowledge of things proceedeth that honour we do unto them. First then we must believe that he is, that he hath created the world by his power, goodness, wisdom, and that by it he governeth it; that his providence watcheth over all things, yea the least that are; that whatsoever he sendeth us is for our good, and that whatsoever is evil proceedeth from ourselves. If we account those fortunes evil that he sendeth us, we blaspheme his holy name, because naturally we honour those that do us good, and hate those that hurt us. We must then resolve to obey him, and to take all in good part which cometh from his hand, to commit and submit ourselves unto him: Secondly, we must honour him: and the most excellent 19 2. To honour him. and devoutest way to do it, is first, to mount up our spirits from all carnal, earthly, and corruptible imagination, and by the chastest, highest and holiest conceits exercise ourselves in the contemplation of the Divinity; and after that we have adorned it, with all the most magnifical and excellent names and praises that our spirit can imagine, that we acknowledge that we have presented nothing unto it worthy itself: but that the fault is in our weaknesle and imbecility, which can conceive nothing more high. God is the last endeavour and highest pitch of our imagination, every man amplifying the Ideaa according to his own capacity: and to speak better, God is infinitely above all our last and highest endeavours and imaginations of perfection. Again, we must serve him with our heart and spirit, it is 20 3. To serve him in spirit. the service answerable to his nature: Deus spiritus est▪ si Deus est animus, sit tibi pura mente colendus. It is that which he requireth, that which pleaseth him: Pater tales quaer is adoratores. The most acceptable sacrifice unto his Majesty, is a pure, free, and humble heart: Sacrificium Deo spiritus. An innocent soul, an innocent life: Optimus animus, pulcherrimus Seneca. Lactan. Merc. Trism. Dei cultus: religiosissimus cultus imitari: unicus Dei cultus, non esse malum. A wise man is a true sacrifice of the great God, his spirit is his temple, his soul is his image, his affections are his offerings, his greatest and most solemn sacrifice, is to imitate him, to serve and implore him: for it is the part of those that are great, to give; of those that are poor, to ask: Beatius dare quàm accipere. Nevertheless, we are not to contemn and disdain the 21 4. To serve him with our bodies. outward and public service, which must be as an assistant to the other, by observing the ceremonies, or chnances and customs with moderation without vanity, without ambition, or hypocrisy, without avarice, & always with this thought, That God willbe served in spirit: and That that which is outwardly done, is rather for ourselves than for God; for human unity and edification than for divine verity: quae potius ad moremquam ad rempertinent. Our vows and prayers unto God should be all subject 22 5. To pray unto him. unto his will: we should neither desire nor ask any thing, but as he hath ordained, having always for our bridle, Fiat voluntas tua. To ask any thing against his providence, is to corrupt the judge and Governor of the world; to think to flatter him, and to win him by presents and promises, is to wrong him. God doth not desire our goods: neither, to say the truth, have we any: all is his: non accipiam de domo tua vitulos, etc. meus est enim orbis terrae, & plénitudo eius: but his will is, that we only make ourselves fit to receive from him, never expecting that we should give unto him, but ask and receive: for it is his office to give as being great, and it belongeth to man as being poor and needy to beg and to receive; to prescribe unto him that which we want, and we will, is to expose ourselves to the inconveniences of Midas, but that is always best, which pleaseth him best. To be brief, we must think, speak, and deal with God, as if all the world did behold us; we must live and converse with the world, as if God saw us. It is not with respect to honour the name of God as we ought, but rather to violate it, lightly and promiscuously to 23 Well to use his name. mingle it in all our actions and speeches, as it were by acclamation or by custom, either not thinking thereof, or cursorily to pass him over; we must speak of God and his works soberly, but yet seriously with shamefastness, fear, and reverence, and never presume to judge of him. And thus much summarily of piety, which should be in 24 The conclusion. high esteem, contemplating always God, with a free, cheerful, and filial soul, not wild, nor troubled, as the superstitious are. Touching the particularities as well of the belief as observation, it is necessary that we tie ourselves to the Christian, as to the true, more rich, high, and honourable to God, commodious and comfortable to man, as we have showed in our second Verity; and therein remaining, we must with a sweet submission submit and settle ourselves to that which the Catholic Church in all times hath universally held, and holdeth, and not entangling ourselves with novelties, or selected and particular opinions, for the reasons set down in my third Verity, and especially in the first & last Chapters, which may suffice unto him, that cannot, or will not read the whole book. Let me only give this one advice necessary for him that intendeth to be wise, and that is, not to separate piety from true 25 An advisement to join piety and probity together. honesty, whereof we have spoken before, and so content himself with one of them, much less to confound and mingle them together. These are two things very different, & which have divers jurisdictions, piety and probity, religion and honesty, devotion and conscience; I will that both of them be jointly in him whom I here instruct, because the one cannot be without the other entire and perfect, but confused. Behold here two rocks whereof we must take heed, and few there be that know them, to separate them and to rest contented with the one, to confound and mingle them, in such sort, that the one be the jurisdiction of the other. The first that separate them, and that have but one of them, 26 Of those which have piety without probity. are of two sorts, for some do wholly give themselves to the worship and service of God, taking no care at all of true virtue and honesty, whereof they have no taste, a vice noted as natural to the jews especially (a race above all others superstitious, and for that cause odious to all) and much displayed by their prophets, and afterwards by the Messias, who reproached them, that of their temple they had made a den of thieves, a cloak and excuse for many wickednesses, which Matth. 15. and 22. they perceived not; so were they besotted with this outward devotion, wherein putting their whole confidence, they thought themselves discharged of all duty, yea they were made more hardy to do any wickedness. Many are touched with this feminine and popular spirit, wholly attentive to those small exercises of outward devotion, whereby they are made never the better; from whence came that proverb, An angel in the Church, a devil in the house; they lend the show and outward part unto God, like the pharisees, they are sepulchres, white walls, populus hic labijs me honour at, cor eorum long à me; yea they make piety a cover for impiety, they make it (as they say) an occupation or a merchandise, and allege their offices of devotion, to extenuate and recompense their sin and iniquity. Others quite contrary make no account but of virtue and honesty, little caring for any thing that belongs to religion, a fault of many Philosophers, and which is likewise too common amongst our Atheists. These are two vicious extremities, but which is the more or the less extreme, 27 A comparison. or which of the two is the more worthy, religion, or honesty, it is not my purpose to determine; I will only say (to compare them in three points) that the first is far more easy, of greater show, of simple and vulgar spirits: the second is far more difficult and laborious in the performance, of less show, of spirits valiant and generous. 28 Against those that confound piety and probitis. I come to others, who differ not much from the first, who take no care but of religion. They pervert all order, and trouble all, confounding honesty, religion, the grace of God (as hath been said before) whereby it comes to pass that they have neither true honesty, nor true religion, nor consequently the grace of God; as they think, a people only content with themselves, and ready to censure and condemn others, qui confidunt in se, & asperndnt abios. They think that religion is a generality of all good and of all virtue, that all virtues are contained in it, and necessarily follow it, whereby they acknowledge no other virtue nor honesty but that which is opened with the key of religion. Now it is quite contrary; for religion which is the later, is a special and particular virtue, distinguished from all other virtues, which may be without them and without probity, as hath been said of the pharisees, religious and wicked; and they without religion, as in many Philosopher's good and virtuous, but yet irreligious. It is likewise, as all divinity teacheth, a moral human virtue, appertaining to justice, one of the four cardinal virtues, which teacheth us in general to give unto every Thom. p. 2. 2. q. 81. one that which belongeth unto him, reserving to every one his place. Now God being above all, the universal author and master; we must give unto him all sovereign honour, service, obedience, and this subalcerne religion, and the Hypothesis of justice, which is the general Thesis, more ancient and natural. They on the other side, will that a man be religious before he be honest, and that religion (which is acquired and gotten by an outward cause, ex auditu; Quomodo credent sine praedicante?) engendereth honesty, which we have showed should proceed from nature, from that law and light which God hath put into us, from our first beginning. This is an inverted order. These men will that a man be an honest man, because there is a Paradise and a hell: so that if they did not fear God, or fear to be damned (for that is often their language) they would make a goodly piece of work. O miserable honesty! What thanks deservest thou, for that thou dost? o cowardly and idle innocency, quae nisi metu non placet! Thou keepest thyself from wickedness, because thou darest not be wicked, and thou fearest to be beaten, and even therein art thou wicked, Oderunt peccare mali formidine poenae. Now I will that thou dare, but yet that thou wilt not though thou be never chidden; I will that thou be an honest man, not because thou wouldst go to paradise, but because nature, reason, God willeth it, because the law and the general policy of the world, whereof thou art a part, requireth it; so as that thou canst not consent to be any other, except thou go against thyself, thy essence, thy end. Doubtless such honesty occasioned by the spirit of religion, besides that it is not true and essential, but accidental, it is likewise very dangerous, producing many times very base and scandalous effects (as experience in all times hath taught us) under the fair and glorious pretext of piety. What execrable wickednesses hath the zeal of religion brought forth? Is there any other subject or occasion that hath yielded the like? It belongeth to so great and noble a subject, to work great and wonderful effects: Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum Quae peperit saepe scelerosa atque impia facta. Not to love him, yea to look upon him with a wicked eye, as a man should look upon a monster, that believeth not as he believeth. To think to be polluted by speaking, or conversing with him, is one of the sweetest and most pleasing actions of these kind of people. He that is an honest man by scruple, and a religious bridle, take heed of him, and account of him as he is. And he that hath religion without honesty, I will not say he is more wicked, but far more dangerous than he that hath neither the one, nor the other, Omnis qui interficiet vos, putabit se obsequium praestare Deo; not because religion teacheth, or any way favoureth wickedness, as some very foolishly and maliciously from this place do object, for the most absurd and falsest religion that is, doth it not; but the reason is, that having no taste, nor image, nor conceit of honesty, but by imitation, and for the service of religion, and thinking that to be an honest man is no other thing, than to be careful to advance religion, they believe all things whatsoever, be it treason, treachery, sedition, rebellion, or any other offence to be not only lawful and sufferable, being coloured with zeal and the care of religion, but also commendable, meritorious, yea worthy canonisation, if it serve for the progress and advancement of religion, and the overthrow of their adversaries. The jews were wicked and cruel to their parents, unjust towards their neighbours, neither lending, nor paying their debts, and all because they gave unto the temple, thinking to be quit of all, duties, and rejecting the whole world, by saying Corban. Math. 15. 5. Marc. 7. 11. 6. Hierom. I will then (to conclude this discourse) that there be in this my wise man a true honesty, and a true piety, joined and married together, and both of them complete and crowned with the grace of God, which he denieth none that shall ask it of him, Deus dat spiritum bonum omnibus potentibus eum, as hath been said in the preface, article the 14. CHAP. VI To govern his desires and pleasures. IT is a principal duty of a wise man, to know well how to moderate and rule his desires and pleasures; for wholly to renounce them, I am so far from requiring it in this my wise man, that I hold this opinion to be not only fantastical, but vicious and unnatural. First then we must confute this opinion, which banisheth and wholly condemneth all pleasures, and afterwards learn how to govern them. It is a plausible opinion, and studied by those that would seem to be men of understanding, and professors of singular 1 The first part. sanctity, generally to contemn and tread underfoot all sorts of pleasures, and all care of the body, retiring the spirit unto itself, not having any commerce with the body, but elevating An opinion of the contempt of the world. itself to high things, and so to pass this life as it were insensibly neither tasting it, nor attending it. With these kind of people that ordinary phrase of passing the time, doth very well agree; for it seemeth to them, that well to use and employ this life, is silently to pass it over, and as it were to escape it, and rob themselves of it, as if it were a miserable, burdensome, and tedious thing, being desirous so to slide through the world, as that not only recreations and pastimes are suspected, yea odious unto them, but also natural necessities, which God hath seasoned with some pleasure. They come not where any delight is, but unwillingly, and being where it is, they hold their breath till they be gone, as if they were in a place of infection: and to be brief, their life is offensive unto them, and death a solace, pleasing themselves with that saying, which may be as well ill taken and understood, as well, vitam habere in patientia, mortem in desiderio. But the iniquity of this opinion, may many ways be showed. First, there is nothing so fair and lawful, as well and 2 Rejected. duly to play the man, well to know how to lead this life. It is a divine knowledge & very difficult, for a man to know how he should lawfully enjoy his own essence, lead his life according to the common and natural model, to his proper conditions, not seeking those that are strange; for all those extravagancies, all those artificial and studied endeavours, those wandering ways from the natural and common, proceed from folly and passion: these are maladies, without which whilst these men would live, not by playing the men, but the divines, they play the fools; they would transform themselves into angels, and they turn themselves into beasts: aut deus aut bestia: homo sum, humani à me nihil alienum puto: Man is a body and a soul, and it is not well done to dismember this building, to divide and separate this brotherly and natural conjunction; but contrariwise, we should renew it by mutual offices, the spirit must awaken and revive the heavy body, the body must stay the lightness of the spirit, which many times proves but a trouble-feast; the spirit must assist and favour the body, as the husband the wife, and not reject it, not hate it. It must not refuse to participate the natural pleasures thereof, which are just, and such as befit that marriage that is betwixt them, always holding therein, as the more wise, a true moderation. A man must study, know, and meditate on this life, to the end he may return condign thanks unto him who hath lent it. There is nothing which God hath made for us in this present life unworthy our care, and we are accountable for them, even to the very hairs of our head; for it is no frivolous warrant or commission for a man to direct himself and his life according to his natural condition, but God hath given it him seriously and expressly. But what greater folly is there, and more against nature, than to account our actions vicious, because they are natural 3 Lib. 3. cap. 38. ; unworthy because they are necessary? Now this necessity and pleasure is an excellent marriage made by God himself. Nature willeth very wisely, that those actions which it hath enjoined us for our necessity, be also delightful, inviting us thereunto not only by reason, but also by appetite; and these rules these kind of men go about to break. It is an equal fault and injustice, to loath and condemn all pleasures, and to abuse them, by loving them overmuch, we must neither run to them, nor flre from them, but receive them, and use them discreetly and moderately, as shall presently be said in the rule. Temperance which is the rule of our pleasures, condemneth as well the insensibility and privation of all pleasure, stuporem naturae, which is the failing extremity, as intemperancy, libidinem, which is the exceeding extremity. Contra naturam est torquere corpus suum, faciles odisse munditias & squallorem appetere: delicate as res cupere luxuriae est, usitatas & non magno parabiles fugere dementiae est. He that desireth to discard his soul, let him boldly do it if he can, when his body is not in health, but endureth some torment, to the end he may disburden himself of that contagion: but he cannot do it, as likewise he ought not to do it; for to speak according to right and reason, it should never abandon the body; it is apishnes to do it, it should behold pleasure and sorrow with a like settled countenance, in the one line severely, the other cheerfully: but in all cases it should assist the body to maintain it always in order. To contemn the world, is a brave proposition, and many delight, nay glory to speak, to discourse thereof, but I can not perceive that they well understand it, much less that they practise it: what is it to contemn the world? What is this world? Is it the heaven, the earth, and in a word the creatures that are therein? No I think not so; What then? Is it the use, the profit, the service, and commodity that we gather thereby? If so, what ingratitude is this against the author that hath made them to these ends? What accusation against nature? What reason to contemn them? If (in the end) thou wilt say that it is neither the one, nor the other, but it is the abuse of them, the vanities, follies, excess and wickedness that is in the world; I may answer that it were well said, if this were of the world, but they are not so, but against the world, and the policy thereof, they are thy own additions, not natural, but artificial. To preserve thyself from them as wisdom and the rule following teacheth, is not to contemn the world, which remaineth wholly entire without it; but it is well to use the world, well to govern thyself in the world, and as divinity teacheth, to make use and benefit of the world, and not to enjoy it, uti, non frui. Now these kind of people think to practise the contempt of the world, by certain outward particular manners and fashions, separated from the common course of the world: but this is but mockery. There is nothing in the world so exquisite; the world laugheth not, and is not so wanton within itself, as without, in those places where men make profession of flying it, and trampling it under foot, which is spoken against hypocrites, who have so much degenerated from their beginning, that there remaineth nothing but the habit, and is also very much changed, if not in form, at the least in matter, which serveth them for no other use, than to puff them up, to make them more bold and impudent, which is quite contrary to their institution, vae vobis qui circuit is mare & aridam, ut faciatis unum proselytum, & cùm factus Mat. 23. fuerit, facitis filium gehennae: and not against the good, much less against the estate in itself which is the school of true and holy Philosophy. It is then a fantastical and unnatural opinion, generally to reject and condemn all desires and pleasures. God is the creator and author of pleasure, Plantavit dominus paradisum voluptatis, posuit hominem in paradiso voluptatis, protulit omne lignum pulchrum, suave, delectabile, as shall be said. But we must first learn how to carry ourselves therein. This instruction may be reduced to four points (which if 6 The second part the rule in our pleasures and desires. these mortified men, and great contemners of the world did know how to put in practice, they would work wonders) to know little, naturally, moderately, and by a short relation to himself. These four go almost always together, and make an entire and perfect rule, and he that will may gather and comprehend all these four in this word, Naturally, for nature is the fundamental and sufficient rule for all. But yet to make the matter more clear and easy, we will distinguish these four points. The first point of this rule, is to desire little: A Little. short good, but an assured means to brave fortune, taking from it all accidents, and all power over us to hinder the happy content of our life: and in a word, to be wise, is to shorten our desires, to desire either little, or nothing at all. He that desireth nothing, although he have nothing, is as rich as he that possesseth the whole world, for both come to one end: Nihil interest an habeas, an non concupiscas: and therefore it was well said, That it is not multitude and abundance that contenteth and enricheth, but want, yea nothing. It is the want of desire, for he that is poor in desires is rich in contentment, summae opes inopia cupiditatum. To be brief, he that desireth nothing is in some sort like unto God, and those that are already blessed, who are happy and blessed, not because they have and possess all, but because they desire nothing: qui desiderium suum clausit, cum jove de felicitate contendit. Contrarily, if we let lose the bridle to our appetite to follow abundance and delicacy, we shall continue in perpetual pain and labour; superfluous things will become necessary, our souls will be made slaves to our bodies, and we can live no longer, than that we live in pleasure and delight. If we moderate not our pleasures and desires, and measure them not by the compass of reason, opinion will carry us into a headlong downfall, where there is neither bottom nor brink: as for example, we will make our shoes of velvet, afterwards of cloth of gold, and lastly of embroidery with pearls and diamonds; we will build our houses of marble, afterwards of jasper and porphery. Now this mean for a man to enrich himself, and to make him content, is very just, and in the power of every man: he need not to seek this contentment elsewhere and without himself, let him but ask it, and he presently obtaineth it of himself. Let him stay the course of his desires; it is injustice to importune God, Nature, the world by vows and prayers, to give him any thing, since he hath so excellent a mean in his own power to attain thereunto. Why should I rather desire another to give unto me, than myself not to desire? Quare potius a fortuna impetrem ut det, quàm a me ne petam? quare autem petam oblitus fragilitatis humanae? If I can not or will not obtain of myself not to desire, how and with what face can I press another to give, over whom I have no right nor power? The first rule then touching our desires and pleasures is, that this (little) or at least a mediocrity and sufficiency is that which doth best content a wise man and keeps him in peace. And this is the reason why I have chosen for my device, Peace and poverty. With a fool nothing sufficeth, nothing hath certainty or content: he is like the Moon, who asked a garment that Plutarch. might fit it; but it was answered, That that was not possible, because it was sometimes great, sometimes little, and always changeable. The other point cousen-germane to this, is (naturally): for 7 Naturally. we know that there are two sorts of desires and pleasures, the one natural, and these are just and lawful, and are likewise in beasts limited and short, whose end a man may see: according to these, no man is indigent, for every thing yields something to content. Nature is contented with little, and hath so provided, that in all things, that which sufficeth is at hand and in our own power, parabile est quod natura desiderat & Seneca. expositum: ad manum est quod sat est. It is this which nature demandeth for the preservation of it own essence, it is a favour for which we are to thank Nature, that those things that are necessary for this life, it hath made easy to find, and such as are hardly obtained are not so necessary; and that seeking without passion that which nature desireth, fortune can no way deprive us of it. To these kind of desires a man may add (though they be not truly natural, yet they come very near) those that respect the use and condition of every one of us, which are somewhat beyond, and more at large than those that are exactly natural, and so are just and lawful in the second place. The other desires are beyond nature, proceeding from an opinion and fantasy, artificial, superfluous, and truly passions, which we may to distinguish them by name from others, call cupidities or lusts, whereof we have spoken before at large in the passions: from which a wise man must wholly and absolutely defend himself. The third, which is moderately and without excess, hath 8 Moderately. See lib. 3. cap. 38. a large field and divers parts, but which may be drawn to two heads; that is to say, to desire without the hurt of another, of himself; of another without his scandal, offence, loss, prejudice; of himself, without the loss of his health, his leisure, his functions and affairs, his honour, his duty. The fourth is a short and essential relation to himself; 9 By relation. besides that the career of our desires and pleasures must be circumscribed, limited, and short, their course likewise must be managed, not in a right line, which makes an end elsewhere and without itself; but in a circle, the two points whereof do meet and end in ourselves. Those actions that are directed without this reflection, and this short and essential turning, as of covetous and ambitious men, and divers others, who run point blank, and are always without them, are vain and unsound. CHAP. VII. To carry himself moderately and equally in prosperity and adversity. THere is a twofold fortune, wherewith we are to enter the list, good and ill, prosperity and adversity; these are the two combats, the two dangerous times, wherein it standeth us upon to stand upon our guard, and to gather our wits about us: they are the two schools, essays, and touchstones of the spirit of man. The vulgar ignorant sort do acknowledge but one: they 2 The opinion of the vulgar. do not believe that we have any thing to do, that there is any difficulty, any fight or contradiction with prosperity and good fortune; wherein they are so transported with joy, that they know not what they do, there is no rule with them: and in affliction they are as much astonished and beaten down as they that are dangerously sick, and are in continual anguish, not being able to endure either heat or cold. The wise men of the world acknowledge both, and impute it to one and the same vice and folly, not to know how 3 Which of the two is more difficult to bear, prosperity, or adversity. Arist. Senec. to command in prosperity, and how to carry ourselves in adversity: but which is the more difficult and dangerous, they are not wholly of one accord, some saying it is adversity, by reason of the horror and bitterness thereof, difficilius est tristitiam sustinere quàm a delect abilibus abstinere: maius est difficilia perstringere quàm laeta moderari. Some affirming it to be prosperity, which by her sweet and pleasing flatteries doth abate and mollify the spirit, and insensibly robbeth it of it due temperature, force and vigour, as Dalila did Samson, in such sort that many that are obdurate, obstinate, and invincible in adversity, have suffered themselves to be taken by the flattering allurements of prosperity, magni laboris est ferre prosperitatem: segetem nimia sternit ubertas, sic immoderata felicitas rumpit. And again, affliction moveth even our enemies to pity, prosperity our friends to envy. In adversity a man seeing himself abandoned by all, and that all his hopes are reduced unto himself, he taketh heart at grass, he rouseth himself, calls his wits about him, and with all his power adds his own endeavours to his own help: in prosperity seeing himself assisted by all that laugh at him, and applaud all that he doth, he groweth lazy and careless, trusting in others, without any apprehension of danger or difficulty, and persuading himself that all is in safety, when he is many times therein much deceived. It may be that according to the diversity of natures and complexions both opinions are true: but touching the utility of either, it is certain, that adversity hath this pre-eminence, it is the seed, the occasion, the matter of well-doing, the field of heroical virtues, virescit vulnere virtus, aegrae fortunae sana consilia melius in malis sapimus, secunda rectum auferunt. Now wisdom teacheth us to hold ourselves indifferent and upright in all our life, and to keep always one and the 4 The advice of the wise upon both. same countenance, pleasant and constant. A wise man is a skilful artificer, who maketh profit of all; of every matter he worketh and formeth virtue, as that excellent Painter Phidias, all manner of images; whatsoever lighteth into his hands he maketh it a fit subject to do good, and with one and the same countenance he beholdeth the two different faces of Fortune. Ad utrosque casus sapiens aptus est, bonorum rector, malorum victor: In secundis non confidit, in adversis non deficit, nec avidus periculi, nec fugax, prosperitatem non expectans, ad utrumque paratus; adversus utrumque intrepidus, nec illius tumultu, nec huius fulgore percussus. Contra calamitates fortis & contumax, luxuriae non adversus tantùm, sed & infestus: hoc praecipuum in humanis rebus erigere animum supra minas & promissa fortunae. Wisdom furnisheth us with arms and discipline for both combats; against adversity with a spur, teaching us to raise, to strengthen and incite our courage; and this is the virtue of fortitude: against prosperity, it furnisheth us with a bridle, and teacheth us to keep and clap down our wings, and to keep ourselves within the bounds of modesty; and this is the virtue of temperancy: these are the two moral virtues, against the two fortunes, which that great Philosopher Epictetus did very well signify, containing in two words all moral Philosophy, sustine & abstine, bear the evil, that is, adversity; abstain from the good, that is, from pleasure and prosperity. The particular advisements against the particular prosperities and adversities shall be in the third book following, in the virtue of fortitude and temperancy. Hear we will only set down the general instructions and remedies against all prosperity and adversity, because in this book we teach the way in general unto wisdom, as hath been said in the preface thereof. Against all prosperity, the common doctrine and counsel consisteth in three points: The first, that honours, riches, and 5 Of Prosperity. the favours of fortune, are ill and wrongfully accounted and called goods, since they neither make a man good, nor reform a wicked man, and are common both to good and wicked. He that calleth them goods, and in them hath placed the good of man, hath fastened our felicity to a rotten cable, and anchored it in the quicksands. For what is there more uncertain and inconstant, than the possession of such goods, which come and go, pass and run on like a river? like a river they make a noise at their coming in, they are full of violence, they are troubled; their entrance is full of vexation, and they vanish in a moment; and when they are quite dried up, there remaineth nothing in the bottom but the mud. The second point is to remember, that prosperity is like a honnied poison, sweet and pleasant, but dangerous, whereof we must take very good heed. When fortune laugheth, and every thing falleth out according to our own hearts, than should we fear most, and stand upon our guard, bridle our affections, compose our actions by reason, above all avoid presumption, which ordinarily followeth the favour of the time. Prosperity is a slippery pace, wherein a man must take sure footing, for there is no time wherein men do more forget God. It is a rare and difficult thing to find a man who doth willingly attribute unto him the cause of his felicity. And this is the cause why in the greatest prosperity we must use the counsel of our friends, and give them more authority over us, than at other times; and therefore we must carry ourselves as in an evil and dangerous way, go with fear and doubt, desiring the hand and help of another. In these times of prosperity, adversity is a medicine, because it leadeth us to the knowledge of ourselves. The third is to retain our desires, and to set a measure unto them. Prosperity puffeth up the heart, spurreth us forward, findeth nothing difficult, breedeth always a desire of great matters (as they that by eating get an appetite) and it carrieth us beyond ourselves, and in this state it is where a man loseth himself, drowneth & maketh a mockery of himself. He playeth the Monkey, who leapeth from bough to bough, till he come to the top of the tree, and then showeth his tail. O how many have been lost, and have perished miserably, by the want of discretion to moderate themselves in their prosperity! We must therefore either stay ourselves, or go forward with a slower pace, if we will enjoy the benefit of our prosperity, and not hold ourselves always in chase and purchase. It is wisdom to know how to settle our own rest, our own contentment, which cannot be where there is no stay, no end. Si qua finiri non possunt, extra sapientiam sunt. Against all adversity, these are the general advisements. In the first place, we must take heed of the common and vulgar 8 Of adversity, and that it is no evil. opinion, erroneous and always different from true reason, for to discredit and to bring into hatred and horror all adversity and afflictions, they call them evils, disasters, mischiefs, although all outward things be neither good nor evil. Never did adversity make a man wicked, but hath rather served as a means to mend those that are wicked, and are common both to the good and to the wicked. Doubtless, crosses and heavy accidents are common to all, but they work divers effects, according to that subject 9 It is common to all, but diversly. whereupon they light. To fools and reprobate persons they serve to drive them into despair, to afflict and enrage them: Perhaps they enforce them (if they be heavy & extreme) to stoop, to cry unto God, to look up unto Heaven; but that is all: To sinners and offenders they are so many lively instructions, and compulsions to put them in mind of their duty, and to bring them to the knowledge of God: To virtuous people, they are the lists and theatres wherein to exercise their virtue, to win unto themselves greater commendations and a nearer alliance with God: To wise men they are matter of good, and sometimes stages and degrees whereby to pass and mount up to all height and greatness, as we see and may read of divers, who being assailed by such and so great crosses, as a man would have thought them their utter overthrow and undoing, have been raised by the selfsame means to the highest pitch of their own desires, and contrariwise without that infelicity, had still remained under hatches, as that great Athenian Captain knew well when he said, perier amus nisi perijssemus. A very excellent example here of was joseph the son of jacob. It is true that these are blows from heaven, but the virtue and wisdom of man serveth as a proper instrument, from whence came that wise saying of the Sages, To make of necessity a virtue. It is a very good husbandry, and the first property of a wise man, to draw good from evil, to handle his affairs with such dexterity, and so to win the wind, and to set the bias, that of that which is ill, he may make good use, and better his own condition. Afflictions and adversities proceed from three causes, 10 It hath three causes and three effects. which are the three authors & workers of our punishments; sin the first inventor which hath brought them into nature; the anger and justice of God, which setteth them awork as his Commissaries and executioners; the policy of the world troubled and changed by sin, wherein as a general revolt, and congruential tumult, things not being in their due places, and not doing their office, all evils do spring and arise; as in a body the disjointing of the members, the dislocation of the bones bringeth great pain, and much unquietness. These three are not favourable unto us, the first is to be hated of all as our enemy, the second to be feared as terrible, the third to be avoided as an imposture. That a man may the better defend and quit himself from all three, there is no better way than to use their own proper arms, wherewith they punish us, as David cut off Goliahs' head with his own sword, making of necessity a virtue, profit of pain and affliction, turning them against themselves. Affliction is the true fruit or science of sin, being well taken is the death and ruin thereof, and it doth that to the author thereof, which the viper doth to his dam that brought him forth. It is the oil of the Scorpion, which healeth his own sting, to the end it may perish by it own invention: perijt arte sua: patimur quia peccavimus: patimur ut non peccemus. It is the file of the soul, which scoureth, purifieth and cleanseth it from all sin. And consequently it appeaseth the anger of God, and freeth us from the prisons and bands of justice, to bring us into the fair and clear sunshine of grace and mercy. Finally, it weaneth us from the world, it plucketh us from the dug, and maketh us distaste with the bitterness thereof, like wormwood upon the teat of the nurse, the sweet milk and food of this deceitful world. A great and principal mean for a man to carry himself well in adversity, is to be an honest man. A virtuous man 11 A general advice. is more peaceable in adversity, than a vicious in prosperity: like those that have a fever, who feel and find more harm and violence in the heat and cold thereof, and in the extremity of their fits, than such as are sound in the heat and cold of Summer and Winter. And even so they that have their consciences sick, are much more tormented, than they that are sound, that are honest men. For having the inward part whole and healthful, they can no way be endamaged by the outward, especially opposing against it a good courage. Adversities are of two sorts: some are true and natural, as 12 An advice more special. sickness, griefs, loss of those things we love: others are false and feigned, either by a common or particular opinion, and not in verity. That it is so, man hath his spirit and body as much at command, as before they happened. To these kind of men, only this one word; That which thou complainest of, is neither painful nor troublesome, but thou makest it such, and makest thyself to believe it. As touching the true and natural, the more prompt and popular and more sound opinions are the more natural and 13 Natural. more just. First we must remember, that a man endureth nothing against the human and natural law, since even at the To endure is natural and human. birth of man all these things are annexed, and given as ordinary. In whatsoever doth afflict us, let us consider two things, the nature of that that happeneth unto us, and that which is in ourselves: and using things according to nature, we can receive no tediousness or offence thereby. For offence is a malady of the soul contrary to nature, and therefore should by no means come near unto us. There is not any accident in the world which may happen unto us, wherein nature hath not prepared an aptness in us to receive it, and to turn it to our contentment. There is no manner of life so straight that hath not some solace and recreation. There is no prison so strong and dark that gives not place to a song sometimes to comfort a prisoner. jonas had leisure to make his prayers unto God even in the belly of the Whale, and was heard. It is a favour of nature that it findeth a remedy and ease unto our evils in the bearing of them, it being so that man is borne to be subject to all sorts of miseries, omnia ad quae gemimus, quae expavescimus tributa vitaesunt. Secondly, we must remember, that there is only the lesser part of man subject to fortune; we have the principal in our 14 It toucheth but the lesser part of man. own power, and it cannot be overcome without our own consent. Fortune may make a man poor, sick, afflicted, but not vicious, dissolute, dejected; it cannot take from us probity, courage, virtue. Afterwards we must come to fidelity, reason, justice. Many times a man complaineth unjustly, for though he be sometimes 15 It is not against reason and justice. surprised with some ill accident, yet he is more often with a good, and so the one must recompense the other. And if a man consider well thereof, he shall find more reason to content himself with his good fortunes, than to complain of his bad: and as we turn our eyes from those things that offend us, and delight to cast them upon green and pleasant colours, so must we divert our thoughts from heavy and melancholic occurrents, and apply them to those that are pleasant and pleasing unto us. But we are malicious resembling cupping-glasses, which draw the corrupt blood, and leave the good; like a covetous man who selleth the best wine, and drinks the worst, like little children, from whom if you take away one of their play-games, in a fury they cast away all the rest. For if any misfortune happen unto us, we torment ourselves, and forget all the rest that may any way comfort us: yea some there are that for small losses term themselves unfortunate in all things, and forget that they ever received any good, in such sort that an ounce of adversity brings them more hearty grief than ten thousand of prosperity, pleasure or delight. We must likewise cast our eyes upon those that are of a 16 It is little in comparison. far worse condition than ourselves, who would think themselves happy if they were in our place. Cum tibi displiceat rerum fortuna tuarum, Alterius specta, quo sis discrimine peior. It were good and necessary that these complainers did practise the saying and advice of a wiseman, that if all the evils that men suffer should be compared with the blessings they enjoy, the division being equally made, they may see by the overplus of that good they enjoy, the injustice of their complaint. After all these opinions, we may conclude that there are two great remedies against all evils and adversities, which may be reduced almost to one: Custom for the vulgar and base sort, and meditation for the wiser. Both of them have their force from time, the common and strongest salve against all evils; but the wise take it before hand, this is foresight, and the feeble and vulgar sort after hand. That Custom prevaileth much it doth plainly appear, in that those things that are most tedious and offensive, are made thereby easy and pleasing. Natura calamitatum mollimentum consuetudinem invenit. Slaves weep when they enter into the galleys, and before three months be ended they sing. They that have not been accustomed to the sea, are afeard, though it be at the calmest, when they weigh anchor, whereas the mariners laugh in the midst of a tempest. The wife groweth desperate at the death of her husband, and before a year be expired she loves another. Time and Custom brings all things to pass; that which offendeth us is the novelty of that which happeneth unto us, omnia novitate graviora sunt. Meditation performeth the same office with wise men, and by the force thereof things are made familiar and ordinary, 18 Foresight or providence. quae alij diu patiendo levia faciunt, sapiens levia facit diu cogitando. He considereth exactly the nature of all things that may offend him, and presenteth unto himself whatsoever may happen unto him most grievous and insupportable, as sickness, poverty, exile, injuries, and examineth in them all that which is according to nature or contrary to it. For foresight or providence is a great remedy against all evils, which cannot bring any great alteration or change, happening to a man that attendeth them; whereas contrarily they wound and hurt him greatly, that suffereth himself to be surprised by them. Meditation and discourse is that which giveth the true temper to the soul, prepareth it, confirmeth it against all assaults, makes it hard, steely, impenetrable against whatsoever would wound or hurt it. Sudden accidents how great soever, can give no great blow to him that keeps himself upon his guard, and is always ready to receive them, praemeditati mali mollis ictus venit: quicquid expectatum est diu, leviùs accidit. Now to attain this foresight, we must first know that nature hath placed us here, as in a thorny and slipppery place; that that which is happened unto another, may also light upon us; that that which hangeth over all, may fall upon every one of us; and that in all the affairs that we undertake we premeditate the inconveniences and evil encounters which may happen unto us, to the end we be not surprised unawares. O how much are we deceived, and how little judgement have we, when we think that that which happeneth to others cannot likewise fall upon us! When we will not be wary and provident, for fear lest we should be thought fearful. Contrariwise, if we take knowledge of things, as reason would have us, we would rather wonder that so few crosses happen unto us, and that those accidents that follow us so near, have stayed so long before they catch us, and having caught us, how they should handle us so mildly. He that taketh heed, and considereth the adversity of another, as a thing that may happen unto himself, before it shall happen, is sufficiently armed. We must think of all, and expect the worst; they are fools and ill advised, that say, I had not thought it. It is an old saying, that he that is suddenly surprised, is half beaten, and he that is warned is half armed, nay is two against one. A wise man in time of peace makes his preparation for war: A good mariner before he go forth of the haven, makes provision of what is necessary to resist the violence of a tempest: it is too late to provide against an evil, when it is already come. In whatsoever we are prepared before hand, we find ourselves apt and admirable, what difficulty soever it have; and contrariwise there is not any thing so easy that doth not hurt and hinder us, if we be but novelists therein; Id videndum ne quid inopinaium sit nobis, quia omnia novitate graviora sunt. Doubtless it seemeth that if we were so provident as we should and may be, we should wonder at nothing. That which thou sawest before it came, is happened unto thee, why then wonderest thou? Let us then take a course that accidents do not surprise us; let us ever stand upon our guard, and foresee what is to come. Animus adversus omnia firmandus, ut dicere possimus, non ulla laborum, O virgo, nova mi facies inopináue surgit, Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ipse peregi. Tu hody ista denuntias; ego semper denuntiavi mihi: hominem paravi ad humana. CHAP. VIII. To obey and observe the Laws, Customs, and Ceremonies of the Country, how and in what sense. EVen as a savage and untamed beast, will not suffer himself to be taken, led, and handled by man, but either flieth 1 The beginning, institution and authority of the laws. and hideth himself from him, or armeth himself against him, and with fury assaulteth him, if he approach near unto him; in such sort that a man must use force mingled with Art and subtlety to take and tame him: So folly will not be handled by reason, or wisdom, but striveth and stirreth against it, and addeth folly unto folly; and therefore it must be taken, and led, like a wild beast, (that which a man is to a beast, a wise man is to a fool) astonished, feared, and kept short, that with the more ease it may be instructed and won. Now the proper mean or help thereunto, is a great authority, a thundering power and gravity, which may dazzle it with the splendour of his lightning, Sola authoritas est quae cogit stultos ut ad sapientiam festinent. In a popular fight or sedition August. , if some great, wise, ancient and virtuous parsonage come in presence, that hath won the public reputation of honour and virtue, presently the mutinous people being strucken and blinded with the bright splendour of this authority, are quieted, attending what he will say unto them. Veluti magno in populo cùm saepe coorta Seditio est, saevit que animis ignobile vulgus, jamque faces & sax a volant, furor arma ministrat: Tum pietate gravem ac meritis, si fortè virum quem Conspexêre, silent, arrectisque auribus astant, Ille regit dictis animos, & pectora mulcet. There is nothing greater in this world than authority, which is an image of God, a messenger from Heaven: if it be sovereign it it is called majesty, if subaltern, authority: and by two things it is maintained, admiration and fear mingled together. Now this majesty and authority is first and properly in the person of the sovereign prince and lawmaker, where it is lively, actual and moving; afterwards in his commandments and ordinances, that is to say, in the law, which is the head of the work of the prince, and the image of a lively and original majesty. By this are fools reduced, conducted, and guided. Behold then of what weight, necessity and utility, authority and the law is in the world. The next authority and that which is likest to the law, is custom, which is another powerful and Imperious mistress; 2 Of Custom. It seizeth upon this power, and usurpeth it traitorously and violently, for it planteth this authority by little and little, by stealth, as it were insensibly, by a little pleasing, and humble beginning; having settled and established itself by the help of time, it discovereth afterwards a furious and tyrannical visage, against which there is no more liberty or power left, so much as to lift up ones eyes; It taketh it authority from the possession and use thereof, it increaseth and ennobleth itself by continuance like a river; it is dangerous to bring it back to his original fountain. Law & custom establish their authority diversly, custom by little and little, with long time, sweetly and without force 3 A comparison of them both. , by the common consent of all, or the greater part, and the author thereof are the people. The law springeth up in a moment with authority and power, and taketh his force from him that hath power to command all, yea many times against the liking of the subjects, whereupon some compare it to a tyrant, and custom to a king. Again, custom hath with it neither reward nor punishment; the law hath them both, at least punishment, nevertheless they may mutually help and hinder one another. For custom which is but of sufferance, authorized by the sovereign, is better confirmed: and the law likewise settleth it own authority by possession and use; and contrariwise custom may be caschiered by a contrary law, and the law loseth the force thereof by suffering a contrary custom: but ordinarily they are together, that is law and custom; wise and spiritual men considering it as a law, idiots and simple men as a custom. There is not a thing more strange, than the diversity and strangeness of some laws and customs in the world; Neither 4 Their diversity and strangeness. is there any opinion or imagination so variable, so mad, which is not established by laws and customs in some place or other. I am content to recite some of them, to show those Of laws and customs in the world. that are hard of belief herein, how far this proposition doth go. Yet omitting to speak of those things that belong to religion, which is the subject where the greatest wonderments and grossest impostures are: but because it is without the commerce of men, and that it is not properly a custom, and where it is easy to be deceived, I will not meddle with it. See then a brief of those that for the strangeness are best worth the noting. To account it an office of piety in a certain age to kill their parents & to eat them. In Inns to pay the shot, by yielding their children, wives and daughters to the pleasure of the host: public brothelhouses of males: old men lending their wives unto young: women common: an honour to women to have accompanied with many men, and to carry their locks in the hembes of their garments: daughters to go with their privy parts uncovered, and married women carefully to keep them covered: to leave the daughters to their pleasures, and being great with child to enforce an obort in the sight and knowledge of all men; but married women to keep themselves chaste and faithful to their husbands: women the first night before they company with their husbands, to receive all the males of the estate and profession of their husbands, invited to the marriage, and ever after to be faithful to their husbands: young married women to present their virginity to their prince, before they he with their husbands: marriages of males: women to go to war with their husbands: to die and to kill themselves at the decease of their husbands, or shortly after: to permit widows to marry again, if their husbands die a violent death, and not otherwise: husbands to be divorced from their wives without alleging any cause: to sell them if they be barren, to kill them for no other cause but because they are women, and afterwards to borrow women of others at their need: women to be delivered without pain or fear: to kill their children because they are not fair, well featured, or without cause: at meat to wipe their fingers upon their privities and their feet: to live with man's flesh: to eat flesh and fish raw: many men and women to lie together to the number of ten or twelve: to salute one another by putting the finger to the ground, and afterwards lifting it towards heaven: to turn the back when they salute, and never to look him on the face whom a man will honour: to take into the hand the spittle of the prince: not to speak to the king but at a peepe-hole: in a man's whole life never to cut his hair nor nails: to cut the hair on one side, and the nails of one hand, and not of the other: men to piss sitting, womans standing: to make holes and pits in the flesh of the face, and the dugs, to hang rings and jewels in: to contemn death, to receive it with joy, to sue for it, to plead in public for the honour thereof, as for a dignity and favour: to account it an honourable burial to be eaten with dogs, birds, to be boiled, cut in pieces and pounded, and the powder to be cast into their ordinary drink. When we come to judge of these customs, that is the complaint and the trouble: the vulgar sot and pedant, are 5 Examination and judgement. not troubled herewith, for every seditious rout condemneth as barbarous and beastly whatsoever pleaseth not their palate, that is to say, the common use and custom of their country. And if a man shall tell them, that others do speak and judge the same of ours, and are as much offended with ours, as we with theirs, they cut a man short after their manner, terming them beasts and barbarians, which is always to say the same thing. A wise man is more advised, as shall be said, he maketh not such haste to judge, for fear lest he wrong his own judgement: and to say the truth, there are many laws and customs which seem at the first view to be savage, inhuman, and contrary to all reason, which if they were without passion, and sound considered of, if they were not found to be altogether just and good, yet at the least they would not be without some reason and defence. Let us take amongst the rest for example the two first which we have spoken of, which seem to be both the strangest and farthest off from the duty of piety; to kill their own parents at a certain age, and to eat them. They that have this custom do take it to be a testimony of piety and good affection, endeavouring thereby first of mere pity to deliver their old parents, not only unprofitable to themselves and others, but burdensome, languishing, and leading a painful and troublesome life, and to place them in rest and ease: afterwards giving them the most worthy and commendable sepulchre, lodging in themselves and their own bowels the bodies and relics of their parents, in a manner reviving them again, and regenerating them by a kind of transmutation into their living flesh, by the means of the digestion and nourishment. These reasons would not seem overlight to him that is not possessed with a contrary opinion: and it is an easy matter to consider, what cruelty and abomination it had been to these people, to see their parents before their own eyes to suffer such grief and torment, and they not able to secure them, and afterwards to cast their spoils to the corruption of the earth, to stench and rottenness, and the food of worms, which is the worst that can be done unto it. Darius' made a trial, ask some Greeks' for what they would be persuaded to follow the custom of the Indians in eating their dead fathers. To whom they answered, that they would not do it for any thing in the world. And on the other side assaying to persuade the Indians to burn the bodies of their dead parents as the Greeks' did, it seemed to them a matter of such difficulty and horror, as that they would never be drawn unto it. I will add only one other, which concerneth only matter of decency and comeliness, and is more light and more pleasant: One that always blew his nose with his hand, being reprehended for incivility, in the defence of himself, asked what privilege that filthy excrement had, that a man must afford it a fair handker chief to receive, and afterwards carefully wrap & fold it up, which he thought was a matter of greater loathsomeness than to cast it from him. So that we see that for all things there may be found some seeming reason, and therefore we are not suddenly and lightly to condemn any thing. But who would believe how great and imperious the authority of custom is? He that said it was another nature, did 6 The authority thereof. not sufficiently express it, for it doth more than nature, it conquereth nature: for hence it is that the most beautiful daughters of men draw not unto love their natural parents; nor brethren, though excellent in beauty, win not the love of their sisters. This kind of chastirie is not properly of nature, but of the use of laws and customs, which forbidden them, and make of incest a great sin, as we may see in the fact not Gen. 11. 20. 29. 35. Exod. 6. levit. 28. only of the children of Adam, where there was an enforced necessity, but of Abraham and Nachor brethren; of jacob and judas patriarchs, Amram the father of Moses, and other holy men: And it is the law of Moses which forbade it in these first degrees; but it hath also sometimes dispensed therewith not only in the collateral line, and betwixt brothers, and their brother's wives, which was a commandment, and not a dispensation Deut. 25. 2. Reg. 12. 3. Reg. 2. : and which is more, between the natural brother and sister of divers wombs, but also in the right line of alliance, that is to say, of the son with the mother in law; for in the right line of blood, it seemeth to be altogether against nature, notwithstanding the fact of the daughters of Lot with their father, which nevertheless was produced purely by nature, in that extreme apprehension and fear of the end of human kind, for which cause they have been excused by Chrysost. Ambrose. August. great and learned doctors. Now against nature there is not any dispensation, if God the only superior thereunto give it not. Finally of casual incests and not voluntary the world is full, as Tertullian teacheth. Moreover, custom doth enforce In Apolog. the rules of nature, witness those Physicians who many times leave the natural reasons of their art by their own authority, as they that by custom do live and sustain their lives with poison, Spiders, Emmets, lizards, Toads, which is a common practice amongst the people of the West Indies. It likewise dulleth our senses, witness they that live near the fall of the river of Nilus, near clocks, armouries, mills, and the whole world according to some Philosophers, with the sound of a heavenly kind of music, and the continual and divers motions of the heavens dulleth our senses, that we hear not that which we hear. To conclude, (and it is the principal fruit thereof) it overcometh all difficulty, maketh things easy that seem impossible, sweeteneth all sour, and therefore by the means hereof a man lives in all things content, but yet it mastereth our souls, our beliefs, our judgements, with a most unjust and tyrannical authority. It doth and undoth, authoriseth and disauthoriseth whatsoever it please, without rhythm or reason, yea many times against all reason: It establisheth in the world against reason & judgement all the opinions, religions, beliefs, observances, manners, and sorts of life most fantastical and rude, as before hath been said. And contrarily, it wrongfully degradeth, robbeth, beateth down in things that are truly great and admirable, their price and estimation, and maketh them base and vile. Nil adeo magnum, nec tam mirabile quidquam Principiò, quod non cessent mirarier omnes Paulatim.— So that we see that custom is a thing great and powerful. Plato having reprehended a youth for playing at cobnut, or chery-pit, and receiving this answer from him, That he controlled him for a matter of small moment, replied, My child, custom is not a matter of small moment. A speech well worth the noting for all such as have youth to bring up. But it exerciseth it power with so absolute authority, that there is no striving against it, neither is it lawful to reason, or call into question the ordinances thereof: it enchanteth us in such sort, that it maketh us believe that what is without the bounds thereof, is without the bounds of reason, and there is nothing good and just, but what it approveth; ratione non componimur, Senec. sed consuetudine abducimur: honestius putamus quod frequentius: recti apud nos locum tenet error, ubi publicus factus. This is tolerable with idiots and the vulgar sort, who wanting sufficiency to look into the depth of things, to try and to judge, do well to hold and settle themselves to that which is commonly held and received: but to wise men, who play another part, it is a base thing to suffer themselves to be carried with customs. Now the advice which I here give unto him that would be wise, is to keep and observe both in word and deed the 7 An advice. laws & customs which he findeth established in the country where he is: and in like manner to respect and obey the magistrates and all superiors, but always with a noble spirit, and after a generous manner, and not servilely, pedanticallie, superstitiously, and withal not taking offence, nor lightly condemning other strange laws and customs, but freely and sound judging and examining the one and the other, as hath been said, and not binding his judgement and belief but unto reason only. Hereof a word or two. In the first place according to all the wisest, the rule of rules, and the general law of laws, is to follow and observe 1 Laws and customs are to be observed. the laws and customs of the country where he is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, avoiding carefully all singularity, and strange extravagant particularity, different from the common and ordinary; for whatsoever it be, it always hurteth and woundeth another, is suspected of folly, hypocrisy, ambitious passion, though perhaps it proceed from a sick and weak soul. Non conturbabit sapiens publicos mores, nec populum in se, novitate vitae convertet. We must always walk under the covert of the laws, customs, superiors, without disputation or tergiversation, without undertaking sometimes to dispense with the laws, sometimes like a frugal servant to enhance the price. But that it be (which is the second rule) out of a good mind and after a good manner; nobly and wisely, neither for the love 2 Not for their justice and equity. nor fear of them, nor for the justice or equity that is in them, nor for fear of that punishment that may follow for not obeiing them: to be brief, not of superstition, nor constrained, scrupulous, fearful servitude, eadem quae populus, sed non eodem modo, nec eodem proposito faciet sapiens, but freely and simply for public reverence, and for their authority. Laws and customs are maintained in credit, not because they are just and good, but because they are laws and customs; this is the mystical foundation of their authority, they have no other; and so is it with superiors, because they are superiors, quia supra Cathedram sedent, not because they are virtuous and honest, quae faciunt, nolite facere. He that obeyeth them for any other cause, obeyeth them not because he should, this is an evil and a dangerous subject, it is not true obedience, which must be pure and simple, unde vocatur depositio discretionis mera executio, abnegatio sui. Now to go about to measure one obedience by the justice and goodness of laws and superiors, were by submitting them to our judgement, to serve them with process, and to call our obedience into doubt, and disputation, and consequently the state and the policy according to the inconstancy and diversity of judgements. How many unjust and strange laws are there in the world, not only in the particular judgements of men, but of universal reason, wherewith the world hath lived a long time in continual peace and rest, with as great satisfaction as if they had been very just and reasonable? And he that should go about to change or mend them, would be accounted an enemy to the weal-public, and never be admitted: The nature of man doth accommodate itself to all with the times, and having once caught his fish, it is an act of hostility to go about to alter any thing: we must leave the world where it is, these trouble-houses and new-fangled spirits, under a pretext of reformation mar all. All change and alteration of laws, beliefs, customs and Against innovatours. observances is very dangerous, and yieldeth always more evil than good; it bringeth with it certain and present evils, for a good that is uncertain and to come. Innovatours have always glorious and plausible titles, but they are but the more suspected, and they cannot escape the note of ambitious presumption, in that they think to see more clearly than others, and that to establish their opinions, the state, policy, peace and public quiet must be turned topsy-turvy. I will not say for all this that hath been said before, that 3 Strange things are not lightly to be condemned. we must absolutely obey all laws, all commandments of superiors, for such as a man knoweth evidently to be either against God or nature, he is not to obey, and yet not to rebel and to trouble the state: how he should govern himself in such a case shall be taught hereafter, in the obedience due unto princes; for to say the truth, this inconvenience and infelicity, is rather, and more common in the commandments of princes, than in the laws: neither is it sufficient to obey the laws and superiors because of their worth and merit, nor servilely and for fear, as the common and profane sort do; but a wise man doth nothing by force or fear, soli hoc sapienti contingit, ut nil faciat invitus, recta sequitur, gaudet officio, he doth that which he should, and keeps the laws, not for fear of them, but for the love of himself, being jealous of his duty; he hath not to do with the laws, to do well; that is that wherein he differeth from the common sort, who cannot do well, nor know what they ought to do, without laws; at justo & sapienti non est lex posita. By right a wise man is above the laws, but in outward and public effect, he is their voluntary and free obedient subject. In the third place thereof, it is an act of lightness and injurious presumption, yea a testimony of weakness and insufficiency, to condemn that which agreeth not with the law and custom of his country. This proceedeth either from want of leisure or sufficiency to consider the reasons and grounds of others; this is to wrong and shame his own judgement, whereby he is enforced many times to recant, and not to remember that the nature of man is capable of all things; It is to suffer the eye of his spirit to be hood winked, and brought asleep by a long custom, and prescription to have power over judgement. Finally it is the office of a generous spirit and a wise man 4 Wisely to examine all things. (whom I here endeavour to describe) to examine all things, to consider apart, and afterwards to compare together all the laws and customs of the world, which shall come to his knowledge, and to judge of them (not to rule his obedience by them, as hath been said, but to exercise his office, since he hath a spirit to that end) faithfully and without passion, according to the rule of truth and universall reason and nature, whereunto he is first obliged, not flattering himself, or staining his judgement with error: and to content himself to yield obedience unto those whereunto he is secondly and particularly bound, whereby none shall have cause to complain of him. It may fall out sometimes, that we may do that, by a second particular and municipal obligation (obeying the laws and customs of the country) which is against the first and more ancient, that is to say, universal nature and reason; but yet we satisfy nature by keeping our judgements and opinions true and just according to it. For we have nothing so much ours, and whereof we may freely dispose; the world hath nothing to do with out thoughts, but the outward man is engaged to the public course of the world, and must give an account thereof: so that many times, we do justly that, which justly we approve not. There is no remedy, for so goes the world. After these two mistresses, Law and Custom, comes the 8 Of Ceremonies. third, which hath no less authority & power with many, yea is more rough & tyrannical to those that too much tie themselves thereunto. This is the ceremony of the world, which to say the truth, is for the most part but vanity; yet holdeth such place, and usurpeth such authority, by the remissness and contagious corruption of the world, that many think that wisdom consisteth in the observation thereof, and in such sort do voluntarily enthrall themselves thereunto, that rather than they will contradict it, they prejudice their health, benefit, business, liberty, conscience and all; which is a very great folly, and the fault and infelicity of many Courtiers, who above others are the idolaters of ceremony. Now my will is, that this my Wiseman, do carefully defend himself from this captivity. I do not mean, that out of a kind of lose incivility, he abuse a ceremony, for we must forgive the world in some thing, and as much as may be outwardly conform ourselves to that which is in practice; but my will is, that he tie not, and enthrall himself thereunto, but that with a gallant and generous boldness he know how to leave it when he will, and when it is fit, and in such manner, as that he give all men to know, that it is not out of carelessness, or delicacy, or ignorance, or contempt, but because he would not seem ignorant how to esteem of it as is fit, not suffer his judgement and will to be corrupted with such a vanity, and that he dareth himself to the world when it pleaseth him, but never giveth himself. CHAP. IX. To carry himself well with another. THis matter belongeth to the virtue of justice, which teacheth how to live well with all, and to give to every one that which appertaineth unto him, which shall be handled in the book following, where shall be set down the particular and divers opinions according to the diversity of persons. Hear are only the general, following the purpose and subject of this book. There is here a twofold consideration (and consequently two parts in this Chapter) according to the two manners of conversing with the world, the one is simple, general and common; the ordinary commerce of the world, whereunto the times, the affairs, the voyages, and encounters do daily lead, and change acquaintance from those we know, to those we know not, strangers, without our choice, or voluntary consents: the other special is in affected and desired company and acquaintance, either sought after and chosen, or being offered and presented, hath been embraced, and that either for spiritual or corporal profit or pleasure, wherein there is conference, communication, privity, and familiarity: each of them have their advisements apart. But before we enter into them, it shall not be amiss by way of preface, to give you some general and fundamental advice of all the rest. It is a great vice (whereof this our Wiseman must take heed) and a defect inconvenient both to himself and to another 3 Facility and universality of humours. , to be bound and subject to certain humours and complexions, to one only course, that is, to be a slave to himself, so to be captivated to his proper inclinations, that he cannot be bend to any other, a testimony of an anxious scrupulous mind, and ill bred, too amorous, and too partial to itself. These kind of people have much to endure and to contest; and contrariwise it is a great sufficiency and wisdom to accommodate himself to all, I stud est sapere, qui ubicunque opus sit animum possis flectere, to be supple and manaiable, to know how to rise and fall, to bring himself into order when there is need. The fairest minds, and the best borne, are the more universal, the more common, appliable to all understandings, communicative and open to all people. It is a beautiful quality, which resembleth and imitateth the goodness of God, it is the honour which was given to old Cato, huic versatile ingenium, sic pariter adomnia fuit, ut natum ad id unum diceres, quodcunque ageret. Let us see the advisements of the first consideration, of the simple and common conversation, I will here set down some 4 The first part. Advice touching simple and common conversation. , whereof the first shall be, to keep silence and modesty. The second, not to be over-formall, in not applying himself to the follies, indiscretions and lightnesses which may be committed in his presence; for it is an indiscretion to condemn all that pleaseth not our palate. The third, to spare, and thriftily to order that which a man knoweth, and that sufficiency that he hath attained, and to be more willing to hear than to speak, to learn than to teach; for it is a vice to be more ready and forward to make himself known, to talk of himself, and to show all that is in him, than to learn knowledge of another, and to spend his own stock than to get new. The fourth, not to enter into discourse and contestation against all, neither against great men to whom we own a duty and respect, nor against our inferiors, where the match is not equal. The fift, to be honestly curious in the enquiry of all things , and knowing them, to order them frugally, to make profit by them. The sixth and principal is, to employ his judgement in all things, which is the chief part which worketh, ruleth, and doth all; without the understanding all other things are blind, deaf, and without a soul, it is least to know the history, the judgement is all. The seventh is, never to speak affirmatively, and imperiously, with obstinacy and resolution; that hurteth and woundeth all. Peremptory affirmation and obstinacy in opinion, are ordinary signs of senselessness and ignorance. The style of the ancient Romans was, that the witnesses deposing, and the judges determining that which of their own proper knowledge they knew to be true, they expressed their mind by this word, It seemeth (it a videtur). And if these did thus, what should others do? It were good to learn to use such words as may sweeten and moderate the temerity of our propositions, as, It may be, It is said, I think, It seemeth, and the like: and in answering, I understand it not, What is that to say? It may be, It is true. I will shut up this general part in these few The conclusion. words; To have the countenance and the outward show open and agreeable to all, his mind and thought covered and hid from all, his tongue sober and discreet, always to keep himself to himself, and to stand on his guard, frons aperta, lingua parca, mens clausa, nulli fidere, to see and hear much, to speak little, to judge of all, vide, audi, judica. Let us come to the other consideration, and kind of conversation more special, whereof the instructions are these. 11 The second part, of special conversation. The first is to seek, to confer, and converse with men of constancy and dexterity; for thereby the mind is confirmed and fortified, and is elevated above itself, as with base and weak spirits it is debased, and utterly lost: the contagion herein is, as in the body, and also more. The second is not to be astonished at the opinions of another, for how contrary soever to the common sort, how strange, how frivolous or extravagant they seem, yet they are suitable to the spirit of man, which is capable to produce all things, and therefore it is weakness to be astonished at them. The third is not to fear or to be troubled with the rude incivility and bitter speeches of men, whereunto he must harden and accustom himself. Gallant men bear them with courage; this tenderness, and fearful & ceremonious mildness is for women. This society and familiarity must be valiant and manly, it must be courageous both to give hard speeches, and to endure them, to correct and to be corrected. It is a fading pleasure, to have to do with a people that yield, flatter, and applaud a man in all things. The fourth is to aim always at the truth, to acknowledge it, ingenuously and cheerfully to yield unto it, of what side soever it be; using always and in all things sincerity, and not as many, especially pedanties, by right or by wrong to defend himself, and to quell his adversary. It is a fairer victory to range himself according to reason, and to vanquish himself, than to overcome his adversary, whereunto his own weakness doth many times help, being far from all passion. To acknowledge his fault, to confess his doubt and ignorance, to yield when there is occasion, are acts of judgement, gentleness and sincerity, which are the principal qualities of an honest and wise man; whereas obstinacy in opinion accuseth a man of many vices and imperfections. The fift is, in disputation not to employ all the means that a man may have, but such as are best and fittest, that are more pertinent and pressing, and that with brevity; for even in a good cause a man may say too much; for long discourses, amplifications and repetitions are a testimony of ostentation, desire to speak, and tedious to the whole company. The sixth and principal is, in all things to keep a form , order and aptness. O what a troublesome thing it is to dispute and confer with a fool, a trifler, that uttereth nothing but matter impertinent to the matter! It is the only just excuse to cut off all conference: for what can a man gain but torment, that knows not how, or what to speak as he should? Not to understand the argument that is made, to wed himself to his own opinion, not to answer directly, to tie himself to words, and to leave the principal, to mingle and trouble the conference with vain amplifications, to deny all, not to follow the form of disputation, to use unprofitable prefaces and digressions, to be obstinate in opinion, and to mouth it out, to tie himself to forms, and never to dive into the bottom, are things that are ordinarily practised by pedanties and Sophisters. See here how wisdom is discerned from folly; this is presumptuous, rash, obstinate, assured; that never satisfieth itself, is fearful, advised, modest: this pleaseth itself, goes forth of the lists merrily and gloriously, as having won the victory, when it never came near it. The seventh, if there be place of contradiction, he must take heed that he be not bold, obstinate, bitter, for either of these three makes it unwelcome, & doth more hurt himself, than an other. That it may win good entertainment of the company, it must arise from that very hour of the controversy that is handled, from the present occasion, and not from elsewhere, nor from any former precedent ground; neither must it touch the person, but the matter only, with some commendation of the person, if there be cause. CHAP. X. To carry himself wisely in his affairs. THis doth properly belong to the virtue of prudence, whereof we shall speak in the beginning of the book following, where shall be set down in particular divers counsels and advisements according to the divers kinds of prudence and occurrents in our affairs. But I will here set down the principal points and heads of wisdom, which are general & common advisements to instruct in gross our disciple, to carry himself well and wisely in the traffic and commerce of the world, and the managing of all affairs; and they are eight. The first consisteth in understanding, that is, well to know the persons with whom a man hath to deal, their proper and 1 Knowledge of the people and affairs. particular nature, their humour, their spirit, inclinatino, designment, and intention, their proceed: to know likewise the nature of the business which he hath in hand, and which is proposed unto him, not only in their superficial and outward appearance, but to penetrate into the inside thereof, not only to see and know things in themselves, but the accidents and consequents that belong thereunto. The better to do this, he must look into them with all manner of visages, consider them in all senses; for there are some that in one side are very precious and pleasing, and on the other base and pernicious. Now it is certain, that according to the divers natures of the persons and affairs, we must change our style and manner of proceeding, like a Seaman, who according to the divers state of the sea, and the diversity of the winds, doth diversly turn and guide his sails and his oars. For he that in all things shall direct and carry himself after one and the same fashion, would quickly mar all, play the fool, and make himself ridiculous. Now this twofold knowledge of the persons and affairs is no easy matter, so much is man disguised and counterfeited; but the way to attain thereunto, is to consider them attentively and advisedly, revolving them many times in our minds, and that without passion. We must likewise learn to esteem of things according to their true worth, giving unto them that price and place 2 Estimation of things. which appertaineth unto them, which is the true office of wisdom and sufficiency. This is a high point of philosophy; but the better to attain thereunto, we must take heed of passion, and the judgement of the vulgar sort. There are Not according to the vulgar judgement. six or seven things which move and lead vulgar spirits, and make them to esteem of things by false ensigns, whereof wise men will take heed; which are, novelty, rarity, strangeness, difficulty, Art, invention, absence, and privation or denial, and above all, report, show, and provision. They esteem not of things if they be not polished by Art and science, if they be not pointed and painted out. The simple and natural, of what value soever they be, they attend not; they escape and drop away insensibly, or at least are accounted plain, base, and foolish; a great testimony of human vanity and imbecility, which is paid with wind, with false and counterfeit money, in steed of currant, from whence it is, that a man preferreth Art before nature, that which is studied and difficult, before that which is easy; vehement motions, and impulsions, before complexion, constitution, habit; the extraordinary before the ordinary; ostentation & pomp, before true and secret verity; another man's, and that which is strange, which is borrowed, before that which is proper and natural. And what greater folly can there be than all this? Now the rule of the wise is not to suffer themselves by all this, to be caught and carried, but to measure and judge But according to the wise. and esteem of things, first by their true, natural and essential value, which is many times inward and secret; and then by their profit and commodity; the rest is but deceit or mockery. This is a matter of difficulty, all things being so disguised and sophisticated: many times the false and wicked being more plausible, than the true and good. And Aristotle saith, that there are many falsehoods, which are more probable, and have a better outward appearance, than verities. But as it is difficult, so is it excellent and divine: Si separaveris pretiosum Difficult. Excellent. Necessary. seneca. a vili, quasi os meum eris: And necessary before all works; quàm necessarium pretiarebus imponere; for to small purpose doth a man endeavour to know the precepts of a good life, if first he know not in what rank to place things, riches, health, beauty, nobility, science, and so forth, with 〈…〉 their contraries. This precedency & pre-eminence of things is a high and excellent knowledge, and yet difficult, especially when many present themselves, for plurality hindereth, and herein men are never of one accord. The particular tastes and judgements of men are divers, and it is fit and commodious it should be so, to the end that all run not together after one and the same thing, and so be a let or hindrance to another. For example, let us take the eight principal heads, of Eight principal heads of goods spiritual and corporal. all goods spiritual and corporal, four of each kind, that is to say, Honesty, Health, Wisdom, Beauty, Ability or Aptness, Nobility, Science, Riches. We do here take the words according to the common sense and use, wisdom for a prudent and discreet manner of life and carriage with and towards all; Ability for sufficiency in affairs; Science for the knowledge of things acquired out of books: the other are clear enough. Now touching the ranging of these eight, how many divers opinions are there? I have told my own, and I have mingled and in such sort interlaced them together, that after and next unto a spiritual, there is a corporal corrospondent thereunto, to the end we may couple the soul and the body together. Health is in the body, that which honesty is in the soul; the health of the soul, is the honesty of the body, mens sana in corpore sano: Beauty, is as wisdom, the measure, proportion, and comeliness of the body, and wisdom a spiritual beauty. Nobility is a great aptness and disposition to virtue. Sciences are the riches of the spirit. Others do range these parts otherwise, some place all the spiritual first, before they come to the first corporal, and the least of the spirit above the greatest of the body: some place them apart, and all diversly, every one aboundeth in his own sense. After and from this sufficiency and part of prudence, to know well how to esteem of things, doth spring and arise 3 Choice and election of things. another, that is, to know well how to choose, where not only the conscience, but also the sufficiency and prudence is likewise many times showed. There are choices very easy, as of a difficulty, & of a vice, of that which is honest, and that which is commodious, of duty and of profit: for the pre-eminence of the one is so great above the other, that when they come to encounter, honesty always winneth the field, except (it may be) some exception very rare, and with great circumstance, and in public affairs only, as shall be said hereafter in the virtue of Prudence: but there are other choices far more hard and troublesome, as when a man is caught or driven into a narrow straight between two vices, as was that Doctor Origen, either to become an Idolater, or to prostitute hunselfe to the carnal pleasure of a base impure Aethiopian. The rule is, that when a man findeth himself in any doubt or perplexity touching the choice of those things that are not evil, he must choose that part that hath most honesty and justice in it; for though it fall out otherwise than well, yet it shall be always some comfort and glory to a man to have chosen the better; and besides a man knoweth not (if he had chosen the contrary part) what would have happened, or whether he had escaped his destiny: when a man doubteth which is the better and shortest way, he must take the streitest. And in those things that are evil (whereof there is never any choice) a man must avoid the more base and unjust: this is a rule of conscience, and belongeth to honesty. But to know which is the more honest, just, and profitable, which the more dishonest, unjust, and unprofitable, it is many times very difficult, and belongeth to prudence and sufficiency. It seemeth that in such like straits and extremities the surer and better way is to follow nature, and to judge that the more just and honest which cometh nearest unto nature, that the more unjust and dishonest which is farthest from it. Before we leave this discourse of the choice & election of things, in two words let us remove this question: From whence cometh in our souls the choice of two indifferent things in all things alike? The Stoics say, from an extraordinary, immoderate, strange and rash operation of the soul. But a man may say, that never do two things present themselves unto us, wherein there is not some difference or other be it never so little, and that there is always something in the one, which moveth us to that choice, although it be insensible, and such as we cannot express. He that is equally balanced betwixt two desires, can never choose, for every choice and inclination doth infer an inequality. Another precept in this matter, is to take advice and counsel of another: for, for a man to believe himself, and to trust 4 Consultation. only in himself, is very dangerous. Now here are required two advertisements of Prudence; the one is in the choice of those, to whom a man must address himself for counsel; for there are some whose counsel we should rather avoid, and fly from. First, they must be honest and faithful men (which is here all one) and secondly, men sensible, advised, wise, and of experience. These are the two qualities of good counsellors, honesty, and sufficiency. A man may add a third, and that is, that neither they nor their nearest and inward friends have any particular interest in the business; for although a man may say, that this cannot hinder them to give good counsel, being, as is said, honest men; yet I may answer, that besides that this so great and philosophical honesty, which is no way touched with it own proper interest, be very rare, it is also a great point of folly to bring it into doubt and anxictie, and as it were to put the finger betwixt two stones. The other advertisement is, well to hear and entertain the counsels, receiving them without attending the event, with judgement and gentleness, delighting in the free delivery of the truth. Having entertained and followed it as good, and coming from a good hand and a friendly, he must not repent himself of it, although it succeed not well, and according to expectation. Many times good counsels have bad events. But a wise man must rather content himself to have followed good counsel which hath brought forth bad effects, than bad counsel which hath had a happy event, as Marius; sic correcti Marij temeritas gloriam ex culpa invenit, and not to do like fools, who having advisedly deliberated and chosen, think afterwards to have chosen the worse, because they weigh only the reasons of the contrary opinion, never counterpoising them with those with first induced them thereunto. Thus much briefly be said of those that seek counsel: Lib. 3. ca 2. art. 17. of those that give it, we shall speak in the virtue of Prudence, whereof the counsel is a great and sufficient part. The fift advice which I here give, to carry himself well in his affairs, is a temperature and mediocrity betwixt too 5 Temperature betwixt fear and assurance. great a confidence, and distrust, fear and assurance. To trust and secure himself, doth many times hurt, and to distrust offendeth: he must take special heed of making any show of distrust, even when there is cause; for it displeaseth, yea offendeth much, and many times maketh a friend an enemy. But yet a man is not to be over-credulous, and confident, except it be of his best assured friends, he must always keep the bridle in his hands, holding it neither too lose nor too straight. He must never speak all, and let that which he speaketh be ever true. He must never deceive, but yet let him take heed he be not deceived. He must ever temper and moderate that columbine innocency and simplicity, in not offending any man with his serpentine wisdom and subtlety, and keeping himself upon his guard, and preserving himself from the deceits, treasons, and ambushments of another. Subtlety to defend, is as commendable, as it is dishonest to offend. He must never therefore advance and engage himself so far, but that he have always a mean when he will, and when it shall be necessary to retire himself without great damage or dislike. He must never forsake his own hold, nor so much despise another, and presume of himself, that he fall into a kind of presumption and carelessness of his affairs; like those that think that no man sees so clear as themselves, that look that every man should yield unto them, that no man should dare to entertain a thought to displease them, and by that means become dissolute, and cast away care, and in the end they are blinded, surprised, and deceived. Another advice and very important, is to take all things in their times and seasons, and to good purpose, and for that To take time and occasion. cause, he must above all things avoid precipitation, an enemy to wisdom, the stepmother of all good actions, a vice much to be feared in young and youthful people. It is in truth the Against precipitation. work of a skilful and active man, to apply every thing to his true end, well to manage all occasions and commodities, to make use both of the times and the means. All things have their seasons, and even the good which a man may do without purpose. Now too much speed and precipitation is contrary hereunto, which troubleth, marreth, and confoundeth all: canis festinans caecos facit catulos. It proceedeth commonly for that passion which carrieth us, Nam qui cupit festinat: qui festinat evertit: unde festinatio improvida & caeca: duo adversissima rectae menticeleritas & ira: and often enough from insufficiency. The contrary vice, laziness, sloth, carelessness, Idleness. which seemeth sometimes to have some air of maturity and wisdom, is likewise pernicious and dangerous especially in the execution. For it is said, that it is lawful to be slow and long in deliberation and consultation, but not in the execution; and therefore the wisest say, That a man must consult slowly, execute speedily, deliberate with leisure, and with speed accomplish. It falleth out sometimes that the contrary is practised with good success, and that a man is happy in the event, though he have been sudden and rash in his deliberation; Subiti consilijs, eventu faelices, but this is very seldom, and by chance or fortune; according to which we must not rule and direct ourselves; but take heed lest envy and emulation overtake us; for commonly a long and unprofitable repentance is the reward of headlong hastiness. Behold then two rocks and extremities which we must equally avoid; for it is as great a fault to take occasions before they be ready, whilst they be green and raw, as to suffer them to grow till they be over-ripe & past the taking. The first fault, young men and forward hot-spurres commit, who for want of patience, give no leisure to time and the heavens to do any thing for them, they run, but they catch nothing: The second, heavy, lazy dull spirited men do commonly fall into. To know the occasion, and to take it, a man must have his spirit valiant and vigilant, and likewise patiented: he must foresee it, watch, attend it, see it coming, and prepare for it, and so take it just at that instant when it is ready. The seventh advice is, well to carry himself with these two masters & superintendants of the affairs of the world, which 7 Industry and Fortune. are industry or virtue, and fortune. It is an ancient question which of these two hath most credit, force, and authority: for it is out of all doubt, that both have; and it is clearly false, that one only doth all, and the other nothing. It were perhaps to be wished that it were true, and that one only had the whole empire, the business would go the better, a man would wholly attend that, whereby it would be the more easy; the difficulty is to join them together, and to attend them both. Commonly they that settle themselves unto the one, contemn the other, the younger and bolder sort respect and trust to fortune, hoping much good from it, and many times by them it worketh great matters, in somuch that it seems to favour them; the more ancient and stayed, trust to their industry; and these of the two, have the more reason. If we should compare them, and choose one of the two, industry is the more honest, the more certain, glorious; for though fortune be contrary to it, and shall make all industry & diligence vain, yet nevertheless there remaineth great contentment, in that a man hath not kept holy day, hath performed his office or duty, hath carried himself like a man of courage. They that follow the other part, are in danger to attend in vain, and though perhaps things succeed according to their own desires, yet they want that honour and glory that the former hath. Now the advice of wisdom is, not wholly, and so much to settle ourselves to the one, that we contemn, and exclude the other; for they have both a good part, yea many times they help, and do mutually attend one the other. A wise man then must carry himself with them both, but yet unequally, for the advantage and pre-eminence must be given, as hath been said, to virtue, industry; virtute duce, comite fortuna. This advice likewise is required, to keep discretion, which seasoneth and giveth a taste or relish to all things; this is not a particular quality, but common, which mingleth itself in all: Indiscretion marreth all, and taketh away the grace from the best actions, whether it be to do good to another; for all gratifications are not well bestowed upon all sorts of people; or to excuse himself; for inconsiderate excuses serve for accusations, or to play the part of an honest and courteous man, for a man may exceed and degenerate into rusticity, or whether it be to offer, or to accept. CHAP. XI. To keep himself always ready for death, a fruit of wisdom. THe day of death is the master day, and judge of all other 1 The day of death. days, the trial and touchstone of all the actions of our life. Then do we make our greatest assay, and gather the whole fruit of all our studies. He that judgeth of the life of a man, must look how he carried himself at his death; for the end crowneth the work, and a good death honoureth a man's whole life, as an evil defameth and dishonoureth it: A man cannot well judge of any, without wronging of him, before he hath played the last act of his Comedy, which is without all doubt the most difficult. Epaminondas one of the wise men of Greece, being demanded whom of three men he esteemed most, himself, Chabrias, or Iphicrates, answered, We must first see all three die, before we resolve that question: the reason is, because in all the rest a man may be masked, but in this last part, it is to no purpose to dissemble, Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo Eijciuntur, & eripitur persona; manet res. Fortune from far seemeth to watch, and lie in wait for us, against this last day, as a day long since named and appointed, to show her power, and in a moment to overthrow all that we have built, and gathered together in many years, and to make us cry out with Laberius, Nimirum hac die una plùs vixi mihi, quàm vivendum fuit: And so was it well and wisely said of Solon to Croesus; Ante obitum nemo beatus. It is an excellent thing to learn to die, it is the study of wisdom, which aimeth wholly at this end: he hath not 2 To know how to die. spent his life ill, that hath learned to die well; and he hath lost his whole time, that knows not well how to end it. Malè vivet, quisquis nesciet bene mori: non frustra nascitur qui bene Senec. moritur: nec inutiliter vixit, qui foeliciter desijt: Mori tota vita discendum est, & praecipuum ex vitae officijs est. He shoots not well, that looks not on the mark; and he cannot live well that hath not an eye to his death. To be brief, the science of dying is the science of liberty, the way to fear nothing, to live well, contentedly and peaceably; without this knowledge there is no more pleasure in life, than in the fruition of that thing which a man feareth always to lose. First and above all, we must endeavour, that our sins die before ourselves: Secondly, that we be always ready and prepared for death. O what an excellent thing is it for a man to end his life before his death, in such sort, that at that hour he have no other thing to do, but to die! that he have no more need of any thing, not of time, not of himself, but sweetly and contentedly departeth this life, saying: Vixi, & quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi. Thirdly, we must endeavour, that our death be voluntary; for to die well, is to die willingly. It seemeth that a man may carry himself in death five divers ways: He may fear and fly it, as a very great evil; attend 4 A five fold manner of carriage in death. it sweetly and patiently, as a thing natural, inevitable, reasonable; contemn it, as a thing indifferent, and of no great importance; desire and seek after it, as the only haven of rest from all the torments of this life, yea a very great gain; give it to himself, by taking away his own life. Of these five, the three middlemost are good, befitting a good and settled soul, although diversly, and in a different condition of life; the two extremes are vicious and out of weakness, though it be with divers visages. A word or two of them all. The first is not approved by men of understanding, though by the greater part it be practised: a testimony of great weakness. 5 To fear death. Against these kind of men, and for your better comfort, either against your own death, or the death of another, thus much briefly. There is not a thing that men fear more, or have more in horror than death: nevertheless, there is not a thing where there is less occasion or matter of fear, or that contrarily yieldeth greater reasons to persuade us with resolution to accept of it. And therefore we must say, that it is a mere opinion, and a vulgar error that hath won the world thus to think of it. We give too much credit to the It is opinion. inconsiderate vulgar sort, who tell us, That it is a very great evil; and to little credit to wisdom itself which teacheth us, that it is a freedom from all evils and the haven of life. Never did a present death do hurt to any man; and some that have made trial, and partly knew what it is, complain not of it: and if death be counted an evil, it is of all the evils the only that doth no harm, that hath no evil in it; it is the imagination only of death before it come, that maketh us to fear it when it is come. It is then but opinion, not verity; and it is truly where opinion bandeth itself most against reason, and goeth about to deface it in us, with the mask of death: there cannot be any reason to fear it, because no man knows what it is, that he should fear it: for why, or how should a man fear that he knoweth not? And therefore wisely said he, that of all others was accounted the wisest, that to fear death is to make show of greater understanding and sufficiency than can be in a man, by seeming to know that, that no man knoweth: and what he spoke he practised himself; for being solicited at his death by his friends, to plead before the judges, for his justification, and for his life, this oration he made unto them: My masters and friends, if I should plead for my life, and desire you that I may not die, I doubt I may speak against myself, and desire my own loss and hindrance, because I know not what it is to die, nor what good or ill there is in death: they that fear to die presume to know it, as for myself I am utterly ignorant what it is, or what is done in the other world; perhaps death is a thing indifferent, perhaps a good thing, and to be desired. Those things that I know to be evil, as to offend my neighbour, I fly and avoid; those that I know not to be evil, as death, I cannot fear. And therefore I commit myself unto yourselves; and because I cannot know whether it is more expedient for me to die, or not to die, determine you thereof as you shall think good. For a man to torment himself with the fear of death, it is 6 It is weakness. first great weakness and cowardliness: There is not a woman that in few days is not appeased and content with the death, yea the most painful that may be, either of her husband or her child; And why should not reason and wisdom do that in an hour, at an instant (as we have a thousand examples) which time performeth in a fool, in the weakest sex? What use is there of wisdom and constancy in man, to what end serve they, if they speed him not in a good action, if he can do no more with their help, than a fool with his folly? From this weakness it is, that the most part of men dying, cannot resolve themselves, that it is their last hour, and there is not any thing where this deceitful hope doth more busy man; which it may be, doth likewise proceed from this, that we account our death a great matter, and that all things have an interest in us, and at our death must suffer with us, so much do we esteem ourselves. Again a man showeth himself herein unjust; for if death be a good thing, as it is, why doth he fear it? If an evil thing, 7 Injustice. why doth he make it worse, and add unto death evil upon evil, sorrow and grief where there is none? like him that being rob of a part of his goods by the enemy, casteth the rest into the sea, to let men know how little he is grieved with his losses. Finally to fear death, is for a man to be an enemy to himself, 8 To be enemy to his own life. and to his own life: for he can never live at ease and contentedly, that feareth to die. That man is only a free man, which feareth not death; and contrarily, life is but a slavery if it were not made free by death: For death is the only stay of our liberty, the common and ready receptacle of all evils: It is then a misery (and miserable are all that do it) to trouble our life with the care and fear of death, and our death with the care of life. But to say the truth, what complaints and murmuring would there be against nature, if death were not, if we should have continued here will we, nill we, with and against our own wills? doubtless men would have cursed nature for it. Imagine with thyself how much more insupportable, and painful a durable life would have been, than a life with a condition to leave it. Chiron refused immortality, being informed of the conditions thereof by the god of Time, Saturn his father. Doubtless death is a very beautiful and rich invention of nature, optimum naturae inventum nusquam satis laudatum, and a very proper and profitable necessary to many things; If it were quite taken from us, we should desire it more, than now we fear it, yea thirst after it more than life itself; such a remedy is it against so many evils; such a mean to so many goods. What were it on the other side, if there were not mingled with death some little bitterness? doubtless men would run unto it with great desire and indiscretion. To keep therefore a moderation, that is, that men might neither love life too much, nor fly it, fear death, nor run after it, both of them, sweetness and sharpness, are therein tempered together. The remedy that the vulgar sort do give herein, is too simple; and that is, never to think or speak thereof: Besides 10 Remedies not to fear death. that such a kind of carelessness cannot lodge in the head of a man of understanding, it would likewise at the last cost him dear: for death coming unawares, and unexpected, what torments, outcries, furies and despairs are there commonly seen? Wisdom adviseth much better, that is, to attend and expect death with a constant foot, and to encounter it: and the better to do this, it giveth us contrary counsel to the vulgar sort, that is, to have it always in our thoughts, to practise it, to accustom ourselves unto it, to tame it, to present it unto us at all hours, to expect it, not only in places suspected and dangerous, but in the midst of feasts and sports: that the burden of our song be, Remember thy end; that others are dead, that thought to have lived as long as ourselves; that, that which happened then to them may happen now to us; following herein the custom of the Egyptians, who in their solemn banquets placed the image of death before their eyes; and of the Christians and all other, who have their Churchyards near their temples, and other public and frequented places, that men might always (as saith Lycurgus) be put in mind of death. It is uncertain in what place death attends us, and therefore let us attend death in all places, and be always ready to receive it. Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. Grata superueniet quae non sperabitur hora. But let us consider the excuses and grievances that these poor people allege to cover and colour their complaints, which are all vain and frivolous: It grieveth them to die The grievances and excuses of fearful men answered. young, and they complain as well in regard of others as themselves, that death preventeth them and cutteth them off in the flower and strength of their years. The complaint of the vulgar sort, who measure all by the ell, and account nothing precious, but that which is long, and durable, whereas contrarily, things exquisite and excellent are commonly thin, fine, and delicate. It is the mark of a skilful worke-master to enclose much in a little space: and a man may say, that it is fatal to great and glorious men, not to live long; Great virtue, and great or long life do seldom or never meet together. Life is measured by the end, provided that that be good, and all the rest hath a proportion thereunto: the quantity is nothing to make it more or less happy, no more than the greatness of a circle makes the circle more round than the less; the figure here doth all: A little man is as perfect a man as a greater: Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell. Again, it troubleth them to die far from their friends, or to be slain, and to remain unburied: they desire to die in peace, in their beds, amongst their friends, being comforted by them & comforting them. All they that follow the wars, and ride post to be in the battle, are not of this mind: these men run willingly to their end, and seek a tomb amongst the dead bodies of their enemies. Little children fear men when they are masked; discover their faces, and they fear them no more: And even so believe it, fire and sword astonish us, when we think of them; take off their mask, the death wherewith they threaten us, is but the same death wherewith women and children die. They are troubled to think they must leave all the world. And why? They have seen all, one day is like another, there is no other light, nor other night, nor other sun, nor other course of the world. One year telleth us that all things grow every year worse and worse, they have seen the childhood, the youth, the virility, the old age of the world: there is no art, no way to begin again. Yea, but they leave their parents and their friends. Where they go they shall find more, and such as they have never yet seen, and they they leave behind them and desire so much shall shortly follow them. But what shall become of their small children and orphans left without guide, without support? As if those their children were more theirs than Gods, or as if they could love them more than he that is their first and their truest father; and how many such so left have risen to higher place and greater ability than other men? But it may be they fear to go alone. This is great simplicity, so many people dying with them, and at the selfsame hour. Finally, they go into a place where they shall not desire this life. How desire it? If it were lawful to resume it, they would refuse it; and if a man were worthy to know what it is before he receiveth it, he would never accept of it, vitam nemo acciperet, si daretur scientibus. Why, or how should they desire it, since they are either wholly nothing as miscreants believe, or in far better state than before, as the wisest of the world do affirm? Why then are they offended with death, since it quits them of all grief? The selfsame journey they have made from death, that is to say, from nothing to life, without passion, without fear, they make again from life unto death; reverti unde veneris, quid grave est? But it may be that the spectacle of death displeaseth them, because they that die look ghastly. It is true, but this is not death, but the mask of death, that which is hid under it, is very beautiful, for death hath nothing in it that is fearful: we have sent idle and poor spies to know it, who report not what they have seen, but what they have heard, and what they fear. But it taketh out of our hands so many things, or rather taketh us from them, and us from ourselves, it taketh us from that we know, and have been accustomed unto, and bringeth us to an estate unknown, at horremus ignota, it taketh us from the light, to bring us into darkness; and to conclude, it is our end, our ruin, our dissolution. These are the weightiest objections: whereunto in a word a man may answer, that death being the inevitable law of nature (as shall be said hereafter) we need not dispute so much thereof, for it is a folly to fear that which a man cannot avoid. Dementis est timere mortem, quia certa expectantur, dubia metuuntur, mors habet necessitatem aequam & invictam. But these kind of people make not their count well, for it is quite contrary to that which they say, for in steed of taking any thing from us, it giveth us all; in stead of taking us from ourselves, it sets us in liberty, and makes us free to ourselves; in steed of bringing us into darkness, it taketh it from us, and puts us into the light; and it doth the same to us, that we do to all fruits, spoiling them of their barks, their shells, their foldings, their spears, their skins, to bring them into sight, use, nature; ita solet sieri, pereunt semper velamenta nascentium; it taketh us from a straight, incommodious, rumatike dark place, where we see but a small part of the heavens, and the light but afar off, through the two narrow holes of our eyes, to bring us into an open liberty, an assured health, a perpetual light, into such a place, such an estate, where we may wholly see the whole heavens, and the light in his natural place; aequaliter tibi splendebit omne caeli latus, totam lucem suo loco propè totus aspicies quam nunc per angustissimas oculorum vias procul intueris & miraris. To conclude, it taketh us from that death, which began in the womb of our mother, and now endeth, to bring us to that life which shall never end. Dies iste quem tanquam extremum reformidas, aeterni natalis est. The second manner of the carriage of man in this matter of 12 2 To attend death it is good. death, is of a good, sweet, and moderate soul, and is justly practised in a common and peaceable life, by those that with reason account of this condition of life, and content themselves to endure it, but governing themselves according to reason, and accepting of death when it cometh. This is a well tempered mediocrity, suitable to such a condition of life, between the extremities (which are to desire and fear, to seek and to fly, vicious and faulty, summum ne metuas diem, nec optes (mortem concupiscentes, & timentes aequè obiurgat Epicurus) if they be not covered and excused by some reason not common and ordinary, as shall be said in his place. To seek and desire death is ill; it is injustice to desire death without a cause, and to be out of charity with the world, which our lives may be beneficial unto. It is to be unthankful to nature to contemn it, and not to make the best use thereof; to be over anxious and scrupulous, and not to endure that estate that is not burdensome, and we are called unto. To fly and fear death on the other side, is against nature, reason, justice, and all duty. For to die is a thing natural, necessary, and inevitable, just 13 Death is natural. and reasonable; Natural, for it is a part of the order of the whole Universe, & of the life of the world: wilt thou then that the world be ruinated, and a new made for thyself? Death holdeth a high place in the policy & great commonwealth of the world, and it is very profitable for the succession and continuance of the works of nature: the fading or corruption of one life, is the passage to a thousand others: Sicrerum summa novatur. And it is not only a part of this great whole Universe, but of our particular essence, not less essential than to live, to be borne. In flying death, thou fliest thyself; thy essence is equally parted into these two, life and death, it is the condition of thy creation. If it grieveth thee to die, why wert thou borne? Men come not into the world with any other purpose but to go forth again, and therefore he that is not willing to go forth, let him not come in. The first day of thy birth bindeth thee, and setteth thee as well in the way to death, as to life. Naseentes morimur sinisque ab origine pendet. Sola mors ius aequum est generis humani, vivere noluit qui mori non vult, vita cum exceptione mortis data est, tam stultus qui timet mortem, quàm qui senectutem. To be unwilling to die, is to be unwilling to be a man, for all men are mortal, and therefore a wise man said, and that without passion, having received news of the death of his son; I knew I begot, and bred him up a mortal man. Death being then a thing so natural and essential, both for the world in gross, and forty self in particular, why should it be horrible unto thee? Thou goest against nature, the fear of grief and pain is natural, but not of death: for being so serviceable to nature, and nature having instituted it, to what end should it imprint in us a hatred and horror thereof? Children and beasts fear not death, yea many times they suffer it cheerfully: it is not then nature that teacheth us to fear it, but rather to attend and receive it, as being sent by it. Secondly, it is necessary, fatale, inevitable; and this thou knowest that fearest and weepest. What greater folly can 14 Necessary. there be, than for a man to torment himself for nothing, and that willingly and of purpose, to pray and importune him, whom he knows to be inexorable; to knock at that door that cannot be opened? What is there more inexorable and deaf than death? We must therefore fear things uncertain, do our best endeavours in things that are not remediless; but such as are certain, as death, we must attend, and grow resolute in things past remedy. The sot feareth and flieth death, the fool seeks it and runs after it; the wise man attendeth it: It is folly to grieve at that, that cannot be mended; to fear that, that cannot be avoided; Feras non culpes, quod vitari non potest. The example of David is excellent, who understanding of the death of his dear child, put on his best apparel, and made himself merry, saying to those that wondered at this kind of carriage, that whilst his son lived, he importuned God for his recovery, but being dead, that care was ended, and there was no remedy. The fool thinks he maketh a better answer to say, that that is the cause of his grief, and that he tormenteth himself, because there is no remedy; but he doubleth and perfecteth his own folly thereby, Scienter frustra niti extremae dementiae est. Now death being so necessary and inevitable, it is not only to no purpose to fear, but making of necessity a virtue, we must welcome it and receive it kindly; for it is better for us to go to death, than that death should come to us, to catch that, before that catch us. Thirdly, to die is a thing reasonable and just, it is reason to 15 Just and reasonable. arrive to that place, towards which we are always walking; and if a man fear to come thither, let him not walk, but stay himself, or turn back again, which is impossible to do. It is reason that thou give place to others, since others have given place to thee: If thou have made thy commodity of this life, thou must be satisfied and be gone, as he that is invited to a banquet takes his refection and departeth. If thou have not known how to make use and profit thereof, what needest thou care, if thou lose it, or to what end wouldst thou keep it? It is a debt that must be paid, a pawn that must be restored, whensoever it is demanded. Why pleadest thou against thy own schedule, thy faith, thy duty? It is then against reason to spurn against death, since that thereby thou acquitest thyself of so much, and dischargest thyself of so great an account. It is a thing general and common to all to die, why then troublest thou thyself? Wilt thou have a new privilege, that was yet never seen, and be a lone man by thyself? Why fearest thou to go whither all the world goeth, where so many millions are gone before thee, and so many millions shall follow thee? Death is equally certain to all, and equality is the first part of equity, omnes eodem cogimur: omnium versatur urna: serius ocyus sors exitura, etc. The third is the part of a valiant and generous mind, which is practised with reason, in a public, elevated, difficult, 16 To contemn death is good, if it be for a thing that deserves it. and busy condition of life, where there are many things to be preferred before life, and for which a man should not doubt to die. In such a case howsoever matters go a man must more account thereof than of his life, which is placed upon the stage and scaffold of this world: he must run his race with resolution, that he may give a lustre to his other actions, and perform those things that are profitable and exemplary. He must lay down his life, and let it run his fortune. He that knoweth not how to contemn death, shall never not only perform any thing of worth, but he exposeth himself to divers dangers; for whilst he goeth about to keep his life safe and sure, he layeth open and hazardeth his devoir, his honour, his virtue and honesty. The contempt of death is that which produceth the boldest, and most honourable exploits whether in good or evil. He that feareth not to die, fears nothing: he doth whatsoever he will, he makes himself a master both of his own life, and of another's: the contempt of death is the true and lively source of all the beautiful and generous actions of men: from hence are derived the brave resolutions and free speeches of virtue uttered by so many great personages. Fluidius Priscus whom the Emperor Vespasian had commanded not to come to the senate, or coming, to speak as he would have him, answered, That as he was a Senator it was fit he should be at the Senate; and if being there he were required to give his advice, he would speak freely that which his conscience commanded him. Being threatened by the same man, that if he spoke he should die; Did I ever tell you (saith he) that I was immortal? Do you what you will, and I will do what I ought: It is in your power to put me unjustly to death, and in me to die constantly. The Lacedæmonians being threatened much hard dealing, if they did not speedily yield themselves to Philip the father of Alexander, who was entered into their country with a great power; one for the rest answered, What hard dealing can they suffer that fear not to die? And being told by the same Philip that he would break and hinder all their designments; What, say they, will he likewise hinder us from dying? Another being asked by what means a man may live free, answered, By contemning death. And another youth being taken and sold for a slave, said to him that bought him, Thou shalt see what thou hast bought, I were a fool to live a slave whilst I may be free, and whilst he spoke cast himself down from the top of the house. A wise man said unto another, deliberating with himself how he might take away his life to free himself from an evil that at that time pressed him sore, Thou dost not deliberate of any great matter: it is no great thing to live, thy slaves, thy beasts do live, but it is a great matter to die honestly, wisely, constantly. To conclude and crown this article, our religion hath not had a more firm and assured foundation, and wherein the author thereof hath more insisted, than the contempt of this life. But many there are that make a show of contemning death, when they fear it. Many there are that care not to be dead, yea they wish they were dead, but it grieveth them to die. Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihili astimo. Many deliberate in their health and soundest judgements to suffer death with constancy, nay to murder themselves, a part played by many, & for which end Heliogabalus made many sumptuous preparations; but being come to the point, some were terrified by the bleeding of their nose, as Lucius Domitius, who repent that he had poisoned himself. Others have turned away their eyes and their thoughts, as if they would steal upon it, swallowing it down insensibly as men take pills, according to that saying of Caesar, that the best death was the shortest; and of Pliny, that a short death was the happiest hour of a man's life. Now no man can be said to be resolute to die, that feareth to confront it, and to suffer with his eyes open, as Socrates did, who had thirty whole days to ruminate and to digest the sentence of his death, which he did without any passion or alteration, yea without any show of endeavour, mildly and cheerfully. Pomponius Atticus, Tullius Marcellinus, Romans, Cleantes the Philosopher, all three almost after one manner: for having assayed to die by abstinence, hoping thereby to quit themselves of those maladies that did torment them, but finding themselves rather cured thereby, nevertheless they would not desist till they had ended that they went about, taking pleasure by little and little to pine away, and to consider the course and progress of death. Otho and Cato having prepared all things fit for their death, upon the very point of the execution settled themselves to sleep, and slept profoundly, being no more astonished at death, than at any other ordinary and light accident. The fourth is the part of a valiant and resolute mind, practised in former times by great and holy personages, and that 17 To desire death. in two cases; the one the more natural and lawful is a painful and troublesome life, or an apprehension of a far worse death: To be brief, a miserable estate which a man cannot remedy. This is to desire death as the retreat and only haven from the torments of this life, the sovereign good of nature, the only stay and pillar of our liberty. It is imbecility to yield unto evils, but it is folly to nourish them. It is a good time to die, when to live is rather a burden than a blessing, and there is more ill in life than good; for, to preserve our life, to increase our torment, is against nature. There are some that say, that we should desire to die, to avoid those pleasures that are according to nature; how much more than to fly those miseries that are against nature? There are many things in life far worse than death, for which we should rather die and not live at all, than live. And therefore the Lacedæmonians being cruelly threatened by Antipater, if they yielded not to his demand, answered, If thou threaten us with any thing that is worse than death, death shall be welcome unto us. And the wisest were wont to say, That a wise man liveth as long as he should, not so long as he can, death being more at his command and in his power, than life. Life hath but one entrance, and that too dependeth upon the will of another. Our death dependeth on our own wills, and the more voluntary it is, the more honourable; and there are a thousand ways unto it. We may want means whereby to live, but not to die. Life may be taken away from every man by every man, but not death, ubique mors est, optime hoc cavit deus, eripere vitam nemo non homini potest, at nemo mortem: mill ad hanc aditus patent. The most favourable present that nature hath bestowed upon us, and that taketh away from us all means of complaint, is, that it hath left unto us the key of the closet, liberty to die when we will. Wherefore complainest thou in this world? It holdeth thee not; if thou live in pain, thy idleness and fear is the cause; for to die, there is nothing necessary, but a will. The other case is a lively apprehension and desire of the life to come, which maketh a man to thirst after death, as after a great gain, the seed of a better life, the bridge unto paradise, the way to all good, and an earnest penny of the resurrection. A firm belief and hope of these things is incompatible with the fear and horror of death: it persuadeth us rather to be weary of this life, and to desire death, vitam habere in patientia, & mortem in desiderio, to have life in affliction, and death in affection: their life is a cross, their death a comfort, and therefore their vows and their voices are, cupio dissolui: mihi mors lucrum: quis me liberabit de corpore montis huius? And for this cause those Philosophers and Christians have been justly reproached (which is to be understood of those that are weak and idle, and not of all) that play the public dissemblers, and do not in verity believe that which they do so much talk of, and so highly commend touching that happy immortality, and those unspeakable pleasures in the second life, since they doubt, and fear death so much, the necessary passage thereunto. The fift and last, is the execution of this precedent desire, 18 To kill himself. which is for a man to be his own executioner, and the author of his own death. This seemeth to proceed from virtue, and the greatness of a man's courage, having been anciently practised by the greatest and most excellent men and women of every nation and religion, Greeks', Romans, Egyptians, Persians, Medes, French, Indians, Philosophers of all sects, jews, witness that good old man Razis, called the father of the jews for his virtue; and his wives, who under Antiochus, having circumcised their children, cast themselves headlong from the rock with them: And Christians too, witness those two canonised Saints, Pelagius and Sophronia, whereof the first, with his mother and sisters cast himself into the river, and the other killed herself with a knife, to avoid the violence of Maxentius the Emperor: Yea witness divers people and whole cities, as Capona in Italy, Astupa, Numantia in Spain besieged by the Romans; the Abideens enforced by Philip, a city in India besieged by Alexander. But this resolution hath been likewise approved and authorized by many commonweals, by laws and rules established thereupon, as at Marseilles, in the I'll of Cea; in Nigropont, and other nations, as in the Hyperborean islands, and justified by many great reasons, drawn from the precedent article, which is of the just desire of death. For if it be permitted to desire, to ask, to seek after death, why should it be an ill act to give it unto ourselves? If a man's own death be just in the will, why should it not be as just in the hand, and the execution? Why should I expect that from another, which I can do myself? and why should it not be better to give it, than to suffer another to give it; to meet, than to attend it? for the fairest death is the more voluntary. Finally, I offend not the law made against thieves and robbers, when I take but my own goods, and cut but my own purse; neither am I guilty of the laws made against murderers by taking away my own life. But this opinion is reproved by divers, not only Christians, but jews, as josephus disputeth against his captains in the cave du Puis: and Philosophers, as Plato, Scipio, who held this proceeding not only for a vice of cowardliness and impatiency, for it is for a man to hide himself from the blows of fortune. Now a true and lively virtue must never yield, for evils and crosses are nourishments thereunto, and it is greater constancy well to use the chain wherewith we are tied, than to break it; and more settled resolution in Regulus, than in Cato. Rebus in adversis facile est contemnere vitam, Fortius ille facit, qui miser esse potest. Si fractus illabitur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae. But also for a fault of desertion; for a man ought not to abandon his charge without the express commandment of him that gave it him; we are not here for ourselves, nor our own masters. This then is not a matter beyond all doubt or disputation. It is first beyond all doubt, that we are not to attempt this last exploit without very great and just cause (nay I cannot see how any cause should be great and just enough) to the end that it be as they say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an honest and reasonable departure. It must not then be for any light occasion, whatsoever some say, that a man may die for light causes, since they that hold us in life are not weighty. It is ingratitude to nature not to accept and use her present, it is a sign of lightness to be too anxious and scrupulous, to break company for matters of no moment, and not for such as are just and lawful, if there be any such. And therefore they had not a sufficient excuse, and just cause of their death of whom I made mention before, Pomponius Atticus, Marcellinus, and Cleantes, who would not stay the course of their death, for this only reason, because they were already near unto it. The wives of Petus, of Scaurus, of Labio, of Fuluius the friend of Augustus, of Seneca, and divers others, who died only to accompany their husbands in death, or rather to encourage them therein. Cato and others, who died because their business succeeded not well, and because they would not fall into the hands of their enemies, notwithstanding they feared no ill usage at their hands. They that have murdered themselves because they would not live at the mercy, and by the grace and favour of those whom they hated, as Gravius Siluanius, and Statius Proximus, being pardoned by Nero. They that die to recover a shame and dishonour past, as that Roman Lucretia, Sparzapizes the son of Queen Tomyris, Boges the Lieutenant of king Xerxes. They that for no particular cause, but only because they see the weal-public in a bad and declining estate murder themselves, as Nerua that great Lawyer, Vibius Vircus, jubellius in the taking of Capona. They that are weary with living, or for private causes loath to live any longer. Neither is it sufficient that the cause be great and just, but that it be necessary and remediless, and that all manner of means to preserve life be first put in practice. For precipitation and anticipated despair is very vicious, as in Brutus and Cassius, who killing themselves before the time and occasion, lost the relics of the Roman liberty whereof they were protectors. A man, saith Cleomenes, must manage his life, and make use thereof to the uttermost: for to take it away, a man never wants time, it is a remedy which he hath always in his own hands; but the state of things may change and grow better. joseph and divers others have to their great benefit practised this counsel: things that seem altogether desperate, do many times change and have a happy success; aliquis carnifici suo superstes fuit. Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis aevi Retulit in melius. A man must carry himself in his place and calling as a defendant against him that assaileth him, cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae, he must try all manner of means before he come to this extremity. Secondly and without doubt it is far better and more commendable to suffer, and to continue constant and firm to the end, than fearfully & cowardly to fly or die: but forasmuch as it is a gift not given unto all no more than continency is, non omnes capiunt verbum istud, unde melius nubere quam uri: the question is, whether an insupportable and remediless evil happening, which may utterly undo and turn topsy-turuie our whole resolution, and drive us into despair, despite and murmuring against God, it be more expedient, or a less evil for a man courageously to deliver himself, having his senses sound and settled, than by standing to it, for fear of failing in his duty, expose himself to the danger of sinking and being utterly lost. It is not a less evil to quit the place, than to be obstinate and perish, to fly, than to be taken. It is true that it seemeth by all human and philosoph call reason to be practised, as hath been said, by so many famous people of all countries and climates. But Christianity doth no way approve it, nor alloweth therein any dispensation. Finally, it is a great point of wisdom to learn to know the point and period, to choose a fit hour to die: Every man hath his time and season to die; some prevent it, others prolong it: there is weakness and valour in them both, but there is required discretion. How many men have survived their glory, and by a desire to lengthen their life but a little, have darkened it again, and lived to help bury their own honour? And that which lastly sticketh by them, hath no relish or feeling of what is past, but continueth like an old filthy clout sowed to the hem of a rich and beautiful ornament. There is a time to gather fruit from the tree, which if it hang too long, it rotteth and grows worse and worse; and the loss is as great too, if it be gathered too soon. Many saints and holy men have fled from death, because they are yet profitable to the church and weal-public, though in respect of their own particular they could be content to die. It is an act of charity to desire to live for the benefit of an other: Si populo tuo sum necessarius, non recuso laborem. Death hath divers forms, some more easy than other, and 21 Forms of deaths divers. taketh divers qualities according to the fantasy of every one. Among those that are natural they that proceed from weakness and a numbness of the members, are the sweetest and the easiest: among those that are violent, the best is the shortest, & the least premeditated. Some desire to make an exemplary and demonstrative death of constancy and sufficiency; this is to consider another thing, and to seek their own reputation: but this is vanity, for this is no act of society, but of one only person, who hath enough to do with himself, to minister to himself inward comfort, and hath no need to trouble himself with what belongeth to another, especially all the interest he hath in his reputation, ceasing with his death. That is the best death which is well recollected in itself, quiet, solitary, and attendeth wholly to that, which at that time is fittest. That great assistance of parents & friends, bringeth a thousand discommodities, it oppresseth and smoothereth him that is dying, one tormenteth his ears, another his eyes, another his mouth; their cries and complaints, if they be true, stifle the heart; if feigned, afflict and torment it. Many great personages have sought to die far from their friends, to avoid this inconvenience, accounting it a childish thing, and a foolish humour, to be willing by their miseries to move sorrow and compassion in their friends; we commend constancy to suffer bad fortune, we accuse and hate it in our friends, and when it is our own case, it is not sufficient that they suffer with us, but they must afflict themselves too: A wise man that is sick, should content himself with the settled countenance of his assistants. CHAP. XII. To maintain himself in true tranquility of spirit, the fruit and crown of wisdom, and the conclusion of this book. THe tranquility of the spirit is the sovereign good of man. This is that great and rich treasure, which the wisest seek by sea and by land, on foot and a horseback; all our care should tend thereunto, it is the fruit of all our labours and studies, the crown of wisdom. But lest a man should mistake himself herein, you must know that this tranquility is not a retreat or vacation from all affairs, a delightful solitariness and corporally pleasant, or a profound carelessness of all things: if it were so, many women, idle, dissolute and voluptuous persons, would at their pleasure enjoy as great a good, as the wisest can aspire unto with all their study: Neither multitude nor scarcity of business doth any thing herein. It is a beautiful, sweet, equal, just, firm and pleasant estate of the soul, which neither business nor idleness, nor good accidents, nor ill, nor time can any way trouble, altar, mend, or depress; Vera tranquillitas non concuti. The means to attain thereunto, to get and preserve it, are the points that I have handled in this second book, whereof this is a brief collection. They consist in freeing and disfurnishing of a man from all lets and impediments, and furnishing him with those things that entertain and preserve it. The things that do most hinder and trouble the rest and tranquility of the spirit, are common and vulgar opinions, which for the most part are erroneous; and secondly desires and passions, which engender in us a kind of delicacy and difficulty: which are the cause that a man is never content, and these are kindled and stirred in him by those two contrary fortunes, prosperity and adverfity, as with two violent and mighty winds: and finally that vile and base captivity wherewith the spirit (that is to say, the judgement and will) is enthralled like a beast under the yoke of certain local and particular rules and opinions. Now he must emancipate and free himself from these stocks and unjust subjections, and bring his spirit into liberty, restore himself to himself, free, universal, open, seeing into all, and wandering through the beautiful and universal circuit of the world and of nature. In commune genitus mundum ut unam domum spectans toti se inferens mundo, & in omnes eius actus contemplationem suam mittens. The place being thus trimmed and made ready, the first foundations that are to be laid, are a true honesty, and to live in such an estate and vocation whereunto a man is fit. The principal parts wherewith he must raise, assure, and settle this building, are first true piety, whereby, with a soul not astonished, but settled, pure, free, devout, a man contemplateth God, the great, sovereign, and absolute workmaster of all things, who can neither be seen nor known: but yet he must be known, adored, worshipped, served with the whole heart, from whom he is to hope for all manner of good, and to fear no evil: afterwards he must walk roundly in simplicity and truth, according to the laws and customs, live with a heart open both to the eyes of God and the world, Conscientiam suam aperiens semperque tanquam in publico vivens, se magis veritus, quàm alios. Again he must keep in himself and with others, and generally in all things, in his thoughts, speeches, designments, actions, a moderation the mother or nurse of tranquillity, laying aside all pomp and vanity, rule his desires, content himself with a mediocrity and sufficiency, quod sit esse velit, nihilque malit, rejoice in his fortunes. A tempest hath a great deal less force, and doth less hurt when the sails are taken down, than when they are hoist up, and laid open to the winds. He must be constant against whatsoever may wound or hurt him, raise himself above and beyond all fear, contemning all the blows of fortuen, of death, holding it as the end of all evils, and not the cause of any, contemptor omnium, quibus torquetur vitae, supra omnia quae contingunt acciduntque eminens. Imperturbatus, intrepidus. And so hold himself firm unto himself, agree with himself, live at ease without any pain or inward contention, full of joy, of peace, of comfort and content in himself; Sapiens plenus gaudio, hilaris, placidus cum dijs ex pari vivit: Sapientiae effectus gaudij aequalitas, solus sapiens gaudet: He must I say entertain himself, and continue content in himself, which is the proper fruit and effect of wisdom; Nisi sapienti sua non placent: omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui. Non est beatus, esse se qui non put at. To conclude, to this tranquility of spirit two things are necessary, innocency, and a good conscience, this is the first and principal part which doth marvelously arm and confirm him with assurance; but this is not always sufficient, in the force of the tempest, as it is many times seen in divers that are troubled and lost: Erit tanta tribulatio ut seducantur justi. And therefore the other is likewise necessary, which is force and constancy of courage, as likewise this alone were not sufficient: for the force and resistance of the conscience is marvelous, it makes us to betray, to accuse ourselves, & for want of other witnesses, it is as a thousand witnesses against us. Occultum quatiens animo tortore flagellum. It frameth an inditement, condemneth & executeth us, there is no closet close enough for wicked men, saith Epicurus, because they never can assure themselves to be hid, their own conscience always discovering them to themselves. Prima est haec ultio, quod se judice nemo nocens absoluitur. So likewise neither a weak & fearful soul, be it never so holy, nor a strong and courageous, if it be not sound & pure, can never enjoy this so rich & happy tranquility, but he that hath them all worketh wonders, as Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato, Scipio, of whom there are three admirable exploits touching this subject. These two Romans being publicly accused, made their accusers to blush, won the judges and the whole assembly being strucken with an admiration. He had a heart too great by nature, saith Titus Livius of Scipio, to know how to be faulty, and to debase himself so much, as to defend his own innocency. FINIS. OF WISDOM, THE THIRD BOOK. Wherein are handled the particular advisements of Wisdom, by the four moral virtues. THE PREFACE. FOrasmuch as our purpose in this Book, is by piecemeal to instruct unto wisdom, and to give the particular advisements after the general handled in the Second Book, that we may the better hold a certain course and order therein, we have thought that we cannot do better, than to follow the four mistress and moral virtues, Prudence, justice, Fortitude; and Temperance; for in these sour almost all the duties of our life are comprehended. Prudence, is as a general guide and conduct of the other virtues, and of our whole life, though properly it be exercised in the affairs that belong thereunto. justice concerneth the persons of men; for it is to give unto every one that which belongeth unto him. Fortitude and Temperance, concerneth all accidents good and evil, pleasant and painful, good and ill fortune. Now in these three, persons, affairs, and accidents, is contained all our life and human condition, and the traffic of this world. Of Prudence, the first virtue. CHAP. I. Of Prudence in general. PRudence is with reason put in the first rank, as the general Queen, superintendant, and guide of all other virtues, 1 The excellency thereof. auriga virtutum; without which there is nothing good, beautiful, fit, and decent; it is the salt of our life, the lustre, the ornament, the sauce or seasoning of our actions, the square and rule of our affairs; and in a word, the Art of our life, as Physic the art of our health. It is the knowledge and choice of those things we must 2 The definition. either desire, or fly; it is the just estimation & trial of things; it is the eye that seethe all, that directeth and ordaineth all. It consisteth in three things, which are all of one rank; to consult and deliberate well, to judge and resolve well, to conduct and execute well. It is a universal virtue, for it extendeth itself generally to all human things, not only in gross, but by piecemeal to 3 It is universal. every particular thing, & is as infinite, as are the individuals. It is very difficult, both by reason of the aforesaid infiniteness, for the particulars are without knowledge, as without 4 Difficult. Senec. number, si qua finiri non possunt, extra sapientiam sunt; and of the great uncertainty and inconstancy of humane things, which are the greater by reason of their accidents, circumstances, appurtenances, dependencies, times, places, persons; in such sort, that in the change of one only, and that the least circumstance, the whole thing itself is altered: And likewise in the office thereof, which is the gathering together and temperature of contrary things, the distinction and trial of those that are like one another; the contrariety and resemblance hindereth much. It is very obscure, because the causes and jurisdictions of things are unknown, the seeds and roots are hidden, and such 5 Obscure. as the nature of man cannot find, nor aught to seek after. Occultat eorum semina deus, & plerunque bonorum malorumque causae Plin. in Paneg. sub diversa specie latent. Moreover, fortune, destiny, (use what words you will) a sovereign secret, and unknown power and authority hath always the advantage, and maintaineth it against all counsels, foresights, and preventions whatsoever: whereby it many times comes to pass, that the best counsels have the worst issues, that one and the same counsel doth very happily succeed to one, unhappily to another, in one and the same case, and with one and the same man, things went luckily yesterday, unluckily to day. It is an opinion justly received, that we ought not to judge of counsels, nor of the sufficiency and capacity of persons by the events. And therefore one answered those well that marveled and were astonished at the ill success of their business, considering with how wise and mature deliberation they were undertaken, That they were masters of their deliberations, not of the success of their affairs: for that was in the power of fortune, which seemeth to sport itself with all our fairest designments & counsels, overthroweth in a moment that which hath a long time been projected and deliberated, and seemeth to be strongly fortified, choking, as they say, our artillery. And indeed fortune to show it authority in all things, and to abate our presumption, not being able to make men wise, that are not apt thereunto, maketh them nevertheless happy in despite of virtue, whereby it many times comes to pass, that simple men bring to a happy end great matters both public and private. Prudence then is a sea without either bottom or brink, and which cannot be limited and prescribed by precepts and advisements. It doth but compass things and goeth about them, like a dark cloud, many times vain and frivolous. Nevertheless it is of such weight and necessity, that alone and of itself it can do much, and without it all the rest is nothing, 6 Necessary. Horat. 3. odd. Euripid. Livius. no not riches, means, force, vis consilij expers mole ruit sua, Mens una sapiens plurim vincit manus. Et multa quae natura impedita sunt, consilio expediuntur. And the principal cause of this necessity is the perverse nature of man, the roughest and hardest to tame of all other creatures; Impatiens aequi, nedum Senec. 1. de clement. servitutis; and which must be handled with art and industry, for it doth not more willingly set itself against any, than against those that would contemn it. Now Prudence is the art to handle it, and a gentle bridle, that holdeth it within Xenoph. in poedag. the compass of obedience. Now though the seed of Prudence, as of other virtues, be in us by nature, yet it is acquired and learned more than any 7 The acquisition thereof. other, and that in some sort by precepts and advisements; this is the Theoric: but much better and principally (though with more time) by experience and practise, which is twofold: the one, and the true, is that which is proper and personal, whereof it takes the name; this is the knowledge of those things which we have seen and handled: the other is strange by the act of another; this is history which we know by relation or by reading. Now experience and use is more firm and more assured; usus efficacissimus omnium rerum magister, the father and mistress of the arts, but more long; it is old, seris venit usus ab annis, more difficult, painful, rare. The knowledge of history, as it is less firm and assured, so is it more easy, more frequent, open and common to all. A man is made more resolute and assured at his own charges, but it is more easy at the charge of another. Now from these two properly, Experience, and History, doth Prudence arise, usus me genuit, matter peperit memoria, seu memoriae anima & vita historia. Now Prudence may and must be diversly distinguished 8 The distinction. according to the persons and the affairs. In regard of the persons there is private prudence, whether it be solitary and individual, which can hardly be termed prudence; or sociable & Economical among a small company, and prudence public and politic. This more high, excellent, difficult, and unto which those foresaid qualities do properly belong; and it is twofold, peaceable, and military. In regard of the affairs, forasmuch as they are of two sorts, the one ordinary, easy; the other extraordinary. These are accidents which bring with them some new difficulty and ambiguity. A man may likewise say that there is an ordinary and easy prudence, which walketh according to the laws, customs, and course already established, another extraordinary and more difficult. There is likewise another distinction of prudence both in respect of the persons, and of the affairs, which concerneth Hesiod. Livius. Cicero. rather the degrees, than the kinds thereof, that is to say, proper prudence whereby a man is wise, and taketh counsel of himself; the other borrowed, whereby a man followeth the counsel of another. The wise say that there are two sorts and degrees of wise men; the first and chiefest is of those that have a clear insight into all things, and know of themselves how to find the remedies and helps; but where are these to be found? Doubtless they are rare and singular: the other is of those that know how to take, to follow, to make use of the good counsels of another; for they that know neither how to give, nor to take counsel, are fools. The general and common advisements, which belong to all sorts of prudence, all sorts of persons and affairs, hath been touched and briefly delivered in the second book, and they are eight; first, knowledge of the persons and affairs; secondly, estimation of things; thirdly, choice and elections; Chap. 10. four, from them to take counsel upon all; fifthly, temperature between fear and assurance, confidence and diffidence; sixthly, to take all things in their season, and to seize upon the occasion; seventhly, to carry himself well, with industry and fortune; lastly, discretion in all. We must now handle the particulars, first of public wisdom, which respecteth the persons, afterwards of that which respecteth the affairs. Of the politic prudence of a sovereign to govern states. THE PREFACE. THis doctrine belongeth to sovereigns' and governors of states. It is uncertain, infinite, difficult, and almost impossible to be ranged into order, to be limited and prescribed by rules and precepts: but we must endeavour to give some small light, and brief instruction thereof. We may refer this whole doctrine to two principal heads, which are the two duties of a sovereign. The one comprehendeth and entreateth of the props and pillars of a state, principal & essential parts of public government, as the bones and sinews of this great body, to the end that a sovereign may provide for himself and his state; which are seven principal, that is to say, knowledge of the state; virtue; manners and fashions; counsels; treasure; forces and arms; alliances. The three first are in the person of the sovereign, the fourth in him and near him, the three latter without him. The other is to act, well to employ and to make use of the aforesaid means, that is to say, in gross, and in a word, well to govern and maintain himself in authority, and the love both of his subjects and of strangers, but distinctly; this part is twofold, peaceable and military. Behold here summarily and grossly the work cut out, and the first great draughts that are to be handled hereafter. We will divide then this politic matter, and of state, into two parts; the first shall be of provision, that is to say, of the seven necessary things; the second, and which presupposeth the first, shall be of the action of the prince. This matter is excellently handled by Lipsius, according as he thought good: the marrow of his book is here: I have not taken, nor wholly followed his method, nor his order, as you may already see in this general division, and more you shall hereafter: I have likewise left somewhat of his, and added something of my own, and other men's. CHAP. II. The first part of this politic prudence and government of state, which is of provision. THe first thing that is required before all others, is the knowledge of the state: for the first rule of all prudence 1 The chief point of this provision, to know the state. consisteth in knowledge, as hath been said in the second book. The first in all things, is to know with whom a man hath to deal. For in as much as this ruling and moderating prudence of states, which is a knowledge and sufficiency to govern in public, is a thing relative, which is handled between the sovereign and the subjects; the first duty and office thereof is in the knowledge of the two parts, that is, of the people, and the sovereignty, that is to say, of the state. First then the humours and natures of the people must be known. This knowledge formeth, and giveth advice unto him that should govern them. The nature of the people in general, hath been described at large in the first book, (light, inconstant, mutinous, vain, a lover of novelties, fierce and insupportable in prosperity, cowardly and dejected in adversity) but it must likewise be known in particular: so many cities and persons, so many divers humours. There are people choleric, audacious, warriors, fearful, given to wine, subject to women, some more than others, noscenda natura vulgi est, & quibus modis temperanter habeatur. And in this sense is that saying of the wise to be understood: He that hath not obeyed, cannot tell how to command; nemo bene imperat, nisi qui ante paruerit imperio. Not because sovereigns' Senec. should or can always take upon them the name of subjects; for many are borne kings and princes: and many states are successive: but that he that will well command, should acquaint himself with the humours and wills of his subjects, as if himself were of their rank, and in their place. He must likewise know the nature of the state, not only in general, such as it hath been described, but in particular that which he hath now in hand, the form, establishment, birth thereof; that is to say, whether it be old or new, fallen by succession, or by election, obtained by the laws, or by arms, of what extent it is, what neighbours, means, power it hath. For according to these and other circumstances, he must diversly manage the sceptre, lose and straighten the rains of his government. After this knowledge of the state, which is as a preamble, 2 The second head of this provision is virtue. the first of those things that are required, is virtue, necessary in a sovereign, as well for himself as for the state. It is first necessary and convenient that he that is above all should be better than all, according to the saying of Cyrus. And then it standeth him upon for his credit and reputation. For common fame and report gathereth and spreadeth abroad the speeches and actions of him that governeth. He is in the eye of all, and can no more hide himself than the sun: and therefore what good or ill soever he doth, shall not want means to blazons it, shall be talked of enough. And it importeth him much, both in respect of himself and his state, that his subjects have a good opinion of him. Now a sovereign ought not only in himself, and in his life and conversation to be virtuous, but he must likewise endeavour that his subjects be like unto himself. For as all the wisest of the world have ever taught, a state, a city, a company cannot long continue nor Sallust. ad Caesar. prosper where virtue is banished; and they do grossly equivocate, who think that princes are so much the more assured in their states, by how much the more wicked their subjects are, because, say they, they are more proper and as it were borne to servitude and the yoke, patientiores servitutis, quos Plin. Pan. non decet nisi esse servos. For contrarily, wicked men bear their yoke impatiently; and they that are good and debonair fear much more than their cause is. Pessimus quisque asperrime Sallust ad Caesar. rectorem patitur: Contrà facile imperium in bonos, qui metuentes magis quàm metuendi. Now the most powerful means to induce them, and to form them unto virtue, is the example of the Prince; for as experience telleth us, all men do frame themselves to the pattern and model of the Prince. The reason is, because example presseth more than law. It is a mute law which carrieth more credit than a command, nec tam imperio Pli. Paneg. nobis opus quàm exemplo: & mitius iubetur exemplo. Now the eyes and thoughts of the lesser are always upon the great; they admire and simply believe, that all is good and excellent that they do: and on the other side, they that command, think they sufficiently enjoin and bind their inferiors to imitate them by acting only. Virtue then is honourable and profitable in a sovereign, yea, all virtue. But especially and above all, Piety, justice, Valour, Clemency. These are the four principal and princely virtues 3 Especially 4. virtues. in principality. And therefore that great Prince Augustus was wont to say, that Piety and justice did deify Princes. And Seneca saith, that clemency agreeth better with a Prince, than any other. The piety of a sovereign consisteth in his care for the maintenance and preservation of religion, as the protector thereof. This maketh for his own honour, and preservation of himself: for they that fear God, dare not attempt, nay think of any thing either against their Prince, who is the image of God upon earth, or against the state. For as Lactantius doth many times teach, it is a religion that maintaineth human society, which cannot otherwise subsist, and would soon be filled with all manner of wickedness and savage cruelties, if the respect and fear of religion did not bridle men and keep them in order. The state of the Romans did increase, and flourish more by religion, saith Cicero himself, than by all other means. Wherefore a Prince must take care and endeavour that religion be preserved in it purity, according to the ancient laws and ceremonies of the country, and hinder all innovation, and controversies therein, roughly chastising those that go about to break the peace thereof. For doubtless change in religion, and a wrong done thereunto, draweth with it a change and declination in the Commonwealth, Dion. as Maecenas well discourseth to Augustus. After piety cometh justice, without which states are but 4 justice. robberies; which a Prince must keep and practice both in himself and others: In himself, for he must detest all those tyrannical & barbarous speeches, which dispense with sovereigns, quitting them from all laws, reason, equity, obligation; which tell them that they are not bound unto any other duty, than to their own wills and pleasures; that there is no law for them; that all is good and just that serveth their turns; that their equity is their force, their duty is in their power. Principi leges nemo scripsit: licet, si libet. In summa fortuna, Plin. Pan. Tacitus. Senec. in tr. id aequius quod validius: nihil iniustum quod fructuosum: Sanctitas, pietas, fides, privata bona sunt: quà juuat reges eant. And he must oppose against them those excellent and holy counsels of the wise, that he that hath most power in him to break laws, should take most care to keep them, and live most in order. The greatest power should be the straightest bridle; the rule of power is duty: minimum decet liberè, cui Senec. Euripides. nimium licet, non fas potentes posse, fieri quod nefas. The Prince then must first be just, keeping well and inviolably his faith, the foundation of justice to all and every one whosoever he be. Then he must cause that his justice be kept and maintained in others, for it is his proper charge, and for that cause he is installed. He must understand the causes and the persons, give unto every one that which appertaineth to him, justly according to the laws, without delay, labyrinths of suits and controversies, involution of process; abolishing that villainous and pernicious mystery of pleading, which is an open fair, or merchandise, a lawful and honourable robbery, concessum latrocinium; avoiding the multiplicity of laws and ordinances, a testimony of a sick Commonweal, Corruptissimae Colum. Tacit. reipublicae plurimae leges, as medicines and plasters of a body ill disposed: and all this, to the end that that which is established by good laws be not destroyed by too many Plin. Pan. laws. But you must know, that the justice, virtue, and probity of a sovereign goeth after another manner, than that of An advertisement. private men: it hath a gate more large and more free, by reason of the great weight and dangerous charge which he carrieth and swayeth, for which cause it is fit to march with apase, which seemeth to others uneasy and irregular, but yet is necessary and lawful for him. He must sometimes step aside, and go out of the way, mingle prudence with justice, and as they say, cover himself with the skin of the Lion, if that of the Fox serve not the turn. But this is not always to be done, and in all cases, but with these three conditions, that it be for the evident and important necessity of the weal-public, For the weale-pub. (that is to say, of the State and of the Prince, which are things conjoined) unto which he must run; this is a natural obligation, and not to be dispensed with: and to procure the good of the Commonweal, is but to do his duty. Salus populi suprema lex esto. That it be to defend, and not to offend; to preserve himself, and not to increase his greatness, to save and shield himself For defence and conservation. either from deceits and subtleties, or from wicked and dangerous enterprises, and not to practise them. It is lawful by subtlety to prevent subtlety, and among foxes to counterfeit the fox. The world is full of art and malicious cozenage; and by deceits and cunning subtleties, states are commonly overthrown, saith Aristotle. Why then should it not be lawful, nay why should it not be necessary to hinder, and to divert such evil, and to save the weal-public by the selfsame means that others would undermine and overthrow it? Always to deal simply and plainly with such people, and to follow the straight line of true reason and equity, were many times to betray the State, and to undo it. Thirdly it must be with discretion, to the end that others abuse it not, and such as are wicked take from thence occasion 5 Discreetly without wickedness. to give credit and countenance to their own wickedness. For it is never permitted to leave virtue and honesty, to follow vice and dishonesty. There is no composition or compensation betwixt these two extremities. And therefore away with all injustice, treachery, treason, and disloyalty. Cursed be the doctrine of those, who teach (as hath been said) that all things are good and lawful for sovereigns: but yet it is sometimes necessary and required, that he mingle profit with honesty, and that he enter into composition with both. He must never turn his back to honesty, but yet sometimes go about and coast it, employing therein his skill and cunning, which is good, honest and lawful, as saith that great S. Basil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; and doing for the weal-public as mothers and physicians, who feed their children and sick with fair speeches, & deceive them for their health. To be brief, doing that closely which he may not do openly, join wisdom to valour, art and spirit, where nature and the hand sufficeth not; be, as Pindarus saith, a Lion in his blows, a Fox in his counsel; a Dove and a Serpent as divine verity speaketh. And to this matter more distinctly, there is required in a sovereign distrust, and that he keep himself close, yet so, as 6 Distrust required in a Prince. that he be still virtuous and just. Distrust, which is the first, is wholly necessary, as the contrary, which is credulity; and a careless trust or confidence, is vicious, and very dangerous in a sovereign. He watcheth over all, and must answer for all, his faults are not light, and therefore he must be well advised. If he trust much, he discovereth himself, and is exposed to shame, and many dangers, opportunus fit iniuriae, yea, he encourageth such as are false and treacherous, who may with little danger, and much recompense commit great wickedness, aditum nocendi perfido praestat fides. It is necessary therefore Senec. that he cover himself with this buckler of distrust, which the wisest have thought to be a great part of prudence, and the sinews of wisdom, that is to say, that he watch, believe nothing, take heed of all: and hereunto doth the nature of the Epichar. Euripid. Cicero. world induce him, wholly composed of lies, coloured, counterfeit, and dangerous, namely such as are near unto him in the court and houses of great personages. He must then trust but few, and those known by long experience and often trials: Neither is it necessary that he abandon them, and in such sort leave all the cord, that he still hold it not by one end, and have an eye unto them: But he must cover and disguise his diffidence, yea when he distrusteth, he must make a show and countenance of great trust and confidence. For open distrust wrongeth, and inviteth as much to deceive, as an over-carelesse confidence, and many by making too great a show of fear to be deceived, show the way how they may be deceived. Multi fallere docuerunt dum timent falli: as contrarily a professed and open trust, hath taken away the desire to deceive, Senec. hath obliged to loyalty, and engendered fidelity; vult quisque sibi credi, & habita fides ipsam plerumque obligat fidem. From distrust comes dissimulation the science or seed thereof; for if that were not, and that there were trust and fidelity 7 And dissimulation. in all, dissimulation which openeth the front, and covereth the thought, could have no place. Now dissimulation which is vicious in private persons, is very necessary in Princes, who otherwise could not know how to reign, or well to command. And they must many times dissemble not only in war, with strangers and enemies, but also in time of peace, and with their subjects, though more sparingly. Simple and open men, and such as carry, as they say, their hearts in their foreheads, are not in any sort fit for this mystery of commanding, and betray many times both themselves and their state: But yet he must play this part with art and dexterity, and to the purpose, neither so openly nor so simply as that it may be discerned. For to what purpose dost thou hide and cover thyself, if a man may see thee obliquely or sideways? Wily deceits and cunning subtleties, are no more deceits and subtleties when they are known and vented out. A Prince than the better to cover his art, must make profession of loving simplicity, must make much of free and open minded men, as being enemies to dissimulation; and in matters of less importance he must proceed openly, to the end he may be taken for such as he seemeth. All this is in omission, in retaining himself, not acting: but 8 Practice. it is likewise required sometimes that he pass farther and come to action, and this is twofold. The one is to make and frame secret practices and intelligences, cunningly to win and draw unto him the hearts and services either of the officers, servants, and trustiest friends of other Princes and foreign Lords, or of his own subjects. This is a subtlety which is much in request and authority, and very common among Princes, and a great point of prudence, saith Cicero. It is wrought in some sort by persuasion, but especially by presents and pensions, means so powerful, that not only the Secretaries, the chief of the counsel, the most inward friends and favourites, have been thereby drawn to give advice, and to divert the designments of their master, yea, great captains to give their helping hand in the war, but also wives have been won to discover the secrets of their husbands. Now this subtle policy is all allowed and approved by many without difficulty or scruple. And to say the truth, if it be against an enemy, against a subject whom he suspecteth, and likewise against any stranger, with whom he hath no alliance nor league of fidelity and amity, it is not greatly to be doubted: But against his alliance, his friends and confederates, it cannot be good; and it is a kind of treachery, which is never permitted. The other is to win some advantage, and to obtain his purpose, by close and covert means, by equivocations and 9 Subtleties. subtleties, to cirumvent by fair speeches and promises, letters, ambassages, working and obtaining by subtle means, that which the difficulty of times and affairs will not permit him otherwise to do, and to do that closely which he cannot do openly. Many great and wise men say that this is lawful and to be permitted, Crebro mendacio & fraud uti imperantes Plato. Plin. Val. Max. debent ad commodum subditorum. Decipere pro moribus temporum, prudentia est. It were overboldness simply to affirm that it is permitted. But a man may say, that in a case of great necessity, in troublesome and tumultuous times, when it is not only to procure the great good, but to divert a great mischief from the state, and against such as are wicked and traitorous, that it is no great fault, if it be a fault. But there is a greater doubt and difficulty in other things, because they have a smell of much injustice in them. I say much, and not wholly, because with their injustice there are Injustice profitable to the weal-public. mingled in them some grains of justice. That which is wholly and apparently injust, is reproved of all, even of the wicked, at least wise in word and show, if not in earnest and in deed. But of these actions ill mingled, there are so many reasons and authorities on the one side and the other, that a man hardly knoweth how to resolve himself. I will reduce them here to certain heads. To dispatch and secretly to put to death, or otherwise without form of justice, some certain man that is troublesome and dangerous to the state, and who well deserveth death, but yet cannot without trouble and danger be enterprised and repressed by an ordinary course; herein there is nothing violated but the form. And the prince, is he not above forms? To cut the wings, and to lessen the great means of any one, that shall raise and fortify himself too much in the state, and maketh himself fearful to his sovereign; not staying till he be invincible and able to attempt any thing against the state, and the head of his sovereign when it pleaseth him. To take by authority the riches of the richest in a great necessity and poverty of the state. To weaken and cancel the laws and privileges of some subjects, who hold them to the prejudice and diminution of the authority of the sovereign. To take by prevention, and to possess himself of a place, city or province, very commodious for the state, rather than to suffer another strong and fearful neighbour to take and possess it, to the great hurt, subjection and perpetual alarm of the said state. All these things are approved as just and lawful by many great and wise men, provided that they succeed well and happily; of whom these are the sayings and sentences: To do justice in great matters, a man may sometimes go astray Plutarch. in small; and To execute justice in gross, it is permitted to do wrong by retail: for commonly the greatest actions Tacit. and examples have some injustice, which satisfieth particular men by the profit which ariseth to all in general, Omne magnum exemplum habet aliquid ex iniquo, quod adversus singulos utilitate publica rependitur: That a prudent and wise prince Plutarch. in flame. should not only know how to command according to the laws, but also the laws themselves, if necessity require; and they must make the laws to will it, when they cannot do that they would In confused and desperate affairs, a prince must not follow that which may be well spoken of, but that Sense. which is necessary to be executed. Necessity, a great support, and excuse to human fragility infringeth all law, and therefore he is not very wicked, that doth ill by constraint. Necessitas magnum imbecillitatis humanae patrocinium, omnem legem frangit: non est nocens quicunque non sponte est nocens. If a Aristot. in Politico. Democrit. prince cannot be wholly good, it sufficeth if he be half good, and that he be not wholly wicked: That it cannot possibly be that good princes should commit no injustice. To all this I would add for their justification, or diminution of their faults that princes finding themselves in such extremities, they ought not to proceed in such actions, but with great unwillingness and grief of mind, acknowledging that it is an infelicity and a disfavour from heaven, and so carrying themselves therein as a father when he is enforced to cauterise or cut off a member of his child, to save his life, or to pluck out a tooth to purchase ease. As for other speeches more bold, which refer all to profit, which they either equal or prefer before honesty, an honest man must ever abhor them. We have stayed long upon this point of the virtue of justice, because of the doubts & difficulties that arise from the accidents and necessities of states, and which do many times hinder the most resolute and best advised. After justice cometh valour. I mean that military virtue, wisdom, courage, and sufficiency to play the warrior, 11 Valour. necessary in a Prince for the defence and safety of himself, the state, his subjects, of the public peace and liberty, and without which he can hardly deserve the name of a prince. But let us come to the fourth princely virtue, which is clemency, a virtue which inclineth the Prince to a sweet kind 12 Clemency. of mildness and lenity, whereby he lesseneth and qualifieth the rigour of justice, with judgement and discretion. It moderateth and sweetly manageth all things, delivereth those that are faulty, relieveth those that are fallen, saveth those that are like to be lost. It is that in a prince, which humanity is in a common person. It is contrary to cruelty, and extreme rigour, not to justice, from which it differeth not much, but it sweeteneth and moderateth it. It is necessary by reason of our human infirmity, the frequency of offences, the facility to offend; for an over great and continual rigour and severity, ruinateth all, and maketh chastisements contemptible; Severit as amittit assiduitate authoritatem: It stirreth malice and Senec. rancour, moveth rebellions, and men by despite are made wicked. For fear that keepeth men in their duty, must be sweet and temperate; if it be too sharp and continual, it is changed into rage and revenge. Temperatus timor est qui cohibet, assiduus & acer in vindictam excitat. It is likewise very profitable Senec. to a Prince and a State, it winneth the love and good wills of his subjects, and consequently confirmeth and assureth the state, firmissimum id imperium quo obedientes gaudent, as shall be said hereafter. It is likewise very honourable to a Tit. Livius ca 3. in the beginning. sovereign, for his subjects will honour and adore him as a god, as their tutor, their father, and in stead of fearing him, they will fear all for him, lest any ill happen unto him. This than shall be the lesson of the Prince, to know all that passeth, not to believe all, yea, many times to dissemble, wishing rather Tacit. in Agricol. to be thought to have found good subjects, than to have made them such, to pardon light faults, to lessen the rigour of the great: not to be overstreight and exact in punishing, (which is as great a dishonour and infamy to a Prince, as to a Physician many patients that die under his hand) to content himself many times with repentance as a sufficient chastisement. — ignoscere pulchrum I am misero, poenaeque genus vidisse precantem. And let him not fear that which some object very untruly, that it debaseth, vilifieth, and weakeneth the authority of the sovereign and of the state; for contrarily it fortifieth it, and gives credit and vigour thereunto: And a Prince beloved, shall do more by love, than by fear, which makes men fear and tremble, but not obey: and as Sallust discoursed to Caesar, Sallust. ad Caesar. those states that are governed with fear, are never durable. No man can be feared by many, but he must likewise fear many, and that fear which he would put upon all, falleth upon his own head. That life is doubtful wherein a man neither before nor behind, nor on any side is covered, but is always in agitation, in danger, in fear. It is true, as hath been said in the beginning, that it must be with judgement; for, as tempered and well conducted it is very venerable, so being too lose, too remiss, it is very pernicious. After these four principal and royal virtues, there are 13 After which are required also liberality. also others, though less worthy and necessary, yet in a second place very profitable, and requisite in a sovereign, that is to say, liberality, so fit and necessary for a Prince, as it is less befitting him to be vanquished by arms, than by magnificence. But yet there is herein required a great discretion, otherwise it will be more hurtful, than commodious. There is a twofold liberality, the one consisteth in charge and show, and this serves to small purpose. For it is an idle Liberality twofold. thing in sovereigns, and to little end, to endeavour by great and excessive charges to make show of themselves, or to increase their credit especially with their subjects where they have power to do what they list. It is a testimony of pusillanimity, and that they understand not what they are, and besides that, it seemeth to their subjects, the spectators of these triumphs, that they make this glorious show with their own spoils, that they feast it at their charges, that they feed their eyes with that, that should feed their bellies. And again a Prince should think that he hath nothing properly his: he oweth himself to another. The other liberality, consisteth in gifts bestowed upon another, and this is far more commodious and commendable, but than it must be well governed, and he must be well advised to whom, how, and how much he must give. He must give to those that have deserved it, that have done service to the weal-public, that have run their fortunes, and spent themselves in the wars. No man will envy them, if they be not very wicked. Whereas contrarily, great gifts, bestowed without respect and merit, shame the giver, and purchase envy to the receiver, and is received without thankfulness and acknowledgement. Some tyrants have been sacrificed to the malice of the people, even by those whom they have advanced, railing on them with the rest of the people, and securing their goods, by making known how much they contemn and hate him from whom they received them. Again, this liberality must be with measure, for if it be not, and that he give unto all, and upon all occasions, the ruin of the state and sovereign must needs ensue: This is to play, and to lose all. For men will never be satisfied, but be as excessive in ask as the Prince shall be in giving, framing themselves not according to reason, but example; so that when the common treasury shall fail, he shall be enforced to lay hands upon the goods of another, and supply by injustice, that which ambition and prodigality did dissipate, quod ambitione exhaustum, per scelera supplendum. Now it is far better not to give at all, than to take away to give, for a man shall never enjoy in so high a degree the love and good will of those whom he hath clothed, as the hatred and ill will of those whom he hath rob and spoiled. And again, this liberality without measure, worketh the ruin of himself, for a fountain drieth up if it be overmuch drawn. Liberalitate liberalitas perit. Liberality likewise must be spun Hieronym. with a gentle thread by little & little, and not all together, for that which is done over-speedily, be it never so great, is in a manner insensible, and soon forgotten. Pleasant and pleasing things must be exercised with ease and leisure, that a man may have time to taste them: Things rude and cruel (if they must needs be done) must contrarily be executed speedily. There is then art and prudence in giving, and in the practice of liberality. Falluntur quibus luxuria specie liberalitatis imponit: perdere multi sciunt, donare nesciunt. And to say the truth, Tacit. liberality is not properly any of the royal virtues, for it agreeth and carrieth itself well with tyranny itself. And such as are the governors of young Princes do wrong in working so strong an impression of this virtue of bounty in their minds and wills, that they should refuse no means to put it in practice, and think nothing well employed but that which they give (this is their common language) but they do it either for their own benefit, or else they know not to whom they speak it. For it is a dangerous thing to imprint liberality in the mind of him that hath means to furnish himself as much as he will at the charges of another. A prodigal or liberal Prince without discretion and measure, is worse than a covetous: but if this liberality be well ruled and ordered, as hath been said, it is well beseeming a Prince, and very profitable both to himself, and the state. Another virtue requisite in a Prince in a second degree, is magnanimity and greatness of courage, to contemn injuries 14 Magnanimity and moderation of choler. Senec. and bad speeches, and to moderate his choler; never to vex himself for the outrages and indiscretions of another, magnam fortunam magnus animus decet: Iniurias & offensiones superne despicere indignus Caesaris irae. For a man to afflict himself, and to be moved, is to confess himself to be faulty, whereas by neglect and light account it easily vanisheth. Conuitia si irascare, agnita videntur: spreta exolescunt. And if Tacit. there be fit place, and a man must be angry, let it be openly, and without dissimulation, in such sort that he give not occasion to suspect a hidden grudge and purpose of revenge: this is a token of a bad and incurable nature, and best befitting the base sort: Obscuri & irrevocabiles reponunt odia: Saevae cogitationis Tacit. indicium secreto suo satiari. It doth better become a great parsonage to offend, than to hate. The other virtues are less royal and more common. After virtue come the manners, carriages, and countenances that become and belong unto Majesty, very requisite in a 15 The third head of this provision: The manners of the Prince Prince. I will not stand upon this point: I only say as it were passing by, that not only nature helpeth much hereunto, but also art and study. Hereunto do appertain the good and beautiful composition of the visage, his port, pace, speech, habiliments. The general rule in all these points, is a sweet, moderate and venerable gravity, walking betwixt fear and love, worthy of all honour and reverence. There is likewise his residence and conversation or familiarity. Touching his residence or abode, let it be in some glorious, magnificent, and eminent place, and as near as may be in the middle of the whole state, to the end he may have an eye over all, like the Sun, which from the middle of heaven giveth light to all: for keeping himself at one end, he giveth occasion to those that are farthest from him to rise against him, as he that standeth upon one end of a table, maketh the other end to rise up. His conversation and company, let it be rare, for to show and to communicate himself too much, breedeth contempt and dejecteth majesty, continuus aspectus minùs verendos magnos homines ipsa satietate facit. Maiestati maior ex longinquo reverentia, Livius. Tacit. quia omne ignotum pro magnifico est. After these three things, knowledge of the state, virtue and manners, which are in the person of the prince, come those 16 The fourth head of this provision, Counsel. things which are near and about the prince; That is to say, in the fourth place Counsel, the great and principal point of this politic doctrine, and so important that it is in a manner all in all. It is the soul of the state, and the spirit that giveth life, motion and action to all the other parts: and for that cause it is said that the managing of affairs consisteth in prudence. Now it were to be wished that a prince had in himself counsel and prudence sufficient to govern and to provide for all, which is the first and highest degree of wisdom, as hath been said; and if so it were, the affairs would go far better: Chap. 1. but this is rather to be wished than hoped for, whether it be for want of a good nature, or a good institution; and it is almost impossible that one only head should be sufficiently furnished for so many matters, Nequit princeps sua scientia cuncta complecti, nec unius mens tantae molis est capax. A lone Tacit. man seethe and heareth but little. Now kings have need of many eyes, and many ears; and great burdens, and great affairs have need of great helps. And therefore it is requisite that he provide and furnish himself with good counsel, and such men as know how to give it: for he, whosoever he be, that will take all upon himself, is rather held to be proud, than discreet or wise. A Prince than had need of faithful friends and servitors to be his assistants, quos assumat in partem curarum. These are his true treasures, and profitable instruments Tit. livi. Tacit. of the state. In the choice whereof he should especially labour and employ his whole judgement, to the end he may have them good. There are two sorts of them, Plin. the one aid the prince with their duty, counsel and tongue, and are called Counsellors; the other serve him with their hands and actions, and may be called Officers. The first are far more honourable: for the two greatest philosophers say, that it is a sacred and divine thing, well to deliberate, and to give good counsel. Now Counsellors must be first faithful, that is to say in a word, honest men, Optimum quemque fidelissimum puto. Secondly, 17 The condition of good counsellors. Fidelity. Plin. Sufficiency. they must be sufficient in this point, that is to say, skilful in the state, diversly experimented and tried (for difficulties and afflictions are excellent lessons and instructions; mihi fortuna multis rebus ereptis usum dedit bene suadendi) And in a word, they must be wise and prudent, indifferent quick and not over sharp: for such kind of men are too movable, novandis quàm gerendis rebus aptiora ingenia illa ignea. And that Curtius. they may be such, it is requisite, that they be old and ripe, for besides that young men by reason of the soft and delicate tenderness of their age, are easily deceived, they do as easily believe and receive every impression. It is good that about Princes there be some wise, some subtle; but much more such as are wise, who are required for honour and for all times, the subtle only sometimes for necessity. Thirdly, it is necessary that in proposing and giving good and wholesome counsel, they carry themselves freely and courageously, without flattery, Liberty. or ambiguity, or disguisement, not accommodating their language to the present state of the prince; Ne cum fortuna potius principis loquantur quàm cum ipso, but without sparing the Tacit. truth, speak that which is fit and requisite. For although liberty, roundness of speech and fidelity, hurt and offend for the time, those against whom it opposeth itself, yet afterwards it is reverenced and esteemed. In praesentia quibus risistis, offendis, deinde illis ipsis suspicitur laudaturque. And four, constantly, without yielding, varying and changing at every meeting to please and follow the humour, pleasure and passion of another, but without opinative obstinacy, and a spirit of contradiction, which troubleth and hindereth all good deliberation, he must sometimes change his opinion, which is not inconstancy but prudence. For a wise man marcheth not always with one and the same pace, although he follow the same way, he changeth not, but accommodateth himself; Senec. non semper it uno gradu, sed una via; non se mutat, sed aptat. As a good mariner ordereth his sails according to the times, and the wind, it is necessary many times to turn and wind, and to arrive to that place, obliquely by fetching a compass, when he can not do it directly, and by a strait line. Again, a religious dexterity to keep secret the counsels and deliberations Silence. of Princes, is a thing very necessary in the managing of affairs, res magnae sustineri nequeunt ab eo cui tacere grave est. And it sufficeth not to be secret, but he must not pry and Curtius. search into the secrets of his Prince, this is an ill, and a dangerous thing; exquirere abditos principis sensus illicitum & anceps: Tacit. yea he must be unwilling and avoid all means to know them. And these are the principal good conditions and qualities of a counsellor, as the evil which they must warily avoid are presumptuous confidence, which maketh a man to deliberate and determine over boldly and obstinately; for a The vices that counsellors must avoid. Presumptuous confidence. Tit. Livius. wise man in deliberating, thinketh and rethinketh, redoubting whatsoever may happen, that he may be the bolder to execute. Name animus vereri qui scit, scit tutò aggredi. Contrarily the fool is hardy and violent in his deliberations: but when he comes to the issue, his nose falls a bleeding, Consilia calida & audacia prima specie laeta sunt, tractâtu dura, enentu tristia. Secondly, all passion of choler, envy, hatred, avarice, concupiscence, and all private and particular affection, Passion. the deadly poison of judgement, and all good understanding, privatae res semper offecere officientque publicis consilijs, pessimum veri affectus & judicij venenum sua cuique utilitas. Lastly precipitation Tacit. Precipitation. Sec lib. 2. cap. 10. Tacit. an enemy to all good counsel, and only fit to do mischief. And thus you see what manner of men good counsellors ought to be. Now a prince must make choice of such as are good, either by his own knowledge and judgement, or if he cannot so 18 The duty of the prince in abusing good counsellors. do, by their reputation, which doth seldom deceive; whereupon one of them said to his prince, Hold us for such as we are esteemed to be. Nam singuli decipere & decipipossunt, nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellerunt. And let him take heed that he choose not his minions and favourites, courtiers, flatterers, slaves who shame their masters and betray them. There is nothing more dangerous than the counsel of the cabinet. And having chosen and found them, he must wisely make use of them, by taking counsel of them at due times and hours, not attending the event and execution, and losing the time whilst he harkneth to them; and this must he do with judgement, not suffering himself to be carried over-loosely by their counsels, as that simple Emperor Claudius was; and with mildness, without roughness, being more reasonable, as that wise Marc. Antonius was wont to say, to follow the counsel of a good number of friends, than such as are constrained to bend unto his will. And making use of them, do it with an indifferent authority, neither rewarding them with presents for their good counsel, lest by the hope of the like presents he draw such as are wicked unto him, nor use them over-roughlie for their bad counsels; for he shall hardly find any Curtius. to give him counsel, if there be danger in giving it: and again, many times bad counsel hath a better success than good, by the provident care and direction of the sovereign. And such as give good counsel, that is to say, happy and certain, are not therefore always the best, and most faithful servitors, nor for their liberty of speech neither, which he should rather agree unto, looking into such as are fearful and flatterers with a wary eye. For miserable is that prince with whom men hide or disguise the truth, cuius aures ita formatae Tacit. sunt, ut aspera quae utilia, & nil nisi jucundum & laesurum accipiant. And lastly, he must conceal his own judgement and resolution, secrecy being the soul of counsel, nulla meliora Veget. consilia, quàm quae ignoraverit adversarius antequam fierent. As touching officers which are in the next place, and who 19 Of Officers. serve the Prince and state in some charge, he must make choice of honest men, of good and honest families. It is to be thought that such as serve the Prince, are the best sort of people, and it is not fit that base people should be near him, and command others, except they raise themselves by some great, and singular virtue, which may supply the want of Nobility: but by no means let them be infamous, double, dangerous, and men of some odious condition. So likewise they should be men of understanding, and employed according to their natures. For some are fit for the affairs of the war, others for peace. Some are of opinion that it is best to choose men of a sweet carriage, and indifferent virtue, for these excellent surpassing spirits, that keep themselves always upon the point, and will pardon nothing, are not commonly fit for affairs, ut pares negotijs, neque supra: sint recti, non erecti. After counsel, we place treasure, a great & puissant mean. This is the sinews, the feet, the hands of the state. There is 20 The fi●● head of provision: Treasure. no sword so sharp and penetrable, as that of silver, nor master so imperious, nor orator that winneth the hearts and wills of men, or conquer Castles and Cities, as riches. And therefore a Prince must provide that his treasury never fail, never be dried up. This science consisteth in three points, to lay the foundation of them, to employ them well, to have always areseruation, Exchequer knowledge in three points. and to lay up some good part thereof for all needs and occasions that may happen. In all these three a Prince must avoid two things, injustice, and base niggardliness, in preserving right towards all, and honour for himself. Touching the first, which is to lay the foundation and to increase the treasury, there are divers means, and the sources 21 1 To lay the foundation. are divers, which are not all perpetual, nor alike assured; that is to say, the demain and public revenue of the state, which must be managed and used, without the alienating of it in any sort, forasmuch as by nature it is sacred and inalienable. Conquests made upon the enemy, which must be profitably employed, and not prodigally dissipated, as the ancient Romans were wont to do, carrying to the Exchequer very great sums, and the treasuries of conquered cities and countries, as Livy reporteth of Camillus Flaminius, Paulus Emillius, of the Scipios, Lucullus, Caesar; and afterwards receiving from those conquered countries, whether from their natural countries left behind them, or from colonies sent thither, a certain annual revenue. Presents, gratuities, pensions, free donations, tributes of friends, allies, and subjects, by testaments, by donations amongst the living, as the lawyers term it, or otherwise. The entrance, coming and going, and passages of merchandise, into docks, havens, rivers, as well upon strangers as subjects, a means just, lawful, ancient, general, and very commodious with these conditions: Not to permit the traffic and transportation of things necessary for life, that the subjects may be furnished; nor of raw unwrought wares, to the end the subject may be set on work, and gain the profit of his own labours. But to permit the traffic of things wrought and dressed, and the bringing in of such wares as are raw, and not of such as are wrought; and in all things to charge the stranger much more than the subject. For a great foreign imposition increaseth the treasure, & comforteth the subject: to moderate nevertheless the imposts upon those things that are brought in, necessary for life. These four means are not only permitted, but just, lawful, and honest. The fift which is hardly honest, is the traffic which the sovereign 5 Antoninus Pius. Severus. August. useth by his factors, and is practised in divers manners more or less base; but the vilest and most pernicious is of honours, estates, offices, benefices. There is a mean that cometh near to traffic, and therefore may be placed in this rank, which is not very dishonest, and hath been practised by very great and wise princes, which is, to employ the coin of the treasure or exchequer to some small profit, as five in the hundred, and to take good security for it, either gauges, or some other sound and sufficient assurance. This hath a threefold use, it increaseth the treasure, giveth means to particular men to traffic and to make gain; and which is best of all, it saveth the public treasure from the paws of our thieving courtiers, the importunate demands and flatteries of favourites, and the overgreat facility of the prince. And for this only cause, some princes have lent their public treasure without any profit or interest, but only upon pain of a double forfeiture for not payment at the day. The sixth and last is in the lones and subsidies of subjects, whereunto he must not come but unwillingly, and then when other means do fail, and necessity presseth the state. For in this case it is just, according to that rule, That all is just that is necessary. But it is requisite, that these conditions be added, after this first of necessity, To levy by way of lone (for this way will yield most silver, because of the hope men have to recover their own again, and that they shall lose nothing, besides the credit they receive by succouring the weal-public) and afterwards the necessity being past, and the wars ended, to repay it again, as the Romans did, being put to an extremity by Hannibal. And if the common treasury be so poor that it cannot repay it, and that they must needs proceed by way of imposition, it is necessary that it be with the consent of the subjects, making known unto them the poverty and necessity, and preaching the word of that king of kings, Dominus ijs opus habet, insomuch that they make them see, if need be, both the receipt, and the charge. And, if it may be, let persuasion prevail without constraint, as Themistocles said, Impetrare melius quàm imperare. It is true that the prayers of sovereigns are commandments, Satis imperat qui rogat potentiâ, armatae sunt preces regum; but yet let it be in the form of a free donation, at the least that they be extraordinary moneys; for a certain prefixed time, and not ordinary; and never prescribe this law upon the subjects, except it be with their own consent. Thirdly, that such impositions be levied upon the goods, and not the heads of men (capitation being odious to all honest people) be real and not personal (being unjust that the rich, the great, the nobles, should not pay at all, and the poorer people of the country should pay all.) Fourthly that they be equally upon all. Inequality afflicteth much, and to these ends these moneys must be bestowed upon such things as the whole world hath need of, as salt, wine, to the end that all may contribute to the present necessity. Well may a man, and he ought, to lay ordinary imposts and great, upon such merchandise and other things as are vicious, and that serve to no other end, than to corrupt the subjects, as whatsoever serveth for the increase of luxury, insolency, curiosity, superfluity in viands, apparel, pleasures, and all manner of licentious living, without any other prohibition of these things. For the denial of a thing sharpeneth the appetite. The second point of this science, is well to employ the treasure. And these in order are the articles of this employment 22 To employ the treasure. and charge; The maintenance of the king's house, the pay of men of war, the wages of officers, the just rewards of those that have deserved well of the Commonweal, pensions and charitable succours to poor, yet commendable persons. These five are necessary, after which come those that are very profitable, to repair cities, to fortify and to defend the frontiers, to mend the high ways, bridges, and passages, to establish colleges of honour, of virtue, and learning; to build public houses. From these five sorts of reparations, fortifications, and foundations, cometh very great profit, besides the public good: arts and artificers are maintained; the envy and malice of the people because of the levy of moneys ceaseth, when they see them well employed; and these two plagues of a commonweal, idleness and poverty, are driven away. Contrarily, the great bounties, and unreasonable gifts, to some particular favourites; the great, proud, and unnecessary edifices, superfluous and vain charges are odious to the subjects, who murmur that a man should spoil a thousand to clothe one; that others should brave it with their substance, build upon their blood and their labours. The third point consisteth in the reservation, which a man 23 3 To make spare and reservation. must make for necessity, to the end he be not constrained at a need to have recourse to ready, unjust, & violent means & remedies: this is that which is called the treasury or exchequer. Now as to gather together too great abundance of treasure of gold and silver, though it be by honest and just means, is not always the best, because it is an occasion of war active or passive, either by breeding envy in others to see it done, when there is no cause, there being plenty of other means, or else because it is a bait to allure an enemy to come, and it were Esay 30. more honourable to employ them as hath been said: So to spend all and to leave nothing in the Exchequer is far worse, for this were to play to lose all; wise princes take heed of this. The greatest treasuries that have been in former times, are that of Darius the last king of the Persians, where Alexander found four score millions of gold. That of Tiberius 67. millions; of trajan 55. millions kept in Egypt. But that of David 2. Paralip. did far exceed all these (a thing almost incredible in so small a state) wherein there were six score millions. Now to provide that these great treasuries be not spent, violated or rob, the ancients caused them to be melted, and cast into great wedges and bowls, as the Persians and Romans: or they put them into the temples of their gods as the safest places, as the Greeks' in the temple of Apollo, which nevertheless hath been many times peeled and rob; the Romans in the temple of Saturn. But the best and securest way and most profitable is, as hath been said, to lend them with some small profit to particular persons, upon good gauges, or sufficient security. So likewise for the safer custody of the treasures from thieves and robbers; the managing of them, and the exchequer offices must not be sold to base and mechanical persons, but given to gentlemen, and men of honour, as the ancient Romans were accustomed to do, who chose out young men from amongst their nobles and great houses, and such as aspired to the greatest honours and charges of the commonwealth. After counsel and treasure I think it not amiss to put arms, which cannot subsist, nor be well and happily levied 24 The sixth head of this provision. An armed power. and conducted without these two. Now an armed power is very necessary for a prince, to guard his person and his state: for it is an abuse to think to govern a state long without arms. There is never any surety between the weak and the strong; and there are always some that will be stirring either within or without the state. Now this power is either ordinary at all times, or extraordinary in times of war. The ordinary consisteth in the persons and places; The persons are of two sorts; the guard for the body and person of the sovereign, which serve not only for the surety and conservation, but also for his honour and ornament: for that good saying of Agesilaus is not perpetually true, and it were too dangerous to try & trust unto it, That a prince may live safely enough without guard, if he command his subjects, as a good father doth his children (for the malice of man stayeth not itself in so fair a way). And certain companies, maintained and always ready for those necessities and sudden occurrences that may fall out. For at such times to be busied in levying powers is great imprudency. Touching the places, they are the fortresses and citadels in the frontiers, in place of which, some, and they ancient too, do more allow of the colonies. The extraordinary force consisteth in arms, which he must levy and furnish in times of war. How he In the chapter following. should govern himself therein, that is to say, enterprise and make war, it belongeth to the second part, which is of the action: this first belongeth to provision. Only I here say, that a wise prince should besides the guards of his body, have certain people always prepared, and experienced in arms, either in great number or less, according to the extent or largeness of his state, to repress a sudden rebellion or commotion, which may happen either without or within his state, reserving the raising of greater forces, until he must make war, either offensive or defensive, willingly and of purpose; and in the mean time keeping his arsenals and storehouses well furnished, and provided with all sorts of offensive and defensive arms, to furnish both foot and horsemen, as likewise with munitions, engines, and instruments for war. Such preparation is not only necessary to make war, (for these things are not found and prepared in a short time) but to let and hinder it. For no man is so foolhardy, as to attempt a state, which he knoweth to be ready to receive him, and thoroughly furnished. A man must arm himself against wars, to the end he may not be troubled with it, qui cupit pacem, paret bellum. After all these necessary and essential provisions, we will 25 The seventh head of this provision. Alliance or leagues. With whom. lastly put alliances or leagues, which is no small prop and stay of a state. But wisdom is very necessary in the choice thereof, to build well and to take heed with whom and how he join in alliance; which he must do with those that are neighbours and puissant: For if they be weak and far off, wherewith can they give aid? It is rather likely, that if they be assaulted, that from their ruin ours may follow. For then are we bound to secure them, and to join with them because of this league, whosoever they be. And if there be danger in making this alliance openly, let it be done secretly, for it is the part of a wise man to treat of peace and alliance with one, in the view and knowledge of all, with another secretly; but yet so, as that it be without treachery and wickedness, which is utterly forbidden, but not wisdom and policy, especially for the defence and surety of his state. Finally, there are many sorts and degrees of leagues or alliances: 2. How. the lesser and more simple is for commerce and traffic only, but commonly it comprehendeth amity, commerce and hospitality; and it is either defensive only, or defensive and offensive together, and with exception of certain princes and states, or without exception. The more straight and perfect is that which is offensive and defensive towards all, and against all, to be a friend to his friends, and an enemy to his enemies: and such it is good to make with those that are strong and puissant, and by equal alliance. Leagues are likewise either perpetual, or limited to certain times; commonly they are perpetual, but the better and surest is, to limit it to certain times, to the end he may have means to reform, to take away, or add to the articles, or wholly to departed if need be, as he shall see it most expedient. And though a man would judge them to be such, as should be perpetual, yet it is better to renew them (which a man may and must do before the time be expired) than to make them perpetual. For they languish and grow cold, and whosoever findeth himself aggrieved will sooner break them, if they be perpetual than if they be limited, in which case he will rather stay the time. And thus much of these seven necessary provisions. CHAP. III. The second part of this politic prudence and government of the state, which concerneth the action and government of the Prince. Having discoursed of the provision, and instructed a sovereign with what and how he should furnish and defend 1 A summary description of the action of the prince. himself and his state, let us come to the action, and let us see how he should employ himself, and make use of these things, that is to say, in a word, well to command and govern. But before we come to handle this distinctly, according to the division which we have made, we may say in gross that well to govern and to maintain himself in his state, consisteth in the acquisition of two things, goodwill and authority. Goodwill is a love and affection towards the sovereign Benevolence, Authority two pillars of a prince and state. and his state. Authority is a great and good opinion, an honourable esteem of the sovereign and his state. By the first, the sovereign and the state is loved, by the second feared. These are not contrary things, but different, as love and fear. Both of them respect the subjects and strangers, but it seemeth that more properly, Benevolence belongeth to the subject, and authority to the stranger; amorem apud populares, metum apud hostes quaerat. To speak simply and absolutely, Tacit. authority is the more strong and vigorous, more large and durable. The temperature and harmony of both is a perfect thing, but according to the diversity of states, of peoples, their natures and humours, the one is more easy and more necessary in some places, than in others. The means to attain them both, are contained and handled in that which hath been said before, especially of the manners and virtue of a sovereign; nevertheless of each we will speak a little. Benevolence or goodwill (a thing very profitable and almost 2 Benevolence is attained by clemency. wholly necessary, insomuch that of itself it prevaileth much, and without it all the rest hath but little assurance) is attained by three means, gentleness or clemency, not only in words and deeds, but much more in his commands and the administration of the state; for so do the natures of men require, who are impatient both of serving wholly, and maintaining themselves in entire liberty, nec totam servitutem pati, Tacit. nec totam libertatem. They obey willingly as subjects, not as slaves, domiti ut pareant, non ut seruiant. And to say the truth, a man doth more willingly obey him which commandeth gently and mildly; remissius imperanti melius paretur: qui vult Senec. amari languida regnet manu. Power (saith Caesar a great doctor in this matter) indifferently exercised preserveth all; but he that keepeth not a moderation in his commands, is never beloved nor assured. But yet it must not be an over-loose, and soft effeminate mildness, lest a man thereby come into contempt, which is worse than fear, Sed incorrupto ducis honore. Tacit. It is the part of wisdom to temper this, neither seeking to be feared by making himself terrible, nor loved by too much debasing himself. The second mean to attain benevolence is beneficence, 3 Beneficence. I mean first towards all, especially the meaner people, by providence and good policy, whereby corn and all other necessary things for the sustenance of this life may not be wanting, but sold at an indifferent price, yea may abound if it be possible, that dearness and dearth afflict not the subject. For the meaner sort have no care for the public good, but for this end, vulgo una ex republica annonae cura. Tacit. The third mean is liberality (beneficence more special) 4 Liberality. which is a bait, yea, an enchantment, to draw, to win and captivate the wills of men: So sweet a thing is it to receive, honourable to give. In such sort, that a wise man hath said, That a state did better defend itself by good deeds, than by arms. This virtue is always requisite, but especially in the entrance and in a new state. To whom, how much, and how liberality must be exercised, hath been said before. The means of benevolence have been wisely practised by Augustus, Chap. 2. act. 23. Tacit. qui militem donis, populum annona, cunctos dulcedine otij pellexit. Authority is another pillar of state, maiestas imperij, salutis 5 Authority. tutela; The invincible fortress of a prince, whereby he bringeth into reason all those, that dare to contemn or make head against him. Yea because of this they dare not attempt, and all men desire to be in grace and favour with him. It is composed of fear and respect, by which two a prince and his state is feared of all, and secured. To attain this authority, besides the provision of things above named, there are three means which must carefully be kept in the form of commanding. By what it is acquired. The first is severity, which is better, more wholesome, assured, durable, than common lenity, and great facility, 6 Severity. which proceedeth first from the nature of the people, which as Aristotle saith, is not so well borne and bred, as to be ranged into duty and obedience by love, or shame, but by force and fear of punishment; and secondly from the general corruption of the manners, and contagious licentiousness of the world, which a man must not think to mend by mildness and lenity, which doth rather give aid to ill attempts. It engendereth contempt, and hope of impunity, which is the plague of Commonweals and states, Illecebra peccandi maxima spes Cicero. impunitatis. It is a favour done to many, and the whole weal-public sometimes well to chastise some one. And he must sometimes cut off a finger, lest the Gangrene spread itself through the whole arm, according to that excellent answer of a king of Thrace, whom one telling that he played the mad man, and not the king, answered, That his madness made his subjects sound and wise. Severity keepeth officers and magistrates in their devoir, driveth away flatterers, courtiers, wicked persons, impudent demaunders, and petytyrannies. Whereas contrariwise too great facility openeth the gate to all these kind of people, whereupon followeth an exhausting of the treasuries, impunity of the wicked, impoverishing of the people, as rheums & fluxes in a rheumatic & diseased body, fall upon those parts that are weakest. The goodness of Pertinax, the licentious liberty of Heliogabalus are thought to have undone and ruinated the Empire: The severity of Severus, and afterwards of Alexander, did re-establish it, and brought it into good estate. But yet this severity must be with some moderation, intermission, and to purpose, to the end that rigour towards a few might hold the whole world in fear, ut poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes. And the more seldom punishments serve more for the reformation of a state, saith an ancient writer, than the more frequent. This is to be understood, if vices gather not strength, and men grow not opinatively obstinate in them; for than he must not spare either sword or fire, crudelem medicum intemperans aeger facit. The second is constancy, which is a stayed resolution, whereby the prince marching always with one and the same 7 Constancy. pace, without altering or changing, maintaineth always, and enforceth the observation of the ancient laws and customs. To change and to be readuised, besides that it is an argument of inconstancy and irresolution, it bringeth both to the laws and to the sovereign, and to the state contempt and sinister opinion. And this is the reason why the wiser sort do so much forbid the change, and rechange of any thing in the laws and customs, though it were for the better: for the change or remove bringeth always more evil and discommodity, besides the uncertainty and the danger, than the novelty can bring good. And therefore all innovators are suspected, dangerous, and to be chased away. And there cannot be any cause or occasion strong and sufficient enough to change, if it be not for a very great, evident, and certain utility, or public necessity. And in this case likewise he must proceed as it were stealingly, sweetly and slowly, by little and little and almost insensibly, leviter & lentè. The third is to hold always fast in the hand the stern of the state, the rains of government, that is to say, the honour and power to command and to ordain, and not to trust or commit it to another, referring all things to his counsel, to the end that all may have their eye upon him, and may know that all dependeth upon him. That sovereign that loseth never so little of his authority marreth all. And therefore it standeth him upon, not overmuch to raise and make great any person, Communis custodia principatus neminem unum magnum facere. And if there be already any such, he must Aristot. draw him back and bring him into order, but yet sweetly and gently; and never make great and high charges and offices perpetual or for many years, to the end a man may not get means to fortify himself against his master, as it many times falleth out. Nil tam utile, quàm brevem potestatem esse, Senec. quae magna sit. Behold here the just and honest means in a sovereign to maintain with benevolence and love his authority, and to 9 Against unjust authority and tyraunie. make himself to be loved and feared altogether: for the one without the other is neither secure nor reasonable. And therefore we abhor a tyrannical authority, and that fear that is an enemy to love and benevolence, and is with a public hate, oderint quem metuant, which the wicked seek after abusing their power. The conditions of a good prince and of a tyrant are nothing alike, and easily distinguished. They may be all reduced to these two points, the one to keep the laws of God and of nature, or to trample them under foot; the other to do all for the public good and profit of the subjects, or to employ all to his particular profit & pleasure. Now a prince that he may be such as he should, must always remember, that as it is a felicity to have power to do what a man will, so it is true greatness to will that that a man should; Caesari cum Plin. de Traia. omnia licent, propter hoc minus licet: ut felicitatis est posse quantum velis, sic magnitudinis velle quantum possis, vel potius quantum debeas. The greatest infelicity that can happen to a prince, is to believe that all things are lawful that he can, and that pleaseth him. So soon as he consenteth to this thought, of good he is made wicked. Now this opinion is settled in them by the help of flatterers, who never cease always to preach unto them the greatness of their power; and very few faithful servitors there are, that dare to tell them what their duty is. But there is not in the world a more dangerous flattery, than that where with a man flattereth himself, when the flatterer and flattered is one and the same; there is no remedy for this disease. Nevertheless it falleth out sometimes in consideration of the times, persons, places, occasions, that a good king must do those things which in outward appearance may seem tyrannical, as when it is a question of repressing another tyranny, that is to say, of a furious people, the licentious liberty of whom, is a true tyranny: or of the noble and rich, who tyrannize over the poor and meaner people: or when the king is poor and needy, not knowing where to get silver, to raise loans upon the richest. And we must not think that the severity of a prince is always tyranny, or his guards & fortresses, or the majesty of his imperious commands, which are sometimes profitable, yea necessary, and are more to be desired than the sweet prayers of tyrants. These are the two true stays and pillars of a prince, and of a state, if by them a prince know how to maintain and preserve 10 Hate and contempt, two murderers of ae prince. himself from the two contraries, which are the murderers of a prince and state, that is to say, hatred and contempt, whereof the better to avoid them, and to take heed of them, a word or two. Hatred contrary to benevolence, is a wicked and obstinate affection of subjects against the prince, and his Arist. lib. 5. Pol. Hatred. state: It ordinarily proceedeth from fear of what is to come, or desire of revenge of what is past, or from them both. This hatred when it is great, and of many, a prince can hardly escape it, Multorum odijs nullae opes possunt resistere. He is exposed Cicero. to all, and there needs but one to make an end of all. Multae illis manus, illi una ceruix. It standeth him upon therefore to preserve himself, which he shall do by flying those things that engender it, that is to say, cruelty and avarice, the contraries to the aforesaid instruments of benevolence. He must preserve himself pure and free from base cruelty, 11 Hatred proceedeth from cruelty. Cap. 2. art. 12. unworthy greatness, very infamous to a prince: But contrarily he must arm himself with clemency, as hath been said before, in the virtues required in a prince. But for as much as punishments, though they be just and necessary in a state, have some image of cruelty, he must take heed to carry himself therein with dexterity, and for this end I will give him this advice: Let him not put his hand to the sword of justice, An advice for punishments. Senec. but very seldom and unwillingly: libenter damnat qui cito: ergo illi parsimonia etiam vilissimi sanguinis: 2. Enforced for the public good, and rather for example, & to terrify others from the like offence: 3. That it be to punish the faulty, and that without choler, or joy, or other passion: And if he must needs show some passion, that it be compassion: 4. That it be according to the accustomed manner of the country, and not after a new, for new punishments are testimonies of cruelty: 5. Without giving his assistance, or being present at the execution: 6. And if he must punish many, he must dispatch it speedily, and all at a blow; for to make delays, and to use one correction after another, is a token that he taketh delight, pleaseth and feedeth himself therewith. He must likewise preserve himself from avarice, a sin ill 12 Avarice. befitting a great parsonage. It is showed either by exacting and gathering overmuch, or by giving too little. The first doth much displease the people, by nature covetous, to whom their goods are as their blood and their life: The second, men of service and merit, who have laboured for the public good, and have reason to think that they deserve some recompense. Now how a prince should govern himself herein, and in his treasure and exchequer affairs, either in laying their foundation, or spending or preserving them, hath been more at large discoursed in the second chapter. I will here only say, that a prince must carefully preserve himself from three things; First, from resembling, by over great and excessive impositions, these tyrants, subiectmongers, cannibals, qui devorant plebem sicut escam panis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, quorum aerarium spoliarium civium cruentarum que praedarum receptaculum, for this breeds danger of tumult, witness so many examples, and miserable accidents: Secondly, from base unhonest parsimony, as well in gathering together, (indignum lucrum ex omni occasioue odorari; & ut dicitur, etiam à mortuo auferre; and therefore he must not serve his turn herein, with accusations, confiscations, unjust spoils) as in giving nothing, or too little, and that mercenarily, and with long and importunate suit: Thirdly, from violence in the levy of his provision, and that if it be possible, he never seize upon the movables and utensils of husbandry. This doth principally belong to receivers and puruoyers, who by their rigorous courses, expose the prince to the hatred of the people, and dishonour him, a people subtle, cruel, with six hands and three heads, as one saith. A prince therefore must provide that they be honest men, and if they fail in their duties, to correct them severely, with rough chastisement, and great amends, to the the end they may restore and disgorge like sponges, that which they have sucked and drawn unjustly from the people. Let us come to the other worse enemy, contempt; which 13 Contempt. is a sinister, base, and abject opinion of the prince, and the state: This is the death of a state, as authority is the soul and life thereof. What doth maintain one only man, yea an old and worn man, over so many thousands of men, if not authority and the great esteem of his person? which if it be once lost by contempt, the prince and state must necessarily fall to the ground. And even as authority, as hath been said, Art 5. is more strong and large than benevolence, so contempt is more contrary and dangerous than hatred, which dareth not any thing, being held back by fear, if contempt which shaketh off fear, arm it not, and give it courage to execute. It is true that contempt is not so common, especially if he be a true and lawful prince, except he be such a one, as doth wholly degrade and prostitute himself, & videatur exire de Plin. in paunch. imperio. Nevertheless we must see from whence this contempt doth come, that we may the better know how to avoid it. It proceedeth from things contrary to those means that win and get authority, and especially from three, that is to say, from too lose, effeminate, mild, languishing and careless, or very light form of government, without any An ill form of government. hold or stay; this is a state without a state, under such princes the subjects are made bold, and insolent, all things being permitted, because the prince takes care of nothing. Malum principem habere, sub quo nihil ulli liceat: peius sub quo omnia omnibus. Secondly, from the ill hap and infelicity of the Infelicity. prince, whether it be in his affairs, which succeed not well, or in his line and issue, if he have no children, who are a great prop and stay to a prince, or in the uncertainty of his successors, whereof Alexander the great complained, Orbitas mea quòd sine liberis sum, spernitur: Munimen aulae Máners. regij liberi. Thirdly, from manners, especially dissolute, lose and voluptuous, drunkenness, gluttony, as also rusticity, childishness, scurrility. Thus in gross have I spoken of the action of a prince. To handle it more distinctly and particularly, we must remember, 14 The distinction of the action of a prince. as hath been said in the beginning, that it is twofold, peaceable and military; by the peaceable I here understand that ordinary action, which is every day done, and at all times of peace and of war; by the military, that which is not exercised, but in time of war. The peaceable and ordinary action of a sovereign cannot Of the peaceable. be wholly prescribed, it is an infinite thing, and consisteth as well in taking heed to do, as to do. We will here give the principal and more necessary advisements. First therefore An advice. a Prince must provide that he be faithfully and diligently advertised of all things. This all things may be reduced to two heads, whereupon there are two sorts of advertisements and advertisers, who must be faithful and assured, wise and secret, though in some there be required, a greater liberty and constancy than in others. Some are to advertise him of his honour and duty, of his defects, and to tell him the truth. There are no kind of people in the world, who have so much need of such friends, as Princes have; who neither see nor understand, but by the eyes and ears of another. They maintain and hold up a public life, are to satisfy so many people, have so many things hid from them, that before they be aware, they fall into the hatred and detestation of their people, for matters that would be easily remedied and cured, if they had been in time advertised of them. On the other side free advertisements, which are the best offices of true amity, are perilous about sovereigns, though Princes be over delicate & show great infirmity, if for their good and profit, they cannot endure a free advertisement, which enforceth nothing, it being in their power, whatsoever they hear, to do what they list. Others are to advertise the Prince of whatsoever passeth, not only amongst his subjects, and within the circuit of his state, but with his bordering neighbours. I say of all, that concerneth either a far off, or near at hand, his own state or his neighbours. These two kind of people answer in some sort to those two friends of Alexander, Ephestion and Crateras, of whom the one loved the King, the other Alexander, that is to say, the one the state, the other the person. Secondly, a Prince must always have in his hand a little 15 2 To have a memorial of the 1 Affairs. book or memorial containing three things: first and principally a brief register of the affairs of the state: to the end he may know what he must do, what is begun to be done, and that there remain nothing imperfect, and ill executed: A catalogue or bead-roll of the most worthy personages that 2 Persons. have well deserved, or are likely to deserve well of the weal-public: A memorial of the gifts which he hath bestowed, to whom and wherefore; otherwise without these three, there 3 Gifts. must necessarily follow many inconveniences. The greatest princes and wisest politicians have used it, Augustus, Tiberius, Vespasian, trajan, Adrian, the Antony's. Thirdly, in as much as one of the principal duties of a 16 3 To appoint rewards and punishments. prince, is to appoint and order both rewards and punishments, the one whereof is favourable, the other odious, a prince must retain unto himself the distribution of rewards, as estates, honours, immunities, restitutions, graces and favours, and leave unto his officers, to execute and pronounce condemnations, forfeitures, confiscations, deprivations, and other punishments. Fourthly in the distribution of rewards, gifts, and good 17 4 To distribute rewards. deeds, he must always be ready and willing, give them before they be asked, if he can, and not to look that he should refuse them; and he must give them himself, if it may be, or cause them to be given in his presence. By this means gifts and good turns shall be better received, and given to better purpose, and he shall avoid two great and common inconveniences, which deprive men of honour and worth of those rewards that are due unto them: the one is a long pursuit, difficult and chargeable, which a man must undergo, to obtain that which he would, and thinketh to have deserved, which is no small grief to honourable minds, and men of spirit: The other, that after a man hath obtained of the prince a gift, before he can possess it, it costeth the one half, and more, of that it is worth, and many times comes to nothing. Let us come to the military action, wholly necessary for 18 Of the military action which consisteth in three points. the preservation and defence of a prince, of the subjects, and the whole state, let us speak thereof briefly. All this matter or subject may be reduced to three heads, To enterprise, make, finish war. In the enterprise there must be two things, justice and prudence, and an avoidance of their contraries, injustice To enterprise, where two things are required. and temerity. First, the war must be just, yea justice must march before valour, as deliberation before execution. These reasons must be of no force, yea abhorred, That right consisteth in force; That the issue or event decideth it; That the stronger carrieth it away. But a prince must look into the cause, into the ground and foundation, and not into the issue; War hath it laws and ordinances as well as peace. God favoureth just wars, and giveth the victory to whom it pleaseth him, and therefore we must first make ourselves capable of this favour by the equity of the enterprise. War then must not be begun and undertaken for all causes, upon every occasion, non ex omni occasione quaerere triumphum: And above all a Plin. in Pan. prince must take heed that ambition, avarice, choler, possess him not, and carry him beyond reason, which are always, to say the truth, the more ordinary motives to war: una & ea Sallust. vetus causa bellandi est profunda cupido imperij & divitiarum: maximam gloriam in maximo imperio putant: Repere foedus impius lucri furor, & ira praeceps. That a war may be in all points just, three things are necessary, 19 Three things make an enterprise just. that it be denounced and undertaken by him that hath power to do it, which is only the sovereign. That it be for a just cause, such as a defensive war is, which is absolute just, being justified by all reason amongst the wise, by necessity amongst barbarians, by nature amongst beasts: Cic. pro Milo. I say defensive, of himself, that is, of his life, his liberty, his parents, his country: of his allies and confederates, in regard of that faith he hath given; of such as are unjustly oppressed, Qui non defendit, nec obsistit, si potest, iniuriae, tam est in vitio, quàm si parents, aut patriam, aut socios deserat. These three In officijs. heads of defence are within the bounds of justice, according to S. Ambrose, Fortitudo, quae per bella tuetur à barbaris patria, vel defendit infirmos, vel à latronibus socios, plena justitiae est. Another more briefly, divideth it into two heads, faith & health; Nullum bellum à civitate optima suscipitur, nisi aut pro fide, aut pro salute: and to offensive war he puts two conditions; Sallust. That it proceed from some former offence given, as outrage or usurpation, and having redemanded openly by a herald that which hath been surprised and taken away (post clarigatum) Plin. l. 22. nat. hist. ca 2. and sought it by way of justice, which must ever go foremost. For if men be willing to submit themselves unto justice, and reason, there let them stay themselves; if not, the last, and therefore necessary, is just and lawful, justum bellum, Livius. quibus necessarium; pia arma quibus nulla nisi in armis relinquitur spes. Thirdly to a good end, that is to say, peace and quietness. Sapientes pacis causa bellum gerunt, & laborem spe otij sustentant: ut in pace sine iniuria vivant. After justice cometh prudence, whereby a man doth advisedly 22 Prudence. deliberate before by sound of trumpet he publisheth the war. And therefore, that nothing be done out of passion, and over-rashly, it is necessary that he consider of the points: of forces and means, as well his own, as his enemies; secondly of the hazard and dangerous revolution of human things especially of arms, which are variable, and wherein fortune hath greatest credit, and exerciseth more her empire, than in any other thing, wherein the issue may be such, that in an hour it carrieth all, simul parta ac sperata decora unius horae Livius. fortuna evertere potest. Thirdly, of those great evils, infelicities, and public and particular miseries, which war doth necessarily bring with it, and which be such as the only imagination is lamentable. Fourthly of the calumnies, maledictions, and reproaches that are spread abroad against the authors of the war, by reason of those evils and miseries that follow it. For there is nothing more subject to the tongues and judgements of men then war. But all lighteth upon the Chieftain, iniquissima bellorum conditio Tacit. haec est, prospera omnes sibi vendicant, adversa uni imputantur. All these things together make the justest war that may be, detestable, saith S. Augustine; and therefore it standeth a sovereign upon, not to enter into wars but upon great necessity, as it is said of Augustus; and not to suffer himself to be carried by those incendiaries and firebrands of war, who for some particular passion, are ready to kindle and inflame him: quibus in pace durius seruitium est, in id nati, ut nec Pindar. ipsi quiescant, neque alios sinant. And these men are commonly such, whose noses do bleed when they come to the fact itself. Dulce bellum inexpertis. A wise sovereign will keep himself in peace, neither provoking, nor fearing war, neither disquieting either his own state, or another's, betwixt hope and fear, nor coming to those extremities of perishing himself, or making others to perish. The second head of military action, is to make war, whereunto are required three things, Munitions, Men, Rules of war. 〈…〉 The first is provision and munition of all things necessary for war, which must be done in good time and at leisure, for it were great indiscretion in extremities to be employed about the search and provision of those things which he should have always ready. Diu apparandum est, ut vincas celeriùs. Now of the ordinary and perpetual provision required for the good of the prince and the state at all times, hath been spoken in the first part of this Chapter, which is wholly of this subject. The principal provisions and munitions of war are three, Money, which is the vital spirit, and sinews of war, whereof hath been spoken in the second Chapter. 2. Arms both offensive and defensive, whereof likewise heretofore. These two are ordinary, and at all times. 3. Victuals, without which a man can neither conquer, nor live, whole armies are overthrown without a blow strucken, soldiers grow licentious, and unruly, and it is not possible to do any good. Disciplinam non servat ieiunus exercitus. Cassiod. But this is an extraordinary provision, and not perpetual, and is not made but for war. It is necessary therefore that in the deliberating of war, that there be great storehouses made for victuals, corn, powdered flesh, both for the army which is in the field, and for the garrisons in the frontiers, which may be besieged. The second thing required to make war, are men fit to assail and to defend: we must distinguish them. The first distinction 24 Men. is, into soldiers, and leaders or captains, both are necessary. The soldiers are the body, the captains the soul, the life of the army, who give motion and action: we will speak first of the soldiers who make the body in gross. There are divers sorts of them: There are footmen and horsemen; natural of the same country, and strangers; ordinary and subsidiary. We must first compare them all together, to the end we may know which are the better, and to be preferred, and afterwards we will see how to make our choice, and lastly how to govern and discipline them. In this comparison all are not of one accord. Some, especially 25 Rather foot than horse. rude and barbarous people, prefer horsemen before footmen; others quite contrary. A man may say that the foot are simply and absolutely the better, for they serve both throughout the war, and in all places, and at all occasions; whereas in hilly, rough, craggy, and straight places, and in sieges, the cavalry is almost unprofitable. They are likewise more ready and less chargeable: and if they be well led and armed, as it is fit they should, they endure the chock of the horsemen. They are likewise preferred by such as are doctors in this art. A man may say that the cavalry is better in a combat; and for a speedy dispatch; Equestrium virium proprium citò parare, citò cedere victoriam. For the foot are not so speedy, but what they do they perform more surely. As for natural soldiers and strangers, divers men are likewise 26 And natural than strangers. of divers opinions touching their precedency; but without all doubt the natural are much better, because they are more loyal than mercenary strangers. Venalesque manus, ibi fas, ubi maxima merces. More patiented and obedient, carrying themselves with more honour and respect towards their leaders, more courage in combats, more affection to the victory, and good of their country: They cost less, and are more ready than strangers, who are many times mutinous, yea in greatest necessities, making more stir, than doing service, and the most part of them are importunate, and burdensome to the Commonweal, cruel to those of the country, whom they forage as enemies. Their coming and departure is chargeable, and many times they are expected and attended with great loss and inconvenience. If in some extremity there be need of them, be it so, but yet let them be in far less number than the natural, and let them make but a member and part of the army, not the body. For there is danger that if they shall see themselves equal in force, or more strong than the natural, they will make themselves their masters that called them, as many times it hath fallen out. For he is master of the state, that is master of the forces. And again, if it be possible, let them be drawn from allies and confederates, who bring with them more trust and service than they that are simply strangers. For to make more use of strangers, or to employ them more than natural subjects, is to play the tyrants, who fear their subjects, and because they handle them like enemies, they make themselves odious unto them, whereby they fear to arm them, or to employ them in the wars. As touching ordinary soldiers and subsidiaries, both are 27 As well ordinary as subsidiary. necessary; but the difference between them is, that the ordinary are in less number, are alway a foot and in arms both in peace and in war: and of these we have spoken in the provision, a people wholly destinated and confined to the wars, form to all exercise of arms, resolute. This is the ordinary force of the prince, his honour in peace, his safeguard in war: such were the Roman legions. These should be divided by troops in times of peace, to the end they raise no commotions. The subsidiaries are in far greater number, but they are not perpetual, and wholly destinated to war: they have other vocations: At a need and in times of war they are called by the sound of a trumpet, enrolled, mustered, and instructed to the wars; and in times of peace they return, and retire themselves to their vocations. We have understood their distinctions and differences, 28 Well to choose. we must now consider of the good choice of them: A matter whereof we must be carefully advised, not to gather many, and in great numbers, for number winneth not the victory, but valour; and commonly they are but few that give the overthrow. An unbridled multitude doth more hurt than good. Non vires habet sed pondus, potiùs impedimentum quàm auxilium. Victory then consisteth not in the number, but in the force and valour, manibus opus est bello, non multis nominibus. There must therefore be a great care in the choice of them (not pressing them pellmell) that they be not voluntary adventurers, ignorant of war, taken forth of cities, corrupt, vicious, dissolute in their manners, arrogant boasters, hardy and bold to pillage, far enough off from blows, leverets in dangers, Assuet● latrocinijs bellorum, insolentes, galeati lepores, purgamenta urbium, quibus ob egestatem & flagitia maxima peccandi necessitudo. To choose them well, there needs judgement, attention and instruction, and to this end five things must be considered of, 29 Election of soldiers consisteth in five things. 1 Country. Veget. that is to say, the place of their birth and education. They must be taken out of the fields, the mountains, barren and hard places, countries near adjoining to the sea, and brought up in all manner of labour. Exagris supplendum praecipuè robur exercitus, aptior armis rustica plebs sub dio & in laboribus enutrita, ipso terrae suae solo & coelo acrius animantur. Et minus mortem timet, qui minus deliciarum novit in vita. For they that are brought up in Cities, in the pleasant shadow and delights thereof, in gain, are more idle, insolent, effeminate; Vernaculo Tacit. 2 Age. multitudo, lasciviae sueta, laborum intolerans. Secondly the age, that they be taken young, at eighteen years of age, when they are most pliant and obedient: the elder are possessed with many vices, and not so fit for discipline. Thirdly the bodies, 3 Bodies. which some will have to be of a great stature, as Marius and Pyrrhus: but though it be but indifferent, so the body be strong, dry, vigorous, sinewy, of a fierce look, it is all one. Dura corpora stricti artus, minax vultus, maior animi vigour. Fourthly the spirit, which must be lively, resolute, bold, glorious, 4 Spirit. fearing nothing so much as dishonour and reproach. Fiftly the condition, which importeth much; for they that 5 Condition. are of a base and infamous condition, of dishonest qualities, or such as are mingled with effeminate arts, serving for delicacy and for women, are no way fit for this profession. After the choice and elections cometh discipline: for it is not enough to have chosen those that are capable, and likely 30 Well disciplined. to prove good soldiers, if a man make them not good; and if he make them good, if he keep and continue them not such. Nature makes few men valiant, it is good institution Veget. and discipline that doth it. Now it is hard to say how necessary and profitable good discipline is in war: This is all in all, it is this that made Rome to flourish, and that won it the signory of the world: yea, it was in greater account, than the love of their children. Now the principal point of discipline is obedience, to which end served that ancient precept, That a soldier must more fear his captain, than his enemy. Now this discipline must tend to two ends; to make the soldiers valiant, and honest men: and therefore it hath two Discipline hath two parts. 1 Valour which is attained by exercise. parts, valour, and manners. To valour three things are required; daily exercise in arms, wherein they must always keep themselves in practice without intermission; and from hence cometh the Latin word Exercitus, which signifieth an army. This exercise in arms, is an instruction to manage and use them well, to prepare themselves for combats, to draw benefit from arms, with dexterity to defend themselves, to discover and present unto them whatsoever may fall out in the fight, and come to the trial, as in a ranged battle: to propose rewards to the most apt and active, to inflame them. Secondly, travel or pains, which is as well to harden 2 Travel. them to labour, to sweatings, to dust, exercitue labour proficit, otio consenescit, as for the good and service of the army, and fortification of the field, whereby they must learn to dig, to plant a palisade, to order a barricado, to run, to carry heavy burdens. These are necessary things, as well to defend themselves, as to offend and surprise the enemy. Thirdly order, which is of great use, and must be kept in war for 3 Order. divers causes, and after a divers manner. First, in the distribution of the troops, into battalions, regiments, ensigns, comrades. Secondly, in the situation of the camp, that it be disposed into quarters with proportion, having the places, entries, issues, lodgings fitted both for the horsemen and footmen, whereby it may be easy for every man to find his quarter, his companion. Thirdly, in the march in the field, and against the enemy, that every one hold his rank; that they be equally distant the one from the other, neither too near, nor too far from one an other. Now this order is very necessary and serves for many purposes. It is very pleasing to the eye, cheereth up friends, astonisheth the enemy, secureth the army, maketh all the removes, and the commands of the captains easy; in such sort, that without stir, without confusion the General commandeth, and from hand to hand his intents and purposes come even to the least. Imperium ducis simul omne copiae sentiunt; & ad nutum regentis sine tumultu respondent. To be brief, this order well kept, maketh an army almost invincible; and contrarily, many have lost the field for want of this order, and good intelligence. The second part of this military discipline concerneth manners, which are commonly very dissolute and in armies hardly Manners the second part of discipline. ordered, assiduè dimicantibus difficile morum custodire mensuram. Nevertheless there must be pains taken, and especially to enstale (if it may be) three virtues, Continency, whereby Continency. all gluttony, drunkenness, whoredom, and all manner of dishonest pleasures are chased away, which do make a soldier lose and licentious. Degenerate à robore ac virtute miles assuetudine voluptatum; witness Hannibal who by delicacy Tacit. and delights in a winter was effeminated, and he by vice was vanquished, that was invincible, and by arms vanquished all others. Modesty in words, driving away all vanity, vain Modesty. boasting, bravery of speech; for true valour stirreth not the tongue, but the hands, doth not speak but execute. Viri nati militae factis magni, ad verborum linguaeque certamina rudes: discrimen ipsum certaminis differt: viri fortes, in opere acres, ante id placidi. And contrarily great speakers are small doers. Nimij verbis linguaferoces. Now the tongue is for counsel, the hand for combat, saith Homer; Modesty in action, (that is, a simple and ready obedience, without merchandizing or contradicting the commands of the captains) haec sunt bonae militiae, velle, vereri, obedire. Abstinency, whereby soldiers keep their hands clean from all violence, foraging, robbery. Abstinency. And this is a brief sum in the military discipline; the which the General must strengthen by rewards and recompenses of honour towards the good and valorous, and by severe punishments against offenders: for indulgence undoth soldiers. Let this suffice of soldiers: Now a word or two of captains, without whom the soldier can do nothing: they 33 Of captains. are a body without a soul, a ship with oars without a master to hold the stern. There are two sorts, the General and first, and afterwards the subaltern, the master of the Camp, Colonels: But the General (who must never be but one, under Of the General. pain of losing all) is all in all. And therefore it is said, that an army can do as much as a General can do; and as much account must be made of him as of all the rest, plus in duce repones, Tacit. quàm in exercitu. Now this General is either the prince himself and sovereign, or such as he hath committed the charge unto, and made choice of. The presence of a prince is of great importance to the obtaining of a victory; it doubleth the force and courage of his men; and it seemeth to be requisite when it standeth upon the safeguard and health of his state, and of a province. In wars of less consequence he may depute another: dubijs praeliorum exemtus summae rerum Tacit. & imperij seipsum reseruet. Finally, a General must have these qualities, he must be wise and experienced in the art military, having seen and suffered both fortunes: Secundarum ambiguarumque rerum sciens eoque interitus. Secondly, he must be provident and well advised; and therefore stayed, cold, Tacit. and settled; far from all temerity and precipitation, which is not only foolish, but unfortunate. For faults in war cannot be mended; Non licet in bello his peccare. And therefore he Sertori. in Plut. must rather look back, than before him, Ducem oportet potius respicere, quàm prospicere. Thirdly, he must be vigilant and active, and by his own example, teaching his soldiers to do his will. fourthly happy, good fortune comes from heaven, but yet willingly it followeth and accompanieth these three first qualities. After the munitions and men of war, let us come to the 34 The third head of the rules and counsels to make war. rules and general advisements to make war. This third point is a very great and necessary instrument of war, without which both munitions and men, are but fantasies, Plura consilio quàm vi perficiuntur. Now to prescribe certain rules and perpetual, it is impossible. For they depend of so many things that are to be considered of, and whereunto a man must accommodate himself, whereupon it was well said, That men give not counsel to the affairs, but the affairs to men, that a man must order his war by his eye. A man must take his counsel in the field, Consilium in arena: for new occurrents yield new counsels. Nevertheless there are some so general, and certain, that a man cannot fail in the delivery and observation of them. We will briefly set down some few of them, whereunto a man may add as occasions shall fall out. Some are to be observed throughout a war, which we will speak of in the first place, others are for certain occasions and affairs. Rules for the whole time of war. 1 The first is carefully to watch and to meet the occasions not to lose any, nor to permit, if it be possible, the enemy to take his: occasion hath a great place in all human affairs, especially in war, where it helpeth more than force. 2 To make profit of rumours and reports that run abroad, for whether they be true or false, they may do much, especially in the beginning. Fama bella constant, fama bellum conficit, in spem metumuè impellit animos. 3 But when a man is entered his course, let not reports trouble him: he may consider of them, but let them not hinder him to do that he should, and what he can, and let him stand firm to that which reason hath counseled him. 4 Above all, he must take heed of too great a confidence and assurance, whereby he grows into contempt of his enemy, and thereby becomes negligent and careless; it is the most dangerous evil that can fall out in war. He that contemneth his enemy, discovereth and betrayeth himself, Frequentissimum initium calamitatis securitas. Nemo celeriùs opprimitur quam qui non timet. Nil tutò in host despicitur: quem spreveris, valentiorem negligentia facies. There is nothing in war that must be despised: for therein there is nothing little: and many times that which seemeth to a man to be of small moment, yieldeth great effects. Saepe parvis momentis magni casus: ut nihil timendi, sic nihil contemnendi. 5 To inquire very carefully, and to know the estate and affairs of the enemy, especially these points, 1. The nature, capacity, and designments of the Chieftain. 2. The nature, manners, and manner of life of his enemies. 3. The situation of the places, & the nature of the country where he is. Hannibal was excellent in this. 6 Touching the fight or main battle, many things are 35 For the fight. advisedly to be considered of, when, where, against whom, and how, to the end it be not to small purpose. And a man must not come to this extremity, but with great deliberation, but rather make choice of any other mean, and seek to break the force of his enemy by patience, and to suffer him to beat himself with time, with the place, with the want of many things, before he come to this hazard. For the issue of battles is very uncertain, and dangerous: Incertiexitus pugnarum. Mars communis, qui saepe spoliantem & iam exultantem evertit; & perculit ab abiecto. 7 A man then must not come to the battle, but seldom, that is to say, in great necessities, or for some great occasion. When. In necessity, as if the difficulties grow on his part; his viands, his treasure faileth; his men begin to distaste the wars, and will be gone, and he cannot long continue, capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est; upon great occasion, as if his part be clearly the stronger; that the victory seemeth to offer itself, that the enemy is weak, and will shortly be stronger, and will offer the battle; that he is out of doubt and fear, and thinketh his enemy far off; that he is weary and faint, revictualleth himself; his horses feed upon their litter. 8 He must consider the place, for this is a matter of great consequence in battles. In general, he must not attend (if he Where. may prevent it) his enemy till he enter within his own territories. He must go forth to meet him, or at least stay him in the entrance. And if he be already entered, not hazard the battle, before he have another army in readiness, to make a supply; otherwise he puts his state in hazard. More particularly he must consider the field where the battle is to be fought, whether it be fit for himself, or his enemy: for the field many times gives a great advantage. The plain champion is good for the cavalry; straight and narrow places, set with piles, full of diches, trees, for the infantry. 9 He must consider with whom he is to fight, not with the strongest, I mean not the strongest men, but the strongest With and against whom. and stoutest courages. Now there is not any thing that giveth more heart and courage, than necessity, an enemy invincible. And therefore I say, that a man must never fight with such as are desperate. This agreeth with the former, that is, not to hazard a battle within his own country, for an enemy being entered fighteth desperately, knowing if he be vanquished, he cannot escape death, having neither fortress, nor any place of retreat or succour, unde necessitas in loco, spes in virtute, salus ex victoria. 10 The manner of fight that brings best advantage with it, How. whatsoever it be, is the best; whether it be surprise, subtlety, close and covert feigning to fear, to the end he may draw the enemy, and catch him in his gin, spe victoriae inducere, ut vincantur; to watch and mark his oversights and faults, that he may the better prevail against him, and give the charge. For ranged battles these things are required. The first and principal is a good and comely ordering of his people. 2. A 36 Rules for ranged battles. supply and succour always ready, but close and hidden, to the end that coming suddenly and unawares, it may astonish and confound the enemy. For all sudden things though they be vain and ridiculous, bring fear and astonishment with them. Primi in omnibus praelijs oculi vincuntur & aures. 3. To be first in the field, and ranged in battle ray. This a General doth with so much the more ease, and it much increaseth the courage of his soldiers, and abateth his enemies: for this is to make himself the assailant, who hath always more heart than the defendant. 4. A beautiful, gallant, bold, resolved countenance of the General and other leaders. 5. An oration to encourage the soldiers, and to lay open unto them the honour, commodity and surety that there is in valour; That dishonour, danger, death, are the reward of cowards; minus timoris minus periculi, audaciam pro muro esse, effugere mortem, qui eam contemnit. Being come to handstrokes, if the army waver, the General must hold himself firm, do the duty of a resolute Leader, 37 Having joined battle. & brave man at arms, run before his astonished soldiers, stay them recoiling, thrust himself into the throng, make all to know, both his own, and his enemies, that his head, his hand, his tongue trembleth not. And if it fall out that he have the better, and the field be his, he must stay and withhold them, lest they scatter and disband themselves, by too obstinate a pursuit of the vanquished. That is to be feared, which hath many times come to pass, that the vanquished gathering heart, make use of despair, gather to a head, and vanquish the vanquishers, for this necessity is a violent schoolmistress. Clausis ex desperatione enescit audacia: & cùm spei nihil est, sumit arma formido. It is better to give passage unto them, and to remove all lets and hindrances that may stay their flight. Much less must a General suffer himself or his men to attend the booty, or to be alured thereby over hastily, if he be conqueror. He must use his victory wisely, lest the abuse thereof turn to his own harm. And therefore he must not defile it with cruelty, depriving the enemy of all hope, for there is danger in it. Ignaviam necessitas acuit; saepe desperatio spei caussa est, gravissim sunt morsus irritatae necessitatis. But contrarily, he must leave some occasion of hope, and overture unto peace, not spoiling and ransacking the country which he hath conquered; for fury and rage are dangerous beasts. Again he must not stain his victory with insolency, but carry himself modestly and always remember the perpetual flux and reflux of this world, & that alternative revolution, whereby from adversity springeth prosperity, from prosperity adversity. There are some that cannot digest a good fortune, Magnam foelicitatem concoquere non possunt. fortuna uttrea est, tunc cum splendet frangitur: O infidam fiduciam! & saepe victor victus. If he be vanquished, wisdom is necessary well to weigh and consider of his loss, it is sottishness to make himself believe that it is nothing, and to feed himself with vain hopes, to suppress the news of the overthrow. He must consider thereof as it is at the worst, otherwise how shall he remedy it? And afterwards with a good courage hope for better fortunes, renew his forces, make a new levy, seek new succours, put good and strong garrisons into his strongest places. And though the heavens be contrary unto him, as sometimes they seem to oppose themselves to holy and just arms; it is nevertheless never forbidden to die in the bed of honour, which is far better than to live in dishonour. And thus we have ended the second head of this subject, which is to make war, except one scruple that remaineth: 38 A question of the stratagems of war. That is to say, whether it be lawful to use subtlety, policy, stratagems in war. There be some that hold it negatively, that it is unworthy men of honour and virtue, rejecting that excellent saying, Dolus, an virtus quis in host requirat? Alexander would take no advantages of the obscurity of the night, saying, that he liked not of thieving victories, malo me fortunae pigeat, quàm victoriae pudeat. So likewise the first Romans sent their schoolmaster to the Phaliscians; to Pyrrhus his traitorous Physician, making profession of virtue, disavowing those of their country that did otherwise, reproving the subtlety of the Greeks' and africans, and teaching that true victory is by virtue, quae salva fide & integra dignitate paratur, that which is gotten by wit and subtlety, is neither generous, nor honourable, nor secure. The vanquished hold not themselves to be well vanquished, non virtute, sed occasione & arte ducis se victos rati: ergo non fraud neque occultis sed palam & armatum hostes suos ulcisci. Now all this is well said and true, but to be understood in two cases, in private quarrels, and against private enemies, or where faith is not given, or a league and alliance made. But without these two cases, that is to say, in war, and without the prejudice of a man's faith, it is permitted by any means whatsoever to conquer the enemy that is already condemned. This, besides the judgement of the greatest warriors (who contrarily have preferred the victory Polyb. lib. Plut. in Marcell. Vlp. lib. 1. de Prob. Aug. quaest. sup. joshua. gotten by occasion, and by subtle stratagems, before that which is won by open force; whereupon to that they have ordained an ox for a sacrifice, to this only a cock) is the opinion of that great Christian Doctor, Cum justum bellum suscipitur, ut apart pugnet quis, aut ex insidijs, nihil ad justitiam interest. War hath naturally reasonable privileges, to the prejudice of reason. In time and place it is permitted to make use and advantage of the sottishness of an enemy, as well as of his weakness or idleness. Let us come to the third head of this military matter, 39 The third head of this military subject, to finish war. more short and pleasing than the rest, which is to finish the war by peace. The word is sweet, the thing pleasant, and good in all respects, pax optima rerum quas homini novisse datum est, Pax una triumphis innumeris potior, and very commodious to both parts, the conquerors and conquered. But first Of peace in respect of the vanquished. to the vanquished, who are the weaker: to whom I do first give this counsel, to continue armed, to make show of security, assurance and resolution. For he that desireth peace, must be always ready for war, whereupon it hath been said, That treatises of peace do well and happily succeed when they are concluded under a buckler. But this peace must be honest, and upon reasonable conditions: otherwise, though it be said, that a base peace is more profitable than a just war, yet it is better to die freely and with honour, than to serve dishonourably. And again it must be pure and free, without fraud and hypocrisy, which finisheth the war, deferreth it not, pace suspecta tutius bellum. Nevertheless in times of necessity a man must accommodate himself as he may. When a pilot feareth a shipwreck, he casteth himself into the sea to save himself; and many times it succeed well, when a man committeth himself to the discretion of a generous adversary. Victores qui sunt alto animo secundae res in miserationem ex ira vertunt. To the vanquishers I give this counsel, that they In respect of the vanquishers. be not over hardly persuaded to peace, for though perhaps it be less profitable unto them, than to the vanquished, yet some commodity it bringeth, for the continuance of war is odious and troublesome. And Lycurgus forbiddeth to make war often against one and the same enemies, because they learn thereby to defend themselves, & in the end to assail too. The bitings of dying beasts are mortal. Fractis rebus violentior ultima virtus. And again the issue is always uncertain, Melior tutiorque certa pax sperata victoria, illa in tua, haec in decrum manu est. And many times the poison lieth in the tail, and the more favourable fortune is, the more it is to be feared: Nemo se tuto diu periculis offerre tam crebris potest. But it is truly honourable, it is a glory having a victory in his hands, Honourable. to be facile and easily persuaded unto peace: it is to make known that he undertaketh a war justly, and doth wisely finish it. And contrarily, to refuse it, and afterwards by some ill success to repent the refusal, it is very dishonourable, and will be said that glory hath undone him. He refused peace, S. Bernard. and would have honour, and so hath lost them both. But he must offer a gracious and a debonair peace, to the end it may be durable. For if it be over rough and cruel, at the first advantage that may be offered, the vanquished will revolt. Si bonam de deritis, fidam & perpetuam, si malam, haud diuturnam. Livius. It is as great greatness to show as much lenity towards the suppliant vanquished, as valour against the enemy. The Romans did very well put this in practice, and it did them no harm. CHAP. FOUR Of that prudence which is required in difficult affairs and ill accidents, public and private. THE PREFACE. Having spoken of that politic prudence required in a sovereign, for the carriage of himself and his good government, we will here severally speak of that prudence that is necessary for the preservation of himself, and the remedying of those affairs, and difficult and dangerous accidents which may happen either to himself, or his particular subjects. First these affairs and accidents are very divers: they are either public or particular: either to come, and such as threaten The division of this matter by distinction of the accidents. us, or present and pressing us: the one are only doubtful and ambiguous, the other dangerous and important because of their violence. And they that are the greater and more difficult, are either secret and hid; and they are two, that is to say, conspiracy against the person of the Prince, or the state, and treason against the places and companies: or manifest and open, and these are of divers sorts. For they be either without form of war and certain order, as popular commotions for small and light occasions, factions and leagues between subjects, of the one against the other, in small and great number, great or little; seditions of the people against the prince or magistrate, rebellion against the authority and head of the Prince: or they are ripe and form into a war, and are called civil wars: which are of so many kinds, as the above named troubles and commotions, which are the causes, foundations and seeds of them: but have grown, and are come into consequence and continuance. Of them all we will speak distinctly, and we will give advice and counsel, as well to sovereigns, as particular persons, great and small, how to carry themselves wisely therein. I. Of the evils and accidents that do threaten us. IN those cross and contrary accidents, whereunto we are subject, there are two divers manners of carriage: & they may be both good, according to the divers natures both of the accidents, and of those to whom they happen. The one is strongly to contest, and to oppose a man's self against the accident, to remove all things that may hinder the diverting thereof, or at least to blunt the point, to dead the blow thereof, either to escape it, or to force it. This requireth a strong and obstinate mind, and hath need of hard and painful care. The other is incontinently to take and receive these accidents at the worst, and to resolve himself to bear them sweetly and patiently, and in the mean time to attend peaceably whatsoever shall happen, without tormenting himself, or hindering it. The former studieth how to range the accidents; this himself. That seemeth to be more courageous; this more sure. That continueth in suspense, is tossed between fear and hope; this putteth himself into safety, and lieth so low that he cannot fall lower. The lowest march is the surest, and the seat of constancy. That laboureth to escape; this to suffer: and many times this maketh the better bargain. Often times it falleth out, that there is greater inconvenience and loss in pleading and contending, than in losing; in flying for safety, than in suffering. A covetous man tormenteth himself more than a poor, a zealous than a cuckold. In the former, prudence is more requisite, because he is in action; in this patience. But what hindereth, but that a man may perform both in order: and that where prudence and vigilancy can do nothing, there patience may succeed? Doubtless in public evils a man must assay the first, which such are bound to do, as have the charge and can do it; in particular let every one choose the best. II. Of evils and accidents present, pressing, and extreme. THe proper means to lighten evils, and to sweeten passions, is not for a man to oppose himself, for opposition inflameth and increaseth them much more. A man by the jealousy of contention and contradiction sharpeneth and stirreth the evil: but it is either in diverting them elsewhere, as Physicians use to do, who knowing not how to purge, and wholly to cure a disease, seek to divert it into some other part less dangerous, which must be done sweetly and insensibly. This is an excellent remedy against all evils, and which is practised in all things, if a man mark it well, whereby we are made to swallow the sourest morsels, yea death itself, and that insensibly: abducendus animus est ad alia studia, curas, negotia, loci denique mutatione tanquam aegroti non convalescentes saepe curandus est. As a man counseleth those that are to pass over some fearful deep place, either to shut or to divert their eyes. When a man hath occasion to lance a sore in a child, he flattereth him, and withdraweth his mind to some other matter. A man must practise the experiment and subtlety of Hypomenes, who being to run with Atlanta, a damsel of excellent beauty, and to lose his life if he lost the goal, to marry the damsel if he won it, furnished himself with three fair apples of gold, which at divers times he let fall, to stay the course of the damsel whilst she took them up, and so by diverting her, get the advantage of her, and gained herself: so if the consideration of some present unhappy accident, or the memory of any that is passed do much afflict us, or some violent passion, which a man cannot tame, do move and torment us, we must change and turn our thoughts to some thing else, and substitute unto ourselves some other accident and passion less dangerous. If a man cannot vanquish it, he must escape it, go out of the way, deal cunning lie, or weaken and dissolve it, with other thoughts and alienations of the mind, yea break it into many pieces; and all this by diversions. The other advice, in the last and more dangerous extremities that are in a manner past hope, is a little to cast down the head, to lend unto the blow, to yield unto necessity, for there is great danger, that by too much obstinacy in not relenting at all, a man giveth occasion to violence to trample all under foot. It is better to make the laws to will that they can, since they cannot do that they would. It was a reproach unto Cato to have been over-rough in the civil wars of his time, and that he rather suffered the commonweal to run into all extremities, than succoured it by tying himself over-strictly to the laws. Contrarily Epaminondas in a necessity, continued his charge beyond his time, though the law upon the pain of his life did prohibit him: and Philopemenes is commended, that being borne to command, he did not only know how to govern according to the laws, but also command the laws themselves, when public necessity did require it. A Leader at a necessity must stoop a little, apply himself to the occasion, turn the table of the law, if not take it away, go a little out of the way, that he lose not all; for this is prudence, which is no way contrary either to reason or justice. III. Doubtful and ambiguous affairs. IN things doubtful, where the reasons are strong on all parts, and the inability to see and choose that which is most commodious, bringeth with it uncertainty and perplexity, the best and safest way is to lean to that part where there is most honesty and justice: for notwithstanding it fall not out happily, yet there shall always remain an inward content, and an outward glory to have chosen the better part. Besides, a man knoweth not, if he had taken the contrary part, what would have happened, and whether he had escaped his destiny. When a man doubteth which is the better and the shorter way, let him take the straighter. FOUR Difficult and dangerous affairs. IN difficult affairs, as in agreements, to be over-careful to make them over-sure, is to make them less firm, less assured, because a man employeth therein more time, more people are hindered, more things, more clauses are mingled and interposed, than are needful, from whence arise all differences. Add hereunto, that a man seemeth hereby to scorn fortune, and to exempt himself from her jurisdiction, which cannot be, vim suorum ingruentem refringi non vult. It is better to make them briefly and quietly with a little danger, than to be so exact and curious. In dangerous affairs a man must be wise and courageous, he must foresee and know all dangers, make them neither less nor greater than they are by want of judgement, think that they will not all happen, or shall not all have their effects, that a man may avoid many by industry or by diligence, or otherwise; what they are from whom he may receive aid and succour, and thereupon take courage, grow resolute, not fainting for them in an honest enterprise. A wise man is courageous, for he thinketh, discourseth, and prepareth himself for all, and a courageous man must likewise be wise. V Conjurations. WE are come now to the greatest, most important, and dangerous accidents, which we will handle in order, expressly describing them one after the other, giving afterwards in every one of them some advisements fit for a sovereign, and in the end for every particular person. Conjuration is a conspiracy and enterprise of one or many against the person of the prince or the state; It is a dangerous 1 The decsription. thing hardly avoided or remedied, because it is close and hidden. How should a man defend himself against a covert enemy, such a one as carrieth the countenance of a most officious friend? How can a man know the will and thoughts of another? And again, he that contemneth his own life, is master of the life of another, contemnit omnes ille, qui mortem prius. In such sort that the prince is exposed to the mercy of a private man, whosoever he be. Machiavelli setteth down at large, how a man should frame and order, and conduct a conspiracy; we, how it may be broken, hindered, prevented. 1 The counsels and remedies hereupon are, first a privy search and countermine by faithful and discreet persons fit 2 Remedies and advisements. for such a purpose, who are the eyes and ears of the prince; These must discover whatsoever is said and done, especially by the principal officers. Conspirators do willingly here and there defame the prince, or lend their ears to those, that blame and accuse him. Their discourse and conference then touching the prince must be known, and a prince must not stick to be bountiful in his rewards and immunities to such discoverers: But yet he must not over-lightlie give credit to all reports; He must lend his ear to all, not his belief, and diligently examine, to the end he oppress not the innocent, and so purchase unto himself the hatred and hard speech of the people. 2 The second advice is, that he endeavour by clemency and innocency to win the love of all, even of his enemies, fidissima custodia principis innocentia. By offending no man, a man taketh a course to be offended by none: And it is to small purpose for a man to show his power by wrongs and outrages, malè vim suam potestas aliorum contumelijs experitur. 3 The third is to make a good show, to show a good countenance according to the accustomed manner, not changing or depressing any thing; and to publish in all places, that he is well persuaded of those meetings and assemblies that men appoint, and to make them believe that he hath them not in the wind, that he describeth not their plots and purposes. This was an experiment which Denys the tyrant made good use of against an enemy of his, which cost him dear. 4 The fourth is to attend without astonishment & trouble whatsoever may happen unto him. Caesar did well put in practise these three latter means, but not the first. It is better, saith he, to die once, than to live, nay to die always in a trance, and a continual fever of an accident, which is past remedy, and must be wholly referred unto God. They that have taken another course, and have endeavoured to prevent it by punishments and revenge, have very seldom found it the best way, and have not for all that escaped the danger, as many Roman Emperors can well witness. But the conspiracy being discovered, the truth found out, what is to be done? The conspirators must rigorously be 3 Punishment of conspirators, and the advice thereupon. punished: To spare such people, is cruelly to betray the weal-publike. They are enemies to the liberty, good, and peace of all: justice requireth it. But yet wisdom and discretion is necessary herein; and a man must not always carry himself after one and the same manner. Sometimes he must execute suddenly, especially if the number of the conspirators be small. But whether the number be little or great, he must not seek by tortures to know the confederates (if otherwise and secretly he may know them, and to make as though he knew them not, is good) for a man seeketh that which he would not find. It is sufficient that by the punishment of a small number good subjects are contained in their duty, and they diverted from their attempts, that either are not, or think not themselves bewrayed. To know all by tortures doth perhaps stir up men's hearts against him. Sometimes he must delay the punishment, but yet never be slow in procuring his safety. But yet the conspirators may be such, and the treason discovered at such a time, that a man must not dissemble, and to punish them instantly is to play and lose all. The best way of all others is, to prevent the conspiracy, to frustrate it, feigning nevertheless not to know the conspirators, but so to carry himself, as if he would provide for another thing, as the Carthaginians did to Hannon their Captain, optimum & solum saepe justin. li. 1. Tacit. insidiarum remedium, si non intelligantur. And which is more, a prince must sometimes pardon, especially if he be a great man, that hath deserved well of the prince and state, and to whom they are both in some sort bound, whose children, parents, friends, are mighty. For what should he do? How should he break this band? If with safety he may, let him pardon, or at least lessen the punishment. Clemency in this case is sometimes not only glorious to a prince, nil gloriosius principe impunè laeso; but it helpeth much for safety to come, diverteth others from the like designments, and worketh either shame in them or repentance; the example of Augustus towards Cinna is very excellent. VI Treason. TReason is a secret conspiracy or enterprise against a place, or a troop or company: it is as a conjuration, a secret 1 Description. evil, dangerous and hardly avoided: for many times a traitor is in the middle and bosom of the company, or place which he selleth and betrayeth. To this unhappy mystery are willingly subject, such as are covetous, light spirits, hypocrites: and this is commonly in them, that they make a fair show of trust and fidelity, they commend and keep it carefully in small matters, and by that means endeavouring to cover, they discover themselves. It is the mark whereby to know them. The advisements are almost the same, that belong to conjurations: except in the punishments, which here must be 2 advisements and remedies. speedy, grievous, and irremissible: for they are a kind of people ill borne and bred, incorrigible, pernicious to the world, whom to pity, it is cruelty. VII. Commotions of the people. THere are many sorts, according to the diversity of the causes, persons, manner and continuance, as we shall see hereafter: faction, confederacy, sedition, tyranny, civil wars. But we will speak here simply and in general of 2 advisements and remedies. those that are raised in a heat, as sudden tumults, that endure not long. The advisements and remedies are to procure some one or other to speak, and show himself unto them, that is of authority, virtue, and singular reputation, eloquent, having gravity mingled with grace, and industry with smooth speech to win the people: for at the presence of such a man, as at a sudden lightning, the people grow calm and quiet: Veluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta Seditio est, saevitque animis ignobile vulgus jamque faces, & saxa volant: furor arma ministrat. Tum pietate gravem, ac meritis si fortè virum quem Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant. Ille regit dictis animos, & pectora mulcet. Sometimes the captain himself must undertake this business. But it must be done with an open front, a strong assurance, having his mind free and pure from all imagination of death, and the worst that may happen unto him: for to go amongst them with a fearful, and unconstant countenance, with flattery and humble carriage, is to wrong himself, and to do little good. This Caesar did excellently put in practice upon those mutinous legions and armies that rose up against him. — stetit aggere fulti Cespitis intrepidus vultu, meruitque timeri Nil metuens.— And Augustus did as much to his Actiaque legions, saith Tacitus. There are then two means to quiet and appease a moved and furious people: the one is by rough usage, and pure authority and reason. This is the better and more noble, and becometh a captain, if it stand him upon; but yet he must take heed how he do it, as hath been said. The other more ordinary is by flattery and fair speeches, for he must not make an open resistance. Savage beasts are never tamed with blows: and therefore a man must not be sparing of good words, and fair promises. In this case the wise have permitted a man to lie, as men use to do with children and sick folk. Herein Pericles was excellent, who won the people, by the eyes, the ears, and the belly, that is to say, by shows, comedies, feasts, and hereby did what he list. This means more base and servile, but yet necessary, must be practised by him whom the captain sendeth, as Menenius Agrippa did at Rome. For if he think to win them by main force, when they are without the bounds of reason, no way yielding unto them, as Appius, Corcolanus, Cato, Photion endeavoured to do, he is mistaken, and deceiveth himself. VIII. Faction and confederacy. FAction or confederacy is a complot and association, of one Description. against another between the subjects, whether it be between the great or the small, in great numbers or little. It ariseth sometimes from the hatreds that are between private men and certain families, but for the most part from ambition (the plague of states) every one coveting the first rank. That which falleth out between great personages, is more pernicious. There are some that stick not to say, that it is in some sort profitable for a sovereign, and it doth the self same service to a commonweal that brawls of servants do in families, saith Cato: But that cannot be true, except it be in tyrants, who fear lest their subjects should agree too well, or in small and light quarrels between cities, or between ladies of the Court to know news. But not important factions, which must be extinguished in their first birth with their marks, names, habiliments, which are many times the seeds of villainous effects, witness that great deflagration, and those bloody murders happened in Constantinople, for the colours of green and blue, under justinian. The advisements hereupon are, that if the factions be betwixt two great personages, 2 The advisements and remedies. the Prince must endeavour by good words or threatenings to make peace and atonement betwixt them, as Alexander the Great did betwixt Ephestion and Craterus, and Archidamus betwixt two of his friends. If he cannot do it, let him appoint arbitrators, such as are free from suspicion and passion. The like he should do, if the faction be betwixt divers subjects, or cities and communities. And if it fall out that it be necessary that he speak himself, he must do it with counsel, being called, to avoid the malice and hatred of those that are condemned. If the faction be between great multitudes, and that it be so strong, that it cannot be appeased by justice, the prince is to employ his force for the utter extinguishment thereof. But he must take heed that he carry himself indifferent, not more affectioned to one than to another; for therein there is great danger, and many have undone themselves: And to say the truth, it is unworthy the greatness of a prince, and he that is master of all to make himself a companion to the one, and an enemy to the other: And if some must needs be punished, let it light upon those that are the principal heads, and let that suffice. IX. Sedition. SEdition is a violent commotion of a multitude against a 1 The description. prince or a magistrate. It ariseth and groweth either from oppression or fear: For they that have committed any great offence, fear punishment; others think & fear they shallbe oppressed, and both of them by the apprehension of an evil, are stirred to sedition to prevent the blow. It likewise springeth from a licentious liberty, from want and necessity, in such sort, that men fit for this business, are such as are indebted, malcontents, and men ill accommodated in all things, light persons, and such as are blown up, and fear justice. These kind of people cannot continue long in peace: peace is war unto them, they cannot sleep but in the midst of sedition, they are not in liberty but by the means of confusion. The better to bring their purposes to pass, they confer together in secret, they make great complaints, use doubtful speeches, afterwards speak more openly, seem zealous of their liberty, and of the public good, and case of the people, and by these fair pretences they draw many unto them. The advisements and remedies are, First the selfsame that served 2 advisements and remedies. for popular commotions, to cause such to show themselves and to speak unto them, that are fit for such a purpose, as hath been said. Secondly, if that profit not, he must arm and fortify himself, and for all that, not proceed against them, but rather give them leisure and time to put water in their wine, to the wicked to repent, to the good to reunite themselves. Time is a great Physician, especially in people more ready to mutiny and rebel, than to fight. Ferocior plebs ad rebellandum, quàm bellandun: tentare magis quàm tueri libertatem. Thirdly, he must in the mean time try all means to shake & dissolve them, both by hope and fear; for these are the 2. ways, spem offer, metum intend. Fourthly, endeavour to disjoin them, and to break the course of their intelligence. Fiftly, he must win and draw unto him under hand, some few amongst them by fair promises and secret rewards, whereby some of them withdrawing themselves from their company, and coming unto him, others remaining with them to serve him and to give intelligence of their carriages and purposes, they may the better be brought a sleep, and their heat be somewhat allayed. Sixtly, to draw and win the rest, by yielding unto them some part of that which they demand, and that with fair promises and doubtful terms. It shall afterwards be easy justly to revoke that, which they have injustly by sedition extorted, Irrita facies quae per seditionem expresserint, and to make all whole with lenity and clemency. Lastly, if they return unto reason and obedience, and become honest men, they must be handled gently, and a man must be contented with the chastisement and correction of some few of the principal authors and firebrands, without any further inquiry into the rest of the confederates, that all may think themselves in safety and in grace and favour. X. Tyranny and rebellion. Tyranny, that is to say, a violent rule or domination against the laws and customs, is many times the cause The description. of great and public commotions, from whence cometh rebellion, which is an insurrection of the people against the Prince, because of his tyranny, to the end they may drive him away and pluck him from his throne. And it differeth from sedition in this, they will not acknowledge the Prince for their master; whereas sedition proceedeth not so far, being raised only from a discontent of the government, complaining and desiring an amendment thereof. Now this tyranny is pactised by people ill bred, cruel, who love wicked men, turbulent spirits, talebearers, hate and fear men of honesty and honour, quibus semper aliena virtus formidolosa, nobilitas, opes, omissi gestique honores pro crimine, ob virtutes certissimum exitium: & non minus ex magna fama quàm mala. But they carry their punishment with them: being hated of all, and enemies to all. They live in continual fear and apprehension of terror, they suspect all things: they are pricked and gauled inwardly in their consciences, and at last die an evil death, and that very soon; For an old tyrant is seldom seen. The advisements and remedies in this case, shall be set down at large hereafter in his proper place. The counsels are reduced to two, at his entrance to stay and hinder him lest he get the mastery; being installed and acknowledged, to Chap. 16. Plutarch. in Bruto. suffer and obey him. It is better to tolerate him, than to move sedition and civil war, peius, deteriusque tyrannide, sive iniusto imperio bellum civil, for there is nothing gotten by rebelling or spurning against him, but it rather incenseth wicked princes and makes them more cruel: Nihil tam exasperat feruorem vulneris, quàm ferendi impatientia. Modesty and obedience allaieth and pacifieth the fierce nature of a prince: for the clemency of a prince, saith that great prince Alexander, doth not only consist in their own natures, but also in the natures of their subjects, who many times by their ill carriage and bad speeches, do provoke a prince, and make him far worse, obsequto mitigantur imperia, & contrà contumaciâ inferiorum lenitatem imperitantis diminui: contumaciam cum pernicie Curt. Tacit. quàm obsequium cum securitate malunt. XI. Civil wars. WHen one of these forenamed public commotions, popular insurrections, faction, sedition, rebellion, 1 The description. comes to fortify itself, and to continue until it get an ordinary train and form, it is a civil war: which is no other thing, but a press and conduct of armies by the subjects, either amongst themselves; and this is a popular commotion, or faction and confederacy: or against the prince, the state, the magistrate; and this is sedition or rebellion. Now there is not a mischief more miserable, nor more shameful, it is a sea of infelicities. And a wise man said very well, That it is not properly war, but a malady of the state, a fiery sickness, and frenzy. And to say the truth, he that is the author thereof, should be put out from the number of men, and banished out of the borders of human nature. There is no kind of wickedness that it is freed from, impiety and cruelty between parents themselves, murders with all manner of impunity, Occidere palam, ignoscere non nisi fallendo licet, non aetas, non dignitas quenquam protegit, nobilitas cum plebe perit, lateque vagatur ensis. All kind of disloyalty, discipline abolisheth, In omne fas, nefasque avidos aut venales, non sacro, non prophano abstinentes. The inferior and basest sort, are companions with the best. Rheni mihi Caesar in undis dux erat, his socius. Facinus quos inquinat, aequat. He dareth not to open his mouth, for he is of the same profession, though he approve it not, obnoxijs ducibus & prohibere non ausis. It is a horrible confusion, Metu ac necessitate huc illuc mutantur. To conclude, it is nothing but misery. But there is nothing so miserable as the victory. For though it fall into the hands of him that hath the right on his side, yet there followeth this inconvenience, that it maketh him insolent, cruel, inhuman, yea though he were before of a mild and generous nature. So much doth this intestine war flesh a man in blood, yea, it is a poison that consumeth all humanity. Neither is it in the power of the captains to withhold the rest. There are two causes to be considered of civil wars. The one is secret, which as it is neither known nor seen, so it cannot 2 The causes. be hindered nor remedied: It is destiny, the will of God, who will chastise or wholly dispeople a state. In se magna ruunt, laetis hunc numina rebus crescendi posuere modum. The other is well understood by the wise, and may happily be remedied, if men will, and they to whom it appertaineth set to their helping hand. This is the dissolution and general corruption of manners, whereby men of no worth, and that have nothing to do, endeavour to turn all topsy-turvy, to put all into combustion, cover their wounds with the hurt of the state, for they love better to be overwhelmed with the public ruin, than their own particular. Miscere cuncta & privata vulnera reipublicae malis operire: nam ita se res habet, ut publicaruina quisque malit quàm sua proteri, & idem passurus minus conspici. Now the advisements and remedies for this mischief of civil war, are to end it as soon as may be, which is done by 3 The counsels and remedies. two means, agreement, and victory. The first is the better, although it be not such as a man desireth, time will help the rest. A man sometimes must suffer himself to be deceived, to the end he may end a civil war, as it is said of Antipater, bellum finire cupienti, opus erat decipi. Victory is dangerous, because it is to be feared that the conqueror will abuse it, whereby a tyranny may ensue. To the end a man may carry himself well herein, he must quit himself of all the authors of troubles and other commotions, and such like bloodsuckers, as well on the one part as the other, whether it be by sending them far off with some charge, or under some fair pretext, and so dividing them; or by employing them against the stranger; and handling the meaner sort with lenity and gentleness. XII. advisements for particular persons touching the foresaid public divisions. THus we have seen many kinds of public troubles and divisions, for which and every one of them, we have given counsels and remedies in respect of the prince, it remaineth that we now give them for particular persons. This cannot be determined in a word: there are two questions; the Two questions. one, whether it be lawful for an honest man to join himself to one part, or to remain quiet and indifferent; the second, how a man must carry himself in both cases, that is to say, being joined to one part, or not joined to either. Touching the The first. first point, it is proposed for such as are free, and are not yet engaged to any part, for if they be, this first question belongs not to them, but we send them to the second. This I say, because a man may join himself to the one part, not of purpose and by election, yea to that part which he approveth not, but only because he findeth himself carried and bound with strong and puissant bands, which he may not easily break, which carry with them a sufficient excuse, being natural and equivalent. Now the first question hath contrary reasons and examples. It seemeth on the one side, that an honest man cannot do better than to keep himself quiet, for he knoweth not how to betake himself to either part without offence, because all these divisions are in their own natures unlawful, and cannot be carried, nor subsist without inhumanity and injustice. And many good people have abhorred it, as Asinius Pollio answered Augustus, who desired him to follow him against Marc Anthony. On the other side, is it not a thing reasonable for a man to join with the good, and such as have right on their side? Wise Solon hath judged affirmatively, yea roughly chastised him, that retireth himself and taketh not part. The professor of virtue, Cato hath likewise put it in practice, not being content to take one part, but commanding it. To determine this doubt, it seemeth that men of worth and renown, who have both public charge and credit, and sufficiency in the state, may and aught to range themselves into that part which they shall judge the better: for they must not abandon in a tempest the stern of that ship which in a calm sea they are content to govern; especially being an honourable part to provide for the safety of the state; And secondly that private men, and such as are of a lower degree in the charge of the state, should stay and retire themselves into some peaceable and secure place, during the division: and both of them so to carry themselves as shall be said hereafter. Finally touching the choice of the part, sometimes there is no difficulty, for the one is so unjust, and so unfortunate, that a man can not with any reason join himself thereunto: But at another time the difficulty is very great, and there are many things to be thought of besides the justice and equity of the parts. Let us come to the other point, which concerneth the carriage of all. This is determined in a word, by the counsel and The second. rule of moderation, following the example of Atticus, so renowned for his modesty and prudence in such tempests, always held to favour the good part, yet never troubling, nor entangling himself with arms, and without the offence of the contrary part. 1. For they that are known to be of one part, must not be moved overmuch, but carry themselves with moderation, not Outrageous. Moderate. busying themselves with the affairs, if they be not wholly carried and pressed unto it, and in this case carry themselves in such order and temperature, that the tempest being passed over their heads, without offence they have not any part in these great disorders and insolencies that are committed, but contrarily sweetening & diverting them as they can. 2. They that are not engaged to any part (whose condition is sweetest and best) though it may be inwardly and in affection they incline rather to one than another, must not remain as neuters, that is, taking no care of the issue, and of the state of either Neuters. the one or the other, living to themselves, and as spectators in a Theatre, feeding upon the miseries of other men. These kind of men are odious to all, and at the last they run a dangerous fortune, as we read of the Thebans in the war of Xerxes, and of jabes Gilead. Neutralitas nec ami●os parit, judg. 21. Tit. Liu. nec inimicos tollit. Neutraliltie is neither fair nor honest, if it be not with consent of parts, as Caesar, who held neuters for his friends, contrary to Pompey, who held them for enemies; or that he be a stranger, or such a one, as for his greatness and dignity ought not to mingle himself with such a rout, but rather reclaim them if he can, arbitrating, and moderating all. Much less must men in such a case be inconstant, wavering mungerels, Prothees, far more odious than neuters, and offensive to Inconstant. all. But they must (continuing partakers in affection if they will, for thought and affection is wholly our own) be common Common. in their actions, offensive to none, officious and gracious to all, complaining of the common infelicity. These kind of people neither get enemies, nor lose their friends. They are fit to be mediators, and loving arbitratours, who are better than Mediators. the common. So that of such as are not partakers, who are four, two are evil, neuters, and inconstant persons; two good, common, and mediators: but always the one more than the other; as of partakers there are two sorts, heady outrageous, and moderate. XIII. Of private troubles and divisions. IN private divisions a man may commodiously and loyally carry himself between enemies, if not with equal affection, yet in such a temperate manner, as that he engage not himself so much to one more than to another, as that either part may think they have more interest in him, and so contenting himself with an indifferent measure of their grace, report nothing but indifferent things, and such as are known, or that serve in common to both parts, speaking nothing to the one that he may not say to the other in it due time, changing only the accent and the form thereof. Of justice, the second virtue. CHAP. V Of justice in general. Justice is to give to every one that which appertaineth unto 1 The description. him, to himself first, and afterwards to others: so that it comprehendeth all the duties and offices of every particular person: which are twofold, the first to himself, the second to another, and they are contained in that general commandment, which is the summary of all justice, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, which doth not only set down the duty of a man towards another in the second place, but it showeth and ruleth it according to the pattern of that duty and love he oweth towards himself: for as the Hebrews say, a man must begin charity with himself. The beginning then of all justice, the first and most ancient commandment, is that of reason over sensuality. Before a 2 The first and original justice. man can well command others, he must learn to command himself, yielding unto reason the power of commanding, and subduing the appetite, & making it plaint to obedience. This is the first original, inward, proper, and most beautiful justice that may be. This command of the Spirit over the brutal and sensual part, from whence the passions do arise, is compared to an esquire or horseman, who by reason that he keepeth his horse and mounteth him often, and is ever in the saddle, he turneth and manageth him at his pleasure. To speak of that justice which is outwardly practised and with another, we must first know that there is a twofold 3 The distinction of justice. justice; the one natural, universal, noble, philosophical; the other after a sort artificial, particular, politic, made and restrained to the necessity of policies and states; That hath better rules, is more firm, pure and beautiful, but it is out of use, unprofitable to the world such as it is; Veri juris germanaeque justitiae solidam & expressam effigiem nullam tenemus; umbris & imaginibus utimur; is not in a manner capable thereof, as hath been said. That is the rule of Polycletus, inflexible, invariable. This is more lose and flexible accommodating itself to human weakness, and vulgar necessity. It is the leaden Lesbian rule, which yieldeth & bendeth itself as there is need, and as the times, persons, affairs, & accidents do require. This permitteth upon a necessity, and approveth many things, which that wholly rejecteth and condemneth. It hath many vices lawful, and many good actions unlawful. That respecteth wholly and purely reason, honesty; This profit, joining it as much as may be with honesty. Of that, which is but an Idea and in contemplation we shall not need to speak. The usual justice, and which is practised in the world, is first twofold, that is to say, equal, bound, and restrained to 4 justice in practice distinguished. the terms of the law; according to which judges and magistrates are to proceed: the other just and conscionable, which not enthralling itself to the words of the law, marcheth more freely, according to the exegencie of the case, yea sometimes against the words of the law. Now to speak better, it handleth and ruleth the law as need requireth: And therefore saith a wise man, the laws themselves and justice have need to be ordered and handled justly, that is to say, with equity, quae expositio & emendatiolegis est, exponit sensum, emendat defectum. This is the fine flower of justice, which is in the hand of those that judge in sovereignty. Again to speak more particularly, there is a twofold justice; the one commutative, betwixt private men, which is handled and practised by Arithmetic proportion; the other distributive, publicly administered by Geometrical proportion, it hath two parts, reward, and punishment. Now this usual and practised justice, is not truly and perfectly justice: human nature is not capable thereof no more 5 There is no true justice in the world. than of all other things in their purity. As human justice is mingled with some grain of injustice, favour, rigour, too much, or too little, and there is no pure and true mediocrity; from whence have sprung these ancient proverbs, That he is enforced to do wrong by retail, that will do justice in gross: & injustice in small things that will do justice in great. Lawyers to give course and passage to commutative justice, do covertly and silently suffer themselves to deceive one another, and that in a certain measure, so that they pass not the moiety of the just price; and the reason is, because they know not how to do better. And in distributive justice, how many innocents are apprehended and condemned, how many guilty quit and set at liberty, and that without the fault of the judges, never dreaming either of that too much, or too little, which is almost perpetual in the purest justice? justice is a let and hindrance to itself, and human sufficiency cannot see and provide for all. And here we may take notice among other matters, of a great defect in distributive justice, in that it punisheth only and rewardeth not, although these are the two parts and the two hands of justice: but as it is commonly practised it is same, and inclineth wholly unto punishment. The greatest favour that a man receiveth from it, is indemnity, which is a play too short for such as deserve better than the common sort. But yet this is not all; for if a man be falsely accused, and upon that accusation committed, he is sure to endure punishment sufficient: at the last his innocency being known, he escapeth perhaps his uttermost punishment, but without any amends of that wrongful affliction he hath endured, even such perhaps as shall never leave him. And the accuser in the mean time, be the colour and ground of his accusation never so light (which is easy to do) escapeth without punishment; so sparing is justice in rewarding, as that it consisteth wholly in chastisement, whereof that common speech ariseth, That to do justice, and to be subject unto justice, is always to be understood of punishment. And it is an easy matter for any man that will, to bring another man into danger and punishment, even to such an estate, as that he shall never know which way to get forth, but with loss. Of justice and duty there are three principal parts: for 6 The division of this matter. man is indebted to three, to God, to himself, to his neighbour: to one above himself, to himself, and to others beside himself: of his duty towards God, which is piety and religion, hath sufficiently been spoken before. It remaineth that we now speak of his duty towards himself and his L 2. c. 5. neighbour. CHAP. VI Of the justice and duty of man towards himself. THis is sufficiently contained in this whole work; in the first book which teacheth a man to know himself, and all human condition; in the second, which teacheth a man to be wise, and to that end giveth advisements and rules; and in the rest of this book, especially in the virtues of fortitude and temperance. Nevertheless I will here summarily set down some advisement, more express and formal. The first and fundamental advice is, to resolve not to live careless, after an uncertain fashion, and by chance and adventure, as almost all are accustomed to do, who seem to mock and deceive themselves, and not to live in good earnest, not leading their life seriously and attentively, but living from day to day, as it falleth out. They taste not, they possess not, they enjoy not their life: but they use it to make use of other things. Their designments and occupations do many times trouble, and hurt their life more than do it service. These kind of people do all things in good earnest, except it be to live. All their actions, and the lesser parts of their life are serious, but the whole body thereof passeth away as if they thought not thereof: it is a bare supposition, that is not worth the thinking of. That which is but an accident is principal unto them, and the principal as an accessary. They affect and incline themselves to all things, some to get knowledge, honours, dignities, riches: others to take their pleasures, to hunt, to sport themselves, to pass away the time; others to speculations, imaginations, inventions: others to manage and order affairs: others to other things; but to live is the least they think of. They live as it were insensibly, being wholly addicted, and fastening their thoughts upon other things. Life is unto them but as a term, and a procrastination or delay to employ it about other things. Now all this is very unjust, it is an infelicity and treason against a man's self: it is for a man to lose his life, and to go against that which every man should do, that is, live seriously, attentively, and cheerfully, bene vivere & laetari: sibi semper valere & vivere doctus, to the end he may live well, and well die: it is the fault of every man. A man must lead and order his life, as if it were a business of great weight and consequence, and as a bargain made whereof he must give an account exactly by parts and parcels. It is our greatest business, in respect whereof all the rest are but toys, things accessary and superficial. There are some that deliberate and purpose to do it, but it is when they must live no longer, wherein they resemble those that put off their buying and selling till the market be past, and when they see their folly, they complain saying, Shall I never have leisure to make my retreat, to live unto myself? quàm serum est incipere vivere cùm desinendum est? quàm stulta mortalitatis oblivio? dum differtur, vita transcurrit. And See lib. 1. chap. 36. this is the reason why the wise cry out unto us, well to use the time, tempori parce; That we have not need of any thing so much as time, saith Zenon. For life is short, and art is long; not the art to heal, but rather to live, which is wisdom. To this first and principal advice, these following do serve: To learn to dwell, to content, to delight himself alone, yea to quit himself of the world if need be; the greatest thing is for a man to know how to be to himself; virtue is content with itself, let us win so much of ourselves, as to be able in good earnest and willingly to live alone, and to live at our ease. Let us learn to quit ourselves of all those bands that fasten and bind us to another, and that our contentment depend of ourselves, neither seeking nor disdaining or refusing company, but cheerfully to go on with or without company, as either our own, or another's need do require: but yet not so to shut up ourselves, and to settle and establish our pleasure as some that are half lost being alone. A man must have within himself wherewith to entertain & content himself, & in sinu suo gaudere, He that hath won this point pleaseth himself in all places and in all things. He must carry a countenance conformable to the company and the affairs that are in hand and present themselves, and accommodate himself unto another, be sad if need be, but inwardly to keep himself one and the same: this is the meditation and consideration, which is the nourishment and life of the spirit, cuius vivere est cogitare. Now for the benefit of nature, there is not any business which we do more often, continue longer, that is more easy, more natural, and more our own, than to meditate, and to entertain our thoughts. But this meditation is not in all after one manner, but very divers, according to the diversity of spirits. In some it is weak, in others strong; in some it is languishing idleness, a vacancy and want of other business. But the greater spirits make it their principal vacation and most serious study, whereby they are never more busied, nor less alone, (as it is said of Scipio) than when they are alone, and quitting themselves of affairs, in imitation of God himself, who liveth and feedeth himself with his eternal thoughts and meditations. It is the business of the gods (saith Aristotle) from whence doth spring both their, 3 To know and culture himself. and our blessedness. Now this solitary employment, and this cheerful entertainment of a man's self, must not be in vanity, much less in any thing that is vicious; but in study and profound knowledge, and afterwards in the diligent culture of himself. This is the price agreed, the principal, first and plainest travel of every man. He must always watch, taste, sound himself, never abandon, but be always near, and keep himself to himself: and finding that many things go not well, whether by reason of vice, and defect of nature, or the contagion of another, or other casual accident that troubleth him, he must quietly and sweetly correct them, and provide for them. He must reason with himself, correct and recall himself courageously, and not suffer himself to be carried away either with disdain or carelessness. He must likewise in avoiding all idleness, which doth but 4 To keep himself in exercise. rust and mar both the soul and body, keep himself always in breath, in office and exercise, but yet not over bent, violent and painful, but above all, honest, virtuous and serious. And that he may the better do it, he must quit himself of other business, and propose unto himself such designments as may delight him, conferring with honest men, and good books, dispensing his time well, and well ordering his hours, and not live tumultuously and by chance and hazard. Again, he must well husband, and make profit of all things 5 To make use of all things. that are presented unto him, done, said, and make them an instruction unto him, apply them unto himself, without any show or semblance thereof. And to particularise a little more, we know that the duty of man towards himself consisteth in three points, according 6 To govern his spirit, that is, his judgement. to his three parts, to rule and govern his spirit, his body, his goods. Touching his spirit (the first and principal, whereunto especially do belong these general advisements which we are to deliver) we know that all the motions thereof are reduced to two, to think, and to desire, the understanding and the will; whereunto do answer science and virtue, the two ornaments of the spirit. Touching the former, which is the understanding, he must preserve it from two things, in some sort contrary and extreme, that is, sottishness and folly, that is to say, from vanities and childish follies, on the one side; this is to bastardise and to lose it: it was not made to play the novice or baboon, non ad iocum & lusum genitus, sed ad severitatem potius; and from fantastical, absurd, and extravagant opinions, on the other side; this is to pollute and debase it. It must be fed and entertained with things profitable and serious, and furnished and endued with sound, sweet, and natural opinions: and so much care must not be taken to elevate and mount it, to extend it beyond the reach as to rule, and order it. For order and continency is the effect of wisdom, and which giveth price to the soul, and above all to be free from presumption and obstinacy in opinion; vices very familiar with those that have any extraordinary force and vigour of spirit; and rather to continue in doubt and suspense, especially in things that are doubtful, and capable of oppositions and reasons on both parts, not easily digested and determined. It is an excellent thing, and the securest way, well to know how to doubt, and to be ignorant, and the most noble philosophers, have not been ashamed to make profession thereof, yea it is the principal fruit and effect of science. Touching the will, it must in all things be governed and submit itself to the rule of reason, which is the office of virtue, and not unto fleeting inconstant opinion, which is commonly false, and much less unto passion. These are the three that move and govern our souls. But yet this is the difference, that a wise man ruleth and rangeth himself according to nature and reason, regardeth his duty, holdeth for apocryphal, and suspects whatsoever dependeth upon opinion, or passion: and therefore he liveth in peace, passeth away his life cheerfully and pleasingly, is not subject to repentance, recantations, changes; because whatsoever falleth out, he could neither do, nor choose better, and therefore he is never kindled nor stirred; for reason is always peaceable. The fool that suffereth himself to be led by these two, doth nothing but wander and war with himself, and never resteth. He is always readuising, changing, mending, repenting, and is never contented; which, to say the truth, belongeth to a wise man, who hath reason and virtue to make himself such a one. Nulla placidior quies nisi quam ratio composuit. An honest man must govern and respect himself, and fear his reason and his conscience, which is his bonus genius, his good spirit, in such sort that he cannot without shame stumble in their presence, rarum est, ut satis se quisque vereatur. As touching the body, we own thereunto assistance, and conduct or direction. It is folly to go about to separate and sunder these two principal parts the one from the other; but contrarily it is fit and necessary they be united and joined together. Nature hath given us a body as a necessary instrument to life: and it is fit that the spirit as the principal should take upon it the guardianship & protection of the body. So far should it be from serving the body, which is the most base, unjust, shameful, and burdensome servitude that is, that it should assist, counsel it, and be as a husband unto it. So that it oweth thereunto care, not service: It must handle it as a lord, not as a tyrant; nourish it, not pamper it, giving it to understand, that it liveth not for it, but that it cannot live here below without it. This is an instruction to the workman, to know how to use, and make use of his instruments. And it is likewise no small advantage to a man, to know how to use his body, and to make it a fit instrument for the exercise of virtue. Finally, the body is preserved in good estate by moderate nourishment and orderly exercise. How the spirit must have a part, and bear it company in those pleasures that belong unto it, hath been said before, and shall hereafter be set down in the virtue of temperance. Touching goods and the duty of every man in this case, there are many and divers offices, for to gather riches, to keep them, to husband them, to employ them, to yield unto them all that is fit, are different sciences. One is wise in the one of them, that in the other understandeth nothing, neither is it fit he should. The acquisition of riches hath more parts than the rest. The employment is more glorious and ambitious. The preservation and custody, which is proper to the woman, is the arbour to cover them. These are two extremities alike vicious, to love and affect riches: to hate and reject them. By riches I understand that which is more than enough, and more than is needful. A wise man will do neither of both, according to that wish and prayer of Solomon, Give me neither riches nor poverty: but he will hold them in their place, esteeming them as they are, a thing of itself indifferent, matter of good and evil, and to many good things commodious. The evils and miseries that follow the affecting and hating of them, have been spoken of before. Now in five words we set down a rule touching a mediocrity therein. 1. To desire them, but not to love them, sapiens non amat divitias, sed mawlt. As a little man and weak of body, would willingly be higher and stronger, but this his desire is without care or pain unto himself, seeking that without passion which nature desireth, and fortune knoweth not how to take from him. 2. And much less to seek them at the cost and damage of another, or by art, and bad and base means, to the end no man should complain or envy his gains. 3. When they come upon him, entering at an honest gate, not to reject them, but cheerfully to accept them, and to receive them into his house, not his heart; into his possession, not his love, as being unworthy thereof. 4. When he possesseth them, to employ them honestly and discreetly, to the good of other men; that their departure may, at the least, be as honest as their entrance. 5. If they happen to departed without leave, be lost or stolen from him, that he be not sorrowful, but that he suffer them to departed with themselves, without any thing of his, si divitiae effluxerint, non auferent nisi semetipsas. To conclude, he deserveth not to be accepted of God, and is unworthy his love, and the profession of virtue, that makes account of the riches of this world. Aude hospes contemnere, & te quoque dignum singe deo. Of the justice and duty of man towards man. An advertisement. THis duty is great, and hath many parts, we will reduce them to two great ones: In the first we will place the general, simple, and common duties required in all, and every one, towards all and every one, whether in heart, word, or deed, which are amity, faith, verity, and free admonition, good deeds, humanity, liberality, acknowledgement or thankfulness. In the second shall be the special duties required for some special and express reason and obligation between certain persons, as between a man and his wife, parents and children, masters and servants, princes and subjects, magistrates, the great and powerful, and the less. The first part, which is of the general and common duties of all towards all, and first CHAP. VII. Of love or friendship. Amity is a sacred flame, kindled in our breasts first by nature, and hath expressed it first heat between the husband 1 The description. and the wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters; and afterwards growing cold hath recovered heat by art, and the invention of alliances, companies, fraternities, colleges, and communities. But forasmuch as in all this being divided into many parts, it was weakened, and mingled with other profitable & pleasant considerations, to the end it might restrengthen itself and grow more fervent, it hath recollected itself, and united it own forces into a narrower room, betwixt two true friends. And this is perfect amity, which is so much more fervent and spiritual than other, by how much the heart is hotter than the liver, and the blood than the veins. Amity is the soul and life of the world, more necessary (say the wise) than fire and water: amicitia, necessitudo, amici necessary, it is the sum, the staff, the salt of our life: for without it all is darkness, and there is no joy, no stay, no taste of life: amicitia justitiae consors, naturae vinculum, civitatis praefidium, senectutis solatium, vitae humanae portus: ea omnia constant, discordia cadunt. And we must not think that friendship 3 How necessary to the weale-pub. is profitable and delightful to private men only, for it is more commodious to the weal-public: it is the true nursing mother of human society, the preserver of states and policies. Neither is it suspected, nor displeaseth any but tyrants and monsters, not because they honour not it in their hearts, but because they cannot be of that number, for only friendship sufficeth to preserve the world. And if it were every where in force, there would be no need of a law, which hath not been ordained but as a help, and as a second remedy for want of friendship, to the end it might enforce and constrain by the authority thereof that which for love and friendship should be freely and voluntary; but howsoever, the law taketh place far below friendship. For friendship ruleth the heart, the tongue, the hand, the will, and the effects, the law cannot provide but for that which is without. This is the reason why Aristotle said, That good lawmakers have ever had more care of friendship, than of justice: And because the law and justice do many times lose their credit, the third remedy and least of all hath been in arms and force, altogether contrary to the former, which is friendship. Thus we see by degrees the three means of public government. But love or friendship is worth more than the rest; for second and subsidiary helps are no way comparable to the first and principal. The diversity and distinction of friendship is great: That of the ancients into four kinds, Natural, Sociable, Hospital, 4 The first distinction of the causes. Venereous, is not sufficient. We may note three; The first is drawn from the causes which engender it, which are four, nature, virtue, profit, pleasure, which sometimes go together in troup; sometimes two, or three, and very often one alone: But virtue is the more noble and the stronger, for that is spiritual, and in the heart as friendship is: Nature in the blood, profit in the purse, pleasure in some part, or sense of the body. So likewise virtue is more liberal, more free, and pure, and without it the other causes are poor, and idle; and frail. He that loveth for virtue is never weary with loving, and if friendship be broken, complaineth not. He that loveth for profit, if it fail, complaineth, and it turneth to his reproach, that when he hath done all he can, he hath lost all. He that loveth for pleasure, if his pleasure cease, his love ceaseth with it, and without complaint enstrangeth himself. The second distinction which is in regard of the persons, is 5 2 Of persons in three kinds; the one is in a strait line between superiors and inferiors, and it is either natural, as between parents and children, uncles and nephews; or lawful, as between the prince and the subjects, the lord & his vassals, the master and his servants, the doctor and the disciple, the prelate or governor and the people. Now this kind to speak properly, is not friendship, both because of the great disparity that is betwixt them, which hindereth that inwardness and familiarity and entire communication, which is the principal fruit and effect of friendship, as likewise because of the obligation that is therein, which is the cause why there is less liberty and less choice and affection therein. And this is the reason why men give it other names than of friendship: for in inferiors there is required of them honour, respect, obedience; in superiors care and vigilancy over their inferiors. The second kind of friendship in regard of the persons, is in a collateral line between equals, or such as are near equals. And this is likewise twofold, for either it is natural, as between brothers, sisters, cousins, and this comes nearer to friendship than the former, because there is less disparity. But yet there is a bond of nature, which as on the one side it knitteth and fasteneth, so on the other it looseth: for by reason of goods, and divisions, and affairs, it is not possible but brothers and kinsfolk must sometimes differ; Besides that many times the correspondency and relation of humours and wills, which is the essence of friendship, is not found amongst them; He is my brother or my kinsman, but yet he is a wicked man, a fool: Or it is free and voluntary, as between companions and friends, who touch not in blood, and hold of nothing but only of friendship and love: and this is properly and truly friendship. 3 The third kind of friendship in regard of the persons is mixed, and as it were compounded of the other two, whereby it is, or it should be more strong; this is matrimonial of married couples, which holdeth of love or friendship in a straight line, because of the superiority of the husband, and the inferiority of the wife; and of collateral friendship, being both of them companions joined together by equal bands. And therefore the wife was not taken out of the head, nor foot, but the side of man. Again, such as are married, in all things and by turns exercise and show both these friendships, that which is in a straight line in public; for a wise woman honoureth and respecteth her husband; that which is collateral in private, by private familiarity. This matrimonial friendship is likewise after another fashion double and compounded; for it is spiritual & corporal, which is not in other friendships, save only in that which is reproved by all good laws, and by nature itself. Matrimonial friendship than is great, strong, and puissant. There are nevertheless two or three things that stay and hinder it, that it cannot attain to the perfection of friendship; The one, that there is no part of marriage free but the entrance, for the progress and continuance thereof is altogether constrained, enforced, I mean in christian marriages; for every where else it is less enforced, by reason of those divorcements which are permitted: The other is the weakness and insufficiency of the wise, which can no way correspond to that perfect conference and communication of thoughts and judgements: her soul is not strong and constant enough to endure the straightness of a knot so fast, so strong, so durable: it is as if a man should sow a strong and coarse piece of cloth to a soft and delicate. This filleth not the place, but vanisheth and is easily torn from the other. Again, this inconvenience followeth the friendship of married cupples, that it is mingled with so many other strange matters, children, parents of the one side & the other, and so many other distaff business that do many times trouble and interrupt a lively affection. The third distinction of friendship respecteth the force and intention, or the weakness and diminution of friendship. 7 3 Of degrees. According to this reason, there is a twofold friendship, the common and imperfect, which we may call good will, familiarity, private acquaintance: and it hath infinite degrees, one more strict, intimate and strong than another: and the perfect, which is invisible, and is a Phoenix in the world, yea hardly conceived by imagination. We shall know them both by confronting them together, 8 The differences of friendship common and perfect. and by knowing their differences. The common may be attained in a short time. Of the perfect it is said, that we must take long time to deliberate, and they must eat much salt together before it be perfected. 2 The common is attained, built, and ordered by divers profitable and delightful occasions & occurrents; and therefore a wise man hath set down two means to attain unto it, to speak things pleasant, and to do things profitable; the perfect is acquired by an only true and lively virtue reciprocally known. 3 The common may be with and between divers, the perfect is with one only, who is another self, and between two only, who are but one. It would entangle and hinder itself amongst many, for if two at one time should desire to be succoured, if they should request of me contrary offices, if the one should commit to my secrecy a thing that is expedient for another to know, what course, what order may be kept herein? Doubtless, division is an enemy to perfection, and union her cosen-germaine. 4 The common is capable of more and less, of exceptions, restraints, and modifications, it is kindled and cooled, subject to accession and recession, like a fever, according to the presence or absence, merits, good deeds, and so forth. The perfect not so, always the same, marching with an equal pace, firm, haughty, and inconstant. 5 The common receiveth, and hath need of many rules and cautions given by the wise, whereof one is, to love without respect of piety, verity, virtue, amicus usque ad arras. Another, so to love as that a man may hate, so to hate, as that he may likewise love, that is, to hold always the bridle in his hand, and not to abandon himself so profusely, that he may have cause to repent, if the knot of friendship happen to untie. Again to aid and secure at a need without entreaty: for a friend is bashful, and it costs him dear, to request that that he thinks to be his due. Again, not to be important to his friends, as they that are always complaining, after the manner of women. Now all these lessons are very wholesome in ordinary friendships, but have no place in this sovereign and perfect. We shall know this better by the portrait & description of perfect friendship, which is a very free, plain, and universal 9 The description of perfect friendship. confusion of two souls. See here three words. 1. A confusion, not only a conjunction, & joining together, as of solid things, which howsoever they be fastened, mingled, & knit together, may be separated and known apart. For the souls of men in this perfect amity are in such sort plunged and drowned the one within the other, that they can no more be divided, neither would they, than things liquid that are mingled together. 2. Very free, and built upon the pure choice and liberty of the will, without any other obligation, occasion, or strange cause. There is nothing more free and voluntary than affection. 3. Universal, without any exception of all things, goods, honours, judgements, thoughts, wills, life. From this universal and full confusion it proceedeth, that the one cannot lend or give to the other, and there is no speech betwixt them of good turns, obligations, acknowledgements, thankfulness, and other the like duties, which are the nourishers of common friendships, but yet testimonies of division and difference, as I know not how to thank myself for the service I do unto myself, neither doth that love which I bear unto myself increase by those succours and helps I give unto myself. And in marriage itself, to give some resemblance of this divine knot, though it come far short thereof: donations are forbid between the husband and the wife: and if there were place for the one to give unto the other, he is the giver that gives cause to his friend to express and employ his love, and he receiveth the good turn, that by giving binds his companion: for the one and the other seeking above all things even with a greedy desire to do good to one another, he that giveth the occasion and yieldeth the matter, is he that is liberal, giving that contentment to his friend, to effect that which he most desireth. Of this perfect friendship and communion, antiquity yieldeth some examples. Blosius taken for a great friend of 10 Examples. Tiberius Gracchus then condemned to die, and being asked what he would do for his sake, and he answering that he would refuse nothing, it was demanded what he would do if Gracchus should entreat him to fire the Temples? To whom he answered, that Gracchus would never entreat such a matter at his hands, but if he should he would obey him. A very bold and dangerous answer. He might boldly have said, that Gracchus would never have required such a matter, and that should have been his answer, for according to this our description, a perfect friend doth not only fully know the will of his friend, which might have sufficed for an answer, but he holdeth in his sleeve, and wholly possesseth it. And in that he added, that if Gracchus would have required it, he would have done it, it is as if he had said nothing, it neither altereth nor hurteth his first answer concerning that assurance that he had of the will of Gracchus. This of wills and judgements. 3. Touching goods, There were three friends (this word three is some impeachment to our rule, and may make us think that this was no perfect amity) two rich, & one poor charged with an old mother, and a daughter to marry; this man dying made his will, wherein he bequeathed to one of his friends his mother to be fed and maintained by him; to the other his daughter, to be married by him, enjoining him withal to bestow upon her the best dowry that his ability would afford, and if it should happen that the one of them should die, he should substitute the other. The people made themselves merry with this will or testament; the legataries accepted of it with great contentment, and each of them received unto them their legacy; but he that had taken the mother, departing this life within five days after, the other surviving and remaining the sole universal inheritor, did carefully entertain the mother; and within a few days after he married in one day his own and only daughter, and her that was bequeathed unto him, dividing betwixt them by equal portions all his goods. The wise according to this description have judged that the first dying, expressed greatest love, and was the more liberal, making his friends his heirs, and giving them that contentment, as to employ them for the supply of his wants. 4. Touching life, that history is sufficiently known of those two friends, whereof the one being condemned by the tyrant to die at a certain day and hour, he requested that giving bail, he might in the mean time go and dispose of his domestical affairs, which the tyrant agreeing unto upon this condition, that if he did not return by that time his bail should suffer the punishment. The prisoner delivered his friend, who entered into prison upon that condition: and the time being come, and the friend who was the bail resolving to die, his condemned friend failed not to offer himself, and so quit his friend of that danger. Whereat the tyrant being more than astonished, and delivering them both from death, desired them to receive, and to adopt him in their friendship as a third friend. CHAP. VIII. Of faith, trust, treachery, secrecy. ALl men yea the most treacherous know and confess that faith is the band of humane society, the foundation 1 The dignity of fidelity. of all justice, and that above all things it ought to be religiously observed. Nihil augustius fide, quae justitiae fundamentum est, nec ulla res vehementius rempublicam continet & vitam. Sanctissimum humani pectoris bonum: Ante iovem generata decus diwmque hominumque Cic. Qua sine non tellus pacem non aequora norunt, justitiae consors tacitumque in pectore numen. Nevertheless the world is full of treacheries. There are 2 Fidelity rare but few that do well and truly keep their faith. They break it divers ways, and they perceive it not. So they find some pretext and colour thereof, they think they are safe enough. Others seek corners, evasions, subtleties; Quaerunt latebras periurio. Now to remove all the difficulties, that are in this matter, and truly to know how a man should carry himself, The division of this matter. there are four considerations, whereunto all the rest may be referred: The persons, as well he that giveth faith, as he that receiveth it; the subject whereof the question is made, and the manner according to which the faith is given. As touching him that giveth faith, it is necessary that he have power to do it. If he be subject to another, he cannot 3 He that giveth faith. give it, and having given it without the leave and approbation of his master, it is of none effect; as it did well appear in the Tribune Saturnine and his complices, who coming forth of the Capitol (which they had taken by rebellion) upon the faith given by the Consuls, subjects, and officers of the Commonweal, were justly slain. But every free man must keep his faith, how great and honourable so ever he be: yea the greater he is, the more he is bound to keep it, because he is the more free to give it. And it was well said, That the simple word of a prince should be of as great force, as the oath of a private man. As touching him to whom faith is given, whosoever he be 4 He that receiveth it. , it must carefully be kept, and there are but two exceptions which are clear enough, the one if he received it not, and were not contented with it, but demanded other caution and assurance. For faith is a sacred thing, must simply be received; otherwise it is no more faith, nor trust, when hostages are demanded, sureties are given; to take gauges or cautions with faith, is a thing ridiculous. He that is held under the guard of men, or walls, if he escape and save himself is not faulty. The reason of that Roman is good: Vult sibi quisque credi, & habita fides ipsam sibi obligat fidem: fides requirit fiduciam, & relativa sunt. The other if having accepted it, he first broke it, Frangenti fidem, fides frangatur eidem: quando tu me non habes pro Senatore, nec ego te pro Consul. A treacherous man deserveth not by the law of nature that faith should be kept unto him, except it be after an agreement, which covereth the treachery and maketh revenge unlawful. Now these two cases excepted, a man must keep his faith to whomsoever, to his subject as shall be said. 2. To an enemy, witness that act of Attilius Regulus, the proclamation of the Senate of Cap. 14. Rome against all those that had been licensed by Pyrrhus upon their faith given to departed; and Camillus, who would not so much as make use of the treachery of another, but resent the children of the Falissians with their master. 3. To a thief and public offender, witness that fact of Pompey to the pirates and robbers, and of Augustus to Crocotas. 4. To the enemies of religion, according to the example of josua against the Gabaonites. But faith ought not to be given to these two latter, thieves and heretics, or apostates, nor taken of them: for we ought not to capitulate, nor to treat wittingly of peace and alliance with such kind of people, except it be in extreme necessity, or for the winning of them to the truth, or for the public good; but being given it ought to be kept. As touching the thing subject, if it be unjust or impossible, a man is quit: and being unjust, it is well done to fly from it, 5 The subject of faith. and a double fault to keep it. All other excuses besides these two, are of no account, as loss, damage, displeasure, discommodity, difficulty; as the Romans have many times practised, who have rejected many great advantages to avoid the breach of faith, quibus tanta utilitate fides antiquior Livy. fuit. Touching the manner of giving faith, there is some doubt: 6 The manner of giving faith. for many think that if it have been extorted either by force and fear, or by fraud and sudden surprise, a man is not bound unto it, because in both cases, he that promised hath not a will whereby all things are to be judged. Others are of a contrary opinion: and to say the truth, josua kept his faith and promise to the Gabaonites, though it were extorted from him by a great surprise, and false intelligence, and it was afterwards declared that he did therein what he ought to do. And therefore it seemeth that a man may say, that where there is only a simple word and promise past a man is not bound, but if faith or promise given be confirmed and authorised by an oath, as in the fact of josua, he is bound to perform it in regard of the name of God: but yet that it is afterwards in judgement to seek means to right himself of that either deceit or violence. Faith given with an oath, and the interposition of the name of God, bindeth more than a simple promise; and the breach thereof which includeth perjury with treachery, is far worse. But to think to give assurance of faith by new and strange oaths, as many do, is superfluous amongst honest men, and unprofitable, if a man will be disloyal. The best way is to swear by the eternal God, the revenger of those that vainly use his name, and break their faith. Treachery and perjury is in a certain sense, more base and execrable than atheism. The Atheist that believeth there 7 Treachery injurious to God. is no God, is not so injurious against him in thinking there is no God, as he that knoweth him, believeth in him, and in mockery and contempt doth perjuriously abuse his name. He that sweareth to deceive, mocketh God, and feareth man. It is a less sin to contemn God, than to mock him. The horror of treachery and perjury cannot be better deciphered, than it was by him that said, It was to give a testimony of the contempt of God, and the fear of men. And what thing is more monstrous than to be a coward with men, and resolute and valorous with God? Treachery is secondly the traitor and capital enemy of human society. For it breaketh To man. and destroyeth the band thereof, and all commerce which dependeth upon the word and promises of men, which if it fail we have nothing else to stick unto. To the keeping of faith belongeth the faithful guard of 8 To keep secrets. the secrets of another, which is a charge full of inconvenience, especially of great personages, which though it may wisely be performed, yet it is good to fly the knowledge of them, as sometimes that Poet did the secrets of Lysimachus. He that takes into his custody the secrets of another, draws a greater trouble upon him, than he dreams of: for besides the care that he takes unto himself, to keep them well, he binds himself to feign, and to deny his own thoughts, a thing very irksome to a noble and generous heart. Nevertheless he that takes that charge upon him, must keep it religiously, and to the end he may do it well, and play the good secretary, he must be such a one by nature, not by art and obligation. CHAP. IX. Verity and free admonition. FRee and hearty admonition is a very wholesome and excellent 1 An excellent thing. medicine, and the best office of amity. For to wound and offend a little, to profit much, is to love soundly. It is one of the principal and most profitable evangelical commandments: Si peccaverit in te frater tuus, corripe illum, etc. All have sometimes need of this remedy, but especially all 2 To whom profitable. those that are in prosperity, for it is a very hard thing to be happy and wise together. And princes who lead a life so public and are to furnish themselves with so many things, and have so many things hid from them, cannot see nor understand, but by the eyes and ears of another. And therefore they have great need of advertisements, otherwise they may chance to run strange and hard fortunes, if they be not very wise. This office is undertaken by very few; There are required thereunto (as the wise affirm) three things, judgement or discretion, 3 Rare, difficult, dangerous. courageous liberty, amity and fidelity. These are tempered and mingled together, but few there are that do it, for fear of offending, or want of true amity; and of those that do it, few there are that know how to do it well. Now if it be ill done, like a medicine ill applied, it woundeth without profit, and produceth almost the same effect with grief, that flattery doth with pleasure. To be commended, and to be reprehended unfittinglie and to small purpose, is the selfsame wound, and a matter alike faulty in him that doth it. Verity how noble soever it be, yet it hath not this privilege, to be employed at all hours and in all fashions. A wholesome holy reprehension may be viciously applied. The counsels and cautions for a man well to govern himself herein (it is to be understood where there is no great 4 The rules of true admonition. inwardness, familiarity, confidence, or authority and power, for in these cases there is no place for the careful observation of these rules following) are these: 1. To observe place and time; that it be neither in times nor places of feasting and great joy, for that were (as they say) to trouble the feast; nor of sorrow and adversity, for that were a point of hostility, and the way to make an end of all; that is rather a fit time to secure and comfort a man. Crudelis in re adversa, obiurgatio, damnare est obiurgare, cùm auxilio est opus. King Perseus seeing himself thus handled by two of his familiar friends, killed them both. 2. Not to reprehend all faults indifferently, not small and light offences, this were to be envious, and an importunate, ambitious reprehender; not great and dangerous, which a man of himself doth sufficiently feel, and fears a worse punishment to come, this were to make a man think he lies in wait to catch him. 3. Secretly and not before witness, to the end he make him not ashamed, as it happened to a young man, who was so much abashed, that he was reprehended by Pythagoras, that he hanged himself. And Plutarch is of opinion, that it was for this cause that Alexander killed his friend Clitus, because he reprehended him in company: but especially that it be not before those whose good opinion he that is reprehended desireth to retain, and with whom he desires to continue his credit, as before his wife, his children, his disciples. 4. Out of a simple careless nature and freedom of heart, without any particular interest, or passion of the mind, be it never so little. 5. To comprehend himself in the same fault, and to use general terms, as, We forget ourselves; What do we think of? 6. To begin with commendations, and to end with proffers of service and help, this tempereth the tartness of correction, and gives a better entertainment: Such and such a thing becomes you well, but not so well such and such a thing. 7. To express the fault with better words than the nature of the offence doth require; as, You have not been altogether well advised; in steed of, You have done wickedly: Receive not this woman into your company, for she will undo you; in steed of, Allure her not, persuade her not to yield to your desires, for thereby you will undo yourself: Enter not into dispute with such a man; in steed of, Quarrel not, envy not such a man. 8. The admonition being ended, be not presently gone, but stay and fall into some other common and pleasant discourse. CHAP. X. Of Flattery, lying, and dissimulation. Flattery is a very dangerous poison to every particular person, and almost the only cause of the ruin of a prince 1 Flattery a pernicious and villainous thing. and the state: it is worse than false witness, which corrupteth not the judge, but deceiveth him only, causing him to give a wicked sentence against his will and judgement: but flattery corrupteth the judgement, enchanteth the spirit, and makes him unapt to be farther instructed in the truth. And if a prince be once corrupted by flattery, it necessarily followeth that all that are about him, if they will live in grace and favour, must be flatterers. It is therefore a thing as pernicious as truth is excellent, for it is the corruption of truth. It is also a villainous vice of a base beggarly mind, as foul and ill beseeming a man, as impudency a woman. Vt matrona meretrici dispar erit atque discolor, infido scurrae distabit amicus. Flatterers are likewise compared to harlots, sorcerers, oyle-sellers, to wolves; and another saith, That a man were better fall among crows than flatterers. There are two sorts of people subject to be flattered, that is to say, such as never want people to furnish them with this 2 Especially to two sorts of people. kind of merchandise, and easily suffer themselves to be taken by it; that is to say, princes, with whom wicked men get credit thereby; and women, for there is nothing so proper and ordinary to corrupt the chastity of women, than to feed and entertain them with their own commendations. Flattery is hardly avoided, and it is a matter of difficulty to be preserved from it, not only to women by reason of their 3 Hardly avoided. weakness, and their natures full of vanity and desirous of praise; and to princes, because they are their kinsfolk, friends, principal officers, whom they cannot avoid, that profess this mystery; (Alexander that great king and philosopher could not defend himself from it, and there is not any private man that would not yield much more unto it than kings, if he were daily assaulted and corrupted by such base rascal sort of people as they are) but generally unto all; yea to the wisest, both by reason of the sweetness thereof; in such sort, that though a man withstand it, yet it pleaseth, and though he oppose himself against it, yet he never shutteth it quite out of doors, unde saepe exclusa novissimè recipitur; and because of the hypocrisy thereof, whereby it is hardly discovered: for it is so well counterfeited and covered with the visage of amity, that it is no easy matter to discern it. It usurpeth the offices, it hath the voice, it carrieth the name and counterfeit thereof so artificially, that you will say that it It imitateth and resembleth amity, but it is the plague thereof. is the same. It studieth to content and please, it honoureth and commendeth; It busieth itself much and takes much pains to do service, it accomodateth itself to the wills and humours of men: What more? It takes upon it even the highest and most proper point of amity, which is to chide, and freely to reprehend. To be brief, a flatterer will seem to exceed in love him that he flattereth, whereas contrariwise, there is nothing more opposite unto love, not detraction, not injury, not professed enmity: It is the plague and poison of true amity; they are altogether incompatible, non potes me simul amico & adulatore uti. Better are the sharp admonitions of a friend, than the kisses of a flatterer: Melior a vulnera diligentis, quàm oscula blandientis. Wherefore not to mistake it, let us by the true picture thereof, 4 The description and antithesis of flattery and amity. find out the means to know it, and to discern it from true amity. 1. Flattery respecteth for the most part it own particular benefit, and thereby it is known; but true friendship seeketh not the good of itself. 2. The flatterer is changeable and divers in his judgements, like wax, or a looking-glass that receiveth all forms: He is a Chameleon, a Polypus: feign to praise or dispraise, and he will do the like, accommodating himself to the mind of him he flattereth. A friend is firm and constant. 3. He carrieth himself too violently and ambitiously in all that he doth, in the view and knowledge of him he flattereth, ever praising and offering his service, non imitatur amicitiam, sed praeterit. He hath no moderation in his outward actions, and contrariwise inwardly he hath no affection, which are conditions quite contrary to a true friend. 4. He yieldeth and always giveth the victory to him he flattereth, always applauding him, having no other end than to please, in such sort that he commendeth all and more than all, yea sometimes to his own cost, blaming and humbling himself like a wrestler, that stoopeth the better to overthrow his companion. A friend goes roundly to work, cares not whether he have the first or the second place, and respecteth not so much how he may please, as how he may profit, whether it be by fair means, or by foul, as a good Physician useth to do to cure his patiented. 5. A flatterer sometimes usurpeth the liberty of a friend to reprehend; but it is with the left hand and untowardly. For he stays himself at small and light matters that are not worthy reprehension, feigning want of knowledge of any greater; but yet he will be rude and rough enough in the censuring of the kindred and servants of him he flattereth, as failing much in that duty they should do unto him. Or he feigneth to have understood some light accusations against him, and that he could not be quiet until he knew the truth thereof, and if it fall out that he that is flattered deny them, or excuse himself, he taketh occasion to commend him the more. I was much astonished at it (saith he) and I could not believe it, for I see the contrary. For how should I think that you will take from another man, when you give all that is your own, and take more care to give than to take? Or at leastwise he will make his reprehension to serve his turn, that he may flatter the better, telling him that he takes not care enough of himself, he is not sparing enough of his person and presence so necessary to the commonweal, as once a Senator did to Tiberius in a full Senate, but with an ill sent and a bad success. 6. Finally, to conclude in a word, a friend always respecteth, procureth, and attempteth that which is reason, and honesty, and duty; the flatterer that which belongs to passion and pleasure, and that which is already a malady in the mind of him that is flattered. And therefore he is a proper instrument for all things that belong to pleasure and licentious liberty, and not for that which is honest or painful and dangerous. He is like an ape, who being unfit for any other service, as other beasts are, serves for a play-game and to make sport. A near neighbour and alliance to flattery is lying, a base vice; and therefore said an ancient Philosopher, That it was 5 Of lying, the foulness and hurt thereof. the part of slaves to lie, of freemen to speak the truth. For what greater wickedness is there, than for a man to bely his own knowledge? The first step to the corruption of good manners is the banishment of truth, as contrarily, saith Pindarus, To be true is the beginning of virtue. It is likewise pernicious to human society. We are not men, neither can we knit and join together in human society, as hath been said, if this be wanting. Doubtless silence is more sociable, than untrue speech. If a lie had but one visage as truth hath, there were some remedy for it; for we would take the contrary to that which a liar speaketh to be the certain truth. But the contrary to truth hath a hundred thousand figures, and an indefinite & unlimited field. That which is good, that is to say, virtue and verity is finite and certain, because there is but one way to the mark: That which is evil, that is to say, vice and error, and lying is infinite and uncertain, because there are a thousand ways to miss the mark. Doubtless if men knew the horror of lying, they would pursue it with sword and fire. And therefore such as have the charge of youth are with all instance and diligence to hinder it, and to withstand the first birth and progress of this vice, as likewise of opinative obstinacy, and that in time, for they never leave growing. There is likewise a covered and disguised lie, which is hypocrisy and dissimulation (a notable quality of Courtiers, and 6 Of hypocrisy in as great credit amongst them as virtue) the vice of licentious and base minds; for a man to disguise and hide himself under a mask, as not daring to show himself to be that which he is, it is a cowardly and servile humour. Now he that makes profession of this goodly mystery, lives in great pain; for it is a great unquietness for a man to 7 The difficulty thereof. endeavour to seem other than that he is, and to have an eye unto himself, for fear lest he should be discovered. It is a torment for a man to hide his own nature, to be discovered, a confusion. There is no such pleasure as to live according to his nature, and it is better to be less esteemed and to live openly, than to take so much pains to counterfeit and live under a canopy; so excellent and so noble a thing is freedom. But the mystery of these kind of men is but poor; for dissimulation 8 The discommodity. continues not long undiscovered, according to that saying, Things feigned and violent dure not long, and the reward of such people is, that no man will trust them, nor give them credit when they speak the truth, for whatsoever comes from them is held for apocryphal and mockery. Now here is need of indifferency and wisdom. For if 9 The counsel hereupon. nature be deformed, vicious and offensive to another, it must be constrained, and to speak better, corrected. There is a difference between living freely and carelessly. Again, a man must not always speak all he knows, that is a folly, but that which he speaketh, let it be that which he thinketh. There are two sorts of people in whom dissimulation is excusable, 10 Dissimulation befitting women. yea sometimes requisite, but yet for divers reasons, that is to say, in the prince for the public benefit, and the good and peace of himself or the state, as before hath been said; and in women for the conveniency thereof, because an over free and bold liberty becomes them not, but rather inclines to impudence. Those small disguisements, feigned carriages, hypocrisies, which well befit their shamefastness and modesty, deceive none but fools, beseem them well and defend their honours. But yet it is a thing which they are not to take great pains to learn, because hypocrisy is natural in them. They are wholly made for it, and they all make use of it, and too much, their visage, their vestments, their words, countenance, laughter, weeping; and they practise it not only towards their husband's living, but after their death too. They feign great sorrow, and many times inwardly laugh. juctantius moerent quae minus dolent. CHAP. XI. Of Benefits, obligation and thankfulness. THe science and matter of benefits or good turns, and the thankful acknowledgement of the obligation, active & passive is great, of great use, and very subtle. It is that wherein we fail most. We neither know how to do good, nor to be thankful for it: It should seem that the grace as well of the merit, as of the acknowledgement is decayed, and revenge and ingratitude is wholly in request, so much more ready and ardent are we thereunto. Gratia oneri est, ultio in quaestu Tacit. Sen. habetur: altius iniuriae quàm merita descendunt. First then we will speak of merit and good deeds, where we will comprehend humanity, liberality, alms deeds, and their contraries, inhumanity, cruelty: and afterwards of obligation, acknowledgement, and forgetfulness, or ingratitude and revenge. God, nature and reason, do invite us to do good, and to deserve well of another; God by his example, and his nature, 1 An exhortation to good works by divers reasons. which is wholly good, neither do we know any better means how to imitate God, nulla re propius ad Dei naturam accedimus, quàm beneficentia. Deus est mortalem succurrere mortali; nature, witness this one thing, that every one delighteth to see him, to whom he hath done good: it best agreeth with nature, nihil tam secundùm naturam, quàm iware consortem naturae. It is the work of an honest and generous man to do good, and to deserve well of another, yea to seek occasions thereunto, liberalis etiam dandi causas quaerit. And it is said that good blood cannot lie, nor fail at a need. It is greatness Ambros. to give, baseness to take, Beatius est dare quàm accipere. He that giveth honoureth himself, makes himself master over the receiver, he that takes sells himself. He, saith one, that first invented benefits or good turns, made stocks and manacles to tie and captivate another man. And therefore divers have refused to take, lest they should wound their liberty, especially from those whom they would not love, and be beholding unto, according to the counsel of the wise, which adviseth a man not to receive any thing, from a wicked man, lest he be thereby bound unto him. Caesar was wont to say, that there came no sound more pleasing unto his ears, than prayers and petitions: It is the mot of greatness, Ask me, invocame in die tribulationis (eruam te) & honorificabis me. It is likewise the most noble, and honourable use of our means or substance, which so long as we hold and possess them privately, they carry with them base and abject names, houses, lands, money, but being brought into light, and employed to the good and comfort of another, they are ennobled, with new and glorious titles, benefits, liberalities, magnificences. It is the best, and most commodious employment that may be: ars quaestuosissima, optima negotiatio, whereby the principal is assured, and the profit is very great. And to say the truth, a man hath nothing that is truly his own, but that which he gives, for that which he retains, and keeps to himself, benefits neither himself, nor another; and if he employ them otherwise, they consume and diminish, pass through many dangerous accidents, and at last death itself. But that which is given, it can never perish, never wax old. And therefore Marc. Antony being beaten down by fortune, and nothing remaining to him, but his power to die, cried out that he had nothing, but that which he had given, hoc habeo quodcunque dedi. And therefore this sweet, debonair and ready will to do good unto all, is a right excellent and honourable thing in all respects; as contrarily, there is not a more base and detestable vice, more against nature, than cruelty, for which cause it is called inhumanity, which proceedeth from a contrary cause, to that of bounty and benefits, that is to say, dastardly cowardliness, as hath been said. There is a twofold manner of doing good unto another, by profiting and by pleasing him: for the first a man is admired 2 The distinction of benefits. and esteemed; for the second beloved. The first is far the better, it regardeth the necessity and want of a man, it is to play the part of a father and true friend. Again, there are two sorts of bounties or good turns, the one are duties, that proceed out of a natural or lawful obligation; the other are merits and free, which proceed out of pure affection. These seem the more noble; nevertheless if the other be done with attention and affection, though they be duties, yet they are excellent. The benefit and the merit is not properly that, that is given, is seen, is touched; this is but the gross matter, the mark, 3 Inward and outward benefits. the show thereof, but it is the good will. That which is outward is many times but small, that which is inward very great; for this hath commonly with it a kind of hunger and affection, and is always seeking occasions to do good; It giveth so much as it can, and what is needful, forgetting it own benefit, in beneficio hoc suspiciendum quod alteri dedit, ablaturus sibi, utilitatis suae oblitus. Contrarily where the gift is great, the grace may be small; for it is commonly given with an ill will, with an expectation of much entreaty, and leisure enough to consider whether he may give it or no. This is to make too great preparation thereunto, and too great use thereof, to give it rather to himself, and his ambition, than to the good and necessity of the receiver. Again that which is outward may incontinently vanish, that which is inward remain firm: The liberty, health, honour, which is to be given, may all at an instant, by some accident or other, be taken away, the benefit nevertheless remaining entire. The advisements whereby a man should direct himself, in his bounties and benefits he bestoweth, according to the 4 Rules of benefits. 1. To whom. rules and instruction of the wise, are these: First, to whom must he give? to all? It seemeth that to do good unto the wicked and unworthy, is at one instant to commit many faults, for it brings an ill name upon the giver, entertaineth and kindleth malice, gives that which belongs to virtue and merit, to vice also. Doubtless free and favourable graces are not due, but to the good and worthy; but in a time of necessity, and in a generality all in common. In these two cases the wicked and ungrateful have a part, if they be in necessity, or if they be in such sort mingled with the good, that the one can hardly receive without the other. For it is better to do good to those that are unworthy, for their sakes that are good, than to deprive the good for their sakes that are evil. So doth God good unto all, he suffereth the sun to shine, & the rain to fall indifferently upon all: But yet his special gifts he giveth not but to those whom he hath chosen for his; non est bonum sumere panem filiorum & proijcere canibus: multum refert utrùm aliquem non excludas an eligas. At a need therefore, in a time of affliction and necessity we must do good unto all, hominibus prodesse natura jubet, ubicunque homini beneficio locus. Nature, and humanity teach us, to regard and to offer ourselves unto them, that stretch out their arms unto us, and not unto those that turn their backs towards us; rather unto those to whom we may do good, than unto those that are able to do good unto us. It is the part of a generous mind to take part with the weaker side, to secure the afflicted, and to help to abate the pride and violence of the conqueror, as Chelonis once did, the daughter and wife of a king, whose father and husband being at variance and wars, one against the other, whensoever her husband had got the better against her father, like a good daughter she followed and served her father in all things, in his afflictions; but the chance turning, and her father getting the mastery, like a good wife, she turned to her husband, and accompanied him in his hard est fortunes. Secondly, he must do good willingly and cheerfully, non ex tristitia aut necessitate; hilarem datorem diligit deus: Bis est 5 2. Willingly. gratum, quod opus est, si ultro offeras, not suffering himself to be over-entreated, and importuned; otherwise it will never be pleasing; Nemo libenter debet quod non accepit sed expressit: That which is yielded by force of entreaty and prayers is dearly sold; non tulit gratis qui accepit rogans, imo nihil charius emitur, quàm quod precibus. He that prayeth and entreateth, humbleth himself, confesseth himself an inferior, covereth his face with shame, honoureth him whom he entreateth: whereupon Caesar was wont to say, after he had overcome Pompey, That he lent not his ears more willingly, nor took so much content in any thing, as to be entreated; whereby he gave a kind of hope unto all, even his enemies, that they should obtain whatsoever they should request. Grace's are silken vestments, transparent, free, and not constrained. Thirdly, speedily and readily. This seems to depend upon the former, for benefits are esteemed according to the 6 3. Speedily. will wherewith they are bestowed; Now he that stays long before he secure and give, seems to have been a long time unwilling to do it, qui tarde fecit, diu noluit. As contrarily, a readiness herein doubleth the benefit: bis dat, qui celeriter. That indifferency and careless regard, whether it be done, or not done, that is used herein, is not approved by any, but impudent persons. Diligence must be used in all points. Herein then there is a fivefold manner of proceeding, whereof three are reproved; to refuse to do a good turn, and that slowly too, is a double injury: to refuse speedily, and to give slowly, are almost one; And some there are that are less offended with a quick denial; Minus decipitur cui negatur celeriter. The best way than is, to give speedily; but that which is most excellent, is, to anticipate the demand, to prevent the necessity and the desire. Fourthly, without hope of restitution, this is that wherein the force and virtue of a benefit doth principally consist. If it 7 4. Without hope of restitution. be a virtue, it is not mercenary: tunc est virtus dare beneficia non reditura. A benefit is less richly bestowed, where there is a retrogradation and reflection; but when there is no place for requital, yea it is not known from whence the good turn cometh, there it is in it true lustre and glory. If a man look after the like, he will give slowly and to few. Now it is far better to renounce all such hopes of like returns, than to cease to merit, and to do good; for whilst a man seeketh after that strange and accidental payment, he depriveth himself of the true and natural, which is that inward joy and comfort he receiveth in doing good. Again, he must not be twice entreated for one thing. To do wrong, is in itself a base and abominable thing, and there needs no other thing to dissuade a man from it: so to deserve well of another, is an excellent and honourable thing, and there needs no other thing to inflame a man to it. And in a word, it is not to do good to look after a like return, it is to make merchandise & profit thereof: Non est beneficium quod in quaestum mittitur. A man should not confound and mingle together actions so divers: demus beneficia, non foeneremus. It is pity but such men should be deceived that hope after such requitals: dignus est decipi qui de recipiendo cogitaret, cùm daret. She is no honest woman who either for fear, or the better to inflame, or to draw a man on, refuseth: quae quia non licuit non dedit, ipsa dedit. So he deserves nothing that doth good, to receive good again. Grace's are pure virgins, without hope of return, saith Hesiodus. Fiftly, to do good in a proportion answerable to the desire 8 5. According to the desire of the receiver. of a man, and as it may be acceptable to him that receiveth it, to the end he may know and find, that it is truly intended and done unto him. Concerning which point, you are to know, that there are two sorts of benefits, the one are honourable to the person that receiveth, and therefore they should be done publicly: The other are commodious, such as secure the want, weakness, shame, or other necessity of the receiver. These are to be done secretly, yea if need be, that he only may take notice that receiveth them; and if it be fit, the receiver should not know from whence they come (because it may be he is bashful, and the knowledge thereof may discourage him from taking, though his needs be great) it is good and expedient to conceal it from him, and to suffer the benefit to drop into his hand, as it were unawares. It is enough the benefactor know it, and his own conscience serve him for a witness, which is better than if he had a thousand lookers on. Sixtly, without the hurt and offence of another, and the 9 6. Without the offence of another. prejudice of justice: to do good not doing evil: To give to one at the charge of another, is to sacrifice the son in the presence of the father, saith a wise man. seventhly, wisely. A man may be sometimes hindered from answering demands and petitions, from refusing or 10 7 Wisely. yielding unto them. This difficulty proceedeth from the evil nature of man, especially of the petitioner, who vexeth himself too much in the enduring of a repulse, be it never so just and reasonable. And this is the reason why some promise and agree to all (a testimony of weakness) yea, when they have neither power, nor will to perform, and referring the avoiding of this difficulty to the very point of the execution, they hope that many things may happen that may hinder and trouble the performance of their promise, and so think to quit themselves of their obligation; or if it fall out there be question made thereof, they find excuses and avoidances, and so for that time content the petitioner. But none of all this is to be allowed, for a man ought not to promise or agree to any thing, but to that which he can, will, and aught to perform. And finding himself between these two straits and dangers, either of a bad promise, because it is either unjust, or ill befitting, or an absolute denial, which may stir up some sedition, or misconceit, the counsel is, that he salve this matter either by delaying the answer, or in such sort composing the promise in such general and doubtful terms, that they bind not a man precisely to the performance thereof. But here is craft and subtlety, far different from true freedom, but this iniquity of the petitioner is the cause thereof, and he deserveth it. Eightly, it must proceed from a manly heart, and hearty affection, homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto, especially 11 8. From a hearty affection. towards those that are afflicted and in want, and this is that which we call mercy. They that have not this affection, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & immanes, are inhuman, and carry the marks of dishonest men. But yet this must proceed from a strong, constant, and generous, not a soft, effeminate, and troubled mind: for that is a vicious passion, and which may fall into a wicked mind, whereof in this place we have already spoken: for there is a good and an evil mercy. A man must secure the afflicted, not afflicting himself, and applying the evil unto himself, derract nothing from equity, and honour; for God saith, that we must not have pity of the poor in judgement: and so God and his Saints are said to be merciful and pitiful. Ninthly, it must be without boasting, and show, or public proclamation thereof, for this is a kind of reproach: These 12 9 Without boasting. kind of vaunts do not only take away the grace, but the credit, and make a benefit odious, hoc est in odium beneficia perducere. And in this sense it is said, that a benefactor must forget his good deeds. He must continue them, and by new benefits confirm, and renew the old, (this inviteth the whole world to love 13 10. Continue them without repentance. him, and to seek his love) and never repent himself of the old, howsoever it may seem, that he hath cast his seed upon a barren and unthankful ground, beneficij tui etiam infelicitas placeat, nusquam haec vox, vellem non fecisse. An unthankful man wrongs none but himself, and a good turn is not lost by his ingratitude; It is a holy consecrated thing that cannot be violated, nor extinguished by the vice of another. And it is no reason because another is wicked, that therefore a man should cease to be good, or discontinue his office: and that which is more, the work of a noble and generous heart is to continue to do well, to break and to vanquish the malice and ingratitude of another man, and to mend his manners, optimi viri & ingentis animi est tamdiu ferre ingratum, donec feceris gratum: vincit malos pertinax bonitas. Lastly, not to trouble, or importune the receiver in the fruition thereof, as they do who having given an honour, or an 14 11. Not to revoke or trouble a good turn. office to a man, will afterwards execute it themselves; or at leastwise procure them one good, that they may reap another themselves. He that is the receiver, ought not to endure this, and therefore is not unthankful; and the benefactor defaceth the benefit, and cancelleth the obligation. One of our Pope's denying a Cardinal an unjust boon which he demanded, all eaging unto him that he was the cause why he was made Pope, answered him, Why then give me leave to be Pope, and take not that from me that thou hast given me. After these rules and advisements concerning good deeds, we must know that there are some benefits, more acceptable 15 Distinctions of benefits. and welcome than others, and which are more or less binding. They are best welcome, that proceed from a friendly hand, from those whom a man is inclined to love without this occasion; and contrarily it is a grief to be obliged unto him, whom a man likes not, and to whom he would not willingly be indebted. Such benefits also are welcome, that come from the hand of him, that is any way bound to the receiver: for here is a kind of justice and they bind less. Those good deeds that are done in necessities, and great extremities, carry with them a greater force; they make a man forget all injuries and offences past, if there were any, and bind more strongly; as contrarily, the denial in such a case, is very injurious, and makes a man forget all benefits past. Such benefits likewise, as may be requited with the like, are more gladly received, than their contraries, which engender a kind of hate, for he that findeth himself wholly bound, without any power or possibility of repayment, as often as he seethe his benefactor, he thinks he sees a testimony of his inability or ingratitude, and it is irksome to his heart. There are some benefits, the more honest and gracious they are, the more burdensome are they to the receiver, if he be a man of credit, as they that tie the conscience and the will, for they lock faster, keep a man in his right memory, and some fear of forgetfulness, and failing his promise. A man is a safer prisoner under his word, than under lock and key. It is better to be tied by civil and public bands, than by the law of honesty, and conscience: two notaries are better than one. I trust your word and your faith, and conscience: here is more honour done to the receiver; but yet constraint fasteneth, soliciteth, and presseth much more; and here is more safety to the lender, and a man carrieth himself more carelessly, because he doubteth not but that the law, and those outward ties will awaken him, when the time shall serve. Where there is constraint, the will is more lose, where there is less constraint, the will hath less liberty: quoth me ius coget vix a voluntate impetrem. From a benefit proceeds an obligation, and from it a benefit; 16 Obligation the mother and daughter of a benefit or good turn. and so it is both the child and the father, the effect, and the cause, and there is a twofold obligation, active and passive. Parents, princes and superiors, by the duty of their charge, are bound to do good unto those that are committed and commended unto them, either by law or by nature; and generally all men that have means are bound to relieve those that are in want, or any affliction whatsoever, by the command of nature. Behold here the first obligation; afterwards from benefits or good turns, whether they be due, and sprining from this first obligation, or free and pure merits, ariseth the second obligation, and discharge, whereby the receivers are bound to an acknowledgement and thankful requital. All this is signified by Hesiodus, who hath made the Grace's three in number, holding each other by the hands. The first obligation is discharged by the good offices of every one that is in any charge, which shall presently be discoursed 17 The first obligation and mother. of in the second part, which concerneth particular duties: but yet this obligation is strengthened, and weakened, and lessened accidentally by the conditions and actions of those that are the receivers. For their offences, ingratitudes, and unworthiness do in a manner discharge those, that are bound to have care of them; and a man may almost say as much of their natural defects too. A man may justly with less affection love that child, that kinsman, that subject, that is not only wicked and unworthy, but foul, misshapen, crooked, unfortunate, ill borne; God himself hath abated him much, from their natural price and estimation: but yet a man must in this abatement of affection, keep a justice, and a moderation, for this concerneth not the helps and succours of necessity, and those offices that are due by public reason, but only that attention, and affection which is in the inward obligation. The second obligation, which ariseth from benefits, is that 18 The second obligation which is thankfulness. which we are to handle, & concerning which, we must at this time set down some rules: 1. the law of dutiful acknowledgement & thankfulness is natural, witness beasts themselves, not only private and domestical, but cruel and savage, among whom there are many excellent examples of this acknowledgement, as of the Lion towards the Roman slave. Officia etiam ferae sentiunt. Secondly it is a certain act of virtue, and a testimony of a good mind, and therefore it is more to be esteemed than bounty or benefit, which many times proceeds from abundance, from power, love of a man's proper interest, and very seldom from pure virtue, whereas thankfulness springeth always from a good heart; and therefore howsoever the benefit may be more to be desired, yet kind acknowledgement is far more commendable. Thirdly it is an easy thing, yea a pleasant, and that is in the power of every man. There is nothing more easy, than to do according to nature, nothing more pleasing, than to be free from bands, and to be at liberty. By that which hath been spoken, it is easy to see how base and villainous a vice forgetfulness and ingratitude is, 19 Of ingratitude. how unpleasing and odious unto all men, Dixeris maledicta cuncta, cum ingratum hominem dixeris; It is against nature, and therefore Plato speaking of his disciple Aristotle, calleth him an ungrateful mule. It is likewise without all excuse, and cannot come but from a wicked nature, grave vitium, intolerabile quod dissociat homines. Revenge which followeth an injury, Senec. as ingratitude a good turn, is much more strong and pressing (for an injury enforceth more than a benefit, altius iniuriae quàm merita descendunt) it is a very violent passion, but yet nothing so base, so deformed a vice as ingratitude. It is like those evils that a man hath, that are not dangerous, but yet are more grievous and painful than they that are mortal. In revenge there is some show of justice, and a man hides not himself, to work his will therein; but in ingratitude there is nothing but base dishonesty and shame. Thankfulness or acknowledgement that it may be such 20 Rules of thankfulness. as it should be, must have these conditions. First he must graciously receive a benefit, with an amiable and cheerful visage, and speech, qui gratè beneficium accepit, primam eius pensionem soluit. Secondly, he must never forget it, Ingratissimus Senec. omnium qui oblitus, nusquam enim gratus fieri potest, cut totum beneficium elapsum est. The third office is to publish it; ingenui Idem. pudoris est fateri per quos profecerimus, & haec quasi merces authoris. As a man hath found the heart, and the hand of another, Plin. open to do good, so must he have his mouth open to preach and publish it, and to the end the memory thereof may be the more firm, and solemn, he must name the benefit, and that by the name of the benefactor. The fourth office is to make restitution, wherein he must observe these four conditions: That it be not too speedy, nor too curiously; for this carries an ill sent with it, and it bewrays too great an unwillingness to be in debt, and too much haste to be quit of that band. And it likewise giveth an occasion to the friend or benefactor, to think that his courtesy was not kindly accepted of; for to be too careful, and desirous to repay, is to incur the suspicion of ingratitude. It must therefore follow some time after, and it must not be too long neither, lest the benefit grow too ancient, (for the Graces are painted young) and it must be upon some apt and good occasion, which either offereth itself, or is taken, and that without noise and rumour. That it be with some usury, and surpass the benefit, like fruitful ground, ingratus est, qui beneficium reddit sine usura, or at least equal it with all the show and acknowledgement that may be, of great reason of a farther requital, and that this is not to satisfy the obligation, but to give some testimony that he forgetteth not how much he is indebted. That it be willingly and with a good heart, Ingratus est, qui metu gratus est; for if it were so given, eodem animo beneficium debetur, quo datur: errat si quis beneficium libentius accipit, quàm reddit. Lastly, if his inability be such, as that he cannot make present restitution, yet let his will be forward enough, which is the first and principal part, and as it were the soul, both of the benefit and acknowledgement; though there be no other witness hereof than itself; and he must acknowledge not only the good he hath received, but that likewise that hath been offered, and might have been received, that is to say, the goodwill of the benefactor, which is, as hath been said, the principal. The second part, which concerneth the special duties of certain men, by certain and special obligation. THE PREFACE. BEing to speak of special and particular duties, differing according to the diversity of persons and their states, whether they be unequal, as superiors and inferiors, or equal, we will begin with married folks, who are mixed, and hold with both equality and inequality. And so much the rather, because we are first to speak of private and domestical justice and duties, before public, because they are before them; as families and houses are before commonweals, and therefore that private justice which is observed in a family, is the image, and source, and model of a commonweal. Now these private and domestical duties are three, that is to say, between the husband and the wife, parents and children, masters and servants, and these are the parts of a household or family, which taketh the foundation from the husband and the wife, who are the masters and authors thereof. And therefore first of married folk. CHAP. XII. The duty of married folk. ACcording to those two divers considerations that are in marriage, as hath been said, that is to say, equality and 1 Common duties. inequality, there are likewise two sorts of duties and offices of married folk, the one common to both, equally reciprocal of like obligation, though according to the custom of the world, the pain, the reproach, the inconvenience, be not equal: that is to say, an entire loyalty, fidelity, community, and communication of all things, and a care and authority over their family, and all the goods of their house. Hereof we have spoken more at large in the first book. The other are particular and different, according to that inequality that is betwixt them, for those of the husband 2 Particular duties of the husband. are: 1. To instruct his wife with mildness in all things that belong unto her duty, her honour and good, and whereof she is capable. 2. To nourish her, whether she brought dowry with her or no. 3. To clothe her. 4. To lie with her. 5. To love and defend her: The two extremities are base and vicious, to hold her under like a servant, to make her mistress by subjecting himself unto her. And these are the principal duties. These follow after, to comfort her being sick, to deliver her being captive, to bury her being dead, to nourish her living, and to provide for his children he hath had by her, by his will and testament. The duties of the wife, 1. are to give honour, reverence, and respect to her husband, as to her master and lord; for so have 3 Of the wife. the wisest women that ever were termed their husbands, and the hebrew word Baal signifieth them both, husband and lord. She that dischargeth herself of this duty honoureth herself more than her husband: and doing otherwise, wrongs none but herself. 2. To give obedience in all things just and lawful; applying and accommodating herself to the manners and humours of her husband; like a true looking-glass, which faithfully representeth the face, having no other particular designment, love, thought, but as the dimensions and accidents which have no other proper action or motion, and never move but with the body, she apply herself in all things to her husband. 3. Service, as to provide either by herself or some other his viands, to wash his feet. 4. To keep the house; and therefore she is compared to the Tortuis, and is painted having her feet naked, and especially in the absence of her husband. For her husband being far from her, she must be as it were invisible, & contrary to the Moon (which appeareth in her greatness when she is farthest from the sun) not appear, but when she comes near her sun. 5. To be silent, and not to speak but with her husband, or by her husband: and forasmuch as a silent woman is a rare thing and hardly found, she is said to be a precious gift of God. 6. To employ her time in the practice and study of huswifrie, which Eccles. 26. is the most commodious and honourable science and occupation of a woman, this is her special mistress quality, and which a man of mean fortune should especially seek in his marriage. It is the only dowry that serveth either to ruinated, or preserve families, but it is very rare. There are divers that are covetous, few that are good huswives. We are to speak of them both, of household husbandry presently by itself. In the private acquaintance and use of marriage there must 4 An advisement upon the acquaintance of married folks. be a moderation, that is, a religious and devout band, for that pleasure that is therein, must be mingled with some severity; it must be a wise and conscionable delight. A man must touch his wife discreetly and for honesty, as it is said, and for fear, as Aristotle saith, lest provoking her desires too wantonly, the pleasure thereof make her to exceed the bounds of reason, and the care of health: for too hot and too frequent a pleasure altereth the seed, and hindereth generation. On the other side, to the end she be not over-languishing, barren, and subject to other diseases, he must offer himself unto her though seldom. Solon saith thrice in a month; but there can no certain law or rule be given hereof. Plutar. in Solone. The doctrine of household husbandry doth willingly follow, and is annexed unto marriage. CHAP. XIII. Household Husbandry. 1 Household husbandry is an excellent, just, and profitable occupation. It is a happy thing saith Plato, for a man to go through his private affairs without injustice. There is nothing more beautiful than a household well and peaceably governed. 2 It is a profession which is not difficult, for he that is capable of any thing else, is not uncapable of this; but yet it is careful, and painful, and troublesome, by reason of the multitude of affairs, which though they be small and of no great importance, yet forasmuch as they are common & frequent, and never at an end, they do much annoy and weary a man. Domestical thorns prick, because they are ordinary; but if they come from the principal persons of the family, they gaul and exulcerate, and grow remediless. 3 It is a great happiness and a fit mean to live at ease, to have one whom a man may trust, and upon whom he may repose himself; which that he may the better do, he must choose one that is true and loyal, and afterwards bind him to do well by that trust and confidence he putteth in him: habita fides ipsam obligat fidem; multi fallere docuerunt, dum timent falli; & alijs ius peccandi, suspicando dederunt: 4 The principal precepts and counsels that belong to frugality, or good husbandry are these: 1. To buy and sell all things at the best times and seasons, that is, when they are best and best cheap. 2. To take good heed lest the goods in the house be spoiled or miscarry, be either lost or carried away; This doth especially belong to the woman, to whom Aristotle gives this authority and care. 3. To provide first and principally for these three, necessity, cleanliness, order: and again, if there be means, some advise to provide for these three too; (but the wiser sort wish no great pains to be taken therein: non ampliter sed munditer convinium: plus salis quàm sumptus): abundance, pomp, and preparation, exquisite and rich fashion. The contrary is many times practised in good houses, where you shall have beds garnished with silk, embroidered with gold, and but one simple coverlid in winter, which were a commodity far more necessary. And so of the rest. 4. To rule and moderate his charge, which is done by taking away superfluities, yet providing for necessity, and that which is fit and beseeming. A ducat in a man's purse will do a man more honour and honesty, than ten prodigally spent, saith one. Again (but this requires industry and good sufficiency) to make a great show with a little charge, and above all, not to suffer the expense to grow above the receipt and the income. 5. To have a care and an eye over all; the vigilancy and presence of the master, saith the proverb, fatteth the horse and the land. And in any case the master and mistress must take a care to conceal their ignorance and insufficiency in the affairs of the house, and much more their carelessness, making a show as if they attended and thought of nothing else. For if officers and servants have an opinion that their masters look not unto them, they may chance to make his hair grow through his hood. CHAP. XIIII. The duty of Parents and children. THe duty of parents and children is reciprocal and reciprocally natural: if that of children be more straight, that of parents is more ancient, parents being the first authors and cause, and more important to a commonweal: for to people a state and to furnish it with honestmen and good citizens, the culture and good nourishment of youth is necessary, which is the seed of a commonwealth. And there comes not so much evil to a weal-public by the ingratitude of children towards their parents, as by the carelessness of parents in the instruction of their children: and therefore with great reason in Lacedaemon and other good & politic states, there was a punishment and a penalty laid upon the parents when the children were ill conditioned. And Plato was wont to say, that he knew not in what a man should be more careful and diligent than to make a good son. And Crates cried out in choler, To what end do men take so much care in heaping up goods, and so little care of those to whom they shall leave them? It is as much as if a man should take care of his shoe and not of his foot. What should he do with riches that is not wise and knows not how to use them? It is like a rich and beautiful saddle upon a jades back. Parents than are doubly obliged to this duty; both because they are their children, and because they are the tender plants, and hope of the Commonweal: This is to till his own land together with that of the weale-publicke. Now this office or duty hath four successive parts, according to those four goods or benefits that a child ought to receive 2 The division of the office of parents. successively from his parents, life, nourishment, instruction, communication. The first regardeth the time, when the infant is in the womb, until his coming into the world inclusively: the second the time of his infancy in his cradle, until he know how to go and to speak: the third all his youth; this part must be handled more at large, and more seriously: the fourth concerneth their affection, communication and carriage towards their children now come to man's estate, touching their goods, thoughts, designments. The first, which regardeth the generation, and fruit in the womb is not accounted of and observed with such diligence 3 The first part, the office of parents. as it ought, although it have as much part in the good or evil of a child (as well of their bodies as their souls) as their education and instruction after they are borne and come to some growth. This is that that giveth the subsistence, the temper and temperature, the nature; the other is artificial and acquired: and if there be a fault committed in this first part, the second and third can hardly repair it, no more than a fault in the first concoction of the stomach, cannot be mended in the second nor third. We men go unadvisedly and headlong to this copulation, only provoked thereunto by pleasure, and a desire to disburden ourselves of that which tickleth and presseth us thereunto: if a conception happen thereby, it is by chance, for no man goeth to it warily, and with such deliberation and disposition of body as he ought, and nature doth require. Since than men are made at adventure, and by chance, it is no marvel if they seldom fall out to be beautiful, good, sound, wise and well composed. Behold then briefly, according to Philosophy the particular advisements touching this first point, that is to say, the begetting of male children, sound, wise, and judicious: for that which serveth for the one of these qualities, serves for the other. 1. A man must not couple himself with a woman that is of a vile, base and dissolute condition, or of a naughty and vicious composition of body. 2. He must abstain from this action and copulation seven or eight days. 3. During which time he is to nourish himself with wholesome victuals, more hot and dry than otherwise, and such as may concoct well in the stomach. 4. He must use a more than moderate exercise. All this tendeth to this end and purpose, that the seed may be well concocted and seasoned, hot and dry, fit and proper for a masculine, sound and wise temperature. vagabonds, idle and lazy people, great drinkers, who have commonly an ill concoction, ever beget effeminate, idle and dissolute children (as Hypocrates recounteth of the Scythians.) Again a man must apply himself to this encounter after one manner, a long time after his repast, that is to say, his belly being empty, and he fasting (for a full paunch performs nothing good either for the mind or for the body) and therefore Diogenes reproached a licentious young man, for that his father had begotten him being drunk. And the law of the Carthaginians is commended by Plato, which enjoined a man to abstain from L. 2. de leg. wine that day that he lay with his wife. 6. And not near the monthly terms of a woman, but six or seven days before, or as much after them. 7. And upon the point of conception and retention of the seed, the woman turning and gathering herself together upon the right side, let her so rest for a time. 8. This direction touching the viands and exercise must be continued during the time of her burden. To come to the second point of this office after the birth of the infant, these four points are to be observed. 1. The infant must be washed in warm water, somewhat brinish, to make The second part of the office of parents. Ezech. 16. the members supple and firm, to cleanse and dry the flesh & the brain, to strengthen the sinews, a very good custom in the Eastern parts & among the jews. 2. The nurse if she be to be chosen, let her be young, of a temperature or complexion the least cold and moist that may be, brought up in labour, hard lodging, slender diet, hardened against cold and heat. I say if she be to be chosen, because according to reason, and the opinion of the wisest, it should be the mother; and therefore they cry out against her, when she refuseth this charge, being invited and as it were bound thereunto by nature, who to that end hath given her milk and dugs, by the example of beasts; and that love and jealousy that she ought to have of her little ones, who receive a very great hurt by the change of their aliment, now accustomed in a stranger, and perhaps a bad one too, of a constitution quite contrary to the former, whereby they are not to be accounted mothers but by halves. Quod est hoc contra naturam imperfectum, ac dimidiatum matris genus peperisse, & staim ab se abiecisse, aluisse in utero Aul. Gell. L. 12. c. 1. sanguine suo nescio quid quod non videret: non alere autem nunc suo lact, quod videat iam viventem, iam hominem, iam matris officia implorantem. 3. The nourishment besides the dug should be goats milk, or rather cream, the most subtle and aery part of the milk, sod with honey and a little salt. These are things very fit for the body and the mind, by the advice of all the wise and great Physicians, Greeks, and Hebrews. Galen. multis locis. Homer. 10. Iliad. I say 7. Butyrum & mel comedet, ut sciat reprobare malum, & eligere bonum. The quality of milk or cream is very temperate, and full of good nourishment; the dryness of the honey and salt consumeth the too great humidity of the brain, and disposeth it unto wisdom. 4. The infant must by little and little be accustomed and hardened to the air, to heat and cold: and we are not to be fearful thereof; for in the Northern parts of the world they wash their children so soon as they come out of the womb of their mothers in cold water, and are never the worse. The two first parts of the office of parents we have soon dispatched; whereby it appeareth, that they are not true fathers that have not that care, affection and diligence in these matters that is fit; for they are the cause and occasion, either by carelessness or otherwise, of the death and untimely birth of their children; and when they are borne they care not for them, but expose them to their own fortunes, for which cause they are deprived by law of that fatherly power over them that is due unto them; and the children to the shame of their parents are made slaves by those that have nourished them and brought them up, who are far from taking care to preserve them from fire and water, and all other crosses and afflictions that may light upon them. The third part which concerneth the instruction of children 6 The third part of the office of parents. we are to handle more seriously. So soon as this infant is able to go and to speak, and shall begin to employ his mind and his body, and that the faculties thereof shall be awakened and show themselves, the memory, imagination, reason, which begin at the fourth or fift year, there must be An instruction very important. a great care and diligence used in the well forming thereof: for this first tincture and liquor wherewith the mind must be seasoned, hath a very great power. It cannot be expressed how much this first impression and formation of youth prevaileth, even to the conquering of nature itself. Nurture, saith one, excelleth nature. Lycurgus' made it plain to all the world, by two little dogs of one litter, but diversly brought up, to whom presenting before them in an open place a pot of pottage and a hare, that which was brought up tenderly in the house fell to the pottage; the other that had been ever trained up in hunting, forsook the pottage and ranne after the hare. The force of this instruction proceeds from this, that it entereth easily, and departeth with difficulty: for being the first that entereth, it taketh such place and winneth such Quint, Senec. credit as a man will, there being no other precedent matter to contest with it, or to make head against it. This mind then wholly new and neat, soft and tender, doth easily receive that impression that a man will give unto it, and afterwards doth not easily lose it. Now this is not a thing of small importance, but a man may rather say it is the most difficult and important that may be. For who seethe not that in a state all depends upon this? Nevertheless (and it is the greatest, most dangerous and lamentable fault that is in our policies, noted by Aristotle and Plutarch) we see that the conduct and discipline of youth is wholly left unto the charge and mercy of their parents what kind of men soever they be, many times careless, foolish, wicked, and the public state regardeth it not, cares not for it, whereby all goes to ruin. Almost the only states that have given to the laws the discipline of children, were that of Lacedaemon and Crect: But the most excellent discipline of the world for youth, was the Spartaine; and therefore Agesilaus persuaded Xenophon to send his children thither, for there, saith he, they may learn the most excellent science of the world, and that is to command and to obey well, and there are form good Lawyers, Emperors at arms, Magistrates, Citizens. This youth and their instruction they esteemed above all things; and therefore Antipater demanding of them fifty children for hostages, they answered him, that they had rather give him twice as many men at their ripest years. Now before we enter into this matter, I will here give an advertisement of some weight. There are some that take great pains to discover the inclinations of children, and for what employment they shall be most fit; but this is a thing so obscure, and so uncertain, that when a man hath bestowed what cost, and taken what pains he can, he is commonly deceived. And therefore not to tie ourselves to these weak and light divinations and prognostications drawn from the motions of their infancy, let us endeavour to give them an instruction universally good & profitable, whereby they are made capable, ready, and disposed to whatsoever. This is to go upon a sure ground, and to do that which must always be done. This shall be a good tincture, apt to receive all others. To make an entrance into this matter, we may refer it unto three points, the forming of the spirit, the ordering of 9 The division of this matter. the body, the ruling of the manners. But before we give any particular counsel touching these three, there are general advisements that belong to the manner of proceeding in this business, that show us how to carry ourselves worthily and happily therein, which must be first known as a preamble to the rest. The first is carefully to guard his soul, and to keep it neat and free from the contagion and corruption of the world, The first general advice touching instruction. To guard the ears. that it receive not any blot nor wicked attainture. And the better to do this, he must diligently keep the gates, which are the ears especially, and then the eyes, that is to say, give order, that not any, no not his own father, come near unto him to buzz into his ears any thing that is evil. There needs no more but a word, the least discourse that may be, to make an evil almost past reparation. Gardiner thine ears above all, and then thy eyes. And for this cause Plato was of opinion, that it was not fit that servants and base persons should entertain children with discourse, because their talk can be no better than fables, vain speeches and fooleries, if not worse. This were to train up and to feed those tender years with follies and fooleries. The second advice concerneth not only the persons that must have charge of this child, but the discourse and conference 11 The second general advice touching the choice of instructors. Conference. Books. wherewith he must be entertained, and the books he must read. Touching the persons, they must be honest men, well borne, of a sweet and pleasing conversation, having their head well framed, fuller of wisdom than of science; and that they agree in opinion together, lest that by contrary counsels, or a different way in proceeding, the one by rigour, the other by flattery, they hinder not one another, and trouble their charge and designments. Their books and communication must not be of small, base, sottish, frivolous matters, but great and serious, noble and generous; such as may rule and enrich the understanding, opinions, manners; as they that instruct a man in the knowledge of our human condition, the motions and mysteries of our minds, to the end he may know himself and others; such, I say, as may teach him what to fear, to love, to desire; what passion is, what virtue, how he may judge betwixt ambition and avarice, servitude and subjection, liberty and licentiousness. He is deceived that thinketh that there is a greater proportion of spirit required to the understanding of those excellent examples of Valerius Maximus, and all the Greek and Roman histories (which is the most beautiful science and knowledge of the world) than to understand Amadis of Gaul, and other like vain and frivolous discourses. That child that can know how many hens his mother hath, and who are his uncles and his cousins, will as easily carry away how many kings there have been, and how many Caesars in Rome. A man must not distrust the capacity and sufficiency of his mind, but know how to conduct and manage it. The third is to carry himself towards him, and to proceed 12 The third general advice. Instruction mild and free. not after an austere, rude and severe manner, but sweetly, mildly, & cheerfully. And therefore we do here altogether condemn that custom which is common in all places, to beat and to box, and with strange words and outcries to hazen children, and to keep them in fear & subjection, as the manner is in free-schooles & collendges. For it is a custom too unjust, and as foul a fault, as when a judge or Physician shall be moved to choler against an offender and patiented: prejudicial and quite contrary to that purpose that a man hath, which is to stir up a desire in them, and to bring them in love with virtue, wisdom, science, honesty. Now this imperious and rude carriage breeds in children a hatred, horror and detestation of that they should love; it provoketh them, makes them headstrong, abateth and taketh away their courage, in such sort that their minds become servile, base and slavish, like their usage; Parents ne provocetis ad iracundiam silios vestros ne despondeant animum. For seeing themselves Coloss. 3. thus handled, they never perform any thing of worth, but curse their master and their apprentishippe. If they do that which is required at their hands, it is because the eye of the master is always upon them, it is for fear, and not cheerfully and nobly, and therefore not honestly. If they fail and perform not their task, to save themselves from the rigour of the punishment, they have recourse to base unlawful remedies, lies, false excuses, tears of despite, flights, triventing, all worse than the fault they have committed. Dum id rescitum iri credit, tantisper cavet; Terent. Si sperat fore clam, rursum ad ingenium redit: Ille, quem beneficio adiungas, ex animo facit; Studet par refer, praesens, absensque idem erit: My will is that they be handled freely and liberally, using therein reason, and sweet and mild persuasions, which engender in their hearts the affections of honour and of shame. The first will serve them as a spur to what is good, the second as a bridle to check and withdraw them from evil. There is something, I know not what, that is servile and base in rigour and constraint, the enemy to honour and true liberty. We must clean contrary fat their hearts with ingenuity, liberty, love, virtue and honour. Pudore & liberalitate liberos retinere Terent. Satius esse credo, quàm metu. Hoc patrium est potius consuefacere filium Sua sponte recte facere, quàm alieno metu. Hoc pater ac dominus interest, hoc qui nequit Fate atur se nescire imperare liberis. Blows are for beasts that understand not reason: injuries and brawls are for slaves. He that is once accustomed thereunto is marred for ever. But reason the beauty of action, the desire of honesty and honour, the approbation of all men, cheerfulness and comfort of heart, and the detestation of their contraries, as brutishness, baseness, dishonour, reproach and the improbation of all men; these are the arms, the spurs and the bridles of children well borne, and such as a man would make honestmen. This is that which a man should always sound in their ears; and if these means cannot prevail, all other of rigour and roughness shall never do good. That which cannot be done with reason, wisdom, endeavour, shall never be done by force; and if happily it be done, yet it is to small purpose. But these other means cannot be unprofitable, if they be employed in time, before the goodness of nature be spent and spilled. But yet for all this, let no man think that I approve that lose and flattering indulgence, and sottish fear to give children cause of discontent and sorrow, which is another extremity as bad as the former. This were like the ivy, to kill and make barren the tree which it embraceth, or the ape that killeth her young with culling them: or like those that fear to hold him up by the hair of the head that is in danger of drowning, for fear of hurting him, and so suffer him to perish. Against this vice the wise Hebrew spoke much. Youth must be held in obedience and discipline, not Eccles. 30. bodily like beasts and madmen, but spiritual, human, liberal according to reason. We come now to the particular and more express advisements of this instruction. The first head of them is, as we 13 Particular advisements touching the mind. have said, to exercise, sharpen and form the mind. Whereupon there are divers precepts, but the first principal and fundamental of all others, which respecteth the end of instruction, and which I most desire to inculcate, because it is least embraced and followed, and every man runneth after the contrary, which is a common and ordinary error, is, to have much more, and the chief and principal care to exercise, to husband and manure, to use the proper good, and much less to get and to endeavour the attainment of that which is strange; to strive and study more for wisdom, than for science and art; rather well to form the judgement, and by consequence the will, and the conscience, than to fill the memory, and to inflame the imagination. These are the three mistress parts of a reasonable soul: But the first is the judgement, as before hath been discoursed, to which place I resend the Reader. Now the custom of the world is quite contrary, which runneth wholly after art, science, and what L. 1. ca 7. is acquired. Parents to the end they may make their children wise, are at great charge, and their children take great pains, Vt omnium rerum sic literarum intemperantiâ laboramus: and Tacit. many times all is lost. But to make them wise, honest, apt and dexterious, which is a matter of small charge or labour, they take no care at all. What greater folly can there be in the world, than more to admire science, that which is acquired, memory, than wisdom, than nature? Now all commit not this fault with one and the same mind; some simply carried by custom, think that wisdom and science are not things different, or at leastwise, that they march alwaier together, and that it is necessary a man have the one to attain the other; these kind of men deserve to be taught: others go out of malice, and they think they know well enough what they do, and at what price soever it be they will have art and science: For this is a mean in these days in the occidental parts of Europe to get fame, reputation, riches. These kind of people make of science an art and merchandise, science mercenary, pedantical, base and mechanical. They buy science to sell it again. Let us leave these merchants as uncurable. Contrariwise, I cannot here but blame the opinion and fashion of some of our gentlemen of France, (for in other nations this fault is not so apparent) who have knowledge or art in such disdain & contempt, that they do less esteem of an honest man only for this, because he hath studied: they discard it as a thing that seemeth in some sort to impeach their nobility. Wherein they show themselves what they are, ill borne, worse advised, and truly ignorant of virtue and honour; which they likewise bewray in their carriage, their idleness, their impertinencies, their insufficiency, in their insolencies, vanities, and barbarities. To teach others, and to discover the fault of all this, we must make good two things; The one, that science and wisdom 14 A comparison of science and wisdom. are things very different; and that wisdom is more worth than all the science or art of the world; as heaven exceeds the price of the earth, gold of iron: the other, that they are not only different, but that they seldom or never go together, that they commonly hinder one another; he that hath much knowledge or art is seldom wise, and he that is wise hath not much knowledge. Some exceptions there are herein, but they are very rare, and of great, rich, and happy spirits. Some there have been in times past, but in these days there are no more to be found. The better to perform this, we must first know what science and wisdom is. Science is a great heap, or accumulation 15 The definition of science and wisdom. and provision of the good of another; that is, a collection of all that a man hath seen, heard and read in books, that is to say, of the excellent sayings and doings of great personages that have been of all nations. Now the garner or storehouse where this great provision remaineth and is kept, the treasury of science and all acquired good, is the memory. He that hath a good memory, the fault is his own if he want knowledge, because he hath the mean. Wisdom is a sweet and regular managing of the soul. He is wise that governeth himself in his desires, thoughts, opinions, speeches, actions, with measure and proportion. To be brief, and in a word, wisdom is the rule of the soul: and that which manageth this rule is the judgement, which seethe, judgeth, esteemeth all things: rangeth them as they ought, giving to every thing that which belongs unto it. Let us now see their differences and how much wisdom excels the other. Science is a small and barren good in respect of wisdom, for it is not only not necessary (for of three parts of the world two and more have made little use thereof) but it brings with it small profit, and serves to little purpose. 1. It is no way serviceable to the life of a man: How many people rich and poor, great and small, live pleasantly and happily, that have never heard any speech of science? There are many other things more commodious and serviceable to the life of man, and the maintenance of human society, as honour, glory, nobility, dignity, which nevertheless are not necessary. 2. Neither is it serviceable to things natural, which an ignorant sot may as well perform, as he that hath best knowledge: Nature is a sufficient mistress for that. 3. Nor to honesty, and to make us better, paucis est opus literis ad bonam mentem, nay, it rather hindereth it. He that will mark it well shall find not only more honest people, but also more excellent in all kind of virtue amongst those that know little, than those that know most; witness Rome, which was more honest being young and ignorant, than when it was old, crafty, and cunning, Simplex illa & aperta a virtus in obscuram & solertem scientiam versa est. Science serveth not for any thing, but to invent crafts & subtleties, artificial cunning, devices, and whatsoever is an enemy to innocency, which willingly lodgeth with simplicity and ignorance. Atheism errors, sects, and all the troubles of the world have risen from the order of these men of art & knowledge. The first temptation of the devil, saith the scripture, and the beginning of all evil, and the ruin of mankind, was the opinion and the desire of knowledge: Eritis sicut dij scientes bonum & malum. The sirens to deceive and entrap Ulysses within their snares, offered unto him the gift of science; and S. Paul adviseth you all to take heed, ne quis vos seducat per philosophiam. One of the sufficients men of knowledge that ever was, spoke of Science, as of a thing not Solomon in his Ecclesiast. only vain, but hurtful, painful, and tedious. To be brief, Science may make us more human and courteous, but not more honest. 4. Again, it serveth nothing to the sweetening of our life, or the quitting us of those evils that oppress us in the world; but contrarily it increaseth and sharpeneth them, witness children and fools, simple and ignorant persons, who measuring every thing by the present taste, run thorough them with the less grief, bear them with better content, than men of greatest learning and knowledge. Science anticipateth those evils that come upon us, in such sort that they are sooner in the soul of man by knowledge, than in nature. The wiseman said, that he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth Ecclesiastes 1. 18. sorrow: Ignorance is a more fit remedy against all evils, iners malorum remedium ignorantia est. From whence proceed those counsels of our friends, Think not of it, put it out of your head and memory. Is not this to cast us into the arms of ignorance, as into the best and safest sanctuary that may be? But this is but a mockery, for to remember and to forget is not in our power. But they would do as chirurgeons use to do, who not knowing how to heal a wound, yet set a good show upon it by allaying the pain and bringing it asleep. They that counsel men to kill themselves in their extreme and remediless evils, do they not send a man to ignorance, stupidity, insensibility? Wisdom is a necessary good, and universally commodious for all things: it governeth and ruleth all: there is not any thing that can hide, or quit itself of the jurisdiction or knowledge thereof: It beareth sway every where, in peace, in war, in public, in private: It ruleth and moderateth even the insolent behaviours of men, their sports, their dances, their banquets, and is as a bridle unto them. To conclude, there is nothing that ought not to be done discreetly and wisely; and contrarily, without wisdom all things fall into trouble and confusion. Secondly, Science is servile, base, and mechanical in respect of wisdom, and a thing borrowed with pain. A learned man is like a crow decked with the feathers that he hath stolen from other birds. He maketh a great show in the world, but at the charge of another, and he had need to vail his bonnet often, as a testimony of that honour he gives to those from whom he hath borrowed his art. A wise man is like him that lives upon his own revenues; for wisdom is properly a man's own; it is a natural good well tilled and laboured. Thirdly, the conditions are divers, the one more beautiful and more noble than the other. Learning or Science is fierce, presumptuous, arrogant, opinative, indiscreet, querulous, scientia inflat. 2. Science is talkative, desirous to show itself, which nevertheless knows not how to do any thing, is not active, but only fit to speak and to discourse: wisdom acteth and governeth all. Learning then and wisdom are things very different, and wisdom of the two the more excellent, more to be esteemed than science. For it is necessary, profitable to all, universal, active, noble, honest, gracious, cheerful. Science is particular, unnecessary, seldom profitable, not active, servile, mechanical, melancholic, opinative, presumptuous. We come now to the other point, and that is, that they are not always together, but contrarily almost always separated. 19 Learning and wisdom meet not together. The natural reason, as hath been said, is, that their temperatures are contrary. For that of science and memory is moist, and that of wisdom and judgement dry. This also is signified unto us, in that which happened to our first parents, who as soon as they cast their eyes upon knowledge, they presently desired it, and so were rob of that wisdom wherewithal they were endued from their beginning; whereof we every day see the like in common experience. The most beautiful and flourishing states, Commonweals, Empires, ancient and modern, have been and are governed very wisely, both in peace and war, without science. Rome the first five hundred years, wherein it flourished in virtue and Wisdom without science. valour, was without knowledge; and so soon as it began to be learned, it began to corrupt, to trouble, and ruinated itself by civil wars. The most beautiful policy that ever was, the Lacedaemonian built by Lycurgus, from whence have sprung the greatest personages of the world, made no profession of learning, and yet it was the school of virtue and wisdom, and was ever victorious over Athens, the most learned city of the world, the school of all science, the habitation of the Muses, the storehouse of Philosophers. All those great and flourishing realms of the east and west Indies, have stood for many ages together without learning, without the knowledge of books or writings. In these days they learn many things, by the good leave and assistance of their new masters, at the expense of their own liberty, yea their vices and their subtleties too, whereof in former times they never heard speech. That great, and it may be the greatest and most flourishing state and Empire which is at this day in the world, is that of that great Lord, who like the Lion of the whole earth, makes himself to be feared of all the Princes and monarchs of the world; and even in this state, there is not any profession of science, nor school, nor permission or allowance to read, or teach publicly, no not in matters of religion. What guideth & governeth, and maketh this state to prosper thus? It is wisdom, it is prudence. But come we to those states wherein learning and sciences are in credit. Who do govern them? Doubtless not the learned. Let us take for example this our realm, wherein learning and knowledge have greater honour than in all the world beside, and which seemeth to have succeeded Greece itself: The principal officers of this crown the Constable, Martial, Admiral, the Secretaries of the state, who dispatch all affairs, are commonly men altogether illiterate. And doubtless, many great Lawyers, founders, and Princes have banished science as the poison and pestilence of a Commonwealth; Licinius, Valentinian, Mahomet, Lycurgus. And thus we see what wisdom is without science. Let us now see what science is without wisdom, which is not hard to do. Let us look a little into those that Science without wisdom. make profession of learning, that come from Schools and Universities, and have their heads full of Aristotle, Cicero, Bartolus. Are there any people in the world more untoward, more sottish, more unfit for all things? From hence cometh that proverb, that when a man would describe a fool, or an untowardly person, he calleth him Clerk, Pedante: And to express a thing ill done, it is the manner to say, It is Clearklike done. It should seem that learning doth intoxicate, and as it were hammer a man's brains, and makes him to turn sot and fool, as king Agrippa said to S. Paul, Multae Act. 26. te literae ad insaniam adducunt. There are divers men that had they never been trained up in schools and colleges, they had been far more wise; and their brethren that have never applied themselves to learning, have proved the wiser men: Vt melius fuisset non didicisse: nam post quam docti prodierunt, boni desunt. Come to the practice, choose me one of these learned scholars, bring him to the common counsel of a city, or any public assembly, wherein the affairs of the state are consulted of, or matter of policy, or household husbandry, you never saw a man more astonished, he waxeth pale, blusheth, cougheth, and at last knows not what to say. And if he chance to speak, he entereth into a long discourse, of definitions, and divisions of Aristotle; ergo potlead. Mark in the selfsame counsel a merchant, a burgess, that never heard speak of Aristotle, he will yield a better reason, give a sounder judgement and more to purpose than these scholastical doctors. Now it is not enough to have said, that wisdom and learning seldom concur and meet together, unless we seek 20 The reason of this separation. the reason and cause thereof, not doubting thereby but sufficiently to content and to satisfy those, that mislike what I have said, or think me perhaps an enemy to erudition and learning. The question thereof is, from whence it cometh that learning and wisdom do seldom encounter and meet together in one and the same man: And there is great reason why we should move this question: for it is a strange thing and against reason, that a man the more learned he is, should not be the more wise, learning and knowledge being a proper means, and instrument unto wisdom Behold therefore two men, the one a student, the other none; he that hath studied, is in some sort bound to be far the wiser of the two, because he hath all that the other hath, that is, nature, reason, judgement, spirit; and besides these the counsels, discourses, judgements of all the greatest men of the world, by reading their books. Is there not then great reason, he should be much more wise, more dexterious, more honest than the other, since that with these proper and natural means, he attaineth so many extraordinary on every side? For as one saith well, the natural good cohering and concurring with the accidental frameth an excellent composition: and yet nevertheless, we see the contrary, as hath been said. Now the true reason and answer to all this, is the evil and sinister manner of study and ill instruction. They learn our 21 An answer of books and schools excellent knowledge, but with ill to ill discipline. means, and as bad success. Whereby it comes to pass, that all their study profiteth them nothing at all, but they remain indigent and poor, in the midst of their plenty and riches, and like Tantalus, die for hunger in the midst of their dainties: the reason is, because whilst they poor upon their books, they respect nothing so much as to stuff and furnish their memories with that which they read and understand, and presently they think themselves wise: like him that put his bread into his pocket and not into his belly, when his pocket was full, died for hunger. And so with a memory fully stuffed, they continue fools; Student non sibi & vitae, sed alijs & scholae. They prepare themselves to be reporters; Cicero hath said it, Aristotle, Plato hath left it in writing, etc. but they for their parts know nothing. These men commit a double fault, the one in that they apply not that which they learn, to themselves, that so they may form themselves unto virtue, wisdom, resolution, by which means their knowledge is unprofitable unto them: the other is, that during all that time, which with great pains and charge they employ, to the heaping together and pocketing up for another without any profit to themselves, whatsoever they can rob from other men, they suffer their own proper good to fall to the ground, and never put it in practice. They on the other side that study not, having no recourse unto another, take a care to husband their natural gifts, and so prove many times the better, the more wise, and resolute, though less learned, less gainers, less glorious. One there is that hath said as much, though otherwise and more briefly; That learning marreth weak wits and spirits, perfecteth the strong and natural. Now harken to that counsel that I give hereupon; A man must not give himself to the gathering and keeping 22 Good discipline. the opinions and knowledges of another, to the end he may afterwards make report of them, or use them for show or ostentation, or some base and mercenary profit; but he must use them so, as that he may make them his own. He must not only lodge them in his mind, but incorporate and transubstantiate them into himself. He must not only water his mind with the dew of knowledge, but he must make it essentially better, wise, strong, good, courageous; otherwise to what end serveth study? Non paranda nobis solùm, sed fruenda sapientia est. He must not do as it is the manner of those that make garlands, who pick here and there whole flowers, and so carry them away to make nosegays, and afterwards presents, heap together out of that book and out of this book many good things, to make a fair and a goodly show to others; but he must do as bees use to do, who carry not away the flowers, but settle themselves upon them, like a hen that covereth her chicken, and draweth from them their spirit, force, virtue, quintessence, and nourishing themselves, turn them into their own substance, and afterwards make good and sweet honey, which is all their own; and it is no more either thyme or sweet mariarom. So must a man gather from books the marrow and spirit (never enthrawling himself so much as to retain the words by heart, as many use to do, much less the place, the book, the chapter; that is a sottish and vain superstition and vanity, and makes him lose the principal) and having sucked and drawn the good, feed his mind therewith, inform his judgement, instruct and direct his conscience and his opinions, rectify his will; and in a word, frame unto himself a work wholly his own, that is to say, an honest man, wise, advised, resolute. Non ad pompam nec ad speciem, nec ut nomine magnifico sequi otium velis, sed quo Tacit. firmior adversus fortuita rempublicam capessas. And hereunto the choice of sciences is necessary. Those that I commend above all others, and that best serve to that 23 2 The second advice touching the choice of sciences. end, which I propose and whereof I am to speak, are natural and moral, which teach us to live, and to live well, nature and virtue; that which we are, and that which we should be: under the moral are comprehended, the Politics, economics, Histories. All the rest are vain and frothy, and we are not to dwell upon them, but to take them as passing by. This end of the instruction of youth and comparison of learning and wisdom, hath held me too long, by reason of 24 3 The means to learn. the contestation. Let us now proceed to the other parts and advisements of this instruction. The means of instructions are divers, especially of two sorts; the one by word, that is to By word of mouth. say, by precepts, instructions, and lectures; or else by conference with honest and able men, filing and refining our wits against theirs, as iron is cleansed and beautified by the file; This means and manner is very pleasing and agreeable to nature. The other by action, that is, example, which is gotten not 25 By example. only from good men by imitation, and similitude, but also wicked, by disagreement in opinions; For some there are that learn better by the opposition and horror of that evil they see in another. It is a special use of justice, to condemn one, that he may serve for an example unto others. And old Cato was wont to say, That wise men may learn more of fools, than fools of wise men. The Lacedæmonians the better to dissuade their children from drunkenness, made their servants drunken before their faces, to the end that seeing how horrible a spectacle a drunken man was, they should the rather detest it. Now this second means or manner by example, teacheth us with more ease and more delight. To learn by precepts A comparison of these two. is a long way, because it is a painful thing to understand well, and understanding to retain well, and retaining to use and practise well. And hardly can we promise ourselves to reap that fruit which they promise unto us. But example and imitation teach us above the work or action itself, invite us with much more ardour, and promise unto us that glory which we learn to imitate. The seed that is cast into the earth draweth unto itself in the end the quality of that earth whereunto it is transported, and becomes like unto that which doth there naturally grow: So the spirits and manners of men conform themselves to those with whom they commonly converse. Now these two manners of profiting by speech and by example, 26 From the living. are likewise twofold, for they are drawn from excellent personages, either living, by their sensible and outward frequentation and conference; or dead, by the reading of their books. The first, that is the commerce with the living, is more lively and more natural, it is a fruitful exercise of life, which was much in use amongst the ancients, yea the Greeks themselves, but it is casual depending on another, and rare: It is a difficult matter to meet with such people, and more difficult to make use of them. And this is practised either by keeping home, or by traveling & visiting strange countries, not to be fed with vanities as the most do, but to carry with them the knowledge and consideration especially of the humours and customs of those nations. This is a profitable exercise, the body is neither idle, nor tired with labour, for this moderate agitation keeps a man in breath, the mind is in continual exercise, by marking things known and new. There is not a better school to form the life of man, than to see the diversity of so many other lives, and to taste a perpetual variety of the forms of our nature. The other commerce with the dead by the benefit of their books, is more sure, and more near unto us, more constant, 27 From the dead by books. and less chargeable. He that knows how to make use of them, receiveth thereby great pleasure, great comfort. It dischargeth us of the burden of a tedious idleness, it withdraweth us from fond imaginations, and other outward things, that vex and trouble us: It counseleth us, and comforteth us in our griefs and afflictions: but yet it is only good for the mind, whereby the body remaineth without action, altereth and languisheth. We must now speak of that order of proceeding and formality which a teacher of youth must keep, that he may 28 4 To make the scholar to speak and to reason. happily arrive to his proposed end. It hath many parts; we will touch some of them. First, he must often examine his scholar, ask his judgement and opinion of whatsoever shall present itself unto him. This is quite contrary to the ordinary style, which is, that the master do always speak and teach his child with authority, and work into his head as into a vessel, whatsoever he will, in so much that children are only auditors and receivers, which manner of teaching I can not commend, obest plerunque ijs, qui discere volunt, authoritas eorum qui docent. Their spirits must be awakened and inflamed by demands, make them first to give their opinions, and then give them the same liberty, to ask others, to inquire and to open the way at their own will. If without questioning with them a man speak wholly unto them, it is a labour in a manner lost, the child is not profited thereby, because he thinks it belongs not unto him, so long as he yields not an account thereof; he lends only his ears and those coldly too; he sets not forward with so good apase, as when he is a party in the business. Neither is it enough to make them give their judgement, but that they maintain it, and be able to give a reason of their saying, to the end that they speak not by rote, but that they be attentive, and careful of that they speak: and to give them the better encouragement thereunto, a man must not seem to neglect that they say, but commend at the least their good essay and endeavour. This form of teaching by questions and demands is excellently observed both by Socrates (the principal in this business) as we see every where in Plato, where by a long connexion and enfolding of demands wittily and dexteriously made, he sweetly leadeth a man to the closet of verity; and also by the Doctor of verity Mat. 16. 22. Luk. 10. & 24. in his Gospel. Now these questions must not be only of things touching science and memory, as hath been said, but matter of judgement. For to this exercise all things may serve, even the least that are, as the follies of a Lackey, the malice of a Page, a discourse at table: for the work of judgement is not to handle and to understand great and high matters, but justly to weigh them, and consider of them whatsoever they be. Questions therefore must be moved touching the judgement of men and their actions, and by reason determined, to the end that thereby men may frame their judgement and their conscience. The tutor or instructor of Cyrus in Xenophon for a lecture proposed this question; A great youth having a little coat or cassock, gave it to one of his companions of a less stature, and took from him his cassock, which was the greater: upon which fact he demanded his judgement. Cyrus' answered, that it was well, because both of them were thereby the better fitted. But his master reprehended him sharply for it, because he considered only the fitness and conveniency thereof, and not the justice, which should first and especially have been thought of, which was, that no man may be enforced in that which was his own. And this no doubt is an excellent manner of instruction. And though a man may recite authorities out of books, the sayings of Cicero or Aristotle, yet it is not only to recite them, but to judge of them, and so to frame and fashion them to all uses, and to apply them to divers subjects. It is not enough to report as a history, that Cato killed himself at Vtique, that he might not fall into the hands of Caesar; and that Brutus and Cassius were the authors of the death of Caesar; for this is the least: but I will that he proceed and judge, whether they did well herein or no; whether they deserved well of the commonweal; whether they carried themselves therein according to wisdom, justice, valour; and wherein they did ill, wherein well. Finally and generally, in all these discourses, demands, answers, the conveniency, order, verity, must be inquired into, a work of judgement & conscience. These things a man by any means must not dissemble, but ever press them, and hold him subject unto them. Secondly, he must accustom and frame him to an honest curiosity to know all things; whereby he must first have his 29 5 An advisement touching honest curiosity. eyes upon every thing, the better to consider all that may be said, done or attempted concerning himself, and nothing must pass his hands, before it pass and repass his judgement; and then he must make an enquiry into other matters, as well of right as of action. He that inquireth after nothing, knows nothing, saith one; He that busieth not his mind, suffereth it to rust, and becomes a fool; and therefore he must make profit of all, apply every thing to himself, take advice and counsel, as well of what is past, the better to see the error he hath committed, as of that which is to come, the better to rule and to direct himself. Children must not be suffered to be idle, to bring themselves asleep, to entertain themselves with their own prattle; for wanting sufficiency to furnish themselves with good and worthy matter, they will feed upon vanities; they must therefore be always busied in some employment, and kept in breath, and this curiosity must be engendered in them, the better to awaken them, and to spur them forward, which being such as is said, shall be neither vain in itself, nor tedious to another. He must likewise fashion and mould his spirit to the general pattern and model of the world and of nature, make it 30 6 Advice. universal, that is to say, represent unto him in all things, the universal face of nature: that the whole world may be his book: that of what subject soever a man talk, he cast his eye and his thought upon the large immensity of the world, upon so many different fashions and opinions, which have been, and are in the world touching that subject. The most excellent and noble minds, are the more universal and more free; and by this means the mind is contented, learneth not to be astonished at any thing, is form to a resolution and steadfast constancy. To be brief, such a man doth no more admire any thing, which is the highest and last point of wisdom. For whatsoever doth happen, or a man may report unto him, he easily findeth that there is nothing in the world either new or strange; that the condition of man is capable of all things; that they have come from others, and that elsewhere divers things pass more strange, more great. And in this sense it was that wise Socrates called himself a citizen of the world. And contrarily, there is not any thing that doth more deprave and enthraule the mind of man, than to make him taste and understand but one certain opinion, belief, and manner of life. What greater folly or weakness can there be, than to think that all the world walketh, believeth, speaketh, doth, liveth and dieth according to the manner of his country? like those bard blockheads, who when they hear one recite the manners and opinions of foreign countries, very different and contrary to theirs, they tremble for fear, and believe them not; or else do absurdly condemn them as barbarous, so much are they enthralled and tied to their cradle, a kind of people brought up (as they say) in a bottle, that never saw any thing but through a hole. Now this universal spirit must be attained by the diligence of the master or teacher, afterwards by travel, and communication with strangers, and the reading of books and the histories of all nations. Finally, he must teach him to take nothing upon credit and by authority: this is to make himself a beast, and to suffer himself to be led by the nose like an ox; but to examine all things with reason, to propose all things, and then to give him leave to choose. And if he know not how to choose, but doubt, which perhaps is the better, sounder, and surer course, to teach him likewise to resolve of nothing of himself, but rather to distrust his own judgement. After the mind comes the body, whereof there must likewise be a care taken, at one and the same instant with the spirit, 32 An advisement touching the body. not making two works thereof. Both of them make an entire man. Now a master must endeavour to keep his child free from delicacy and pride in apparel, in sleeping, eating, drinking; he must bring him up hardly to labour and pains; accustom him to heat and cold, wind and weather, yea and unto hazards too; harden his muscles and his sinews, as well as his mind, to labour, and then to pain and grief too; For the first disposeth to the second, Labour callum obducit dolori. To be brief, he must endeavour to make him lusty and vigorous, indifferent to all kind of viands. All this serveth not only for his health, but for public affairs and services. We come now to the third head which concerneth manners, wherein both body and soul have a part. This is twofold; 33 3 An advisement touching manners. To hinder the evil, to engraffed and to nourish the good. The first is the more necessary, and therefore the greater care, and heed must be taken. It must therefore be done in time, for there is no time too speedy, to hinder the birth and growth of ill manners and conditions, especially these following, which are to be feared in youth. To lie, a base vice of servants and slaves, of a licentious and fearful mind, the cause whereof ariseth many times 1 Evil manners. from bad and rude instruction. A sottish shame and weakness, whereby they seek to hide themselves, hold down their heads, blush at every question that is proposed, cannot endure a correction, or a sharp word, without a strange alteration of countenance. Nature doth many times bear a great sway herein, but it must be corrected by study. All affectation and singularity in habit, carriage, gate, speech, gesture, and all other things; this is a testimony of vanity and vainglory, and marreth all the rest, even that which is good. Licet sapere sine pompa, sine invidia. But above all, choler, sullenness, obstinacy; and therefore it is very necessary that a child never have his will by such froward means, and that he learn and find that these qualities are altogether unprofitable and bootless, yea base and villainous; and for this cause he must never be flattered, for that marreth and corrupteth him, teacheth him to be sullen and froward, if he have not his will, and in the end maketh him insolent, that a man shall never work any good upon him. Nihil magis reddit iracundos, quàm educatio mollis & blanda. By the selfsame means a man must engraffed into him 34 Good manners. good and honest manners; And first instruct him to fear and reverence God, to tremble under that infinite and invisible majesty, to speak seldom and soberly of God, of his power, eternity, wisdom, will, and of his works; not indifferently and upon all occasions, but fearfully, with shame and reverence. Not to be over scrupulous in the mysteries and points of religion, but to conform himself to the government and discipline of the church. Secondly, to replenish and cherish his heart with ingenuity, freedom, candour, integrity, and to teach him to be an honest man; out of an honourable and honest mind, not servilely and mechanically for fear, or hope of any honour or profit, or other consideration, than virtue itself. These two are especially for himself. For another and the company with whom he converseth, he must work in him a sweet kind of affability to accommodate himself to all kind of people, to all fashions. Omnis Aristippum decuit colour, & status & res. Herein Alcibiades was excellent. That he learn how to be able, and to know how to do all things, yea excess and licentious behaviours if need be; but that he love to do only that which is good: That he refrain to do evil, not for want of courage, nor strength, nor knowledge, but will? Multum interest virùm peccare quis nolit, aut nesciat. Modestly, whereby he contesteth not, nor toeth himself, either to all, as to the greatest and most respective persons, or such as are his inferiors either in condition or sufficiency, nor See Lib. 2. cap. 9 defendeth any thing obstinately, with affirmative, resolute, commanding words, but sweet, submiss and moderate specches. Hereof hath been spoken elsewhere. And thus the three heads of the duties of parents towards their children are dispatched. The fourth concerneth their affection and communication with them, when they are great and capable of that whereunto 36 The fourth part touching the duty of parents. they were instructed. We know that affection is reciprocal and natural betwixt parents and their children, but that of parents towards their children is far more strong and more natural, because it is given by nature to love those things that are coming on to the maintenance and continuance The love of parents greater than the love of children. of the world, especially those in whom a man doth live when he is dead. That of children towards their parents is retrograde, and therefore it goeth not so strongly, nor so naturally; and it seemeth rather to be the payment of a debt, and a thankful acknowledgement of a benefit received, than a pure, free, simple, and natural love. Moreover, he that giveth and doth good, loveth more than he that receiveth and is indebted: And therefore a father and every agent that doth good to another, loveth more than he is beloved. The reasons of this proposition are many. All love to be (which being is exercised and demonstrated in motion and action.) Now he that giveth, and doth good to another, is after a sort in him that receiveth. He that giveth and doth good to another, doth that which is honest and honourable; he that receiveth doth none of this: honesty is for the first, profit for the second. Now honesty is far more worthy, firm, stable, amiable, than profit, which in a moment vanisheth. Again, those things are most beloved that cost us most; that is dearest unto us, which we come more dearly by. Now to beget, to nourish, to bring up, is a matter of greater charge than to receive all these. This love of parents is twofold, though always natural, yet after a divers manner: the one is simply and universally 37 The love of parents twofold. natural, and as a simple instinct which is common with beasts, according to which parents love and cherish their children, though deformed, stammering, halting, milksops, and use them like moppets, or little apes. This love is not truly human. Man endued with reason, must not servilely subject himself unto nature as beasts do, but follow it more nobly with discourse of reason. The other than is more human and reasonable, whereby a man loveth his children more or less, according to that measure wherein he seethe the seeds and sparks of virtue, goodness, and towardliness to arise and spring up in them. Some there are who being besotted and carried with the former kind of affection, have but little of this, and never complaining of the charge so long as their children are but small, complain thereof when they come to their growth, & begin to profit. It seemeth that they are in a sort offended and vexed to see them to grow and set forward in honest courses that they may become honest men: These parents are brutish and inhuman. Now according to this second, true, and fatherly love in 38 Of the true fatherly love in communicating with his children being come to years of discretion. the well governing thereof, parents should receive their children, if they be capable, into their society and partnership in their goods, admit them to their counsel, intelligence, the knowledge and course of their domestical affairs, as also to the communication of their designments, opinions and thoughts; yea consent and contribute to their honest recreations and pastimes, as the case shall require, always reserving their rank and authority. For we condemn the austere, lordlike, and imperious countenance and carriage of those that never look upon their children, nor speak unto them but with authority, will not be called fathers but lords, though God himself refuse not this name of father, never caring for the hearty love of their children, so they may be feared, reverenced, and adored. And for this cause they give unto them sparingly, keep them in want, that they may the better keep them in awe and obedience, ever threatening them some small pittance by their last will, when they depart out of this life. Now this is a sottish, vain, and ridiculous foolery; It is to distrust their own proper, true, and natural authority, to get an artificial; And it is the way to deceive themselves, and to grow into contempt, which is clean contrary to that they pretend. It causeth their children to carry themselves cunningly with them, and to conspire and find means how to deceive them. For parents should in good time frame their minds to duty, by reason, and not have recourse to these means more tyrannous than fatherly. Errat longè mea quidem sententia, Qui imperium credit esse gravius aut stabilius Vi quod sit, quàm illud quod amicitia adiungitur. In the last disposition of our goods, the best and surest way is to follow the laws & customs of the country. The laws 39 The usage of them in their last wills according to the laws. have better provided for it than we, and it is a safer course to suffer them to fail in some thing, than to adventure upon our own defects, in our own proper choice. It is to abuse that liberty we have therein, to serve our foolish fantasies and private passions, like those that suffer themselves to be carried by the unwonted officious actions and flatteries of those that are present, who make use of their last wills and testaments, either by gratifying or chastising the actions of those that pretend interest therein. A man must conform himself to reason and common custom herein, which is wiser than we are, and the surer way. We come now to the duty of children towards their parents, 40 Of the duty of children towards their parents. so natural and so religious, and which ought to be done unto them not as unto pure and simple men, but demigods, earthly, mortal, visible gods. And this is the reason why Philo the jew said, that the commandment touching the duty of children was written the one half in the first table, which contained the commandments that concern our duty towards God; and the other half in the second table, wherein are the commandments that concern our neighbour, as being half divine, and half human. This duty likewise is so certain, so due and requisite, that it may not be dispensed withal by any other duty or love whatsoever, be it never so great. For, if it shall happen that a man see his father and his son so endangered at one and the same instant, as that he cannot rescue and secure them both, he must forsake his son, and go to his father, though his love towards his son be greater, as before hath been said. And the reason is, because the duty of a son towards his father is more ancient, and hath the greater privilege, and cannot be abrogated by any later duty. 41 This duty consisteth in five points. Now this duty consisteth in five points, comprehended in this word, Honour thy father and thy mother. The first is reverence, not only in outward gesture and countenance, but also inward, which is that high and holy opinion and esteem, that a child ought to have of his parents, as the authors and original causes of his being, and of his good, a quality that makes them resemble God himself. The second is obedience, even to the roughest and hardest 2 jer. 35. commands of a father, according to the example of the Rechabites, who to obey the command of their father, never drank wine in all their lives: Nay more than that, Isaac refused not to yield his neck to the sword of his father. The third is to secure their parents in all their needs and necessities, to nourish them in their old age, their impotency, and want, to give them their assistance in all their affairs. We have an example and pattern hereof even in beasts. In the Stork, whose little ones (as S. Basil affirmeth) feed and nourish In examer. their old dames, cover them with their feathers, when they fall from them, and couple themselves together to carry them upon their backs. Love furnisheth them with this art. This example is so lively and so significant, that the duty of children towards their parents hath been signified by the quality of this creature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, reciconiare. And the Hebrews call this bird for this cause, chasida, that is to say, levit. 11. the debonair, the charitable bird. We have likewise notable examples here amongst men. Cymon the son of great Miltiades, whose father dying in prison, as some say for debt, and not having wherewithal to bury his body, much less to redeem it being arrested for the debt, whilst it was carried to the burial, according to the laws of that country, Cymon sold himself and his liberty for money to provide for his funeral. He with his plenty and goods relieved not his father, but with his liberty; which is dearer than all goods, yea and life too. He helped not his father living and in necessity, but dead, and being no more a father nor a man. What had he done to secure his father living, wanting, and requiring his help? This is an excellent precedent. We have two the like examples, even in the weak and feeble sex of women, of two daughters which have nourished and given suck the one to the father, the other to her mother, being prisoners and condemned to die by famine, the ordinary punishment of the ancients. It seemeth in some sort a thing against nature, that the mother should be nourished with the daughter's milk; but this is truly according to nature, yea those first laws, that the daughter should nourish her mother. The fourth is, not to do, to attempt, or enterprise any thing of weight or importance, without the advice, consent, and approbation of parents, and especially in marriage. The fift is, mildly and gently to endure the vices, imperfections, and testy and impatient humours of parents, their severity and rigour. Manlius hath made good proof hereof: for the Tribune Pomponius having accused the father of this Manlius in the presence of the people of many crimes, and amongst others, that he over cruelly handled his son, enforcing him to till the earth: the son goeth to the Tribune and finding him in his bed, putting the point of his dagger to his throat, enforced him to swear, that he should desist from that pursuit he made against his father, desiring rather to endure his father's rigour, than to see him troubled for it. A child shall find no difficulty in these five duties, if he consider how chargeable he hath been to his parents, and with what care and affection he hath been brought up. But he shall never know it well, until he have children of his own, as he that was found to ride upon a hobby-horse playing with his children, entreated him that so took him to hold his peace until he were himself a father, reputing him till then no indifferent judge in this action. CHAP. XV. The duty of Masters and servants: Here cometh the third and last part of private and domestical justice, which is the duties of masters and servants. Touching which it is necessary to know the distinction of servants: for they are principally three sorts. That is to say, of slaves, whereof all the world hath been full in former time, and is at this present, except a part of Europe, and no place more free than here about France; they have no power neither in their bodies nor goods, but are wholly their masters, who may give, lend, sell, resell, exchange, and use them as beasts of service. Of these hath been spoken of at large. There are inferior servants, and servants, free people, masters of their persons and goods, yea they cannot bargain, or otherwise do any thing to the prejudice of their own liberty. But they own honour, obedience, and serve until such times, and upon such conditions, as they have promised, and their masters have power to command, correct, and chastise them with moderation and discretion. There are also mercenaries, which are less subject, they own no service nor obedience, but only work and labour for money; and they have no authority in commanding or correcting them. The duties of masters towards their servants, as well of slaves as inferior servants, are, not to handle them cruelly, remembering they are men, and of the same nature with us, but only fortune hath put a difference, which is ever variable and sporteth itself in making great men little, and little great. And therefore the difference is not so great, so much to contemn them. Sunt homines, contubernales, humiles Senec. amici, conserui, aequè fortunae subiecti. To handle servants gently, seeking rather to be beloved than feared, is the testimony of a good nature: to use them roughly and too severely, proceedeth from a crabbed and cruel mind, and that he beareth the same disposition towards all other men, but want of power hindereth the execution thereof. They ought to instruct them with godly and religious counsel, and those things that are requisite for their health and safety. The duties of servants are, to honour and fear their masters whatsoever they be, and to yield them obedience and fidelity, serving them not for gain, or only outwardly and for countenance, but hearty, seriously, for conscience sake, and without dissimulation. We read of most worthy, noble, and generous services performed in former times by some towards their masters, even to the engaging and hazard of their lives, for their master's safeguard and honour. CHAP. XVI. The duty of Sovereigns and Subjects. OF Princes and Sovereigns, their descriptions, notes, humours, marks, and discommodities hath been discoursed in the first book, chap. 49. Their duty to govern the commonwealth hath been spoken at large in this present book, chap. 2. and 3. which is of politic prudence: yet we will touch a little here the heads and general points of their duty. The Sovereign as the mean between God and the people, 1 The duty of Sovereigns. and debtor to these two, ought always remember that he is the lively image, the officer, and lieutenant general of the great God his sovereign; and to the people a perfect mirror, a bright beam, a clear looking glass, an elevated theatre for every one to behold, a fountain where all refresh themselves, a spur to virtue, and who doth not any good; that is not famous, and put in the register of perpetual memory. He ought then first of all to fear and honour God, to To be religious. be devout, religious, to observe piety not only for himself and for conscience sake, as every other man, but for his state, and as he is a sovereign. The piety which we here require in a prince, is the care he ought to have, and to show for the conservation of religion and the ancient laws and ceremonies of the country, providing by laws penalties and punishments that the religion be neither changed, troubled, nor innovated. This is a thing that highly redoundeth to his honour and security (for all do reverence, and more willingly obey, and more slowly attempt or enterprise any thing against him whom they see feareth God; and believe to be in his protection and safeguard; una custodia pietas: pium virum Mercur. Trism. nec malus genius nec fatum devincit. Deus enim eripit eum ab omni malo.) And also to the good of the state, for as all the wisest have said, Religion is the band and cement of human society. The Prince ought also to be subject, and inviolably to observe 2 To observe the laws of superiors. and cause to be observed the laws of God, and nature, which are not to be dispensed with: and he that infringeth them is not only accounted a tyrant, but a monster. Concerning the people, he ought first to keep his covenants 3 To keep his promise. and promises, be it with subjects or others with whom he is interessed or hath to do. This equity is both natural and universal. God himself keepeth his promise. Moreover, the prince is the pledge and formal warrant of the law and those mutual bargains of his subjects. He ought then above all to keep his faith, there being nothing more odious in a prince than breach of promise and perjury; and therefore it was well said, that a man ought to put it among those casual cases if the prince do abjure or revoke his promise, and that the contrary is not to be presumed. Yea he ought to observe those promises and bargains of his predecessors, especially if he be their heir, or if they be for the benefit and welfare of the commonwealth. Also he may relieve himself of his unreasonable contracts and promises unadvisedly made, even as for the selfsame causes private men are relieved by the benefit of the prince. He ought also to remember, that although he be above the law (I mean the civil and human) as the Creator is above 4 To observe the laws. the creature (for the law is the work of the prince, and which he may change and abrogate at his pleasure, it is the proper right of the sovereignty) nevertheless though it be in force and authority, he ought to keep it: to live, to converse and judge according unto it: and it would be a dishonour and a very evil example to contradict it, and as it were falsify it. Great Augustus having done something against the law, by his own proper act would needs die for grief: Lycurgus, Agesilaus, Seleucus, have left three notable examples in this point, and to their cost. Thirdly, the prince oweth justice to all his subjects; and he ought to measure his puissance and power by the rule of 5 To do justice. justice. This is the proper virtue of a prince truly royal and princelike, whereof it was rightly said, by an old man to king Philip that delayed him justice, saying he had no leisure, That he should then desist & leave off to be king. But Demetriu sped not so well, who was dispossessed of his realm by his subjects, for casting from a bridge into the river many of their petitions, without answer, or doing them justice. Finally, the prince ought to love, cherish, to be vigilant and careful of his state, as the husband of the wife, the father of 6 To take care and affect the common good. his children, the shepherd of his flock, having always before his eyes the profit and quiet of his subjects. The prosperity and welfare of the state is the end and contentment of a good prince, ut respub, opibus firma, copijs locuples, gloria ampla, virtute Senec. honesta sit. The prince that toeth himself to himself abuseth himself: for he is not his own man, neither is the state his, but he is the states. He is a Lord, not to domineer, but to defend. Cui non civium servitus tradita, sed tutela: to attend, to watch, to the end his vigilance may secure his sleeping subjects, his travel may give them rest, his providence may maintain their prosperity, his industry may continue their delights, his business their leisure their vacation, and that all his subjects may understand and know that he is as much for them, as he is above them. To be such and to discharge his duty well, he ought to demean and carry himself as hath been said at large in the second and third chapter of this book, that is to say, to furnish himself of good counsel, of treasure, and sufficient strength within his state, to fortify himself with alliance, and foreign friends to be ready, and to command both in peace and war; by this means he may be both loved and feared. And to contain all in a few words, he must love God above all things, be advised in his enterprises, valiant in attempts, faithful and firm in his word, wise in counsel, careful of his subjects, helpful to his friends, terrible to his enemies, pitiful to the afflicted, gentle and courteous to good people, severe to the wicked, and just and upright towards all. The duty of subjects consisteth in three points, to yield due honour to their princes, as to those that carry the image of 9 The duty of subjects. God, ordained and established by him; therefore they are most wicked, who detract or slander; such were the seed of Cham and Chanaan. 2. To be obedient, under which is contained Exod. 12. many duties, as to go to the wars, to pay tributes and imposts imposed upon them by their authority. 3. To wish them all prosperity and happiness, and to pray for them. But the question is, Whether a man ought to yield these 10 Whether it be lawful to lay violent hands upon the person of a tyrant. A double tyrant. The entrance. three duties generally to all princes, if they be wicked or tyrants. This controversy cannot be decided in a word, and therefore we must distinguish. The prince is a tyrant and wicked either in the entrance, or execution of his government. If in the entrance, that is to say, that he treacherously invadeth, and by his own force and powerful authority gains the sovereignty without any right, be he otherwise good or evil (for this cause he ought to be accounted a tyrant) without all doubt we ought to resist him either by way of justice, if there be opportunity & place, or by surprise: and the Grecians, saith Cicero, ordained in former times rewards and honours for those that delivered the commonwealth from servitude and oppression. Neither can it be said to be a resisting of the prince, either by justice or surprise, since he is neither received, nor acknowledged to be a prince. If in the execution, that is to say, that his entrance be rightful 2 In the execution three ways. and just, but that he carrieth himself imperiously, cruelly, & wickedly, and, according to the common saying, tyrannically, it is then also to be distinguished; for it may be so three ways, and every one requireth particular consideration. The Hereof see above Chap. 4. in Chap. of tyranny and rebellion. one is in violating the laws of God and nature, that is to say, against the religion of the country, the commandment of God, enforcing and constraining their consciences. In this case he ought not to yield any duty or obedience, following those divine axioms, That we ought rather obey God than men, and fear him more that commandeth the entire man, than those that have power but over the least part. Yet he ought not to oppose himself against him by violence or sinister means, which is another extremity, but to observe the middle way, which is either to fly or suffer, fugere, aut pati; these two remedies named by the doctrine of verity in the like extremities. 2. The other less evil, which concerneth not the consciences, but only the bodies and the goods, is an abuse to subjects, denying them justice, imprisoning their persons, and depriving them of their goods. In the which case he ought with patience and acknowledgement of the wrath of God yield these three duties following, honour, obedience, vows and prayers; and to be mindful of three things, that all power and authority is from God, and whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: principi summum rorum indicium dij dederunt. Subditis obsequij gloria relicta est: bonos principes voto expetere, quale scunque tolerare. And Tacit. he ought not to obey a superior, because he is worthy and worthily commandeth, but because he is a superior; not for that he is good, but because he is true and lawful. There is great difference between true and good, every one ought to obey the law, not because it is good and just, but simply, because it is the law. 2. That God causeth an hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people, though he reserve him for a day of his fury; that the wicked prince is the instrument of his justice, the which we ought to endure as other evils, which the heavens do send us; quomodo sterilitatem aut nimios imbres & caetera naturae mala, sic luxum & avaritiam dominantium tolerare. Tacit. 3. The examples of Saul, Nabuchodonoser, of many Emperors before Constantine, and others since him as cruel tyrants as might be: towards whom nevertheless these three duties have been observed by good men, and enjoined them by the Prophets and learned men of those days, according to the oracle of the great Doctor of truth, which inferreth an obedience to them which sit in the seat of government, notwithstanding they oppress us with insupportable burdens, and their government be evil. The third concerneth the whole state, when he would change or ruinated it, seeking to make it elective, hereditary, or of an Aristocracy, or Democracie, a Monarchy, or otherwise: And in this case he ought to withstand and hinder their proceed, either by way of justice or otherwise: for he is not master of the state; but only a guardian and a surety. But these affairs belong not to all, but to the tutors and maintainers of the state, or those that are interessed therein, as electors of elective states; or Princes apparent in hereditary states; or states general, that have fundamental laws. And this is the only case wherein it is lawful to resist a tyrant. And all this is said of subjects, who are never permitted to attempt any thing against a sovereign Prince for what cause L. Cogitationis ff de poen. L. Si quis non dicam c. de sacros. Eccles. soever, and the laws say that he deserveth death, who attempteth, or giveth counsel, and which intendeth, or only thinketh it. But it is honourable for a stranger, yea, it is most noble and heroical in a prince by warlike means to defend a people unjustly oppressed; and to free them from tyranny, as Hercules did, and afterward Dion, Timoleon, and Tamburlaine prince of the Tartars, who overcame Bajazeth the Turkish Emperor, and besieged Constantinople. These are the duties of subjects towards their living sovereigns: 12 Examinations of Sovereigns after their death. But it is a point of justice to examine their life after they are dead. This is a custom just and very profitable, which benefiteth much those nations where it is observed: and which all good Princes do desire, who have cause to complain, that a man handleth the memory of the wicked as well as theirs. Sovereign's are companions if not masters of the laws; for seeing justice cannot touch their lives, there is reason, it taketh hold of their reputation, and the goods of their successors. We own reverence and duty equally to all kings, in respect of their dignity and office, but inward estimation and affection to their virtue. We patiently endure them, though unworthy as they are: We conceal their vices; for their authority and public order where we live hath need of our common help: but after they are gone, there is no reason to reject justice, and the liberty of expressing our true thoughts; yea it is a very excellent and profitable example, that we manifest to the posterity faithfully to obey a Master or Lord, whose imperfections are well known. They who for some private duty commit a wicked prince to memory, do private justice to the public hurt. O excellent lesson for a successor if it were well observed! CHAP. XVII. The duty of Magistrates. GOod people in a commonwealth would love better to 1 For what cause Magistrates are allowed of. enjoy ease of contentment; which good and excellent spirits know how to give themselves in consideration of the goods of nature, and the effects of God, than to undertake public charges, were it not that they fear to be ill governed, and by the wicked, and therefore they consent to be magistrates: but to hunt and follow public charges, especially the judgement seat is base and vile, and condemned by all good laws, yea even of the heathen, witness the law julia de ambitu: unworthy a person of honour, and a man cannot better express his insufficiency, than by seeking for it. But it is most base and vile by bribery or money to purchase them, and there is no merchandise more hateful and contemptible than it: for it necessarily followeth, that he which buyeth in gross, selleth by retail: Whereupon the Emperor Severus speaking against the like inconvenience, saith, Lamprid. That a man can not justly condemn him which selleth that he bought. Even as a man apparrelleth himself, and putteth on his 2 How a magistrate ought to prepare himself before he take the charge. best habit before he departeth his house to appear in public: so before a man undertake public charge, he ought privately to examine himself, to learn to rule his passions, and well to settle and establish his mind. A man bringeth not to the tourney a raw unmanaged horse, neither doth a man enter into affairs of importance, if he hath not been instructed and prepared for it before: so, before a man undertakes these affairs, and enters upon the stage and theatre of this world, he ought to correct that imperfect and savage part in us, to bridle and restrain the liberty of affections, to learn the laws, the parts, and measures thereof, wherewith it ought to be handled in all occasions. But contrarily it is a ve-very lamentable and absurd thing, as Socrates saith, that although no man undertaketh the profession of any mystery or mechanical art, which formerly he hath not learned: yet in public charges, in the skill to command and obey well, to govern the world, the deepest and difficultest mystery of all, they are accepted, and undertake it, that know nothing at all. Magistrates are intermixed persons, placed between the sovereign and private men, and therefore it behoveth 3 A general description of magistrates. them to know how to command, and to obey, how to obey their sovereign, yield to the power of superior magistrates, honour their equals, command their inferiors, defend the weak, make head against the great, and be just to all: and therefore it was well said, That magistracy describeth a man, being to play in public so many parts. In regard of his sovereign, the magistrate according to the diversity of the commands, ought diversly to govern, 4 The duty of magistrates as touching the sovereign. or readily, or not at all to obey, or surcease his obedience. First, in those commands which yield unto him acknowledgement and allowance, as are all the warrants of justice, and all other where this clause, or any equivalent unto it (if it appear unto you) or which are without attribution of allowance, just and indifferent of themselves, he ought to obey, and he may easily discharge himself without any scruple and danger. 2 In those commands which attribute unto him no acknowledgement, but only the execution, as are warrants of command, if they be against right and civil justice, and that have in them clauses derogatory, he ought simply to obey: for the sovereign may derogate from the ordinary law, and this is properly that wherein sovereignty consisteth. 3 To those which are contrary to right, and contain no derogatory clause, but are wholly prejudicial to the good and utility of the commonwealth, what clause soever it hath, and though the magistrate knoweth it to be false, and enforced against right and by violence, he ought not to yield readily in these three causes, but to hold them in suspense, and to make resistance once or twice; and at the second or third command to yield. 4 Touching those which are repugnant to the law of God, and nature; he ought to dismiss and acquit himself of his office, yea to endure any thing, rather than obey or consent: and he need not say that the former commands may have some doubt in them: because natural justice is more clear than the light of the Sun. 5 All this is good to be done in respect of the things themselves; But after they are once done by the sovereign, how evil soever they be, it is better to dissemble them, and bury the memory of them, than to stir and lose all (as Papinian did) frustra niti & mihi aliud, nisi odium quaerere, extremae dementiae est. In respect of private subjects, magistrates ought to remember, that the authority which they have over them, they 5 As touching private men. have but at a second hand, and hold it of the sovereign, who always remaineth absolute lord, and their authority is limited to a prefixed time. The magistrate ought to be of easy access, ready to hear and understand all complaints and suits, having his gate open to all, and himself alway at hand, considering he is not for himself, but for all, and servant of the commonwealth, Magna servitus, magna fortuna. And for this cause the law of Moses provided, that the judges and judgement seats were Deut. 16. held at the gates of the cities, to the end every man might have easy access thereto. He ought also indifferently to receive and hear all, great and little, rich and poor, being open to all; Therefore a wise man compareth him to an altar whereto a man repaireth being oppressed and afflicted, to receive succour and comfort. But he ought not to converse and be familiar with many, but with very few, and those very wise and advised, and that secretly: for it debaseth authority, it diminisheth and dissolveth the grace and reputation thereof. Cleon called to the government of the commonwealth, assembled all his friends, and there renounced and disclaimed all intimation or inward amity with them, as a thing incompatible with his charge, for Cicero saith, he depriveth himself of the person of a friend, that undertaketh that of a judge. His office is especially in two things, to uphold and defend the honour, the dignity, and the right of his sovereign, and 5 Cic. lib. 1. Officior. of the weal public which he representeth: gerere personam civitatis, eius dignitatem & decus sustinere, with authority and a mild severity. Then as a good and loyal interpreter and officer of the Prince, he ought exactly to see that his will be performed; that is to say the law, of which he is the minister, and it is his charge to see it diligently executed towards all, therefore he is called the living law, the speaking law. Although the magistrate ought wisely to temper mildness with rigour, yet it is better for a magistrate to be severe and cruel, than gentle, facile, and pitiful: and God forbiddeth to be pitiful in judgement. A severe judge holdeth subjects in obedience of the laws: a mild and pitiful makes them to contemn the laws, the magistrates, and the Prince, who made both. To be brief, to discharge well his office, there is required two things, honesty and courage. The first hath need of the second. The first preserveth the magistrate free from avarice, respect of persons, of bribes, which is the plague, and smotherer of truth. (Acceptatio munerum praevaricatio est veritatis) from the corruption of justice which Plato calleth an hallowed virgin: Also from passions, of hatred, of love, and others, all enemies to right and equity. But to carry himself well against the threatenings of great men, the importunate entreaties of his friends, the lamentations and tears of the poor distressed, which are all violent and forcible things, and yet have some colour of reason and justice, and which maketh sometimes the most resolute to relent, he had need of courage. Firm and inflexible constancy is a principal quality and virtue in a magistrate, to the end he may not fear the great and mighty, and be not moved and mollified with the misery of another, though it carry with it some show of goodness: But yet it is forbid to have pity of the poor in judgement. CHAP. XVIII. The duty of the great and small. THe duty of the great consisteth in two things, in endeavouring by all means, to spend their blood and ability for the defence and conservation of piety, justice, of the Prince, of the state, and generally for the welfare and good of the commonwealth; of which they ought to be the pillars & supporters; and after in defending and protecting the poor afflicted and oppressed, resisting the violence of the wicked: and like good blood, to run to the wounded part, according to the proverb; That good blood, that is to say, noble and generous, can not lie, that is to say, deceive where is need. By this means Moses became the head of the jewish nation, undertaking the defence of men injured and unjustly Exod. 2. troad under foot. Hercules was deified for delivering the oppressed from the hands of tyrants. Those that have done the like, have been called Heroes and demigods, and to the like, all honours have been anciently ordained, that is, to such as deserved well of the commonwealth, and were the deliverers of the oppressed. It is no greatness for a man to make himself to be feared, (except it be of his enemies) and to terrify the world, as some have done, which also have procured them hate. Oderint dum metuant. It is better to be beloved than adored. This cometh of a natural pride, and inhumanity, to contemn and disdain other men as the ordure and excrements of the world, and as if they were not men; and from thence they grow cruel, and abuse both the bodies and goods of the weak, a thing wholly contrary to true greatness and honour, who ought to undertake the defence thereof. The duty of inferiors towards their superiors, consisteth in two points, in honouring and reverencing them, not only ceremoniously and in outward show, which he must do as well to the good as the evil, but with love and affection, if they deserve it, and are lovers of the commonwealth. These are two things, to honour, and to esteem, which are due to the good and truly great: to others to bend the knee, to bow the body, not the heart, which is to esteem and love. Moreover to please them by humble and serviceable duties, and to insinuate into their favour. Principibus placuisse viris non ultima laus est. And to make himself capable of their protection, which if he cannot procure them to be his friends, yet at the least not to make them his enemies, which must be done with measure and discretion. For over-greedilie to avoid their indignation, or to seek their grace and favour, besides that it is a testimony of weakness, it is silently to condemn them of injustice and cruelty; Non ex professo cavere aut fugere: nam quem quis fugit, damnat; Or to stir up in them a desire to execute their fury, seeing so base and fearful a submission. Of Fortitude the third virtue. PREFACE. THe two former precedent virtues rule and govern man in company, or with another: these two following rule him in himself and for himself: respecting the two visages of fortune, the two heads and kinds of all accidents, Prosperity, and Adversity: for fortitude armeth a man against adversity, Temperance guideth him in prosperity: moderating the two brutish parts of our soul, fortitude ruleth the irascible, temperance the concupiscible: These two virtues may wholly be comprised and understood by this word Constancy, which is a right and equal staidness of the mind, in all accidents and outward things, whereby he is not puffed up in prosperity, nor dejected in adversity. Nec adversis frangitur, nec prosperis aestuat. CHAP. XIX. Of Fortitude or Valour in general. VAlour, (for this virtue is more properly so called than fortitude) is a right and strong resolution, an equal, and 1 The description of valour. uniform staidness of the mind against all dangerous, difficult, and dolorous accidents: in such sort, that difficulty and danger is the object and matter wherein it is exercised: to be brief, it is all that which human weakness feareth, Timendorum contemptrix, quae terribilia, & sub jugum libertatem nostram Senec. mittentia, despicit, provocat, frangit. Of all the virtues in greatest estimation and honour, this is most renowned, who for the prerogative thereof is simply 2 The praise thereof. called a virtue. That is the more difficult, the more glorious, which produceth the greatest, famous, and most excellent effects; it containeth magnanimity, patience, constancy, an invincible resolution, heroical virtues, whereupon many have sought the inconveniences that belong thereunto, with greediness to attain so honourable employment. This virtue is an impregnable bulwark, a complete armour to encounter all accidents, Munimentum imbecillitatis humanae inexpugnabile: quod qui circundedit sibi, securus in hac vitae obsidione Senec. per durat. But because many do mistake, and in place of the only true virtue conceive the false and bastardly valours, I will in declaring 3 Of imperfect or false valours. more at large the nature and definition thereof, expel those popular errors that are here intruded. We will note then in this virtue four conditions; the first is generally and indifferently against all sorts of difficulties & dangers: wherefore they are deceived that think there is no other valour than the military, which only they esteem, because it may be it is most renowned and glorious, and carrieth greatest reputation Military valour. and honour, which is the tongue and trumpet of immortality; for to say truth, there is more fame and glory therein than pain and danger. Now this is but a small part and a little ray or light of the true, entire, perfect, and universal, whereby a man is one and the same, in company, in bed with his griefs, as in the field, as little fearing death in his house, as in the army. This military valour is pure and natural in beasts, with whom it is as well in females as in males; in men it is often artificial, gotten by fear and the apprehension of captivity, of death, of grief, of poverty; of which things beasts have no fear. human valour is a wise cowardliness, a fear accompanied with foregsiht to avoid one evil by another; choler is the temper, and file thereof; beasts have it simply. In men also it is attained by use, institution, example, custom, and it is found in base and slavish minds: of a servant or slave, or a factor, or fellow trained up in merchandise, is made a good and valiant soldier, and often without any tincture or instinct of virtue and true philosophical valour. The second condition, it presupposeth knowledge as well of the difficulty, pain, and danger, which there is in the action 4 temerity or stupidity. that is presented, as of the beauty, honesty, justice, and duty required in the enterprise or support thereof. Wherefore they are deceived that make valour an inconsiderate temerity, or a senseless brutish stupidity: Non est inconsulta temeritas, nec periculorum amor, nec formidabilium appetitio, diligentissima Seneca. in tutela sui fortitudo est: & eadem patientissima eorum quibus falsa species malorum est. Virtue cannot be without knowledge and apprehension, a man cannot truly contemn the danger which he knoweth not; if a man will also acknowledge this virtue in beasts. And indeed they that ordinarily attempt without any foresight or knowledge, when they come to the point of execution the scent is their best intelligence. The third condition; this is a resolution and staidness of the mind grounded upon the duty, and the honesty, and Bodily strength. justice of the enterprise; which resolution never slacketh, whatsoever happeneth, until he have valiantly ended the enterprise, or his life. Many offend against this condition, first and more grossly they that seek this virtue in the body, and in the power and strength of the limbs. Now valour is not a quality of the body, but of the mind; a settled strength, not of the arms and legs, but of the courage. The estimation and valour of a man consisteth in his heart and will: here lieth his true honour: and the only advantage and the true victory over his enemy, is to terrify him, and to arm himself against his constancy and virtue: all other helps are strange and borrowed: strength of arms and legs is the quality of a porter: to make an enemy to stoop, to dazzle his eyes at the light of the sun, is an accident of fortune. He whose courage faileth not for any fear of death, quelleth not in his constancy and resolution: and though he fall, is not vanquished of his adversary, who perhaps may in effect be but a base fellow, but of fortune: and therefore he is to accuse his own unhappiness, and not his negligence. The most valiant are oftentimes the most unfortunate. Moreover they are deceived, which disquiet themselves, and make account of those vain Thrasonical brags of such swaggering Braggadochios, who by their loftielooks, and brave words, would win credit of those that are valiant and hardy, if a man would do them so much favour to believe them. Moreover, they that attribute valour to subtlety and craft, 6 Art and industry. or to art or industry, do much more profane it, and make it play a base and abject part. This is to disguise things, and to place a false stone for a true. The Lacedæmonians permitted no Fencers nor master-Wrestlers in their cities: to the end their youth might attain thereto by nature, and not by art. We account it a bold and hardy thing to fight with a Lion, a Bear, a wild Boar, which encounter a man only according to nature: but not with Wasps, for they use subtlety. Alexander would not contend in the Olympic games, saying, there was no equality: because a private man might overcome, and a king be vanquished. Moreover it is not fitting for a man of honour, to try and adventure his valour in a thing, wherein a base fellow instructed by rule may gain the prize. For such victory cometh not of virtue, nor of courage, but of certain artificial tricks and inventions: wherein the basest will do that, which a valiant man knoweth not, neither should he regard to do it. Fencing is a trick of art, which may be attained by base persons, and men of no account. And although infamous and ruffinlike fellows are apt to fight or do any thing in cities or towns, with the dexterity of the sword; if they see an enemy, would they not run away? Even so is it in that, which is attained By long habit and custom, as builders, tumblers, mariners, who undertake dangerous things, and more difficult than the most valiant, being trained and instructed therein from their youth. Finally, they which consider not sufficiently the motive 7 Passion. and circumstance of actions, wrongly attribute to valour and virtue, that which appertaineth and belongeth to some passion or particular intent. Eor as it is not properly virtue, nor justice to be loyal and officious towards some, which a man particularly loveth; nor temperance, to abstain from the carnal pleasure of his sister, or of his daughter; nor liberality towards his wife and children: so is it not true valour to adventure himself to any danger, for his own benefit and particular satisfaction. Wherefore if it be good for gain, as spies, pioneers, traitors, merchants on the sea, mercenary soldiers; if for ambition or reputation to be esteemed and accounted valiant; as the most part of our men of war, who say, being naturally carried thereunto, that if they thought they should lose their life, would not go; if weary of his life through pain and grief, as the soldier of Antigonus, who living in extreme torment by the means of a fistula he had, was hardy to attempt all dangers, being healed avoided them; if to prevent shame, captivity, or any other evil; if through fury and the heat of choler: to be brief, if by passion or particular consideration, as ajax, Catiline, it is neither valour nor virtue, Sicut non martyrem poena, sic nec fortem pagna sed causa fecit. The fourth condition. It ought to be in the execution 8 Indiscretion. thereof wise and discreet, whereby many false opinions are rejected in this matter, which are not to hide themselves from those evils and in conveniences that threaten them: neither to fear lest they surprise us, nor to fly, yea not to feel the first blows, as the noise of thunder or shot, or the fall of some great building. Now this is to understand amiss: for so that the mind remain firm and entire in it own place and discourse, without alteration, he may outwardly disquiet and make a stir. He may lawfully, yea it is honourable, to overthrow, to undo; and to revenge himself of evils, by all means and honest endeavours: and where there is no remedy, to carry himself with a settled resolution. Mens immota manet: lachrymae voluuntur inanes. Socrates mocked those that condemned flight: What, saith he, is it cowardliness to beat and vanquish them by giving them place? Homer commendeth in his Ulysseses the skill to fly: the Lacedæmonians professors of valour in the journey of the Plateans, retired, the better to break and dissolve the Persian troup; which otherwise they could not do, and overcame them. This hath been practised by the most warlike people. In other places the Stoics themselves allowed to wax pale; to tremble at the first sudden encounter, so that it proceed no farther into the mind and courage. And this is valour in gross. There are things which are justly to be feared and flied, as shipwrecks, lightnings, and those where there is no remedy, neither place of virtue, prudence, valour. Of fortitude or valour in particular. TO divide the matter and discourse of that which is here The proposition and division of this matter. to be said, this virtue is exercised and employed against all that which the world accounteth evil. Now this evil is twofold, external, and internal, the one proceedeth from without, it is called by divers names, adversity, affliction, injury, unhappiness, evil and sinister accidents: The other is inward in the mind, but caused by that which is outward: These are hateful and hurtful passions, of fear, sadness, choler, and divers others. We must speak of them both; prescribe means and remedies to overcome, suppress, and rule them. These are the arguments and counsels of our virtue, fortitude, and valour. It consisteth then here of two parts, the one of evils or ill accidents, the other of passions, which proceed thereof. The general advice against all good and evil fortune hath been declared before: we will speak here more specially and particularly thereof. CHAP. XX. The first part of outward evils. WE will consider these outward evils three ways, in 1 The distinction and comparison of evils by their causes. their causes, which shall be declared in this chapter; afterward in their effects; lastly in themselves distinctly, and particularly every kind of them: And we will give advice and means in them all, by virtue to be armed against them. The cause of evil and hateful accidents, which happen to us all, are either common and general, when at the same instant they concern many, as pestilence, famine, war, tyranny. And these evils are for the most part scourges sent of God, and from heaven, or at least the proper and nearest cause thereof we cannot easily know: Or particulars, and those that are known, that is to say, by the means of another. And so there are two sorts of evils; public and private. Now the common evils, that is to say, proceeding of a public cause, though they concern every one in particular, are in divers kinds, more or less grievous, weighty, and dangerous, than the private, whose causes are known. More grievous, for they come by flocks and troops, they assail more violently, with greater stir of vehemency and fury: they have a greater concourse and train: they are more tempestuous, they bring forth greater disorder and confusion. Less grievous: because generality and community seemeth to mitigate, and lessen every man's evil. It is a kind of comfort not to be alone in misery: it is thought to be rather a common unhappiness, where the course of the world, and the cause is natural, than personal affliction. And indeed those wrongs which a man doth us, torment us more, wound us to the quick, and much more alter us. Both these two have their remedies and comforts. Against public evils, a man ought to consider from whom, and by whom they are sent, and to mark their cause. 2 The advice against public evils. Providence. Destiny. It is God, his providence, from whence cometh and dependeth an absolute necessity, which governeth and ruleth all, whereunto all things are subject. His providence, and destiny, or necessity, are not, to say the truth, two distinct laws in essence, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, neither are they one. The diversity is only in the consideration and different reason. Now to murmur, and to be grieved at the contrary, is first of all such impiety, as the like is not elsewhere found: for all things do quietly obey, man only torments himself. And again it is a folly, because it is vain and to no purpose. If a man will not follow this sovereign and absolute mistress willingly, it shall carry all by force: ad hoc sacramentum adacti sumus ferre mortalia, nec perturbari ijs, quae vitare nostrae potestatis non est: in regno nati sumus, deo parere libertas est. Desine fata deûm flecti sperare querendo. There is no better remedy, than to apply our wills to the will thereof; and according to the advice of wisdom to make a virtue of necessity. Non est aliud effugium necessitatis, quàm velle quod ipsa cogat. In seeking to contend or dispute against it, we do but sharpen and stir the evil. Laeto animo ferre quicquid acciderit quasi tibi volveris accidere: debuisses enim velle, si scisses ex decreto Dei fieri. Besides we shall better profit ourselves, we shall do that which we ought to do, which is to follow our general and sovereign, who hath so ordained it. Optimum pati, quod emendare non possis; & deum, quo authore cuncta proveniunt, sine murmuratione comitari. Malus miles est qui imperatorem gemens sequitur. And without contestation to allow for good whatsoever he will. It is magnanimity of courage to yield unto him. Magnus' animus qui se Deo tradidit. It is effeminacy and dastardliness to murmur or complain, pusillus & degener, qui obluctatur, de ordine mundi male existimat, & emendare mawlt Deum quàm se. Against those private evils, which do proceed from the act of another, and which pierce us more, we ought first well to 3 The distinction. Of private evils. distinguish them, lest we mistake them. There is displeasure, there is offence. We often conceive ill of another, who notwithstanding hath not offended us neither in deed nor will, as when he hath either demanded, or refused any thing with reason, but yet was then hurtful unto us: for such causes it is too great simplicity to be offended, since that they are not offences. Now there are two sorts of offences, the one crosseth our affairs against equity; this is to wrong us: the others are applied to the person, who is contemned by it, and handled otherwise than it ought, be it in deed or in word. These are more grievous and harder to be endured, than any other kind of affliction. The first and general advice against all these sorts of evils, is to be firm and resolute, not to suffer himself to be lead by 4 The advice against them in general. common opinion, but without passion to consider of what weight and importance things are, according to verity and reason. The world suffereth itself to be persuaded and lead by impression. How many are there that make less account to receive a great wound, than a little blow? more account of a word, than of death? To be brief, all is measured by opinion: and opinion offendeth more than the evil; and our impatience hurts us more, than those of whom we complain. The other more particular counsels and remedies are drawn first from ourselves, (and this is that we must first 5 Particular advisements drawn from ourselves. look into.) These pretended offences may arise of our own defects and weakness. This might be a follic grounded upon some defect, in our own person, which any one in derision would counterfeit. It is folly to grieve and vex himself for that which proceedeth not from his own fault. The way to prevent others in their scoffs, is first to speak, and to let them know, that you know as much as they can tell you; if it be that the injury hath taken his beginning by our default, and that we have given the occasion of this abuse, why should we be offended therewith? for it is not an offence, but a correction, which he ought to receive, and make use of as a punishment. 3. But for the most part it proceedeth of our own proper weakness, which makes us melancholy. Now he ought to quit himself of all those tender delicacies, which makes him live unquietly, but with a manly courage, strong and stoutly to contemn, and tread under foot the indiscretions and follies of another. It is no sign that a man is sound, if he complain when one toucheth him. Never shalt thou be at rest if thou frame thyself to all that is presented. They are also drawn from the person that offendeth. We 6 Of those who offend. represent in general the manners and humours of those persons with whom we are to live in the world. The most part of men take no delight but to do evil, and measure their power by the disdain, and the injury of another. So few there are which take pleasure to do well. He ought then to make account, that whether soever we turn us, we shall find those that will harm, and offend us. Wheresoever we shall find men, we shall find injuries. This is so certain and necessary, that the lawyers themselves, who rule the traffic and affairs of this world, have winked at, and permitted in distributive and commutative justice many escapes in law. They have permitted deceit and hindrances even to the one half of the just price. This necessity to hurt and offend, cometh first of the contrariety, and incompatibility of humours and wills, whereof it cometh that a man is offended without will to offend. Then from the concurrence and opposition of affairs, which inferreth that the pleasure, profit, and good of one, is the displeasure, damage, and ill of others; and it cannot be otherwise, following this common & general picture of the world, if he who offendeth thee is insolent, a fool, and rash (as he is, for an honest man never wrongeth any) wherefore complainest thou, since he is no more his own man, than as a mad man? You can well endure a furious man without complaint, yea, you will pity him; an innocent, an infant, a woman, ye will laugh at them: a fool, a drunken man, a choleric, an indiscreet man in like sort. Wherefore when these people assail us with words, we ought not to answer them: we must hold our peace, and quit ourselves of them. It is an excellent & worthy revenge, and grievous to a fool, not to make any account of him, for it is to take away that pleasure which he thinketh to have in vexing us, since our silence condemns his simplicity, and his own temerity, is smothered in his own mouth: if a man answer him, he makes him his equal, and by esteeming him too much, he wrongs himself. Malè loquuntur, quia bene loqui nesciunt, faciunt quod solent & sciunt, malè quia mali, & secundum se. Behold then for conclusion the advice and counsel of wisdom: we must have respect unto ourselves, and unto him 7 The conclusion of these counsels & with the rule of wisdom. that offendeth us. As touching ourselves, we must take heed we do nothing un worthy and unbefitting ourselves, that may give another advantage against us. An unwise man that distrusteth himself, grows into passion without cause, and thereby gives encouragement to another to contradict him. This is a weakness of the mind, not to know to contemn offence: an honest man is not subject to injury: he is inviolable: an inviolable thing is not only this, that a man can not beat, but being beaten, neither receiveth wound nor hurt: This resolution is a more strong bulwark against all accidents; that we can receive no evil, but of ourselves. If our judgement be as it ought, we are invulnerable. And therefore we always say with wise Socrates, Anitus and Melitus may well put me to death, but they shall never enforce me to do that I ought not. Moreoven, an honest man, as he never giveth occasion of injury to any man, so he cannot endure to receive an injury. Laedere enim laedique coniunctum est. This is a wall of brass, which a man is not able to pierce; scoffs, and injuries trouble him not. Touching him that hath offended us, if you hold him vain and unwise, handle him accordingly, and so leave him: if he be otherwise, excuse him; Imagine that he hath had occasion, and that it is not for malice, but by misconceit and negligence; he is vexation enough to himself, and he wisheth he had never done it. Moreover, I say, that like good husbands we must make profit and commodity of the injuries that are offered us. Which we may do at the least two ways, which respect the offendor & the offended. The one, that they give us occasion to know those that wrong us, to the end we may the better fly them at another time. Such a man hath slandered thee, conclude presently that he is malicious: and trust him no more: The other, that they discover unto us our infirmity, and the means whereby we are easily beaten, to the end we should amend and repair our defects; lest another take occasion to say as much or more. What better revenge can a man take of his enemies, than to make profit of their injuries, and thereby better and more securely to manage our affairs? CHAP. XXI. Of outward evils considered in their effects and fruits. AFter the causes of evils we come to the effects and fruits 1 General effects very profitable. thereof, where are also found true preservatives and remedies. The effects are many, are great, are general and particular. The general respect the good, maintenance and culture of the universe. First of all, the world would be extinguished, would perish, and be lost, if it were not changed, troubled, and renewed by these great accidents of pestilence, famine, war, mortality, which season, perfect and purify it, to the end to sweeten the rest, and give more liberty and ease to the whole. Without these a man could neither turn himself nor be settled. Moreover besides the variety and interchangeable course, which they bring both to the beauty and ornament of this universe, also allparts of the world are benefited thereby. The rude and barbarous are hereby polished and refined, arts and sciences are dispersed and imparted unto all. This is as a great nursery, wherein certain trees are transplanted from other stocks, others pruned and pulled up by the roots, all for the good and beauty of the orchard. These good and general considerations ought to remain and resolve every honest and reasonable mind, and to hinder the curious inquiry of men into those great and turbulent accidents so strange and wonderful, since they are the works of God and nature, and that they do so notable a service in the general course of the world. For we must think, that that which is a loss in one respect, is a gain in another. And to speak more plainly, nothing is lost, but such is the course of the world, so it changeth and so it is accommodated. Vir sapiens nihil indignetur sibi accidere, sciat que illa ipsa quibus laedi videtur, ad conseruationem universi pertinere, & ex his esse, quae cursum mundi officiumque consummant. 2 Particular effects divers. The particular effects are divers, according to the divers spirits & states of those that receive them: For they exercise the good, relieve and amend the fallen, punish the wicked. Of every one a word, for hereof we have spoken elsewhere. 1. Lib. of the three verities, cap 11. These outward evils are in those that are good, a very profitable exercise, and an excellent school wherein (as Wrestlers and Fencers, Mariners in a tempest, Soldiers in dangers, Philosophers in their Academies, and all other sorts of people in the serious exercise of their profession) they are instructed, made and form unto virtue, constancy, valour, the victory of the world and of fortune. They learn to know themselves, to make trial of themselves, and they see the measure of their valour, the uttermost of their strength; how far they may promise or hope of themselves; and then they encourage and strengthen themselves to what is best, accustom and harden themselves to all, become resolute and invincible; whereas contrarily, the long calm of prosperity mollifieth them, and maketh them wanton and effeminate. And therefore Demetrius was wont to say, That there were no people more miserable, than they that had never felt any crosses or afflictions, that had never been miserable, calling their life a dead sea. These outward evils to such as are offenders, are a bridle to stay them, that they stumble not, or a gentle correction 3 Medicine and chastisement. and fatherly rod after the fall to put them in remembrance of themselves, to the end they make not a second revolt. They are a kind of letting blood, and medicine or preservative to divert faults and offences; or a purgation to void and purify them. To the wicked and forlorn they are a punishment, a sickle 4 Punishment. to cut them off, and to take them away, or to afflict them with a long and miserable languishment. And these are their wholesome and necessary effects, for which these outward evils are not only to be esteemed of, and quietly taken with patience and in good part, as the exploits of divine justice, but are to be embraced as tokens and instruments of the care, of the love and providence of God, and men are to make a profitable use of them, following the purpose and intention of him, who sendeth and disposeth them as pleaseth him. Of outward evils in themselves and particularly. AN ADVERTISEMENT. ALl these evils, which are many and divers, are privations of their contrary good, as likewise the name and nature of evil doth signify. And therefore as many heads as there are of good, so many are there of evils, which may all be reduced and comprehended in the number of seven, sickness, grief, (I include these two in one) captivity, banishment, want, infamy, loss of friends, death; which are the privations of health, liberty, home-dwelling, means or maintenance, honours, friends, life, whereof hath been spoken before In the first book. at large. We will here inquire into the proper and particular remedies and medicines against these seven heads of evils, and that briefly without discourse. CHAP. XXII. Of Sickness and grief. WE have said before that grief is the greatest, and, to say the truth, the only essential evil, which is most felt, and hath least remedies. Nevertheless, behold some few that regard the reason, justice, utility, imitation and resemblance with the greatest and most excellent. It is a common necessity to endure; there is no reason that for our sakes a miracle should be wrought; or that a man should be offended if that happen unto him, that may happen unto every man. It is also a natural thing; we are borne thereunto, and to desire to be exempted from it is injustice, we must quietly endure the laws of our own condition. We are made to be old, to be weak, to grieve, to be sick, and therefore we must learn to suffer that which we cannot avoid. If it be long, it is light and moderate, and therefore a shame to complain of it; if it be violent it is short, and speedily ends either itself or the patiented, which comes all to one end. Confide, summus non habet tempus dolour. Si gravis, brevis; Si longus, levis. And again, it is the body that endureth: it is not ourselves that are offended, for the offence diminisheth the excellency and perfection of the thing, and sickness or grief is so far from diminishing, that contrarily it serveth for a subject and an occasion of a commendable patience, much more than health doth: And where there is more occasion of commendation, there is not less occasion of good. If the body be the instrument of the spirit, who will complain when the instrument is employed in the service of that whereunto it is destinated? The body is made to serve the soul: if the soul should afflict itself for any thing that happeneth to the body, the soul should serve the body. Were not that man over delicate & curious, that would cry out and afflict himself, because some one or other had spoiled his apparel, some thorn had taken hold of it, or some man passing by had torn it? Some base broker perhaps would be aggrieved therewith, that would willingly make a commodity thereof: But a man of ability and reputation would rather laugh at it, and account it as nothing in respect of that state and abundance that God hath bestowed on him. Now this body is but a borrowed garment, to make our spirits for a time to appear upon this low and troublesome stage, of which only we should make account, and procure the honour and peace thereof. For from whence cometh it that a man suffereth grief with such impatiency? It is because he accustometh not himself to seek his content in his soul; non assuerunt animo esse contenti, nimium illis cum corpore fuit. Men have too great a commerce with their bodies; And it seemeth that grief groweth proud, seeing us to tremble under the power thereof. It teacheth us to distaste that which we must needs leave, and to unwind ourselves from the vanity and deceit of this world, an excellent piece of service. The joy and pleasure we receive by the recovery of our health, after that our grief or sickness hath taken his course, is a strange enlightening unto us, in such sort that it should seem that nature hath given sickness for the greater honour and service of our pleasure and delight. Now than if the grief be indifferent, the patience shall be easy: if it be great, the glory shall be as great: if it seem over-hard, let us accuse our delicacy and niceness; and if there be but few that can endure it, let us be of the number of those few. Let us not accuse nature for having made us too weak, for that is nothing, but we are rather too delicate. If we fly it, it will follow us; if we cowardly yield unto it, and suffer ourselves to be vanquished, it will handle us the more roughly, and the reproach will light upon ourselves. It would make us afeard, and therefore it standeth us upon to take heart, and that when it cometh it find us more resolute than was imagined. Our yielding makes that more eager and more fierce, stare fidenter, non quia difficilia non audemus: sed quia non audemus, difficilia sunt. But lest these remedies should seem but fair words and mere imaginations, and the practice of them altogether impossible, we have examples both frequent and rich not only of men, but of women and children, who have not only a long Examples. time endured long and grievous sicknesses with such constancy, that their grief hath rather given them life than courage; but have attended and borne even with joy, yea, have sought after the greatest and most exquisite torments. In Lacedaemon little children whipped one another, yea sometimes to the death, without any show in their countenance of any grief or smart that they felt, only to accustom themselves to suffer for their country. Alexander's page suffered himself to be burnt with a coal without cry or countenance of discontent, because he would not interrupt the sacrifice: and a lad of Lacedaemon suffered a fox to gnaw his guts out of his belly before he would discover his theft. Pompay being surprised by king Gentius, who would have constrained him to reveal the public affairs of Rome, to make known that no torment should make him to do it, did voluntarily put his finger into the fire, and suffered it to burn, until Gentius himself took it out. The like before that had Mutius done before another king, Porsenna; and that good old Regulus of Carthage endured more than all these: and yet more than Regulus, Anaxarchus, who being half pounded in a mortar by the tyrant Nicocreon, would never confess that his mind was touched with any torment; Beat and pound the sack of Anaxarchus till you be glutted, as for himself you shall never touch him. CHAP. XXIII. Of Captivity and imprisonment. THis affliction is no more than nothing, and in respect of sickness and grief it is an easy matter to vanquish it. For sick folk are not without captivity in their beds, in their houses, for the time they lie in, yea, they engross as it were affliction above captivity; nevertheless, a word or two thereof. There is nothing but the body, the cover, the prison of the soul that is captive, the soul itself remaineth always free, and at libetie in despite of all; and therefore how should that man know or perceive that he is in prison, who as freely, yea and more freely too, may walk and wander whither he will, than he that is abroad? The walls and dungeons of the prison are not strong enough to shut him up, the body that toucheth him and is joined unto him, cannot hold nor stay him. He that knoweth how to maintain himself in his liberty, and to use and hold his own right, which is not to be shut up, no not in this world, will but laugh at these flight and childish embarments. Christianus etiam extra carcerem saeculo renuntiavit: in carcere etiam carceri: nihil interest ubi sit is in saeculo Tertul. qui extra saeculum estis; auferamus carceris nomen, secessum vocemus, & si corpus includitur, caro detinetur, omnia spiritui patent, totum hominem animus circumfert, & quò vult transfert. The prison hath gently received into the lap thereof many great and holy personages; it hath been the sanctuary, the haven of health, and a fortress to divers that had been utterly undone if they had had their liberty, yea, that have had recourse thereunto to be in liberty, have made choice thereof, and espoused themselves unto it, to the end they might live at rest, and free themselves from the cares of the world, è carcere in custodiarium translati. That which is shut up under lock and key is in safest custody: and it is better to be under the safeguard of a key, than to be bound and enthralled with those fetters and stocks, whereof the world is full, that public places and courts of great princes, and the tumultuous affairs of this world bring with them, as jealousies, envies, violent humours, and the like. Si recogitemus ipsum Tertul. magis mundum carcerem esse, exisse nos è carcere quàm in carcerem introisse intelligemus, maiores tenebr as habet mundus quae hominum praecordia excaecant, graviores catenas induit, quae ipsas animas constringunt, peiores immunditias expirat, libidines hominum, plures postremò reos continet universum genus hominum. Many have escaped the hands of their enemies, and other great dangers and miseries by the benefit of imprisonment. Some have there written books, and have there bettered their knowledge. Plus in carcere spiritus acquirit quàm caro amittit. divers there are whom the prison having kept and preserved for a time, hath resent unto their former sovereign dignities, and mounted them to the highest places in the world; others it hath yielded up unto heaven, and hath not at any time received any that it restoreth not. CHAP. XXIIII. Of Banishment & exile. FXile is a change of place that brings no ill with it, but in opinion; it is a complaint and affliction wholly imaginary: for according to reason there is not any ill in it: In all places all is after one fashion, which is comprehended in two words, Nature, & Virtue. Duo quae pulcherrima sunt, quocunque nos moverimus, sequentur, natura communis & propria virtus. In all places we find the selfsame common nature, the same heavens, the same elements. In all places the heavens 2 Nature. and the stars appear unto us in the same greatness, extent, and that is it which principally we are to consider, and not that which is under us, and which we trample under feet. Again, at a kenning we cannot see of the earth above ten or twelve leagues: Angustus animus quem terrena delectant. But the face of the great azured firmament, decked and counterpointed with so many beautiful and shining diamonds, doth always show itself unto us; and to the end we may wholly behold it, it continually whirleth about us. It showeth itself all unto all, and in all respects in a day and a night. The earth which with the sea and all that it containeth, is not the hundredth and sixty part of the greatness of the sun, showeth not itself unto us but in that small proportion that is about the place where we dwell: yea and that change of that earthly floor that is under us is nothing. What matter is it to be borne in one place and to live in another? Our mother might have lay en in elsewhere, and it is a chance that we are borne here or there. Again, all Countries bring forth and nourish men, and furnish them with whatsoever is necessary. All countries have kindred; nature hath knit us all together in blood and in charity. All have friends; there is no more to to but to make friends, and to win them by virtue and wisdom. Every land is a wise man's country, or rather no land is his particular country. For it were to wrong himself, and it were weakness and baseness of heart, to think to carry himself as a stranger in any place. He must always use his own right and liberty, and live in all places as with himself, and upon his own, omnes terras tanquam suas videre, & suas tanquam omnium. Moreover what change or discommodity doth the diversity of the place bring with it? Do we not always carry about 3 Virtue. us one and the same spirit and virtue? Who can forbid, saith Brutus, a banished man to carry with him his virtues? The spirit and virtue of a man is not shut up in any place, but it is every where equally and indifferently. An honest man is a citizen of the world, free, cheerful, and content in all places, always within himself, in his own quarter, and ever one and the same, though his case or scabbard be removed and carried hither and thither: animus sacer & aternus ubique est, dijs cognatus, omni mundo & avo par. A man in every place is in his own country where he is well. Now for a man to be well, it dependeth not upon the place, but himself. How many are there, that for divers considerations have willingly banished themselves? How many others banished 4 Examples. by the violence of another, being afterwards called home, have refused to return, and have found their exile not only tolerable, but pleasant and delightful, yea, never thought they lived until the time of their banishment, as those noble Romans Rutilius, Marcellus? How many others have been led by the hand of good fortune out of their country, that they may grow great and puissant in a strange land? CHAP. XXV. Of Poverty, want, loss of goods. THis complaint is of the vulgar and miserable sottish sort 1 Poverty twofold. of people, who place their sovereign good in the goods of fortune, and think that poverty is a very great evil. But to show what it is, you must know that there is a twofold poverty, the one extreme, which is the want of things necessary, 1. Want of things necessary. and requisite unto nature; This doth seldom or never happen to any man, nature being so just, and having form us in such a fashion, that few things are necessary, and those few are not wanting, but are found every where, parabile est quod natura defiderat, & expositum, yea in such a sufficiency as being moderately used, may suffice the condition of every one. Ad manum est, quod sat est. If we will live according to nature and reason, the desire and rule thereof, we shall always find that which is sufficient. If we will live according to opinion, whilst we live we shall never find it. Si ad naturam vives nunquam eris pauper, si ad opinionem nunquam dives: exiguum natura desiderat, opinio immensum. And therefore a man that hath an art or science to stick unto, yea, that hath but his arms at will, is it possible he should either fear or complain of poverty? The other is the want of things, that are more than sufficient, 2 2. Want of things superfluous. required for pomp, pleasure and delicacy. This is a kind of mediocrity and frugallitie: and to say the truth, it is that which we fear, to lose our riches, our movables, not to have our bed soft enough, our diet well dressed, to be deprived of these commodities, and in a word, it is delicateness that holdeth us, this is our true malady. Now this complaint is unjust; for such poverty is rather to be desired than feared: and therefore the wise man asked it of God, mendicitatem nec divitias, prover. 30. sed necessaria. It is far more just, more rich, more peaceable and certain, than abundance which a man so much desireth. More just; for man came naked, nemo nascitur dives; The praise of sufficiency. and he returneth naked out of this world. Can a man term that truly his, that he neither bringeth nor carrieth with him? The goods of this world, they are as the movables of an Inn. We are not to be discontented so long as we are here, that we have need of them. More rich; It is a large signory, a kingdom, magnae divitiae lege naturae composita paupertas: magnus 1. Timot. 6. quaestus pietas cum sufficientia. More peaceable and assured; it feareth nothing, and can defend itself against the enemies thereof, etiam in obsessa via paupertas pax est. A small body that may cover and gather itself under a buckler, is in better safety than a great, which lieth open unto every blow. It is never subject to great losses, nor charges of great labour and burden. And therefore they that are in such an estate, are always more cheerful and comfortable, for they neither have so much care, nor fear such tempests. Such kind of poverty is free, cheerful, assured, it maketh us truly masters of our own lives; whereof the affairs, complaints, contentions that do necessarily accompany riches, carry away the better part. Alas what goods are those, from whence proceed all our evils? That are the cause of all those injuries that we endure, that makes us slaves, trouble the quiet of our souls, bring with them so many jealousies, suspicions, fears, frights, desires? He that vexeth himself for the loss of these goods is a miserable man, for together with his goods he loseth his spirit too. The life of poor men is like unto those that sail near the shore; that of the rich like to those that cast themselves into the main Ocean. These cannot attain to land, though they desire nothing more, but they must attend the wind and the tide; the other come aboard, pass and repass as often as they will. Finally, we must endeavour to imitate those great and generous personages, that have made themselves merry with such kind of losses, yea have made advantage of them, and thanked God for them, as Zenon, after his shipwreck, Fabricius, Seranus, Curius. It should seem that poverty is some excellent and divine thing, since it agreeth with the gods who are imagined to be naked, since the wisest have embraced it, or at least have endured it with great contentment. And to conclude in a word, with such as are not over passionate it is commendable, with others insupportable. CHAP. XXVI. Of Infamy. THis affliction is of divers kinds. If it be loss of honours and dignities, it is rather a gain than a loss: Dignities are but honourable servitudes, whereby a man by giving himself to the weal-public, is deprived of himself. honours are but the torches of envy, jealousy, and in the end exile & poverty. If a man shall call to mind the history of all antiquity, he shall find that all they that have lived, and have carried themselves worthily and virtuously, have ended their course, either by exile, or poison, or some other violent death: witness among the Greeks', Aristides, Themistocles, Photion, Socrates; amongst the Romans, Camillus, Scipio, Cicero, Papinian; among the Hebrues the Prophets: In such sort that it should seem to be the livery of the more honest men, for it is the ordinary recompense of a public state to such kind of people. And therefore a man of a gallant and generous spirit should contemn it, and make small account thereof, for he dishonoureth himself, and shows how little he hath profited in the study of wisdom that regardeth in any respect the censures, reports, and speeches of the people, be they good or evil. CHAP. XXVII. Of the loss of Friends. I Hear comprehend parents, children, and whatsoever is near and dear unto a man. First we must know upon what this pretended complaint or affliction is grounded, whether upon the interest or good of our friends or our own. Upon that of our friends? I doubt we shall say yea to that; but yet we must not be too credulous to believe it. It is an ambitious feigning of piety, whereby we make a show of sorrow and grief for the hurt of another, or the hindrance of the weal-public: but if we shall withdraw the vail of dissimulation, and sound it to the quick, we shall find that it is our own particular good that is hid therein, that toucheth us nearest. We complain that our own candle burneth, and is consumed, or at least is in some danger. This is rather a kind of envy, than true piety: for that which we so much complain of touching the loss of our friends, their absence, their distance from us, is their true and great good: moerere hoc eventum invidi magis quàm amici est. The true use of death is to make an end of our miseries. If God had made our life more miserable, he had made it longer. And therefore to say the truth, it is upon our own good that this complaint and affliction is grounded: now that becometh us not; it is a kind of injury to be grieved with the rest and quiet of those that love us, because we ourselves are hurt thereby. Suis incommodis angi non amicum, sed seipsum amantis est. Again, there is a good remedy for this, which fortune can not take from us, and that is, that surviving our friends, we have means to make new friends. Friendship as it is one of the greatest blessings of our life, so it is most easily gotten. God makes men, and men make friends: He that wanteth not virtue, shall never want friends: It is the instrument wherewith they are made, and wherewith when he hath lost his old, he makes new. If fortune have taken away our friends, let us endeavour to make new; by this means we shall not lose them, but multiply them. Of death. WE have spoken hereof so much at large and in all respects in the eleventh and last chapter of the second book, that there remaineth not any thing else to be spoken, and therefore to that place I refer the Reader. The second part of inward evils, tedious and troublesome passions. THE PREFACE. FRom all these above named evils, there spring and arise in us divers passions and cruel affections: for these being taken and considered simply as they are, they breed fear, which apprehendeth evils as yet to come, sorrow for present evils, and if they be in another, pity and compassion. Being considered as coming and procured by the act of another, they stir up in us the passions of choler, hatred, envy, jealousy, despite, revenge, and all those that procure displeasure, or make us to look upon another with an envious eye. Now this virtue of fortitude and valour consisteth in the government and receipt of these evils according to reason, in the resolute and courageous carriage of a man, and the keeping of himself free and clear from all passions that spring thereof. But because they subsist not, but by these evils, if by the means and help of so many advisements and remedies before delivered, a man can vanquish and contemn them all, there can be no more place left unto these passions. And this is the true mean to free himself, and to come to the end, as the best way to put out a fire is to withdraw the fuel that gives it nourishment. Nevertheless we will yet add some particular counsels against these passions, though they have been in such sort before deciphered, that it is a matter of no difficulty to bring them into hatred and detestation. CHAP. XXVIII. Against Fear. LEt no man attend evils before they come, because it may be they will never come: our fears are as likely to deceive us as our hopes; and it may be that those times that we think will bring most affliction with them, may bring greatest comfort. How many unexpected adventures may happen that may defend a man from that blow we fear? Lightning is put by with the wind of a man's hat, and the fortunes of the greatest states with accidents of small moment. The turn of a wheel mounteth him that was of lowest degree, to the highest step of honour; and many times it falleth out that we are preserved by that, which we thought would have been our overthrow. There is nothing so easily deceived as human foresight. That which it hopeth, it wanteth; that which it feareth, vanisheth; that which it expecteth happeneth not. God hath his counsel by himself; That which man determineth after one manner, he resolveth after another. Let us not therefore make ourselves unfortunate before our time, nay when perhaps we are never likely to be so. Time to come which deceiveth so many, will likewise deceive us as soon in our fears, as in our hopes. It is a maxim commonly received in Physic, that in sharp maladies the predictions are never certain: and even so is it in the most furious threatenings of fortune; so long as there is life, there is hope, for hope continues as long in the body as the soul, quamdiu spiro, spero. But forasmuch as this fear proceedeth not always from the disposition of nature, but many times from an over delicate education (for by the want of exercise and continual travel and labour, even from our youth we many times apprehend things without reason) we must by a long practice accustom ourselves unto that, which may most terrify us, present unto ourselves the most fearful dangers that may light upon us, and with cheerfulness of heart attempt sometimes casual adventures, the better to try our courage, to prevent evil occurrents, and to seize upon the arms of fortune. It is a matter of less difficulty to resist fortune by assailing it, than by defending ourselves against it. For than we have leisure to arm ourselves, we take our advantages, we provide for a retreat; whereas when it assaulteth us, it surpriseth us unawares, and handleth us at her own pleasure. We must then whilst we assail fortune learn to defend ourselves, give unto ourselves false alarms, by proposing unto us the dangers that other great personages have past, call to mind that some have avoided the greatest, because they were not astonished at them, others have been overthrown by the least, for want of resolution. CHAP. XXIX. Against Sorrow. THe remedies against sorrow (set down before as the most tedious, hurtful, and unjust passion) are twofold: some are direct or straight, others obliqne. I call those direct which Philosophy teacheth, which concern the confronting and disdaining of evils, accounting them not evils, or at least wise very small and light (though they be great and grievous) and that they are not worthy the least motion or alteration of our minds; and that to be sorry for them, or to complain of them, is a thing very unjust and ill befitting a man, so teach the Stoics, Peripatetics, and Plantonists. This manner of preserving a man from sorrow and melancholic passion, is as rare, as it is excellent, and belongs to spirits of the first rank. There is likewise another kind of Philosophical remedy, although it be not of so good a stamp, which is easy and much more in use, and it is obliqne, this is by diverting a man's mind and thought to things pleasant & delightful, or at least indifferent from that that procureth our sorrow: which is to deal cunningly, to decline and avoid an evil, to change the object. It is a remedy very common, and which is used almost in all evils, if a man mark it, as well of the body as of the mind. physicians when they cannot purge a rheum, they turn it into some other part less dangerous. Such as pass by steep and precipitate deeps and downfals, that have need of lancings, searingirons, or fire, shut their eyes, and turn their faces another way. Valiant men in war do never taste nor consider of death, their minds being carried away by the desire of victory: In so much that divers have suffered death gladly, yea have procured it, and been their own executioners, either for the future glory of their name, as many Greeks' and Romans; or for the hope of another life, as Martyrs, the disciples of Hegesias, and others after the reading of Plato his book to Antiochus, de morte contemnenda; or to avoid the miseries of this life, and for other reasons. All these are they not diversions? Few there are that consider evils in themselves, that relish them as Socrates did his death; and Flavius condemned by Nero to die by the hands of Niger. And therefore in sinister accidents & misadventures, and in all outward evils, we must divert our thoughts, and turn them another way. The vulgar sort can give this advice; Think not of it. Such as have the charge of those that are any way afflicted, should for their comfort furnish affrighted spirits with other objects. Abducendus est animus ad alia studia, solicitudines, curas, negotia; loci denique mutatione saepe curandus est. CHAP. XXX. Against mercy and compassion. THere is a twofold mercy, the one good and virtuous, which is in God and in his saints, which is in will and in effect to secure the afflicted, not afflicting themselves, or diminishing any thing that concerneth honour or equity; the other is a kind of feminine passionate pity, which proceedeth from too great a tenderness and weakness of the mind, whereof hath been spoken before in the abovenamed passion. Again, this wisdom teacheth us to secure the afflicted, but not to yield and to suffer with him. So is God said to be merciful; as the Physician to his patient; the advocate to his client affordeth all diligence and industry, but yet taketh not their evils and affairs to the heart; so doth a wise man, not entertaining any grief, or darkening his spirit with the smoke thereof. God commandeth us to aid, and to have a care of the poor, to defend their cause; and in another place he forbids us to pity the poor in judgement. CHAP. XXXI. Against Choler. THe remedies are many and divers wherewith the mind must before hand be armed and defended, like those that fear to be besieged; for afterwards it is too late. They may be reduced to three heads; The first is to cut off the way, and to stop all the passages unto choler. It is an easier matter to 1 The first head. withstand it, and to stay the passage thereof in the beginning, than when it hath seized upon a man to carry himself well and orderly. He must therefore quit himself from all the causes and occasions of choler, which heretofore have been produced in the description thereof, that is to say, 1. weakness and tenderness; 2. malady of the mind in hardening itself against whatsoever may happen; 3. too great delicateness; the love of certain things do accustom a man to facility and simplicity, the mother of peace and quietness. Adomnia compositi simus: quae bona & paratiora sint nobis meliora & graviora; it is the general doctrine of the wise. King Cotys having received for a present many beautiful and rich vessels, yet frail and easy to be broken, broke them all, to the end he might not be stirred to choler and fury when they should happen to be broken. This was a distrust in himself, and a base kind of fear that provoked him thereunto. 4. Curiosity according to the example of Caesar, who being a conqueror, and having recovered the letters, writings, and memorial of his enemies, burned them all before he saw them; 5. Lightness of belief; 6. and above all, an opinion of being contemned, and wronged by another, which he must chase from him as unworthy a man of spirit: for though it seem to be a glorious thing, and to proceed from too high an esteem of himself (which nevertheless is a great vice) yet it cometh of baseness and imbecility. For he that thinketh himself to be contemned by another, is in some sense his inferior, judgeth himself, or fears that in truth he is so, or is so reputed, and distrusteth himself. Nemo non eo à quo se contemptum judicat minor est. A man must therefore think that it proceedeth rather from any thing than contempt, that is, sottishness, indiscretion, want of good manners. If this supposed contempt proceed from his friends, it is too great familiarity. If from his subjects or servants, knowing that their master hath power to chasten them, it is not to be believed that they had any such thought. If from base and inferior people, our honour or dignity, or indignity, is not in the power of such people: indignus Caesaris ira. Agathocles & Antigonus laughed at those that wronged them, and hurt them not having them in their power. Caesar excelled all in this point; and Moses, David, and all the greatest personages of the world have done the like; magnam fortunam magnus animus decet: The most glorious conquest is for a man to conquer himself, not to be moved by another. To be stirred to choler is to confess the accusation; Conuitia si irascare agnita videntur, spreta exolescunt. He can never be great, that yieldeth himself to the offence of another: If we vanquish not our choler, that will vanquish us. Iniurias & offensiones supernè despicere. The second head is of those remedies that a man must employ 2 2. Head. when the occasions of choler are offered, and that there is a likelihood that we may be moved thereunto, which are, first, to keep and contain our bodies in peace and quietness, without motion or agitation; which inflameth the blood and the humours, and to keep himself silent and solitary. secondly, delay in believing and resolving, and giving leisure to the judgement to consider. If we can once discover it, we shall easily stay the course of this fever. A wise man counseled Augustus being in choler, not to be moved before he had pronounced the letters of the Alphabet. Whatsoever we say or do in the heat of our blood, aught to be suspected. Nil tibiliceat dum irasceris. Quàre? Quia vis omnia licere. We must fear and be doubtful of ourselves, for so long as we are moved, we can do nothing to purpose. Reason when it is hindered by passions, serveth us no more than the wings of a bird being fastened to his feet. We must therefore have recourse unto our friends, and suffer our choler to die in the midst of our discourse. And lastly, diversion to all pleasant occasions, as music etc. The third head consisteth in those beautiful considerations wherewith the mind must long before be seasoned. First, 3 3. Head. in the consideration of the actions and motions of those that are in choler, which should breed in us a hatred thereof, so ill do they become a man. This was the manner of the wise, the better to dissuade a man from this vice, to counsel him to behold himself in a glass. Secondly and contrarily, of the beauty which is in moderation; Let us consider how much grace there is in a sweet kind of mildness and clemency, how pleasing and acceptable they are unto others, and commodious to ourselves: It is the adamant that draweth unto us the hearts & wills of men. This is principally required in those whom fortune hath placed in high degree of honour, who ought to have their motions more remiss and temperate, for as their actions are of greatest importance, so their faults are more hardly repaired. Finally, in the consideration of that esteem and love which we should bear to that wisdom which we here study, which especially showeth itself in retaining and commanding itself, in remaining constant and invincible; a man must mount his mind from the earth, and frame it to a disposition, like to the highest region of the air, which is never overshadowed with clouds, nor troubled with thunders, but in a perpetual serenity; so our mind must not be darkened with sorrow, nor moved with choler, but fly all precipitation, imitate the highest planets that of all others are carried most slowly. Now all this is to be understood of inward choler and covered, which endureth being joined with an ill affection, hatred, desire of revenge, quae in sinu stulti requiescit, ut qui reponunt odia; quodque saevae cogitationis indicium est, secreto suo satiantur. For the outward and open choler is short, a fire made of straw, without ill affection, which is only to make another to see his fault, whether in inferiors by reprehensions, or in others by showing the wrong and indiscretion they commit, it is a thing profitable, necessary, and very commendable. It is good and profitable both for himself and for another sometimes to be moved to anger, but it 4 To be angry when it is good and commodious. must be with moderation and rule. There are some that smother their choler within, to the end it break not forth, and that they may seem wise and moderate; but they fret themselves inwardly, and offer For himself. themselves a greater violence than the matter is worth. It is better to chide a little, and to vent the fire, to the end it be not over ardent and painful within. A man incorporateth choler by hiding it. It is better that the point thereof should prick a little without, than that it should be turned against itself: Omnia vitia in aperto leviora sunt, & tunc perniciosissima cum simulata sanitate subsidunt. Moreover, against those that understand not, or seldom suffer themselves to be led by reason, as against those kind of servants that do nothing but for fear, it is necessary that 5 For another with conditions. choler either true or dissembled put life into them, without which there can be no rule or government in a family. But yet it must be with these conditions. First, that it be not often, upon all, or light occasions. For being too common, it grows into contempt, and works no good effect. Secondly, not in the air, murmuring and railing behind their backs, or upon uncertainties, but be sure that he feel the smart that hath committed the offence. Thirdly, that it be speedily, to purpose and seriously, without any mixture of laughter, to the end it may be a profitable chastisement for what is past, and a warning for that which is to come. To conclude, it must be used as a medicine. All these remedies may serve against the following passions. CHAP. XXXII. Against Hatred. THat a man may the better defend himself against hatred, he must hold a rule that is true, that all things have two handles whereby he may take them: by the one they seem to be grievous and burdensome unto us, by the other easy and light. Let us then receive things by the good handle, and we shall find that there is something good and to be loved, in whatsoever we accuse and hate. For there is nothing in the world that is not for the good of man. And in that which offendeth us, we have more cause to complain thereof, than to hate it: for it is the first offence, and receiveth the greatest damage, because it loseth therein the use of reason, the greatest loss that may be. In such an accident then, let us turn our hate into pity, and let us endeavour to make those worthy to be beloved, which we would hate, as Lycurgus did unto him, that had put out his eye, whom he made, as a chastisement of that wrong, an honest, virtuous, and modest citizen, by his good instruction. CHAP. XXXIII. Against Envy. AGainst this passion, we must consider that which we esteem and envy in another. We willingly envy in others riches, honours, favours, and the reason is, because we know not how dearly they have cost them. He that shall say, thou shalt have as much at the same price, we would rather refuse his offer, than thank him for it. For before a man can attain unto them, he must flatter, endure afflictions, injuries; to be brief, lose his liberty, satisfy and accommodate himself to the pleasures and passions of another. Man hath nothing for nothing in this world. To think to attain to goods, honours, states, offices otherwise, and to pervert the law or rather custom of the world, is to have the money and wares too. Thou therefore that makest profession of honour and of virtue, why dost thou afflict thyself if thou have not these goods, which are not gotten but by a shameful patience? Do thou therefore rather pity others, than envy them. If it be a true good that is happened to another, we should rejoice thereat; for we should desire the good of one another: To be pleased with another man's prosperity, is to increase our own. CHAP. XXXIIII. Against Revenge. AGainst this cruel passion, we must first remember, that there is nothing so honourable, as to know how to pardon. Every man may prosecute the law to right that wrong that he hath received; but to give grace, to remit and forgive, belongeth to a sovereign Prince. If then thou wilt be a king of kings themselves, and do an act that may become a king, pardon freely, be gracious towards him that hath offended thee. Secondly, there is nothing so great and so victorious, as hardiness and a courageous insensibility in the suffering of injuries, whereby they return and rebound wholly upon the wronger's, as heavy blows upon a hard and steeled anvil, which do no other but wound and benumb the hand and arm of the striker: To meditate revenge is to confess himself wounded: to complain is to acknowledge himself guilty and inferior. Vltio doloris confessio est: non est magnus animus quem incuruat iniurta: ingens animus & verus aestimator sui non vindicat iniuriam, quia non sentit. But some will object, that it is irksome and dishonourable to endure an offence; I agree thereunto, and I am of opinion not to suffer, but to vanquish and master it: but yet after a fair and honourable fashion, by scorning it and him that offered it; nay more than that, by doing good unto him. In both these Caesar was excellent. It is a glorious victory to conquer, and to make the enemy to stoop, by benefits, and of an enemy to make him a friend, be the injury never so great. Yea to think that by how much the greater the wrong is, by so much the more worthy it is to be pardoned; and by how much more just the revenge is, by so much the more commendable is clemency. Again, it is no reason that a man should be judge and a party too, as he that revengeth is. He must commit the matter to a third person, or at least take counsel of his friends, and of the wiser sort, not giving credit unto himself. jupiter might alone dart out his favourable lightnings; but when there grew a question of sending forth his revenging thunderbolts, he could not do it without the counsel and assistance of the twelve gods. This was a strange case that the greatest of the gods, who of himself had power to do good to the whole world, could not hurt a particular person, but after a solemn deliberation. The wisdom of jupiter himself feareth to err, when there is a question of revenge, and therefore he hath need of a counsel to detain him. We must therefore form unto ourselves a moderation of the mind, this is the virtue of clemency, which is a sweet 5 Clemency. mildness and graciousness, which tempereth, retaineth, and represseth all our motions. It armeth us with patience, it persuadeth us that we cannot be offended but with ourselves; that of the wrongs of another nothing remaineth in us, but that which we will retain. It winneth unto us the love of the whole world, and furnisheth us with a modest carriage agreeable unto all. CHAP. XXXV. Against jealousy. THe only mean to avoid it, is for a man to make himself worthy of that he desireth, for jealousy is nothing else but a distrust of ourselves, and a testimony of our little desert. The Emperor Aurelius, of whom Faustine his wife demanded what he would do, if his enemy Cassius should obtain the victory against him in battle, answered, I serve not the gods so slenderly, as that they will send me so hard a fortune. So they that have any part in the affection of another, if there happen any cause of fear to lose it, should say, I honour not so little his love, that he will deprive me of it. The confidence we have in our own merit, is a great gage of the will of another. He that prosecuteth any thing with virtue, is eased by having a companion in the pursuit; for he serveth for a comfort, and a trumpet to his merit. Imbecility only feareth the encounter, because it thinketh that being compared to another, the imperfection thereof will presently appear. Take away emulation, you take away the glory and spur of virtue. My counsel to men against this malady, when it proceedeth from their wives, is, that they remember that the greatest part, and most gallant men of the world have fallen into this misfortune, and have been content to bear it without stirring and molestation: Lucullus, Caesar, Pompey, Cato, Augustus, Antonius, and divers others. But thou wilt say, the world knoweth it and speaks of it: and of whom speak they not in this sense, from the greatest to the least? how many honest men do every day fall into the same reproach? and if a man stir therein, the women themselves make a jest of it: the frequency of this accident should moderate the bitterness thereof. Finally be thou such that men may complain of thy wrong, that thy virtue extinguish thy hard fortune, that honest men may account nevertheless of thee, but rather curse the occasion. As touching women, there is no counsel against this evil, for their nature is wholly composed of suspicion, vanity, curiosity. It is true that they cure themselves at the charge of their husbands, turning their evil upon them, and healing it with a greater. But if they were capable of counsel, a man would advise them not to care for it, not to seem to perceive it: which is a sweet mediocrity between this foolish jealousy, and that other opposite custom practised in the Indies and other nations, where women labour to get friends, and women for their husbands seek above all things their honour and pleasure (for it is a testimony of the virtue, valour, and reputation of a man in those countries to have many wives.) So did Livia to Augustus, Stratonice to king Deiotaurus; and for multiplication of stock Sara, Lea, Rachel to Abraham and jacob. Of temperancy, the fourth virtue. CHAP. XXXVI. Of temperancy in general. temperancy is taken two ways, generally for a moderation and sweet temper in all things. And so it is not a special 1 temperancy twofold. General. virtue, but general and common, the seasoning sauce of all the rest: and it is perpetually required, especially in those affairs where there is controversy and contestation, troubles and divisions. For the preservation thereof, there is no better way, than to be free from particular fantasies and opinions, and simple to hold himself to his own devoir. All lawful intentions or opinions are temperate; choler, hatred are inferior to duty and to justice, and serve only those that tie not themselves to their duty by simple reason. Specially, for a bridle and rule in things pleasant, delightful, 2 Special. which tickle our senses and natural appetites. Habena voluptatis, inter libidinem & stuporem naturae posita, cuius duae parts; verecundia in fuga turpium, honestas in observatione decori: We will here take it more at large, for a rule and duty in all prosperity, as fortitude is the rule in all adversity, and it shall be the bridle, as fortitude the spur. With these two we shall tame this brutish, savage, untoward part of our passions which is in us, and we shall carry ourselves well and wisely in all fortunes & accidents, which is a high point of wisdom. temperancy then hath for the subject and general object thereof all prosperity, pleasant and plausible things, but especially 3 The description of temperancy. and properly pleasure, whereof it is the razor and the rule; the razor to cut off strange and vicious superfluities; the rule of that which is natural and necessary: Voluptatibus imperat, alias odit & abigit, alias dispensat, & ad sanum modum redigit: nec unquam ad illas propter illas venit, scit optimum esse modum cupitorum, non quantum velis, sed quantum debeas. This is the authority and power of reason over concupiscence and violent affections, which carry our wills to delights and pleasures. It is the bridle of our soul, and the proper instrument to clear those boiling tempests which arise in us by the heat and intemperancy of our blood, that the soul may be always kept one, and appliant unto reason, that it apply not itself to sensible objects, but that it rather accommodate them unto itself, and make them serve it. By this we wean our soul from the sweet milk of the pleasures of this world, and we make it capable of a more solid and sovereign nourishment. It is a rule that sweetly accommodateth all things unto nature, to necessity, simplicity, facility, health, constancy. These are things that go willingly together, and they are the measures and bounds of wisdom; as contrarily art, lust, and superfluity, variety, and multiplicity, difficulty, malady, and delicateness keep company together, following intemperancy and folly: Simplici cura constant necessaria, in delitijs laboratur. Ad parata nati sumus: nos omnia nobis difficilia facilium fastidio fecimus. CHAP. XXXVII. Of Prosperity, and counsel thereupon. THat prosperity which sweetly falls upon us, by the common course and ordinary custom of the world, or by our own wisdom and discreet carriage, is far more firm and assured, and less envied, than that which cometh from heaven, with fame and renown beyond and against the opinion of all, and the hope even of him that receiveth these bounties. Prosperity is very dangerous: whatsoever there is that is vain and light in the soul of man, is raised and carried with the first favourable wind. There is nothing that makes a man so much to lose and forget himself, as great prosperity, as corn lodgeth by too great abundance, and boughs overcharged with fruit break asunder, and therefore it is necessary that a man look to himself, and take heed, as if he went in a slippery place, and especially of insolency, pride, and presumption. There be some that swim in a shallow water, and with the least favour of fortune are puffed up, forget themselves, become insupportable, which is the true picture of folly. From thence it cometh that there is not any thing more frail, and that is of less continuance than an ill advised prosperity, which commonly changeth great and joyful occurrents into heavy and lamentable, and fortune of a loving mother, is turned into a cruel stepdame. Now the best counsel that I can give to a man, to carry himself herein, is, not to esteem too much of all sorts of prosperity and good fortunes, and in any sort not to desire them: If they shall happen to come, out of their good grace and favour, to receive them willingly and cheerfully; but as things strange and no way necessary, but such as without which a man may pass his life, and therefore there is no reason he should make account of them, or think himself the worse or better man for them. Non est tuum, fortuna quod fecit tuum. Qui tutam vitam agere volet, ista viscata beneficia devitet, nil dignum putare quod spears. Quid dignum habet fortuna quod concupiscas? CHAP. XXXVIII. Of Pleasure, and advice thereupon. PLeasure is an apprehension and sense of that which is agreeable to nature, it is a pleasant motion and tickling: The description and distinction of pleasure. as contrarily, grief or sorrow is unwelcome and unpleasing to the senses; nevertheless, they that place it in the highest degree, and make it the sovereign good, as the Epicures, take it not so, but for a privation of evil and displeasure, in a word Indolence. According to their opinion, the not having of any evil, is the happiest estate that man can hope for in this life. Nimium boni est cui nihil est mali: This is as a midway or neutrality betwixt pleasure taken in the first and common sense, and grief; it is as sometime the bosom of Abraham was said to be, betwixt paradise and the hell of the damned. This is a sweet and peaceable state and settling, a true, constant and stayed pleasure, which resembleth in some sort the tranquility of the soul, accounted by Philosophers the chief and sovereign good: the other first kind of pleasure is active and in motion. And so there should be three estates, the two extreme opposites, Grief and Pleasure, which are not stable nor durable, and both of them sickly: and that in the middle, stable, firm, sound, whereunto the Epicures gave the name of pleasure (as indeed it is in regard of grief and sorrow) making it the chief and sovereign good. This is that which hath so much defamed their school, as Seneca hath ingenuously acknowledged and said, that their evil was in the title and words, not in the substance, having never had either doctrine or life more sober, temperate, and enemy to wickedness and vice than theirs. And it is not altogether without reason that they called this Indolence and peaceable state, Pleasure: for that tickling delight which seemeth to mount us above indolence, aimeth at nothing else but indolence, or want of grief, as it proper butt; as for example; that appetite that ravisheth us with desire of women, seeketh nothing else but to fly that pain that an ardent and furious desire to satisfy our lust bringeth with it, to quit ourselves of this fever, and to purchase our rest. Pleasure hath diversly been spoken of, and more briefly and sparingly then was fit; some have deified it, others detested 2 Against it. it as a monster, and tremble at the very word, taking it always in the worse part. They that do wholly condemn it say; First, it is short, a fire of straw, especially if it be lively and active. Secondly, frail and tender, easily and with nothing corrupted and ended, an ounce of sorrow mars a whole sea of pleasure: It is called a choked piece of artillery. Thirdly, base, shameful, exercising itself by wild instruments, in hidden corners, at least for the most part, for there likewise are magnificent and pompous pleasures. Fourthly, quickly subject to satiety. A man knows not how to continue long in his pleasures, he is impatient as well in his delights as his griefs, and it is not long ere repentance follow, which many times yields pernicious effects, the overthrow of men, families, commonweals. Fiftly, and above all they allege against it, that when it is in his greatest strength, it mastreth in such a manner, that reason can have no entertainment. On the other side, it is said, to be natural, created and established of God in the world, for the preservation and continuance 3 For it, See Lib. 2. ca 6. thereof, as well by retail of the individual parts, as in gross of the special kinds. Nature the mother of pleasure, in those actions that are for our need and necessity, hath likewise mingled pleasure. Now to live well is to consent unto nature. God, saith Moses, hath created pleasure, Plantaverat dominus paradisum voluptatis, hath placed and established man in a pleasant estate, place and condition of life: and in the end, what is the last and highest felicity, but certain and perpetual pleasure? Inebriabuntur ab ubertate domus tuae, & torrent voluptatis tuae potabis eos. Suis contenta finibus res est divina voluptas. And to say the truth, the most regular Philosophers, and the greatest professors of virtue, Zeno, Cato, Scipio, Epaminondas, Plato, Socrates himself have been in effect amorous, and drinkers, dancers, sporters, and have handled, spoken, written of love and other pleasures. And therefore this matter is not decided in a word, but we must distinguish, for pleasures are divers. There are natural, 4 The distinction of pleasures. and not natural: This distinction as more important we will presently better consider of. There are some that are glorious, arrogant, difficult; others that are obscure, mild, easy & ready. Though to say the truth, Pleasure is a quality not greatly ambitious; it is accounted rich enough of itself, without the addition of any thing to the reputation thereof, and it is loved best in obscurity. They likewise that are so easy and ready are cold and frozen, if there be no difficulty in them: which is as an inducement, a bait, a spur unto them. The ceremony, shame and difficulty that there is in the attainment of the last exploits of love, are the spurs, and matches that give fire unto it, and increase the price thereof. There are spiritual pleasures & corporal, not (to say the truth) because they are separated: for they all belong to the entire man, and the whole composed subject: and the one part of ourselves hath not any so proper, but that the other hath a feeling thereof, so long as the marriage and amorous band of the soul & body continueth in this world. But yet there are some wherein the soul hath a better part than the body, & therefore they better agree with men, than with beasts, and are more durable, as those that enter into us by the sense of seeing and hearing, which are the two gates of the soul, for having only their passage by them, the soul receiveth them, concocteth and digesteth them, feedeth and delighteth itself a long time; the body feeleth little. Others there are wherein the body hath the greater part, as those which belong to the taste and touch, more gross and material, wherein the beasts bear us company, such pleasures are handled, tried, used and ended in the body itself, the soul hath only the assistance and company, and they are but short, like a fire of straw, soon in, soon out. The chief thing to be considered herein, is to know how we should carry and govern ourselves in our pleasures, 5 advisements hereupon. which wisdom will teach us, and it is the office of the virtue of temperance. We must first make a great and notable difference between the natural, and not natural. By the not natural we do not only understand those that are against nature, and the true use approved by the laws; but also the natural themselves, if they degenerate into too great an excess and superfluity, which is no part of nature, which contenteth itself with the supply of necessity; whereunto a man may likewise add decency and common honesty. It is natural pleasure to be covered with a house and garments Which are natural. against the rigour of the elements, and the injuries of wicked men; but that they should be of gold or silver, of jasper or porphery, it is not natural: Or if they come unto a man by other means than natural, as if they be sought and procured by art, by medicines, or other unnatural means: Or if they be first forged in the mind, stirred by passion, and afterwards from thence come unto the body, which is a preposterous order: for the order of nature is, that pleasures enter into the body, and be desired by it, and so from thence ascend unto the mind. And even as that laughter that is procured by tickling the armholes, is neither natural nor pleasing, but rather a kind of convulsion; so that pleasure that is either sought or kindled by the soul, is not natural. Now the first rule of wisdom concerning pleasures is this, 6 The first and general rule. to chase away, and altogether to condemn the unnatural, as vicious, bastardly (for as they that come to a banquet unbidden, are to be refused; so those pleasures that without the invitation of nature present themselves, are to be rejected) to admit and receive the natural; but yet with rule and moderation: and this is the office of temperancy in general, to drive away the unnatural, to rule the natural. The rule of natural pleasures consisteth in three points: First, that it be without the offence, scandal, damage, and prejudice of another. Rules for the natural. Secondly, that it be without the prejudice of himself, his honour, his health, his leisure, his duty, his functions. Thirdly, that it be with moderation, that he take them no more to the heart, than against the heart, neither covet them, nor fly from them, but take and receive them, as men do honey with the tip of the finger, not with a full hand; not to engage himself in them too far, nor to make them his principal business, and only work; much less to enthrall himself unto them, and of recreations make them necessities, for that is the greatest misery of all others. Pleasure should be but as an accessary, a recreation for the time, that he may the better return to his labour, as sleep which strengtheneth the body, and giveth us breath to return the more cheerfully to our work. To be short, a man must use them, not enjoy them. But above all, he must take heed of their treason: for some there are, that whilst we give ourselves unto them, and love them over dearly, return evil for good, and more displeasure than delight: but this is treacherously: for they go before to besot and deceive us, and hiding from us their tail, they tickle us and embrace us to strangle us. The pleasure of drinking goes before the pain of the head: such are the delights and pleasures of indiscreet and fiery youth, wherewith they are made drunken. We plunge ourselves into them, but in our old age they forsake us, as it were drowned and overwhelmed, as the sea in his reflux overrunneth the sandy banks: That sweetness which we have swallowed so greedily, endeth with bitterness and repentance, and filleth our souls with a venomous humour that infecteth and corrupteth it. Now as moderation and rule in pleasures is an excellent and profitable thing according unto God, nature, reason: so 8 Want of government in pleasure preiudicious. excess and immoderate unruliness is of all others the most pernicious, both to the public and private good. Pleasure ill valued, softeneth and weakeneth the vigour both of soul and body; Debilitatem induxere delitiae, blandissimae dominae: it besotteth and effeminateth the best courages that are, witness Hannibal: and therefore the Lacedæmonians that made profession of contemning all pleasures were called men, and the Athenians soft and delicate women. Xerxes to punish the revolt of the Babylonians, and to assure himself of them in time to come, took from them their arms, forbidding all painful and difficult exercise, and permitting all pleasures and delicacies whatsoever. Secondly, it banisheth and driveth away the principal virtues, which cannot continue under so idle and effeminate an empire: Maximas virtutes iacere oportet voluptate dominante. Thirdly, it degenerateth very suddenly into the contrary thereof, which is grief, sorrow, repentance: for as the rivers of sweet water run their course to die in the salt sea, so the honey of pleasure endeth in the gall of grief; In praecipiti est, ad dolorem vergit, in contrarium abit, nisi modum teneat. Extrema gaudij luctus occupat. Finally, it is the seminary of all evils, of all ruin. Malorum esca voluptas. From it come those close and secret intelligences, than treasons, and in the end eversions and ruins of Commonweals. Now we will speak of pleasures in particular. CHAP. XXXIX. Of eating and drinking, Abstinence, and Sobriety. VIctuals are for nourishment, to sustain and repair the infirmity of the body; the moderate, natural, and pleasant 1 The use of victual. use thereof entertaineth it, maketh it a fit and apt instrument for the soul; as contrarily an unnatural excess weakeneth it, bringeth great and loathsome diseases, which are the natural punishments of intemperancy; Simplex ex simplici causa valetudo; multos morbos supplicia luxuriae, multa fercula fecerunt. A man complaineth of his brain for sending down so many rheums, the foundation of all dangerous maladies; but the brain may well answer him, Define fundere, & ego desinam fluere; Be thou sober in pouring down, and I will be sparing in dropping down. But what, the excess and provision, the multitude, diversity, and exquisite preparation of viands is come in request; and it is our custom even in the greatest and most sumptuous superfluities, to crave pardon for not providing enough. How prejudicate both to the mind and to the body a full diet, with diversity, curiosity, exquisite and artificial preparation is, every man may find in himself. Gluttony and drunkenness are idle and undecent vices; they bewray themselves sufficiently by the gestures and countenances of those that are there with tainted; whereof the best and more honest is, to be dull and drowsy, unprofitable and unfit for any good: for there was never man that loved his belly too well, that did ever perform any great work. Moreover, it is the vice of brutish men, and of no worth, especially drunkenness, which leadeth a man to all unworthy actions; witness Alexander, otherwise a great Prince, being overcome with this vice, killed his dearest friend Clitus, and being come to himself, would have killed himself for killing Clitus. To conclude, it wholly robbeth a man of his sense, and perverteth his understanding: Vinum clavo caret, dementat sapientes, facit repuerascere senes. Sobriety though it be none of the greatest and more difficult virtues, and which is not painful to any but fools and 3 Sobriety commended. madmen, yet it is a way and a kind of progress to other virtues: It extinguisheth vice in the cradle, and stifleth it in seed: It is the mother of health, and an assured medicine against all maladies, and that that lengtheneth a man's life. Socrates by sobriety had always a strong body and lived ever in health; Masinissa the soberest king of all the rest got children at 86. years of age, and at 92. vanquished the Carthaginians; whereas Alexander by his drunkenness died in the flower of his age, though he were better borne and of a sounder constitution than them all. Many subject to gouts and Hierom. other diseases by Physic incurable, have recovered their health by diet. Neither is it serviceable to the body only, but to the mind too, which thereby is kept pure, capable of wisdom and good counsel; Salubrium consiliorum parens sobrietas. All the greatest personages of the world have been sober, not only the professors of singular virtue and austerity of life, but all those that have excelled in any thing, Cyrus, Caesar, julian the emperor, mohammed: Epicurus the great doctor of pleasure herein excelled all men. The frugality of the Roman Curij and Fabritij is more extolled than their great victories: The Lacedæmonians as valiant as they were, made express profession of frugality and sobriety. But a man must in time and from his youth embrace this part of temperancy, and not stay till the infirmities of old age come upon him, lest that he be utterly cast down with variety of diseases; as the Athenians, who were reproached for that they never demanded peace, but in their mourning garments, after they had lost their kindred and friends in war, and were able to defend themselves no longer. This is to ask counsel when it is too late; Sera in fundo parsimonia; it is to play the good husband when there is nothing left but bare walls, to make his market when the fair is ended. It is a good thing for a man not to accustom himself to a delicate diet, lest when he shall happen to be deprived thereof, his body grow out of order, and his spirit languish and faint; and contrarily to use himself to a grosser kind of sustenance, both because they make a man more strong and healthful, and because they are more easily gotten. CHAP. XL. Ofriot and excess in apparel and ornaments, and of frugality. IT hath been said before that garments are not natural, nor necessary to a man; but artificial, invented and used only by him in the world. Now inasmuch as they are artificial, (for it is the manner of things artificial to vary and multiply, without end and measure, simplicity being a friend unto nature) they are extended and multiplied into so many inventions (for to what other end are there so many occupations and traffics in the world, but for the covering and decking of our bodies?) dissolutions and corruptions, insomuch that it is no more an excuse and covering of our defects and necessities, but a nest of all manner of vices, vexillum superbiae, nidus luxuriae, the subject of riot and quarrels: for from hence did first begin the propriety of things, mine and thine; and in the greatest communities or fellowships that are, apparel is always proper, which is signified by this word, disrobe. It is a vice very familiar and proper unto women (I mean excess in apparel) a true testimony of their weakness, being glad to win credit and commendations by these small and slender accidents, because they know themselves to be too weak and unable to purchase credit and reputation by better means: for such as are virtuous, care least for such vanities. By the laws of the Lacedæmonians it was not permitted to any to wear garments of rich and costly colours, but to common women: That was their part, as virtue and honour belonged unto others. Now the true and lawful use of apparel is to cover ourselves against wind and weather, and the rigour of the air, and should never be used to other end; and therefore as they should not be excessive nor sumptuous, so should they not be too base and beggarly. Nec affectatae sordes, nec exquisitae munditiae. Caligula was as a laughing stock to all that beheld him, by reason of the dissolute fashion of his apparel. Augustus was commended for his modesty. CHAP. XLI. Carnal pleasure, Chastity, Continency. Continency is a thing very difficult, and must have a careful and a painful guard: It is no easy matter wholly 1 See the chap. 24. to resist nature, which in this is most strong and most ardent. And this is the greatest commendation that it hath, that there is difficulty in it; as for the rest, it is without action and without fruit, it is a privation, a not doing, pain without profit; and therefore sterility is signified by virginity. I speak here of simple continency, and only in itself, which is a thing altogether barren & unprofitable, and hardly commendable, no more than not to play the glutton, not to be drunken; and not of Christian continency, which to make it a virtue hath two things in it, a deliberate purpose always to keep it, and that it be for God's cause. Non hoc in virginibus August. praedicamus, quòd sint virgins, sed quòd deo dicatae; witness the vestals, and the five foolish virgins shut out of doors; and therefore it is a common error, and a vanity, to call continent women honest women and honourable, as if it were a virtue, and there were an honour due unto him that doth no evil, doth nothing against his duty. Why should not continent men in like sort have the title of honesty and honour? There is more reason for it, because there is more difficulty, they are more hot, more hardy, they have more occasions, better means. So unlikely is it that honour should be due unto him that doth no evil, that it is not due unto him that doth good, but only, as hath been said, to him that is profitable to the Lib. 1. ca 60. weal-public, and where there is labour, difficulty, danger. And how many continent persons are there stuffed with other vices, or at least that are not touched with vainglory and presumption, whereby tickling themselves with a good opinion of themselves, they are ready to judge and condemn others? And by experience we see in many women how dearly they sell it unto their husbands, for dislodging the devil from that place where they row, and establishing the point of honour as in it proper throne, they make it to mount more high, and to appear in the head, to make him believe that it is not any lower elsewhere. If nevertheless this flattering word, honour, serve to make them more careful of their duty, I care not much if I allow of it. Vanity itself serves for some use, and simple incontinency and sole in itself is none of the greatest faults, no more than others that are purely corporal, and which nature committeth in her actions either by excess or defect without malice. That which discrediteth it and makes it more dangerous, is, that it is almost never alone, but is commonly accompanied and followed with other greater faults, infected with the wicked and base circumstances of prohibited persons, times, places; practised by wicked means, lies, impostures, subornations, treasons; besides the loss of time, distractions of those functions from whence it proceedeth by great and grievous scandals. And because this is a violent passion and likewise deceitful, 3 An advisement. we must arm ourselves against it, and be wary in descrying the baits thereof, and the more it flattereth us, the more distrust it: for it would willingly embrace us to strangle us; it pampereth us with honey, to glut us with gall; and therefore let us consider as much, that the beauty of another is a thing that is without us, and that as soon it turneth to our evil as our good; that it is but a flower that passeth, a small thing and almost nothing but the colour of a body; and acknowledging in beauty the delicate hand of nature, we must prize it as the sun and moon for the excellency that is in it: and coming to the fruition thereof by all honest means, always remember that the immoderate use of this pleasure consumeth the body, effeminateth the soul, weakeneth the spirit; and that many by giving themselves overmuch thereunto, have lost, some their life, some their fortune, some their spirit: and contrarily, that there is greater pleasure and glory in vanquishing pleasure, than in possessing it: that the continency of Alexander and of Scipio hath been more highly commended, than the beautiful countenances of those young damsels that they took captives. There are many kinds and degrees of continency and incontinency. The conjugal is that which importeth more than all the rest, which is most requisite and necessary, both for the public and particular good, and therefore should be by all in greatest account. It must be kept and retained within the chaste breast of that party whom the destinies have given for our companion. He that doth otherwise, doth not only violate his own body, making it a vessel of ordure by all laws; the law of God, which commandeth chastity; of Nature, which forbiddeth that to be common which is proper to one, and imposeth upon a man faith and constancy; of Countries, which have brought in marriages; of families, transferring unjustly the labour of another to a stranger; and lastly, justice itself, bringing in uncertainties, jealousies, and brawls amongst kindred, depriving children of the love of their parents, and parents of the piety and duty of their children. CHAP. XLII. Of Glory and Ambition. AMbition, the desire of glory and honour (whereof we have already spoken) is not altogether and in all respects to be condemned. First, it is very profitable to the weal-public as the world goeth, for it is it from whence the greatest of our honourable actions doth arise, that hartneth men to dangerous attempts, as we may see by the greatest part of our ancient heroical men, who have not all been lead by a philosophical spirit, as Socrates, Photion, Aristides, Epaminondas, Cato, and Scipio, by the only true and lively image of virtue; for many, yea the greatest number have been stirred thereunto by the spirit, of Themistocles, Alexander, Caesar: and although these honourable achievements and glorious exploits have not been with their authors and actors, true works of virtue but ambition; nevertheless their effects have been very beneficial to the public state. Besides this consideration, according to the opinion of the wisest, it is excusable and allowable in two cases: the one in good and profitable things, but which are inferior unto virtue, and common both to the good and to the evil, as arts and sciences: Honos alit arts: inconduntur omnes ad studia gloria; inventions, industry, military valour. The other in continuing the good will and opinion of another. The wise do teach, not to rule our actions by the opinion of another, except it be for the avoiding of such inconveniences as may happen by their contempt of the approbation and judgement of another. But that a man should be virtuous, and do good for glory, as if that were the salary and recompense thereof, is a false and vain opinion. Much were the state of virtue to be pitied, if she should fetch her commendations and prize from the opinion of another, this coin were but counterfelt, and this pay too base for virtue; She is too noble to beg such recompense. A man must settle his soul, and in such sort compose his actions, that the brightness of honour dazzle not his reason, and strengthen his mind with brave resolutions, which serve him as barriers against the assaults of ambition. He must therefore persuade himself, that virtue seeketh not a more ample and more rich theatre to show it self than her own conscience: The higher the Sun is, the lesser shadow doth it make: The greater the virtue is, the less glory doth it seek. Glory is truly compared to a shadow, which followeth those that fly it, and flieth those that follow it. Again, he must never forget, that man cometh into this world as to a Comedy, where he chooseth not the part that he is to play, but only bethinks himself how to play that part well that is given unto him: or as a banquet, wherein a man feeds upon that that is before him, not reaching to the far side of the table, or snatching the dishes from the master of the feast. If a man commit a charge unto us, which we are capable of, let us accept of it modestly, and exercise it sincerely; making account that God hath placed us there to stand sentinel, to the end that others may rest in safety under our care. Let us seek no other recompense of our travel, than our own conscience to witness our well doing, and desire that the witness be rather of credit in the court of our fellow-citizens, than in the front of our public actions. To be short, let us hold it for a maxim, that the fruit of our honourable actions, is to have acted them. Virtue cannot find without itself a recompense worthy itself. To refuse and contemn greatness, is not so great a miracle, it is an attempt of no difficulty. He that loves himself, and judgeth soundly, is content with an indifferent fortune. Magistracies very active and passive are painful, and are not desired but by feeble and sick spirits. Otanes one of the seven that had title to the sovereignty of Persia, gave over unto his companions his right, upon condition, that he and his might live in that Empire free from all subjection and magistracy, except that which the ancient laws did impose, being impatient to command, and to be commanded. Diocletian renounced the Empire, Celestinus the Popedom. CHAP. XLIII. Of temperancy in speech, and of Eloquence. THis is a great point of wisdom: He that ruleth his tongue well, in a word, is wise, qui in verbo non offendit hic perfectus est: The reason hereof is, because the tongue is all the world, in it is both good and evil, life and death, as hath been said before. Let us now see what advice is to be given to rule it well. The first rule is, that speech be sober and seldom: To know how to be silent is a great advantage to speak well; 1 Rules of speeach. and he that knows not well how to do the one, knows not the other. To speak well and much, is not the work of one man; and the best men are they that speak least, saith a wise man. They that abound in words, are barren in good speech and good actions; like those trees that are full of leaves and yield little fruit, much chaff, and little corn. The Lacedæmonians, great professors of virtue and valour, did likewise profess silence, and were enemies to much speech: And therefore hath it ever been commendable to be sparing in speech, to keep a bridle at the mouth: Pone domine custodiam ori meo. And in the law of Moses that vessel that had not his covering fastened to it, was unclean. By speech a man is known and discerned: The wise man hath his tongue in his heart, the fool his heart in his tongue. The second, that it be true: The use of speech is to assist the truth, and to carry the torch before it, to make it appear; and contrarily to discover and reject lying. Insomuch that speech is the instrument whereby we communicate our wills and our thoughts: It had need be true and faithful, since that our understanding is directed by the only means of speech. He that falsifieth it, betrayeth public society; and if this mean fail us and deceive us, there is an end of all, there is no living in the world. But of lying we have already spoken. Cap. 10. The third, that it be natural, modest, and chaste: not accompanied with vehemency and contention, whereby it may seem to proceed from passion; not artificial nor affected; not wicked, immodest, licentious. The fourth, that it be serious and profitable, not vain and unprofitable. A man must not be too attentive in relating what hath happened in the market place or theatre, or repeating of sonnets and merriments, it bewrays too great and unprofitable leisure, otio abundantis, & abutentis. Neither is it good to enter into any large discourse of his own actions and fortunes; for others take not so much pleasure to hear them, as he to relate them. But above all, it must never be offensive, for speech is the instrument and forerunner of charity, and therefore to use it against it, is to abuse it, contrary to the purpose of nature. All kind of foul speech, detraction, mockery, is unworthy a man of wisdom and honour. The sixth, to be gentle and pleasing, not crabbed, harsh, and envious; and therefore in common speech acute and subtle questions must be avoided, which resemble crayfishes, where there is more picking work than meat to eat, and their end is nothing else but brawls and contentions. Lastly, that it be constant, strong, and generous, not lose, effeminate, languishing, whereby we avoid the manner of speech of Pedanties, pleaders, women. To this point of temperancy belongeth secrecy (whereof 8 Chap. 8. we have spoken in the Chapter of faith or fidelity) not only that which is committed unto us, and given us to keep, but that which wisdom and discretion telleth us aught to be suppressed. Now as speech makes a man more excellent than a beast, 9 Of eloquence and the commendation thereof. so eloquence makes the professors thereof more excellent than other men. For this is the profession or art of speech, it is a more exquisite communication of discourse and of reason, the stern or roother of our souls, which disposeth the hearts and affections like certain notes to make a melodious harmony. Eloquence is not only a purity and elegancy of speech, 10 The description. a discreet choice of words properly applied, ending in a true and a just fall, but it must likewise be full of ornaments, graces, motions; the words must be lively, first, by a clear and distinct voice, raising itself, and falling by little and little; Afterwards by a grave and natural action, wherein a man may see the visage, hands, and members of the Orator to speak with his mouth, follow with their motion that of the mind, and represent the affections: for an Orator must first put on those passions which he would stir up in others. As Brusidus drew from his own wound the dart wherewith he slew his enemy: So passion being conceived in our heart, is incontinently form into our speech, and by it proceeding from us, entereth into another, and there giveth the like impression which we ourselves have, by a subtle and lively contagion. Hereby we see that a sweet and a mild nature is not so fit for eloquence, because it cannot conceive strong and courageous passions, such as it ought, to give life unto the Oration; in such sort, that when he should display the master-sails of eloquence in a great and vehement action, he cometh far short thereof; as Cicero knew well how to reproach calidius, who accused Gallus with a cold and overmild voice and action, in nisi fingeres, sic ageres? But being likewise vigorous, and furnished as hath been said, it hath not less force and violence than the commands of tyrants, environed with their guards and halberds; It doth not only lead the hearer, but entangleth him, it reigneth over the people, and establisheth a violent empire over our souls. A man may say against Eloquence that truth is sufficiently 11 Objections answored. maintained and defended by itself, and that there is nothing more eloquent than itself: which I confess is true, where the minds of men are pure, and free from passions: but the greatest part of the world, either by nature, or art, and ill instruction is preoccupated, and ill disposed unto virtue and verity, whereby it is necessary that men be handled like iron, which a man must soften with fire before he temper it with water: So by the fiery motions of eloquence, they must be made supple and manageable, apt to take the temper of verity. This is that whereunto Eloquence especially tendeth; and the true fruit thereof is to arm virtue against vice, truth against lying & calumnies. The Orator, saith Theophrastus, is the true Physician of the soul, to whom it belongeth to cure the biting of serpents by the music of the pipe, that is, the calumnies of wicked men by the harmony of reason. Now since no man can hinder, but that some there are that seize upon eloquence, to the end they may execute their pernicious designments, how can a man do less than defend himself with the same arms; for if we present ourselves naked to the combat, do we not betray virtue and verity? But many have abused eloquence to wicked purposes, and the ruin of their country: It is true, but that is no reason why eloquence should be despised, for that is common to it with all the excellent things of the world, to be used or abused, well or ill applied, according to the good and bad disposition of those that possess them. Most men abuse their understanding, but yet we must not therefore conclude that understanding is not necessary. FINIS. ERRATA. PAge 89. lin. 23. which we most fly. Page 118. lin. 19 unclean seed. Page 215. lin. 4. with those that know them. Page 244. lin. 7. overruleth the mind. Page 292. lin. 23. live severely. Page 336. lin. 23. in the way to death. Page 357. lin. 1. it is religion. Page 395. lin. 24. And this in a brief sum, is the military discipline. Page 433. lin. 24. constant. Page 502. lin. 24. wherefore if it be for gain. Page 540. lin. 24. and stifleth it in the seed.