to a high Fortune seeing those who were but men deiâ—â—ed for their worthy and eminent actions sometimes esteeming himselfe equall and sometimes superior to them aimed at and many times attained to adoration as well as they The simple man living in the publick credulity blindly beleeved whatsoever his ancesters had set before him But he that was not so weake as to condescend to falshood nor vet so wise as to know the truth made use of others credulity to believe nothing The Philosopher was of opinion that such as were raised by fortune were endowed with piety and obsequiousnesse towards the Gods above other men And yet Tacitus teaches the contrary when hee sayes That miseries are tolerated and prosperity corrupts us And if you look into Holy Writ you will there finde sentences much differing from Aristotles opinion There you shall read examples of Kings both of the twelve and of the ten and of the two Tribes who erred in their greatest prosperities most of them having before with much vertue and constancy endured afflictions Many Subjects set worldly glory before their eyes many the Divine you shal see both of them afflict their bodies to attain to it thinking to make the said body to enjoy it after they have attained it But because the Divine is out of this world and the worldly in it the one doth not unchaine and let loose his senses but when he cannot sin and the other sins because he hath let them loose Man is not unhappy onely in respect of his not finding really such an object as may content him but is more infortunate in regard of that little time during which novelty makes him beleeve that he hath found it It is not so much as to fix him in content and yet sufficient to make him fall inconsiderate But if he should withstand the first assault of Novelty hee would have much a-doe to avoid that of Greatnesse For being arrived to highest degrees of good fortune and finding great opposition in the advancing and not losing the desire of a new delight almost despairing to attain to it with satisfaction of the passions of the mind glutted with the present he hath recourse to the satisfaction of the sense and casts himselfe headlong into intemperancy Plunged in this because he wil not crosse his presenâ— pleasures with the object of future torments whereas before he sought the false immortality of his name he shakes off the true one of the soule and as much as in him lieth takes away the being from that God whom he before call'd upon for assistance because hee would avoid the feare of him when he is wrathfull Let him doe what he will hee cannot avoid the having his sweet delights made bitter by that which is not in his power to shun and that which he imagined his bruâ—ishnesse would bring him â—o namely the torment of conscience and horror of annihilation I approve of Pythagoras opinion better then of Aristotles One said That fortunate men were most pious and religious The other at ributeth the same to unfortunate ones These when they feele themselves running into miseries implore the Divine assistance to keep them from them being fallen into them they pray him to remove them and when they are come to despaire of any redresse in this world they pray him to reward them in the other Some presumptuous ignorant and brutish man will in this case I confesse blaspheme God and grow outragious as if he were not able to inflict any greater punishment upon him or call him unjust as if he had already done more to him than he ought to have done or to deny him not knowing this to be a warning to him or being ashamed of being punished But few and foolish are those which attain to so much impiety There is no wretched and afflicted man but will seek to be comforted and what comfort can there be in this wretched man but that of attaining happinesse in the world to come How then against both Reason and his own interest will he deny so great an assistance to himselfe by believing and working evill should not despaire then rather cause him to sâ—eke for no ease in this world and cast himself wholly into the hands of God to comfort himselfe with the future hope of the beatificall vision The spirits of a man puft up with happinesse are troubled like unto ones who raised high above the earth is astonished and giddy and for the most part falls down precipitously Hee fâ—ndes his friends false deceiving him with flattery or with obsequiousâ—es corrupting him Occasions of sin superabound voluptuousnesse and all manner of delights incline him to it and then what marvell is it if he falls and for the most part irrecoverably every thing helping him to fall and nothing to recover himselfe Nothing comes under the unfortunate mans roofe but truth there are none to flatter or be obsequious to him his spirits are cast down and rather subject to waste of themselves than to be corrupted the temperature becomes melancholy it afflicts dries up mortifies and hurts every thing but the understanding so that the inclination to sin failing with the occasions makes the way easie for the maintaining of Vertue There can be no Reason given of an ill ordered and corrupted Common-wealths actions they are directed by ignorance and malice if they hit right it is by chance I acknowledge it was a manifest folly to undertake the Sicilian Warre and to send three Captaines thither to manage it and that it was malice to call home Alcibiades after hee had happily enterprized it But whether it were good to send him away from it accused distasted and not appeased not absolved I know not The common-wealth of Rome used to doe so and the Monarchy of Spain hath followed it and both have done it wiâ—h prosperous successe Nature sometimes produces Traytors occasion often Princes most commonly Nature imprints a Character almost indeleble No good turn nor deed will serve against it imprisonment hinders it and the Axe cancels it The occasion yeelds facility which powerfully accompanies the desire of domination The Prince either with suspitions obliges to procure safety or with injuries revenge revenge is sometimes produced by wrath sometimes by hatred and sometimes by mans reputation Wrath cannot be discourâ—ed of because it is without discourse its end is to doe evill it runs inconsideratly through the meanes to attain to it and for the most part is sorry afterward that it hath attained it Hatred governes its actions with understanding though corrupted by passion It is like wrath in the end and aime but different in the meanes to attain to it it discourses upon the meanes and without ever repenting joyes that it hath attained it Reputation some desire to vindicate it and some to revenge themselves for the prejudice done to it The latter cannot be done without hatred and wrath the former must be void of both the ones end is to endammage
then that which one being present doth frame of himselfe bearing along with it the greatnesse of the actions without the abjectnesse of the matter Because their object is more pure conceived by meanes of the eare then by meanes of the eye that which is heard then that which is seene For a mans actions represented by fame all at once leave a kind of astonishment whereas the other being seen one by one languish the second being scarce come forth before the other be either dead or mortisied Because the Cittizen discovers the defects in his youthfull age which defects leave behind them if not a wound yet at least a scarre from which thing the stranger is free who onely manifests and discovers himselfe in that which is perfect Because envy hath no place in the former nor admiration in the latter Finally it is peradventure with a truer and more ordinary though a more concealed and deep reason for the naturall instinct of hoping for greater remedy in our affaires from the greater difficulty in attaining to it following therein nature it selfe which hath most concealed and made lesse store of those things which are most precious and given most glory to the hardest atchievements As for example there growes an herbe at our very foot and a man stands close by us the herbes are medicinall and the man able to heale us and defend us Yet wee will seeke for such in remote countries as if all our good consisted rather in the difficulty of obtaining then in the quality of things nature having imprinted in us the genius of despising what is obvious known to beleeve that which is most obscure to hope for that which is most difficult to admire that which is furthest off to make all that is great difficult to us either because it hath made it so or because we make it so to our selves Under a Prince it is not impossible but it seldome happens that a stranger shoud arrive to a chiefe degree of honour unlesse the Prince be a Tyrant or that he should continue there unlesse the Prince become one VVith the losse of life he concludes his being a favorite if he doth not maintaine himselfe in it by multiplying of banishments and slaughters But if the Prince be a Tyrant such a one may often arrive to it because the Tyrant feares the Citizens and the favourite may continue because the other makes him to be feared Finally Tullus through Jealousie Malice and hatred born to Coriolanus his vertue under pretence that hee had not prosecuted his enterprise to the destruction of his country caused him to be murthered by a conspiracy of some who were his adherents A mans Country hath in it a retentive quality for such as are borne in it and an attractive one for such as are travailed out of it This consists in the pleasure and delight which the providence of Nature alwayes communicates to needfull things and also in the aire the temperament the influences in the vertue which the place affoorded to the thing which is placed in it and peradventure in a mans being used and accustomed thereunto as much as in any thing else The efficacy and force of this last being full of contrarieties is hard to understand and unfold Sometime you shall heare the Philosophers say that the understanding dejects and dulls it selfe in a knowen thing and greedily turnes to a new one Sometimes you shall see an opinion laid hold of which will not be left to turne to any other although it be new The sense of tasting is tried with assuefaction and desires change of food The same happinesse in the sense of feeling and likewise in the sense of smelling The sense of seeing will seeme to be glutted with the sight of a thing and another which is not so beautifull will seeme fairer to it because it is new Sometimes a man being accustomed to one manner of cloathing will hardly be brought to another fashion but it will seeme ridiculous to him and sometimes also he will change for it as for a better In morall things one shunnes God a mercy custome that as a vice which another embraces as a vertue It is hard to finde out any thing that will make a man love his own destruction Hence growes the detestation of a contrary though it have novelty to take its part The understanding flies towards it because its object is not onely truth but all truths and as such it turns to it if it findes it contrary it turns from it as false and as from an enemy In fashions of Cloathes the sight will not endure a fashion much discrepant from the wonted and accustomed one and the fashions altering daily the change is not very sensible whereby a man comes to bee fatisfied and perswaded by the novelty without hitting upon unlesse it be in a very long time the contrary which he would abhorre The taste feeds upon food which in the beginning is unlike but in the end semblable the long use of it makes the body like unto it and consequently diminishes the delight seeing the appetite would have the unlike but yet you shall not see it for all this runne to that which is quite and immediatly contrary Assuefaction also likewise makes a great difference in the senses namely where they are meerly spiritall or any way materiall for this helps satiety and diminishes the taste which may manifestly be perceived in the self-same beauty sometimes seen and sometimes enjoyed All the love Nature hath put in man towards his native Countrey cannot hinder him from being drawn out of it either by necessity interest or ambition or any other powerfull motive And truly as for a mans health when all other remedies faile they use change of aire so for an averse Fortune it is good to change the Climate The aire nurses the spirits and with them I had almost sayd changes the understanding because it alters its chiefe Instruments Food causes a new temperament and therewith new behaviours The Climate changes the Influences these the Inclinations and all altered together make an alteration of Fortune Many goe without it because they will not follow it and many because they cannot finde it forsaking sometimes that vocation in which they had it and sometimes not discerning the true place where they might have attained to it Most part are of opinion that travell makes many worthy men I see the effect of it but cannot as yet discern whether it be a cause or a figne and token of their worth A cause if by reason that one seeing himselfe destitute of many meanes is forced to make use of his own vertue which restrained betweene contraries increases the more A signe if to overcome the many allurements of ones native soile and forsake it is required a great spirit a valiant and magnanimous heart whereby a man may come to attaine to eminent glory I believe there are but few so wicked as to become enemies of their Country though
so infallible in man who operates by election as in beasts who work according to nature and that you can hardly so know beauty as to distinguish the Masculine from the seminine That which proceeds from the facility which nature finds in working with the humid and that which it finds in operating with the temperate That which hath its influence from Venus and that which hath it from Sol and Iupiter The one is seen to incline the inferiour part to condescend to embracements The other makes prudent addes Majesty and respect and brings up the superiour part to a chaste desire of heavenly beauty The one belongs to the feeling the other to the mind The first false the other a true mark of a wise mind If Socrates did consider what Alcibiades was he might quickly know from what fountaine his beauty was derived Some one attributed so much to this beauty which we terme Masculine and which being perfect is a sign of a most exquisitely tempered body that he affirmed that if any such were and once being did endure it would make the subject thereof most calme and happy its senses perfect its understanding eminent its passions moderate and without repining obedient to reason I never did grant it any superiority in Sciences once I condescended to yeeld it in morall actions Now I deny it in all and will grant it no superiority but in those vertues only which serve for the body the appetitive the attractive the concoctive the retentive and the expulsive To speculation the body is a burthen and opposes it self to the working of it The stronger it is the more it withstands and it is strongest when it is most temperate In a dry leane withered body which is almost no body at all you shall find passions almost quite extinguished the understanding in a manner Angelicall a perfect operation and most excellent speculation In bruite beasts the case is different because the reason is likewise so They have need of the bodyes assistance if they will operate well man needs none but onely not to be hindred by it In beasts the stronger it is the more it helps in men when it is weakest it hinders least But be it how it will me thinkes Sâ—crates did not deserve much commendations in this manner of arguing For if from the beauty of the creature which is never perfect neither in man nor woman but in all frail and fading we argue concerning the creatures beauty we shall judge Fidias and Apelles beauties farre to excâ—ed the divine when we set before our eyes their statues and pictures drawen with excellent lines and colouâ—s and of a more lastiÌ„ng substance then our selves You will sâ—y these have no soule Then we mâ—st not ascend to the contemplation of God from lineaments and colours but from the soule The body you'â— say is the shadow of the mind and soule I deny it and will alwayes hold internall beauty which consists in the miraculous framing organizing of this bodily fabrick equally composed by the Almighty in all men to be a more fit and secure ladder for man to climbe up with his understanding towards his Creator than the externall which differing in each one consists in three or foure lineaments and a few colours I will say that Galen tooke a better way then Socrates though each of them proceeded according to his owne art The one being a Physician attributed unto the use of the parts the chiefe praise for the knowledge of Gods greatnesse The other a Sculptor forgetting that he was a Philosopher also attributed it to the lineaments The Angell saith a wise man is the shadow of God the soule the Angels the body the soules And then he wonders that seeing neither Goâ— nor the Angell busie themselves upon the consideration of their shadow to their owne prejudice the soule should forget and lose it selfe in loving and following its shadow But it is not true because this is not the true shadow He had argued much better if he had gone on by degrees thus The Angell is Godâ—s shadow Man the Angel's the Beast man's and Plantâ—s the Beasts Those who fall in love with lineaments and colours in relation to the soule where that is corrupt frame a true case more deplorable then the fabulous tale of Narcissus He was enamoured of his owne shadow they of another mans in one there was a true and reall beauty of body in the other a false supposed one of the mind Plato in a place calls Socrates a hunter as if he went investigating Gods beauty by meanes of that of Alcibiades He knew he had erred if that beauty was joyned with a deformity of the soule and to cover Socrates his defect he feigned vertue in Alcibiades bearing greater affection to his Master then to truth He cals him bonae indolis in whose life there is nothing constantly to be found but uncleannesse What then Shall we blame Socrates and tax him with dishonesty Farre be it from us Hee loved Alcibiades and Alcibiades him with a chaste and sincere love both drawn thereunto by the harmonious proportion of defect and superabundancy Socrates had a most beautifull minde a leane dry squalid body bairy bald and melancholy Alcibiades a most beautifull body a lascivious dishonest intemperate ambitious minde The old man with his eyes enjoyed the young ones beauty he by the eare participated of the old mans vertue A wonderfull exchange more pleasing in Socrates and more profitable in Alcibiades and in both equally honest Alcibiades gives Hipponicus a box on the eare to make sport and a jest amongst his companions yet those which write of Ridiculousnesse exclude pain out of it Peradventure it ought not to be excluded when the person is more ridiculous than the act painfull as we daily see it practised in Jesters a box on the eare is sensible in a child in elder yeares it doth not pain Nature because it will not take away the vigor of the punishment where it hath not given a spirit sensible of resentment hath given a tender flesh to feel it and where an obtuse sense of the pain an apprehensive feeling of the disgrace The blow of the box is not so sensible to an old man as his person is ridiculous to a young one there being oftentimes an apparent deformity seen in them without any apparent pain Alcibiades could not have mâ—de a jest of the blow nor framed mirth out of it had he not first drawn it from the person But if according to the Philosophers opinion Compassion be the daughter of Feare by reason of that which may in like manner befall us how can the young man laugh at the old and not rather compassionate him And if seeing a defect in another which we have not our selves is a cause of comfort rather than griefe in us whence groweth our pleasure in speaking and hearing others evill spoken of And And how ought old men bee grieved at the follies they see in young men
Youth should grieve at the defects of old age and old men laugh at the ignorance of youth But they are not sorry that a young man wants wisdome but onely that he doth not know it and esteem it because they exceeding in this noble vertue the daughter and onely comfort of old Age they are grieved to see that Talent despised for which onely they can bee respected and reverenced Young men laugh at old men because the deformity which they see present being greater than the griefe moves their imagination stronglier than the future on which oftentimes they doe not think and which they know not whether it will happen or no or hope it will be better What a barbarous thing is a young man Let him that will bee safe from him shun him he walks in unknown wayes and I had almost said like a thing mixt of Man and Beast the degree of the mixture is unknown what he will be is impenetrable sometimes they are like Beasts because they doe not make use of reason sometimes worse because they abuse it The overmuch heat hinders wisdome in youth too much coldnesse extinguishes it in old age sometimes it never comes but man passes from immaturity to rottennesse and when it does come it is alwayes late and lasts but a little It is almost the onely one amongst sublunary things which doth not receive the proportion of Periods a Beginning a Being an Increase and Declining Quintilian wonders why all men being made by Nature to be good few are such I to not wonder at it doe rather consider whence it proceeds that the superior part for the most part is not so and whereas it is made to command it obeyes Peradventure the advantage of yeares is a great cause of it in which our sense doth with ease tyranny over us without meeting with any opposition or let from the soule and because they are the first yeares it takes strong root and being many it frames a habit Then comes Reason in and findes the Tyrant already in possession fortified and rooted It must fight against that which he is and that which he hath done it must subdue the forces of sense overcome the resistance of habit and destroy that Nature to frame a new one But why doe we not at the first as soon as we are born attain to reason Peradventure because we would then presently operate without a guide and wanting experience we should precipitate Learned and wisemen induced by a case which happened in our dayes and being singular and almost monstrous makes no president have believed that a Subject may securely passe over from speculation to practice without any further experience I will here set down my opinion therein with all due respect and reverence to famous Writers of great merit If truth onely wâ—re the object of our understanding and not that also which is like unto it there would be no error And if all things could be demonstrated there would be no opinions the deficiency of the one and super-abundancy of the other ruine the world The understanding despairing of demonstrating the truth gives it selfe over to vanity and goes in quest of opinion and not being able to acquiesce in it he raises himselfe higher and seekes to stirre up admiration through novelty seeing he cannot teach and direct with truth He esteems himselfe to be a brave man in Sciences that makes not the clearest but the hardest argument which though it doth not convince yet it overcomes the understanding as if the ones wisdome consisted in the others ignorance and truth which should be the easiest for the understanding to finde as the center of ponderous things is sought out by difficult obscure things How many things are there daily seen which because we know not how they are nor how they are done doe astonish and breed admiration in us for nothing else but onely because we take the lofâ—iest and most difficult way to understand what they are and how performed And afterward if the Artificer doe divulge it we finde it to be an easie and plaine way we acknowledge the error we cease our admiration and remaine ashamed The like would happen in questions concerning Sciences if truth were discored to us and that God did not hide it from man shewing him this great Fabrick of the World keeping him still in disputes not letting him understand it because he will mortifie him The Politick truth of the future being then ordinarily concealed how shall such an understanding find it which is accustomed to elevate it selfe above the matter to seek extravagant wayes to subtilize distinguish invent and imagine that if it doth not pâ—netrate into it it happens because it doth not raise elevate it self suffâ—ciently Then in our case it finds it self in a lowly gross matter not hard to be attained because the understanding doth not reach unto it but because for the most part it goes beyond it One going from Sciences where he is schollar that followes the opinions of those that went before him and he a master that invents and comming to the politick where Experience is Mistress and he a Master that followes it shall commit as many errors as the things are which he invents despairing of ever warranting or assertâ—ng any thing if he doth not turn from being a Master to be a Schollar forsaking speculation which is an enemy to Experience But above all others he shall seldome prove able in politick affaires that is accustomed to interpret the holy Scripture The difficulty proceeds not onely from the difference of tâ—mes God then making for the most part the secondary causes obedient to merit and now letting them oftentimes runne in favour of injustice but likewise from the difference which is between the Divine and Humane intellect the one infinite the other finite this an accident that a substance The holy Ghost doth not speak a word for one thing alone his sense may be interpreted for any thing that is pious for he meanes it all Hee gives scope of altering thoughts interpret and inlarge the old invent new teach with the doctrine and delight with the variety without prejudice of truth But man doth and saith one thing onely for it and and not alwayes for that which he should doe or say In what case then shall that man finde himselfe who comes from interpreting the Divine meaning which is so large and so good and goeth to interpret that of men which is alwayes short and for the most part evill seeing that in the one he cannot erre without he digresse and in the other men have often erred because they have not digressed I doe not say that discourse is not necâ—ssary for man I exclude it in speculative Sciences and admit it in what belongs to practice snow to be snow ought to be white and so ought a woman to be fair and yet notwithstanding if snow were as a woman it would not be white and if a woman were of the
of the City which was manifestly to give it in prey to the other who remained made choice for the setting forward of this businesse of one Hyperbolus a man so full of infamy that he felt it not being so covered over with it that he had no sound part left him by which he might judge of it Such was Alcibiades his circumspectnesse and vigilancy that he turned the Ostracisme upon Hyperbolus himselfe The people were ashamed that the Ostracisme should fall upon so infamous a person being a punishment which made a man sufferable and almost to be desired its reward being to be thereby declared the best man and therefore after that time it was no more used and it was very fitting that law which had begun with the best should end with the worst Excellency or perfect goodnesse seemes to be an unfortunate thing In Physicke Galen saith it is not to be found Hyppocrates if he grant any such thing doth presently againe disallow it In policy they will not admit of it amongst formes of state unlesse it be transitorily A Common wealth banisheth any thing that resembles it a Tyrant kills it In humane actions they call it an enemy to goodnesse nature is sometimes blamed as ignorant because it cannot reach to the making of it up and sometimes they accuse it as envious because after it hath begun it it cuts it off green If it belonged to the body Arithmetically there were no place to receive it If Geometrically no ayre whereby it might breath no food to feed upon without offending it If it belong to the mind it must of necessity be excluded out of the Common-wealth The excellent and perfect one is not yet come upon earth and he cannot be a fitting Citizen of any other therefore it must either grant him the command over all or kill him When the perfect one came into the world and was borne amongst us he would not accept of the first because his kingdome was not of this world and he came for the latter Scarce was he borne but the Tyrant seekes to slay him Scarce is he knowne but the Tribes cry him up King and the rulers crucifie him Man is borne to iniquity saith Eliphaz the Temanite and this doth not proceed saith he from the dust from which spring the senses for then beasts also would be wicked Not from the soule governesse and guide of the body say I for then the infant and the mad man would sinne But from that which moves the understanding and the will by St Paul called Spirit by the Philosophers Minde and by us commonly Reason The child because he wants it receives by that defect more securenesse then Man The mad man because he hath lost it hath an advantage above the wise man The one cannot sinne the other can not chuse but sinne To be great in heaven we must become as the little ones of the earth to be wise we must become fooles yet with this difference that where they do not sinne through defect we should not sinne thorough vertue and where they doe not undeserve wanting the use of reason wee should merit in rightly using it This food this heavenly Nectar if it meets with a cleere and resplendent mind doth seed and elevate it wonderfully if an impure and troubled one it doth above measure offend and depresse it He which is best be it either in the species or in the individuum if once he begin to be bad becomes the worst Angels are worse then Men Men worse then Beasts Amongst Angels he that was the greatest amongst men he that is the best the best most excellent is onely contrary to the worst and the best onely can attaine to be worâ—t This possibility was the guilding which the inventers of the Ostracisme gave malice They covered the vice of envy with the vertue of providence But it is not a vertue when it is overmuch it is a vice and the lesse it resembles it the more it is such It shews ill in Gods sight as if man did put his whole confidence in himselfe and none in him Of this Tyrants are framed For this warres arise and with this the world is pull'd off of the hinges How many men are dead by preventing future things and by physicking themselves with prevention How many Cities Provinces and Kingdomes have lost themselves to prevent a future thing which was not nor would not have been I would liken over much Providence to the Judiciary but that is more harmfull more rash more uncertaine and worse because it cannot be hindred Thou shalt indeed find some that have bin killed by a Tyrant by reason of what the Astrologers advised and the starres threatned him Other some that have undertaken great and new things perswaded thereunto by the happy influences of their births These are but some but their number is infinite whom providence hath caused to be kill'd or spurred on to new businesses Both go on in divining future things But providence is the rashest because it drawes the principall out of it selfe and the other seekes it in the starres where he thinkes the Creator hath placed it They are both false Astrology lesse false because it makes use of celestiall things Providence more false because it is grounded upon terrestriall God is not pleased with man who remits all things to him and is displeased when he remits nothing at all to him Seldome will he operate without man and never likes that man should operate without him The one is tempting of God by obliging him The other is a provoking of him by refusing to be obliged to him This most vile Law was ordained by Ignorance and Malignity the Nobles the People Ambition Jealousie Envy and Feare The People seeke after security the Nobles after honour and both with their private passions overthrow the publick weale A subject of great worth is ever hatefull to his equalls but not alwayes distrusted by his inferiours If it were possible for him to free himselfe from envy he might easily free others from feare The People love him and exalt him while they beleeve he may profit or at least not endammage their security The Noble alwayes hates him because he is alwayes a hinderance to his honour and being ashamed to shew his envy so naked and plaine he cloaths and covers it with feare to imprint likewise in the Peoples hearts this his dissembled and feigned character It is not withstanding a feare in both of them though it be not a vice in both in great ones it is a feare of not losing their glory in the meane ones their liberty And if the People be permitted to oppose him who takes away their liberty why should the Noble be denied the opposing of him that takes away his glory Peradventure it is because the one is assayed directly the other reslectively Liberty cannot be defended but onely by directly opposing him that seekes to intrappe it Glory may be maintained by getting before him who
cause the person also which gave it to be applauded or whether it be because when any one gives consent to a thing the understanding being rather violently drawn thereunto then perswaded to it by reason he beleeves there is in him that perswades somewhat which is above reason and therefore without any further enquiry he will recommend the issue of that which he had voted not knowing what it was to him that perswaded him to it Yet notwithstanding the Athenians considering Alcibiades to be rash and violent to restraine and mitigate these qualities in him assigned him Nicias a wise and staid subject for a companion Because wise men presuming upon their own wisdome not knowing how little it availes in sublunary things will thereby direct those things also which they have begun through the impulsion and violence of fate Or because we being composed of a nature which being an enemy of simple and unmixt things hath every thing mingled in it cannot be quiet our selves untill wee have produced a mixt But whatsoever be the cause the issue thereof which hath alwayes bin unfortunate should make us not to adhere to any such manner of opinion which is either ill argued upon by the understanding or little favoured by heaven What can bee gotten by it but the depriving our selves of good forsaking that advantage which by each quality several might be obtained The staid and prudent man causes the rash and hare brained to lose that fortune which assists and favours bold men The rash man spoyles the prudent mans councells and advices not suffering them to come to maturity but preventing them with fury and violence The primary qualities of the elements are qualified controuled and corrected by themselves mans qualities remaine entire they are continually justling encountring one another but never joyne nor qualifie themselves The rash man gives an onset the prudent man will not second him One goes as it were with feet of lead to engage himselfe the other flyes into an engagement with wings of fire The prudent man thinkes he shall utterly lose himselfe unlesse he forsake his companion and sometimes goes back when by going on he might have conquered Tacitus relates the vertues and vices of Mutian and Vespasian He doth not say they would have made a good compound being in two severall subjects but if they had been both joyned in one he will have a mixt made by Nature and not by Art where the parts grow neere but doe not unite or at least not mix each holds keeps its inclinations to its proper ends And though the first vertues from which the accidents have their originall be sometimes dashed to pieces yet the last remains intire so that in operating they frame as many characters as they are themselves always different and for the most part contrary The knowledge of the first qualities and ignorance of the second loses both the Physitian and the patient if we did not want this knowledge the medicines which were most mixt would be the best for our body is more mixt then than any other by this means bearing the worldly imperfection to make a difference between it and heavenly perfection for there the most pure and simple are the best and here the most mixed and mingled are excellentest The Athenians not content that they had sent Nicias Alcibiades to the enterprise of of Sicilia doe appoint Varianus also for that service Two contraries had need have a third to the end that if they cannot be united one to another they may be both joyned in him which he may easily attain to if he participate of both their qualities So the aire by meanes of its heat is united to fire by means of its moistness to water water by its coldness unites it selfe to the earth by its moistness to the aire From whence growes the rawly-composed order of this great vniverse But because Varianus was not so but was likewise full of rage boldness this seemed to be rather a putting the enterprise into the hands of temerity than securing it unless that were the way to secure it A prudent man is not sitting to undertake bold attempts which are beyond Reason they are to be atchieved by the hands of a daring fierce man or not at all Prudence hath measure for is actions temerity is unlimited in using it somtimes are performed extravagant unlookt for atchievements He that makes use of it hath an advantage to assault by way of surprize to amaze to disorder to confound binding the understanding either to lose it selfe or take a sudden resolution in a thing which was never discoursed upon It runnes violently upon some inaccessible way and finds it without defence because every one stands armed against Wisdome and lies open to Temerity Therefore wise men for feare of this make a golden bridge for him that flies and Conquerours make a way for them that runne One may erre it is true by temerity but one shall sometimes doe the like through prudence The wise man casts him selfe into the armes of reason the rash man puts himselfe into the hands of Heaven And because things have seldome that end which other men judge hee erres seldomer that hath not discoursed upon affaires then hee that hath judged of the events The understanding is within us imprisoned in the body and intangled amongst the senses Nature is without loose free and not subject to erring The Philosopher defines Temerity to be an act without reason Hee might peradventure be deceived An unfortunate act is out of the bounds of reason but a fortunate one is above it An impulse of nature which alwayes aymes at truth is more available then a motion of the understanding which discourses upon likelihoods and if nature erres it is because one making no difference between our particular nature and the universall beleeves that impulse to be superior to reason which is without any as if the senses and the heauens did move in the same manner Others confiding too much in their owne understanding hold all that to be a defect in the inferior part which is dissonant from the superior as if there were not a supreme which they sometimes doe not know and sometimes oppose erring for the most part by fearing not to erre It is too hard for the one to forget that they have understanding and for the other to discern the impulses of a not erring nature from the provocation of a corrupt one Alcibiades was noted for and accused of impiety as if totally irreligions in some actions he had made a mock of the Gods and had by night cut off the heads of all Mercuries Statues which were set up in divers places of Athens A wise man among the Gentiles wept at the ignorance of his times in which they worshipped so many and such ridiculous Gods And raising himselfe by the power of his understanding to a more sublime Sphere easily penetrated into the knowledge of one onely â—ne A Subject raised
turne this into a Golden age and without producing an Acorne age they shall see the Oaken Crownes spring up in abundance It is so consonant to reason that all crimes should be punished and all vertues rewarded that it serves for an argument to know there is a heaven and a hell because that good and evill things being not rewarded and punished by God in this world seeing it is necessary they should be rewarded it argues that of necessity there must be places in the other world to doe it He is notwithstanding a pernicious and irreligious Prince that will imitate God in this particular He takes away as much as in him lies the efficacy of the argument because he takes away the necessity of doing it seeing he hath not another world to reward or punish them in whom he hath not rewarded nor punished in this world The happinesse of worldly government consists in not suffering any vertue to go unrewarded nor any offence unpunished One of the greatest disorders that the corruption of rewards hath produced making treasuries unable to undergoe that burthen hath bin the in some sort obliging Princes and Common-wealths to reward vertues with an impunity of offences Unfortunate is that vertuous act abominable that reward if the recompence must be the bearing with offences if rewarding must be forbearance of punishing either vertue must goe without reward or turne to vice to attaine it No body makes any question but that rewards and punishments are they which beare up States upon these two pillars did God lay the foundations of the world promising glory to those who did well and threatning evill doers with everlasting torments and if this were not sufficient if he met with people that beleeved neither heaven nor hell he set a reward and a punishment within man himselfe imprinting in his very entrailes the law of Nature which should perswade him to good and disswade him from evill And because all naturall operations are pleasing and contrary ones painefull man doth in his owne very acting receive his reward and his punishment from whence proceeds that inward joy which comforts good men and afflicts bad ones But since man through sinne was divided and withdrew from this law the senses imbued with another contrary one more sharpe and vehement he was forced to goe and assist the naturall law which borne in the soule was oppressed by that law which came from without in the members to counterpoise and overcome it assisting it with outward punishments and rewards which though they be needfull in all nations and all sorts of people yet are they not required for all men of the same kind The rewards of inferiour people is money of Nobles honour the punishment for the one death for the other infamy In former times great spirits were satisfied with the reward of an Olive or Oaken garland a ring a chaine a feather a scarfe and for greater matters with a triumph and the deniall of a triumph after it was deserved was a punishment sufficient and this was done at such times as it was the vulgar sort of peoples reward to divide the spoile amongst the Souldiours and the conquered land among the people Such were the proceedings in Common-wealths composed of Optimacy and especially in that of Rome where it may be easily knowne by those that read the histories of it that the rewards were such and the like of punishments by such as examiâ—e the said histories VVhere they shall find that whole Armies have bin tithed putting each tenth man to death for faults which have bin committed in them and never any Nobles put to death for losing of battells or ill guiding of their Armies or any other offence untill wee come to Spurius Melus whose crime was against the State Whereby we must needs conclude that either in Rome they neglected one fundamentall Pillar of Government which is punishment in the Nobility or that for them infamy and disgrace was a sufficient one The Rewards were altered when desire of wealth came in not because Noble minds altered their object and giving over the desire of glory did wholly cast themselves upon their own interests but because the object it selfe was altered and yet not changed quite but onely communicated to another The Ring the Chain the Laurell the Olive Garland were not the objects of generous mindes no more are riches now at this time but they had the first for honour and these last for that which they had gained For the honour consisting not in him that is honoured but in the honourer it is not in a mans choyce what to bee honoured with or to be rewarded more by one thing than by another he must onely look what thing is most honoured by common applause Thence growes the ordinary errour of subjects who in applying themselves doe not follow their own genius but ambition which cals men to that where glory is reputed greatest But the same thing is not in repute in every place nor in the same place at all times nor the samething in the same manner Roman vertues were vices amongst the Parthians In Rome Eloquence was first contemned then afterwards honoured sometimes Asiaticall sometimes Laconicall sometimes plaine sometimes garnished Eloquence was applauded sometimes that which pleased the eare sometimes that which best perswaded the minde and all this comes to passe because the true object of the principall powers of the soule being wanting in the world even like a sicke man that cannot finde rest in any place we alwayes change our place because we will not despaire of finding it It was the people that placed honour in riches because the object of want hindering the object of ambition they turned to honouring of that which might relieve them A right effect of Nature which not to bee defective makes that to be most desired which is most necessary Wherefore it was judged by wise and understanding men That the desire and appetite of food was more vehement in man than any other passion and therefore if hee had many objects to turn to and many passions to satisfie he would first look upon and satisfie the passion of hunger But because honour is expected from the vulgar more than from the Nobilitie who being emulators and envious will rather seeke to disgrace than applaud and they being corrupt or necessitated honour him most that is wealthiest it was needfull to procure to be one of the greatest among these to bee the most honoured After applause came Traines of followers from them sprang factions and dissentions and these caused the ruines of Common-wealths and kingdomes Mâ—ny Philosophers knew riches to bee the root of all evils Wherefore when Licurgus went about to secure his Common-wealth the first thing he did was banishing Gold and Silver out of it and causing Leather to be made use of instead of it Deceiving himselfe in this because hee did not know that hee did not change the error but onely did abase it by reducing it
of the violent namely of not being durable Wherefore those that are such to keep themselves long in command have had their recourse to art when the favour of nature hath failed them feigning to have had some commerce with the Gods So that in mine opinion we may say that the understandingest doth command by cunning the most rash by violence and he that is endowed with true Fortitude by nature And indeed nature whose chiefe aime is to preserve the Species inclines man to obey him who may best preserve him And because he that hath fortitude is such a one he shall before others be set in this naturall state free from all violence and men will obey him in whom they shall see this vertue shine more then in others Coriolanus did not so much desire to bee honoured himselfe as to be commended to his Mother he esteemed of honours because they caused joy in her But why should others joy increase ours whether it be that of our Parents and Kindreds or our friends Man is so set upon the satisfying of his passions and the passions are so joyned and linked together and also desirous to be satisfied that the perfectly pleasing of ones passion or the being content with having pleased it is not ordinarily attained unto when the rest are froward and distasted For satisfaction of the sense of tasting savoury meat would be sufficient But he that will have it perfumed seekes to content the smelling also If he desires colour handsomnesse and shape he seeks to have the eye also pleased therewith and that the hearing likewise may have its delight he will eate his meat where there is playing and singing Neither there doth the sensuality of man composed of soule and body rest though his body wallow in delights the passions of the soul must also have some food feeding his ambition with finenesse of Table-linnen richnesse of vessels number of attendants invention disposition and singularity In the sense of feeling man should be content with softnesse but hee will have beauty for the eyes he desires perfumes to please the smell Nobility and vertue to appay his ambition and to content his irascicall part could he not also satisfie himselfe with the death of his enemy No fully to please the passions of his minde though he oftentimes doe it with losse and danger he will vain-gloriously have it known that it was he that slue him and the greater his innocency was the more he rejoyces in his revenge These examples are so cleare that they put it out of all question that mans desire is not content with the satisfaction of the passions of the body if he doth likewise in some sort partly satisfie his ambition The same as I believe happens as truly though not so plainly in the satisfying of ambition Cold and unsavoury seeme the advancements to honours and dignities all increases of greatnesse let them be of never so great moment seem despicable if there be not some content likewise given to the two chiefe passions of the body Irascible and Concupiscible Thereunto hath regard the desire of having at that time both those we love and those we haâ—e alive that we may rejoyce at the griefe which wee see in the one and the pleasure which we espy in the other That is a kinde of revenge belonging to the Irascible and this a kind of benefit done to him who is beloved which may be reduced to the Concupiscible Hee will thinke himselfe unfortunate who arriving to any happinesse hath not these two spectators a friend and an enemy Hence proceâ—ds the originall cause of his excessive delight who comes to great preferment in his fathers life time because that in this case both the foresaid affections are satisfied the sonne being both beloved also emulated by the father And though the emulation bee not so apparant yet sometimes there is as much of it as there is of love lesse discovered but sometimes more sharp whereupon he did very well that made it the chiefe of his joyes that his Father and his mother had seen him ride in triumph And it is no marvell if he did desire the presence of the one more than of the other because in the other wants emulation And indeed the delight is more perfect which we receive from the love that belongs to both than from the emulation which belongs particularly to the Father it failing unlesse it be by reflection of any desire which may produce griefe But how can it bee that a mans joy encreasing by his friends rejoycing his sorrowes should decrease by his friends grieving at his sorrowes St. Thomas saith that the friends griefe is considered not as a reall thing but as a mark and signe of one not as a dolorous passion but as a signe of love whereby the comfort is received To this learned saying might also be added That a friend being beloved as ones selfe we desire that all his actions should be perfect wherefore it doth trouble us to see him rejoyce in our calamities and we are glad when with his sorrow hee sympathizes with us in them The former being a signe of his slighting us and the other of his constancy in affection Adde to this finally the delight a man takes when he findes he hath made a happy choice of a friend and grief which oppresses him if he proves false Sannieticus King of Aegypt being taken prisoner by Cambyses sees his daughter in a servile habit drawing of water his sonne guarded by armed men to his death he looks upon them both with dry eyes Afterwards he sees one of his friends half naked and almost starved begging food to keepe him alive hee abandons himself to griefe weeping and lamentation The solution of this knot is very difficult Cambyses desires to know the reason and causeth Sanneticus to be examined about it as if he that does a thing alwayes knew the reason why hee doth it He many times is ignorant of it and oftentimes whereas the action produces the effects he makes it to be produced by the effects either to conceale the true cause or to boast of a wisdome which he hath not but onely preposterous ascribing the worke of Fortune to his own prudency The captive King answeres That he having no griefe to equall to the two first calamities had sacrificed it to the third as worthy of it Others will say that the two first brought him to the highest pitch of suffering and the third forced him to run headlong into lamentation Neither of these solutions satisfie me One savours of Poetry and the other is not altogether Philosophicall The greater grief according to Hippocrates doctrine doth not suffer the lesser to be felt then it was either greater or of another nature greater onely would not have been sufficient to extract teares it would rather have hindered the eyes from weeping it was of another nature namely a mixture of joy and griefe the first with its heat being able to make