1 56 Bacon 



whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, 

 because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general 

 form. Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy 

 moveth to the lodestone; but yet if it exceed a certain 

 quantity, it forsaketh the affection to the lodestone, and 

 like a good patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region 

 and country of massy bodies: so may we go forward, and 

 see that water and massy bodies move to the centre of the 

 earth ; but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continu 

 ance of nature, they will move upwards from the centre of 

 the earth, forsaking their duty to the earth in regard to 

 their duty to the world. This double nature of good, and 

 the comparative thereof, is much more engraven upon man, 

 if he degenerate not : unto whom the conservation of duty 

 to the public ought to be much more precious than the 

 conservation of life and being : according to that memorable 

 speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being in commission of 

 purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with 

 great vehemency and instance by his friends about him 

 that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of 

 weather, he said only to them, Necesse est ut earn, non ut 

 vivam. 1 But it may be truly affirmed that there was never 

 any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so 

 plainly and highly exalt the good which is communicative, 

 and depress the good which is private and particular, as 

 the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the same God 

 that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws 

 of nature to inanimate creatures that we spoke of before; 

 for we read that the elected saints of God have wished 

 themselves anathematized and razed out of the book of life, 

 in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion. 2 

 This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge 

 and determine most of the controversies wherein moral 

 philosophy is conversant. For first, it decideth the 

 question touching the preferment of the contemplative 

 or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle. For 

 all the reasons which he bringeth for the contemplative 

 are private, and respecting the pleasure and dignity of a 

 man s self, (in which respects, no question, the contempla 

 tive life hath the pre-eminence) not much unlike to that 

 comparison, which Pythagoras made for the gracing and 

 1 Plut. Vit. Pomp. 2 Rom. ix. 3. 



