158 Bacon 



placed felicity in extinguishment of the disputes of the 

 mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming 

 things according to the clearness of the desires, or the 

 reluctation ; which opinion was revived in the heresy of the 

 Anabaptists, 1 measuring things according to the motions 

 of the spirit, and the constancy or wavering of belief: all 

 which are manifest to tend to private repose and content 

 ment, and not to point of society. 



It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which 

 presupposeth that felicity must be placed in those things 

 which are in our power, lest we be liable to fortune and 

 disturbance : as if it were not a thing much more happy to 

 fail in good and virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain 

 all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune; 

 as Gonsalvo said to his soldiers, showing them Naples, and 

 protesting, He had rather die one foot forwards, than to have 

 his life secured for long by one foot of retreat. 2 Whereunto 

 the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath signed, who hath 

 affirmed that a good conscience is a continual feast ; 3 showing 

 plainly that the conscience of good intensions, howsoever 

 succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature, than all the 

 provision which can be made for security and repose. 



It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy, which 

 grew general about the time of Epictetus, in converting it 

 into an occupation or profession; as if the purpose had 

 been, not to resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly 

 and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a particular 

 kind and course of life to that end; introducing such a 

 health of mind, as was that health of body of which Aristotle 

 speaketh of Herodicus, who did nothing all his life long but 

 intend his health : 4 whereas if men refer themselves to 

 duties of society, as that health of body is best, which is 

 ablest to endure all alterations and extremities ; so likewise 

 that health of mind is most proper, which can go through 

 the greatest temptations and perturbations. So as Dio 

 genes opinion is to be accepted, who commended not them 

 which abstained, but them which sustained, and could 



1 Anabaptists. Bacon here refers to the doctrines held by the 

 German Anabaptists. They believed themselves to be under special 

 and divine influences, and therefore had no need of magistracies, of 

 distinct ranks of men, or of restrictions in marriage. 



2 Guicciardini, vi. 2. 3 Prov. xv. 15. 

 4 Arist. Rhet. i. 5, 10. 



