Advancement of Learning 1 63 



return to that good of man which respecteth and beholdeth 

 society, which we may term Duty; because the term of 

 Duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed 

 towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind 

 well formed and composed in itself: though neither can 

 a man understand virtue without some relation to society, 

 nor Duty without an inward disposition. This part may 

 seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic : but not 

 if it be well observed; for it concerneth the regiment and 

 government of every man over himself, and not over others. 

 And as in architecture the direction of framing the posts, 

 beams, and other parts of building, is not the same with 

 the manner of joining them and erecting the building; 

 and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame an instru 

 ment or engine, is not the same with the manner of setting 

 it on work and employing it, (and yet nevertheless in 

 expressing of the one you incidentally express the apt 

 ness towards the other;) so the doctrine of conjugation 

 of men in society differeth from that of their conformity 

 thereunto. 



This part of Duty is subdivided into two parts: the 

 common Duty of every man, as a man or member of a 

 state; the other, the respective or special Duty of every 

 man, in his profession, vocation, and place. The first of 

 these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said. The 

 second likewise I may report rather dispersed than deficient ; 

 which manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument 

 I acknowledge to be best. For who can take upon him 

 to write of the proper duty, virtue, challenge, and right 

 of every several vocation, profession, and place? For 

 although sometimes a looker on may see more than a game 

 ster, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, 

 that the vale best discovereth the hill ; yet there is small doubt 

 but that men can write best, and most really and materially, 

 in their own professions ; and that the writing of speculative 

 men of active matter, for the most part, doth seem to men 

 of experience, as Phormio s argument of the wars seemed 

 to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage. 1 Only there 

 is one vice which accompanieth them that write in their 

 own professions, that they magnify them in excess. But 

 generally it were to be wished, as that which would make 

 1 Cic. de Orat. ii. 18, 75. 



