i 88 Bacon 



skill or virtue. For so Sylla surnamed himself Felix, not 

 Magnus : so Caesar said to the master of the ship, Cczsarem 

 portas et fortunam ejus. 1 



But yet nevertheless these positions, Faber quisque for- 

 tunce sucz : sapiens dominabitur astris : 2 invia virtuti nulla 

 est via, 3 and the like, being taken and used as spurs to 

 industry, and not as stirrups to insolency, rather for resolu 

 tion than for presumption or outward declaration, have 

 been ever thought sound and good ; and are, no question, 

 imprinted in the greatest minds, who are so sensible of this 

 opinion, as they can scarce contain it within. As we see 

 in Augustus Caesar, (who was rather diverse from his uncle, 

 than inferior in virtue,) how when he died, he desired his 

 friends about him to give him a plaudite, as if he were 

 conscient to himself that he had played his part well upon 

 the stage. 4 This part of knowledge we do report also as 

 deficient : not but that it is practised too much, but it hath 

 not been reduced to writing. And therefore lest it should 

 seem to any that it is not comprehensible by axiom, it is 

 requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down some 

 heads or passages of it. 



Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted 

 argument to teach men how to raise and make their fortune ; 

 a doctrine wherein every man perchance will be ready to 

 yield himself a disciple, till he see the difficulty; for 

 fortune layeth as heavy impositions as virtue; and it is as 

 hard and severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be truly 

 moral. But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly, 

 both in honour and in substance : in honour, because prag 

 matical men may not go away with an opinion that learning 

 is like a lark, that can mount, and sing, and please herself, 

 and nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well 

 of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also descend and 

 strike upon the prey : in substance, because it is the perfect 

 law of inquiry of truth, that nothing be in the globe of 

 matter, which should not be likewise in the globe of crystal, 

 or form ; that is, that there be not any thing in being and 

 action, which should not be drawn and collected into 



1 Plutarch, C&sar. 



3 Mr. Spedding states that this quotation is ascribed by Cognatus 

 to Ptolemy. 



3 Ovid, Met. xiv. 113. * Sueton. Vit. Aug. c. 99. 



