1 90 Bacon 



We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to 

 the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness 

 of belief and distrust; that more trust be given to coun 

 tenances and deeds than to words: and in words rather 

 to sudden passages and surprised words than to set and 

 purposed words. Neither let that be feared which is said, 

 Fronti nulla fides : 1 which is meant of a general outward 

 behaviour, and not of the private and subtile motions and 

 labours of the countenance and gesture ; which as Q. Cicero 

 elegantly saith, is Animijanua, the gate of the mind. 2 None 

 more close than Tiberius, and yet Tacitus saith of Gallus, 

 Etenim vultu offensionem conjectaverat. 3 So again, noting 

 the differing character and manner of his commending 

 Germanicus and Drusus in the senate, he saith, touching 

 his fashion wherein he carried his speech of Germanicus, 

 thus; Magis in speciem adornatis verbis, quam ut penitus 

 sentire crederetur : but of Drusus thus : Paucioribus, sed 

 intentior, etfida oratione : 4 and in another place, speaking of 

 his character of speech, when he did any thing that was 

 gracious and popular, he saith, that in other things he was 

 velut eluctantium verborum ; but then again, solutius vero 

 loquebatur qtiando subveniret. 5 So that there is no such 

 artificer of dissimulation, nor no such commanded coun 

 tenance, vultus jussus, that can sever from a feigned tale 

 some of these fashions, either a more slight and careless 

 fashion, or more set and formal, or more tedious and 

 wandering, or coming from a man more drily and hardly. 



Neither are deeds such assured pledges, as that they 

 may be trusted without a judicious consideration of their 

 magnitude and nature : Fraus sibi in parvisfidem prcestruit, 

 ut majore emolumento fallal : 6 and the Italian thinketh 

 himself upon the point to be bought and sold, when he is 

 better used than he was wont to be, without manifest cause. 

 For small favours, they do but lull men asleep, both as 

 to caution and as to industry; and are, as Demosthenes 

 calleth them, Alimenta socordite. 1 So again we see how 



1 Juv. Sat. ii. 8. * De Petit. Consul, xi. 44. 



3 Tacit. Ann. i. 12. * Ibid. i. 52. 



6 Ibid. iv. 31. 6 Liv. xxviii. 42. 



7 See Mr. Spedding s note on the De Augm. Sc. (p. 68 1), where 

 these words are quoted with context, and traced through H. Wolf s 

 translation of Dem. Phil. i. the Greek being simply fart raOra ra 



pg,6v/j.iav 



