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60 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, |VIl. 12. 
12. And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, 
and somewhat idle, to recite things that every man know- 
eth ; but yet, since the argument I handle leadeth me 
thereunto, I am glad that men shall perceive I am as 
willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an Alexander, or 
a Cesar, or an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred 
years since, as any that now liveth: for it is the display- 
ing of the glory of learning in sovereignty that I pro- 
pound to myself, and not an humour of declaiming in 
any man’s praises. Observe then the speech he used of 
Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state of one of 
the greatest questions of moral philosophy ; whether the 
enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of them, 
be the greatest happiness: for when he saw Diogenes so 
perfectly contented with so little, he said to those that 
mocked at his condition, Were I not Alexander, I would 
wish to be Diogenes. But Seneca inverteth it, and saith; 
Plus erat, quod hic nollet accipere, quam quod ille posset 
dare. There were more things which Diogenes would have 
refused, than those were which Alexander could have given 
or enjoyed. 
13. Observe again that speech which was usual with 
him, Zhat he felt his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep 
and lust ; and see if it were not a speech extracted out of 
the depth of natural philosophy, and liker to have comen 
out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus, than from 
Alexander. 
14. See again that speech of humanity and poesy; 
when upon the bleeding of his wounds, he called unto 
him one of his flatterers, that was wont to ascribe to him 
divine honour, and said, Zook, this zs very blood; this ts 
not such a liquor as Homer speaketh of, which ran from 
Venus’ hand, when tt was pierced by Diomedes. 
