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186 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XX.1. 
joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the 
carriage of the hand and framing of the letters. So have 
they made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying 
the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; 
propounding them well described as the true objects and 
scopes of man’s will and desires. But how to attain 
these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the 
will of man to become true and conformable to these 
pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and un- 
profitably. For it is not the disputing, that moral virtues 
are in the mind of man by habit habit and not by nature ; or 
_ /{the distinguishing, that generous Tous spirits are won by doc- 
trines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and 
punishment ; ; and ‘the like scattered glances and touches, 
that can excuse the absence of this part. 
2. The reason of this omission I suppose to be that 
hidden rock whereupon both this and many other barks 
of knowledge have been cast away; which is, that men 
have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common 
matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is 
the wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties 
nor subtilities), but contrariwise they have compounded 
sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass 
of matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtility of 
disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses. But 
Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence, JVocet 
tllis eloguentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem factt, sed sut. 
Doctrine should be such as should make men in love 
with the lesson, and not with the teacher; being directed 
to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s com- 
mendation. And therefore those are of the right kind 
which may be concluded as Demosthenes concludes his 
counsel, Que st feceritis, non o atorem duntaxat in pre- 
