Se i a ee 
"5 
XXIII. 14. ] FHE SECOND BOOK. Pec See 
found fault there was not a window to look into them; 
that is, to procure good informations of particulars 
touching persons, their natures, their desires and ends, 
their customs and fashions, their helps and advantages, 
and whereby they chiefly stand: so again their weak- 
nesses and disadvantages, and where they lie most 
open and obnoxious; their friends, factions, depend- 
ences; and again their opposites, enviers, competitors, 
their moods and times, Sola virt molles aditus et tempora 
noras; their principles, rules, and observations, and the 
like: and this not only of persons, but of actions; what 
are on foot from time to time, and how they are con- 
ducted, favoured, opposed, and how they import, and the 
like. For the knowledge of present actions is not only 
material in itself, but without it also the knowledge of 
persons is very erroneous: for men change with the 
actions; and whiles they are in pursuit they are one, and 
when they return to their nature they are another. These 
informations of particulars, touching persons and actions, 
are as the minor propositions in every active syllogism; 
for no excellency of observations (which are as the major 
propositions) can suffice to ground a conclusion, if there 
_ be error and mistaking in the minors. 
15. That this knowledge is possible, Salomon is our 
surety, who saith, Consclium in corde virt tanquam aqua 
profunda; sed vir prudens exhauriet tllud, And although 
the knowledge itself falleth not under precept, because it 
is of individuals, yet the instructions for the obtaining of 
it may. 
16. We will begin therefore with this precept, accord- 
ing to the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom 
are slowness of belief and disttust; that.more trust be 
given to countenances and deeds than to words; and in 
