-_ a Lee ae 2 “a 
244 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XXIII. 39. 
fortune, otherwise than in their ordinary way, because 
they want time to learn particulars, to wait occasions, and 
to devise plots. 
40. Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate 
nature which doth nothing in vain; which surely a man 
may do if he do well interlace his business, and bend not 
his mind too much upon that which he principally in- 
tendeth. For a man ought in every particular action 
so to carry the motions of his mind, and so to have 
one thing under another, as if he cannot have that he 
seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it in a second, or 
so in a third; and if he can have no part of that which 
he purposed, yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else; 
and if he cannot make anything of it for the present, yet 
to make it as a seed of somewhat in time to come; and 
if he can contrive no effect or substance from it, yet to 
win some good opinion by it, or the like. So that he 
should exact an account of himself of every action, to 
reap somewhat, and not to stand amazed and confused 
if he fail of that he chiefly meant: for nothing is more 
impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one. For 
he that doth so leeseth infinite occasions which intervene, 
and are many times more proper and propitious for some- 
what that he shall need afterwards, than for that which he 
urgeth for the present; and therefore men must be per- 
fect in that rule, Hee oportet facere, et illa non omiittere. 
41. Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage 
a man’s self peremptorily in any thing, though it seem 
not liable to accident; but ever to have a window to fly 
out at, or a way to retire: following the wisdom in the 
ancient fable of the two frogs, which consulted when their 
plash'was dry whither they should go; and the one moved 
to go down into a pit, because it was not likely the water 
se 
