106 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



nature, if it may be reduced to compositions of art both the 

 variety of them will be increased, and the temper of them wul 



^(loTBuUeTl grow to be more particular than is agreeable 

 either to my intention or to proportion, I will conclude this 

 mrt with the note of one deficience more, which seemeth to me 

 3 greatest consequence: which is, that the prescripts in use 

 are too compendious to attain their end ; for, to my under 

 standing it is a vain and flattering opinion to think any 

 Seme can be so sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt 

 or use of it can work any great effect upon the body of man 

 It were a strange speech which spoken, or spoken oft, shoulc 

 reclaim a man from a vice to which he were by nature subject. 

 It is order pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, 

 which Is mighty in nature ; which although it require more 

 exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience in 

 observing yet is recompensed with the magnitude of effects 

 Sd although a man would think, by the daily visitations of 

 the physicians, that there were a pursuance in the cure, yet 

 let a man look into their prescripts and ministrations, and lie 

 shall find them but inconstancies and every day _s devices 

 without any settled providence or project. Not that every 

 scrupulous or superstitious prescript is effectual no more than 

 every straight way is the way to heaven ; but the truth of the 

 direction must precede severity of observance. 



(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate : 

 for cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due 

 reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves. As for artificial 

 decoration, it is well worthy of the deficiences which it hath , 

 being neither fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to use, nor 



take the subject of it largely that is to 

 sav for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may 

 be broiight, whether it be of activity, or of patience ; whereof 

 activity hath two parts, strength and swiftness ; and patience 

 rikewi/e hath two parts, hardness against wants and extremi 

 ties and endurance of pain or torment ; whereof we see the 

 practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer 

 punishment. Nay, if there be any other faculty which falls 

 not within any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, 

 ^at tain a siange power of containing respiration and the 

 like I refer it to this part. Of these things the practices are 

 known but the philosophy that concerneth them is not much 

 ; the rather, I think, because they are supposed, to be 

 , either by an aptness of nature, which cannot be 



obtained, 



