138 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



persuasions yea, and fortified and entrenched them (as much 

 L dlcZse can do) against corrupt and popular opinions^ 

 Again for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they 

 ha S ve also excellently handled it in their triplicity of ! good, n 

 the comparisons between a contemplative and an active lite, in 

 the distinction between virtue with reluctation and virtue 

 secured, in their encounters between honesty and profit in 

 thdr balancing of virtue with virtue and the like ; so as this 

 rt dpserveth to be reported for excellently laboured. 

 P (6) Notwithstanding^ if before they had come to the popular 

 and received notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and 

 the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon tne . inquiry con 

 cerning the roots of good and evil, and the string of ^ those 

 roots they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that 

 which followed; and specially if they had consulted with 

 nature they had made their doctrines less prolix and more 

 profound: wMch being by them in part omitted and in part 

 handled with much confusion, we will endeavour to 

 and open in a more clear manner. .mod 



(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of good 

 the one, as everything is a total or substantive in xtself ; the 

 other as it is a part or member of a greater body ; whereof 

 She latter is in degree the greater and the worthier -because it 

 tendeth to the conservation of a more general form There 

 fore we see the iron in particular sympathy moveth to the 

 loadstone but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it forsaketh 

 the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth 

 to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies ; 

 so may we go forward, and see that water and massy bodies 

 move to the g centre of the earth; but rather ;than to suffei : a 

 divulsion in the continuance of nature, they ^jJ^g^S 

 from the centre of the earth, forsaking their duty to the Dearth 

 in regard of their duty to the world. This double nature 

 good and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven 

 Spon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the. conservation 

 of duty to the public ought to be much more precious than the 

 conservation of life and being; according to that memorable 

 speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being %0*JJ^J5 

 veyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded ^hgreat 

 vehemency and instance by his friends ab out him , th* ^he 

 should not hazard himself to sea m an extremity of weather 

 he said only to them, Necesse cst ut cam, non ut mvam. But 

 it may be tmly affirmed that there was never any philosophy, 

 reSn or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly 

 exaft the good which is communicative, and depress the good 



