140 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change 

 habits) to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot 

 be served and attended ; and the reformed school of the 

 Epicureans, which placed it in serenity of mind and freedom 

 from perturbation ; as if they would have deposed Jupiter 

 again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when there was 

 no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one 

 air and season ; and Herillus, which placed felicity in ex 

 tinguishment of the disputes of the mind, making no fixed 

 nature of good and evil, esteeming things according to the 

 clearness of the desires, or the reluctation ; which opinion 

 was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, measuring things 

 according to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or 

 wavering of belief ; all which are manifest to tend to private 

 repose and contentment, and not to point of society. 



(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which 

 presupposeth that felicity must be placed in those things which 

 are in our power, lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance ; 

 as if it were not a thing much more happy to fail in good and 

 virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain all that we can 

 wish to ourselves in our proper fortune : as Consalvo said to 

 his soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he had 

 rather die one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for 

 long by one foot of retreat. AVhereunto the wisdom of that 

 heavenly leader hath signed, who hath affirmed that &quot; a good 

 conscience is a continual feast ; &quot; showing plainly that the 

 conscience of good intentions, howsoever succeeding, is a more 

 continual joy to nature than all the provision which can be 

 made for security and repose. 



(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which 

 grew general about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into 

 an occupation or profession ; as if the purpose had been, not to 

 resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly and avoid the 

 causes of them, and to shape a particular kind and course of 

 life to that end ; introducing such a health of mind, as was 

 that health of body of which Aristotle speaketh of Herodicus, 

 who did nothing all his life long but intend his health ; 

 whereas if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that 

 health of body is best which is ablest to endure all alterations 

 and extremities, so likewise that health of mind is most proper 

 which can go through the greatest temptations and perturba 

 tions. So as Diogenes opinion is to be accepted, who com 

 mended not them which abstained, but them which sustained, 

 and could refrain their mind in prazcipitio, and could give unto 

 the mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn. 



