174 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



hand towards a statue of Csesar s that was erected in the place : 

 and men laughed and wondered, and said, &quot;Is it possible?&quot; or, 

 &quot; Did you ever hear the like ? &quot; and yet thought he meant no 

 hurt; he did it so handsomely and ingenuously. And all 

 these were prosperous : whereas Pompey, who tended to the 

 same ends, but in a more dark and dissembling manner, as 

 Tacitus saith of him, Occultior non melior, wherein Sallust 

 concurreth, Ore probo, animo inverccundo, made it his design, 

 by infinite secret engines., to cast the state into an absolute 

 anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast itself into his 

 arms for necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power 

 be put upon him, and he never seen in it : and when he had 

 brought it (as he thought) to that point when he was chosen 

 consul alone, as never any was, yet he could make no great 

 matter of it, because men understood him not ; but was fain 

 in the end to go the beaten track of getting arms into his 

 hands, by colour of the doubt of Csesar s designs : so tedious, 

 casual, and unfortunate are these deep dissimulations : whereof 

 it seemeth Tacitus made this judgment, that they were a 

 cunning of an inferior form in regard of true policy ; attri 

 buting the one to Augustus, the other to Tiberius ; where, 

 speaking of Livia, he saith, Et cum artibus mariti simulatione 

 alii bene composite : for surely the continual habit of dissimu 

 lation is but a weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly 

 politic. 



(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to 

 accustom our minds to judge of the proportion or value of 

 things, as they conduce and are material to our particular 

 ends ; and that to do substantially and not superficially. For 

 we shall find the logical part (as I may term it) of some men s 

 minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous ; that is, 

 they can well judge of consequences, but not of proportions 

 and comparison, preferring things of show and sense before 

 things of substance and effect. So some fall in love with 

 access to princes, others with popular fame and applause, 

 supposing they are things of great purchase, when in many 

 cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment. So 

 some measure things according to the labour and difficulty or 

 assiduity which are spent about them ; and think, if they be 

 ever moving, that they must needs advance and proceed ; as 

 Caesar saith in a despising manner of Cato the second, when he 

 describeth how laborious and indefatigable he was to no great 

 purpose, Hcec omnia magno studio agebat. So in most things 

 men are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest 

 means to be best, when it should be the fittest. 



