52 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [VII. i. 



antiquitymade this difference: that whereas founders 

 and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of 

 tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons 

 in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies 

 or demi-gods ; such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, 

 Romulus, and the like : on the other side, such as were 

 inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and 

 commodities towards man s life, were ever consecrated 

 amongst the gods themselves : as was Ceres, Bacchus/ 

 MeFcurius, Apollo, and others ; and justly ; for the merit 

 of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a 

 nation ; and is like fruitful showers, which though they be 

 profitable and good, yet serve but for that season, and for 

 a latitude of ground where they fall ; but the other is 

 indeed like the benefits of heaven, which are permanent 

 and universal. The former again is mixed with strife 

 and perturbation ; but the latter hath the true character of 

 Divine Presence, coming in aura lent, without noise or 

 agitation. 



2. Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in re 

 pressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, 

 much inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities 

 which arise from nature ; which merit was lively set forth 

 by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus theatre, 

 where all beasts and birds assembled ; and forgetting their 

 several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of 

 quarrel, stood all sociably together listening unto the airs 

 and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner 

 ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every 

 beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly de 

 scribed the nature and condition of men, who are full of 

 savage and unreclaimed desires, of profit, of lust, of re 

 venge ; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, 



