XX. 2.] THE SECOND BOOK. 187 



sentia laudabitis, sed vosmetipsos etiam non ita multo post 

 statu rerum vestraram meliore. 



3. Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have 

 despaired of a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised 

 himself, and indeed obtained, who got as much glory of 

 eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of the 

 observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of 

 ^Eneas : 



Nee sum animi dubius, verbis ca vincere magnum 

 Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem. 



And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to 

 write at leisure that which men may read at leisure, but 

 really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these 

 Georgics of the mind, concerning the husbandry and 

 tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical de 

 scriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the 

 main and primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth 

 to be into the exemplar or platform of good, and the 

 regiment or culture of the mind : the one describing the 

 nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue, 

 apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto. 



4. The doctrine touching the platform or nature of 

 good considereth it either simple or compared; either 

 the kinds of good, or the degrees of good ; in the latter 

 whereof those infinite disputations which were touching 

 the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, 

 beatitude, or the highest good, the doctrines concerning 

 which were as the heathen divinity, are by the Christian 

 faith discharged. And as Aristotle saith, That young men 

 may be happy, but not otherwise but by hope ; so we must 

 all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the felicity 

 which is by hope of the future world. 



Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of 



