XXI. 2.] THE SECOND BOOK. 195 



extending their form upon other things: whereof the 

 multiplying, or signature of it upon other things, is that 

 which we handled by the name of active good. So as 

 there remaineth the conserving of it, and perfecting or 

 raising of it; which latter is the highest degree of 

 passive good. For to preserve in state is the less, 

 to preserve with advancement is the greater. So in 

 man, 



Igneus est ollis vigor, et caelestis origo. 



His approach or assumption to divine or angelical na 

 ture is the perfection of his form; the error or false 

 imitation of which good is that which is the tempest of 

 human life ; while man, upon the instinct of an advance 

 ment formal and essential, is carried to seek an ad 

 vancement local. For as those which are sick, and find 

 no remedy, do tumble up and down and change place, 

 as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove in 

 ternal; so is it with men in ambition, when failing of 

 the mean to exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual 

 estuation to exalt their place. So then passive good is, 

 as was said, either conservative or perfective. 



3. To resume the good of conservation or comfort, 

 which consisteth in the fruition of that which is agree 

 able to our natures; it seemeth to be the most pure 

 and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and the 

 lowest. And this also receiveth a difference, which hath 

 neither been well judged of, nor well inquired: for the 

 good of fruition or contentment is placed either in the 

 sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and 

 vigour of it; the one superinduced by equality, the 

 other by vicissitude ; the one having less mixture of evil, 

 the other more impression of good. Whether of these is 

 the greater good is a question controverted ; but whether 

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