244 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XXIII. 39. 



fortune, otherwise than in their ordinary way, because 

 they want time to learn particulars, to wait occasions, and 

 to devise plots. 



40. Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate 

 nature which doth nothing in vain ; which surely a man 

 may do if he do well interlace his business, and bend not 

 his mind too much upon that which he principally in- 

 tendeth. For a man ought in every particular action 

 so to carry the motions of his mind, and so to have 

 one thing under another, as if he cannot have that he 

 seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it in a second, or 

 so in a third ; and if he can have no part of that which 

 he purposed, yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else ; 

 and if he cannot make anything of it for the present, yet 

 to make it as a seed of somewhat in time to come ; and 

 if he can contrive no effect or substance from it, yet to 

 win some good opinion by it, or the like. So that he 

 should exact an account of himself of every action, to 

 reap somewhat, and not to stand amazed and confused 

 if he fail of that he chiefly meant : for nothing is more 

 impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one. For 

 he that doth so leeseth infinite occasions which intervene, 

 and are many times more proper and propitious for some 

 what that he shall need afterwards, than for that which he 

 urgeth for the present; and therefore men must be per 

 fect in that rule, Hcec oportet facer e, et ilia non omittere. 



41. Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage 

 a man s self peremptorily in any thing, though it seem 

 not liable to accident ; but ever to have a window to fly 

 out at, or a way to retire : following the wisdom in the 

 ancient fable of the two frogs, which consulted when their 

 plash was dry whither they should go ; and the one moved 

 to go down into a pit, because it was not likely the water 



