X PREFACE. 



Regardless of these important truths, so deeply 

 impressed upon his mind, he, either deluding himself 

 with the supposition that, in place he had more 

 power to do good, (Ji) or, influenced by worldly am 

 bition, like &quot; the seeled dove which mounts and 

 mounts, because he cannot see about him ; (i) or 



(h) In his Essay on Great Place, he says, &quot; In place 

 there is license to do good and evil; whereof the latter is 

 a curse : for in evil the best condition is not to will ; the 

 second not to can. But power to do good is the true and 

 lawful end of aspiring ; for good thoughts (though God ac 

 cept them), yet towards men are little better than good 

 dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without 

 power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground.&quot; 

 But in the Advancement of Learning, he says, &quot; The merits 

 of founders of states, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, and 

 other eminent persons in civil merit, are commonly confined 

 within the circle of an age or nation, and are not unlike 

 seasonable and favouring showers, which, though they be profi 

 table and desirable, yet serve but for that season wherein they 

 fall, and for a latitude of ground which they water: but the me 

 rits of the inventors and authors of new arts, such as endow man s 

 life with new commodities and accessions, like the influences of 

 the sun and the heavenly bodies, are for time permanent, for 

 place universal : those again are commonly mixed with strife 

 and perturbation : but these have the true character of divine 

 presence, and come in aura leni, without noise or agitation.&quot; 

 (See Vol. ii. p. 62.) And to the same effect Bishop Berkeley, in 

 his minute philosopher says. &quot; For my part, I should think a man, 

 who spent his time in such a painful impartial search after truth, 

 a better friend to mankind than the greatest statesman or hero : 

 the advantage oi whose labours is confined to a little part of the 

 world, and a short space of time : whereas a ray of truth may 

 enlighten the whole world, and extend to future ages.&quot; 

 (i) Essay on Ambition, ante. Vol. i. 127. 



