CXC11 LIFE OF BACON. 



To the hope of wealth he would have said, &quot; it diverts 

 and interrupts the prosecution and advancement of know 

 ledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, 

 which, while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take it up, 

 the race is hindered. 



&quot; Declinat cursus aurumq. volubile tollit.&quot;() 



To the importunities of friends he would have answered 

 by his favourite maxim, &quot; You do not duly estimate the 

 value of pleasures ; for if you observe well, you shall find 

 the logical part of some men s minds good, but the mathe 

 matical part nothing worth: that is, they can judge well 

 of the mode of attaining the end, but ill of the value of the 

 end itself.&quot; (b) 



He would have warned ambition that &quot; the seeled dove 

 mounts and mounts because he is unable to look about 

 him.&quot;(c) 



To the supposition &quot; that worldly power is the means to 

 do good,&quot; he would have said, &quot; A man who spends his 

 life in an impartial search after truth, is a better friend to 

 mankind than any statesman or hero, whose merits are 

 commonly confined within the circle of an age or a nation, 

 and are not unlike seasonable and favouring showers, 

 which, though they be profitable and desirable, yet serve 

 for that season only wherein they fall, and for a latitude of 

 ground which they water; but the benefices of the phi 

 losopher, 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; 



(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 52. 

 (b} Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 286. 

 (c) Essay on Ambition, vol. i. p. 127. 



