52 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



may rather be defended than denied, is, &quot;That they some 

 times fail in making court to particular persons.&quot; This 

 want of application arises from two causes the one the 

 largeness of their mind, which can hardly submit to dwell 

 in the examination and observance of any one person. 

 It is the speech of a lover rather than of a wise man, 

 &quot;Satis magnum alter alter! theatrum sumus.&quot; 41 Neverthe 

 less he who cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as 

 dilate it, wants a great talent in life. The second cause is, 

 no inability, but a rejection upon choice and judgment; 

 for the honest and just limits of observation in one person 

 upon another extend no further than to understand him 

 sufficiently, so as to give him no offence, or be able to 

 counsel him, or to stand upon reasonable guard and cau 

 tion with respect to one s self; but to pry deep into another 

 man, to learn to work, wind, or govern him, proceeds from 

 a double heart, which in friendship is want of integrity, and 

 toward princes or superiors want of duty. The eastern 

 custom which forbids subjects to gaze upon princes, though 

 in the outward ceremony barbarous, has a good moral ; for 

 men ought not, by cunning and studied observations, to 

 penetrate and search into the hearts of kings, which the 

 Scripture declares inscrutable. 42 



Another fault noted in learned men is, &quot;That they often 

 fail in point of discretion and decency of behavior, and 

 commit errors in ordinary actions, whence vulgar capaci 

 ties judge of them in greater matters by what they find 

 them in small.&quot; But this consequence often deceives; for 

 we may here justly apply the saying of Themistocles, who 

 being asked to touch a lute, replied, &quot;He could not fiddle, 

 but he could make a little village a great city.&quot; 43 Accord 

 ingly many may be well skilled in government and policy, 

 who are defective in little punctilios. So Plato compared 

 his master Socrates to the shop-pots of apothecaries painted 



41 Seneca, Ep. Mor. i. 7. 42 Prov. xxv. 



43 Cicero, Tuscul. Qussst. i. 2; Plutarch, Themistocles. 



