ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 135 



obliging, yet in the eyes of others appears mean, contemp 

 tible, or ridiculous. 



The Muses also are found in the train of Bacchus; for 

 there is scarce any passion without its art, science, or doc 

 trine to court and flatter it; but in this respect the indul 

 gence of men of genius has greatly detracted from the 

 majesty of the Muses, who ought to be the leaders and 

 conductors of human life, and not the handmaids of the 

 passions. 



The allegory of Bacchus falling in love with a cast mis 

 tress is extremely noble; for it is certain that the affections 

 always court and covet what has been rejected upon experi 

 ence. And all those who, by serving and indulging their 

 passions immensely raise the value of enjoyment, should 

 know, that whatever they covet and pursue, whether riches, 

 pleasure, glory, learning, or anything else, they only pursue 

 those things that have been forsaken, and cast off with con 

 tempt by great numbers in all ages, after possession and 

 experience. 



Nor is it without a mystery that the ivy was sacred to 

 Bacchus; and this for two reasons First, because ivy is an 

 evergreen, or flourishes in the winter; and, secondly, be 

 cause it winds and creeps about so many things, as trees, 

 walls, and buildings, and raises itself above them. As to 

 the first, every passion grows fresh, strong, and vigorous 

 by opposition and prohibition, as it were by a kind of con 

 trast or antiperistasis, 21 like the ivy in the winter. And for 



21 The word avriTrepio-Too-ts, used by the Greeks to express the forces of ac 

 tivity and resistance, which are continually producing all the variegated tissue 

 of phenomena which mark the history of the moral and physical world, and are 

 necessary to their preservation. Without reaction, action could not take place, 

 as force can be only displayed in overcoming resistance, and we can have no idea 

 of its existence except from its effect upon the antagonistic force it attempts to 

 subdue. In mechanics, Newton has observed that reaction is always equal to 

 action, and we may observe a similar principle in the antiperistasis of the moral 

 world. The reactions in communities and individuals against any dominant 

 principle are generally marked with excesses proportionally antagonistic to the 

 fashions over which they prevail; and though no precise certainty can be ac 

 quired in the interpretation of phenomena connected with the human will, yet 

 we think a vast amount of proximate truth might be elicited and a flood of 

 light thrown upon the springs of our spiritual nature by a philosophic attempt 



