ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 139 



and was justly employed by Aristotle in politics, when he 

 begins the consideration of a commonwealth in a family. 

 All things change, but nothing is lost. 3 This is an axiom 

 in physics, and holds in natural theology; for as the sum of 

 matter neither diminishes nor increases, so it is equally the 

 work of omnipotence to create or to annihilate it which even 

 the Scripture testifies: &quot;Didici quod omnia opera, qua3 fecit 

 Deus, perseverent in perpetuum: non possumus eis quic- 

 quam addere, nee auferre.&quot; 4 Things are preserved from 

 destruction, by bringing them back to their principles. This 

 is an axiom in physics, but holds equally in politics; for the 

 preservation of states, as is well observed by Machiavel, 5 

 depends upon little more than reforming and bringing them 

 back to their ancient customs. A putrid malady is more 

 contagious in its early than in its more matured stages, 

 holds in natural as in moral philosophy; for wicked and 

 desperately impious persons do not corrupt society so much 

 as they who blend with their vices a mixture of virtue. 

 What tends to preserve the effects of the greatest laws of 

 nature, displays the strongest action, is a rule in natural 

 philosophy. For the first and universal motion, that pre 

 serves the chain and contexture of nature unbroken, and 

 prevents a vacuum, as they call it, or empty discontinuity 

 in the world, controls the more particular law which draws 

 heavy bodies to the earth, and preserves the region of gross 

 and compacted natures. The same rule is good in politics; 

 for those things which conduce to the conservation of the 

 entire commonwealth, control and modify those made for 

 the welfare of particular members of a government. The 

 same principle may be observed in theology; for, among 

 the virtues of this class, charity is the most communicative, 

 and excels all the rest. The force of an agent is augmented 

 by the antiperistatis of the counteracting body, 6 is a rule in 



3 Of. Plat. Theset. i. 152. 4 Eccl. iii. 14, and xlii. 21. 



5 Discorso sopra la Prima Deca di Tito Livio, libro 3. 



6 Aristotle, Meteors, Problem 1, 11. 



