ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 275 



by way of preface, that they may afterward launch out more 

 fully in our praises. 



III. To be deprived of a good, is an evil; and to be deprived of an evil, a good 



This color deceives two ways; viz., either by the com 

 parison of good and evil, or by the succession of good to 

 good, or evil to evil. 1. By comparison: thus if it were 

 good for mankind to be deprived of acorns, it follows not 

 that such food was bad, but that acorns were good, though 

 bread be better. Nor, if it were an evil for the people of 

 Sicily to be deprived of Dionysius the Elder, does it follow 

 that the same Dionysius was a good prince, but that he was 

 less evil than Dionysius the Younger. 2. By succession: 

 for the privation of a good does not always give place to 

 an evil, but sometimes to a greater good as when the blos 

 som falls, the fruit succeeds. Nor does the privation of an 

 evil always give place to a good, but sometimes to a greater 

 evil; for Milo, by the death of his enemy Clodius, lost a 

 fair harvest of glory. 



IV. What approaches to good, is good; and what recedes from good, is evil 



It is almost universal, that things agreeing in nature 

 agree also in place, and that things disagreeing in nature 

 differ as widely in situation; for all things have an appetite 

 of associating with what is agreeable, and of repelling what 

 is disagreeable to them. 



This color deceives three ways; viz., by depriving, ob 

 scuring and protecting, 1. By depriving: for the largest 

 things, and most excellent in their kind, attract all they 

 can to themselves, and leave what is next them destitute; 

 thus the underwood growing near a large tree is the poorest 

 wood of the field, because the tree deprives it of sap and 

 nourishment whence it was well said, that the servants of 

 the rich are the greatest slaves; 17 and it was witty of him 

 who compared the inferior attendants in the courts of princes 

 to the vigils of feast days, which, though nearest to feast 



17 Divitis servi maxime servi. 



