280 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



IX. The degree of privation seems greater than that of diminution, and the 

 degree of inception greater than that of increase 



It is a position in mathematics, that there is no propor 

 tion between something and nothing, and therefore the de 

 grees of nullity and quiddity seem larger than the degrees 

 of increase and decrease, as it is for a monoculus to lose 

 an eye than for a man who has two. So if a man has lost 

 several children, it gives him more grief to lose the last 

 than all the rest, because this was the hope of his family. 

 Therefore, the Sibyl, when she had burned two of her three 

 books, doubled her price upon the third, because the loss 

 of this would only have been a degree of privation, and 

 not of diminution. 



This color deceives 1. In things whose use and service 

 lie in a sufficiency, competency, or determinate quantity: 

 thus if a man were to pay a large sum upon a penalty, 

 it might be harder upon him to want twenty shillings for 

 this than ten pounds for another occasion. So in running 

 through an estate, the first step toward it viz., breaking 

 in upon the stock is a higher degree of mischief than 

 the last, viz., spending the last penny. And to this color 

 belong those common forms It is too late to pinch at the 

 bottom of the purse; As good never a whit as never the 

 better, etc. 2. It deceives from this principle in nature, 

 that the corruption of one thing is the generation of an 

 other; whence the ultimate degree of privation itself is often 

 less felt, as it gives occasion and a spur to some new course. 

 So when Demosthenes rebuked the people for hearkening to 

 the dishonorable and unequal conditions of King Philip, he 

 called those conditions the food of their sloth and indolence, 

 which they had better be without, because then their indus 

 try would be excited to procure other remedies. So a blunt 

 physician whom I knew, when the delicate ladies com 

 plained to him, they were they could not tell how, yet 

 could not endure to take physic, he would tell them their 

 way was to be sick, for then they would be glad to take 

 anything. 3. Nay, the degree of privation itself, or the 



