ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 337 



that a reign may be good and the times bad. Thus we 

 sometimes find in sacred history, when mention is made of 

 good and pious kings, that the people had not yet turned 

 their hearts to the Lord God of their fathers. And there 

 fore, in this respect also, ethics has the harder task. 3. 

 States are moved slowly, like machines, and with difficulty; 

 and consequently not soon put out of order. For, as in 

 Egypt, the seven years of plenty supplied the seven years 

 of famine; so in governments, the good regulation of former 

 times will not presently suffer the errors of the succeeding 

 to prove destructive. But the resolutions and manners 

 of particular persons are more suddenly subverted; and 

 this, in the last place, bears hard upon ethics, but favors 

 politics. 



Civil knowledge has three parts, suitable to the three 

 principal acts of society; viz., 1. Conversation; 2. Business; 

 and 3. Government. For there are three kinds of good that 

 men desire to procure by civil society; viz., 1. Eefuge from 

 solitude; 2. Assistance in the affairs of life; and 3. Protec 

 tion against injuries. And thus there are three kinds of 

 prudence, very different, and frequently separated from 

 each other; viz., 1. Prudence in conversation; 2. Prudence 

 in business; 3. Prudence in government. 5 



Conversation, as it ought not to be overaffected, much 



5 From a mixture of these three parts of civil doctrine, there has of late been 

 formed a new kind of doctrine, which they call by the name of civil prudence. 

 This doctrine has been principally cultivated among the Germans; though hith 

 erto carried to no great length. Hermannus Conringius has dwelt upon it at 

 considerable length, in his book &quot;De Civili Prudentia,&quot; published in the year 

 KG2; and Christian Thomasius has treated it excellently in the little piece en 

 titled, &quot;PrimaB Linese de Jure-consultorum Prudentia Consultatoria, &quot; etc., first 

 published in the year 1705, but the third edition, with notes, in 1712. The 

 heads it considers, are, 1, &quot;de Prudentia in genere&quot; ; 2, &quot;de Prudentia consul- 

 tatoria&quot;; 3, &quot;de Prudentia Juris-consultorum&quot; ; 4, &quot;de Prudentia consulendi 

 intuitu actionum propriarum&quot; ; 5, &quot;de Prudentia dirigendi actiones proprias in 

 conversatione quotidiana&quot; ; 6, &quot;de Prudentia in conversatione selecta&quot; ; 7, &quot;de 

 Prudentia intuitu societatum domesticarum&quot; ; 8, &quot;de Prudentia in societate 

 civili&quot;; and 9, &quot;de Prudentia alios et aliis consulendi.&quot; The little piece also 

 of Andr. Bossius, &quot;De Prudentia Givili comparauda,&quot; deserves the perusal. 

 See Morhof, &quot;De Prudentise Civilis Scriptoribus&quot; ; &quot;Struvii Bibliotheca Philo- 

 sophica,&quot; cap. 7 ; and &quot;Stoliii Introductio in Historiam Literariam, de Prudentia 

 Politica. &quot; Shaw. 



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