164 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



hidden rock whereupon both this and many other barks 

 of knowledge have been cast away ; which is, that men 

 have despised to be conversant in ordinary and com 

 mon matters, the judicious direction whereof never 

 theless is the wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in 

 novelties nor subtilities), but contrariwise they have 

 compounded sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or 

 lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to 

 the subtility of disputations, or to the eloquence of dis 

 courses. But Seneca giveth an excellent check to elo 

 quence, * Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupi- 

 ditatem facit, sed sui. Doctrine should be such as should 

 make men in love with the lesson, and not with the 

 teacher ; being directed to the auditor s benefit, and 

 not to the author s commendation. And therefore 

 those are of the right kind which may be concluded as 

 Demosthenes concludes his counsel, Quae si feceritis, 

 non o atorem duntaxat in praesentia laudabitis, sed 

 vosmetipsos etiam non ita multo post statu rerum 

 vestrarum meliore. 



3. Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have 

 despaired of a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised 

 himself, and indeed obtained, who got as much glory of 

 eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of the 

 observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of 

 Aeneas : 



Nee sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum 

 Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem. 



And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to 

 write at leisure that which men may read at leisure, but 

 really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these 

 Georgics of the mind, concerning the husbandry and 

 tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical de 

 scriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the 

 main and primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth 

 to be into the exemplar or platform of good, and the 

 regiment or culture of the mind : the one describing the 

 nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue, 

 apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto. 



