166 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



opinion, a great light to that which followed ; and 

 specially if they had consulted with nature, they had 

 made their doctrines less prolix and more profound : 

 which being by them in part omitted and in part 

 handled with much confusion, we will endeavour to 

 resume and open in a more clear manner. 



7. There is formed in everything a double nature of 

 good : the one, as everything is a total or substantive in 

 itself ; the other, as it is a part or member of a greater 

 body : whereof the latter is in degree the greater and 

 the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of 

 a more general form. Therefore we see the iron in par 

 ticular sympathy moveth to the loadstone ; but yet if 

 it exceed a certain quantity, it forsaketh the affection 

 to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth to the 

 earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies : 

 so may we go forward, and see that water and massy 

 bodies move to the centre of the earth ; but rather than 

 to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of nature, they 

 will move upwards from the centre of the earth, for 

 saking their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to 

 the world. This double nature of good, and the com 

 parative thereof, is much more engraven upon man, if he 

 degenerate not : unto whom the conservation of duty 

 to the public ought to be much more precious than the 

 conservation of life and being : according to that 

 memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being in 

 commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and 

 being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by 

 his friends about him, that he should not hazard himself 

 to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, 

 k Necesse est ut earn, non ut vivam. But it may be 

 truly affirmed that there was never any philosophy, 

 religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and 

 highly exalt the good which is communicative, and de 

 press the good which is private and particular, as the 

 Holy Faith ; well declaring that it was the same God 

 that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws 

 of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before ; 

 for we read that the elected saints of God have wished 



