174 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



you incidently express the aptness towards the other ; 

 so the doctrine of conjugation of men in society differeth 

 from that of their conformity thereunto. 



7. This part of duty is subdivided into two parts : 

 the common duty of every man, as a man or member 

 of a state ; the other, the respective or special duty of 

 every man, in his profession, vocation, and place. 

 The first of these is extant and well laboured, as 

 hath been said. The second likewise I may report 

 rather dispersed than deficient ; which manner of 

 dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknow 

 ledge to be best. For who can take upon him to 

 write of the proper duty, virtue, challenge, and right 

 of every several vocation, profession, and place ? For 

 although sometimes a looker on may see more than 

 a gamester, and there be a proverb more arrogant 

 than sound, That the vale best discovereth the hill ; 

 yet there is small doubt but that men can write best 

 and most really and materially in their own profes 

 sions ; and that the writing of speculative men of 

 active matter for the most part doth seem to men of 

 experience, as Phormio s argument of the wars seemed 

 to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage. Only there 

 is one vice which accompanieth them that write in 

 their own professions, that they magnify them in 

 excess. But generally it were to be wished (as that 

 which would make learning indeed solid and fruitful) 

 that active men would or could become writers. 



8. In which kind I cannot but mention, honoris 

 causa, your Majesty s excellent book touching the duty 

 of a king : a work richly compounded of divinity, 

 morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other 

 arts ; and being in mine opinion one of the most sound 

 and healthful writings that I have read ; not distem 

 pered in the heat of invention, nor in the coldness of 

 negligence ; not sick of dizziness, as those are who 

 leese themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as 

 those which cramp in matters impertinent ; not savour 

 ing of perfumes and paintings, as those do who seek to 

 please the reader more than nature beareth ; and chiefly 



