200 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



may not go away with an opinion that learning is like 

 a lark, that can mount, and sing, and please herself, and 

 nothing else ; but may know that she holdeth as well 

 of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also descend 

 and strike upon the prey. In substance, because it is 

 the perfect law of inquiry of truth, that nothing be in 

 the globe of matter, which should not be likewise in 

 the globe of crystal, or form ; that is, that there be 

 not any thing in being and action, which should not be 

 drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine. 

 Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this archi 

 tecture of fortune, otherwise than as of an inferior work : 

 for no man s fortune can be an end worthy of his being ; 

 and many times the worthiest men do abandon their 

 fortune willingly for better respects : but nevertheless 

 fortune as an organ of virtue and merit deserveth the 

 consideration. 



14. First therefore the precept which I conceive to 

 be most summary towards the prevailing in fortune, 

 is to obtain that window which Momus did require : 

 who seeing in the frame of man s heart such angles and 

 recesses, found fault there was not a window to look 

 into them ; that is, to procure good informations of 

 particulars touching persons, their natures, their desires 

 and ends, their customs and fashions, their helps and 

 advantages, and whereby they chiefly stand : so again 

 their weaknesses and disadvantages, and where they 

 lie most open and obnoxious ; their friends, factions, 

 dependences ; and again their opposites, enviers, com 

 petitors, their moods and times, Sola viri molles aditus 

 et tempora noras ; their principles, rules, and ob 

 servations, and the like : and this not only of persons, 

 but of actions ; what are on foot from time to time, 

 and how they are conducted, favoured, opposed, and 

 how they import, and the like. For the knowledge of 

 present actions is not only material in itself, but with 

 out it also the knowledge of persons is very erroneous : 

 for men change with the actions ; and whiles they are 

 in pursuit they are one, and when they return to their 

 nature they are another. These informations of par- 



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