ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 315 



Sylla and others, who would render all their friends happy 

 and all their enemies miserable, and endeavor to make the 

 world carry their image, which is really warring against 

 heaven this passion, 1 say, aspires to an active individual 

 good, at least in appearance, though it be infinitely differ 

 ent from the good of communion. 



We divide passive good into conservative and perfec 

 tive; for everything has three kinds of appetite with regard 

 to its own individual good the first to preserve itself, the 

 second to perfect itself, and the third to multiply and diffuse 

 itself. The last relates to active good, of which we have 

 spoken already; and of the other two the perfective is the 

 most excellent; for it is a less matter to preserve a thing in 

 its state, and a greater to exalt its nature. But throughout 

 the universe are found some nobler natures, to the dignity 

 and excellence whereof inferior ones aspire, as to their 

 origins whence the poet said well of mankind, that &quot;they 

 have an ethereal vigor and a celestial origin&quot; : 



&quot;Igneus est ollis vigor et coelestis origo&quot;; 7 



for the perfection of the human form consists in approaching 

 the Divine or angelic nature. The corrupt and preposterous 

 imitation of this perfective good is the pest of human life, 

 and the storm that overturns and sweeps away all things, 

 while men, instead of a true and essential exaltation, fly 

 with blind ambition only to a local one ; for as men in sick 

 ness toss and roll from place to place, as if by change of 

 situation they could get away from themselves, or fly from 

 the disease, so in ambition, men hurried away with a false 

 imagination of exalting their own nature, obtain no more 

 than change of place or eminence of post. 



Conservative good is the receiving and enjoying things 

 agreeable to our nature; and this good, though it be the 

 most simple and natural, yet of all others it seems the 

 lowest and most effeminate. It is also attended with a 

 difference, about which the judgment of mankind has been 



1 See Virgil, JSneid, vi. 730. 



