12 BACON 



same caveat in the words, " Non ad vetera instituta revocamus 

 quse jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt." Cicero 

 points out the same error in the second Cato, when writing to his 

 friend Atticus : " Cato optime sentit sed nocet interdum 

 Reipublica? ; loquitur enim tanquam in Republica Platonis, 

 non tanquam in faece Romuli."& The same orator likewise 

 excuses and blames the philosophers for being too exact in 

 their precepts. These preceptors, said he, have stretched the 

 lines and limits of duties beyond their natural boundaries, think- 

 ing that we might safely reform when we had reached the 

 highest point of perfection.* And yet himself stumbled over 

 the same stone, so that he might have said, " Monitis sum minor 

 ipse meis." m 



3. Another fault laid to the charge of learned men, and 

 arising from the nature of their studies, is, " That they esteem 

 the preservation, good, and honor of their country before their 

 own fortunes or safeties." Demosthenes said well to the Athe- 

 nians, " My counsels are not such as tend to aggrandize myself 

 and diminish you, but sometimes not expedient for me to give, 

 though always expedient for you to follow."** So Seneca, after 

 consecrating the five years of Nero's minority to the immortal 

 glory of learned governors, held on his honest course of 

 good counsel after his master grew extremely corrupt. Nor 

 can this be otherwise; for learning gives men a true sense of 

 their frailty, the casualty of fortune, and the dignity of the soul 

 and its office; whence they cannot think any greatness of 

 fortune a worthy end of their living, and therefore live so as to 

 give a clear and acceptable account to God and their superiors ; 

 whilst the corrupter sort of politicians, who are not by learning 

 established in a love of duty, nor ever look abroad into univer- 

 sality, refer all things to themselves, and thrust their persons in- 

 to the centre of the world, as if all lines should meet in them and 

 their fortunes, without regarding in storms what becomes of the 

 ship of the state, if they can save themselves in the cock-boat of 

 their own fortune. 



Another charge brought against learned men, which may 

 rather be defended than denied, is, " That they sometimes fail 

 in making court to particular persons." This want of applica- 

 tion arises from two causes the one the largeness of their mind, 

 which can hardly submit to dwell in the examination and ob- 

 servance of any one person. It is the speech of a lover rather 



