182 BACON 



sometimes acknowledge our faults, and speak of them not as 

 compelled thereto by any force of truth, but touch only such as 

 may do little hurt, and make us, in everything else, the best 

 men in the world. And lastly, it deceives, because friends also 

 use their reproofs, as enemies do their commendations, by way 

 of preface, that they may afterwards launch out more fully in 

 our praises. 



Sophism 3 



To be deprived of a good, is an evil; and to be deprived of an 



evil, a good 



This color deceives two ways ; viz., either by the comparison 

 of good and evil, or by the succession of good to good, or evil 

 to evil. i. By comparison: thus if it were good for mankind 

 to be deprived of acorns, it follows not that such food was bad, 

 but that acorns were good, though bread be better. Nor, if it 

 were an evil for the people of Sicily to be deprived of Dionysius 

 the 'Elder, does it follow that the same Dionysius was a good 

 prince, but that he was less evil than Dionysius the Younger. 

 2. By succession : for the privation of a good does not always 

 give place to an evil, but sometimes to a greater good as when 

 the blossom falls, the fruit succeeds. Nor does the privation of 

 an evil always give place to a good, but sometimes to a greater 

 evil ; for Milo, by the death of his enemy Clodius, lost a fair 

 harvest of glory. 



Sophism 4 



What approaches to good, is good; and what recedes from good, 



is evil 



It is almost universal, that things agreeing in nature agree 

 also in place, and that things disagreeing in nature differ as 

 widely in situation ; for all things have an appetite of associating 

 with what is agreeable, and of repelling what is disagreeable to 

 them. 



This color deceives three ways ; viz., by depriving, obscur- 

 ing, and protecting. I. By depriving; for the largest things, 

 and most excellent in their kind, attract all they can to them- 

 selves, and leave what is next them destitute ; thus the under- 

 wood growing near a large tree is the poorest wood of the field, 

 because the tree deprives it of sap and nourishment whence 

 it was well said, that the servants of the rich are the greatest 

 slaves ; and it was witty of him who compared the inferior at- 



