186 BACON 



dote to evils ; for it is commonly in our power to amend our 

 faults, but not our fortunes; whence Demosthenes said fre- 

 quently to the Athenians, " What is worst for the past is best 

 for the future, since it happens by neglect and misconduct that 

 your affairs are come to this low ebb. Had you, indeed, acted 

 your parts to the best, and yet matters should thus have gone 

 backward, there would be no hopes of amendment ; but as it 

 has happened principally through your own errors, if these are 

 corrected, all may be recovered." t So Epictetus, speaking of 

 the degrees of the mind's tranquillity, assigns the lowest place to 

 such as accuse others, a higher to those who accuse themselves, 

 but the highest to those who neither accuse themselves nor 

 others. 2. By pride, which so cleaves to the mind that it will 

 scarce suffer men to acknowledge their errors ; and to avoid 

 any such acknowledgment they are extremely patient under 

 those misfortunes which they bring upon themselves ; for as, 

 when a fault is committed, and before it be known who did it, 

 a great stir and commotion are made ; but if at length it appears 

 to be done by a son or a wife, the bustle is at an end. And thus 

 it happens when one must take a fault to one's self. And hence 

 we frequently see that women, when they do anything against 

 their friends' consent, whatever misfortune follows, they seldom 

 complain, but set a good face on it. 



Sophism 9 



The degree of privation seems greater than that of diminution, 

 and the degree of inception greater than that of increase 



It is a position in mathematics, that there is no proportion 

 between something and nothing, and therefore the degrees of 

 nullity and quiddity seem larger than the degrees of increase 

 and decrease, as it is for a monoculus to lose an eye than for 

 a man who has two. So if a man has lost several children, it 

 gives him more grief to lose the last than all the rest, because 

 this was the hope of his family. Therefore, the Sibyl, when 

 she had burned two of her three books, doubled her price upon 

 the third, because the loss of this would only have been a degree 

 of privation, and not of diminution. 



This color deceives i. In things whose use and service lie in 

 a sufficiency, competency, or determinate quantity: thus if a 

 man were to pay a large sum upon a penalty, it might be harder 



