ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 187 



upon him to want twenty shillings for this than ten pounds for 

 another occasion. So in running through an estate, the first 

 step towards it viz., breaking in upon the stock is a higher 

 degree of mischief than the last, viz., spending the last 

 penny. And to this color belong those common forms It is 

 too late to pinch at the bottom of the purse ; As good never a 

 whit as never the better, etc. 2. It deceives from this principle 

 in nature, that the corruption of one thing is the generation of 

 another ; whence the ultimate degree of privation itself is often 

 less felt, as it gives occasion and a spur to some new course. 

 So when Demosthenes rebuked the people for hearkening to the 

 dishonorable and unequal conditions of King Philip, he called 

 those conditions the food of their sloth and indolence, which 

 they had better be without, because then their industry would 

 be excited to procure other remedies. So a blunt physician 

 whom I knew, when the delicate ladies complained to him, they 

 were they could not tell how, yet could not endure to take phys- 

 ic, he would tell them their way was to be sick, for then they 

 would be glad to take anything. 3. Nay, the degree of priva- 

 tion itself, or the extremest indigence, may be serviceable, not 

 only to excite our industry, but to command our patience. 



The second part of this sophism stands upon the same foun- 

 dation, or the degrees betwixt something and nothing ; whence 

 the common-place of extolling the beginnings of everything, 

 Well-begun is half-done, etc. 



" Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet." Horace. 11 



And hence the superstition of the astrologers, who judge the 

 disposition and fortune of a man from the instant of his na- 

 tivity or conception. 



This color deceives i. Because many beginnings are but 

 imperfect offers and essays, which vanish and come to nothing 

 without repetition and further advancement ; so that here the 

 second degree seems more worthy and powerful than the first, 

 as a body-horse in a team draws more than the fore-horse: 

 whence it is not ill said, The second word makes the quarrel ; 

 for the first might perhaps have proved harmless if it had not 

 been retorted ; therefore the first gives the occasion indeed, but 

 the second makes reconciliation more difficult. 2. This soph- 

 tsm deceives by weariness, which makes perseverance of greater 

 dignity than inception ; for chance or nature may give a be- 



