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BACON 



a contemplative to an active life, against the opinion of Aristo- 

 tle; as all the reasons he produces for a contemplative life 

 regard only private good, and the pleasure or dignity of an indi- 

 vidual person, in which respects the contemplative life is doubt- 

 less best, and like the comparison made by Pythagoras,/ to as- 

 sert the honor and reputation of philosophy, when being asked 

 by Hiero who he was, he answered, " I am a looker-on ; for as 

 at the Olympic games some come to try for the prize, others to 

 sell, others to meet their friends and be merry, but others again 

 come merely as spectators, I am one of the latter." But men 

 ought to know that in the theatre of human life it is only for 

 God and angels to be spectators. Nor could any doubt about 

 this matter have arisen in the Church, if a monastic life had been 

 merely contemplative and unexercised in ecclesiastical duties 

 as continual prayer, the sacrifice of vows, oblations to God, and 

 the writing of theological books, for propagating the Divine 

 law as Moses retired in the solitude of the mount, and Enoch, 

 the seventh from Adam, who, though the Scripture says he 

 walked with God, intimating he was the first founder of the 

 spiritual life, yet enriched the Church with a book of prophe- 

 cies cited by St. Jude. But for a mere contemplative life, which 

 terminates in itself, and sends out no rays either of heat or light 

 into human society, theology knows it not. 



It also determines the question that has been so vehemently 

 controverted between the schools of Zeno and Socrates on the 

 one side, who placed felicity in virtue, simple or adorned, and 

 many other sects and schools on the other as particularly the 

 schools of the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed felicity in 

 pleasure ; thus making virtue a mere handmaid, without which 

 pleasure could not be well served. Of the same side is also that 

 other school of Epicurus, as on the reformed establishment, 

 which declared felicity to be nothing but tranquillity and seren- 

 ity of mind. With these also joined the exploded school of 

 Pyrrho and Herillus, who placed felicity in an absolute exemp- 

 tion from scruples, and the allowing no fixed and constant nat- 

 ure of good and evil, but accounting all actions virtuous or vic- 

 ious, as they proceed from the mind by a pure and undisturbed 

 motion, or with aversion and reluctance. But it is plain that all 

 things of this kind relate to private tranquillity and complac- 

 ency of mind, and by no means to the good of communion. 



Again, upon the foundation above laid we may confute the 



