220 BACON 



This part concerning duties is likewise divided into two 

 the one treating of the duties of man in common, and the other 

 of respective duties, according to the profession, vocation, state, 

 person, and degree of particulars. The first of these, we before 

 observed, has been sufficiently cultivated and explained by the 

 ancient and later writers. The other also has been touched 

 here and there, though not digested and reduced into any body 

 of science. We do not, however, except to its being treated 

 piecemeal, as judging it the best way to write upon this subject 

 in separate parts ; for who will pretend he can justly discourse 

 and define upon the peculiar and relative duties of all orders and 

 conditions of men ? But for treatises upon this subject, which 

 have no tincture of experience, and are only drawn from gen- 

 eral and scholastic knowledge, they commonly prove empty 

 and useless performances ; for though a bystander may some- 

 times see what escaped the player, and although it be a kind of 

 proverb, more bold and true with regard to prince and people, 

 " that a spectator in the valley takes the best view of a moun- 

 tain," yet it were greatly to be wished that none but the most 

 experienced men would write upon subjects of this kind ; for 

 the contemplations of speculative men in active matters appear 

 no better to those who have been conversant in -business than 

 the dissertations of Phormio upon war appeared to Hannibal, 

 who esteemed them but as dreams and dotage. One fault, 

 however, dwells with such as write upon things belonging to 

 their own office or art, viz., that they hold no mean in recom- 

 mending and extolling them. 



In speaking of books of this kind, it would indeed be sacri- 

 lege in me to omit mention of your Majesty's excellent work 

 on the duty of a king. This work incloses the leading treasures 

 of divinity, politics, and ethics, besides a sprinkling of all other 

 arts ; and I am not afraid to pronounce it one of the soundest 

 and most profitable works I have ever read. It does not swell 

 with the heat of invention, or flag with the coldness of negli- 

 gence. The author is nowhere seized with that dizziness which 

 confuses his sight of the main subject, and consequently avoids 

 those digressions which, by a sort of circuitous method, des- 

 cants on matter foreign to the purpose. Neither are its pages 

 disfigured with the arts of rhetorical perfumes and paintings, 

 designed rather to please the reader -than to corroborate the ar- 

 gument. But they contain life and spirit, as well as solidity and 



