ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 227 



diseases of the mind. For as the ancient politicians said of de- 

 mocracies, that " the people were like the sea, and the orators 

 like the wind " ; so it may be truly said, that the nature of the 

 mind would be unruffled and uniform, if the affections, like the 

 winds, did not disturb it. And here, again, we cannot but re- 

 member that Aristotle, who wrote so many books of ethics, 

 should never treat of the affections, which are a principal 

 branch thereof ; and yet has given them a place in his Rhetor- 

 ics, where they come to be but secondarily considered :m for his 

 discourses of pleasure and pain by no means answer the ends 

 of such a treatise, no more than a discourse of light and splen- 

 dor would give the doctrine of particular colors: for pleasure 

 and pain are to particular affections, as light is to colors. The 

 Stoics, so far as may be conjectured from what we have left of 

 them, cultivated this subject better, yet they rather dwelt upon 

 subtile definitions than gave any full and copious treatise upon 

 it. We also find a few short elegant pieces upon some of the 

 affections; as upon anger, false modesty, and two or three 

 more ; but to say the truth, the poets and historians are the 

 principal teachers of this science; for they commonly paint 

 to the life in what particular manner the affections are to be 

 raised and inflamed, and how to be soothed and laid ; how they 

 are to be checked and restrained from breaking into action ; 

 how they discover themselves, though suppressed and smoth- 

 ered ; what operations they have ; what turns they take ; how 

 they mutually intermix ; and how they oppose each other, etc. 

 Among which, the latter is of extensive use in moral and civil 

 affairs ; I mean, how far one passion may regulate another, and 

 how they employ each other's assistance to conquer some one, 

 after the manner of hunters and fowlers, who take beast with 

 beast, and bird with bird ; which man, perhaps, without such 

 assistance, could not so easily do. And upon this foundation 

 rests that excellent and universal use of rewards and punish- 

 ments in civil life. For these are the supports of states, and 

 suppress all the other noxious affections by those two predomi- 

 nant ones, fear and hope. And, as in civil government, one 

 faction frequently bridles and governs another ; the case is the 

 same in the internal government of the mind. 



We come now to those things which are within our own 

 power, and work upon the mind, and affect and govern the will 

 and the appetite; whence they have great efficacy in altering 



