ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 235 



to drive in the flock than single" ; so in this respect the office of 

 ethics is in some degree more difficult than that of politics.* 

 2. Again, ethics endeavors to tinge and furnish the mind with 

 internal goodness, whilst civil doctrine requires no more than 

 external goodness, which is sufficient for society. Whence it 

 often happens, that a reign may be good and the times bad. 

 Thus we sometimes find in sacred history, when mention is 

 made of good and pious kings, that the people had not yet 

 turned their hearts to the Lord God of their fathers. And, 

 therefore, in this respect, also, ethics has the harder task. 3. 

 States are moved slowly, like machines, and with difficulty ; and 

 consequently not soon put out of order. For, as in Egypt, the 

 seven years of plenty supplied the seven years of famine ; so in 

 governments, the good regulation of former times will not pres- 

 ently suffer the errors of the succeeding to prove destructive. 

 But the resolutions and manners of particular persons are more 

 suddenly subverted ; and this, in the last place, bears hard upon 

 ethics, but favors politics. 



Civil knowledge has three parts, suitable to the three princi- 

 pal acts of society; viz., I. Conversation; 2. Business; and 3. 

 Government. For there are three kinds of good that men de- 

 sire to procure by civil society; viz., i. Refuge from solitude; 

 2. Assistance in the affairs of life; and 3. Protection against 

 injuries. And thus there are three kinds of prudence, very 

 different and frequently separated from each other; viz., i. 

 Prudence in conversation ; 2. Prudence in business ; 3. Prudence 

 in government. 



Conversation, as it ought not to be over-affected, much less 

 should it be slighted ; since a prudent conduct therein not only 

 expresses a certain gracefulness in men's manners, but is also 

 of great assistance in the commodious despatch both of public 

 and private business. For as action, though an external thing, 

 is so essential to an orator as to be preferred before the other 

 weighty and more internal parts of that art, so conversation, 

 though it consist but of externals, is, if not the principal, at 

 least a capital thing in the man of business, and the prudent 

 management of affairs. What effect the countenance may 

 have, appears from the precept of the poet" Contradict not 

 your words by your look " 



" Nee vultu dcstruc vcrba tuo." Ovid.r 



