238 BACON 



adequate to the copiousness of the subject. But, if books were 

 written upon this subject as upon others, we doubt not that 

 learned men, furnished with tolerable experience, would far ex- 

 cel the unlearned, furnished with much greater experience, and 

 outshoot them in their own bow. 



Nor need we apprehend that the matter of this science is too 

 various to fall under precept, for it is much less extensive than 

 the doctrine of government, which yet we find very well culti- 

 vated. There seem to have been some professors of this kind 

 of prudence among the Romans in their best days ; for Cicero 

 declares it was the custom, a little before his time, among the 

 senators most famous for knowledge and experience, as Corun- 

 canius, Curius, Laelius, etc., to walk the forum at certain hours, 

 where they offered themselves to be consulted by the people, 

 not so much upon law, but upon business of all kinds ; as the 

 marriage of a daughter, the education of a son, the purchasing 

 of an estate, and other ocasions of common life.o Whence it 

 appears, that there is a certain prudence of advising even in 

 private affairs, and derivable from a universal knowledge of 

 civil business, experience, and general observation of similar 

 cases. So we find the book which Q. Cicero wrote to his 

 brother, De Petitione Consulatus (the only treatise, so far as we 

 know, extant upon any particular business), though it regarded 

 chiefly the giving advice upon that present occasion, yet con- 

 tains many particular axioms of politics, which were not only 

 of temporary use, but prescribe a certain permanent rule for 

 popular elections. But in this kind, there is nothing any way 

 comparable to the aphorisms of Solomon, of whom the Script- 

 ure bears testimony, that " his heart was as the sand of the sea."& 

 For the sand of the sea encompasses the extremities of the whole 

 earth ; so his wisdom comprehended all things, both human and 

 divine. And in those aphorisms are found many excellent civil 

 precepts and admonitions, besides things of a more theological 

 nature, flowing from the depth and innermost bosom of wis- 

 dom, and running out into a most spacious field of variety. 

 And, as we place the doctrine of various occasions among the 

 desiderata of the sciences, we will here dwell upon it a little, and 

 lay down an example thereof, in the way of explaining some of 

 these aphorisms or proverbs of Solomon. 



