ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 245 



against the most deserving ; some, by accusing of others, wash 

 their own stains away ; some make room for the preferment and 

 gratification of their friends, by calumniating and traducing 

 their competitors, etc. And these agents are naturally the 

 most vicious servants of the prince. Those again, of better 

 principles and dispositions, after finding little security in their 

 innocence, their master not knowing how to distinguish truth 

 from falsehood, drop their moral honesty, go into the eddy 

 winds of the court, and servilely submit to be carried about with 

 them. For as Tacitus says of Claudius, " There is no safety 

 with that prince, into whose mind all things are infused and di- 

 rected."-* And Comines well observes, that " it is better being 

 servant to a prince whose suspicions are endless, than whose 

 credulity is great."' 



Aphorism 14 



A just man is merciful to the life of his beast, but the mercies 

 of the wicked are cruel 



Nature has endowed man with a noble and excellent princi- 

 ple of compassion, which extends itself even to the brutes, that 

 by divine appointment are made subject to him. Whence this 

 compassion has some resemblance with that of a prince towards 

 his subjects. And it is certain, that the noblest souls are most 

 extensively merciful ; for narrow and degenerate spirits think 

 compassion belongs not to them, but a great soul, the noblest 

 part of the creation, is ever compassionate. Thus under the 

 old law there were numerous precepts not merely ceremonial, 

 as the ordaining of mercy, for example, the not eating of flesh 

 with the blood thereof, etc. So, likewise, the sects of the Es- 

 senes and Pythagoreans totally abstained from flesh, as they do 

 also to this day, with an inviolated superstition, in some parts 

 of the empire of Mogul. Nay, the Turks, though a cruel and 

 bloody nation, both in their descent and discipline, give alms 

 to brutes, and suffer them not to be tortured. But lest this prin- 

 ciple might seem to countenance all kinds of compassion, Solo- 

 mon wholesomely subjoins, " That the mercies of the wicked are 

 cruel" ; that is, when such great offenders are spared, as ought 

 to be cut off with the sword of justice. For this kind of 

 mercy is the greatest of all cruelties, as cruelty affects but par- 

 ticular persons ; whilst impunity lets loose the whole army of 

 evildoers, and drives them upon the innocent. 



