THE FIRST BOOK 61 



It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierce- 

 ness of men's minds ; but indeed the accent had need 

 be upon fideliter : for a little superficial learning doth 

 rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all 

 levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion 

 of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind 

 to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the 

 first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of 

 nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain 

 admiration of anything, which is the root of all weak- 

 ness. For all things are admired either because they 

 are new, or because they are great. For novelty, no 

 man that wadeth in learning or contemplation throughly, 

 but will find that printed in his heart, ' Nil novi super 

 terram.' Neither can any man marvel at the play of 

 puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth 

 well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander 

 the Great, after that he was used to great armies, and 

 the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, 

 when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights 

 and services there, which were commonly for a passage, 

 or a fort, or some walled town at the most, he said, ' It 

 seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battles 

 of the frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of.' 

 So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal 

 frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divine- 

 ness of souls except) will not seem much other than an 

 ant-hill, whereas some ants carry com, and some carry 

 their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro 

 a Httle heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth 

 fear of death or adverse fortune ; which is one of the 

 greatest impediments of virtue, and imperfections of 

 manners. For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned 

 with the consideration of the mortality and corruptible 

 nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, 

 who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for 

 her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth 

 the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son 

 that was dead, and thereupon said, ' Heri vidi fragilem 

 frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori.' And therefore 



