THE SECOND .BOOK 163 



together things of a nature, as treaties, instructions, &c. 

 But in his boxes or particular cabinet he would sort 

 together those that he were like to use together, though 

 of several natures. So in this general cabinet of know- 

 ledge it was necessary for me to follow the divisions of 

 the nature of things ; whereas if myself had been to 

 handle any particular knowledge, I would have re- 

 spected the divisions fittest for use. The other, because 

 the bringing in of the deficiencies did by consequence 

 alter the partitions of the rest. For let the knowledge 

 extant (for demonstration sake) be fifteen. Let the 

 knowledge with the deficiencies be twenty ; the parts 

 of fifteen are not the parts of twenty ; for the parts of 

 fifteen are three and five ; the parts of twenty are two, 

 four, five, and ten. So as these things are without con- 

 tradiction, and could not otherwise be. 



XX. 1. We proceed now to that knowledge which 

 considereth of the appetite and will of man : whereof 

 Salomon saith, ' Ante omnia, fili, custodi cor tuum ; 

 nam inde procedunt actiones vitae.' In the handling of 

 this science, those which have written seem to me to 

 have done as if a man, that professed to teach to write, 

 did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters 

 joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the 

 carriage of the hand and framing of the letters. So 

 have they made good and fair exemplars and copies, 

 carrjdng the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, 

 duty, felicity ; propounding them well described as the 

 true objects and scopes of man's will and desires. But 

 how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame 

 and subdue the will of man to become true and con- 

 formable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether, 

 or slightly and improfitably. For it is not the disputing, 

 that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and 

 not by nature ; or the distinguishing, that generous 

 spirits are won by doctrines and persuasions, and the 

 vulgar sort by reward and punishment ; and the hke 

 scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the 

 absence of this part. 



2. The reason of this omission I suppose to be that 

 m2 



