THE SECOND BOOK 171 



review of that which we have said : we have spoken 

 first of the good of society, the intention whereof em- 

 braceth the form of human nature, whereof we are 

 members and portions, and not our own proper and 

 individual form : we have spoken of active good, and 

 supposed it as a part of private and particular good. 

 And rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a 

 triple desire or appetite proceeding from love to them- 

 selves ; one of preserving and continuing their form ; 

 another of advancing and perfecting their form ; and 

 a third of multiplying and extending their form upon 

 other things : whereof the multiplying, or signature of 

 it upon other things, is that which we handled by the 

 name of active good. So as there remaineth the con- 

 serving of it, and perfecting or raising of it ; which latter 

 is the highest degree of passive good. For to preserve 

 in state is the less, to preserve with advancement is the 

 greater. So in man, 



Igneus est oUis vigor, et caelestis origo. 



His approach or assumption to divine or angelical na- 

 ture is the perfection of his form ; the error or false 

 imitation of which good is that which is the tempest of 

 human life ; while man, upon the instinct of an ad- 

 vancement formal and essential, is carried to seek an 

 advancement local. For as those which are sick, and 

 find no remedy, do tumble up and down and change 

 place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove 

 internal ; so is it with men in ambition, when failing of 

 the mean to exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual 

 estuation to exalt their place. So then passive good is, 

 as was said, either conservative or perfective. 



3. To resume the good of conservation or comfort, 

 which consisteth in the fruition of that which is agree- 

 able to our natures ; it seemeth to be the most pure 

 and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and the 

 lowest. And this alsp receiveth a difference, which 

 hath neither been well judged of, nor well inquired : for 

 the good of fruition or contentment is placed either in 

 the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and 



