THE SECOND BOOK 173 



is no end of preparing. Better saith the poet : 

 Qui finem vitae extremum inter munera ponat 

 Naturae. 

 So have they sought to make men's minds too uniform 

 and harmonical, by not breaking them sufficiently 

 to contrary motions: the reason whereof I suppose to 

 be, because they themselves were men dedicated to 

 a private, free, and unapplied course of life. For as 

 we see, upon the lute or like instrument, a ground, 

 though it be sweet and have show of many changes, 

 yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard 

 stops and passages, as a set song or voluntary ; much 

 after the same manner was the diversity between a 

 philosophical and a civil life. And therefore men are 

 to imitate the wisdom of jewellers ; who, if there be 

 a grain, or a cloud, or an ice which may be ground 

 forth without taking too much of the stone, they help 

 it ; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too 

 much, they will not meddle with it : so ought men so 

 to procure serenity as they destroy not magnanimity. 

 6. Having therefore deduced the good of man 

 which is private and particular, as far as seemeth fit, 

 we will now return to that good of man which respecteth 

 and beholdeth society, which we may term duty ; 

 because the term of duty is more proper to a mind 

 well framed and disposed towards others, as the term 

 of virtue is applied to a mind well formed and com- 

 posed in itself : though neither can a man understand 

 virtue without some relation to society, nor duty 

 without an inward disposition. This part may seem 

 at first to pertain to science civil and politic : but not 

 if it be well observed. For it concerneth the regiment 

 and government of every man over himself, and not 

 over others. And as in architecture the direction of 

 framing the posts, beams, and other parts of building, 

 is not the same with the manner of joining them and 

 erecting the building ; and in mechanicals, the direc- 

 tion how to frame an instrument or engine, is not the 

 same with the manner of setting it on work and employ- 

 ing it ; and yet nevertheless in expressing of the one 



