218 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



permitteth to be manifest and revealed. For so it is 

 expressed in the scriptures touching the government of 

 God, that this globe, which seemeth to us a dark and 

 shady body, is in the view of God as crystal : ' Et in 

 conspectu sedis tanquam mare vitreum simile crystallo.' 

 So unto princes and states, and specially towards wise 

 senates and councils, the natures and dispositions of 

 the people, their conditions and necessities, their fac- 

 tions and combinations, their animosities and dis- 

 contents, ought to be, in regard of the variety of their 

 intelligences, the wisdom of their observations, and the 

 height of their station where they keep sentinel, in 

 great part clear and transparent. Wherefore, consider- 

 ing that I write to a king that is a master of this science, 

 and is so well assisted, I think it decent to pass over 

 this part in silence, as willing to obtain the certificate 

 which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto ; 

 who being silent, when others contended to make demon- 

 stration of their abilities by speech, desired it mought 

 be certified for his part, ' That there was one that knew 

 how to hold his peace.' 



49. Notwithstanding, for the more pubhc part of 

 government, which is laws, I think good to note only 

 one deficience ; which is, that all those which have 

 written of laws, have written either as philosophers or 

 as lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philo- 

 sophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary com- 

 monwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which 

 give little light because they are so high. For the 

 lawyers, they write according to the states where they 

 live what is received law, and not what ought to be law : 

 for the wisdom of a lawmaker is one, and of a lawyer is 

 another. For there are in nature certain fountains of 

 justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as streams : 

 and hke as waters do take tinctures and tastes from the 

 soils through which they run, so do civil laws vary 

 according to the regions and governments where they 

 are planted, though they proceed from the same foun- 

 tains. Again, the wisdom of a laA^maker consisteth 

 not only in a platform of justice, but in the application 



