20 The Advancement of Learning 



I two causes; the one, because the largeness of their mind 

 can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite observa- 

 tion or examination of the nature and customs of one person : 

 for it is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man : Satis 

 magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus} Nevertheless I shall 

 yield, that he that cannot contract the sight of his mind as 

 well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty. But 

 there is a second cause, which is no inablity, but a rejection 

 UDonchoice and judgm ent. For the honest and just bounds 

 of observation by one^ person upon another, extend no 

 farther but to understand him sufficiently, whereby not to 

 give him offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful 

 counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and 

 caution in respect of a man's self. But to be speculative 

 into another man to the end to know how to work him, or 

 wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is 

 double and cloven and not entire and ingenuous; which as 

 in friendship it is want of integrity, so towards princes or 

 superiors is want of duty. For the custom of the Levant, 

 which is that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix their eyes 

 upon princes,^ is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but 

 the moral is good : for men ought not by cunning and bent 

 observations to pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings 

 which the scripture hath declared to be inscrutable.* 

 8. There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude 

 this part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do 

 many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their 

 behaviour and carriage, and commit errors in small and 

 iordinary points of action so as the vulgar sort of capacities 

 do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that, 

 which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this 

 consequence doth often deceive men, for which I do refer 

 them over to that which was said by Themistocles, arro- 

 gantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of his own 

 mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this ques- 

 tion, pertinently and justly when, being invited to touch a 

 lute, he said. He could not fiddle, hut he could make a small 

 town a great state.*' So, no doubt, many may be well seen in 

 the passages of government and policy, which are to seek in 



» A saying of Epicurus. Seneca, Epist. Mor. i. 7. 



» Herod. I. 99. • Prov. xxv. 3. 



• Plutarch, Vit. ThemisL, ad init. 



