2 00 The Advancement of Learning 



Tacitus made his judgment, that they were a cunning of 

 an inferior form in regard of true policy; attributing the 

 one to Augustus, the other to Tiberius; where speaking 

 of Livia, he saith, Et cum artihus mariti simulatione filii 

 bene composita : ^ for surely the continual habit of dissimula- 

 tion is but a weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly 

 poHtic. 



37, Another precept of this architecture of fortune is, to 

 accustom our minds to judge of the proportion or value 

 of things, as they conduce and are material to our particular 

 ends: and that to do substantially, and not superficially. 

 For we shall find the logical part, as I may term it, of some 

 men's minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous; 

 that is, they can well judge of consequences, but not of 

 proportions and comparisons, preferring things of show 

 and sense before things of substance and effect. So some 

 fall in love with access to princes, others with popular fame 

 and applause, supposing they are things of great purchase : 

 when in many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, 

 and impediment. So some measure things according to 

 the labour and difficulty, or assiduity, which are spent 

 about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that they 

 must needs advance and proceed; as Caesar saith in a 

 despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth 

 how laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose ; 

 Hcec omnia magno studio agehat^ So in most things men 

 are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest 

 means to be best, when it should be the fittest. 



38. As for the true marshalling of men's pursuits towards 

 their fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold them 

 to stand thus: first the amendment of their own minds. 

 For the remove of the impediments of the mind will sooner 

 clear the passages of fortune, than the obtaining fortune 

 will remove the impediments of the mind. In the second 

 place, I set down wealth and means; which I know most 

 men would have placed first, because of the general use 

 which it beareth towards all variety of occasions. But 

 that opinion I may condemn with like reason as Machiavel * 

 doth that other, that moneys were the sinews of the wars; 

 whereas, saith he, the true sinews of the wars are the sinews 



» Tacit. Annal. v. I. • Caes. de Bell. Civ. i. 30. 



• Machiav. Disc. sopr. Liv. ii. 10. 



