244 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [BOOK Vl, 



ledge their errors ; and to avoid any such acknowledgment 

 they are extremely patient under those misfortunes which 

 they bring upon themselves ; for as, when a fault is committed, 

 find before it be known who did it, a great stir and commo- 

 tion is made ; but if at length it appears to be done by a son 

 or a wife, the bustle is at an end. And thus it happens 

 when one must take a fault to one's self And hence we 

 frequently see that women, when they do anything against 

 their friends' consent, whatever misfortune follows, they sel- 

 dom complain, but set a good face on it. 



IX. — Tlie degree of privation seems greatei^ than that of diminution, and 

 the degree of inception greater than that of increase. 



It is a position in mathematics, that there is no proportion 

 between something and nothing, and therefore the degrees 

 of nullity and quiddity seem larger than the degrees of in- 

 crease and decrease, as it is for a monoculus to lose an eye 

 than for a man who has two. So if a man has lost several 

 children, it gives him more grief to lose the last than all the 

 rest, because this was the hope of his family. Therefore, 

 the Sibyl, when she had burned two of her three books, 

 doubled her price upon the third, because the loss of this 

 would only have been a degree of privation, and not of dimi- 

 nution. 



This colour deceives, — 1. in things whose use and service 

 lie in a sufficiency, competency, or determinate quantity : 

 thus if a man were to pay a large sum upon a penalty, it 

 might be harder upon him to want twenty shillings for this 

 than ten pounds for another occasion. So in running through 

 an estate, the first step towards it — viz., breaking in upon 

 the stock — is a higher degree of mischief than the last, viz.. 

 spending the last penny. And to this colour belong those 

 common forms — It is too late to pinch at the bottom of the 

 purse ; As good never a whit as never the better, &c. 2. It 

 deceives from this principle in nature, that the corruption of 

 one thing is the generation of another ; whence the ultimate 

 degree of privation itself is often less felt, as it gives occasion 

 and a spur to some new course. So when Demosthenes re- 

 buked the people for hearkening to the dishonourable and 

 unequal conditions of King Philip, he called those conditions 

 the food of their sloth and indolence, which they had bettor 



