BOOK Vll.] A KEW OlVISlO^f NECKSSAHt. 2C7 



into use. Thus, as a secretary of a prince or of some ci\'il 

 department ranges his papers according to their distinct 

 heads, — ^treaties, instiiictions, foreign and domestic letters, 

 — each occupying a separate corner of his study, and yet 

 does not fail to collect in some particular cabinet those 

 papers he is likely to use together, so in this general cabinet 

 of knowledge we have selected our divisions according to the 

 nature of things themselves; bat if any particular science 

 required to be treated at length, we have followed those 

 divisions which are most conformable to use and practice. 

 The second necessity arose from supplying the addenda to 

 the sciences, and reducing them to an entire body, which 

 completely changed tlie old boundaries. For, say that the 

 existing arts are fifteen in number, and that the deficiencies 

 increase the number to twenty, as the parts of fifteen are 

 not the parts of twenty, two, four, and three being prime 

 numbers in each, it is plain that a new division was forced 

 upon us. 



SEVENTH BOOK. 



CHAPTER I. 



Ethics divided into the Doctrine of Models and the Georgics (Culture) 

 ol the Mind. Division of Models into the Absolute and Comparative 

 Good. Absolute Good divided into Personal and National. 



We next, excellent King, proceed to ethics, which has the 

 human will for its subject. Keason governs the will, but 

 apparent good seduces it : its motives are the affections, and 

 its ministers the organs and voluntary motions. It is ot this 

 doctrine that Solomon says, " Keep thy heart with all dili- 

 gence,^ for out of it are the actions of life." The writers 

 upon this science appear like writing-masters, who lay before 

 their scholars a number of beautiful copies, but give them no 

 directions how to guide their pen or shape their letters ; for 

 so the writers upon ethics have given us shining draughts, 

 descriptions, and exact images of goodness, virtue, duties, 

 happiness, &c., as the true objects and scope of the humau 



• Prov. iv. 23. 



