Cn.VP. I.J ETHICS — THE NATURE OF GOOD. 2G3 



things necessary to the erection of tlie structure,^which 

 others, out of a natural disdain, refused to attend to. But 

 in ethics the philosophei*s have culled out a certain splendid 

 mass of matter, wherein they might principally show their 

 force of genius or power of eloquence ; but for other things 

 that chiefly conduce to practice, as they could not be so 

 gracefully set oflT, tliey have entirely neglected them. Yet 

 so many eminent men, surely, ought not to have des])aired of 

 a like success with Vii-gil, who procured as much glory for 

 eloquence, ingenuity, and learning, by explaining the homely 

 observations of agriculture as in relating the heroic acts of 

 <^neas, — 



" Nee sum anirai dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum 

 Quara sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorem."* 



And certainly, if men were bent, not upon Avriting at leisure 

 what may be read at leisure, but really to cultivate and im- 

 prove active life, the georgics of the mind ought to be as 

 highly valued as those heroical portraits of virtue, goodness, 

 and happiness wherein so much pains have been taken. 



We divide ethics into two principal doctrines, — the one of 

 the model or image of good, the other of the regulation and 

 culture of the mind, which I commonly express by the word 

 georgics. The first describes the nature of good, and t\\e/C 

 other prescribes rules for conforming the mind to it. The 

 doctrine of the image of good, in describing the nature of 

 good, considers it either as simple or compounded, and either 

 as to the kinds or degrees thereof. In the latter of these 

 the Christian faith has at length abolished those infinite dis- 

 putes and speculations as to the supreme degree of good, 

 called happiness, blessedness, or the " summum bonum,'* 

 which was a kind of heathen theology. For, as Aristotle 

 said, '"Youth might be happy, though only in hope;"g so, ^ 

 according to the direction of faith, we must put ourselves inV 

 the state of minors, and think of no other felicity, but thati 

 founded in hope. Being, therefore, thus delivered from this 

 ostentatious heaven of the heathens, who, following Seneca, 

 "Yei'e magnum habere fragilitatoni hominis, securitatem 

 Bei,"^ exaggerated the perfecLibihcy of man's nature, — we 



k 



f Georg. iii 28i>. « Nic. Ethics, i, 10 ; Rhet. ii. 



» Epist. 63, § 12. 



