306 ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. [bOOK VIIL 



them with fictitious nunours; some raise np in Mm the 

 fury of envy, especially against the most deserving ; some, 

 by accusing of others, wash their own stains away ; some 

 make room for the preferment and gratification of their 

 friends, by calumniating and traducing their competitors, &c. 

 And these agents are naturally the most vicious servants of 

 the prince. Those again, of better principles and dispositions, 

 after finding little security in their innocence, their master 

 not knowing how to distinguish truth from falsehood, drop 

 their moral honesty, go into the eddy winds of the court, and 

 servilely submit to be carried about with them. For as 

 Tacitus says of Claudius, " There is no safety with that 

 j)rince, into whose mind all things are infused and directed." ^ 

 And Comines well observes, that " it is better being servant 

 to a prince whose suspicions are endless, than whose credulity 

 is great." ^ 



XIV. — A just man is merciful to the life of his least, hut the mercies 

 of the wicked are ci'uel.'^ 



Nature has endowed man with a noble and excellent 

 principle of compassion, which extends itself even to the 

 bi-utes, that by divine appointment are made subject to him. 

 "Whence this compassion has some resemblance with that of 

 a prince towards his subjects. And it is certain, that the 

 noblest souls are most extensively merciful ; for narrow and 

 degenerate spirits think compassion belongs not to them, but 

 a great soul, the noblest part of the creation, is ever com- 

 passionate. Thus under the old law there were numerous 

 precepts not merely ceremonial, as the ordaining of mercy, 

 for example, the not eating of flesh with the blood thereof, 

 «kc. So, likewise, the sects of the Essenes and Pythagoreans 

 totally abstained from flesh, as they do also to this day, with 

 an inviolated superstition, in some parts of the empire ot 

 Mogul. Nay, the Turks, though a cniel and bloody nation, 

 both in their descent and discipline, give alms to brutes, and 

 suffer them not to be tortured. But lest this piinciple mxight 

 seem to countenance all kinds of compassion, Solomon 

 wholesomely subjoins, " That the mercies of the wicked are 

 cruel ;" that is, when such great offenders are spared, as 

 ought to be cut off with the sword of justice. For this kind 



• Anr.als, xiu 3. . * M^moires et Chroniques du Quinzieme Sifecle. 

 * Prov. xii. 1 



