OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION 13 



but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to 

 the knowledge of many things in that kind ; while men 

 rather discharge their minds than impart their minds. In 

 few words, mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides (to say 

 truth) nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body ; 

 and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and 

 actions, if they be not altogether open. As for talkers 

 and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous 

 withal. For he that talketh what he knoweth, will also 

 talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it down, 'that an 

 habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.' And in this part, 

 it is good that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak. 

 For the discovery of a man's self by the tracts of his 

 countenance is a great weakness and betraying ; by how 

 much it is many times more marked and believed than 

 a man's words. 



For the second, which is Dissimulation ; it followeth 

 many times upon secrecy by a necessity; so that he that 

 will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree. For 

 men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent 

 carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying 

 the balance on either side. They will so beset a man with 

 questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him, that, 

 without an absurd silence, he must shew an inclination one 

 way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his 

 silence as by his speech. As for equivocations, or oraculous 

 speeches, they cannot hold out long. So that no man can 

 be secret, except he give himself a little scope of dissimula- 

 tion ; which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secrecy. 



But for the third degree, which is Simulation and false 

 profession ; that I hold more culpable, and less politic ; 

 except it be in great and rare matters. And therefore 

 a general custom of simulation (which is this last degree) 

 is a vice, rising either of a natural falseness or fearfulness, 

 or of a mind that hath some main faults, which because a 

 man must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simula- 

 tion in other things, lest his hand should be out of ure. 



The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation 

 are three. First, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise. 



