OF REGIMENT OF HEALTH 81 



combine two of either sort ; and forget not to call as well 

 the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of 

 for his faculty. 



XXXI 



OF SUSPICION 



SUSPICIONS amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, 

 they ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be re- 

 pressed, or at the least well guarded : but they cloud the 

 mind ; they leese friends ; and they check with business, 

 whereby business cannot go on currently and constantly. 

 They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise 

 men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects, 

 not in the heart, but in the brain ; for they take place in 

 the stoutest natures ; as in the example of Henry the 

 Seventh of England. There was not a more suspicious 

 man, nor a more stout. And in such a composition they 

 do small hurt. For commonly they are not admitted, 

 but with examination, whether they be likely or no ? But 

 in fearful natures they gain ground too fast. There is 

 nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know 

 little ; and therefore men should remedy suspicion by 

 procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions 

 in smother. 



What would men have? Do they think those they 

 employ and deal with are saints ? Do they not think they 

 will have their own ends, and be truer to themselves than 

 to them ? Therefore there is no 1 better way to moderate 

 suspicions, than to account upon such suspicions as true 

 and yet to bridle them as false. For so far a man ought 

 to make use of suspicions, as to provide, as if that should 

 be true that he suspects, yet it may do him no hurt. 

 Suspicions that the mind of itself gathers are but buzzes ; 

 but suspicions that are artificially nourished, and put into 

 men's heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have 

 stings. Certainly, the best mean to clear the way in this 



