THE SECOND BOOK 321 



The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden 

 rock whereupon both this and many other barques of know- 

 ledge have been cast away; which is, that men have de- 

 spised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters ; 

 the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the wisest 

 doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties or subtleties) ; 

 but contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of 

 a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to 

 give glory either to the subtlety of disputations or to the 

 eloquence of discourses. l3ut Seneca giveth an excellent 

 check to eloquence ; Nocet tills eloquentia, quibus non rerum 

 cupldltatem faclt, sed sui. Doctrines should be such as 

 should make men in love with the lesson, and not with 

 the teacher; being directed to the auditor's benefit, and 

 not to the author's commendation : and therefore those 

 are of the right kind which may be concluded as Demos- 

 thenes concludes his counsel, )uae si feceritis, non oratorem 

 duntaxat In praesentla laudabitis, sed vosmetipsos etlam non Ita 

 multo post statu rerum vestrarum meliore. 



Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have de- 

 spaired of a fortune which the poet Virgil promised himself, 

 (and indeed obtained,) who got as much glory of eloquence, 

 wit, and learning in the expressing of the observations of 

 husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Aeneas : 



Nee sum anlml dublus^ verbis ea sincere magnum 

 Quam sit, et angustls his addere rebus honorem. 



And surely if the purpose be in good earnest not to 

 write at leisure that which men may read at leisure, but 

 really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these 

 Georgics of the mind, concerning the husbandry and tillage 

 thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions 

 of Virtue, Duty, and Felicity. Wherefore the main and 

 primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into 

 the Exemplar or Platform of Good, and the Regiment or 

 Culture of the Mind ; the one describing the nature of 

 good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue, apply, 

 and accommodate the will of man thereunto. 



The doctrine touching the Platform or Nature of Good 



