324 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



Philosophy is conversant. For first it decideth the question 

 touching the preferment of the contemplative or active life, 

 and decideth it against Aristotle. For all the reasons which 

 he bringeth for the contemplative are private, and respect- 

 ing the pleasure and dignity of a man's self, (in which 

 respects no question the contemplative life hath the pre- 

 eminence :) not much unlike to that comparison which 

 Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying of philo- 

 sophy and contemplation ; who being asked what he was, 

 answered, c That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian games, 

 he knew the manner, that some came to try their fortune 

 for the prizes, and some came as merchants to utter their 

 commodities, and some came to make good cheer and meet 

 their friends, and some came to look on ; and that he was 

 one of them that came to look on/ But men must know, 

 that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God 

 and Angels to be lookers on. Neither could the like 

 question ever have been received in the church, notwith- 

 standing their Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus^ 

 by which place they would exalt their civil death and regular 

 professions, but upon this defence, that the monastical life 

 is not simple contemplative, but performeth the duty either 

 of incessant prayers and supplications, which hath been truly 

 esteemed as an office in the church, or else of writing or 

 taking instructions for writing concerning the law of God, 

 as Moses did when he abode so long in the mount. And 

 so we see Henoch the seventh from Adam, who was the 

 first Contemplative and walked with God, yet did also 

 endow the church with prophecy, which St. Jude citeth. 

 But for contemplation which should be finished in itself 

 without casting beams upon society, assuredly divinity 

 knoweth it not. 



It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and 

 Socrates and their schools and successions on the one side, 

 who placed felicity in virtue simply or attended ; the 

 actions and exercises whereof do chiefly embrace and 

 concern society; and on the other side, the Cyrenaics 

 and Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue 

 fas it is used in some comedies of errors, wherein the 



