338 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



wonder to see an old man beneficent ; benignitas hujus ut 

 adokscentuli est: St. Paul concludeth that severity of dis- 

 cipline was to be used to the Cretans, Increpa eos dure, 

 upon the disposition of their country; Cretenses semper 

 mendaces, malae bestiae, venires pigri : Sallust noteth that 

 it is usual with Kings to desire contradictories ; Sed 

 plerumque regiae voluntates, ut vehementes sunt, sic mobiles, 

 saepeque ipsae sibi adversae : Tacitus observeth how rarely 

 raising of the fortune mendeth the disposition ; Solus 

 Vespasianus mulatus in melius : Pindarus maketh an obser- 

 vation that great and sudden fortune for the most part 

 defeateth men ; Qjui magnam felicitatem concoquere non pos- 

 sunf: so the Psalm sheweth it is more easy to keep a 

 measure in the enjoying of fortune than in the increase 

 of fortune ; Divitiae si affiuant, nolite cor apponere. These 

 observations and the like I deny not but are touched a 

 little by Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics, and are 

 handled in some scattered discourses ; but they were never 

 incorporate into Moral Philosophy, to which they do 

 essentially appertain ; as the knowledge of the diversity of 

 grounds and moulds doth to agriculture, and the know- 

 ledge of the diversity of complexions and constitutions 

 doth to the physician ; except we mean to follow the 

 indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines 

 to all patients. 



Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching 

 the affections ; for as in medicining of the body it is in order 

 first to know the divers complexions and constitutions, 

 secondly the diseases, and lastly the cures ; so in medicining 

 of the mind, after knowledge of the divers characters of 

 men's natures, it followeth in order to know the diseases 

 and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than 

 the perturbations and distempers of the affections. For 

 as the ancient politiques in popular estates were wont to 

 compare the people to the sea and the orators to the 

 winds, because as the sea would of itself be calm and quiet 

 if the winds did not move and trouble it, so the people 

 would be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators 

 did not set them in working and agitation ; so it may 



