340 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



whereby civil states consist ; employing the predominant 

 affections of fear and hope, for the suppressing and bridling 

 the rest. For as in the government of states it is some- 

 times necessary to bridle one faction with another, so it 

 is in the government within. 



Now come we to those points which are within our 

 own command, and have force and operation upon the 

 mind to affect the will and appetite and to alter manners : 

 wherein they ought to have handled custom, exercise, 

 habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company, 

 friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, 

 studies : these as they have determinate use in moralities, 

 from these the mind suffereth, and of these are such 

 receipts and regiments compounded and described, as may 

 seem to recover or preserve the health and good estate 

 of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine : 

 of which number we will visit upon some one or two 

 as an example of the rest, because it were too long to 

 prosecute all ; and therefore we do resume Custom and 

 Habit to speak of. 



The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent 

 opinion, that of those things which consist by nature 

 nothing can be changed by custom ; using for example, 

 that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times up, it 

 will not learn to ascend ; and that by often seeing or 

 hearing, we do not learn to see or hear the better. For 

 though this principle be true in things wherein nature 

 is peremptory, (the reason whereof we cannot now stand 

 to discuss,) yet it is otherwise in things wherein nature 

 admitteth a latitude. For he might see that a strait glove 

 will come more easily on with use, and that a wand will 

 by use bend otherwise than it grew, and that by use of 

 the voice we speak louder and stronger, and that by use 

 of enduring heat or cold we endure it the better, and 

 the like : which later sort have a nearer resemblance 

 unto that subject of manners he handleth than those 

 instances which he allegeth. But allowing his conclusion, 

 that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much 

 the more to have taught the manner of superinducing 



