202 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Boole 



ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof never 

 theless is the wisest doctrine ; for life consisteth not in novelties nor 

 subtilitics : 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. 

 But Seneca givcth an excellent check to eloquence : &quot; Nocet illis 

 eloquentia, quibus non rcrum cupiditatem facit, sed sui.&quot; Doctrine 

 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 Demosthenes concludes his counsel, 

 &quot; Qua} si feceritis, non oratorem duntaxat in pra^sentia laudabitis, sed 

 vosmct ipsos etiam, non ita multo post statu rerum vestrarum meliore. 

 Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a 

 fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, 

 who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the ex 

 pressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts 

 of ./Eneas : 



Nee sum animi dubius, verbis ea vinccre magnum 

 Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorem. 



Georg. iii. 289. 



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 seemcth to be into the Exem 

 plar 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 considereth 

 it cither simple or compared, either the kinds of good, or the degrees 

 of good ; in the latter whereof those infinite disputations which were 

 touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beati 

 tude, or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the 

 heathen divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged. And, as 

 Aristotle saith, &quot;That young men maybe happy, but not otherwise 

 but by hope ;&quot; so we must all acknowledge our minority, and embrace 

 the felicity which is by hope of the future world. 



Freed therefore, and delivered from this doctrine of the philoso 

 phers heaven, whereby they feigned an higher elevation of man s 

 nature than was, for we see in what an height of style Seneca writeth, 

 &quot;Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei,&quot; we 

 may with more sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries 

 and labours ; wherein for the nature of good, positive or simple, they 

 have set it down excellently, in describing the forms of virtue and 

 luty with their situations and postures, in distributing them into their 

 kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like ; 



