204 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and deter, 

 mine most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conver 

 sant. For first, it decidcth 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 

 respecting 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 philosophy and contemplation ; who being asked what 

 he was, answered, &quot;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.&quot; 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, notwithstanding their &quot; Pretiosa in 

 oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus ;&quot; by which place they would 

 exalt their civil death and regular professions, but upon this defence, 

 that the monastical life is not simply contemplative, but performcth 

 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 Enoch 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 cast 

 ing 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, as it is 

 used in some comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid 

 change habits, to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot 

 be served and attended : and the reformed school of the Epicureans, 

 which placed it in serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation ; 

 as if they would have deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and 

 the first age, when there was no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, 

 but all after one air and season ; and Herillus, who placed felicity in 

 extinguishment of the disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of 

 good and evil, esteeming things according to the clearness of the 

 desires, or the reluctation ; which opinion was revived in the heresy 

 of the Anabaptists, measuring things according to the motions of the 

 spirit, and the constancy or wavering of belief : all which are manifest 

 to tend to private repose and contentment, and not to point of society. 

 It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which presupposeth 

 that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power, 

 lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance ; as if it were not a thing 



