2oS ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



show of many changes, yet breaketh nst the hand to such strange and 

 hard stops and passages, as a set song or voluntary : much after the 

 same manner was the diversity between a philosophical and a civil life. 

 And therefore men are to imitate the wisdom of jewellers, who if there 

 be a grain, or a cloud, or an ice which may be ground forth without 

 taking too much of the stone, they help it ; but if it should lessen and 

 abate the stone too much, they will not meddle with it ; so ought 

 men so to procure serenity, as they destroy not magnanimity. 



Having therefore deduced the good of man, which is private and 

 particular, as far as scemeth fit, we will now return to that good of 

 man which rcspecteth and beholdeth Society, which we may term duty ; 

 because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and 

 disposed towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind 

 well formed and composed in itself; though neither can a man under 

 stand virtue without some relation to society, nor duty without an in 

 ward disposition. This part may seem at first to pertain to science 

 civil and politic, but not if it be well observed; for it concerncth the 

 regiment and government of every man over himself, and not ovei 

 others. And as in architecture the direction of the framing the 

 posts, beams, and other parts of building, is not the same with the 

 manner of joining them and erecting the building; and in mechanicals, 

 the direction how to frame an instrument or engine, is not the same 

 with the manner of setting it on work and employing it ; and yet never 

 theless in expressing of the one, you incidentally express the aptness 

 towards the other : so the doctrine of conjugation of men in society 

 differeth from that of their conformity thereunto. 



This part of duty is subdivided into two parts ; the common duty of 

 every man as a man or member of a state, the other the respective or 

 special duty of every man in his profession, vocation, and place. The 

 first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said. The 

 second likewise I may report rather dispersed, than deficient ; which 

 manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge 

 to be best : who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue, 

 challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and place ? 

 For although sometimes a looker on may see more than a gamester, 

 and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, &quot; That the vale best 

 discovered the hills ; &quot; yet there is small doubt but that men can 

 write best, and most really and materially in their own professions ; 

 and that the writing of speculative men of active matter, for the most 

 part, doth seem to men of experience, as Phormio s argument of the 

 wars seemed to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage. Only there 

 is one vice which accompanieth them that write in their own profes 

 sions, that they magnify them in excess ; but generally it were to be 

 wished, as that which would make learning indeed solid and fruitful, 

 that active men would or could become writers. 



In which I cannot but mention, honoris causa, your majesty s excel 

 lent book touching the duty of a king, a work richly compounded of 

 divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts, 

 and being in mine opinion one of the most sound and healthful writings 



