11.1 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. **3 



sensitive, dry, formal, real, humourous, certain, &quot;huomo di prima 

 imprcssione, huomo di ultima impressione,&quot; and the like : and yet 

 nevertheless this kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not 

 fixed in inquiry. For the distinctions are found, many of them, but 

 we conclude no precepts upon them : wherein our fault is the greater, 

 because both history, poesy, and daily experience, are as goodly fields 

 where these observations grow ; whereof we make a few poesies to 

 hold in our hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary, 

 that receipts might be made of them for the use of life. 



Of much like kind arc those impressions of nature, which arc 

 imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health 

 and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are 

 inherent, and not extern ; and again, those which are caused by ex 

 tern fortune ; as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, 

 magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable 

 fortune, rising /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;rr sd Hum per gradits, and the like. And therefore we 

 see that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, 

 &quot;bcnignitas hujus ut adolcscentuli cst.&quot; St. Paul concludcth, that 

 severity of discipline was to be used to the Cretans, &quot; Increpa cos 

 durc,&quot; upon the disposition of their country, &quot;Cretenses semper men- 

 daces, make bestiae, venires pigri.&quot; Sallust noteth, &quot;that it is usual 

 with kings to desire contradictories ;&quot; &quot; Scd plcrumquc rcgirc vohmtatcs, 

 ut vchcmcntcs sunt, sic mobiles, sxpcque ipsa: sibi adversce.&quot; Tacitus 

 observeth how rarely raising of the fortune mcndcth the disposition, 

 &quot;Solus Vcspasianus mulatus in mclius.&quot; Pindarus maketh an obser 

 vation, that great and sudden fortune for the most part dcfcatcth men, 

 &quot; Oui magnam fclicitatcm concoqucre non possunt.&quot; So the Psalm 

 showcth it is more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying of fortune, 

 than in the increase of fortune : &quot; Divitiic si aflluant, nolitc cor 

 apponcre.&quot; These observations, and the like, I deny not but arc 

 touched a little by Aristotle, as in passage in his Rhetorics, and arc 

 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 knowledge 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 

 clivers characters of men s natures, it followeth, in order, to know the 

 diseases and infirmities of the mind, which arc no other than the per 

 turbations and distempers of the affections. For as the ancient poli 

 ticians 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 be fitly said, that the mind 



