2I 4 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



in the nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affec 

 tions, as winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And 

 here again I find strange as before, that Aristotle should have svritten 

 divers volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections, which is 

 the principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are 

 considered but collaterally, and in a second degree, as they may be 

 moved by speech, he findeth place for them, and handleth them well 

 for the quantity; but where their true place is, he prctermitteth them. 

 For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy 

 this inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature 

 of light, can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and 

 pain are to the particular affections as light is to particular colours. 

 Better travels, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far 

 as I can gather by that which we have at second hand. But yet, it is 

 like, it was after their manner, rather in subtility of definitions, which, 

 in a subject of this nature, arc but curiosities, than in active and ample 

 descriptions and observations. So likewise I find some particular 

 writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections ; as of 

 anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness, of counte 

 nance, and other. But the poets and writers of histories are the best 

 doctors of this knowledge, where we may find painted forth with great 

 life how affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and 

 refrained ; and how again contained from act, and farther degree : how 

 they disclose themselves ; how they work ; how they vary ; how they 

 gather and fortify; how they arc inwrappcd one within another ; and 

 how they do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like 

 particularities. Amongst the which, this last is of special use in moral 

 and civil matters : how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to 

 master one by another, even as we use to hunt beast with beast, and fly 

 bird with bird, which otherwise pcrcase we could not so easily recover: 

 upon which foundation is erected that excellent use of pnoniiem and 

 pa* net, whereby civil states consist, employing the predominant affec 

 tions of fear and hope, for the suppressing and bridling the rest. For, 

 as in the government of states, it is sometimes 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, com 

 pany, friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies : 

 these as they have determinate use in moralities, for from these the 

 mind suffereth, and of these are such receipts and regiments com 

 pounded and described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health 

 and good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine ; 

 of which number we will insist 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 scemcth to me a negligent opinion, that of 

 those things which consist by nature, nothing can be changed by cus- 



