II ] ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



Dextra milii Dcus, et tclum, quod missile libro, 

 Nunc adsint. 



For these confidences were ever unhallowed and unblessed : and 

 therefore those that were great politicians indeed ever ascribed their 

 successes to their felicity, and not to their skill or virtue. For so 

 Sylla surnamed himself Felix not Magnus: so Cesar laid to the 

 master of the ship, u Cacsarcm portas et fortunam ejus.&quot; 



But yet nevertheless these positions, &quot; Faber quisque fortunn? smc ; 

 Sapiens dominabitur astris ; Invia virtuti nulla est via ;&quot; and the like, 

 being taken and used as spurs to industry, and not as stirrups ta 

 :nsolcncy, rather for resolution than for presumption or outward 

 declaration, have been ever thought sound and good, and arc, no 

 question, imprinted in the greatest minds, who arc so sensible of this 

 opinion, as they can scarce contain it within : As we see in Augustus 

 Ciesar, who was rather diverse from his uncle, than inferior in virtue, 

 how when he died, he desired his friends about him to give him a 

 Plaudit e, as if he were conscient to himself that he had played his part 

 well upon the stage. This part of knowledge we do report also as 

 deficient ; not but that it is practised too much, but it hath not been 

 reduced to writing. And therefore lest it should seem to any that it is 

 not comprehensible by axiom, it is requisite, as we did in the former, 

 that we set down some heads or passages of it. 



Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument 

 to teach men how to raise and make their fortune : a doctrine, wherein 

 every man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple till he 

 sceth difficulty ; for fortune layeth as heavy impositions as virtue, and 

 it is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician, as to be truly 

 moral. But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly, both in 

 honour and in substance : In honour, because pragmatical men may 

 not go away with an opinion that learning is like a lark, that can 

 mount, and sing, and please herself, and nothing else ; but may know 

 that she holdeth as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also 

 descend and strike upon the prey. In substance, because it is the 

 perfect law of inquiry of truth, &quot;that nothing be in the globe of matter, 

 which should not be likewise in the globe of crystal, or form ;&quot; that is, 

 that there be not anything in being and action, which should not be 

 drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine. Neither doth 

 learning admire or esteem of this architecture of fortune, otherwise 

 than as of an inferior work : for no man s fortune can be an end 

 worthy of his being, and many times the worthiest men do abandon 

 their fortune willingly for better respects ; but nevertheless fortune, as 

 an organ of virtue and merit, deserveth the consideration. 



First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most summary 

 towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that window which 

 Momus did require ; who seeing in the frame of man s heart such 

 angles and recesses, found fault there was not a window to look into 

 them ; that is, to procure good informations of particulars touching 

 persons, their natures, their desires and ends, their customs and 

 fashions, their helps and adva;: f agcs, and vhcr&amp;lt;;bv they chiefly stand ; 



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