TRANSLATION OF THE DE AUGMENTIS SCIENTIARUM. BOOK VII. CHAPTER I. The Division of Moral Knowledge into the Exemplar or Platform of Good, and the Georgics or Culture of the Mind. The Division of the Platform of Good, into Simple and Comparative Good. The Division of Simple Good into Individual Good, and Good of Communion. WE come now, most excellent king, to moral knowledge, which respects and considers the will of man. The will is governed by right reason, seduced by apparent good, having for its spurs the passions, for its ministers the organs and voluntary motions; wherefore Solomon says, "Above all things keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." In the handling of this science, the writers seem to me to have done as if a man who, professing to teach the art of writing, had exhibited only fair copies of letters, single and joined, without giving any direction for the carriage of the pen and framing of the characters. So have these writers set forth good and fair copies, and accurate draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, and felicity, as the true objects for the will and desires of man to aim at. But though the marks themselves be excellent and well placed, how a man may best take his aim at them; that is, by what method and course of education the mind may be trained and put in order for the attainment 1 Prov. iv. 23. of them, they pass over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably. We may discourse as much as we please that the moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit, and not by nature, and we may make a formal distinction that generous spirits are won by doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment; or we may give it in precept that the mind like a crooked stick must be straightened by bending it the contrary way, and the like scattered glances and touches; but they would be very far from supplying the place of that which we require. The reason of this neglect I suppose to be that hidden rock whereupon both this and so many other barks of knowledge have struck and foundered; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters which are neither subtle enough for disputation, nor illustrious enough for ornament. It is hard to compute the extent of the evil thus introduced; namely, how from innate pride and vain glory men have chosen those subjects of discourse, and those methods of handling them, which rather display their own genius than benefit the reader. Seneca says well, "Eloquence is injurious to those whom it inspires with a fondness for itself, and not for the subject2; " for writings should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher. They therefore are on the right path, who can say the same of their counsels as Demosthenes did of his, and conclude with this sentence, "If you do what I advise you will not only praise the orator at the time, but in no long time yourselves also, by reason of the better condition of your affairs."3 For myself, most excellent king, I may truly say that both in this present work, and in those I intend to publish hereafter, I often advisedly and deliberately throw aside the dignity of my name and wit (if such thing be) in my endeavour to advance human interests; and being one that should properly perhaps be an architect in philosophy and the sciences, I turn common labourer, hodman, anything that is wanted; taking upon myself the burden and execution of many things which must needs be done, and which others through an inborn pride shrink from and decline. But to return to the subject: moral philosophers have chosen for themselves a certain glittering and lustrous Arist. Nic. Eth, 11, 9. 2 Seneca, Epist. 52. Demosth. Olynth. ii. mass of matter, wherein they may principally glorify themselves for the point of their wit, or the power of their eloquence; but those which are of most use for practice, seeing that they cannot be so clothed with rhetorical ornaments, they have for the most part passed over. Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised to himself, and indeed obtained; who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas; Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn action and active live, these Georgics of the Mind are no less worthy to be had in honour than the heroical descriptions of virtue, goodness, and felicity, whereon so much labour has been spent. Wherefore I will divide moral knowledge into two principal parts; the one "the Exemplar or Platform of Good," the other "the Regiment or Culture of the Mind," which I also call the Georgics of the Mind; the one describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to accommodate the will of man thereunto. The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good, considers good either Simple or Comparative: either the kinds of good, or the degrees of good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputations and speculations touching the supreme degree thereof, which they termed "Felicity," "Beatitude," or the "Highest Good" (which were as the heathen Divinity), are by the Christian faith removed and discharged. And as Aristotle says, "That young men may be happy, but only by hope," so we, instructed by the Christian faith, must all acknowledge our minority, and content ourselves with that felicity which rests in hope. Freed therefore happily, and delivered from this doctrine of the heathen heaven, whereby they certainly imagined a higher 'Virg. Georg. iii. 289.: How hard the task, alas, full well I know, 2 Arist. Nic. Eth. i. 10. |