how they fight and encounter one with another; and many other particularities of this kind; amongst which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to use the aid of one to master another; like hunters and fowlers who use to hunt beast with beast, and catch bird with bird, which otherwise perhaps without their aid man of himself could not so easily contrive; upon which foundation is erected that excellent and general use in civil government of reward and punishment, whereon commonwealths lean; seeing those predominant affections of fear and hope suppress and bridle all the rest. For as in the government of states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so it is in the internal government of the mind.

I now come to those points which are within our own command, and have operation on the mind to affect and influence the will and appetite, and so have great power in altering manners; wherein philosophers ought carefully and actively to have inquired of the strength and energy of custom, exercise, habit, education, imitation, emulation, company, friendship, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies, and the like. For these are the things that rule in morals; these the agents by which the mind is affected and disposed; and the ingredients of which are compounded the medicines to preserve or recover the health of the mind, as far as it can be done by human remedies; of which number I will select some one or two, upon which to insist, as patterns of the rest. I will therefore make a few observations on Custom and Habit.

1

The opinion of Aristotle seems to me to savour of negligence and narrowness of contemplation, when he asserts that custom has no power over those actions which are natural; using for example, "that if a stone be thrown up a thousand times, it will not learn to ascend of itself; and that by often seeing or hearing we do not learn to see or hear the better." For though this principle be true in some things, wherein nature is peremptory (the reasons whereof we have not now leisure to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein nature admits, within certain limits, intension and remission. For he might see that a tight glove will come on more easily with use; that

Nic. Eth. ii. 1.

a wand by use and continuance will be bent contrary to its natural growth, and after a while will continue in the same position; that by use of the voice it becomes stronger and louder; that by custom we can better bear heat and cold, and the like; which two latter examples have a nearer resemblance to the subject, than those instances which he alleges. But however it be, the more true it is that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more to have taught the rules for acquiring or removing that habit; for there may be many precepts for the wise ordering of the exercises of the mind, as well as of the body; whereof I will recite a few.

The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either a greater or a smaller task than the case requires. For if too great a burden be imposed, in a diffident nature you discourage; in a confident nature you breed an opinion, whereby a man promises to himself more than he is able to perform, which produces sloth; and in both these natures the trial will fail to satisfy the expectation, a thing which ever discourages and confounds the mind. But if the tasks be too weak, progress will be much retarded.

The second precept shall be, that to practise any faculty by which a habit may be acquired, two several times should be observed; the one, when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst disposed; that by the one, you may gain a great step, by the other, you may through strenuous exertion work out the knots and obstacles of the mind, and so make the middle times the more easy and pleasant.

The third precept shall be that which Aristotle mentions by the way. "To bear ever with all our strength, so it be without vice, towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto we are by nature inclined; as when we row against the stream, or straighten a wand by bending it contrary to its natural crookedness.

The fourth precept depends on that axiom, which is most true; that the mind is brought to anything with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not first in the intention, but be obtained as it were by the way while you are attending to something else; because of the natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint. Many other useful

precepts there are, touching the regulation of custom; for custom wisely and skilfully conducted proves indeed, according to the saying, a second nature; but governed unskilfully and by chance it will be but an ape of nature, imitating nothing to the life, but bringing forth only that which is lame and counterfeit. So, if we should handle books and studies and what influence and operation they should have upon manners, are there not divers precepts and directions of great profit appertaining thereunto? Did not one of the fathers', in great indignation call poesy "the wine of demons," because it engenders temptations, desires, and vain opinions? Is not the opinion of Aristotle very wise and worthy to be regarded, "that young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy," because the boiling heat of their affections is not yet settled, nor tempered with time and experience? And to say the truth, does it not hereof come that those excellent books and discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded unto virtue most effectually by representing her in state and majesty, and popular opinions against virtue as clad in parasites' cloaks, fit to be scorned and derided) are of so little effect towards honesty of life and amendment of evil manners, because they are not read and revolved by men in their mature and settled years, but confined almost to boys and beginners. But is it not true also that much less are young men fit auditors of matters of policy, till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion, morality, and duty, lest their judgments be corrupted and made apt to think that there are no true and real differences of things; but all things are to be measured by utility and fortune; as the poet says:

and again,

Prosperum et felix scelus virtus vocatur; 3

Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic diadema; 4 which the poets speak satirically and in indignation, but some books of policy speak seriously and positively. For so it pleases Machiavelli to say, "That if Cæsar had been overthrown, he

"" as if

would have been more odious than ever was Catiline; there had been no difference but in fortune alone between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the unconverted world. And how necessary it is for men to be fully imbued with pious and moral knowledge before they take any part in politics we see from this; that they who are brought up from their infancy in the courts of kings and affairs of state scarce ever attain to a deep and sincere honesty of manners; how much less chance have they then, if to this be added the like discipline in books? Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities themselves, at least some kinds of them, lest they make men too precise, arrogant, and incompatible? as Cicero says of Marcus Cato, "The divine and noble qualities we see in him, be sure are his own; the defects which we sometimes find, proceed not from his nature, but from his instructors." Many other axioms there are touching those properties which studies and books infuse into men's minds; for the saying is true, "that studies pass into manners," as may likewise be said of all those other points, of company, fame, laws, and the rest, which I a little before recited.

But there is a kind of culture of the mind, which seems yet more accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground; that the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at other times in a state more depraved. The purpose therefore and intention of this practice is to cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and take forth the evil out of the calendar. The fixing of the good has been practised by two means; vows or constant resolutions of the mind, and observances or exercises, which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as because they keep the mind in continual duty and obedience. The obliteration of the evil can likewise be practised by two means; some kind of redemption or expiation of that which is past, and an inception or new account of life for the time to come. But this part seems clearly to belong to religion, and justly so; for all true and sincere moral philosophy, as was said before, is but a handmaid to religion.

Wherefore I will conclude this part of the culture of the mind with that remedy, which is of all other means the most

compendious and summary; and again the most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue, and placing it in the state nearest to perfection; which is, the electing and propounding unto a man's self good and virtuous ends of his life and actions; such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain. For if these two things be supposed, that a man set before him honest and good ends, and again that his mind be resolute and constant to pursue and obtain them, it will follow that his mind shall address and mould itself to all virtues at once. And this indeed is like the work of Nature; whereas the other courses I have mentioned are like the work of the hand. For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereon he works, and not the rest (as if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude and unshaped stone still, till such time as he comes to it); but contrariwise, when Nature makes a flower or living creature, she forms and produces rudiments of all the parts at one time; so in obtaining virtue by habit, while we practise temperance, we do not advance much in fortitude, por the like; but when we dedicate and apply ourselves entirely to good and honest ends, what virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends suggests and enjoins, we shall find ourselves invested with a precedent disposition and propensity to conform thereto. And this is the state of mind excellently described by Aristotle, and distinguished by him as having a character not of virtue but of divinity; his words are these: "To brutality we may not unaptly oppose that heroic or divine virtue which is above humanity;" and a little after, "For as beasts are incapable of virtue or vice, so likewise is the Deity; for this latter state is something higher than virtue, as the former is somewhat other than vice." Again, Pliny the younger using the license of heathen grandiloquence sets forth the virtue of Trajan, not as an imitation, but rather as a pattern of the divine, where he says, "That men needed not to make any other prayers to the gods, but that they would show themselves as good and kind lords to them, as Trajan had been." But these be heathen and profane passages, which grasp at shadows greater than the substance; but the true religion and holy Christian. faith lays hold of the reality itself, by imprinting upon men's

Nic. Eth. vii, 1.

2 Pliny, Paneg. 1. c. 74.