Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and sudden
fortune for the most part defeateth men qui magnam felicitatem
concoquere non possunt. So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to
keep a measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of
fortune; Divitiae si affluant, nolite cor apponere. These
observations and the like I deny not but are touched a little by
Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some
scattered discourses; but they were never incorporate into moral
philosophy, to which they do essentially appertain; as the knowledge
of this 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.
(6) 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 divers characters of men's natures, it
followeth in order to know the diseases and infirmities of the mind,
which are no other than the perturbations and distempars of the
affections.
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