(14) 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 advantages, and whereby they chiefly
stand, so again their weaknesses and disadvantages, and where they
lie most open and obnoxious, their friends, factions, dependences;
and again their opposites, enviers, competitors, their moods and
times, Sola viri molles aditus et tempora noras; their principles,
rules, and observations, and the like: and this not only of persons
but of actions; what are on foot from time to time, and how they are
conducted, favoured, opposed, and how they import, and the like.
For the knowledge of present actions is not only material in itself,
but without it also the knowledge of persons is very erroneous: for
men change with the actions; and whilst they are in pursuit they are
one, and when they return to their nature they are another.
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