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Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626

"The Advancement of Learning"


(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to accustom
our minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they
conduce and are material to our particular ends; and that to do
substantially and not superficially. For we shall find the logical
part (as I may term it) of some men's minds good, but the
mathematical part erroneous; that is, they can well judge of
consequences, but not of proportions and comparison, preferring
things of show and sense before things of substance and effect. So
some fall in love with access to princes, others with popular fame
and applause, supposing they are things of great purchase, when in
many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment. So
some measure things according to the labour and difficulty or
assiduity which are spent about them; and think, if they be ever
moving, that they must needs advance and proceed; as Caesar saith in
a despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth how
laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose, Haec omnia
magno studio agebat.


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