Chapter II (6)

Division of Individual Good into Active and Passive. That of Passive Good into Conservative and Perfective. Good of the Commonwealth divided into General and Respective

WE DIVIDE individual or self good into active and passive. This difference of good is also found impressed upon the nature of all things, but principally shows itself in two appetites of the creatures; viz.—1. That of self-preservation and defence; and, 2. That of multiplying and propagating. The latter, which is active, seems stronger and more worthy than the former, which is passive; for throughout the universe the celestial nature is the principal agent, and the terrestrial the patient; and in the pleasures of animals that of generation is greater than that of feeding; and the Scripture says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And even in common life, no man is so soft and effeminate, as not to prefer the performing and perfecting of anything he had set his mind upon before sensual pleasures. The pre-eminence of active good is also highly exalted from the consideration of the state of mankind, which is mortal and subject to fortune; for if perpetuity and certainty could be had in human pleasures, this would greatly enhance them; but as the case now stands, when we count it a happiness to die late, when we cannot boast of to-morrow, when we know not what a day may bring forth, no wonder if we earnestly endeavor after such things as elude the injuries of time: and these can be no other than our works. Accordingly it is said, “Their works follow them.”

Another considerable pre-eminence of active good is given it, and supported by that inseparable affection of human nature—the love of novelty or variety. But this affection is greatly limited in the pleasures of the senses, which make the greatest part of passive good. To consider how often the same things come over in life—as meals, sleep, and diversion—it might make not only a resolute, a wretched, or a wise, but even a delicate person wish to die. But in actions, enterprises, and desires, there is a remarkable variety, which we perceive with great pleasure, while we begin, advance, rest, go back to recruit, approach, obtain, etc.: whence it is truly said, “That life without pursuit is a vague and languid thing”; and this holds true both of the wise and unwise indifferently. So Solomon says, “Even a brain-sick man seeks to satisfy his desire, and meddles in everything.” And thus the most potent princes, who have all things at command, yet sometimes choose to pursue low and empty desires, which they prefer to the greatest affluence of sensual pleasures: thus Nero delighted in the harp, Commodus in fencing, Antonius in racing, etc. So much more pleasing is it to be active than in possession.

It must, however, be well observed, that active, individual good differs entirely from the good of communion, notwithstanding they may sometimes coincide; for although this individual active good often produces works of beneficence, which is a virtue of communion, yet herein they differ, that these works are performed by most men, not with a design to assist or benefit others, but wholly for their own gratification or honor, as plainly appears when active good falls upon anything contrary to the good of communion; for that gigantic passion wherewith the great disturbers of the world are carried away, as in the case of Sylla and others, who would render all their friends happy and all their enemies miserable, and endeavor to make the world carry their image, which is really warring against heaven—this passion, I say, aspires to an active individual good, at least in appearance, though it be infinitely different from the good of communion.

We divide passive good into conservative and perfective; for everything has three kinds of appetite with regard to its own individual good—the first to preserve itself, the second to perfect itself, and the third to multiply and diffuse itself. The last relates to active good, of which we have spoken already; and of the other two the perfective is the most excellent; for it is a less matter to preserve a thing in its state, and a greater to exalt its nature. But throughout the universe are found some nobler natures, to the dignity and excellence whereof inferior ones aspire, as to their origins—whence the poet said well of mankind, that “they have an ethereal vigor and a celestial origin”:

“Igneus est ollis vigor et cœlestis origo”;

for the perfection of the human form consists in approaching the Divine or angelic nature. The corrupt and preposterous imitation of this perfective good is the pest of human life, and the storm that overturns and sweeps away all things, while men, instead of a true and essential exaltation, fly with blind ambition only to a local one; for as men in sickness toss and roll from place to place, as if by change of situation they could get away from themselves, or fly from the disease, so in ambition, men hurried away with a false imagination of exalting their own nature, obtain no more than change of place or eminence of post.

Conservative good is the receiving and enjoying things agreeable to our nature; and this good, though it be the most simple and natural, yet of all others it seems the lowest and most effeminate. It is also attended with a difference, about which the judgment of mankind has been partly unsettled and the inquiry partly neglected; for the dignity and recommendation of the good of fruition or pleasure, as it is commonly called, consists either in the reality or strength thereof—the one being procured by uniformity, and the other by variety. The one has a less mixture of evil, the other a stronger and more lively impression of good: which of these is the best, is the question; but whether human nature be not capable of both at once, has not been examined.

As for the question, it began to be debated between Socrates and a Sophist. Socrates asserted that felicity lay in a constant peace and tranquillity of mind, but the Sophist placed it in great appetite and great fruition. From reasoning they fell to railing, when the Sophist said, the felicity of Socrates was the felicity of a stock or a stone; Socrates, on the other hand, said, the felicity of the Sophist was the felicity of one who is always itching and always scratching. And both opinions have their supporters; for the school even of Epicurus, which allowed that virtue greatly conduced to felicity, is on the side of Socrates; and if this be the case, certainly virtue is more useful in appeasing disorders than in obtaining desires. The Sophist’s opinion is somewhat favored by the assertion above mentioned, viz., that perfective good is superior to conservative good, because every obtaining of a desire seems gradually to perfect nature, which though not strictly true, yet a circular motion has some appearance of a progressive one.

As for the other point, whether human nature is not at the same time capable both of tranquillity and fruition, a just determination of it will render the former question unnecessary. And do we not often see the minds of men so framed and disposed, as to be greatly affected with present pleasures, and yet quietly suffer the loss of them?—Whence that philosophical progression, “Use not, that you may not wish; wish not, that you may not fear,” seems an indication of a weak, diffident, and timorous mind. And, indeed, most doctrines of the philosophers appear to be too distrustful, and to take more care of mankind than the nature of the thing requires. Thus they increase the fears of death by the remedies they bring against it; for while they make the life of man little more than a preparation and discipline for death, it is impossible but the enemy must appear terrible, when there is no end of the defence to be made against him. The poet did better for a heathen, who placed the end of life among the privileges of nature—

Thus the philosophers, in all cases, endeavor to render the mind too uniform and harmonical, without inuring it to extreme and contrary motions; and the reason seems to be, that they give themselves up to a private life, free from disquiet and subjection to others; whereas men should rather imitate the prudence of a lapidary, who, finding a speck or a cloud in a diamond, that may be ground out without too much waste, takes it away, or otherwise leaves it untouched; and so the serenity of the mind is to be consulted without impairing its greatness. And thus much for the doctrine of self-good.

The good of communion, which regards society, usually goes by the name of duty, a word that seems more properly used of a mind well disposed toward others; while the term virtue is used of a mind well formed and composed within itself. Duty, indeed, seems at first to be of political consideration; but if thoroughly weighed, it truly relates to the rule and government of one’s self, not others. And as in architecture it is one thing to fashion the pillars, rafters, and other parts of the building, and prepare them for the work, and another to fit and join them together, so the doctrine of uniting mankind in society differs from that which renders them conformable and well affected to the benefits of society.

This part concerning duties is likewise divided into two—the one treating of the duties of man in common, and the other of respective duties, according to the profession, vocation, state, person, and degree of particulars. The first of these, we before observed, has been sufficiently cultivated and explained by the ancient and later writers. The other also has been touched here and there, though not digested and reduced into any body of science. We do not, however, except to its being treated piecemeal, as judging it the best way to write upon this subject in separate parts; for who will pretend he can justly discourse and define upon the peculiar and relative duties of all orders and conditions of men? But for treatises upon this subject, which have no tincture of experience, and are only drawn from general and scholastic knowledge, they commonly prove empty and useless performances; for though a bystander may sometimes see what escaped the player, and although it be a kind of proverb, more bold and true with regard to prince and people, “that a spectator in the valley takes the best view of a mountain,” yet it were greatly to be wished that none but the most experienced men would write upon subjects of this kind; for the contemplations of speculative men in active matters appear no better to those who have been conversant in business than the dissertations of Phormio upon war appeared to Hannibal, who esteemed them but as dreams and dotage. One fault, however, dwells with such as write upon things belonging to their own office or art, viz., that they hold no mean in recommending and extolling them.

In speaking of books of this kind, it would indeed be sacrilege in me to omit mention of your Majesty’s excellent work on the duty of a king. This work incloses the leading treasures of divinity, politics, and ethics, besides a sprinkling of all other arts; and I am not afraid to pronounce it one of the soundest and most profitable works I have ever read. It does not swell with the heat of invention, or flag with the coldness of negligence. The author is nowhere seized with that dizziness which confuses his sight of the main subject, and consequently avoids those digressions which, by a sort of circuitous method, descants on matter foreign to the purpose. Neither are its pages disfigured with the arts of rhetorical perfumes and paintings, designed rather to please the reader than to corroborate the argument. But they contain life and spirit, as well as solidity and bulk, containing excellent precepts, adapted as well to theoretical truth as to the expediency of use and action. The work is also entirely exempt from that vice even more censured, and which, if it were tolerable, it were so in kings, and in works on regal majesty, viz., that it does not exaggerate the privileges of the crown or invidiously exalt their power. For your Majesty has not described a king of Persia or Assyria, shining forth in all their pomp and glory, but a Moses and a David, pastors as well as rulers of their people. Nor can I forget that memorable saying which your Majesty delivered on an important point of judicature—That kings rule by the laws of their kingdoms, as God by the laws of nature, and ought as rarely to exercise their prerogative, which transcends law, as God exercises his power of working miracles. And in your Majesty’s other book on a free monarchy, you give all men to understand that your Majesty knows and comprehends the plenitude of the regal power, as well as its limits; I, therefore, have not shrunk from citing this book as one of the best treatises ever published upon particular and respective duties. I can also assure your Majesty, that had the book been a thousand years in existence it would not have lost any of the praises I have bestowed upon it; nor am I prescribed by the adage which forbids praise in presence; since this rule of decorum applies only to unseasonable and excessive eulogy. Surely Cicero, in his excellent oration in defence of Marcellus, is only bent upon drawing a picture with singular art, of Cæsar’s virtues, though in his presence, as the second Pliny did for Trajan. But let us proceed with our subject.

To this part of the respective duties of vocations and particular professions belongs another, as a doctrine relative or opposite to it, viz., the doctrine of cautions, frauds, impostures, and their vices; for corruptions and vices are opposite to duties and virtues; not but some mention is already made of them in writings, though commonly but cursorily and satirically, rather than seriously and gravely; for more labor is bestowed in invidiously reprehending many good and useful things in arts and exposing them to ridicule, than in separating what is corrupt and vicious therein from what is sound and serviceable. Solomon says excellently, “A scorner seeks wisdom, and finds it not; but knowledge is easy to him that understands”; for whoever comes to a science with an intent to deride and despise, will doubtless find things enough to cavil at, and few to improve by. But the serious and prudent treatment of the subject we speak of may be reckoned among the strongest bulwarks of virtue and probity; for as it is fabulously related of the basilisk, that if he sees a man first, the man presently dies; but if the man has the first glance, he kills the basilisk: so frauds, impostures, and tricks do not hurt, if first discovered; but if they strike first, it is then they become dangerous, and not otherwise: hence we are beholden to Machiavel, and writers of that kind, who openly and unmasked declare what men do in fact, and not what they ought to do; for it is impossible to join the wisdom of the serpent and the innocence of the dove, without a previous knowledge of the nature of evil; as without this, virtue lies exposed and unguarded. And further, a good and just man cannot correct and amend the vicious and the wicked, unless he has first searched into all the depths and dungeons of wickedness; for men of a corrupt and depraved judgment ever suppose that honesty proceeds from ignorance, or a certain simplicity of manners, and is rooted only in a belief of our tutors, instructors, books, moral precepts, and vulgar discourse, whence—unless they plainly perceive that their perverse opinions, their corrupt and distorted principles, are thoroughly known to those who exhort and admonish them as well as to themselves—they despise all wholesome advice; according to that admirable saying of Solomon, “A fool receives not the words of the wise, unless thou speakest the very things that are in his heart.” And this part of morality, concerning cautions and respective vice, we set down as wanting, under the name of sober satire, or the insides of things.

To the doctrine of respective duties belong also the mutual duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, as also the laws of friendship, gratitude, and the civil obligations of fraternities, colleges, neighborhoods, and the like, always understanding that these things are to be treated, not as parts of civil society, in which view they belong to politics, but so far as the minds of particulars ought to be instructed and disposed to preserve these bonds of society.

The doctrine of the good of communion, as well as of self-good, treats good not only simply, but comparatively, and thus regards the balancing of duty between man and man, case and case, private and public, present and future, etc.—as we may observe in the cruel conduct of Lucius Brutus to his own sons, which by the generality was extolled to the skies; yet another said,

“Infelix, utcunque ferent ea facta minores.”

So in the discourse between Brutus, Cassius, and others, as to the conspiracy against Cæsar, the question was artfully introduced whether it were lawful to kill a tyrant; the company divided in their opinions about it, some saying it was lawful, and that slavery was the greatest of evils; others denying it, and asserting tyranny to be less destructive than civil war; while a third kind, as if followers of Epicurus, made it an unworthy thing that wise men should endanger themselves for fools. But the cases of comparative duties are numerous, among which this question frequently occurs, whether justice may be strained for the safety of one’s country, or the like considerable good in future? as to which Jason the Thessalian used to say, Some things must be done unjustly, that many more may be done justly. But the answer is ready—Present justice is in our power, but of future justice we have no security: let men pursue those things which are good and just at present, and leave futurity to Divine providence. And thus much for the doctrine of the image of good.