Complete.

THE IMBECILITY of our condition is such, that things cannot in their natural simplicity and purity fall into our use; the elements that we enjoy are chang’d, even metals themselves, and gold must in some sort be debas’d to fit it for our service. Neither has vertue, so simple as that which Aristo, Pyrrho, and also the Stoicks have made the principal end of life; nor the Cerenaick and Aristippick pleasure been without mixture useful to it. Of the pleasure and goods that we enjoy, there is not one exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience. Our extreamest pleasure has some air of groaning and complaining in’t. Would you not say that it is dying of pain? Nay, when we forge the image of it, we stuff it with sickly and painful epithets, languor, softness, feebleness, faintness, morbidezza, a great testimony of their consanguinity and consubstantiality. The most profound joy has more of severity than gayety in it. The most extream and most full contentment more of the grave and temperate than of the wanton. “Ipsa fælicitas, se nisi temperat premit.”—Sen. Ep. 74. “Even felicity, unless it moderate it self, oppresseth.” Delight chews and grinds us; according to the old Greek verse, which says that “the gods sell us all the goods they give us,” that is to say, that they give us nothing pure and perfect, and that we do not purchase them but at the price of some evil. Labour and pleasure, very unlike in nature, associate, nevertheless, by I know not what natural conjunction. Socrates says that “some god try’d to mix in one mass, and confound pain and pleasure, but not being able to do it, he unbethought him, at least to couple them by the tail.” Metrodorus said that: “In sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure.” I know not whether or no he intended any thing else by that saying; but for my part, I am of opinion that there is design, consent, and complacency in giving a man’s self up to melancholy. I say, that besides ambition, which may also have a stroke in the business, there is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy. Are there not some complexions that feed upon it?

  We find apples that have a sweet tartness. Nature discovers this confusion to us. Painters hold that the same motions and screwings of the face that serve for weeping serve for laughter too; and, indeed, before the one or the other be finish’d, do but observe the painter’s manner of handling, as you will be in doubt to which of the two the design does tend. And the extremity of laughter does at last bring tears. “Nullum sine auctore mente malum est.”—Sen. Ep. 70. “No evil is without its compensation.” When I the most strictly and religiously confess my self, I find that the best vertue I have has in it some tincture of vice; and am afraid that Plato, in his purest vertue (I who am as sincere and perfect a lover of vertue of that stamp as any other whatever), if he had listen’d, and laid his ear close to himself (and he did so), he would have heard some jarring sound of human mixture; but faint and remote, and only to be perceiv’d by himself. Man is wholly and throughout but patcht and motly. Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice; insomuch that Plato says, “They undertake to cut off the Hydra’s head, who pretend to clear the law of all inconvenience.” “Omne magnum exemplum habet aliquid ex iniquo, quod contra singulos utilitate publica rependitur.”—Tac. Annal., Lib. XIV. “Every great example has in it some mixture of injustice, which recompenses the wrong done to particular men by the publick utility.” It is likewise true, that for the usage of life, and the service of publick commerce, there may be some excesses in the purity and perspicacity of our minds; that penetrating light has in it too much of subtlety and curiosity; we must a little stupefy and blunt and abate them, to render them more obedient to example and practice; and a little veil and obscure them, the better to proportion them to this dark and earthy life. And yet common and less speculative souls are found to be more proper and more successful in the management of affairs; and the elevated and exquisite opinions of philosophy more unfit for business. This sharp vivacity of soul, and the supple and restless volubility attending it, disturb our negotiations. We are to manage human enterprises more superficially and rudely, and leave a great part to fortune. It is not necessary to examine affairs with so much subtlety, and so deep; a man loses himself in the consideration of so many contrary lustres, and so many various forms. “Voluntatibus res inter se pugnantes, obturbaverant animi.”—Livy. “Whilst they consider’d of things so indifferent in themselves, they were astonish’d and knew not what to do.” ’Tis what the Ancients say of Simonides, that by reason his imagination suggested to him, upon the question King Hiero had put to him (to answer which he had had many days to meditate in), several witty and subtile considerations, whilst he doubted which was the most likely, he totally despair’d of the truth. Who dives into, and in his inquisition comprehends all circumstances and consequences, hinders his election; a little engine well handled is sufficient for executions of less or greater weight and moment. The best husbands are those who can worst give account how they are so; and the greatest talkers for the most part do nothing to purpose. I know one of this sort of men, and the most excellent director in all sorts of good husbandry, who has miserably let an hundred thousand livres yearly revenue slip through his hands. I know another, who says that he is able to give better advice than any of his counsel; and there is not in the world a fairer show of a soul, and of greater understanding, than he has; nevertheless, when he comes to the test, his servants find him quite another thing.