Complete. From “Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political.”

I NEVER yet knew any man so bad, but some have thought him honest, and afforded him love; nor any one so good, but some have thought him vile, and hated him. Few are so thoroughly wicked as not to be estimable to some; and few are so just, as not to seem to some unequal: ignorance, envy, and partiality enter much into the opinions that we form of others. Nor can a man, in himself, always appear alike to all. In some, nature has made a disparity; in some, report has blinded judgment; and in others, accident is the cause of disposing us to love or hate; or, if not these, the variation of the body’s humors; or, perhaps, not any of these. The soul is often led by secret motions and attachments, she knows not why. There are impulsive instincts, which urge us to a liking; as if there were some hidden beauty of a more magnetic force than what the eye can see; and this, too, is more powerful at one time than at another. The same man that has now welcomed me with a free expression of love and courtesy, at another time has left me unsaluted at all. Yet, knowing him well, I have been certain of his sound affection, and have found it to proceed not from an intended neglect, but from an indisposedness, or a mind seriously busied within. Occasion rules the motions of the stirring mind: Like men who walk in their sleep, we are led about, we neither know whither nor how. I know there are some who vary their behavior out of pride, and in strangers, I confess, I know not how to distinguish; for there is no disposition but has a varnished vizor, as well as an unpenciled face. Some people deceive the world; are bad, but are not thought so; in some, the world is deceived, believing them ill, when they are not. I have known the world at large, to fall into an error. Though report once vented, like a stone cast into a pond, begets circle upon circle, till it meets with the bank that bounds it: yet fame often plays the cur, and opens when she springs no game. Why should I positively condemn any man, whom I know but superficially? as if I were a God, to see the inward soul. Nature, art, report, may all fail; yea, oftentimes even probabilities. There is no certain way to discover man, but by time and conversation. Every man may be said in some sort, to have two souls; one, the internal mind; the other, the outward face, and body’s gesture. And how infinitely in some do they differ! I have known a wise look hide a fool, and a merry face conceal a discontented soul. Every man, if it pleases him, can keep his mind in a labyrinth. The heart of man, to man is inscrutable. Again, one man shows himself to me; to another he is shut up. No man can either like all, or be liked of all. God himself doth not please all. Nay, as men are, I think it may stand with Divinity to say he cannot. Man is infinitely more impotent. I will speak of every man as I find him; if I hear he has acted ill to others, I will beware of him, but not condemn him, till I hear his own apology.

	Qui statuit aliquid, parte inaudita altera,
	Æquum licet statuerit, haud æquus est.
	—Sen. Med. 2.

	“Who judgment gives, and will but one side hear,
	Though he judge right, is no good justicer.”

The nature of many men is abstruse, and not to be found out at once. I will not be too ready to believe the reports of others, nor will I censure any man whom I know not internally, but with sparingness and caution.