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THE SECOND BOOKE 209
quis vos decipiat per Philsophiam et inanes seductiones,
secundum elementa mundi:¹ ' Take heed lest any man
deceive you by Philosophie and vaine seducements,
according to the rudiments of the world.' All the
Philosophers of all the sects that ever were doe
generally agree in this point, that the chiefest felicitie,
or summum bonum, consisteth in the peace and tranquillitie
of the soule and bodie: but where shall we
finde it?
Ad summum sapiens uno minor est love, dives,
Liber, honoratus, pulcher, Rex denigue Regum:
Pracipue sanus, nisi cum pituita molesta est.²
In summe, who wise is knowne,
Is less than Jove alone,
Rich, honorable, free, faire, King of Kings,
Chiefely in health, but when fleagme trouble brings.
It seemeth verily that nature for the comfort of our
miserable and wretched condition hath allotted us no
other portion but presumption. It is therefore (as
Epictetus saith) that man hath nothing that is properly
his owne but the use of his opinions. Our hereditaria
portion is nothing but smoke and wind. The Gods
(as saith Philosophie) have health in true essence, and
sicknesse in conceipt. Man, cleane contrarie, possesseth
goods in imagination, and evils essentially. We have
had reason to make the powers of our imagination to
be of force: for all our facilities are but in conceipt,
and as it were in a dreame. Heare but this poore and
miserable creature vaunt himselfe. There is nothing
(saith Cicero) so delightfull and pleasant as the knowledge
of letters; of letters, I say, by whose meanes the
infinitie of things, the incomprehensible greatnesse of
nature, the heavens, the earth, and all the seas of this
vast universe, are made knowne unto us. They have
taught us religion, moderation, stowtnesse of courage,
and redeemed our soule out of darknesse, to make her
see and distinguish of all things, the high as well as
the lowe, the first as the last, and those betweene both.
¹ Col. ii. 8. ² HOR. 1. i. Epist. i. 106.