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THE SECOND BOOKE 339
favour which party he should thinke good. There was
no want but of spirit and sufficiency, if he set not every
where through his books, ' A question for a friend.'
The Advocates and Judges of our time find in all cases
byases too-too-many to fit them where they think good.
To so infinite a science, depending on the authority of
so many opinions, and of so arbitrary a subject, it
cannot be out that an exceeding confusion of judgements
must arise. There are very few processes so
cleare but the Lawiers advises upon them will be
found to differ: What one company hath judged
another will adjudge the contrary, and the very same
will another time change opinion. Whereof we see
ordinarie examples by this licence which wonderfully
blemisheth the authoritie and lustre of our law, never
to stay upon one sentence, but to run from one to
another judge, to decide one same case. Touching
the libertie of Philosophicall opinions concerning vice
and vertue, it is a thing needing no great extension,
and wherein are found many advises which were better
unspoken then published to weake capacities. Arcesilaus
was wont to say that in pailliardize it was not
worthy consideration, where, on what side, and how
it was done. Et obcaentas voluptates, si natura requirit,
non genera, aut loco, aut ordine, sed forma, aetate, figura
metiendas Epicurus putat. Ne amores quidem sanctos
a sapiente alienos esse arbitrantur, Quasramus ad quam
usque, aetatem iuvenes amandi sint: ' Obscene pleasures,
if nature require them, the Epicure esteemeth not to
be measured by kind, place, or order: but by forme,
age, and fashion. Nor doth he thinke that holy loves
should be strange from a wise man. Let us then
Question to what years yong folke may be beloved/
These two last Stoicke places, and upon this purpose,
the reproch of Diogarchus to Plato himselfe, shew
how many excessive licences and out of common use
soundest Philosophy doth tolerate. Lawes take their
authoritie from possession and custome. It is dangerous
to reduce them to their beginning: In rowling
on they swell and grow greater and greater, as doe