AN ANT is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing, in
an orchard or garden. And certainly, men that are great lovers of
themselves, waste the public. Divide with reason; between self-love and
society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others;
specially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man's
actions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon his
own centre; whereas all things, that have affinity with the heavens,
move upon the centre of another, which they benefit. The referring of
all to a man's self, is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because
themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the
peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil, in a servant to
a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a
man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs be often
eccentric to the ends of his master, or state. Therefore, let princes,
or states, choose such servants, as have not this mark; except they mean
their service should be made but the accessory. That which maketh
the effect more pernicious, is that all proportion is lost. It were
disproportion enough, for the servant's good to be preferred before the
master's; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the
servant, shall carry things against a great good of the master's. And
yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals,
and other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias upon their bowl,
of their own petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of their master's
great and important affairs. And for the most part, the good such
servants receive, is after the model of their own fortune; but the hurt
they sell for that good, is after the model of their master's fortune.
And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set
an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs; and yet these men
many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but
to please them, and profit themselves; and for either respect, they will
abandon the good of their affairs.
Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing.
It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house, somewhat
before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out
the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of
crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is
specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey)
are sui amantes, sine rivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereas
they have, all their times, sacrificed to themselves, they become in the
end, themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings
they thought, by their self-wisdom, to have pinioned.