Makes new discoveries in politics, but they are, like those that
Columbus made of the New World, very rich, but barbarous. He endeavours
to restore mankind to the original condition it fell from, by forgetting
to discern between good and evil, and reduces all prudence back again to
its first author, the serpent, that taught Adam wisdom; for he was
really his tutor, and not Samboscor, as the Rabbins write. He finds the
world has been mistaken in all ages, and that religion and morality are
but vulgar errors that pass among the ignorant, and are but mere words
to the wise. He despises all learning as a pedantic little thing, and
believes books to be the business of children and not of men. He wonders
how the distinction of virtue and vice came into the world's head, and
believes them to be more ridiculous than any foppery of the schools. He
holds it his duty to betray any man that shall take him for so much a
fool as one fit to be trusted. He steadfastly believes that all men are
born in the state of war, and that the civil life is but a cessation,
and no peace nor accommodation; and though all open acts of hostility
are forborne by consent, the enmity continues, and all advantages by
treachery or breach of faith are very lawful; that there is no
difference between virtue and fraud among friends as well as enemies,
nor anything unjust that a man can do without damage to his own safety
or interest; that oaths are but springes to catch woodcocks withal, and
bind none but those that are too weak and feeble to break them when they
become ever so small an impediment to their advantages; that conscience
is the effect of ignorance, and the same with that foolish fear which
some men apprehend when they are in the dark and alone; that honour is
but the word which a prince gives a man to pass his guards withal and
save him from being stopped by law and justice, the sentinels of
governments, when he has not wit nor credit enough to pass of himself;
that to show respect to worth in any person is to appear a stranger to
it, and not so familiarly acquainted with it as those are who use no
ceremony, because it is no new thing to them, as it would appear if they
should take notice of it; that the easiest way to purchase a reputation
of wisdom and knowledge is to slight and undervalue it, as the readiest
way to buy cheap is to bring down the price; for the world will be apt
to believe a man well provided with any necessary or useful commodity
which he sets a small value upon; that to oblige a friend is but a kind
of casting him in prison, after the old Roman way or modern Chinese,
that chains the keeper and prisoner together; for he that binds another
man to himself binds himself as much to him and lays a restraint upon
both. For as men commonly never forgive those that forgive them, and
always hate those that purchase their estates (though they pay dear and
more than any man else would give), so they never willingly endure those
that have laid any engagement upon them, or at what rate soever
purchased the least part of their freedom; and as partners for the most
part cheat or suspect one another, so no man deals fairly with another
that goes the least share in his freedom.
To propose any measure to wealth or power is to be ignorant of the
nature of both, for as no man can ever have too much of either, so it is
impossible to determine what is enough; and he that limits his desires
by proposing to himself the enjoyment of any other pleasure but that of
gaining more shows he has but a dull inclination that will not hold out
to his journey's end. And therefore he believes that a courtier deserves
to be begged himself that is ever satisfied with begging; for fruition
without desire is but a dull entertainment, and that pleasure only real
and substantial that provokes and improves the appetite and increases in
the enjoyment; and all the greatest masters in the several arts of
thriving concur unanimously that the plain downright pleasure of gaining
is greater and deserves to be preferred far before all the various
delights of spending which the curiosity, wit, or luxury of mankind in
all ages could ever find out.
He believes there is no way of thriving so easy and certain as to grow
rich by defrauding the public; for public thieveries are more safe and
less prosecuted than private, like robberies committed between sun and
sun, which the county pays and no one is greatly concerned in; and as
the monster of many heads has less wit in them all than any one
reasonable person, so the monster of many purses is easier cheated than
any one indifferent, crafty fool. For all the difficulty lies in being
trusted, and when he has obtained that, the business does itself; and if
he should happen to be questioned and called to an account, a pardon is
as cheap as a paymaster's fee, not above fourteenpence in the pound.
He thinks that when a man comes to wealth or preferment, and is to put
on a new person, his first business is to put off all his old
friendships and acquaintances, as things below him and no way consistent
with his present condition, especially such as may have occasion to make
use of him or have reason to expect any civil returns from him; for
requiting of obligations received in a man's necessity is the same thing
with paying of debts contracted in his minority when he was under age,
for which he is not accountable by the laws of the land. These he is to
forget as fast as he can, and by little neglects remove them to that
distance that they may at length by his example learn to forget him, for
men who travel together in company when their occasions lie several ways
ought to take leave and part. It is a hard matter for a man that comes
to preferment not to forget himself, and therefore he may very well be
allowed to take the freedom to forget others; for advancement, like the
conversion of a sinner, gives a man new values of things and persons, so
different from those he had before that that which was wont to be most
dear to him does commonly after become the most disagreeable; and as it
is accounted noble to forget and pass over little injuries, so it is to
forget little friendships, that are no better than injuries when they
become disparagements, and can only be importune and troublesome instead
of being useful, as they were before. All Acts of Oblivion have, of late
times, been found to extend rather to loyal and faithful services done
than rebellion and treasons committed. For benefits are like flowers,
sweet only and fresh when they are newly gathered, but stink when they
grow stale and wither; and he only is ungrateful who makes returns of
obligations, for he does it merely to free himself from owing so much as
thanks. Fair words are all the civility and humanity that one man owes
to another, for they are obliging enough of themselves, and need not the
assistance of deeds to make them good; for he that does not believe them
has already received too much, and he that does ought to expect no more.
And therefore promises ought to oblige those only to whom they are made,
not those who make them; for he that expects a man should bind himself
is worse than a thief, who does that service for him after he has robbed
him on the highway. Promises are but words, and words air, which no man
can claim a propriety in, but is equally free to all and incapable of
being confined; and if it were not, yet he who pays debts which he can
possibly avoid does but part with his money for nothing, and pays more
for the mere reputation of honesty and conscience than it is worth.
He prefers the way of applying to the vices and humours of great persons
before all other methods of getting into favour; for he that can be
admitted into these offices of privacy and trust seldom fails to arrive
at greater, and with greater ease and certainty than those who take the
dull way of plain fidelity and merit. For vices, like beasts, are fond
of none but those that feed them, and where they once prevail all other
considerations go for nothing. They are his own flesh and blood, born
and bred out of him, and he has a stronger natural affection for them
than all other relations whatsoever; and he that has an interest in
these has a greater power over him than all other obligations in the
world; for though they are but his imperfections and infirmities, he is
the more tender of them, as a lame member or diseased limb is more
carefully cherished than all the rest that are sound and in perfect
vigour. All offices of this kind are the greatest endearments, being
real flatteries enforced by deeds and actions, and therefore far more
prevalent than those that are performed but by words and fawning, though
very great advantages are daily obtained that way; and therefore he
esteems flattery as the next most sure and successful way of improving
his interests. For flattery is but a kind of civil idolatry, that makes
images to itself of virtue, worth, and honour in some person that is
utterly void of all, and then falls down and worships them; and the more
dull and absurd these applications are, the better they are always
received; for men delight more to be presented with those things they
want than such as they have no need nor use of. And though they condemn
the realities of those honours and renowns that are falsely imputed to
them, they are wonderfully affected with their false pretences; for
dreams work more upon men's passions than any waking thoughts of the
same kind, and many, out of an ignorant superstition, give more credit
to them than the most rational of all their vigilant conjectures, how
false soever they prove in the event. No wonder, then, if those who
apply to men's fancies and humours have a stronger influence upon them
than those that seek to prevail upon their reason and understandings,
especially in things so delightful to them as their own praises, no
matter how false and apparently incredible; for great persons may wear
counterfeit jewels of any carat with more confidence and security from
being discovered than those of meaner quality, in whose hands the
greatness of their value (if they were true) is more apt to render them
suspected. A flatterer is like Mahomet's pigeon, that picks his food out
of his master's ear, who is willing to have it believed that he whispers
oracles into it, and accordingly sets a high esteem upon the service he
does him, though the impostor only designs his own utilities; for men
are for the most part better pleased with other men's opinions, though
false, of their happiness than their own experiences, and find more
pleasure in the dullest flattery of others than all the vast
imaginations they can have of themselves, as no man is apt to be tickled
with his own fingers; because the applauses of others are more agreeable
to those high conceits they have of themselves, which they are glad to
find confirmed, and are the only music that sets them a-dancing, like
those that are bitten with a tarantula.
He accounts it an argument of great discretion, and as great temper, to
take no notice of affronts and indignities put upon him by great
persons; for he that is insensible of injuries of this nature can
receive none, and if he lose no confidence by them, can lose nothing
else; for it is greater to be above injuries than either to do or
revenge them, and he that will be deterred by those discouragements from
prosecuting his designs will never obtain what he proposes to himself.
When a man is once known to be able to endure insolences easier than
others can impose them, they will raise the siege and leave him as
impregnable; and therefore he resolves never to omit the least
opportunity of pressing his affairs, for fear of being baffled and
affronted; for if he can at any rate render himself master of his
purposes, he would not wish an easier nor a cheaper way, as he knows how
to repay himself and make others receive those insolences of him for
good and current payment which he was glad to take before, and he
esteems it no mean glory to show his temper of such a compass as is able
to reach from the highest arrogance to the meanest and most dejected
submissions. A man that has endured all sorts of affronts may be
allowed, like an apprentice that has served out his time, to set up for
himself and put them off upon others; and if the most common and
approved way of growing rich is to gain by the ruin and loss of those
who are in necessity, why should not a man be allowed as well to make
himself appear great by debasing those that are below him? For insolence
is no inconsiderable way of improving greatness and authority in the
opinion of the world. If all men are born equally fit to govern, as some
late philosophers affirm, he only has the advantage of all others who
has the best opinion of his own abilities, how mean soever they really
are; and, therefore, he steadfastly believes that pride is the only
great, wise, and happy virtue that a man is capable of, and the most
compendious and easy way to felicity; for he that is able to persuade
himself impregnably that he is some great and excellent person, how far
short soever he falls of it, finds more delight in that dream than if he
were really so; and the less he is of what he fancies himself to be the
better he is pleased, as men covet those things that are forbidden and
denied them more greedily than those that are in their power to obtain;
and he that can enjoy all the best rewards of worth and merit without
the pains and trouble that attend it has a better bargain than he who
pays as much for it as it is worth. This he performs by an obstinate,
implicit believing as well as he can of himself, and as meanly of all
other men, for he holds it a kind of self-preservation to maintain a
good estimation of himself; and as no man is bound to love his neighbour
better than himself, so he ought not to think better of him than he does
of himself, and he that will not afford himself a very high esteem will
never spare another man any at all. He who has made so absolute a
conquest over himself (which philosophers say is the greatest of all
victories) as to be received for a prince within himself, is greater and
more arbitrary within his own dominions than he that depends upon the
uncertain loves or fears of other men without him; and since the opinion
of the world is vain and for the most part false, he believes it is not
to be attempted but by ways as false and vain as itself, and therefore
to appear and seem is much better and wiser than really to be whatsoever
is well esteemed in the general value of the world Next pride, he
believes ambition to be the only generous and heroical virtue in the
world that mankind is capable of; for, as Nature gave man an erect
figure to raise him above the grovelling condition of his
fellow-creatures the beasts, so he that endeavours to improve that and
raise himself higher seems best to comply with the design and intention
of Nature. Though the stature of man is confined to a certain height,
yet his mind is unlimited, and capable of growing up to heaven; and as
those who endeavour to arrive at that perfection are adored and
reverenced by all, so he that endeavours to advance himself as high as
possibly he can in this world comes nearest to the condition of those
holy and divine aspirers. All the purest parts of Nature always tend
upwards, and the more dull and heavy downwards; so in the little world
the noblest faculties of man, his reason and understanding, that give
him a prerogative above all other earthly creatures, mount upwards; and
therefore he who takes that course, and still aspires in all his
undertakings and designs, does but conform to that which Nature
dictates. Are not the reason and the will, the two commanding faculties
of the soul, still striving which shall be uppermost? Men honour none
but those that are above them, contest with equals, and disdain
inferiors. The first thing that God gave man was dominion over the rest
of his inferior creatures; but he that can extend that over man improves
his talent to the best advantage. How are angels distinguished but by
dominions, powers, thrones, and principalities? Then he who still
aspires to purchase those comes nearest to the nature of those heavenly
ministers, and in all probability is most like to go to heaven, no
matter what destruction he makes in his way, if he does but attain his
end; for nothing is a crime that is too great to be punished; and when
it is once arrived at that perfection, the most horrid actions in the
world become the most admired and renowned. Birds that build highest are
most safe; and he that can advance himself above the envy or reach of
his inferiors is secure against the malice and assaults of fortune. All
religions have ever been persecuted in their primitive ages, when they
were weak and impotent, but when they propagated and grew great, have
been received with reverence and adoration by those who otherwise had
proved their cruellest enemies; and those that afterwards opposed them
have suffered as severely as those that first professed them. So thieves
that rob in small parties and break houses, when they are taken, are
hanged; but when they multiply and grow up into armies and are able to
take towns, the same things are called heroic actions, and acknowledged
for such by all the world. Courts of justice, for the most part, commit
greater crimes than they punish, and do those that sue in them more
injuries than they can possibly receive from one another; and yet they
are venerable, and must not be told so, because they have authority and
power to justify what they do, and the law (that is, whatsoever they
please to call so) ready to give judgment for them. Who knows when a
physician cures or kills? And yet he is equally rewarded for both, and
the profession esteemed never the less worshipful; and therefore he
accounts it a ridiculous vanity in any man to consider whether he does
right or wrong in anything he attempts, since the success is only able
to determine and satisfy the opinion of the world which is the one and
which the other. As for those characters and marks of distinction which
religion, law, and morality fix upon both, they are only significant and
valid when their authority is able to command obedience and submission;
but when the greatness, numbers, or interest of those who are concerned
outgrows that, they change their natures, and that which was injury
before becomes justice, and justice injury. It is with crimes as with
inventions in the mechanics, that will frequently hold true to all
purposes of the design while they are tried in little, but when the
experiment is made in great prove false in all particulars to what is
promised in the model: so iniquities and vices may be punished and
corrected, like children, while they are little and impotent, but when
they are great and sturdy they become incorrigible and proof against all
the power of justice and authority.
Among all his virtues there is none which he sets so high an esteem upon
as impudence, which he finds more useful and necessary than a vizard is
to a highwayman; for he that has but a competent stock of this natural
endowment has an interest in any man he pleases, and is able to manage
it with greater advantages than those who have all the real pretences
imaginable, but want that dexterous way of soliciting by which, if the
worst fall out, he is sure to lose nothing if he does not win. He that
is impudent is shot-free, and if he be ever so much overpowered can
receive no hurt, for his forehead is impenetrable, and of so excellent a
temper that nothing is able to touch it, but turns edge and is blunted.
His face holds no correspondence with his mind, and therefore whatsoever
inward sense or conviction he feels, there is no outward appearance of
it in his looks to give evidence against him; and in any difficulty that
can befall him, impudence is the most infallible expedient to fetch him
off, that is always ready, like his angel guardian, to relieve and
rescue him in his greatest extremities; and no outward impression, nor
inward neither, though his own conscience take part against him, is able
to beat him from his guards. Though innocence and a good conscience be
said to be a brazen wall, a brazen confidence is more impregnable and
longer able to hold out; for it is a greater affliction to an innocent
man to be suspected than it is to one that is guilty and impudent to be
openly convicted of an apparent crime. And in all the affairs of
mankind, a brisk confidence, though utterly void of sense, is able to go
through matters of difficulty with greater ease than all the strength of
reason less boldly enforced, as the Turks are said by a small, slight
handling of their bows to make an arrow without a head pierce deeper
into hard bodies than guns of greater force are able to do a bullet of
steel; and though it be but a cheat and imposture, that has neither
truth nor reason to support it, yet it thrives better in the world than
things of greater solidity, as thorns and thistles flourish on barren
grounds where nobler plants would starve. And he that can improve his
barren parts by this excellent and most compendious method deserves much
better, in his judgment, than those who endeavour to do the same thing
by the more studious and difficult way of downright industry and
drudging. For impudence does not only supply all defects, but gives them
a greater grace than if they had needed no art, as all other ornaments
are commonly nothing else but the remedies or disguises of
imperfections; and therefore he thinks him very weak that is unprovided
of this excellent and most useful quality, without which the best
natural or acquired parts are of no more use than the Guanches' darts,
which, the virtuosos say, are headed with butter hardened in the sun. It
serves him to innumerable purposes to press on and understand no
repulse, how smart or harsh soever, for he that can fail nearest the
wind has much the advantage of all others; and such is the weakness or
vanity of some men, that they will grant that to obstinate importunity
which they would never have done upon all the most just reasons and
considerations imaginable, as those that watch witches will make them
confess that which they would never have done upon any other account.
He believes a man's words and his meaning should never agree together;
for he that says what he thinks lays himself open to be expounded by the
most ignorant, and he who does not make his words rather serve to
conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled
out, like a traitor's, and shown publicly to the rabble; for as a king,
they say, cannot reign without dissembling, so private men, without
that, cannot govern themselves with any prudence or discretion
imaginable. This is the only politic magic that has power to make a man
walk invisible, give him access into all men's privacies, and keep all
others out of his, which is as great an odds as it is to discover what
cards those he plays with have in their hands, and permit them to know
nothing of his; and, therefore, he never speaks his own sense, but that
which he finds comes nearest to the meaning of those he converses with,
as birds are drawn into nets by pipes that counterfeit their own voices.
By this means he possesses men, like the devil, by getting within them
before they are aware, turns them out of themselves, and either betrays
or renders them ridiculous, as he finds it most agreeable either to his
humour or his occasions.
As for religion, he believes a wise man ought to possess it only that he
may not be observed to have freed himself from the obligations of it,
and so teach others by his example to take the same freedom. For he who
is at liberty has a great advantage over all those whom he has to deal
with, as all hypocrites find by perpetual experience that one of the
best uses that can be made of it is to take measure of men's
understandings and abilities by it, according as they are more or less
serious in it. For he thinks that no man ought to be much concerned in
it but hypocrites and such as make it their calling and profession, who,
though they do not live by their faith, like the righteous, do that
which is nearest to it, get their living by it; and that those only take
the surest course who make their best advantages of it in this world and
trust to Providence for the next, to which purpose he believes it is
most properly to be relied upon by all men.
He admires good nature as only good to those who have it not, and laughs
at friendship as a ridiculous foppery, which all wise men easily
outgrow; for the more a man loves another the less he loves himself. All
regards and civil applications should, like true devotion, look upwards
and address to those that are above us, and from whom we may in
probability expect either good or evil; but to apply to those that are
our equals, or such as cannot benefit or hurt us, is a far more
irrational idolatry than worshipping of images or beasts. All the good
that can proceed from friendship is but this, that it puts men in a way
to betray one another. The best parents, who are commonly the worst men,
have naturally a tender kindness for their children only because they
believe they are a part of themselves, which shows that self-love is the
original of all others, and the foundation of that great law of Nature,
self-preservation; for no man ever destroyed himself wilfully that had
not first left off to love himself. Therefore a man's self is the proper
object of his love, which is never so well employed as when it is kept
within its own confines, and not suffered to straggle. Every man is just
so much a slave as he is concerned in the will, inclinations, or
fortunes of another, or has anything of himself out of his own power to
dispose of; and therefore he is resolved never to trust any man with
that kindness which he takes up of himself, unless he has such security
as is most certain to yield him double interest; for he that does
otherwise is but a Jew and a Turk to himself, which is much worse than
to be so to all the world beside. Friends are only friends to those who
have no need of them, and when they have, become no longer friends; like
the leaves of trees, that clothe the woods in the heat of summer, when
they have no need of warmth, but leave them naked when cold weather
comes; and since there are so few that prove otherwise, it is not wisdom
to rely on any.
He is of opinion that no men are so fit to be employed and trusted as
fools or knaves; for the first understand no right, the others regard
none; and whensoever there falls out an occasion that may prove of great
importance if the infamy and danger of the dishonesty be not too
apparent, they are the only persons that are fit for the undertaking.
They are both equally greedy of employment; the one out of an itch to be
thought able, and the other honest enough, to be trusted, as by use and
practice they sometimes prove. For the general business of the world
lies, for the most part, in routines and forms, of which there are none
so exact observers as those who understand nothing else to divert them,
as carters use to blind their fore-horses on both sides that they may
see only forward, and so keep the road the better, and men that aim at a
mark use to shut one eye that they may see the surer with the other. If
fools are not notorious, they have far more persons to deal with of
their own elevation (who understand one another better) than they have
of those that are above them, which renders them fitter for many
businesses than wiser men, and they believe themselves to be so for all.
For no man ever thought himself a fool that was one, so confident does
their ignorance naturally render them, and confidence is no contemptible
qualification in the management of human affairs; and as blind men have
secret artifices and tricks to supply that defect and find out their
ways, which those who have their eyes and are but hoodwinked are utterly
unable to do, so fools have always little crafts and frauds in all their
transactions which wiser men would never have thought upon, and by those
they frequently arrive at very great wealth, and as great success in all
their undertakings. For all fools are but feeble and impotent knaves,
that have as strong and vehement inclinations to all sorts of dishonesty
as the most notorious of those engineers, but want abilities to put them
in practice; and as they are always found to be the most obstinate and
intractable people to be prevailed upon by reason or conscience, so they
are as easy to submit to their superiors--that is, knaves--by whom they
are always observed to be governed, as all corporations are wont to
choose their magistrates out of their own members. As for knaves, they
are commonly true enough to their own interests, and while they gain by
their employments, will be careful not to disserve those who can turn
them out when they please, what tricks soever they put upon others; and
therefore such men prove more useful to them in their designs of gain
and profit than those whose consciences and reason will not permit them
to take that latitude.
And since buffoonery is, and has always been, so delightful to great
persons, he holds him very improvident that is to seek in a quality so
inducing that he cannot at least serve for want of a better, especially
since it is so easy that the greatest part of the difficulty lies in
confidence; and he that can but stand fair and give aim to those that
are gamesters does not always lose his labour, but many times becomes
well esteemed for his generous and bold demeanour, and a lucky repartee
hit upon by chance may be the making of a man. This is the only modern
way of running at tilt, with which great persons are so delighted to see
men encounter one another and break jests, as they did lances
heretofore; and he that has the best beaver to his helmet has the
greatest advantage; and as the former passed upon the account of valour,
so does the latter on the score of wit, though neither, perhaps, have
any great reason for their pretences, especially the latter, that
depends much upon confidence, which is commonly a great support to wit,
and therefore believed to be its betters, that ought to take place of
it, as all men are greater than their dependents; so pleasant it is to
see men lessen one another and strive who shall show himself the most
ill-natured and ill-mannered. As in cuffing all blows are aimed at the
face, so it fares in these rencounters, where he that wears the toughest
leather on his visage comes off with victory though he has ever so much
the disadvantage upon all other accounts. For a buffoon is like a mad
dog that has a worm in his tongue, which makes him bite at all that
light in his way; and as he can do nothing alone, but must have somebody
to set him that he may throw at, he that performs that office with the
greatest freedom and is contented to be laughed at to give his patron
pleasure cannot but be understood to have done very good service, and
consequently deserves to be well rewarded, as a mountebank's pudding,
that is content to be cut and slashed and burnt and poisoned, without
which his master can show no tricks, deserves to have a considerable
share in his gains.
As for the meanness of these ways, which some may think too base to be
employed to so excellent an end, that imports nothing; for what dislike
soever the world conceives against any man's undertakings, if they do
but succeed and prosper, it will easily recant its error and applaud
what it condemned before; and therefore all wise men have ever justly
esteemed it a great virtue to disdain the false values it commonly sets
upon all things and which itself is so apt to retract. For as those who
go uphill use to stoop and bow their bodies forward, and sometimes creep
upon their hands, and those that descend to go upright, so the lower a
man stoops and submits in these endearing offices, the more sure and
certain he is to rise; and the more upright he carries himself in other
matters, the more like, in probability, to be ruined. And this he
believes to be a wiser course for any man to take than to trouble
himself with the knowledge of arts or arms; for the one does but bring a
man an unnecessary trouble, and the other as unnecessary danger; and the
shortest and more easy way to attain to both is to despise all other men
and believe as steadfastly in himself as he can--a better and more
certain course than that of merit.
What he gains wickedly he spends as vainly, for he holds it the greatest
happiness that a man is capable of to deny himself nothing that his
desires can propose to him, but rather to improve his enjoyments by
glorying in his vices; for, glory being one end of almost all the
business of this world, he who omits that in the enjoyment of himself
and his pleasures loses the greatest part of his delight; and therefore
the felicity which he supposes other men apprehend that he receives in
the relish of his luxuries is more delightful to him than the
fruition itself.