For as those which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up and down and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove internal, so is it with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their place. So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative or perfective.
(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth in the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; it seemeth to be most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and lowest. And this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged of, nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good. Whether of these is the greater good is a question controverted; but whether man's nature may not be capable of both is a question not inquired.
(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a sophist, Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of mind, and the sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell from argument to ill words: the sophist saying that Socrates' felicity was the felicity of a block or stone; and Socrates saying that the sophist's felicity was the felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but itch and scratch. And both these opinions do not want their supports. For the opinion of Socrates is much upheld by the general consent even of the epicures themselves, that virtue beareth a great part in felicity; and if so, certain it is, that virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then in compassing desires. The sophist's opinion is much favoured by the assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is greater than good of simple preservation; because every obtaining a desire hath a show of advancement, as motion though in a circle hath a show of progression.
(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the former superfluous. For can it be doubted, but that there are some who take more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some other, and yet, nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them? So as this same, Non uti ut non appetas, non appetere ut non metuas, sunt animi pusilli et diffidentis. And it seemeth to me that most of the doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautious than the nature of things requireth. So have they increased the fear of death in offering to cure it. For when they would have a man's whole life to be but a discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men think that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of preparing. Better saith the poet:-
"Qui finem vitae extremum inter munera ponat Naturae."
So have they sought to make men's minds too uniform and harmonical, by not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions; the reasons whereof I suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated to a private, free, and unapplied course of life. For as we see, upon the lute or like instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many changes, yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops and passages, as a set song or voluntary; much after the same manner was the diversity between a philosophical and civil life. And, therefore, men are to imitate the wisdom of jewellers: who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or an ice which may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone, they help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too much, they will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity as they destroy not magnanimity.
(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private and particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good of man which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term duty; because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind well formed and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue without some relation to society, nor duty without an inward disposition.