hich by the vulgar are
esteemed good, if he shall hear them mentioned as good, he doth hearken
for more. He is well contented to hear, that what is spoken by the
comedian, is but familiarly and popularly spoken, so that even the
vulgar apprehend the difference. For why is it else, that this offends
not and needs not to be excused, when virtues are styled good: but that
which is spoken in commendation of wealth, pleasure, or honour, we
entertain it only as merrily and pleasantly spoken? Proceed therefore,
and inquire further, whether it may not be that those things also which
being mentioned upon the stage were merrily, and with great applause of
the multitude, scoffed at with this jest, that they that possessed them
had not in all the world of their own, (such was their affluence and
plenty) so much as a place where to avoid their excrements. Whether, I
say, those ought not also in very deed to be much respected, and
esteemed of, as the only things that are truly good.

XIII. All that I consist of, is either form or matter. No corruption can
reduce either of these unto nothing: for neither did I of nothing become
a subsistent creature. Every part of mine then will by mutation be
disposed into a certain part of the whole world, and that in time into
another part; and so in infinitum; by which kind of mutation, I also
became what I am, and so did they that begot me, and they before them,
and so upwards in infinitum. For so we may be allowed to speak, though
the age and government of the world, be to some certain periods of time
limited, and confined.

XIV. Reason, and rational power, are faculties which content themselves
with themselves, and their own proper operations. And as for their first
inclination and motion, that they take from themselves. But their
progress is right to the end and object, which is in their way, as it
were, and lieth just before them: that is, which is feasible and
possible, whether it be that which at the first they proposed to
themselves, or no. For which reason also such actions are termed
katorqwseiz to intimate the directness of the way, by which they are
achieved. Nothing must be thought to belong to a man, which doth not
belong unto him as he is a man. These, the event of purposes, are not
things required in a man. The nature of man doth not profess any such
things. The final ends and consummations of actions are nothing at all
to a man's nature. The end therefore of a man, or the summum