the
invention of the workman. Or doth the multitude of servants make thee
happy? Who, if they be vicious, they are a pernicious burden to thy
house, and exceedingly troublesome to their master; and if they be
honest, how shall other men's honesty be counted amongst thy treasures?
By all which is manifestly proved that none of these goods which thou
accountest thine, are thine indeed. And if there is nothing in these
worthy to be desired, why art thou either glad when thou hast them or
sorry when thou losest them? Or what is it to thee, if they be precious
by nature? For in this respect they would have pleased thee, though they
had belonged to others. For they are not precious because they are come
to be thine, but because they seemed precious thou wert desirous to have
them. Now, what desire you with such loud praise of fortune? Perhaps you
seek to drive away penury with plenty. But this falleth out quite
contrary, for you stand in need of many supplies, to protect all this
variety of precious ornaments. And it is true that they which have much,
need much; and contrariwise, that they need little which measure not
their wealth by the superfluity of ambition, but by the necessity of
nature. Have you no proper and inward good, that you seek your goods in
those things which are outward and separated from you? Is the condition
of things so changed that a living creature, deservedly accounted divine
for the gift of reason, seemeth to have no other excellency than the
possession of a little household stuff without life? All other creatures
are content with that they have of their own; and you, who in your mind
carry the likeness of God, are content to take the ornaments of your
excellent nature from the most base and vile things, neither understand
you what injury you do your Creator. He would have mankind to excel all
earthly things; you debase your dignity under every meanest creature.
For if it be manifest that the good of everything is more precious than
that whose good it is, since you judge the vilest things that can be to
be your goods, you deject yourselves under them in your own estimation,
which questionless cometh not undeservedly to pass; for this is the
condition of man's nature, that then only it surpasseth other things
when it knoweth itself, and it is worse than beasts when it is without
that knowledge. For in other living creatures the ignorance