minds with axioms and rules by which to
make a sound judgment, it determines the will to the choice of what
is honorable and just; and it wings all our faculties to the swiftest
prosecution of it. It is accompanied with an elevation and nobleness of
mind, joined with a coolness and sweetness of behavior, and backed
with a becoming assurance and inflexible resolution. And from this
diffusiveness of the nature of good it follows, that the best and most
accomplished men are inclined to converse with persons of the highest
condition. Indeed a physician if he have any good nature and sense of
honor, would be more ready to cure an eye which is to see and to watch
for a great many thousands, than that of a private person; how much more
then ought a philosopher to form and fashion, to rectify and cure the
soul of such a one, who is (if I may so express it) to inform the body
politic,--who is to think and understand for so many others, to be in
so great measure the rule of reason, the standard of law, and model of
behavior, by which all the rest will square and direct their actions?
Suppose a man to have a talent at finding out springs and contriving of
aqueducts (a piece of skill for which Hercules and other of the ancients
are much celebrated in history), surely he could not so satisfactorily
employ himself in sinking a well or deriving water to some private
seat or contemptible cottage, as in supplying conduits to some fair and
populous city, in relieving an army just perishing with thirst, or in
refreshing and adorning with fountains and cool streams the beautiful
gardens of some glorious monarch. There is a passage of Homer very
pertinent to this purpose, in which he calls Minos [Greek text], which,
as Plato interprets it, signifies THE DISCIPLE AND COMPANION OF JUPITER.
For it were beneath his dignity indeed to teach private men, such as
care only for a family or indulge their useless speculations; but
kings are scholars worthy the tuition of a god, who, when they are well
advised, just, good, and magnanimous, never fail to procure the peace
and prosperity of all their subjects. The naturalists tell us that the
eryngium hath such a property with it, that if one of the flock do but
taste it, all the rest will stand stock still in the same place till the
shepherd hath taken it out of its mouth. Such swiftness of action does
it have, pervading and inserting itself in everything near it, as if it
were fire. The effects of philo