secrets, for that makes him not fit for society: the other, that you do not peremptorily break off in any business in a fit of anger; but, howsoever you bitterness, do not act any thing that is not revocable.

show

and

For raising and appeasing anger in another, it is done chiefly by choosing of times when men are frowardest and worst disposed to incense them; again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt: the two remedies are by the contraries; the former to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry business, for the first impression is much; and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion, or what you will.

LVIII.-OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.

"1

SOLOMON saith, "There is no new thing upon the earth; so that as Plato 2 had an imagination that all knowledge was but remembrance, so Solomon giveth his sentence, "That all novelty is but oblivion; " whereby you may see, that the river of

1"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us." - Ecclesiastes i. 9, 10.

2 In his Phædo.

8" There is no remembrance of former things: neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come, with those that shall come hereafter." - Ecclesiastes i. 11.

Lethe runneth as well above ground as below. There is an abstruse astrologer that saith, if it were not for two things that are constant, (the one is, that the fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and never come nearer together, nor go further asunder; the other, that the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time,) no individual would last one moment; certain it is, that the mat-、 ter is in a perpetual flux, and never at a stay. The great winding-sheets that bury all things in oblivion, are two, - deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople, but destroy. Phaeton's car went but a day; and the three years' drought in the time of Elias,1 was but particular,2 and left people alive. As for the great burnings by lightnings, which are often in the West Indies, they are but narrow; but in the other two destructions, by deluge and earthquake, it is further to be noted, that the remnant of people which happen to be reserved, are commonly ignorant and mountainous people, that can give no account of the time past; so that the oblivion is all one, as if none had been left. If you consider well of the people of the West Indies, it is very probable that they are a newer, or a younger people than the people of the old world; and it is much more likely that the destruction that

3

4

1" And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word."-1 Kings xvii. 1. "And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth."-1 Kings xviii. 1.

2 Confined to a limited space.

3 The whole of the continent of America then discovered is included under this name.

4 Limited.

hath heretofore been there, was not by earthquakes, (as the Egyptian priest told Solon, concerning the Island of Atlantis, that it was swallowed by an earthquake,) but rather that it was desolated by a particular deluge, for earthquakes are seldom in those parts; but, on the other side, they have such pouring rivers, as the rivers of Asia, and Africa, and Europe, are but brooks to them. Their Andes, likewise, or mountains, are far higher than those with us; whereby it seems, that the remnants of generations of men were in such a particular deluge saved. As for the observation that Machiavel hath, that the jealousy of sects doth much extinguish the memory of things, traducing Gregory the Great, that he did what in him lay to extinguish all heathen antiquities, I do not find that those zeals do any great effects, nor last long; as it appeared in the succession of Sabinian, who did revive the former antiquities.

3

The vicissitude, or mutations, in the superior globe, are no fit matter for this present argument. It may be, Plato's great year, if the world should last so long, would have some effect, not in renewing the state of like individuals, (for that is the fume of those that conceive the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon these things

1 Vide Plat. Tim. iii. 24, seq.

2 Mach. Disc. Sop. Liv. ii. 5.

8 Sabinianus of Volaterra was elected Bishop of Rome on the death of Gregory the Great, A. D. 604. He was of an avaricious disposition, and thereby incurred the popular hatred. He died in eighteen months after his election.

4 This Cicero speaks of as "the great year of the mathematicians," On the Nature of the Gods," B. 4, ch. 20. By some it was supposed to occur after a period of 12,954 years, while, according to others, it was of 25,920 years' duration. - Plat. Tim. iii. 38, seq.

5 Conceit.

Com

below, than indeed they have,) but in gross. ets, out of question, have likewise power and effect over the gross and mass of things; but they are rather gazed, and waited upon1 in their journey, than wisely observed in their effects, especially in their respective effects; that is, what kind of comet for magnitude, color, version of the beams, placing in the region of heaven, or lasting, produceth what kind of effects.

There is a toy, which I have heard, and I would not have it given over, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low Countries, (I know not in what part,) that every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of years and weather comes about again; as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with little heat, and the like; and they call it the prime. It is a thing I do the rather mention, because, computing backwards, I have found some concurrence.

But to leave these points of nature, and to come to men. The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions; for those orbs rule in men's minds most. The true religion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. To speak, therefore, of the causes of new sects, and to give some counsel concerning them, as far as the weakness of human judgment can give stay to so great revolutions.

When the religion formerly received is rent by discords, and when the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal, and, withal, the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous, you may doubt the springing up of a new sect; if then, also, there should arise any extravagant and strange

1 Observed.

2 A curious fancy or odd conceit.

spirit to make himself author thereof; all which points held when Mahomet published his law. If a new sect have not two properties, fear it not, for it will not spread. The one is the supplanting or the opposing of authority established, for nothing is more popular than that; the other is, the giving license to pleasures and a voluptuous life; for as for speculative heresies, (such as were in ancient times the Arians, and now the Arminians,)1 though they work mightily upon men's wits, yet they do not produce any great alterations in states, except it be by the help of civil occasions. There be three manner of plantations of new sects: by the power of signs and miracles; by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles, because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature; and I may do the like of superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely, there is no better way to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses; to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors, by winning and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and bitterness.

The changes and vicissitude in wars are many, but chiefly in three things: in the seats or stages of the war, in the weapons, and in the manner of the conduct. Wars, in ancient time, seemed more to move from east to west; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars, (which were the invaders,) were all eastern people. It is true the Gauls were

1 The followers of Arminius, or James Harmensen, a celebrated divine of the 16th and 17th centuries. Though called a heresy by Bacon, his opinions have been for two centuries, and still are, held by a large portion of the Church of England.