objects of our admiration, may as well, for their possibility, be the objects of our hope, and the encouragements of our industry.

The third cause of hope, may be large furniture with, or strong dependance upon, the assistant means of what is hoped for. Helps, in any enterprise, are instead of heads and hands, to advance a man's design: which likewise is elegantly expressed by Diomedes and Sarpedon in Homer: Αλλ' εἴ τις μοι ἀνὴρ ἅμ ̓ ἕποιτο καὶ ἄλλος, Μᾶλλον θαλπωρή, καὶ θαρσαλεώτερον ἔσται. Σύν τε δύ' ἐρχομένω, &c.

If any second would accompany,

My hopes and courage would the greater be:
For when two join, the one may haply note
What th' other over-pass'd; or if he know 't,
His counsel would be weak, and his mind slow,
When he should execute what he does know.

And according as these means which we rely upon, have more or less power or certainty in them, they are foundations of a more regular or corrupt hope. Such are wealth, friends, wit, policy, power, or the like: all which can be causes only of a hope of probability, but not of certainty, because they are all means which are subject to miscarriage; and are also subject to the providence of God, who only can establish and give final security to our hopes; as being such an assistant, in whom there is neither weakness nor mutability, which should move him to disappoint us.

All other aids have two ill qualities in them: they have wings, and therefore can easily forsake us; and they have thorns, and therefore if we lean too hard on them, they may chance, instead of helping, to hurt us. The best promises. which earthly aids can make, are bounded by a double condition.

Εἰ δύναμαί τε, καὶ εἰ τετελεσμένον ἐστι.

If the thing lie within thy power to do,
And Divine Providence permits it too.

Here, then, we may discover corruption in this passion,

Iliad. K. 222, et μ. 410. VOL. VI.

2 Chron. xxviii. 20, 21. Ezek. xxix. 6, 7.

N

when the mind, ready upon every present apprehension to play the prophet, in forecasting future events, shall, out of weak grounds, and too high a conceit of those means which it hath, so build unto itself peremptory imaginations for the future; as that thereby it is made in itself light and opinionative, and, upon occasion of disappointment, is to seek of that patience to sustain it, which, by a wise intermixture of fear and caution, might have been retained.

And as there is an error in the trust and affiance, so there may be in the use of those means. For though divine hope hath but one anchor to rest upon, and therefore hath but one manner of being produced; yet those lower hopes, of which I speak, do always depend upon the concurrence of divers means; and those likewise have their reference unto divers circumstances. And, therefore, those which have not the wisdom of combining their aids, and of fitting them unto casual occurrences, may, to no end, nourish in themselves imaginary and empty presumptions. And this is that which maketh all worldly hopes so full of lightness and uncertainty, 'Leves spes et certamina,' as the poet calleth them; because it may fall out, that the neglect of but some one circumstance, the not timing or placing our actions right,-the not accommodating our means to the variety of occasions.the miscarrying in some one compliment or ceremony,-the having of our mind either too light and voluble, or too fixed and constant, or too spread and wandering, or too narrow and contracted, or too credulous and facile, or too diffident and suspicious, or too peremptory, resolute, or hasty, or too slow, anxious, and discursive, or too witty and facetious, or too serious and morose; with infinite other the like weaknesses, (some whereof there is not any man quite freed from) may often, notwithstanding the good store of other aids, endanger and shipwreck the success of our endeavours. So that, in the prosecution of a hope, there is something alike industry to be used, as in the trial of mathematical conclusions; the mediums whereunto are so couched and dependent upon one another, that not diligently to observe every one of them, is to labour in vain, and to have all to do again.

e Horat.

A fourth cause of hope, may be goodness and facility of nature, whereby we find a disposition in ourselves of readiness to further any man's purposes and desires, and to expect the like from others f; for it is the observation of Aristotle touching young men, "Sua ipsorum innocentia cæteros metiuntur;" their own goodness makes them credulous of the like in others. For as every man's prejudice loves to find his own will and opinion; so doth his charity, to find his own goodness in another man. They therefore, who are soft and facile to yield, are likewise to believe, and dare trust them whom they are willing to pleasure. And this indeed is the rule of nature, which makes a man's self the pattern, of what it makes its neighbour the object.

Now, from this facility of nature, proceeds a further cause of hope, to wit, faith and credulity, in relying on the promises which are made for the furtherance thereof. For promises are obligations; and men use to reckon their obligations in the inventory of their estate: so that the promises of an able friend, I esteem as part of my substance. And this is an immediate antecedent of hope, which, according as the authority whereon it relies, is more or less sufficient and constant, is likewise more or less evident and certain.

And in these two, the corruption chiefly is not to let the judgement come between them and our hopes.

For as He said of lovers, we may of hopes too, that oftentimes sibi somnia fingunt,' they build more upon imagination than reality. And then, if what Tacitus speaks in another sense, 'fingunt, creduntque,' if our faculty feign assistances, and our credulity rely upon them, there will issue no other than Ixion's hope, a cloud for Juno. And therefore Aristotle", out of an easiness to hope, collects, in young men, an easiness to be deceived: credulity very often meets with impostures. And he elsewhere placeth credulous, modest, quiet, and friendly men, amongst those that are obnoxious to injuries and abuses: proud and abusive men making it one of their pleasures to delude and mislead the ingenuity of others; and, as once Apelles, to deceive the expectation of another with a curtain for a picture.

f Ελπὶς ἐκ πίστεως συνέστηκεν. Clem. Αlex. Strom. 1. 2. h Rhet. 1. 2.

c. 12.

i Rhet. 1. 1.

* Rhet. 1. 2.

The last cause (which I shall but name) of hope, is wise confidence, or a happy mixture of boldness, constancy, and prudence together; the one, to put on upon enterprise; the other, to keep on, when difficulties unexpected do occur; and the third, to guide and manage ourselves amidst those difficulties: for, as He said in studies, so we may in actions likewise, (when thus swayed and balanced) "Altiùs ibunt, qui ad summa nituntur:" the further we set our aims, the more ground we shall get: and then,

"Possunt quia posse videntur."

When a man thinks, This he can do;
By thinking, he gets power too.

And unto this doth the historian attribute all the successes of Alexander's great victories, "Nihil aliud quam bene ausus vana contemnere;" his confidence, judging them feasible, did, by that means, get through them. And though it was venturous, yet, as the case might be, it was wise counsel which we find in the same historian'; Audeamus quod credi non potest ausuros nos, eo ipso quod difficillimum videtur, facillimum erit: let us show our courage in adventuring on some difficult enterprise, which it might have been thought we would not have attempted, and then the very difficulty of it will make it the more easy:"-for our enemies will conclude, that our strength is more than they discover, when they see our attempts greater than they could suspect. Thus men teach children to dance in heavy shoes", that they may begin to conquer the difficulty in the learning of the art. And therefore the philosopher" telleth us, that Spares evéλmides, bold men are men of hope;for boldness suffers not a man to be wanting to himself. And there are two principles which encourage such men upon adventures; the one, "Audentes fortuna juvat°;" that resolution is usually favoured with success ;-or if it miss of

Quint. 1. 1. in Procem. Magnæ indolis signum est sperare semper. Flor. 1. 4. 1 Liv. 1. 19. Liv. l. 25.—Τολμᾷν ἀνάγκη, κἂν τύχω, κἂν μὴ τύχω. Eur. Hec. 739. Difficiliora debent esse quæ exercent; quo sit levius ipsum illud, in quod exercent. Quint. 1. 11. c. 2. n Arist. Eth. 1. 3. c. 7. • Eneid. 10. P Ovid. Met. 1. 2. Tutius per plana, sed humilius et depressius iter: frequentior currentibus, quam reptantibus, lapsus: sed his non labentibus nulla, illis nonnulla laus, etiam si labantur. Plin. 1. 9. ep. 26, 2.

that, Magnis tamen excidit ausis;' yet the honour of attempting a difficulty, is more than the discredit of miscarriage in it.

CHAP. XXV.

Of the effects of Hope, stability of mind, weariness, arising not out of weakness, impatience, suspicion, curiosity; but out of want, contention, and forth-putting of the mind. Patience under the want, distance, and difficulty of good desires, waiting upon aid expected.

a

THE effects of hope follow, which I will but name. The first is, to free the mind from all such anxieties, as arise out of the floating, instability, and fearfulness thereof. For, as the philosopher telleth us, fearful men are duréλmides, hard of hope:' and in this property, hope is well compared unto an anchor, because it keeps the mind in a firm and constant temper, without tottering and instability. For though there be but one hope, joined with certainty, as depending upon an immutable promise,-all other having ground of fear in them; yet this should be only a fear of caution, not of jealousy and distrust, because where there is distrust in the means, there is, for the most part, weakness in the use of them; and he who suspects the aid which he relies on, gives it just reason to fail and to neglect him. And therefore Aristotle hath set hope and confidence together, as was before noted,—Ἐλπίζειν ἀγαθόν τι θαῤῥαλέον ἐστι, a good hope is grounded on a belief, and always worketh some measure of affiance in the means unto it.

A second effect of hope is, to work some kind of distaste and weariness in our present condition; which, according as it is good or evil, doth qualify the hope from whence it ariseth for there is a distaste that ariseth out of weakness, like that of Job"; "My soul is weary of my life; I am a burthen to myself." Another that ariseth out of want. That which ariseth upon weakness, is a fickle and inconstant mutability of the mind, whereby it desireth a continual change

a Philosophi quidam erant, qui à spe dicti sunt, elpistici; qui nihil esse pronunciarunt quod vitam magis contineret a:que spes. Vid. Plut. Symp. 1. 4. q. 4. Job x. 1. vii. 20.