For It Is Not The Shape, But

For It Is With The Mysteries Of Our Religion, As With Wholesome Pills For The Sick, Which Swallowed Whole, Have The Virtue To Cure; But Chewed, Are For The Most Part Cast Up Again Without Effect.

In Sum, All Actions And Habits Are To Be Esteemed Good Or Evil By Their Causes And Usefulness In Reference To The Commonwealth, And Not By Their Mediocrity, Nor By Their Being Commended. For Several Men Praise Several Customs, And, Contrarily, What One Calls Vice, Another Calls Virtue, As Their Present Affections Lead Them.

A Wise Man Should So Write (though In Words Understood By All Men) That Wise Men Only Should Be Able To Commend Him.

From Whence It Happens, That They Which Trust To Books, Do As They That Cast Up Many Little Sums Into A Greater, Without Considering Whether Those Little Sums Were Rightly Cast Up Or Not; And At Last Finding The Error Visible, And Not Mistrusting Their First Grounds, Know Not Which Way To Clear Themselves; But Spend Time In Fluttering Over Their Books, As Birds That Entering By The Chimney, And Finding Themselves Enclosed In A Chamber, Flutter At The False Light Of A Glass Window, For Want Of Wit To Consider Which Way They Came In.

And Because The Condition Of Man, (as Hath Been Declared In The Precedent Chapter) Is A Condition Of Warre Of Every One Against Everyone; In Which Case Every One Is Governed By His Own Reason; And There Is Nothing He Can Make Use Of, That May Not Be A Help Unto Him, In Preserving His Life Against His Enemyes; It Followeth, That In Such A Condition, Every Man Has A Right To Every Thing; Even To One Anothers Body.