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.