they sell for that good, is after the model of their master's fortune.
And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set
an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs; and yet these men
many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but
to please them, and profit themselves; and for either respect, they will
abandon the good of their affairs.

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing.
It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house, somewhat
before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out
the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of
crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is
specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey)
are sui amantes, sine rivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereas
they have, all their times, sacrificed to themselves, they become in the
end, themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings
they thought, by their self-wisdom, to have pinioned.

Of Innovations

AS THE births of living creatures, at first are illshapen, so are all
innovations, which are the births of time. Yet notwithstanding, as those
that first bring honor into their family, are commonly more worthy than
most that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is seldom
attained by imitation. For ill, to man's nature, as it stands perverted,
hath a natural motion, strongest in continuance; but good, as a forced
motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an innovation; and
he that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils; for time is
the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall
be the end? It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be
not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things which have long gone
together, are, as it were, confederate within themselves; whereas new
things piece not so well; but though they help by their utility, yet
they trouble by their inconformity. Besides, they are like strangers;
more admired, and less favored. All this is true, if time stood still;
which contrariwise moveth so round, that a froward retention of custom,
is as turbulent a thing as an innovation; and they that reverence too
much old times, are but a scorn to the new. It were good, therefore,
that men in their