Not by nature only, which perfects them, but by art and education which perfects her. Plants, quickened and inhabited by the most unworthy soul, which therefore neither will nor work, affect an end, a perfection, a death. This they spend their spirits to attain; this attained, they languish and wither. And by how much more they are by man’s industry warmed and cherished and pampered, so much the more early they climb to this perfection, this death. And if, between men, not to defend be to kill, what a heinous self-murder is it not to defend the self. This defence because beasts neglect, they kill themselves: because they exceed us in number, strength, and lawless liberty. Yea, of horses, and so of other beasts, they which inherit most courage by being bred of gallantest parents, and by artificial nursing are bettered, will run to their own deaths, neither solicited by spurs, which they need not, nor by honour, which they apprehend not. If then the valiant kill himself, who can excuse the coward? Or how shall man be free from this, since the first man taught us this – except we cannot kill ourselves because he killed us all? Yet lest something should repair this common ruin, we kill daily our bodies with surfeits, and our minds with anguishes. Of our powers, remembering kills our memory. Of affections, lusting our lust. Of virtues, giving kills liberality. And if these things kill themselves, they do it in their best and supreme perfection, for after perfection immediately follows excess, which changes the natures and the names, and makes them not the same things. If then the best things kill themselves soonest (for no perfection endures) and all things labour to this perfection, all travail to their own death. Yea the frame of the whole world (if it were possible for God to be idle) yet because it begun must die. Then in this idleness imagined in God, what could kill the world but itself, since out of it nothing is?

Paradox 6: That the Gifts of the Body are Better than those of the Mind, or of Fortune

I say again that the body makes the mind. Not that it created it a mind, but forms it a good or bad mind. And this mind may be confounded with soul, without any violence or injustice to reason or philosophy. Then our soul (me seems) is enabled by our body, not this by that. My body licenseth my soul to see the world’s beauties through mine eyes, to hear pleasant things through mine ears, and affords it apt organs for conveyance of all perceivable delights. But alas my soul cannot make any part, that is not of itself disposed, to see or hear – though without doubt she be as able and as willing to see behind as before. Now if my soul would say that she enables my parts to taste these pleasures, but is herself only delighted with those rich sweetnesses which her inward eye and senses apprehend, she should dissemble. For I feel her often solaced with beauties which she sees through mine eyes, and music which through mine ears she hears. This perfection then my body hath, that it can impart to my mind all her pleasures; and my mind hath this maim, that she can neither teach my indisposed parts her faculties, nor to the parts best disposed show that beauty of angels or music of spheres, whereof she boasts the contemplation. Are chastity, temperance or fortitude gifts of the mind? I appeal to physicians whether the cause of these be not in the body. Health is a gift of the body, and patience in sickness of the mind. Then who will say this patience is as good a happiness as health, when we must be extremely miserable to have this happiness? And for nourishing of civil societies and mutual love amongst men, which is one chief end why we are men, I say the beauty, proportion and presence of the body hath a more masculine force in begetting this love than the virtues of the mind. For it strikes us suddenly, and possesseth us immediately, when to know these virtues requires sound judgment in him which shall discern, and a long trial and conversation between them. And even at last, alas, how much of our faith and belief shall we be driven to bestow, to assure ourselves that these virtues are not counterfeited? For it is the same to be and to seem virtuous. Because he that hath no virtue can dissemble none. But he that hath a little may gilt and enamel, yea, and transform much vice into virtue.