If we shall sometimes ammuse our selves and consider our estate, and the time we spend in controling others, and to know the things that are without us; would we but emploie the same in sounding our selves throughly, we should easily perceive how all this our contexture is built of weake and decaying peaces. Is it not an especiall testimonie of imperfection that we cannot settle our contentment on any one thing, and that even of our owne desire and imagination it is beyond our power to chuse what we stand in need of? Whereof, the disputation that hath ever beene amongst Philosophers beareth sufficient witnes, to finde out the chief felicitie or summum bonum of man, and which yet doth and shall eternally last without resolution or agreement.
Dum abest quod avemus, id exuperare videtur
Caetera; post aliud, cum contigit illud, avemus
Et sitis, aequa tenet.
While that is absent which we wish, the res
That seemes to passe, when ought else is addrest, That we desire, with equall thirst opprest,
—Lucretius, iii. 1095.
Whatsoever it be that falleth unto our knowledge and jovissance, we finde it doth not satisfie us, and we still follow and gape after future, uncertaine, and unknowne things, because the present and knowne please us not, and doe not satisfie us. Not (as I thinke) because they have not sufficiently wherewith to satiate and please us, but the reason is that we apprehend and seize on them with an unruly, disordered, and diseased taste and hold-fast.
Nam cum vidit hic ad usum flagitat usus
Onmia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata
Divitiis homines et honore et laude potente
Affluere, atque bona natorum excellere fama,
Nec minus esse donmi cuiquam tamenanxia corda
Atque animum infestis cogi servire querelis
Intellexit ibi vitium vas facere ipsum
Omniaaque illius vitio corrumpier intu
Quae collata foris et commoda quaeque venirent.
For when the wiseman saw, that all almost
That use requires, for men prepared was
That men enriches, honors, praises boast
In good report of children others passe
Yet none at home did beare lesse pensive heart
But that the minde was forst to serve complain
He knew, that fault the vessell did empart
That all was marr'd within by vessels taint
Whatever good was wrought by any art.
—Lucretius, vi. 9.
Our appetite is irresolute and uncertaine; it can neither hold nor enjoy any thing handsomly and after a good fashion. Man supposing it is the vice and fault of things he possesseth, feedeth and filleth himselfe with other things, which he neither knoweth nor hath understanding of, whereto he applyeth both his desires and hopes, and taketh them as an honour and reverence to himselfe; as saith Caesar,
Communi fit vitio naturae, ut invisis, latitantibus atque incognitis rebus magis confidamus vehementiusque exterreamur:
It hapneth by the common fault of nature that both wee are more confident and more terrified by things unseene, things hidden and unknowne.
—De Bello Civil, xi. 4.