TVLLY'S OFFICES IN Three Books Turned out of LATIN into ENGLISH By Ro. L'ESTRANGE LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in St. Paul's Church-yard 1680. TO THE READER 'T IS hard me thinks that a Man cannot Publish a Book but he must presently give the World a Reason for 't when yet there 's not One Book of Twenty that will bear a Reason not One Man of a Hundred perhaps that is able to Give One nor One Reason of a Thousand when they are given that was the True Reason of Doing it The True Reason I say For there 's a great Difference many times betwixt a Good Reason for the doing of a thing and the True Reason why the thing was done The Service of God is a very Good Reason for a Man's going to Church and yet the meeting of a Mâ—striss There may perchance be the True Reason of his Going And so likewise in Other Cases where we cover our Passions and our Interests under the Semblances of Virtue and Duty But however since Custom the Plague of Wise Men and the Idol of Fools since Custom I say will have it so that a Man had as good go to Court without his Cravat as shew himself in Print without a Preface I shall e'en Content my Self to play the Fool too in so Much and in so Good Company General Dedications being no Other then Fashionable Fopperies For what can be more Ridiculous than for a Man to Treat Princes and Tinkers Coxcombs and Philosophers Men of Honour and Rascals promiscuously all in a Stile Now as it is no Easie Matter to give a Good Reason for Writing at all so it is yet more Difficult to give That Reason in an Epistle which at best stands in need of another very good Reason for its own support But Prefaces at the Ordinary rate of Prefaces are wholly Inexcusable Only an Idle Deal of Fiddle-Faddle betwixt the Writer and the Reader made worse by Care and Peins and Digested out of Vulgar and Pedantique Common-Places into one Mass of Putid and Elaborate Folly This Liberty of Prefacing against Prefaces may seem a little Unreasonable but Common Scriblers are allow'd the Privileges of Common Strumpets One of the Frankest Prostitutes that ever I knew since I was born had These Words the oftenest in her Mouth Lord says she to see the Impudence of some Women To come now to the Reasons that induâ—â—d me to the Translating of This Little Book I shall Begin with the Excellency of the Work it Self which has ever been Esteemed both for the Method and Matter of it as one of the most Exact Pieces of the Kind that ever was written and the most Instructive of Human Life In so much that Cicero himself valu'd himself upon This Tract of Morals as his Master-Piece and accordingly recommended the Study of it to his Beloved Son under That Illustrious Character Secondly as it was Composed in a Loose and Troublesome Age so was it accâ—â—modated also to the Circumstances of Those Times for the assert-of the Force and Efficacy of Virtue against the utmost Rigour and Iniquity of Fortune Vpon which Consideration likewise I have now turn'd it into English with a regard to a Place and Season that extreamly needs it I do not speak This as if at any time it would have been Superfluous but that Desperate Diseases require the most Powerful Remedies To give you the Sum of it in a few Words It is a Manual of Precepts for the Government of our Selves in all the Offices Actions and Conditions of Human Life and tending not only to the Comfort of Men in Society but to the Conducting of Particulars also into a State of Felicity and Virtue It is a Lesson that serves us from the very Cradle to the Grave It teaches us what we Ow to Mankind to our Country to our Parents to our Friends to our Selves what we are to do as Children what as Men what as Citizens It sets and it keeps us Right in all the Duties of Prudence Moderation Resolution and Justice It Forms our Manners Purges our Affections enlightens our Understandings and leads us through the Knowledge and the Love of Virtue to the Practice and Habit of it This Treatise of Offices I find to be one of the Commonest School-Books that we have and as it is the Best of Books so it is apply'd to the Best of Purposes that is to say to the Training up of Youth in the Study and Exercise of Virtue The Foundations of an Honorable and a Blessed Life are laid in the very Cradle and we suck in the Tincture of Generous or Perverse Inclinations even with our Mothers Milk Insomuch that we may date the greater part of our greatest Miscarriages from the Errors and Infelicities of our First Institution and Education But tho' upon the whole matter I do Highly approve of the Usage of This Book in Schools I must confess yet with Submission that I am not at all satisfy'd in the ordinary Way of using it For the cutting of it out into Particles here and there a Chop makes it a Lesson to the Boys rather of Syntax then Morality beside the prejudice that it suffers under the Trivial name of a School-Book and the disgust which naturally continues with us even when we are Men for that which we were whipt for when we were Boyes Now the Matter of this Book being so Excellent and truly the Latin of it hardly Ciceronian it should be our bus'ness rather to inculcate the Doctrine then the Stile and yet in such manner too that the One may be Attended without Neglecting the Other And This may be effected to the Common Benefit of the Schollar in Both Kinds by First Reading and Expounding These Offices Whole to him in English before he be put to Hack and Puzzle upon them by Snaps in the Original the One Facilitating and Preparing him for the Other Let him be First and in his Mother-Tongue instructed in the Principles of Moral Duties and he shall then with the more Ease Profit and Delight take the same Notions down in Latin and Digest them Whereas in beginning with the Latin the Pupil has little more to do then to bring together the Nominative Case and the Verb without either Understanding or Heeding the main Scope and Intent of the Book I might here entertain the Reader with Twenty Stories of the Interruptions I have met with in the Course of This Translation how it has been only the Work of Broken Hours and I might plead These Distractions in excuse of all its Inequalities and Defects But such as it is Plain and Simple I do here present it to the Publique without either Vanity or Complement and I hope without giving unto any sort of Reader any Iust Cause of Compleint For He that does not like it may let it alone and there 's no Hurt done TVLLY's OFFICES The First BOOK ALTHOUGH after Twelve Months spent in the School of Cratippus and That at
Publique So that a Copious Eloquence joined with Prudence is much more profitable then the most refin'd subtilty of Thought without speaking For Meditation does only Circulate within it self Whereas Eloquence works upon Others and Insinuates it self into the Affections of all that Hear it We must not imagine that Bees gather into Swarms upon a design to make their Cells but it is in their Nature to Congregate and then they work their Combs And so it is with Men who are much more Sociable by Nature when they are gotten together they Consult their Common business Now for That Virtue of Iustice which provides for the Defence and Conservation of Men in Society if it be not accompanied with the Vnderstanding of Things it is but solitary and Fruitless And what is Courage without the softness of Humane Courtesie and Candour but a Savage and Outrageous Brutality From hence we may infer the Excellency of a Practical Iustice in the Ordering of Mankind above the force and effect of a Speculative Notion There are fome people that Phansie all Leagues and Associations amongst men to arise from the need that one man has for another toward the supplying of our Natural and Common Necessities because say They if Providence had deliver'd us from This Care of Looking after Food and Cloathing by appointing some Extraordinary way for the furnishing of it no man of either Brains or Virtue would ever trouble his head about Business but wholly deliver himself up to the attaining of Wisdom But This is a mistake For even in That Condition a man would fly Solitude and wish for a Companion in his very Studies he would be willing to Teach and to Learn to Hear and to Speak So that beyond question the Duties that defend and support men in Society are more to be esteem'd then those that barely relate to Learning and Knowledge IT may be another Question whether This Community which is so Consonant to Nature be in all Cases to be preferr'd to Modesty and Moderation Now I think Not. For there are some things partly so foul and in part so flagitious that a wise man even if it were to save his Country would not be guilty of them Posidonius has made a large Collection of such Cases But so filthy so obscene that a man cannot honestly repeat them Now why should any man do that for the saving of his Country which his Country it self would rather perish that any member of it should do But however this is the best on 't that it can never be for the Interest of the publique to have a wise man do any such thing Let it be therefore concluded that of All Duties we are to prefer those that tend toward the Mainteining of Society For a Considerate Action presumes an Antecedent Cognition and Wisdom So that it is more to Do Considerately then to Think Wisely But let This suffice for the matter is made so plain that there will be no difficulty to resolve upon Two Duties in question which to Chuse But then in the Community it self there are several Degrees of Duties in subordination one to another The First is what we owe to the Immortal Gods the Second to our Country the Third to our Parents and so in Order successively to Others Upon a Brief Disquisition of This matter it will appear that the point in debate is not only which is honest and which the Contrary but of Two honest Propositions which is the Honester and then which is the Honestest of All. This as I have said was slipt by Panetius but let us now proceed The End of the First Book TVLLY's OFFICES The Second BOOK IN What manner Duties arise from Virtue and from every distinct Branch of it is sufficiently explained as I conceive in the Former Book It remains now my â—on Marcus that we proceed upon some certain sorts of Duty that have a regard to the splendor and Ornament of Life As to Riches Power and a Competent provision of things Commodious for the Use of Man The matter in question was as I told you First what is Profitable and what not Secondly What is more Profitable Comparatively with that which is Less And Lastly What 's most Profitable of All things without Comparison You have here the Subject of This Treatise But before I enter upon the Discourse it self I must give you a word or two of my Purpose and Intention THERE are a great many I know that have been excited by My Books to the Love of Letters And to the love not only of Reading but of Writing also And yet Philosophy has gotten so Ill a Name in the World verily with some good men too that I am afraid sometimes of hazzarding my Credit with them for bestowing so much Time and Labour upon This Study But truely for my Own part so long as the Management of Publique Affairs past thorough those hands to which the Commonwealth had deliver'd up it self All my Thoughts and Cares were directed That way But when One man came to Grasp all and that there was no longer Any place for Authority or Counsel those Publique-spirited men being gone too that had been my Partners in the Charge of the Government It was not for me either on the One hand to abandon my self to an Anxious and irksome Melancholy or on the other to plunge my self into Pleasures below the Dignity of my Profession Oh! that the Republique might have continu'd still in the Former state without falling into those hands that sought not so much the Change of Affairs as the Total Ruine of them For if the Commonwealth were Now standing I should be doing at this instant just as I did before First my Bus'ness would lie more at the Bar then in my Study and Secondly I should now be setting down my Pleadings as formerly instead of these Morals But since the Dissolution of the Government that took up all my Cares my Thoughts my Studies There 's no more Law or Senate-Imployment Matters being brought to This Pass and 't is not for any man that has a Soul to sit still and do nothing What could I better do then to betake my self to my Philosophy My First â—tudy and the most Innocent the Honestest Diversion of my Troubles It was the Institution of my Youth and I spent a great deal of Time upon 't Till I came afterward to push my Fortune in the World for Offices and Preferments and Then I dedicated my self wholly to the Government But still reserving Those hours for Philosophy which I had to spare from the Publique and my Friends and Those very hours were spent in Reading too for I had no Leisure to Write The Calamity of those Times was Extreme and yet we have drawn This Benefit from it that we are now at Liberty to commit those things to Letters which our Countrymen were very little acquainted with tho' in themselves infinitely worth the Knowing For in the name of
Case of Duty First whether the matter in question be Honest or Dishonest Secondly whether it be Profitable or Vnprofitable Thirdly where Two things meet in Competition the One of them appearing Honest and the Other Profitable how to Distinguish He has written Three Books upon the Two former Heads and promised a Discourse upon the Third but he has not been so good as his word which I do the more wonder at because I find in his Scholar Posidonius that he lived Thirty years after the Publishing of These Books And I am in some Admiration too that Posidonius in his Commentaries should pass the matter over so slightly especially making This Remarque upon it that of the whole Body of Philosophy This is the most necessary Part. There are some that will not have This to be an Oversight in Panaetius but a Point left out upon Consideration as a thing wholly Impertinent But I am of another Opinion The Reason they give is This. Honest and Profitable they say are Convertible Terms and not to be so much as Imagined in Opposition From hence there may arise another Question whether the Third Branch of Panaetius's Division should not have been absolutely rejected without any mention of it all But it is Certain however that he did at first undertake it and then let it fall He that makes a Tripartite Division and goes thorough with Two Parts of it is undoubtedly answerable for the Third And he passes his word over and above toward the latter end of his Third Book that he will go on with it And we have the Authority of Posidonius himself to Witness as much writing in a certain Epistle what Publius Rutilius Rufus an Auditor of Panaetius was wont to say As there was never any Peinter says he that durst venture upon Finishing the Picture of Venus which Apelles had begun such was the Delicacy of the Face that there was no hope of matching it with a suitable Body so in the Case of Panaetius the Excellency of those things which he did perfect was so Transcendent that no man after him durst ever attempt the supplying of what he either Omitted or left Imperfect So that of Panaetius's Intention there can be no longer any Doubt But yet whether he did Well or Ill in adding the Third member of his Division may perhaps bear a Dispute For taking it either according to the Stoiques that no thing can be Good but that which is Honest or with the Peripatetiques that Honesty is the Sovereign Good to such a degree that all other Goods are as nothing in the Ballance Against it they do both of them however agree in This that Profit can never be admitted into a Competition with Honesty How does Socrates Curse the First Dividers of Honest and Profitable in Imagination which are so Inseparable by Nature And the Stoiques go so far along with him too as to hold that nothing can be the One without being also the Other But if Panaetius were one of those that will have Virtue to be Therefore Esteem'd for the Profit that she brings us measuring things Desirable either by Pleasure or Freedom from Pein he might then be allow'd to erect the Notion of a Possible Repugnancy of Profit to Honesty But being of Another Opinion and that the Only Good is That which is Honest and that whatsoever stands in Opposition to it under the Shew of Vtility a mans life is neither the Better nor the Worse for it either With it or Without it He should not so much as have put the Case methinks where Profit and Virtue should appear in the Comparison For to Live according to Nature which the Stoiques account for the Sovereign Good is nothing else as I understand it then to lead a life Congruous to Virtue And in all Cases whatsoever to follow the Direction of Nature in a Conformity thereunto The matter standing Thus some men are of opinion that This Comparison was not properly introduced and that there was not any need of prescribing in This Kind at all NO man can be Truly Honest but He that is Truly Wise and there is no separating the One from the Other There may be an Imperfect Honesty 't is True with an Imperfect Wisdom which is rather the Resemblance of Honesty then the Thing it self And therefore all those Duties that we treat of in this Discourse the Stoiques call Middle Duties which are Common indifferently to Mankind and of a large Extent and some people attein the knowledge of them by a Felicity of Nature others by a Progression and advance upon Study But those which They call Right Duties are Complete and Consummate in all the Parts or numbers as they express it and This Perfection is only to be found in a Wise man But he yet that acquits himself in the Discharge of these Middle Offices goes for Current with the Multitude for a good and a Wise man in the Abstract They not being able to distinguish betwixt what is Perfect and Defective Wherefore so far as They understand the Business there is nothing wanting We see many times in Poems Pictures and a World of Other Instances how strangely the unskilful are delighted with them and yet for the most part commending the least masterly stroke in the Piece which arises from This Ground I suppose they find something in the whole that pleases them but they are not able to judge of the Imperfections of the several Parts But when they come to be better instructed they are easily brought to change their First Opinion The Duties here Treated of are with the Stoiques a kind of Second-rate Honesty and not peculiar to wise men but Common to Human Nature And therefore they affect all people that have in them the least spark of Good Nature or Virtue Now when we speak of the Magnanimity of the two Decij or the Scipio's or of the Iustice of Fabricius or Aristides we do not propose their Example as the Standard of That Courage and Equity that is required in a Wise man For I do not look upon either of them to have been Wise to the Degree of Wisdom here intended no nor those very Persons upon whom the World has bestowed both the Reputation and the Name of Wise men I speak of Cato Caius Laelius or the Seven Sages themselves But by the Frequent exercise of Middle Offices they had somewhat of the appearance and Resemblance of Wisemen So that we must neither Compare Profit in Opposition to that which is truly Honest nor oppose any matter of Gain to that which we commonly call Virtue whereupon these people value themselves that would be accounted Good men And we must as well uphold and preserve That Practical Honesty that falls under our Capacities as That which in Strictness and Truth is only the Honesty of Wise men For Otherwise how shall we know what progress we make toward Virtue And so much for those that by doing Good Offices