培根论自私english.docVIP

OF WISDOM FOR A MAN’S SELF Francisco Bacon An ant is a wise creature for itself; but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly, men that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and society; and be so true to yourself as you are not false to others; specially to your king and country. It is a poor centre of a man’s actions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon his own centre; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens move upon the centre of another. （注1）The referring of all to a man’s self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant to a prince or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man’s hands, he crooks them to his own ends: which must be often eccentric to the ends of his master or state. Therefore let princes or states choose such servants as have not this mark; except they mean their service should be made but the accessory. What makes the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough, for the servant’s good to be preferred before the master’s; but yet it is a greater extreme when a little good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the master’s. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias upon their bowl of their own petty ends and envies to the overthrow of their master’s great and important affairs. And for the most part the good such servants receive is after the model of their own fortune; but the hurt 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 mas