For, as Aristotle saith, it is not
[Greek text] but [Greek text] {39} must be the fruit: and how
[Greek text] can be, without being moved to practise, it is no hard
matter to consider. The philosopher showeth you the way, he
informeth you of the particularities, as well of the tediousness of
the way and of the pleasant lodging you shall have when your journey
is ended, as of the many by-turnings that may divert you from your
way; but this is to no man, but to him that will read him, and read
him with attentive, studious painfulness; which constant desire
whosoever hath in him, hath already passed half the hardness of the
way, and therefore is beholden to the philosopher but for the other
half. Nay, truly, learned men have learnedly thought, that where
once reason hath so much over-mastered passion, as that the mind
hath a free desire to do well, the inward light each mind hath in
itself is as good as a philosopher's book: since in nature we know
it is well to do well, and what is well and what is evil, although
not in the words of art which philosophers bestow upon us; for out
of natural conceit the philosophers drew it; but to be moved to do
that which we know, or to be moved with desire to know, "hoc opus,
hic labor est."
Now, {40} therein, of all sciences (I speak still of human and
according to the human conceit), is our poet the monarch.
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