is most certain to yield him double interest; for he that does otherwise is but a Jew and a Turk to himself, which is much worse than to be so to all the world beside.  Friends are only friends to those who have no need of them, and when they have, become no longer friends; like the leaves of trees, that clothe the woods in the heat of summer, when they have no need of warmth, but leave them naked when cold weather comes; and since there are so few that prove otherwise, it is not wisdom to rely on any.

He is of opinion that no men are so fit to be employed and trusted as fools or knaves; for the first understand no right, the others regard none; and whensoever there falls out an occasion that may prove of great importance if the infamy and danger of the dishonesty be not too apparent, they are the only persons that are fit for the undertaking.  They are both equally greedy of employment; the one out of an itch to be thought able, and the other honest enough, to be trusted, as by use and practice they sometimes prove.  For the general business of the world lies, for the most part, in routines and forms, of which there are none so exact observers as those who understand nothing else to divert them, as carters use to blind their fore-horses on both sides that they may see only forward, and so keep the road the better, and men that aim at a mark use to shut one eye that they may see the surer with the other.  If fools are not notorious, they have far more persons to deal with of their own elevation (who understand one another better) than they have of those that are above them, which renders them fitter for many businesses than wiser men, and they believe themselves to be so for all.  For no man ever thought himself a fool that was one, so confident does their ignorance naturally render them, and confidence is no contemptible qualification in the management of human affairs; and as blind men have secret artifices and tricks to supply that defect and find out their ways, which those who have their eyes and are but hoodwinked are utterly unable to do, so fools have always little crafts and frauds in all their transactions which wiser men would never have thought upon, and by those they frequently arrive at very great wealth, and as great success in all their undertakings.  For all fools are but feeble and impotent knaves, that have as strong and vehement inclinations to all sorts of dishonesty as the most notorious of those engineers, but want abilities to put them in practice; and as they are always found to be the most obstinate and intractable people to be prevailed upon by reason or conscience, so they are as easy to submit to their superiors—­that is, knaves—­by whom they are always observed to be governed, as all corporations are wont to choose their magistrates out of their own members.  As for knaves, they are commonly true enough to their own interests, and while they gain by their employments, will be careful not to disserve those who can turn them out when they please, what tricks soever they put upon others; and therefore such men prove more useful to them in their designs of gain and profit than those whose consciences and reason will not permit them to take that latitude.