designs:  so tedious, casual, and unfortunate are these deep dissimulations:  whereof it seemeth Tacitus made this judgment, that they were a cunning of an inferior form in regard of true policy; attributing the one to Augustus, the other to Tiberius; where, speaking of Livia, he saith, Et cum artibus mariti simulatione filii bene compostia:  for surely the continual habit of dissimulation is but a weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly politic.

(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to accustom our minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they conduce and are material to our particular ends; and that to do substantially and not superficially.  For we shall find the logical part (as I may term it) of some men’s minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous; that is, they can well judge of consequences, but not of proportions and comparison, preferring things of show and sense before things of substance and effect.  So some fall in love with access to princes, others with popular fame and applause, supposing they are things of great purchase, when in many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment.  So some measure things according to the labour and difficulty or assiduity which are spent about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that they must needs advance and proceed; as Caesar saith in a despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth how laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose, Haec omnia magno studio agebat.  So in most things men are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest means to be best, when it should be the fittest.

(38) As for the true marshalling of men’s pursuits towards their fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus.  First the amendment of their own minds.  For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind.  In the second place I set down wealth and means; which I know most men would have placed first, because of the general use which it beareth towards all variety of occasions.  But that opinion I may condemn with like reason as Machiavel doth that other, that moneys were the sinews of the wars; whereas (saith he) the true sinews of the wars are the sinews of men’s arms, that is, a valiant, populous, and military nation:  and he voucheth aptly the authority of Solon, who, when Croesus showed him his treasury of gold, said to him, that if another came that had better iron, he would be master of his gold.  In like manner it may be truly affirmed that it is not moneys that are the sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men’s minds, wit, courage, audacity, resolution, temper, industry, and the like.  In the third place I set down reputation, because of the peremptory tides and currents it hath; which, if they be not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered, it being extreme hard to play an