little too light to express it. Goodness I call the habit, and Goodness of Nature the inclination. This of all virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest; being the character of the Deity: and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing; no better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue Charity, and admits no excess, but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it. The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man; insomuch that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds; insomuch as Busbechius[1] reporteth, a Christian boy in Constantinople had like to have been stoned for gagging in a waggishness a long-billed fowl.[2] Errors indeed in this virtue of goodness or charity may be committed. The Italians have an ungracious proverb, Tanto buon che val niente; So good, that he is good for nothing. And one of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel,[3] had the confidence to put in writing, almost in plain terms, That the Christian
- ↑ Augier Ghislen de Busbec, or Busbecq, or Busbecqué (Latinized, Busbechius here, but better, Busbequius), 1522–1592, a Flemish diplomatist and scholar, ambassador of Ferdinand I. at Constantinople.
- ↑ The bird was a goat-sucker, which the goldsmith fastened over his door with wings spread and jaws distended. The story will be found in Busbequius's letter from Constantinople, p. 179 of ed. 1633. S.
- ↑ Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469–1527, Florentine statesman, author of Discourses on the First Decade of T. Livius, the Prince, and a
