So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and judgment used as ought to have been as may appear in the writings of Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural philosophy with the grave and sober kind of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity of Aristotle is worthy to be observed, that, having made so diligent and exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with any vain or feigned matter and yet on the other side hath cast all prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into one book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or weakened with matter of doubtful credit and yet again, that rarities and reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the memory of men. 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 masters, because their study is but to please them, and profit themselves and for either respect, they will abandon the good of their 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 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. 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. That which maketh the effect more pernicious, is that all proportion is lost. Therefore, let princes, or states, choose such servants, as have not this mark except they mean their service should be made but the accessory. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of his master, or state. But it is a desperate evil, in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a republic.
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.
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