Sect. 10.--For my conversation, it is, like the sun's,
with all men, and with a friendly aspect to good and
bad. Methinks there is no man bad; and the worst
best, that is, while they are kept within the circle of
those qualities wherein they are good. There is no
man's mind of so discordant and jarring a temper, to
which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony.
Magnae virtutes, nec minora vitia; it is the posy<95> of
the best natures, and may be inverted on the worst.
There are, in the most depraved and venomous disposi-
tions, certain pieces that remain untouched, which by
an
antiperistasis<96> become more excellent, or by the
excellency of their antipathies are able to preserve them-
selves from the contagion of their enemy vices, and
persist entire beyond the general corruption. For it is
also thus in nature: the greatest balsams do lie en-
veloped in the bodies of the most powerful corrosives.
I say moreover, and I ground upon experience, that
poisons contain within themselves their own antidote,
and that which preserves them from the venom of them-
selves; without which they were not deleterious to
others only, but to themselves also.
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