Despise no new accident in your body, but ask opinion of it. In sickness, respect health principally; and in health, action. For those that put their bodies to endure in health, may in most sicknesses, which are not very sharp, be cured only with diet and tendering. Celsus[53] could never have spoken it as a physician, had he not been a wise man withal, when he giveth it for one of the great precepts of health and lasting, that a man do vary and interchange contraries, but with an inclination to the more benign extreme: use fasting and full eating, but rather full eating; watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise; and the like. So shall nature be cherished, and yet taught masteries. Physicians are some of them so pleasing and conformable to the humor of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular in proceeding according to art for the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort; and forget not to call as well the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 27: The selections here given from Bacon are all from the "Essays"] [Footnote 28: Cicero's meaning is that Rabirius was not prompted by avarice so much as by a desire to obtain the means whereby he could do good.] [Footnote 29: This has commonly been translated as "He that maketh haste to become rich shall not remain innocent."] [Footnote 30: The meaning is in the sweat of another man's brow rather than one's own.] [Footnote 31: Sugar is one of the chief products of the Canary Islands. These islands are supposed to be identical with those known to the ancients as the Fortunate Islands.] [Footnote 32: The remark of Tacitus means that Seneca took profitable places of trust in such numbers that it was as if he had gathered them in with a net.] [Footnote 33: The meaning is that Severus passed his youth, not only in errors, but that his youth was so full of them as to have been almost one of madness.] [Footnote 34: Hermogenes, a native of Tarsus, lived in the second century A.D.] [Footnote 35: Hortensius was a Roman orator of Cicero's time and an early rival of his. The remark here quoted from Tully (Cicero) means that Hortensius continued a line of action until it was not becoming.] [Footnote 36: Livy's remark means that Scipio in old age was not equal to himself in his youth in the things he performed.] [Footnote 37: Now written Cosmo, or Cosimo. He became duke in 1537.] [Footnote 38: Pertinax, the Roman emperor, was murdered by the Pretorian Guards in 193 A.D. The guards were put to death by order of Septimius Severus, his successor.] [Footnote 39: Henry was murdered by a monk named Clement, who was put to death for the crime.]