‘Secondly, I deny that it maketh consultations to be vain. ’Tis the consultation that causeth a man and necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another: so that unless a man say that that cause is in vain which necessitateth the effect, he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election proceeding from it. But it seemeth his Lordship reasons thus: “If I must do this rather than that, I shall do it though I consult not at all;” which is a false proposition and a false consequence, and no better than this: “If I shall live till to-morrow, I shall live till to-morrow, though I run myself through with a sword to-day.” If there be a necessity that an action shall be done, or that any effect shall be brought to pass, it does not therefore follow that there is nothing necessarily requisite as a means to bring it to pass; and therefore when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another, ’tis determined also for what cause it shall be chosen, which cause for the most part is deliberation or consultation; and therefore consultation is not in vain, and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated, if _more_ and _less_ had any place in necessity. ‘The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience, namely, that admonitions are in vain: for admonitions are parts of consultation, the admonitor being a counsellor for the time to him that is admonished. ‘The fourth pretended inconvenience is, that praise, dispraise, reward and punishment will be in vain. To which I answer, that for praise and dispraise, they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised. For what is it else to praise, but to say a thing is good; good, I say, for me or for some body else, or for the state and commonwealth? And what is it to say an action is good, but to say it is as I would wish, or as another would have it, or according to the will of the state, that is to say, according to the law. Does my Lord think that no action can please me or him or the commonwealth, that should proceed from necessity? Things may therefore be necessary, and yet praiseworthy, as also necessary, and yet dispraised, and neither of them both in vain, because praise and dispraise, and likewise reward and punishment, do by example make and conform the will to good and evil. It was a very great praise in my opinion that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato, when he says that he was good by nature, _et quia aliter esse non potuit_. ‘To the last objection, that counsels, arts, arms, instruments, books, study, medicines, and the like would be superfluous, the same answer serves as to the former, that is to say, that this consequence, _if the effect shall come to pass, then it shall come to pass without its causes_, is a false one, and those things named counsels, arts, arms, &c. are the causes of those effects.’—Page 291.