A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…

Secondly, These kind of Desires make men¹ ungrateful and forgetful of any kindness which hath already been done them. Memoria minimum tribuit, quisquis spei plurimum. As in bucket• at a well, the longer the line of the one is which moves downward, the shorter is the line of the other which riseth upward; so the larger our Desires are towards the future, the narrower our memories are of things past. And usually mens valuations of things are more in the performance, ⟨p. 185⟩then when they are performed. And the reason,² is because as nature hath set our eyes forward, and not behind us: so the appetites of men, for which the eyes are the principal factors, look naturally before them, not to what they Have, but to what they Hope. The eye whereby we look backward into our lives is the eye of Repentance, we there either see our selves bad, or little. And a man is an unwelcome object unto himself in both these Relations. But the eye whereby we look forward, is an eye of Hope, and Desire, and by that we are represented to our selves better and greater then we are already. Iron moves not upward except the Lodestone be very near it; But it moveth downward, though the Centre be never so remote. So much stronger are the motions of Desire, then those of acknowledgement and retribution.

Secondly, These kinde of Desires make men¹ ungratefull and forgetfull of any kindnesse which hath already been done them. Memoria minimum tribuit, quisquis spei plurimum. As in bucket• at a well, the longer the line of the one is which moves downward, the shorter is the line of the other which riseth upward; so the larger our Desires are towards the future, the narrower our memories are of things past. And usually mens valuations of things are more in the performance, ⟨p. 185⟩then when they are performed. And the reason,²