Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/334

 320 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 54. replied. ' Have you never changed yours ? Those are not the wisest men who remain always of one opinion. The skilful sailing master applies his course as the wind and weather drive him. You speak of philosophy; I have none of it. Yet if I turned my mind that way I would not study it after the intractable discipline of the Stoics, but would rather become a student in the school where it is taught that wise men's minds must be led by probable reasons. That same firm, certain, unchangeable, and undoubting persuasion which is re- quisite in matters of faith must not be required in mat- ters of policy; and good and evil are not such in themselves but in their relation to other things. You say persons, cause, and matter are the same. It is not so, for time has altered many things. The affections of men are changed in both realms and the persons are altered. The person of the late Regent was a circum- stance of no small moment. And severity was a matter which might well vary with the change only of time. To sequestrate the Queen for a season might be re- ^ aired ; to keep her all her days in prison would be rigour intolerable. Were it true that I had advised more hard dealing, yet the substance of things is not changed by our opinion. They are not good or ill, rigorous or equitable, because we think them so. I might have been wrong then and I might be right now but it is not so. I may have been with those that persuaded worse to be done to the Queen of Scots by your Sovereign, but I was never a persuader of such matters myself. I never went about from the begin-