loweth many times upon secrecy, by a necessity;
so that he that will be secret, must be a dissembler
in some degree. For men are too cunning, to suffer
a man to keep an indifferent carriage between
both, and to be secret, without swaying the bal-
ance on either side. They will so beset a man with
questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him,
that, without an absurd silence, he must show an
inclination one way; or if he do not, they will
gather as much by his silence, as by his speech. As
for equivocations, or oraculous speeches, they can-
not hold out long. So that no man can be secret,
except he give himself a little scope of dissimula-
tion; which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of
secrecy.

But for the third degree, which is simulation,
and false profession; that I hold more culpable,
and less politic; except it be in great and rare mat-
ters. And therefore a general custom of simulation
(which is this last degree) is a vice, using either of
a natural falseness or fearfulness, or of a mind that
hath some main faults, which because a man must
needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation
in other things, lest his hand should be out of use.

The great advantages of simulation and dissi-
mulation are three. First, to lay asleep opposition,
and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are
published, it is an alarum, to call up all that are