OF INNO VA TIONS.                       145

time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the
end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of for¬
tune, whose wings they thought by their self-
wisdom to have pinioned.
 

XXIV.
OF INNO VA TIONS.

As the births of living creatures at first are ill-
shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births
of time. Yet, notwithstanding, as those that first
bring honour into their family, arc commonly more
worthy than most that succeed ; so the first prece¬
dent, if it be good, is seldom attained by imitation ;
for III to man's nature, as it stands perverted, hath
a natural motion strongest in continuance, but good,
as a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every
medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply
new remedies must expect new evils ; for time is the
•greatest   innovator ;   and  if time, of course,   alter