DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of pol- icy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit, and a strong heart, to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics, that are the great dissemblers.
Tacitus saith, Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband, and dissimulation of her son; attri-buting arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimula-tion to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian, to take arms against Vitel-lius, he saith, We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius. These properties, of arts or policy, and dissimulation or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be distin-guished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment, as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be showed at half lights, and to whom and when (which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them), to him, a habit of dis-simulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to bim generally, to be close, and a dissembler.
For where a man cannot choose, or vary in parti-culars, there it is good to take the safest, and wari-est way, in general; like the going softly, by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest men that ever were, have had all an openness, and frankness, of dealing; and a name of certainty and veracity; but then they were like horses well managed; for they could tell passing well, when to stop or turn; and at such times, when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opin-ion, spread abroad, of their good faith and clear-ness of dealing, made them almost invisible.
There be three degrees of this hiding and veil-ing of a man's self. The first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second, dissimulation, in the negative;when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not, that he is. And the third, simulation, in the affirmative; when a man industriously and ex-pressly feigns and pretends to be, that he is not.
