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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Advancement of Learning, by Francis
+Bacon, Edited by Henry Morley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Advancement of Learning
+
+Author: Francis Bacon
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #5500]
+[Most recently updated: April 12, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF–8
+
+Produced by: PP & DP.... and Richard Tonsing
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING ***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+Transcriber’s note:
+Changed “considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned
+times have been most subject to tumults, seditious, and changes” to
+“considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have
+been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes”.
+
+
+
+
+                       CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                               ADVANCEMENT
+                                    OF
+                                LEARNING.
+
+
+                                    BY
+                              FRANCIS BACON.
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+                       CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
+                      _LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
+                                  1893.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+“THE TVVOO Bookes of Francis Bacon.  Of the proficience and aduancement
+of Learning, divine and humane.  To the King.  At London.  Printed for
+Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop at Graies Inne Gate in
+Holborne. 1605.”   That was the original title-page of the book now in
+the reader’s hand—a living book that led the way to a new world of
+thought.  It was the book in which Bacon, early in the reign of James the
+First, prepared the way for a full setting forth of his New Organon, or
+instrument of knowledge.
+
+The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which Aristotle had
+written the doctrine of propositions.  Study of these treatises was a
+chief occupation of young men when they passed from school to college,
+and proceeded from Grammar to Logic, the second of the Seven Sciences.
+Francis Bacon as a youth of sixteen, at Trinity College, Cambridge, felt
+the unfruitfulness of this method of search after truth.  He was the son
+of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Keeper, and was born at
+York House, in the Strand, on the 22nd of January, 1561.  His mother was
+the Lord Keeper’s second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other
+married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh.  Sir Nicholas Bacon
+had six children by his former marriage, and by his second wife two sons,
+Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years the elder.  The
+family home was at York Place, and at Gorhambury, near St. Albans, from
+which town, in its ancient and its modern style, Bacon afterwards took
+his titles of Verulam and St. Albans.
+
+Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College, Cambridge,
+when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis twelve.  Francis remained
+at Cambridge only until his sixteenth year; and Dr. Rawley, his chaplain
+in after-years, reports of him that “whilst he was commorant in the
+University, about sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been pleased
+to impart unto myself), he first fell into dislike of the philosophy of
+Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would
+ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being
+a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputatious
+and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of
+the life of man; in which mind he continued to his dying day.”  Bacon was
+sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with the ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet,
+to begin his training for the public service; but his father’s death, in
+February, 1579, before he had completed the provision he was making for
+his youngest children, obliged him to return to London, and, at the age
+of eighteen, to settle down at Gray’s Inn to the study of law as a
+profession.  He was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582, and about
+that time, at the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of his conception of
+a New Organon that should lead man to more fruitful knowledge, in a
+little Latin tract, which he called “Temporis Partus Maximus” (“The
+Greatest Birth of Time”).
+
+In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons as member
+for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire.  In October, 1586, he sat for
+Taunton.  He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one of those
+who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of Scots.  In
+October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk of the
+Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth £1,600 or £2,000 a year; but
+for the succession to this office he had to wait until 1608.  It had not
+yet fallen to him when he wrote his “Two Books of the Advancement of
+Learning.”  In the Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as
+member for Middlesex.  He raised difficulties of procedure in the way of
+the grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the joining of the
+Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a desire to extend the time
+allowed for payment from three years to six; it was, in fact, extended to
+four years.  The Queen was offended.  Francis Bacon and his brother
+Antony had attached themselves to the young Earl of Essex, who was their
+friend and patron.  The office of Attorney-General became vacant.  Essex
+asked the Queen to appoint Francis Bacon.  The Queen gave the office to
+Sir Edward Coke, who was already Solicitor-General, and by nine years
+Bacon’s senior.  The office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and
+that was sought for Francis Bacon.  The Queen, after delay and
+hesitation, gave it, in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming.  The Earl of
+Essex consoled his friend by giving him “a piece of land”—Twickenham
+Park—which Bacon afterwards sold for £1,800—equal, say, to £12,000 in
+present buying power.  In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament as member
+for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the rich widow of
+Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady married, in the next
+year, Sir Edward Coke.  It was in 1597 that Bacon published the First
+Edition of his Essays.  That was a little book containing only ten essays
+in English, with twelve “Meditationes Sacræ,” which were essays in Latin
+on religious subjects.  From 1597 onward to the end of his life, Bacon’s
+Essays were subject to continuous addition and revision.  The author’s
+Second Edition, in which the number of the Essays was increased from ten
+to thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December, 1612, seven
+years later than these two books on the “Advancement of Learning;” and
+the final edition of the Essays, in which their number was increased from
+thirty-eight to fifty-eight, appeared only in 1625; and Bacon died on the
+9th of April, 1626.  The edition of the Essays published in 1597, under
+Elizabeth, marked only the beginning of a course of thought that
+afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in philosophy.
+
+In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex.  Francis Bacon had
+separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that was
+disregarded.  Bacon, now Queen’s Counsel, not only appeared against his
+old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps, he hoped to win
+back the Queen’s favour, he twice obtruded violent attacks upon Essex
+when he was not called upon to speak.  On the 25th of February, 1601,
+Essex was beheaded.  The genius of Bacon was next employed to justify
+that act by “A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and
+committed by Robert late Earle of Essex and his Complices.”  But James of
+Scotland, on whose behalf Essex had intervened, came to the throne by the
+death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March, 1603.  Bacon was among the crowd
+of men who were made knights by James I., and he had to justify himself
+under the new order of things by writing “Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie
+in certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex.”  He was
+returned to the first Parliament of James I. by Ipswich and St. Albans,
+and he was confirmed in his office of King’s Counsel in August, 1604; but
+he was not appointed to the office of Solicitor-General when it became
+vacant in that year.
+
+That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published this
+work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of learning
+from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of the studies
+chosen, or the way of dealing with them.  This came, he said, especially
+by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge,
+as if there were sought in it “a couch whereupon to rest a searching and
+restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk
+up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to
+raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and
+contention; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for
+the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.”  The rest of
+the First Book was given to an argument upon the Dignity of Learning; and
+the Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning, is, as Bacon himself
+described it, “a general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an
+inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and
+converted by the industry of man; to the end that such a plot made and
+recorded to memory may both minister light to any public designation and
+also serve to excite voluntary endeavours.”  Bacon makes, by a sort of
+exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all subjects of study, as an
+intellectual map, helping the right inquirer in his search for the right
+path.  The right path is that by which he has the best chance of adding
+to the stock of knowledge in the world something worth labouring for; and
+the true worth is in labour for “the glory of the Creator and the relief
+of man’s estate.”
+
+                                                                   H. M.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON;
+OF THE PROFICIENCE AND
+ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,
+DIVINE AND HUMAN.
+
+
+                              _To the King_.
+
+THERE were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and
+freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon ordinary observance, the
+other upon a devout cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth to kings
+from their servants both tribute of duty and presents of affection.  In
+the former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting, according to
+my most humble duty and the good pleasure of your Majesty’s employments:
+for the latter, I thought it more respective to make choice of some
+oblation which might rather refer to the propriety and excellency of your
+individual person, than to the business of your crown and state.
+
+Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind, and
+beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to discover
+that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but with the
+observant eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the other parts of
+your virtue and fortune, I have been touched—yea, and possessed—with an
+extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the
+philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the
+faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the
+penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your
+elocution: and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I
+have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato’s
+opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man
+by Nature knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original
+notions (which by the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the
+body are sequestered) again revived and restored: such a light of Nature
+I have observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and
+blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark of another’s
+knowledge delivered.  And as the Scripture saith of the wisest king,
+“That his heart was as the sands of the sea;” which, though it be one of
+the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest
+portions; so hath God given your Majesty a composition of understanding
+admirable, being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters, and
+nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least; whereas it should seem an
+impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to make itself fit for
+great and small works.  And for your gift of speech, I call to mind what
+Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Cæsar: _Augusto profluens_, _et quæ
+principem deceret_, _eloquentia fuit_.  For if we note it well, speech
+that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or speech that savoureth of
+the affectation of art and precepts, or speech that is framed after the
+imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though never so excellent; all
+this hath somewhat servile, and holding of the subject.  But your
+Majesty’s manner of speech is, indeed, prince-like, flowing as from a
+fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into Nature’s order,
+full of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any.
+And as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emulation and
+contention of your Majesty’s virtue with your fortune; a virtuous
+disposition with a fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time
+was) of your greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the
+due time; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with most
+blessed and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and most Christian desire
+of peace, with a fortunate inclination in your neighbour princes
+thereunto: so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be
+no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty’s gifts of
+Nature and the universality and perfection of your learning.  For I am
+well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all, but
+a positive and measured truth; which is, that there hath not been since
+Christ’s time any king or temporal monarch which hath been so learned in
+all literature and erudition, divine and human.  For let a man seriously
+and diligently revolve and peruse the succession of the Emperors of Rome,
+of which Cæsar the Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and
+Marcus Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the Emperors of
+Græcia, or of the West, and then to the lines of France, Spain, England,
+Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judgment is truly made.
+For it seemeth much in a king if, by the compendious extractions of other
+men’s wits and labours, he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and
+shows of learning, or if he countenance and prefer learning and learned
+men; but to drink, indeed, of the true fountains of learning—nay, to have
+such a fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a king born—is
+almost a miracle.  And the more, because there is met in your Majesty a
+rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred literature as of profane
+and human; so as your Majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, which
+in great veneration was ascribed to the ancient Hermes: the power and
+fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the
+learning and universality of a philosopher.  This propriety inherent and
+individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be expressed not only
+in the fame and admiration of the present time, nor in the history or
+tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in some solid work, fixed
+memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a character or signature both of
+the power of a king and the difference and perfection of such a king.
+
+Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make unto your
+Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending to that end,
+whereof the sum will consist of these two parts: the former concerning
+the excellency of learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the merit
+and true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof; the latter,
+what the particular acts and works are which have been embraced and
+undertaken for the advancement of learning; and again, what defects and
+undervalues I find in such particular acts: to the end that though I
+cannot positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound unto
+you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely cogitations to
+visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, and thence to extract
+particulars for this purpose agreeable to your magnanimity and wisdom.
+
+I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these—to clear the way and, as it
+were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning the
+dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit
+objections—I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces
+which it hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance severally
+disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines,
+sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of politics, and sometimes in the
+errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.
+
+(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those things which
+are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution; that the
+aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and sin
+whereupon ensued the fall of man; that knowledge hath in it somewhat of
+the serpent, and, therefore, where it entereth into a man it makes him
+swell; _Scientia inflat_; that Solomon gives a censure, “That there is no
+end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the flesh;”
+and again in another place, “That in spacious knowledge there is much
+contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety;”
+that Saint Paul gives a caveat, “That we be not spoiled through vain
+philosophy;” that experience demonstrates how learned men have been
+arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how
+the contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our dependence upon
+God, who is the first cause.
+
+(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, and the
+misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well appear these men do
+not observe or consider that it was not the pure knowledge of Nature and
+universality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give names unto
+other creatures in Paradise as they were brought before him according
+unto their proprieties, which gave the occasion to the fall; but it was
+the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give law
+unto himself, and to depend no more upon God’s commandments, which was
+the form of the temptation.  Neither is it any quantity of knowledge, how
+great soever, that can make the mind of man to swell; for nothing can
+fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of
+God; and, therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two principal senses of
+inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never
+satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and if there be no
+fulness, then is the continent greater than the content: so of knowledge
+itself and the mind of man, whereto the senses are but reporters, he
+defineth likewise in these words, placed after that calendar or
+ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of times and seasons for
+all actions and purposes, and concludeth thus: “God hath made all things
+beautiful, or decent, in the true return of their seasons.  Also He hath
+placed the world in man’s heart, yet cannot man find out the work which
+God worketh from the beginning to the end”—declaring not obscurely that
+God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the
+image of the universal world, and joyful to receive the impression
+thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only delighted in
+beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but raised also
+to find out and discern the ordinances and decrees which throughout all
+those changes are infallibly observed.  And although he doth insinuate
+that the supreme or summary law of Nature (which he calleth “the work
+which God worketh from the beginning to the end”) is not possible to be
+found out by man, yet that doth not derogate from the capacity of the
+mind; but may be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life,
+ill conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from hand to
+hand, and many other inconveniences, whereunto the condition of man is
+subject.  For that nothing parcel of the world is denied to man’s inquiry
+and invention, he doth in another place rule over, when he saith, “The
+spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the
+inwardness of all secrets.”  If, then, such be the capacity and receipt
+of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no danger at all in the
+proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it should
+make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of
+knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken without
+the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or
+malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or
+swelling.  This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so
+sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to the former
+clause; for so he saith, “Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up;”
+not unlike unto that which he deilvereth in another place: “If I spake,”
+saith he, “with the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it
+were but as a tinkling cymbal.”  Not but that it is an excellent thing to
+speak with the tongues of men and angels, but because, if it be severed
+from charity, and not referred to the good of men and mankind, it hath
+rather a sounding and unworthy glory than a meriting and substantial
+virtue.  And as for that censure of Solomon concerning the excess of
+writing and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth
+from knowledge, and that admonition of St. Paul, “That we be not seduced
+by vain philosophy,” let those places be rightly understood; and they do,
+indeed, excellently set forth the true bounds and limitations whereby
+human knowledge is confined and circumscribed, and yet without any such
+contracting or coarctation, but that it may comprehend all the universal
+nature of things; for these limitations are three: the first, “That we do
+not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality;” the
+second, “That we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves
+repose and contentment, and not distaste or repining;” the third, “That
+we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the
+mysteries of God.”  For as touching the first of these, Solomon doth
+excellently expound himself in another place of the same book, where he
+saith: “I saw well that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance as light
+doth from darkness; and that the wise man’s eyes keep watch in his head,
+whereas this fool roundeth about in darkness: but withal I learned that
+the same mortality involveth them both.”  And for the second, certain it
+is there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which resulteth from knowledge
+otherwise than merely by accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is
+the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when
+men fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it to
+their particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak fears or
+vast desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble of mind which is
+spoken of; for then knowledge is no more _Lumen siccum_, whereof
+Heraclitus the profound said, _Lumen siccum optima anima_; but it
+becometh _Lumen madidum_, or _maceratum_, being steeped and infused in
+the humours of the affections.  And as for the third point, it deserveth
+to be a little stood upon, and not to be lightly passed over; for if any
+man shall think by view and inquiry into these sensible and material
+things to attain that light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the
+nature or will of God, then, indeed, is he spoiled by vain philosophy;
+for the contemplation of God’s creatures and works produceth (having
+regard to the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having
+regard to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken
+knowledge.  And, therefore, it was most aptly said by one of Plato’s
+school, “That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which
+(as we see) openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then,
+again, it obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth
+the sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
+divine.”  And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great
+learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the
+secrets of the Deity by this waxen wings of the senses.  And as for the
+conceit that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that
+the ignorance of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon
+God, which is the first cause; first, it is good to ask the question
+which Job asked of his friends: “Will you lie for God, as one man will
+lie for another, to gratify him?”  For certain it is that God worketh
+nothing in Nature but by second causes; and if they would have it
+otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards
+God, and nothing else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean
+sacrifice of a lie.  But further, it is an assured truth, and a
+conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
+philosophy may incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further
+proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion.  For in
+the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto
+the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay
+there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man
+passeth on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of
+Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily
+believe that the highest link of Nature’s chain must needs he tied to the
+foot of Jupiter’s chair.  To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak
+conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a
+man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word,
+or in the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men
+endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware
+that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to
+ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound
+these learnings together.
+
+II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from politics,
+they be of this nature: that learning doth soften men’s minds, and makes
+them more unapt for the honour and exercise of arms; that it doth mar and
+pervert men’s dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making
+them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too peremptory
+or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too immoderate and
+overweening by reason of the greatness of examples, or too incompatible
+and differing from the times by reason of the dissimilitude of examples;
+or at least, that it doth divert men’s travails from action and business,
+and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it doth
+bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more
+ready to argue than to obey and execute.  Out of this conceit Cato,
+surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed that ever lived, when
+Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to Rome, and that the young
+men of Rome began to flock about him, being allured with the sweetness
+and majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate
+that they should give him his despatch with all speed, lest he should
+infect and enchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at unawares
+bring in an alteration of the manners and customs of the state.  Out of
+the same conceit or humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage
+of his country and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of
+separation between policy and government, and between arts and sciences,
+in the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging the one to
+the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other to the Grecians: _Tu
+regere imperio popules_, _Romane_, _memento_, _Hæ tibi erunt artes_, &c.
+So likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid it as an
+article of charge and accusation against him, that he did, with the
+variety and power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men
+from due reverence to the laws and customs of their country, and that he
+did profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the
+worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence
+and speech.
+
+(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a countenance of
+gravity than any ground of justice: for experience doth warrant that,
+both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and concurrence
+in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the
+same ages.  For as ‘for men, there cannot be a better nor the hike
+instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, the
+Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle’s scholar in philosophy, and the
+other was Cicero’s rival in eloquence; or if any man had rather call for
+scholars that were great generals, than generals that were great
+scholars, let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian;
+whereof the one was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the
+other was the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of
+Persia.  And this concurrence is yet more visible in times than in
+persons, by how much an age is greater object than a man.  For both in
+Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Græcia, and Rome, the same times that are most
+renowned for arms are, likewise, most admired for learning, so that the
+greatest authors and philosophers, and the greatest captains and
+governors, have lived in the same ages.  Neither can it otherwise he: for
+as in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much about
+an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the more
+early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof the one correspondeth to
+the body, the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or near
+sequence in times.
+
+(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning, should rather
+hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable; we see it is
+accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians, which
+commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are confident and
+adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions
+of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures; we see
+it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are only men
+of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many times easily
+surprised when matter falleth out besides their experience, to the
+prejudice of the causes they handle: so by like reason it cannot be but a
+matter of doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric statesmen,
+not well mingled with men grounded in learning.  But contrariwise, it is
+almost without instance contradictory that ever any government was
+disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors.  For howsoever it
+hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and disable learned men
+by the names of _pedantes_; yet in the records of time it appeareth in
+many particulars that the governments of princes in minority
+(notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state)—have
+nevertheless excelled the government of princes of mature age, even for
+that reason which they seek to traduce, which is that by that occasion
+the state hath been in the hands of _pedantes_: for so was the state of
+Rome for the first five years, which are so much magnified, during the
+minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a _pedenti_; so it was again,
+for ten years’ space or more, during the minority of Gordianus the
+younger, with great applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus,
+a _pedanti_: so was it before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus,
+in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the
+women, who were aided by the teachers and preceptors.  Nay, let a man
+look into the government of the Bishops of Rome, as by name, into the
+government of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who were both
+at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find
+that such Popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of
+state, than those which have ascended to the papacy from an education and
+breeding in affairs of state and courts of princes; for although men bred
+in learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and
+accommodating for the present, which the Italians call _ragioni di
+stato_, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with
+patience, terming them inventions against religion and the moral virtues;
+yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are perfect in those same
+plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, which if
+they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of those
+other, no more than of physic in a sound or well-dieted body.  Neither
+can the experience of one man’s life furnish examples and precedents for
+the event of one man’s life.  For as it happeneth sometimes that the
+grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more than the
+son; so many times occurrences of present times may sort better with
+ancient examples than with those of the later or immediate times; and
+lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning than one
+man’s means can hold way with a common purse.
+
+(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions of the mind
+for policy and government, which learning is pretended to insinuate; if
+it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered withal that
+learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine or
+remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity.  For if by a
+secret operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side
+by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve;
+yea, and how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till they
+resolve.  If it make men positive and regular, it teacheth them what
+things are in their nature demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and
+as well the use of distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of
+principles and rules.  If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of
+examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of
+comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in all these it
+doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert.  And these medicines
+it conveyeth into men’s minds much more forcibly by the quickness and
+penetration of examples.  For let a man look into the errors of Clement
+VII., so lively described by Guicciardini, who served under him, or into
+the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles to
+Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute.  Let him look into
+the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how he be obstinate or
+inflexible.  Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him
+from being vaporous or imaginative.  Let him look into the errors of Cato
+II., and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the
+present world.
+
+(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to leisure and
+privateness, and make men slothful: it were a strange thing if that which
+accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should induce
+slothfulness, whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed that no
+kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned; for
+other persons love it for profit, as a hireling that loves the work for
+the wages; or for honour, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of
+men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or
+because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them
+occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth some
+faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good-humour
+and pleasing conceits towards themselves; or because it advanceth any
+other their ends.  So that as it is said of untrue valours, that some
+men’s valours are in the eyes of them that look on, so such men’s
+industries are in the eyes of others, or, at least, in regard of their
+own designments; only learned men love business as an action according to
+nature, as agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body,
+taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase, so that of
+all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business
+which can hold or detain their mind.
+
+(6) And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle in
+business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or softness of
+spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of: _Quidam tam sunt umbratiles_, _ut
+putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est_; and not of learning: well
+may it be that such a point of a man’s nature may make him give himself
+to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in his
+nature.
+
+(7) And that learning should take up too much time or leisure: I answer,
+the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath (no question)
+many vacant times of leisure while he expecteth the tides and returns of
+business (except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and
+unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done by
+others), and then the question is but how those spaces and times of
+leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in pleasure or in studies; as
+was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary Æschines, that was a
+man given to pleasure, and told him “That his orations did smell of the
+lamp.”  “Indeed,” said Demosthenes, “there is a great difference between
+the things that you and I do by lamp-light.”  So as no man need doubt
+that learning will expel business, but rather it will keep and defend the
+possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at
+unawares may enter to the prejudice of both.
+
+(8) Again, for that other conceit that learning should undermine the
+reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation and
+calumny, without all shadow of truth.  For to say that a blind custom of
+obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood,
+it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing
+man can by a light.  And it is without all controversy that learning doth
+make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, and pliant to
+government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous:
+and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the
+most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to
+tumults, seditions, and changes.
+
+(9) And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well punished for
+his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he offended; for
+when he was past threescore years old, he was taken with an extreme
+desire to go to school again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to the end
+to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well demonstrate that his former
+censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity, than
+according to the inward sense of his own opinion.  And as for Virgil’s
+verses, though it pleased him to brave the world in taking to the Romans
+the art of empire, and leaving to others the arts of subjects, yet so
+much is manifest—that the Romans never ascended to that height of empire
+till the time they had ascended to the height of other arts.  For in the
+time of the two first Cæsars, which had the art of government in greatest
+perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro; the best
+historiographer, Titus Livius; the best antiquary, Marcus Varro; and the
+best or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are
+known.  As for the accusation of Socrates, the time must be remembered
+when it was prosecuted; which was under the Thirty Tyrants, the most
+base, bloody, and envious persons that have governed; which revolution of
+state was no sooner over but Socrates, whom they had made a person
+criminal, was made a person heroical, and his memory accumulate with
+honours divine and human; and those discourses of his which were then
+termed corrupting of manners, were after acknowledged for sovereign
+medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been received ever since
+till this day.  Let this, therefore, serve for answer to politiques,
+which in their humorous severity, or in their feigned gravity, have
+presumed to throw imputations upon learning; which redargution
+nevertheless (save that we know not whether our labours may extend to
+other ages) were not needful for the present, in regard of the love and
+reverence towards learning which the example and countenance of two so
+learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as Castor and
+Pollux, _lucida sidera_, stars of excellent light and most benign
+influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority in our nation.
+
+III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or
+diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men
+themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their
+fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their studies.  For
+the first, it is not in their power; and the second is accidental; the
+third only is proper to be handled: but because we are not in hand with
+true measure, but with popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to
+speak somewhat of the two former.  The derogations therefore which grow
+to learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either in
+respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life and
+meanness of employments.
+
+(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually to
+begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as other men, by reason
+they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase, it were
+good to leave the commonplace in commendation of povery to some friar to
+handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this point when he
+said, “That the kingdom of the clergy had been long before at an end, if
+the reputation and reverence towards the poverty of friars had not borne
+out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of bishops and
+prelates.”  So a man might say that the felicity and delicacy of princes
+and great persons had long since turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the
+poverty of learning had not kept up civility and honour of life; but
+without any such advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverent
+and honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in the Roman
+state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes.  For we see what
+Titus Livius saith in his introduction: _Cæterum aut me amor negotii
+suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec major_, _nec sanctior_,
+_nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit_; _nec in quam tam sero avaritia
+luxuriaque immigraverint_; _nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac
+parsimoniæ honos fuerit_.  We see likewise, after that the state of Rome
+was not itself, but did degenerate, how that person that took upon him to
+be counsellor to Julius Cæsar after his victory where to begin his
+restoration of the state, maketh it of all points the most summary to
+take away the estimation of wealth: _Verum hæc et omnia mala pariter cum
+honore pecuniæ desinent_; _si neque magistratus_, _neque alia vulgo
+cupienda_, _venalia erunt_.  To conclude this point: as it was truly said
+that _Paupertas est virtutis fortuna_, though sometimes it come from
+vice, so it may be fitly said that, though some times it may proceed from
+misgovernment and accident.  Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in
+censure, _Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons_; and in precept, “Buy
+the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and knowledge;” judging that
+means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to
+means.  And as for the privateness or obscureness (as it may be in vulgar
+estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men, it is a theme so
+common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in
+comparison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty,
+pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no man
+handleth it but handleth it well; such a consonancy it hath to men’s
+conceits in the expressing, and to men’s consents in the allowing.  This
+only I will add, that learned men forgotten in states and not living in
+the eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral
+of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others were, Tacitus
+saith, _Eo ipso præfulgebant quod non visebantur_.
+
+(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most traduced to
+contempt is that the government of youth is commonly allotted to them;
+which age, because it is the age of least authority, it is transferred to
+the disesteeming of those employments wherein youth is conversant, and
+which are conversant about youth.  But how unjust this traducement is (if
+you will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure of reason)
+may appear in that we see men are more curious what they put into a new
+vessel than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould they lay about a young
+plant than about a plant corroborate; so as this weakest terms and times
+of all things use to have the best applications and helps.  And will you
+hearken to the Hebrew rabbins?  “Your young men shall see visions, and
+your old men shall dream dreams:” say they, youth is the worthier age,
+for that visions are nearer apparitions of God than dreams?  And let it
+be noted that howsoever the condition of life of _pedantes_ hath been
+scorned upon theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern
+looseness or negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of
+schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times did
+always make a just complaint, that states were too busy with their laws
+and too negligent in point of education: which excellent part of ancient
+discipline hath been in some sort revived of late times by the colleges
+of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard of their superstition I may
+say, _Quo meliores_, _eo deteriores_; yet in regard of this, and some
+other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I may say, as
+Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus, _Talis quum sis_, _utunam noster
+esses_.  And that much touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of
+learned men.
+
+(4) As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing personal and
+individual: and no doubt there be amongst them, as in other professions,
+of all temperatures: but yet so as it is not without truth which is said,
+that _Abeunt studua in mores_, studies have an influence and operation
+upon the manners of those that are conversant in them.
+
+(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my part cannot
+find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of learned
+men; not inherent to them as they are learned; except it be a fault
+(which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato II., Seneca,
+and many more) that because the times they read of are commonly better
+than the times they live in, and the duties taught better than the duties
+practised, they contend sometimes too far to bring things to perfection,
+and to reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of precepts or
+examples of too great height.  And yet hereof they have caveats enough in
+their own walks.  For Solon, when he was asked whether he had given his
+citizens the best laws, answered wisely, “Yea, of such as they would
+receive:” and Plato, finding that his own heart could not agree with the
+corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear place or office, saying,
+“That a man’s country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with
+humble persuasions, and not with contestations.”  And Cæsar’s counsellor
+put in the same caveat, _Non ad vetera instituta revocans quæ jampridem
+corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt_; and Cicero noteth this error directly
+in Cato II. when he writes to his friend Atticus, _Cato optime sentit_,
+_sed nocet interdum reipublicæ_; _loquitur enim tanquam in republicâ
+Platonis_, _non tanquam in fæce Romuli_.  And the same Cicero doth excuse
+and expound the philosophers for going too far and being too exact in
+their prescripts when he saith, _Isti ipse præceptores virtutis et
+magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura vellet
+protulisse_, _ut cum ad ultimum animo contendissemus_, _ibi tamen_, _ubi
+oportet_, _consisteremus_: and yet himself might have said, _Monitis sum
+minor ipse meis_; for it was his own fault, though not in so extreme a
+degree.
+
+(6) Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been incident to
+learned men, which is, that they have esteemed the preservation, good,
+and honour of their countries or masters before their own fortunes or
+safeties.  For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians: “If it please you
+to note it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should grow great
+amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians; but they be of
+that nature as they are sometimes not good for me to give, but are always
+good for you to follow.”  And so Seneca, after he had consecrated that
+_Quinquennium Neronis_ to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on
+his honest and loyal course of good and free counsel after his master
+grew extremely corrupt in his government.  Neither can this point
+otherwise be, for learning endueth men’s minds with a true sense of the
+frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity
+of their soul and vocation, so that it is impossible for them to esteem
+that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of
+their being and ordainment, and therefore are desirous to give their
+account to God, and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings and
+the states that they serve) in those words, _Ecce tibi lucrefeci_, and
+not _Ecce mihi lucrefeci_; whereas the corrupter sort of mere politiques,
+that have not their thoughts established by learning in the love and
+apprehension of duty, nor never look abroad into universality, do refer
+all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the
+world, as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes, never
+caring in all tempests what becomes of the ship of state, so they may
+save themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune; whereas men that
+feel the weight of duty and know the limits of self-love use to make good
+their places and duties, though with peril; and if they stand in
+seditious and violent alterations, it is rather the reverence which many
+times both adverse parts do give to honesty, than any versatile advantage
+of their own carriage.  But for this point of tender sense and fast
+obligation of duty which learning doth endue the mind withal, howsoever
+fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their corrupt principles may
+despise it, yet it will receive an open allowance, and therefore needs
+the less disproof or excuse.
+
+(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be more
+properly defended than truly denied, is that they fail sometimes in
+applying themselves to particular persons, which want of exact
+application ariseth from two causes—the one, because the largeness of
+their mind can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite
+observation or examination of the nature and customs of one person, for
+it is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man, _Satis magnum alter
+alteri theatrum sumus_.  Nevertheless I shall yield that he that cannot
+contract the sight of his mind as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth
+a great faculty.  But there is a second cause, which is no inability, but
+a rejection upon choice and judgment.  For the honest and just bounds of
+observation by one person upon another extend no further but to
+understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby
+to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon
+reasonable guard and caution in respect of a man’s self.  But to be
+speculative into another man to the end to know how to work him, or wind
+him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven,
+and not entire and ingenuous; which as in friendship it is want of
+integrity, so towards princes or superiors is want of duty.  For the
+custom of the Levant, which is that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix
+their eyes upon princes, is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but the
+moral is good; for men ought not, by cunning and bent observations, to
+pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings, which the Scripture hath
+declared to be inscrutable.
+
+(8) There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part)
+which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to
+observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and
+commit errors in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar
+sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that
+which they find wanting in them in smaller.  But this consequence doth
+oft deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which was said by
+Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of
+his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this question,
+pertinently and justly, when, being invited to touch a lute, he said, “He
+could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state.”  So no
+doubt many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy
+which are to seek in little and punctual occasions.  I refer them also to
+that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the
+gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and owls and
+antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious liquors and
+confections; acknowledging that, to an external report, he was not
+without superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly
+replenished with excellent virtues and powers.  And so much touching the
+point of manners of learned men.
+
+(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to some
+conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors of
+learning have wronged themselves and gone too far; such as were those
+trencher philosophers which in the later age of the Roman state were
+usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn
+parasites, of which kind, Lucian maketh a merry description of the
+philosopher that the great lady took to ride with her in her coach, and
+would needs have him carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and
+yet uncomely, the page scoffed and said, “That he doubted the philosopher
+of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic.”  But, above all the rest, this
+gross and palpable flattery whereunto many not unlearned have abased and
+abused their wits and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into
+Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and
+estimation of learning.  Neither is the modern dedication of books and
+writings, as to patrons, to be commended, for that books (such as are
+worthy the name of books) ought to have no patrons but truth and reason.
+And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to private and equal
+friends, or to entitle the books with their names; or if to kings and
+great persons, it was to some such as the argument of the book was fit
+and proper for; but these and the like courses may deserve rather
+reprehension than defence.
+
+(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application of
+learned men to men in fortune.  For the answer was good that Diogenes
+made to one that asked him in mockery, “How it came to pass that
+philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of
+philosophers?”  He answered soberly, and yet sharply, “Because the one
+sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not.”  And of the like
+nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having a petition to
+Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon
+Dionysius stayed and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and afterwards
+some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that
+he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a
+private suit to fall at a tyrant’s feet; but he answered, “It was not his
+fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in his feet.”
+Neither was it accounted weakness, but discretion, in him that would not
+dispute his best with Adrianus Cæsar, excusing himself, “That it was
+reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions.”  These and the
+like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience,
+cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some outward baseness, yet
+in a judgment truly made they are to be accounted submissions to the
+occasion and not to the person.
+
+IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have intervened
+amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is that which is
+principal and proper to the present argument; wherein my purpose is not
+to make a justification of the errors, but by a censure and separation of
+the errors to make a justification of that which is good and sound, and
+to deliver that from the aspersion of the other.  For we see that it is
+the manner of men to scandalise and deprave that which retaineth the
+state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is corrupt and
+degenerate, as the heathens in the primitive Church used to blemish and
+taint the Christians with the faults and corruptions of heretics.  But
+nevertheless I have no meaning at this time to make any exact
+animadversion of the errors and impediments in matters of learning, which
+are more secret and remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto
+such as do fall under or near unto a popular observation.
+
+(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby
+learning hath been most traduced.  For those things we do esteem vain
+which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth or
+no use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either credulous or
+curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason as
+well as in experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I
+may term them) of learning—the first, fantastical learning; the second,
+contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning; vain imaginations,
+vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the last I will begin.
+Martin Luther, conducted, no doubt, by a higher Providence, but in
+discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against
+the Bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and
+finding his own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his
+own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times
+to his succours to make a party against the present time.  So that the
+ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long time
+slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved.  This, by
+consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the
+languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better
+understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and
+applying their words.  And thereof grew, again, a delight in their manner
+of style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing, which was
+much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the
+propounders of those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the
+schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings
+were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and
+frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit
+of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may
+call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word.  And again, because the great
+labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say,
+_Execrabilis ista turba_, _quæ non novit legem_), for the winning and
+persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request
+eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access
+into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes
+concurring—the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen,
+the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching—did bring in
+an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began
+to flourish.  This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more
+after words than matter—more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the
+round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the
+clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and
+figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of
+argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment.  Then grew the flowing
+and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price.  Then
+did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator
+and Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and
+Imitation, and the like.  Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their
+lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all
+young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of
+learning.  Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo,
+_Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone_; and the echo answered in
+Greek, _One_, _Asine_.  Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be
+utterly despised as barbarous.  In sum, the whole inclination and bent of
+those times was rather towards copy than weight.
+
+(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when men study
+words and not matter; whereof, though I have represented an example of
+late times, yet it hath been and will be _secundum majus et minus_ in all
+time.  And how is it possible but this should have an operation to
+discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
+men’s works like the first letter of a patent or limited book, which
+though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter?  It seems to me
+that Pygmalion’s frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity;
+for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of
+reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in
+love with a picture.
+
+(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be condemned, to
+clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy itself with sensible
+and plausible elocution.  For hereof we have great examples in Xenophon,
+Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree; and hereof
+likewise there is great use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of
+truth and the deep progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because
+it is too early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire
+of further search before we come to a just period.  But then if a man be
+to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of conference,
+counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall he find it
+prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that manner.  But
+the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules, when he
+saw the image of Adonis, Venus’ minion, in a temple, said in disdain,
+_Nil sacri es_; so there is none of Hercules’ followers in learning—that
+is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers into truth—but will
+despise those delicacies and affectations, as indeed capable of no
+divineness.  And thus much of the first disease or distemper of learning.
+
+(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former: for as
+substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so contrariwise vain
+matter is worse than vain words: wherein it seemeth the reprehension of
+St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the
+times following; and not only respective to divinity, but extensive to
+all knowledge: _Devita profanas vocum novitates_, _et oppositiones falsi
+nominis scientiæ_.  For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected
+and falsified science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the
+other, the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce
+oppositions, and so questions and altercations.  Surely, like as many
+substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into
+worms;—so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and
+dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term
+them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and
+life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality.  This
+kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who
+having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety
+of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors
+(chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the
+cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of
+nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite
+agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which
+are extant in their books.  For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon
+matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh
+according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon
+itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings
+forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread
+and work, but of no substance or profit.
+
+(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two sorts: either
+in the subject itself that they handle, when it is a fruitless
+speculation or controversy (whereof there are no small number both in
+divinity and philosophy), or in the manner or method of handling of a
+knowledge, which amongst them was this—upon every particular position or
+assertion to frame objections, and to those objections, solutions; which
+solutions were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions:
+whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of the
+old man’s faggot, in the bond.  For the harmony of a science, supporting
+each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation
+and suppression of all the smaller sort of objections.  But, on the other
+side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by
+one, you may quarrel with them and bend them and break them at your
+pleasure: so that, as was said of Seneca, _Verborum minutiis rerum
+frangit pondera_, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen, _Quæstionum
+minutiis scientiarum frangunt soliditatem_.  For were it not better for a
+man in fair room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of
+lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle into every corner?
+And such is their method, that rests not so much upon evidence of truth
+proved by arguments, authorities, similitudes, examples, as upon
+particular confutations and solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and
+objection; breeding for the most part one question as fast as it solveth
+another; even as in the former resemblance, when you carry the light into
+one corner, you darken the rest; so that the fable and fiction of Scylla
+seemeth to be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge;
+which was transformed into a comely virgin for the upper parts; but then
+_Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris_: so the generalities of
+the schoolmen are for a while good and proportionable; but then when you
+descend into their distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb
+for the use and benefit of man’s life, they end in monstrous altercations
+and barking questions.  So as it is not possible but this quality of
+knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to
+contemn truths upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to
+think they are all out of their way which never meet; and when they see
+such digladiation about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they
+easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, _Verba ista sunt
+senum otiosorum_.
+
+(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to their great
+thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had joined variety and
+universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent
+lights, to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge; but as
+they are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark
+keeping.  But as in the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined
+to leave the oracle of God’s word, and to vanish in the mixture of their
+own inventions; so in the inquisition of nature, they ever left the
+oracle of God’s works, and adored the deceiving and deformed images which
+the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few received authors or
+principles, did represent unto them.  And thus much for the second
+disease of learning.
+
+(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth deceit or
+untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest; as that which doth destroy
+the essential form of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of
+truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing
+no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected.  This vice therefore
+brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving and aptness to be
+deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they appear to be of a
+diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning and the other of
+simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most part concur: for, as the
+verse noteth—
+
+    “Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est,”
+
+an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a credulous man
+is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe
+rumours will as easily augment rumours and add somewhat to them of his
+own; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, _Fingunt simul
+creduntque_: so great an affinity hath fiction and belief.
+
+(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things weakly
+authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the subject: for it
+is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact;
+or else of matter of art and opinion.  As to the former, we see the
+experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history;
+which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations of
+miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and other
+holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels and images: which though
+they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the
+superstitious simplicity of some and the politic toleration of others
+holding them but as divine poesies, yet after a period of time, when the
+mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives’
+fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of
+Antichrist, to the great scandal and detriment of religion.
+
+(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and
+judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in the writings of
+Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught
+with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously
+untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural philosophy with
+the grave and sober kind of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity of
+Aristotle is worthy to be observed, that, having made so diligent and
+exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with
+any vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all
+prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into one
+book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such
+whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or
+weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities and
+reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the
+memory of men.
+
+(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and
+opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too much belief is
+attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art.  The
+sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and confederacy
+with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number:
+astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless,
+the ends or pretences are noble.  For astrology pretendeth to discover
+that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe
+and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural
+philosophy from variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and
+alchemy pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies
+which in mixtures of natures are incorporate.  But the derivations and
+prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the practices,
+are full of error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have
+sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring
+themselves to auricular traditions and such other devices, to save the
+credit of impostures.  And yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that
+it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable; that,
+when he died, told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried
+underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground, and
+gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and digging the
+mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year
+following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to
+light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as
+well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man’s life.
+
+(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors in
+sciences, in making them dictators, that their words should stand, and
+not consuls, to give advice; the damage is infinite that sciences have
+received thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low at a
+stay without growth or advancement.  For hence it hath come, that in arts
+mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth and
+perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and time
+leeseth and corrupteth.  So we see artillery, sailing, printing, and the
+like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accommodated and
+refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies and sciences of Aristotle,
+Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at
+the first, and by time degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason is no
+other, but that in the former many wits and industries have contributed
+in one; and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about
+the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved than
+illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the level of the
+first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so knowledge derived from
+Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of examination, will not rise again
+higher than the knowledge of Aristotle.  And, therefore, although the
+position be good, _Oportet discentem credere_, yet it must be coupled
+with this, _Oportet edoctum judicare_; for disciples do owe unto masters
+only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own judgment till they
+be fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual
+captivity; and therefore, to conclude this point, I will say no more, but
+so let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of
+authors, be not deprived of his due—which is, further and further to
+discover truth.  Thus have I gone over these three diseases of learning;
+besides the which there are some other rather peccant humours than formed
+diseases, which, nevertheless, are not so secret and intrinsic, but that
+they fall under a popular observation and traducement, and, therefore,
+are not to be passed over.
+
+V. (1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two extremities:
+the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it seemeth the children of
+time do take after the nature and malice of the father.  For as he
+devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the
+other; while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and novelty
+cannot be content to add but it must deface; surely the advice of the
+prophet is the true direction in this matter, _State super vias
+antiquas_, _et videte quænam sit via recta et bona et ambulate in ea_.
+Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand
+thereupon and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is
+well taken, then to make progression.  And to speak truly, _Antiquitas
+sæculi juventus mundi_.  These times are the ancient times, when the
+world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient _ordine
+retrogrado_, by a computation backward from ourselves.
+
+(2) Another error induced by the former is a distrust that anything
+should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed and
+passed over so long time: as if the same objection were to be made to
+time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods; of which
+he wondereth that they begot so many children in old time, and begot none
+in his time; and asketh whether they were become septuagenary, or whether
+the law _Papia_, made against old men’s marriages, had restrained them.
+So it seemeth men doubt lest time is become past children and generation;
+wherein contrariwise we see commonly the levity and unconstancy of men’s
+judgments, which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and
+as soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as we see
+in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as
+a vast and impossible enterprise; and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to
+make no more of it than this, _Nil aliud quàm bene ausus vana
+contemnere_.  And the same happened to Columbus in the western
+navigation.  But in intellectual matters it is much more common, as may
+be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid; which till they be
+demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent; but being demonstrate, our
+mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation (as the lawyers speak), as
+if we had known them before.
+
+(3) Another error, that hath also some affinity with the former, is a
+conceit that of former opinions or sects after variety and examination
+the best hath still prevailed and suppressed the rest; so as if a man
+should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light upon
+somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion; as if
+the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude’s sake, were not ready to
+give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial than to that
+which is substantial and profound for the truth is, that time seemeth to
+be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that
+which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is
+weighty and solid.
+
+(4) Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the
+over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods;
+from which time commonly sciences receive small or no augmentation.  But
+as young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a
+further stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations,
+it is in growth; but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it
+may, perchance, be further polished, and illustrate and accommodated for
+use and practice, but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.
+
+(5) Another error which doth succeed that which we last mentioned is,
+that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have
+abandoned universality, or _philosophia prima_, which cannot but cease
+and stop all progression.  For no perfect discovery can be made upon a
+flat or a level; neither is it possible to discover the more remote and
+deeper parts of any science if you stand but upon the level of the same
+science, and ascend not to a higher science.
+
+(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a kind
+of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means whereof, men
+have withdrawn themselves too much from the contemplation of nature, and
+the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in their own
+reason and conceits.  Upon these intellectualists, which are
+notwithstanding commonly taken for the most sublime and divine
+philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying:—“Men sought truth
+in their own little worlds, and not in the great and common world;” for
+they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of God’s
+works; and contrariwise by continual meditation and agitation of wit do
+urge and, as it were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give
+oracles unto them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.
+
+(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter is, that men
+have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines with some
+conceits which they have most admired, or some sciences which they have
+most applied, and given all things else a tincture according to them,
+utterly untrue and improper.  So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy
+with theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of Plato,
+Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were the arts which
+had a kind of primogeniture with them severally.  So have the alchemists
+made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus
+our countryman hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a
+loadstone.  So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of the nature
+of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a harmony,
+saith pleasantly, _Hic ab arte sua non recessit_, _&c._  But of these
+conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, _Qui
+respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant_.
+
+(8) Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion
+without due and mature suspension of judgment.  For the two ways of
+contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by
+the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end
+impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a
+while fair and even.  So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with
+certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin
+with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
+
+(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of
+knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and not
+ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and not
+easiest examined.  It is true, that in compendious treatises for practice
+that form is not to be disallowed; but in the true handling of knowledge
+men ought not to fall either on the one side into the vein of Velleius
+the Epicurean, _Nil tam metuens quam ne dubitare aliqua de revideretur_:
+nor, on the other side, into Socrates, his ironical doubting of all
+things; but to propound things sincerely with more or less asseveration,
+as they stand in a man’s own judgment proved more or less.
+
+(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to themselves,
+whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas the more constant and
+devote kind of professors of any science ought to propound to themselves
+to make some additions to their science, they convert their labours to
+aspire to certain second prizes: as to be a profound interpreter or
+commentor, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical
+compounder or abridger, and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be
+sometimes improved, but seldom augmented.
+
+(11) But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or
+misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge.  For men have
+entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural
+curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds
+with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and
+sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most
+times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true
+account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if
+there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and
+restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk
+up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind
+to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and
+contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for
+the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.  But this is
+that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and
+action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than
+they have been: a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets,
+Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation; and Jupiter, the planet of
+civil society and action, howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and
+action, that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre
+and profession; for I am not ignorant how much that diverteth and
+interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of knowledge, like unto the
+golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which, while she goeth aside and
+stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered,
+
+    “Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.” {39}
+
+Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy down
+from heaven to converse upon the earth—that is, to leave natural
+philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and policy.  But
+as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and
+benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both philosophies to
+separate and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void,
+and to preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that
+knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as
+a bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master’s use; but as a spouse,
+for generation, fruit, and comfort.
+
+(12) Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissection, those
+peccant humours (the principal of them) which have not only given
+impediment to the proficience of learning, but have given also occasion
+to the traducement thereof: wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be
+remembered, _fidelia vulnera amantis_, _sed dolosa oscula malignantis_.
+This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better believed in
+that which I shall say pertaining to commendation; because I have
+proceeded so freely in that which concerneth censure.  And yet I have no
+purpose to enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the
+Muses (though I am of opinion that it is long since their rites were duly
+celebrated), but my intent is, without varnish or amplification justly to
+weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other things, and to
+take the true value thereof by testimonies and arguments, divine and
+human.
+
+VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the
+archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of God,
+as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with sobriety;
+wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning, for all learning is
+knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original, and therefore
+we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the
+Scriptures call it.
+
+(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a double
+emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more properly to power,
+the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the subsistence of the
+matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of the form.  This being
+supposed, it is to be observed that for anything which appeareth in the
+history of the creation, the confused mass and matter of heaven and earth
+was made in a moment, and the order and disposition of that chaos or mass
+was the work of six days; such a note of difference it pleased God to put
+upon the works of power, and the works of wisdom; wherewith concurreth,
+that in the former it is not set down that God said, “Let there be heaven
+and earth,” as it is set down of the works following; but actually, that
+God made heaven and earth: the one carrying the style of a manufacture,
+and the other of a law, decree, or counsel.
+
+(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to spirits: we
+find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that
+supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, the first place or degree is
+given to the angels of love, which are termed seraphim; the second to the
+angels of light, which are termed cherubim; and the third, and so
+following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all
+angels of power and ministry; so as this angels of knowledge and
+illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.
+
+(4) To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and
+material forms, we read the first form that was created was light, which
+hath a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal things to
+knowledge in spirits and incorporal things.
+
+(5) So in the distribution of days we see the day wherein God did rest
+and contemplate His own works was blessed above all the days wherein He
+did effect and accomplish them.
+
+(6) After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man was
+placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so appointed to him,
+could be no other than work of contemplation; that is, when the end of
+work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity; for there
+being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, man’s
+employment must of consequence have been matter of delight in the
+experiment, and not matter of labour for the use.  Again, the first acts
+which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary parts of
+knowledge; the view of creatures, and the imposition of names.  As for
+the knowledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched before, not
+the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge of good and
+evil; wherein the supposition was, that God’s commandments or
+prohibitions were not the originals of good and evil, but that they had
+other beginnings, which man aspired to know, to the end to make a total
+defection from God and to depend wholly upon himself.
+
+(7) To pass on: in the first event or occurrence after the fall of man,
+we see (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not violating at all
+the truth of this story or letter) an image of the two estates, the
+contemplative state and the active state, figured in the two persons of
+Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most primitive trades of life;
+that of the shepherd (who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and
+lying in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life), and
+that of the husbandman, where we see again the favour and election of God
+went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of the ground.
+
+(8) So in the age before the flood, the holy records within those few
+memorials which are there entered and registered have vouchsafed to
+mention and honour the name of the inventors and authors of music and
+works in metal.  In the age after the flood, the first great judgment of
+God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues; whereby the
+open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly
+imbarred.
+
+(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God’s first pen: he is adorned
+by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, “That he was seen
+in all the learning of the Egyptians,” which nation we know was one of
+the most ancient schools of the world: for so Plato brings in the
+Egyptian priest saying unto Solon, “You Grecians are ever children; you
+have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of knowledge.”  Take a view
+of the ceremonial law of Moses; you shall find, besides the prefiguration
+of Christ, the badge or difference of the people of God, the exercise and
+impression of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits thereof, that
+some of the most learned Rabbins have travailed profitably and profoundly
+to observe, some of them a natural, some of them a moral sense, or
+reduction of many of the ceremonies and ordinances.  As in the law of the
+leprosy, where it is said, “If the whiteness have overspread the flesh,
+the patient may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any whole flesh
+remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean;” one of them noteth a
+principle of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before maturity
+than after; and another noteth a position of moral philosophy, that men
+abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners, as those that are half
+good and half evil.  So in this and very many other places in that law,
+there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion of
+philosophy.
+
+(10)  So likewise in that excellent hook of Job, if it be revolved with
+diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural
+philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the roundness of the world,
+_Qui extendit aquilonem super vacuum_, _et appendit terram super
+nihilum_; wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north,
+and the finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched.  So
+again, matter of astronomy: _Spiritus ejus ornavit cælos_, _et
+obstetricante manu ejus eductus est Coluber tortuoses_.  And in another
+place, _Nunquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas_, _aut gyrum
+Arcturi poteris dissipare_?  Where the fixing of the stars, ever standing
+at equal distance, is with great elegancy noted.  And in another place,
+_Qui facit Arcturum_, _et Oriona_, _et Hyadas_, _et interiora Austri_;
+where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern pole,
+calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern stars were in
+that climate unseen.  Matter of generation: _Annon sicut lac mulsisti
+me_, _et sicut caseum coagulasti me_? &c.  Matter of minerals: _Habet
+argentum venarum suarum principia_; _et auro locus est in quo conflatur_,
+_ferrum de terra tollitur_, _et lapis solutus calore in æs vertitur_; and
+so forwards in that chapter.
+
+(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift or
+endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon’s petition and in God’s
+assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and temporal
+felicity.  By virtue of which grant or donative of God Solomon became
+enabled not only to write those excellent parables or aphorisms
+concerning divine and moral philosophy, but also to compile a natural
+history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon
+the wall (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb), and
+also of all things that breathe or move.  Nay, the same Solomon the king,
+although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings,
+of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and
+renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but
+only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly,
+“The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to
+find it out;” as if, according to the innocent play of children, the
+Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them
+found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be
+God’s playfellows in that game; considering the great commandment of wits
+and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them.
+
+(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our
+Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His
+power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors
+of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles.
+And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in
+the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but _vehicula scientiæ_.
+
+(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to use
+for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first He did
+employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, more
+evidently to declare His immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom
+or knowledge; yet nevertheless that counsel of His was no sooner
+performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession He did send His
+divine truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with
+servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was only learned
+amongst the Apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New
+Testament.
+
+(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the
+Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of this
+heathen; insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julianus (whereby it was
+interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or
+exercises of learning) was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious
+engine and machination against the Christian Faith than were all the
+sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation
+and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever
+obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the
+censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men;
+in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen
+antiquity and authors.  But contrariwise it was the Christian Church,
+which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the
+north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred
+lap and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning, which
+otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been.
+
+(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our
+fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to account for
+their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious
+and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was
+ordained by the Divine Providence that there should attend withal a
+renovation and new spring of all other knowledges.  And on the other side
+we see the Jesuits, who partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation
+and provocation of their example, have much quickened and strengthened
+the state of learning; we see (I say) what notable service and reparation
+they have done to the Roman see.
+
+(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be
+two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration,
+which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion.
+The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation of
+the glory of God.  For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite
+us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if we
+should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they
+first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the
+majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some
+excellent jeweller by that only which is set out toward the street in his
+shop.  The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative
+against unbelief and error.  For our Saviour saith, “You err, not knowing
+the Scriptures, nor the power of God;” laying before us two books or
+volumes to study, if we will be secured from error: first the Scriptures,
+revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing His power;
+whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our
+understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general
+notions of reason and rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in
+drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is
+chiefly signed and engraven upon His works.  Thus much therefore for
+divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of
+learning.
+
+VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a discourse
+of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice of those things
+which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them.  First,
+therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the
+highest to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God.  This unto the
+Christians is as the forbidden fruit.  But we speak now separately of
+human testimony, according to which—that which the Grecians call
+_apotheosis_, and the Latins _relatio inter divos_—was the supreme honour
+which man could attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a
+formal decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman Emperors),
+but by an inward assent and belief.  Which honour, being so high, had
+also a degree or middle term; for there were reckoned above human
+honours, honours heroical and divine: in the attribution and distribution
+of which honours we see antiquity made this difference; that whereas
+founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of
+tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit,
+were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods, such as were
+Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the like; on the other side, such
+as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities
+towards man’s life, were ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as
+was Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and others.  And justly; for the
+merit of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
+and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and good,
+yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where they
+fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of heaven, which are
+permanent and universal.  The former again is mixed with strife and
+perturbation, but the latter hath the true character of Divine Presence,
+coming in _aura leni_, without noise or agitation.
+
+(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the
+inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former,
+of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which merit was
+lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus’
+theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their
+several appetites—some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel—stood all
+sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp, the
+sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but
+every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the
+nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed
+desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear
+to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and
+persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and
+peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition
+and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and
+confusion.
+
+(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves, or persons
+of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular
+estates, are endued with learning.  For although he might be thought
+partial to his own profession that said “Then should people and estates
+be happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings;” yet
+so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and
+governors there have been ever the best times: for howsoever kings may
+have their imperfections in their passions and customs, yet, if they be
+illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and
+morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and
+peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when
+counsellors and servants stand mute and silent.  And senators or
+counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed upon more safe and
+substantial principles, than counsellors which are only men of
+experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other
+discover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to the agility
+of their wit to ward or avoid them.
+
+(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still the law
+of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples) doth best
+appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitianus the emperor
+until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a succession of six princes,
+all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of learning, which age
+for temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever the
+Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world) enjoyed—a matter
+revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was
+slain: for he thought there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck
+and a head of gold, which came accordingly to pass in those golden times
+which succeeded; of which princes we will make some commemoration;
+wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter
+for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, yet,
+because it is pertinent to the point in hand—_Neque semper arcum tendit
+Apollo_—and to name them only were too naked and cursory, I will not omit
+it altogether.  The first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose
+government is by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life:
+_Postquam divus Nerva res oluim insociabiles miscuisset_, _imperium et
+libertatem_.  And in token of his learning, the last act of his short
+reign left to memory was a missive to his adopted son, Trajan, proceeding
+upon some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended
+in a verse of Homer’s—
+
+    “Telis, Phœbe, tuis, lacrymas ulciscere nostras.”
+
+(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but if we will
+hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, “He that receiveth a
+prophet in the name of a prophet shall have a prophet’s reward,” he
+deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes; for there was
+not a greater admirer of learning or benefactor of learning, a founder of
+famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned men to office, and
+familiar converser with learned professors and preceptors who were noted
+to have then most credit in court.  On the other side how much Trajan’s
+virtue and government was admired and renowned, surely no testimony of
+grave and faithful history doth more lively set forth than that legend
+tale of Gregorius Magnum, Bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme
+envy he bare towards all heathen excellency; and yet he is reported, out
+of the love and estimation of Trajan’s moral virtues, to have made unto
+God passionate and fervent prayers for the delivery of his soul out of
+hell, and to have obtained it, with a caveat that he should make no more
+such petitions.  In this prince’s time also the persecutions against the
+Christians received intermission upon the certificate of Plinius
+Secundus, a man of excellent learning and by Trajan advanced.
+
+(6) Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that lived, and the
+most universal inquirer: insomuch as it was noted for an error in his
+mind that he desired to comprehend all things, and not to reserve himself
+for the worthiest things, falling into the like humour that was long
+before noted in Philip of Macedon, who, when he would needs overrule and
+put down an excellent musician in an argument touching music, was well
+answered by him again—“God forbid, sir,” saith he, “that your fortune
+should be so bad as to know these things better than I.”  It pleased God
+likewise to use the curiosity of this emperor as an inducement to the
+peace of His Church in those days; for having Christ in veneration, not
+as a God or Saviour, but as a wonder or novelty, and having his picture
+in his gallery matched with Apollonius (with whom in his vain imagination
+he thought its had some conformity), yet it served the turn to allay the
+bitter hatred of those times against the Christian name, so as the Church
+had peace during his time.  And for his government civil, although he did
+not attain to that of Trajan’s in glory of arms or perfection of justice,
+yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he did exceed him.  For
+Trajan erected many famous monuments and buildings, insomuch as
+Constantine the Great in emulation was wont to call him _Parietaria_,
+“wall-flower,” because his name was upon so many walls; but his buildings
+and works were more of glory and triumph than use and necessity.  But
+Adrian spent his whole reign, which was peaceable, in a perambulation or
+survey of the Roman Empire, giving order and making assignation where he
+went for re-edifying of cities, towns, and forts decayed, and for cutting
+of rivers and streams, and for making bridges and passages, and for
+policing of cities and commonalties with new ordinances and
+constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so that
+his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and decays of
+former times.
+
+(7) Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently learned,
+and had the patient and subtle wit of a schoolman, insomuch as in common
+speech (which leaves no virtue untaxed) he was called _Cymini Sector_, a
+carver or a divider of cummin seed, which is one of the least seeds.
+Such a patience he had and settled spirit to enter into the least and
+most exact differences of causes, a fruit no doubt of the exceeding
+tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which being no ways charged or
+encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or scruples, but having been
+noted for a man of the purest goodness, without all fiction or
+affectation, that hath reigned or lived, made his mind continually
+present and entire.  He likewise approached a degree nearer unto
+Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto St. Paul, “half a
+Christian,” holding their religion and law in good opinion, and not only
+ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of Christians.
+
+(5) There succeeded him the first _Divi fratres_, the two adoptive
+brethren—Lucius Commodus Verus, son to Ælius Verus, who delighted much in
+the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the poet Martial his
+Virgil; and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: whereof the latter, who obscured
+his colleague and survived him long, was named the “Philosopher,” who, as
+he excelled all the rest in learning, so he excelled them likewise in
+perfection of all royal virtues; insomuch as Julianus the emperor, in his
+book entitled _Cærsares_, being as a pasquil or satire to deride all his
+predecessors, feigned that they were all invited to a banquet of the
+gods, and Silenus the jester sat at the nether end of the table and
+bestowed a scoff on everyone as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus
+came in, Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance, not knowing where
+to carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance at his patience towards
+his wife.  And the virtue of this prince, continued with that of his
+predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the world, that
+though it were extremely dishonoured in Commodus, Caracalla, and
+Heliogabalus, who all bare the name, yet, when Alexander Severus refused
+the name because he was a stranger to the family, the Senate with one
+acclamation said, _Quomodo Augustus_, _sic et Antoninus_.  In such renown
+and veneration was the name of these two princes in those days, that they
+would have had it as a perpetual addition in all the emperors’ style.  In
+this emperor’s time also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as
+in this sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning
+in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the world.
+
+(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not presuming to speak
+of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment the most excellent is that
+of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of Britain; a
+prince that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels,
+would trouble him, I think, to find for her a parallel amongst women.
+This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even
+amongst masculine princes—whether we speak of learning, of language, or
+of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity—and unto the very
+last year of her life she accustomed to appoint set hours for reading,
+scarcely any young student in a university more daily or more duly.  As
+for her government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm)
+that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better tines,
+and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of
+her regiment.  For if there be considered, of the one side, the truth of
+religion established, the constant peace and security, the good
+administration of justice, the temperate use of the prerogative, not
+slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable
+to so excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means,
+both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of
+discontents; and there be considered, on the other side, the differences
+of religion, the troubles of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain,
+and opposition of Rome, and then that she was solitary and of herself;
+these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an instance
+so recent and so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more
+remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is concerning the
+conjunction of learning in the prince with felicity in the people.
+
+(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil
+merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and
+peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy in
+enablement towards martial and military virtue and prowess, as may be
+notably represented in the examples of Alexander the Great and Cæsar the
+Dictator (mentioned before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose
+virtues and acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the
+wonders of time in that kind; but of their affections towards learning
+and perfections in learning it is pertinent to say somewhat.
+
+(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great
+philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto him; he
+was attended with Callisthenes and divers other learned persons, that
+followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and conquests.  What price
+and estimation he had learning in doth notably appear in these three
+particulars: first, in the envy he used to express that he bare towards
+Achilles, in this, that he had so good a trumpet of his praises as
+Homer’s verses; secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave touching
+that precious cabinet of Darius, which was found among his jewels
+(whereof question was made what thing was worthy to be put into it, and
+he gave his opinion for Homer’s works); thirdly, in his letter to
+Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of nature, wherein he
+expostulateth with him for publishing the secrets or mysteries of
+philosophy; and gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more to
+excel other men in learning and knowledge than in power and empire.  And
+what use he had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his
+speeches and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that
+in all variety.
+
+(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat idle
+to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet, since the argument I
+handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall perceive I am as
+willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an Alexander, or a Cæsar, or
+an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred years since, as any that now
+liveth; for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty
+that I propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming in any man’s
+praises.  Observe, then, the speech he used of Diogenes, and see if it
+tend not to the true state of one of the greatest questions of moral
+philosophy: whether the enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of
+them, be the greatest happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly
+contented with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition,
+“were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.”  But Seneca
+inverteth it, and saith, “_Plus erat_, _quod hic nollet accipere_, _quàm
+quod ille posset dare_.”  There were more things which Diogenes would
+have refused than those were which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.
+
+(13) Observe, again, that speech which was usual with him,—“That he felt
+his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust;” and see if it were
+not a speech extracted out of the depth of natural philosophy, and liker
+to have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus than from
+Alexander.
+
+(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon the
+bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his flatterers, that
+was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and said, “Look, this is very
+blood; this is not such a liquor as Homer speaketh of, which ran from
+Venus’ hand when it was pierced by Diomedes.”
+
+(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in the speech he
+used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made against his father
+Antipater; for when Alexander happened to say, “Do you think these men
+would have come from so far to complain except they had just cause of
+grief?” and Cassander answered, “Yea, that was the matter, because they
+thought they should not be disproved;” said Alexander, laughing, “See the
+subtleties of Aristotle, to take a matter both ways, _pro et contra_,
+&c.”
+
+(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art which he
+reprehended to serve his own humour: when bearing a secret grudge to
+Callisthenes, because he was against the new ceremony of his adoration,
+feasting one night where the same Callisthenes was at the table, it was
+moved by some after supper, for entertainment sake, that Callisthenes,
+who was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or purpose at his own
+choice; which Callisthenes did, choosing the praise of the Macedonian
+nation for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner as
+the hearers were much ravished; whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased,
+said, “It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a subject; but,” saith he,
+“turn your style, and let us hear what you can say against us;” which
+Callisthenes presently undertook, and did with that sting and life that
+Alexander interrupted him, and said, “The goodness of the cause made him
+eloquent before, and despite made him eloquent then again.”
+
+(17) Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent use of a
+metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxeth Antipater, who was an
+imperious and tyrannous governor; for when one of Antipater’s friends
+commended him to Alexander for his moderation, that he did not degenerate
+as his other lieutenants did into the Persian pride, in uses of purple,
+but kept the ancient habit of Macedon, of black.  “True,” saith
+Alexander; “but Antipater is all purple within.”  Or that other, when
+Parmenio came to him in the plain of Arbela and showed him the
+innumerable multitude of his enemies, specially as they appeared by the
+infinite number of lights as it had been a new firmament of stars, and
+thereupon advised him to assail them by night; whereupon he answered,
+“That he would not steal the victory.”
+
+(18) For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, so much in
+all ages embraced, that he made between his two friends Hephæstion and
+Craterus, when he said, “That the one loved Alexander, and the other
+loved the king:” describing the principal difference of princes’ best
+servants, that some in affection love their person, and other in duty
+love their crown.
+
+(19) Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary with
+counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters according to the
+model of their own mind and fortune, and not of their masters.  When upon
+Darius’ great offers Parmenio had said, “Surely I would accept these
+offers were I as Alexander;” saith Alexander, “So would I were I as
+Parmenio.”
+
+(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made when he gave
+so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was asked what he did
+reserve for himself, and he answered, “Hope.”  Weigh, I say, whether he
+had not cast up his account aright, because _hope_ must be the portion of
+all that resolve upon great enterprises; for this was Cæsar’s portion
+when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then utterly overthrown
+with largesses.  And this was likewise the portion of that noble prince,
+howsoever transported with ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was
+usually said that he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had
+turned all his estate into obligations.
+
+(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to say
+hyperbolically, “That if all sciences were lost they might be found in
+Virgil,” so certainly this may be said truly, there are the prints and
+footsteps of learning in those few speeches which are reported of this
+prince, the admiration of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the
+Great, but as Aristotle’s scholar, hath carried me too far.
+
+(22) As for Julius Cæsar, the excellency of his learning needeth not to
+be argued from his education, or his company, or his speeches; but in a
+further degree doth declare itself in his writings and works: whereof
+some are extant and permanent, and some unfortunately perished.  For
+first, we see there is left unto us that excellent history of his own
+wars, which he entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times
+have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and lively
+images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of
+words and perspicuity of narration that ever was; which that it was not
+the effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept, is well
+witnessed by that work of his entitled _De Analogia_, being a grammatical
+philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same _Vox ad placitum_ to
+become _Vox ad licitum_, and to reduce custom of speech to congruity of
+speech; and took as it were the pictures of words from the life of
+reason.
+
+(23) So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power and
+learning, the then reformed computation of the year; well expressing that
+he took it to be as great a glory to himself to observe and know the law
+of the heavens, as to give law to men upon the earth.
+
+(24) So likewise in that book of his, _Anti-Cato_, it may easily appear
+that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as victory of war:
+undertaking therein a conflict against the greatest champion with the pen
+that then lived, Cicero the orator.
+
+(25) So, again, in his book of Apophthegms, which he collected, we see
+that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to
+take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his
+own to be made an apophthegm or an oracle, as vain princes, by custom of
+flattery, pretend to do.  And yet if I should enumerate divers of his
+speeches, as I did those of Alexander, they are truly such as Solomon
+noteth, when he saith, _Verba sapientum tanquam aculei_, _et tanquam
+clavi in altum defixi_: whereof I will only recite three, not so
+delectable for elegancy, but admirable for vigour and efficacy.
+
+(26) As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, that could
+with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was thus: The Romans,
+when their generals did speak to their army, did use the word _Milites_,
+but when the magistrates spake to the people they did use the word
+_Quirites_.  The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to be
+cashiered; not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to draw
+Cæsar to other conditions; wherein he being resolute not to give way,
+after some silence, he began his speech, _Ego Quirites_, which did admit
+them already cashiered—wherewith they were so surprised, crossed, and
+confused, as they would not suffer him to go on in his speech, but
+relinquished their demands, and made it their suit to be again called by
+the name of _Milites_.
+
+(27) The second speech was thus: Cæsar did extremely affect the name of
+king; and some were set on as he passed by in popular acclamation to
+salute him king.  Whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off
+thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname: _Non Rex
+sum_, _sed Cæsar_; a speech that, if it be searched, the life and fulness
+of it can scarce be expressed.  For, first, it was a refusal of the name,
+but yet not serious; again, it did signify an infinite confidence and
+magnanimity, as if he presumed Cæsar was the greater title, as by his
+worthiness it is come to pass till this day.  But chiefly it was a speech
+of great allurement toward his own purpose, as if the state did strive
+with him but for a name, whereof mean families were vested; for _Rex_ was
+a surname with the Romans, as well as _King_ is with us.
+
+(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus, when
+Cæsar, after war declared, did possess himself of this city of Rome; at
+which time, entering into the inner treasury to take the money there
+accumulate, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him.  Whereto Cæsar said,
+“That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place.”  And
+presently taking himself up, he added, “Young man, it is harder for me to
+speak it than to do it—_Adolescens_, _durius est mihi hoc dicere quàm
+facere_.”  A speech compounded of the greatest terror and greatest
+clemency that could proceed out of the mouth of man.
+
+(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident himself knew well
+his own perfection in learning, and took it upon him, as appeared when
+upon occasion that some spake what a strange resolution it was in Lucius
+Sylla to resign his dictators, he, scoffing at him to his own advantage,
+answered, “That Sylla could not skill of letters, and therefore knew not
+how to dictate.”
+
+(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the concurrence
+of military virtue and learning (for what example should come with any
+grace after those two of Alexander and Cæsar?), were it not in regard of
+the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one other particular, as
+that which did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme wonder: and
+it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from Socrates’ school into
+Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against King Artaxerxes.
+This Xenophon at that time was very young, and never had seen the wars
+before, neither had any command in the army, but only followed the war as
+a voluntary, for the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.  He
+was present when Falinus came in message from the great king to the
+Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of
+men, left to themselves in the midst of the king’s territories, cut off
+from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles.  The
+message imported that they should deliver up their arms and submit
+themselves to the king’s mercy.  To which message, before answer was
+made, divers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus; and amongst
+the rest Xenophon happened to say, “Why, Falinus, we have now but these
+two things left, our arms and our virtue; and if we yield up our arms,
+how shall we make use of our virtue?”  Whereto Falinus, smiling on him,
+said, “If I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I
+believe you study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say; but you are
+much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the king’s power.”
+Here was the scorn; the wonder followed: which was that this young
+scholar or philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by
+treason, conducted those ten thousand foot, through the heart of all the
+king’s high countries, from Babylon to Græcia in safety, in despite of
+all the king’s forces, to the astonishment of the world, and the
+encouragement of the Grecians in times succeeding to make invasion upon
+the kings of Persia, as was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian,
+attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the
+Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.
+
+VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral and
+private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is contained in the
+verses:—
+
+    “Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
+    Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.”
+
+It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men’s minds;
+but indeed the accent had need be upon _fideliter_; for a little
+superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect.  It taketh away
+all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts
+and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both
+sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to
+accept of nothing but examined and tried.  It taketh away vain admiration
+of anything, which is the root of all weakness.  For all things are
+admired, either because they are new, or because they are great.  For
+novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly but
+will find that printed in his heart, _Nil novi super terram_.  Neither
+can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain,
+and adviseth well of the motion.  And for magnitude, as Alexander the
+Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of
+the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece,
+of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a
+fort, or some walled town at the most, he said:—“It seemed to him that he
+was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the mice, that the old
+tales went of.”  So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal
+frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls
+except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants
+carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and
+fro a little heap of dust.  It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death or
+adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and
+imperfections of manners.  For if a man’s mind be deeply seasoned with
+the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he
+will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman
+weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth the next
+day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon
+said, “_Heri vidi fragilem frangi_, _hodie vidi mortalem mori_.”  And,
+therefore, Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of
+causes and the conquest of all fears together, as _concomitantia_.
+
+    “Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
+    Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
+    Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”
+
+(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning
+doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes purging the ill
+humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion,
+sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and
+exulcerations thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will conclude with
+that which hath _rationem totius_—which is, that it disposeth the
+constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects
+thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and
+reformation.  For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into
+himself, or to call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that
+_suavissima vita_, _indies sentire se fieri meliorem_.  The good parts he
+hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not
+much to increase them.  The faults he hath he will learn how to hide and
+colour them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that mows on
+still, and never whets his scythe.  Whereas with the learned man it fares
+otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his
+mind with the use and employment thereof.  Nay, further, in general and
+in sum, certain it is that _Veritas_ and _Bonitas_ differ but as the seal
+and the print; for truth prints goodness, and they be the clouds of error
+which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations.
+
+(3) From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and commandment,
+and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable with that
+wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man’s nature.  We see the
+dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of the commanded;
+to have commandment over beasts as herdmen have, is a thing contemptible;
+to have commandment over children as schoolmasters have, is a matter of
+small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves is a disparagement
+rather than an honour.  Neither is the commandment of tyrants much
+better, over people which have put off the generosity of their minds;
+and, therefore, it was ever holden that honours in free monarchies and
+commonwealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the
+commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over their
+deeds and services.  And therefore, when Virgil putteth himself forth to
+attribute to Augustus Cæsar the best of human honours, he doth it in
+these words:—
+
+          “Victorque volentes
+    Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.”
+
+But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment
+over the will; for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and
+understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth
+law to the will itself.  For there is no power on earth which setteth up
+a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their
+cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and
+learning.  And therefore we see the detestable and extreme pleasure that
+arch-heretics, and false prophets, and impostors are transported with,
+when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority in the
+faith and conscience of men; so great as if they have once tasted of it,
+it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make them
+relinquish or abandon it.  But as this is that which the author of the
+Revelation calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so by argument of
+contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men’s understanding, by
+force of truth rightly interpreted, is that which approacheth nearest to
+the similitude of the divine rule.
+
+(4) As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of learning is not so
+confined to give fortune only to states and commonwealths, as it doth not
+likewise give fortune to particular persons.  For it was well noted long
+ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings, than either Sylla, or
+Cæsar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding their great largesses and
+donatives, and distributions of lands to so many legions.  And no doubt
+it is hard to say whether arms or learning have advanced greater numbers.
+And in case of sovereignty we see, that if arms or descent have carried
+away the kingdom, yet learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever
+hath been in some competition with empire.
+
+(5) Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it far
+surpasseth all other in nature.  For, shall the pleasures of the
+affections so exceed the pleasure of the sense, as much as the obtaining
+of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner? and must not of
+consequence the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the
+pleasures of the affections?  We see in all other pleasures there is
+satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth
+well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was
+the novelty which pleased, and not the quality.  And, therefore, we see
+that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitions princes turn melancholy.
+But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are
+perpetually interchangeable; and, therefore, appeareth to be good in
+itself simply, without fallacy or accident.  Neither is that pleasure of
+small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet
+Lucretius describeth elegantly:—
+
+    “Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, &c.”
+
+“It is a view of delight,” saith he, “to stand or walk upon the shore
+side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea; or to be in a
+fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain.  But it is a
+pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and
+fortified in the certainty of truth; and from thence to descry and behold
+the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down of other
+men.”
+
+(6) Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man excelleth
+man in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by learning man ascendeth
+to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot come; and the
+like: let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and
+learning in that whereunto man’s nature doth most aspire, which is
+immortality, or continuance; for to this tendeth generation, and raising
+of houses and families; to this tend buildings, foundations, and
+monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration;
+and in effect the strength of all other human desires.  We see then how
+far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments
+of power or of the hands.  For have not the verses of Homer continued
+twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or
+letter; during which the infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have
+been decayed and demolished?  It is not possible to have the true
+pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar, no nor of the kings or
+great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and
+the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth.  But the images of
+men’s wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of
+time and capable of perpetual renovation.  Neither are they fitly to be
+called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the
+minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in
+succeeding ages.  So that if the invention of the ship was thought so
+noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and
+consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits,
+how much more are letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through
+the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the
+wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?  Nay,
+further, we see some of the philosophers which were least divine, and
+most immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the
+soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man
+could act and perform without the organs of the body, they thought might
+remain after death, which were only those of the understanding and not of
+the affection; so immortal and incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem
+unto them to be.  But we, that know by divine revelation that not only
+the understanding but the affections purified, not only the spirit but
+the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, do disclaim in these
+rudiments of the senses.  But it must be remembered, both in this last
+point, and so it may likewise be needful in other places, that in
+probation of the dignity of knowledge or learning, I did in the beginning
+separate divine testimony from human, which method I have pursued, and so
+handled them both apart.
+
+(7) Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for
+me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of Æsop’s
+cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that
+being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god
+of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty and
+love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, _occidat matrem_, _modo
+imperet_, that preferred empire with any condition never so detestable;
+or of Ulysses, _qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati_, being a figure of
+those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency, or of a number
+of the like popular judgments.  For these things must continue as they
+have been; but so will that also continue whereupon learning hath ever
+relied, and which faileth not: _Justificata est sapientia a filiis suis_.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND BOOK.
+
+
+                              _To the King_.
+
+1.  IT might seem to have more convenience, though it come often
+otherwise to pass (excellent King), that those which are fruitful in
+their generations, and have in themselves the foresight of immortality in
+their descendants, should likewise be more careful of the good estate of
+future times, unto which they know they must transmit and commend over
+their dearest pledges.  Queen Elizabeth was a sojourner in the world in
+respect of her unmarried life, and was a blessing to her own times; and
+yet so as the impression of her good government, besides her happy
+memory, is not without some effect which doth survive her.  But to your
+Majesty, whom God hath already blessed with so much royal issue, worthy
+to continue and represent you for ever, and whose youthful and fruitful
+bed doth yet promise many the like renovations, it is proper and
+agreeable to be conversant not only in the transitory parts of good
+government, but in those acts also which are in their nature permanent
+and perpetual.  Amongst the which (if affection do not transport me)
+there is not any more worthy than the further endowment of the world with
+sound and fruitful knowledge.  For why should a few received authors
+stand up like Hercules’ columns, beyond which there should be no sailing
+or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a star as your Majesty
+to conduct and prosper us?  To return therefore where we left, it
+remaineth to consider of what kind those acts are which have been
+undertaken and performed by kings and others for the increase and
+advancement of learning, wherein I purpose to speak actively, without
+digressing or dilating.
+
+2.  Let this ground therefore be laid, that all works are over common by
+amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction, and by the conjunction of
+labours.  The first multiplieth endeavour, the second preventeth error,
+and the third supplieth the frailty of man.  But the principal of these
+is direction, for _claudus in via antevertit cursorem extra viam_; and
+Solomon excellently setteth it down, “If the iron be not sharp, it
+requireth more strength, but wisdom is that which prevaileth,” signifying
+that the invention or election of the mean is more effectual than any
+enforcement or accumulation of endeavours.  This I am induced to speak,
+for that (not derogating from the noble intention of any that have been
+deservers towards the state of learning), I do observe nevertheless that
+their works and acts are rather matters of magnificence and memory than
+of progression and proficience, and tend rather to augment the mass of
+learning in the multitude of learned men than to rectify or raise the
+sciences themselves.
+
+3.  The works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant about
+three objects—the places of learning, the books of learning, and the
+persons of the learned.  For as water, whether it be the dew of heaven or
+the springs of the earth, doth scatter and leese itself in the ground,
+except it be collected into some receptacle where it may by union comfort
+and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man hath made and
+framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have
+accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of
+magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so this
+excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine
+inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to
+oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and
+places appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt
+and comforting of the same.
+
+4.  The works which concern the seats and places of learning are
+four—foundations and buildings, endowments with revenues, endowments with
+franchises and privileges, institutions and ordinances for government—all
+tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and
+troubles; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth for the hiving
+of bees:
+
+    “Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda,
+    Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &c.”
+
+5.  The works touching books are two—first, libraries, which are as the
+shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue,
+and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed;
+secondly, new editions of authors, with more correct impressions, more
+faithful translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent
+annotations, and the like.
+
+6.  The works pertaining to the persons of learned men (besides the
+advancement and countenancing of them in general) are two—the reward and
+designation of readers in sciences already extant and invented; and the
+reward and designation of writers and inquirers concerning any parts of
+learning not sufficiently laboured and prosecuted.
+
+7.  These are summarily the works and acts wherein the merits of many
+excellent princes and other worthy personages, have been conversant.  As
+for any particular commemorations, I call to mind what Cicero said when
+he gave general thanks, _Difficile non aliquem_, _ingratum quenquam
+præterire_.  Let us rather, according to the Scriptures, look unto that
+part of the race which is before us, than look back to that which is
+already attained.
+
+8.  First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations of colleges in
+Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and
+none left free to arts and sciences at large.  For if men judge that
+learning should be referred to action, they judge well; but in this they
+fall into the error described in the ancient fable, in which the other
+parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it
+neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as
+the head doth; but yet notwithstanding it is the stomach that digesteth
+and distributeth to all the rest.  So if any man think philosophy and
+universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all
+professions are from thence served and supplied.  And this I take to be a
+great cause that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these
+fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage.  For if you will
+have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not anything
+you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth and putting
+new mould about thee roots that must work it.  Neither is it to be
+forgotten, that this dedicating of foundations and dotations to
+professory learning hath not only had a malign aspect and influence upon
+the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial to states, and
+governments.  For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in
+regard of able men to serve them in causes of estate, because there is no
+education collegiate which is free, where such as were so disposed might
+give themselves in histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil
+discourse, and other the like enablements unto service of estate.
+
+9.  And because founders of colleges do plant, and founders of lectures
+do water, it followeth well in order to speak of the defect which is in
+public lectures; namely, in the smallness, and meanness of the salary or
+reward which in most places is assigned unto them, whether they be
+lectures of arts, or of professions.  For it is necessary to the
+progression of sciences that readers be of the most able and sufficient
+men; as those which are ordained for generating and propagating of
+sciences, and not for transitory use.  This cannot be, except their
+condition and endowment be such as may content the ablest man to
+appropriate his whole labour and continue his whole age in that function
+and attendance; and therefore must have a proportion answerable to that
+mediocrity or competency of advancement, which may be expected from a
+profession or the practice of a profession.  So as, if you will have
+sciences flourish, you must observe David’s military law, which was,
+“That those which stayed with the carriage should have equal part with
+those which were in the action;” else will the carriages be ill attended.
+So readers in sciences are indeed the guardians of the stores and
+provisions of sciences, whence men in active courses are furnished, and
+therefore ought to have equal entertainment with them; otherwise if the
+fathers in sciences be of the weakest sort or be ill maintained,
+
+    “Et patrum invalidi referent jejunia nati.”
+
+10.  Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some alchemist to help
+me, who call upon men to sell their books, and to build furnaces;
+quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses as barren virgins, and
+relying upon Vulcan.  But certain it is, that unto the deep, fruitful,
+and operative study of many sciences, specialty natural philosophy and
+physic, books be not only the instrumentals; wherein also the beneficence
+of men hath not been altogether wanting.  For we see spheres, globes,
+astrolabes, maps, and the like, have been provided as appurtenances to
+astronomy and cosmography, as well as books.  We see likewise that some
+places instituted for physic have annexed the commodity of gardens for
+simples of all sorts, and do likewise command the use of dead bodies for
+anatomies.  But these do respect but a few things.  In general, there
+will hardly be any main proficience in the disclosing of nature, except
+there be some allowance for expenses about experiments; whether they be
+experiments appertaining to Vulcanus or Dædalus, furnace or engine, or
+any other kind.  And therefore as secretaries and spials of princes and
+states bring in bills for intelligence, so you must allow the spials and
+intelligencers of nature to bring in their bills; or else you shall be
+ill advertised.
+
+11.  And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to Aristotle of
+treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, fishers, and the like,
+that he might compile a history of nature, much better do they deserve it
+that travail in arts of nature.
+
+12.  Another defect which I note is an intermission or neglect in those
+which are governors in universities, of consultation, and in princes or
+superior persons, of visitation: to enter into account and consideration,
+whether the readings, exercises, and other customs appertaining unto
+learning, anciently begun and since continued, be well instituted or no;
+and thereupon to ground an amendment or reformation in that which shall
+be found inconvenient.  For it is one of your Majesty’s own most wise and
+princely maxims, “That in all usages and precedents, the times be
+considered wherein they first began; which if they were weak or ignorant,
+it derogateth from the authority of the usage, and leaveth it for
+suspect.”  And therefore inasmuch as most of the usages and orders of the
+universities were derived from more obscure times, it is the more
+requisite they be re-examined.  In this kind I will give an instance or
+two, for example sake, of things that are the most obvious and familiar.
+The one is a matter, which though it be ancient and general, yet I hold
+to be an error; which is, that scholars in universities come too soon and
+too unripe to logic and rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than children
+and novices.  For these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of sciences,
+being the arts of arts; the one for judgment, the other for ornament.
+And they be the rules and directions how to set forth and dispose matter:
+and therefore for minds empty and unfraught with matter, and which have
+not gathered that which Cicero calleth _sylva_ and _supellex_, stuff and
+variety, to begin with those arts (as if one should learn to weigh, or to
+measure, or to paint the wind) doth work but this effect, that the wisdom
+of those arts, which is great and universal, is almost made contemptible,
+and is degenerate into childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation.
+And further, the untimely learning of them hath drawn on by consequence
+the superficial and unprofitable teaching and writing of them, as fitteth
+indeed to the capacity of children.  Another is a lack I find in the
+exercises used in the universities, which do snake too great a divorce
+between invention and memory.  For their speeches are either premeditate,
+in _verbis conceptis_, where nothing is left to invention, or merely
+extemporal, where little is left to memory.  Whereas in life and action
+there is least use of either of these, but rather of intermixtures of
+premeditation and invention, notes and memory.  So as the exercise
+fitteth not the practice, nor the image the life; and it is ever a true
+rule in exercises, that they be framed as near as may be to the life of
+practice; for otherwise they do pervert the motions and faculties of the
+mind, and not prepare them.  The truth whereof is not obscure, when
+scholars come to the practices of professions, or other actions of civil
+life; which when they set into, this want is soon found by themselves,
+and sooner by others.  But this part, touching the amendment of the
+institutions and orders of universities, I will conclude with the clause
+of Cæsar’s letter to Oppius and Balbes, _Hoc quemadmodum fieri possit_,
+_nonnulla mihi in mentem veniunt_, _et multa reperiri possunt_: _de iis
+rebus rgo vos ut cogitationem suscipiatis_.
+
+13.  Another defect which I note ascendeth a little higher than the
+precedent.  For as the proficience of learning consisteth much in the
+orders and institutions of universities in the same states and kingdoms,
+so it would be yet more advanced, if there were more intelligence mutual
+between the universities of Europe than now there is.  We see there be
+many orders and foundations, which though they be divided under several
+sovereignties and territories, yet they take themselves to have a kind of
+contract, fraternity, and correspondence one with the other, insomuch as
+they have provincials and generals.  And surely as nature createth
+brotherhood in families, and arts mechanical contract brotherhoods in
+communalties, and the anointment of God superinduceth a brotherhood in
+kings and bishops, so in like manner there cannot but be a fraternity in
+learning and illumination, relating to that paternity which is attributed
+to God, who is called the Father of illuminations or lights.
+
+14.  The last defect which I will note is, that there hath not been, or
+very rarely been, any public designation of writers or inquirers
+concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to have been already
+sufficiently laboured or undertaken; unto which point it is an inducement
+to enter into a view and examination what parts of learning have been
+prosecuted, and what omitted.  For the opinion of plenty is amongst the
+causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show rather of
+superfluity than lack; which surcharge nevertheless is not to be remedied
+by making no more books, but by making more good books, which, as the
+serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents of the enchanters.
+
+15.  The removing of all the defects formerly enumerate, except the last,
+and of the active part also of the last (which is the designation of
+writers), are _opera basilica_; towards which the endeavours of a private
+man may be but as an image in a crossway, that may point at the way, but
+cannot go it.  But the inducing part of the latter (which is the survey
+of learning) may be set forward by private travail.  Wherefore I will now
+attempt to make a general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an
+inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and
+converted by the industry of man, to the end that such a plot made and
+recorded to memory may both minister light to any public designation,
+and, also serve to excite voluntary endeavours.  Wherein, nevertheless,
+my purpose is at this time to note only omissions and deficiences, and
+not to make any redargution of errors or incomplete prosecutions.  For it
+is one thing to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and another thing
+to correct ill husbandry in that which is manured.
+
+In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant what it
+is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own weakness to
+sustain my purpose.  But my hope is, that if my extreme love to learning
+carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection; for that “It is
+not granted to man to love and to be wise.”  But I know well I can use no
+other liberty of judgment than I must leave to others; and I for my part
+shall be indifferently glad either to perform myself, or accept from
+another, that duty of humanity—_Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam_,
+&c.  I do foresee likewise that of those things which I shall enter and
+register as deficiences and omissions, many will conceive and censure
+that some of them are already done and extant; others to be but
+curiosities, and things of no great use; and others to be of too great
+difficulty, and almost impossibility to be compassed and effected.  But
+for the two first, I refer myself to the particulars.  For the last,
+touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held possible
+which may be done by some person, though not by every one; and which may
+be done by many, though not by any one; and which may be done in the
+succession of ages, though not within the hourglass of one man’s life;
+and which may be done by public designation, though not by private
+endeavour.  But, notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather
+that of Solomon, “_Dicit piger_, _Leo est in via_,” than that of Virgil,
+“_Possunt quia posse videntur_,” I shall be content that my labours be
+esteemed but as the better sort of wishes; for as it asketh some
+knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some
+sense to make a wish not absurd.
+
+I. (1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of
+man’s understanding, which is the seat of learning: history to his
+memory, poesy to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason.  Divine
+learning receiveth the same distribution; for, the spirit of man is the
+same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse.  So as
+theology consisteth also of history of the Church; of parables, which is
+divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept.  For as for that part
+which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is but divine history,
+which hath that prerogative over human, as the narration may be before
+the fact as well as after.
+
+(2) History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary; whereof the
+first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient.  For no
+man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be
+described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of
+Nature, and the state, civil and ecclesiastical; without which the
+history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus with
+his eye out, that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit and
+life of the person.  And yet I am not ignorant that in divers particular
+sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians,
+the philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the schools,
+authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations touching the
+invention of arts or usages.  But a just story of learning, containing
+the antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their
+inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations and
+managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions,
+oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them, and all other
+events concerning learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may truly
+affirm to be wanting; the use and end of which work I do not so much
+design for curiosity or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of
+learning, but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this
+in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and
+administration of learning.  For it is not Saint Augustine’s nor Saint
+Ambrose’s works that will make so wise a divine as ecclesiastical history
+thoroughly read and observed, and the same reason is of learning.
+
+(3) History of Nature is of three sorts; of Nature in course, of Nature
+erring or varying, and of Nature altered or wrought; that is, history of
+creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts.  The first of these
+no doubt is extant, and that in good perfection; the two latter are
+bandied so weakly and unprofitably as I am moved to note them as
+deficient.  For I find no sufficient or competent collection of the works
+of Nature which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary course
+of generations, productions, and motions; whether they be singularities
+of place and region, or the strange events of time and chance, or the
+effects of yet unknown properties, or the instances of exception to
+general kinds.  It is true I find a number of books of fabulous
+experiments and secrets, and frivolous impostures for pleasure and
+strangeness; but a substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites
+or irregulars of Nature, well examined and described, I find not,
+specially not with due rejection of fables and popular errors.  For as
+things now are, if an untruth in Nature be once on foot, what by reason
+of the neglect of examination, and countenance of antiquity, and what by
+reason of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments of speech,
+it is never called down.
+
+(4) The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is
+nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and vain
+wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries is to do; but for two reasons, both
+of great weight: the one to correct the partiality of axioms and
+opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar
+examples; the other because from the wonders of Nature is the nearest
+intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art, for it is no more
+but by following and, as it were, hounding Nature in her wanderings, to
+be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.  Neither am I of
+opinion, in this history of marvels, that superstitious narrations of
+sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams, divinations, and the like, where there is
+an assurance and clear evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded.  For
+it is not yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to
+superstition do participate of natural causes; and, therefore, howsoever
+the practice of such things is to be condemned, yet from the speculation
+and consideration of them light may be taken, not only for the discerning
+of the offences, but for the further disclosing of Nature.  Neither ought
+a man to make scruple of entering into these things for inquisition of
+truth, as your Majesty hath showed in your own example, who, with the two
+clear eyes of religion and natural philosophy, have looked deeply and
+wisely into these shadows, and yet proved yourself to be of the nature of
+the sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as
+before.  But this I hold fit, that these narrations, which have mixture
+with superstition, be sorted by themselves, and not to be mingled with
+the narrations which are merely and sincerely natural.  But as for the
+narrations touching the prodigies and miracles of religions, they are
+either not true or not natural; and, therefore, impertinent for the story
+of Nature.
+
+(5) For history of Nature, wrought or mechanical, I find some collections
+made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts; but commonly with a
+rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar; for it is esteemed a kind
+of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation upon
+matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets,
+rarities, and special subtleties; which humour of vain and supercilious
+arrogancy is justly derided in Plato, where he brings in Hippias, a
+vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates, a true and unfeigned
+inquisitor of truth; where, the subject being touching beauty, Socrates,
+after his wandering manner of inductions, put first an example of a fair
+virgin, and then of a fair horse, and then of a fair pot well glazed,
+whereat Hippias was offended, and said, “More than for courtesy’s sake,
+he did think much to dispute with any that did allege such base and
+sordid instances.”  Whereunto Socrates answereth, “You have reason, and
+it becomes you well, being a man so trim in your vestments,” &c., and so
+goeth on in an irony.  But the truth is, they be not the highest
+instances that give the securest information, as may be well expressed in
+the tale so common of the philosopher that, while he gazed upwards to the
+stars, fell into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen
+the stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in
+the stars.  So it cometh often to pass that mean and small things
+discover great, better than great can discover the small; and therefore
+Aristotle noteth well, “That the nature of everything is best seen in his
+smallest portions.”  And for that cause he inquireth the nature of a
+commonwealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and
+wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage.
+Even so likewise the nature of this great city of the world, and the
+policy thereof, must be first sought in mean concordances and small
+portions.  So we see how that secret of Nature, of the turning of iron
+touched with the loadstone towards the north, was found out in needles of
+iron, not in bars of iron.
+
+(6) But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of history mechanical is
+of all others the most radical and fundamental towards natural
+philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of
+subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall be
+operative to the endowment and benefit of man’s life.  For it will not
+only minister and suggest for the present many ingenious practices in all
+trades, by a connection and transferring of the observations of one art
+to the use of another, when the experiences of several mysteries shall
+fall under the consideration of one man’s mind; but further, it will give
+a more true and real illumination concerning causes and axioms than is
+hitherto attained.  For like as a man’s disposition is never well known
+till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was
+straitened and held fast; so the passages and variations of nature cannot
+appear so fully in the liberty of nature as in the trials and vexations
+of art.
+
+II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be
+compared with the three kinds of pictures or images.  For of pictures or
+images we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are
+defaced.  So of histories we may find three kinds: memorials, perfect
+histories, and antiquities; for memorials are history unfinished, or the
+first or rough drafts of history; and antiquities are history defaced, or
+some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of
+time.
+
+(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts; whereof the one
+may be termed commentaries, and the other registers.  Commentaries are
+they which set down a continuance of the naked events and actions,
+without the motives or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts,
+the occasions, and other passages of action.  For this is the true nature
+of a commentary (though Cæsar, in modesty mixed with greatness, did for
+his pleasure apply the name of a commentary to the best history of the
+world).  Registers are collections of public acts, as decrees of council,
+judicial proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and
+the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread of
+the narration.
+
+(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, _tanquam
+tabula naufragii_: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous
+diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs,
+traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages
+of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover
+somewhat from the deluge of time.
+
+(4) In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign no deficience, for
+they are _tanquam imperfecte mista_; and therefore any deficience in them
+is but their nature.  As for the corruptions and moths of history, which
+are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of
+sound judgment have confessed, as those that have fretted and corroded
+the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base
+and unprofitable dregs.
+
+(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three
+kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or pretendeth to
+represent: for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action.
+The first we call chronicles, the second lives, and the third narrations
+or relations.  Of these, although the first be the most complete and
+absolute kind of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the
+second excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and
+sincerity.  For history of times representeth the magnitude of actions,
+and the public faces and deportments of persons, and passeth over in
+silence the smaller passages and motions of men and matters.  But such
+being the workmanship of God, as He doth hang the greatest weight upon
+the smallest wires, _maxima è minimis_, _suspendens_, it comes therefore
+to pass, that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of business
+than the true and inward resorts thereof.  But lives, if they be well
+written, propounding to themselves a person to represent, in whom
+actions, both greater and smaller, public and private, have a commixture,
+must of necessity contain a more true, native, and lively representation.
+So again narrations and relations of actions, as the war of Peloponnesus,
+the expedition of Cyrus Minor, the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be
+more purely and exactly true than histories of times, because they may
+choose an argument comprehensible within the notice and instructions of
+the writer: whereas he that undertaketh the story of a time, specially of
+any length, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must be
+forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.
+
+(6) For the history of times, I mean of civil history, the providence of
+God hath made the distribution.  For it hath pleased God to ordain and
+illustrate two exemplar states of the world for arms, learning, moral
+virtue, policy, and laws; the state of Græcia and the state of Rome; the
+histories whereof occupying the middle part of time, have more ancient to
+them histories which may by one common name be termed the antiquities of
+the world; and after them, histories which may be likewise called by the
+name of modern history.
+
+(7) Now to speak of the deficiences.  As to the heathen antiquities of
+the world it is in vain to note them for deficient.  Deficient they are
+no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments; but the deficience
+cannot be holpen; for antiquity is like fame, _caput inter nubila
+condit_, her head is muffled from our sight.  For the history of the
+exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection.  Not but I could wish
+there were a perfect course of history for Græcia, from Theseus to
+Philopœmen (what time the affairs of Græcia drowned and extinguished in
+the affairs of Rome), and for Rome from Romulus to Justinianus, who may
+be truly said to be _ultimus Romanorum_.  In which sequences of story the
+text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the one, and the texts of Livius,
+Polybius, Sallustius, Cæsar, Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other,
+to be kept entire, without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied
+and continued.  But this is a matter of magnificence, rather to be
+commended than required; and we speak now of parts of learning
+supplemental, and not of supererogation.
+
+(8) But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very worthy, but
+the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of foreign stories
+to foreign states, because I will not be _curiosus in aliena republica_,
+I cannot fail to represent to your Majesty the unworthiness of the
+history of England in the main continuance thereof, and the partiality
+and obliquity of that of Scotland in the latest and largest author that I
+have seen: supposing that it would be honour for your Majesty, and a work
+very memorable, if this island of Great Britain, as it is now joined in
+monarchy for the ages to come, so were joined in one history for the
+times passed, after the manner of the sacred history, which draweth down
+the story of the ten tribes and of the two tribes as twins together.  And
+if it shall seem that the greatness of this work may make it less exactly
+performed, there is an excellent period of a much smaller compass of
+time, as to the story of England; that is to say, from the uniting of the
+Roses to the uniting of the kingdoms; a portion of time wherein, to my
+understanding, there hath been the rarest varieties that in like number
+of successions of any hereditary monarchy hath been known.  For it
+beginneth with the mixed adoption of a crown by arms and title; an entry
+by battle, an establishment by marriage; and therefore times answerable,
+like waters after a tempest, full of working and swelling, though without
+extremity of storm; but well passed through by the wisdom of the pilot,
+being one of the most sufficient kings of all the number.  Then followeth
+the reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much
+intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining them
+variably; in whose time also began that great alteration in the state
+ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage.  Then the
+reign of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it was but as
+_febris ephemera_).  Then the reign of a queen matched with a foreigner;
+then of a queen that lived solitary and unmarried, and yet her government
+so masculine, as it had greater impression and operation upon the states
+abroad than it any ways received from thence.  And now last, this most
+happy and glorious event, that this island of Britain, divided from all
+the world, should be united in itself, and that oracle of rest given to
+ÆNeas, _antiquam exquirite matrem_, should now be performed and fulfilled
+upon the nations of England and Scotland, being now reunited in the
+ancient mother name of Britain, as a full period of all instability and
+peregrinations.  So that as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that
+they have certain trepidations and waverings before they fix and settle,
+so it seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it was
+to settle in your majesty and your generations (in which I hope it is now
+established for ever), it had these prelusive changes and varieties.
+
+(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so little esteemed
+the virtues of the times, as that the writings of lives should be no more
+frequent.  For although there be not many sovereign princes or absolute
+commanders, and that states are most collected into monarchies, yet are
+there many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed report or
+barren eulogies.  For herein the invention of one of the late poets is
+proper, and doth well enrich the ancient fiction.  For he feigneth that
+at the end of the thread or web of every man’s life there was a little
+medal containing the person’s name, and that Time waited upon the shears,
+and as soon as the thread was cut caught the medals, and carried them to
+the river of Lathe; and about the bank there were many birds flying up
+and down, that would get the medals and carry them in their beak a little
+while, and then let them fall into the river.  Only there were a few
+swans, which if they got a name would carry it to a temple where it was
+consecrate.  And although many men, more mortal in their affections than
+in their bodies, do esteem desire of name and memory but as a vanity and
+ventosity,
+
+    “Animi nil magnæ laudis egentes;”
+
+which opinion cometh from that root, _Non prius laudes contempsimus_,
+_quam laudanda facere desivimus_: yet that will not alter Solomon’s
+judgment, _Memoria justi cum laudibus_, _at impiorum nomen putrescet_:
+the one flourisheth, the other either consumeth to present oblivion, or
+turneth to an ill odour.  And therefore in that style or addition, which
+is and hath been long well received and brought in use, _felicis
+memoriæ_, _piæ memoriæ_, _bonæ memoriæ_, we do acknowledge that which
+Cicero saith, borrowing it from Demosthenes, that _bona fama propria
+possessio defunctorum_; which possession I cannot but note that in our
+times it lieth much waste, and that therein there is a deficience.
+
+(10) For narrations and relations of particular actions, there were also
+to be wished a greater diligence therein; for there is no great action
+but hath some good pen which attends it.  And because it is an ability
+not common to write a good history, as may well appear by the small
+number of them; yet if particularity of actions memorable were but
+tolerably reported as they pass, the compiling of a complete history of
+times might be the better expected, when a writer should arise that were
+fit for it: for the collection of such relations might be as a nursery
+garden, whereby to plant a fair and stately garden when time should
+serve.
+
+(11) There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius Tacitus
+maketh, which is not to be forgotten, specially with that application
+which he accoupleth it withal, annals and journals: appropriating to the
+former matters of estate, and to the latter acts and accidents of a
+meaner nature.  For giving but a touch of certain magnificent buildings,
+he addeth, _Cum ex dignitate populi Romani repertum sit_, _res illustres
+annalibus_, _talia diurnis urbis actis mandare_.  So as there is a kind
+of contemplative heraldry, as well as civil.  And as nothing doth
+derogate from the dignity of a state more than confusion of degrees, so
+it doth not a little imbase the authority of a history to intermingle
+matters of triumph, or matters of ceremony, or matters of novelty, with
+matters of state.  But the use of a journal hath not only been in the
+history of time, but likewise in the history of persons, and chiefly of
+actions; for princes in ancient time had, upon point of honour and policy
+both, journals kept, what passed day by day.  For we see the chronicle
+which was read before Ahasuerus, when he could not take rest, contained
+matter of affairs, indeed, but such as had passed in his own time and
+very lately before.  But the journal of Alexander’s house expressed every
+small particularity, even concerning his person and court; and it is yet
+a use well received in enterprises memorable, as expeditions of war,
+navigations, and the like, to keep diaries of that which passeth
+continually.
+
+(12) I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing which some grave
+and wise men have used, containing a scattered history of those actions
+which they have thought worthy of memory, with politic discourse and
+observation thereupon: not incorporate into the history, but separately,
+and as the more principal in their intention; which kind of ruminated
+history I think more fit to place amongst books of policy, whereof we
+shall hereafter speak, than amongst books of history.  For it is the true
+office of history to represent the events themselves together with the
+counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the
+liberty and faculty of every man’s judgment.  But mixtures are things
+irregular, whereof no man can define.
+
+(13) So also is there another kind of history manifoldly mixed, and that
+is history of cosmography: being compounded of natural history, in
+respect of the regions themselves; of history civil, in respect of the
+habitations, regiments, and manners of the people; and the mathematics,
+in respect of the climates and configurations towards the heavens: which
+part of learning of all others in this latter time hath obtained most
+proficience.  For it may be truly affirmed to the honour of these times,
+and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of
+the world had never through-lights made in it, till the age of us and our
+fathers.  For although they had knowledge of the antipodes,
+
+    “Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,
+    Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper,”
+
+yet that might be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by travel, it
+requireth the voyage but of half the globe.  But to circle the earth, as
+the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor enterprised till these later
+times: and therefore these times may justly bear in their word, not only
+_plus ultra_, in precedence of the ancient _non ultra_, and _imitabile
+fulmen_, in precedence of the ancient _non imitabile fulmen_,
+
+    “Demens qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen,” &c.
+
+but likewise _imitabile cælum_; in respect of the many memorable voyages
+after the manner of heaven about the globe of the earth.
+
+(14) And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also an
+expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of all sciences;
+because it may seem they are ordained by God to be coevals, that is, to
+meet in one age.  For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times
+foretelleth, _Plurimi pertransibunt_, _et multiplex erit scientia_: as if
+the openness and through-passage of the world and the increase of
+knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages; as we see it is already
+performed in great part: the learning of these later times not much
+giving place to the former two periods or returns of learning, the one of
+the Grecians, the other of the Romans.
+
+III. (1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions with history
+civil: but further in the propriety thereof may be divided into the
+history of the Church, by a general name; history of prophecy; and
+history of providence.  The first describeth the times of the militant
+Church, whether it be fluctuant, as the ark of Noah, or movable, as the
+ark in the wilderness, or at rest, as the ark in the Temple: that is, the
+state of the Church in persecution, in remove, and in peace.  This part I
+ought in no sort to note as deficient; only I would that the virtue and
+sincerity of it were according to the mass and quantity.  But I am not
+now in hand with censures, but with omissions.
+
+(2) The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of two
+relatives—the prophecy and the accomplishment; and, therefore, the nature
+of such a work ought to be, that every prophecy of the Scripture be
+sorted with the event fulfilling the same throughout the ages of the
+world, both for the better confirmation of faith and for the better
+illumination of the Church touching those parts of prophecies which are
+yet unfulfilled: allowing, nevertheless, that latitude which is agreeable
+and familiar unto divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author,
+with whom a thousand years are but as one day, and therefore are not
+fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant
+accomplishment throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of them
+may refer to some one age.  This is a work which I find deficient, but is
+to be done with wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.
+
+(3) The third, which is history of Providence, containeth that excellent
+correspondence which is between God’s revealed will and His secret will;
+which though it be so obscure, as for the most part it is not legible to
+the natural man—no, nor many times to those that behold it from the
+tabernacle—yet, at some times it pleaseth God, for our better
+establishment and the confuting of those which are as without God in the
+world, to write it in such text and capital letters, that, as the prophet
+saith, “He that runneth by may read it”—that is, mere sensual persons,
+which hasten by God’s judgments, and never bend or fix their cogitations
+upon them, are nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern
+it.  Such are the notable events and examples of God’s judgments,
+chastisements, deliverances, and blessings; and this is a work which has
+passed through the labour of many, and therefore I cannot present as
+omitted.
+
+(4) There are also other parts of learning which are appendices to
+history.  For all the exterior proceedings of man consist of words and
+deeds, whereof history doth properly receive and retain in memory the
+deeds; and if words, yet but as inducements and passages to deeds; so are
+there other books and writings which are appropriate to the custody and
+receipt of words only, which likewise are of three sorts—orations,
+letters, and brief speeches or sayings.  Orations are pleadings, speeches
+of counsel, laudatives, invectives, apologies, reprehensions, orations of
+formality or ceremony, and the like.  Letters are according to all the
+variety of occasions, advertisements, advises, directions, propositions,
+petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of compliment, of
+pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of action.  And such as
+are written from wise men, are of all the words of man, in my judgment,
+the best; for they are more natural than orations and public speeches,
+and more advised than conferences or present speeches.  So again letters
+of affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them, are of all
+others the best instructions for history, and to a diligent reader the
+best histories in themselves.  For apophthegms, it is a great loss of
+that book of Cæsar’s; for as his history, and those few letters of his
+which we have, and those apophthegms which were of his own, excel all
+men’s else, so I suppose would his collection of apophthegms have done;
+for as for those which are collected by others, either I have no taste in
+such matters or else their choice hath not been happy.  But upon these
+three kinds of writings I do not insist, because I have no deficiences to
+propound concerning them.
+
+(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that part of
+learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or offices of
+the mind of man, which is that of the memory.
+
+IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for the most
+part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth
+truly refer to the imagination; which, being not tied to the laws of
+matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever
+that which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces
+of things—_Pictoribus atque poetis_, &c.  It is taken in two senses in
+respect of words or matter.  In the first sense, it is but a character of
+style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the
+present.  In the latter, it is—as hath been said—one of the principal
+portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may
+be styled as well in prose as in verse.
+
+(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of
+satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of
+things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul;
+by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample
+greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can
+be found in the nature of things.  Therefore, because the acts or events
+of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man,
+poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.  Because true
+history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable
+to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just
+in retribution, and more according to revealed Providence.  Because true
+history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less
+interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and more
+unexpected and alternative variations.  So as it appeareth that poesy
+serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality and to delectation.  And
+therefore, it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness,
+because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of
+things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the
+mind unto the nature of things.  And we see that by these insinuations
+and congruities with man’s nature and pleasure, joined also with the
+agreement and consort it hath with music, it hath had access and
+estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning
+stood excluded.
+
+(3) The division of poesy which is aptest in the propriety thereof
+(besides those divisions which are common unto it with history, as
+feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of history, as
+feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest) is into poesy
+narrative, representative, and allusive.  The narrative is a mere
+imitation of history, with the excesses before remembered, choosing for
+subjects commonly wars and love, rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or
+mirth.  Representative is as a visible history, and is an image of
+actions as if they were present, as history is of actions in nature as
+they are (that is) past.  Allusive, or parabolical, is a narration
+applied only to express some special purpose or conceit; which latter
+kind of parabolical wisdom was much more in use in the ancient times, as
+by the fables of Æsop, and the brief sentences of the seven, and the use
+of hieroglyphics may appear.  And the cause was (for that it was then of
+necessity to express any point of reason which was more sharp or subtle
+than the vulgar in that manner) because men in those times wanted both
+variety of examples and subtlety of conceit.  And as hieroglyphics were
+before letters, so parables were before arguments; and nevertheless now
+and at all times they do retain much life and rigour, because reason
+cannot be so sensible nor examples so fit.
+
+(4) But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical, opposite to
+that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to demonstrate and
+illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other to retire
+and obscure it—that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion,
+policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables or parables.  Of this in
+divine poesy we see the use is authorised.  In heathen poesy we see the
+exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity: as in
+the fable that the giants being overthrown in their war against the gods,
+the earth their mother in revenge thereof brought forth Fame:
+
+    “Illam terra parens, ira irritat Deorum,
+    Extremam, ut perhibent, Cœo Enceladoque soroem,
+    Progenuit.”
+
+Expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open
+rebels, then the malignity of people (which is the mother of rebellion)
+doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the states, which
+is of the same kind with rebellion but more feminine.  So in the fable
+that the rest of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called
+Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid: expounded that monarchies
+need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as
+long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be sure to
+come in on their side.  So in the fable that Achilles was brought up
+under Chiron, the centaur, who was part a man and part a beast, expounded
+ingeniously but corruptly by Machiavel, that it belongeth to the
+education and discipline of princes to know as well how to play the part
+of a lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and
+justice.  Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I do rather think
+that the fable was first, and the exposition devised, than that the moral
+was first, and thereupon the fable framed; for I find it was an ancient
+vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled himself with great contention to
+fasten the assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient
+poets; but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but
+pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion.  Surely of these poets
+which are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made a
+kind of scripture by the later schools of the Grecians), yet I should
+without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no such inwardness
+in his own meaning.  But what they might have upon a more original
+tradition is not easy to affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of
+them.
+
+(5) In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can report no
+deficience; for being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth,
+without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than any
+other kind.  But to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the expressing
+of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to
+poets more than to the philosophers’ works; and for wit and eloquence,
+not much less than to orators’ harangues.  But it is not good to stay too
+long in the theatre.  Let us now pass on to the judicial place or palace
+of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and
+attention.
+
+V. (1) The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above,
+and some springing from beneath: the one informed by the light of nature,
+the other inspired by divine revelation.  The light of nature consisteth
+in the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses; for as for
+knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not
+original, as in a water that besides his own spring-head is fed with
+other springs and streams.  So then, according to these two differing
+illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of all divided into
+divinity and philosophy.
+
+(2) In philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God,
+or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself.
+Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges—divine
+philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy or humanity.  For
+all things are marked and stamped with this triple character—the power of
+God, the difference of nature and the use of man.  But because the
+distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that
+meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of
+a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of
+entireness and continuance before it come to discontinue and break itself
+into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, before we enter into the
+former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, by
+the name of _philosophia prima_, primitive or summary philosophy, as the
+main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide
+themselves; which science whether I should report as deficient or no, I
+stand doubtful.  For I find a certain rhapsody of natural theology, and
+of divers parts of logic; and of that part of natural philosophy which
+concerneth the principles, and of that other part of natural philosophy
+which concerneth the soul or spirit—all these strangely commixed and
+confused; but being examined, it seemeth to me rather a depredation of
+other sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms, than
+anything solid or substantive of itself.  Nevertheless I cannot be
+ignorant of the distinction which is current, that the same things are
+handled but in several respects.  As for example, that logic considereth
+of many things as they are in notion, and this philosophy as they are in
+nature—the one in appearance, the other in existence; but I find this
+difference better made than pursued.  For if they had considered
+quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest of those extern characters
+of things, as philosophers, and in nature, their inquiries must of force
+have been of a far other kind than they are.  For doth any of them, in
+handling quantity, speak of the force of union, how and how far it
+multiplieth virtue?  Doth any give the reason why some things in nature
+are so common, and in so great mass, and others so rare, and in so small
+quantity?  Doth any, in handling similitude and diversity, assign the
+cause why iron should not move to iron, which is more like, but move to
+the loadstone, which is less like?  Why in all diversities of things
+there should be certain participles in nature which are almost ambiguous
+to which kind they should be referred?  But there is a mere and deep
+silence touching the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of
+things, as in nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and
+use of them in speech or argument.  Therefore, because in a writing of
+this nature I avoid all subtlety, my meaning touching this original or
+universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by
+negative: “That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations
+and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of
+philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage.”
+
+(3) Now that there are many of that kind need not be doubted.  For
+example: Is not the rule, _Si inœqualibus æqualia addas_, _omnia erunt
+inæqualia_, an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics? and is
+there not a true coincidence between commutative and distributive
+justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion?  Is not that other
+rule, _Quæ in eodem tertio conveniunt_, _et inter se conveniunt_, a rule
+taken from the mathematics, but so potent in logic as all syllogisms are
+built upon it?  Is not the observation, _Omnia mutantur_, _nil interit_,
+a contemplation in philosophy thus, that the _quantum_ of nature is
+eternal? in natural theology thus, that it requireth the same omnipotency
+to make somewhat nothing, which at the first made nothing somewhat?
+according to the Scripture, _Didici quod omnia opera_, _quœ fecit Deus_,
+_perseverent in perpetuum_; _non possumus eis quicquam addere nec
+auferre_.  Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely
+discourseth concerning governments, that the way to establish and
+preserve them is to reduce them _ad principia_—a rule in religion and
+nature, as well as in civil administration?  Was not the Persian magic a
+reduction or correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature
+to the rules and policy of governments?  Is not the precept of a
+musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet
+accord, alike true in affection?  Is not the trope of music, to avoid or
+slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric of
+deceiving expectation?  Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop
+in music the same with the playing of light upon the water?
+
+    “Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus.”
+
+Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of
+reflection, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or strait,
+determined and bounded?  Neither are these only similitudes, as men of
+narrow observation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of
+nature, treading or printing upon several subjects or matters.  This
+science therefore (as I understand it) I may justly report as deficient;
+for I see sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling some
+particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water out of this
+well for their present use; but the spring-head thereof seemeth to me not
+to have been visited, being of so excellent use both for the disclosing
+of nature and the abridgment of art.
+
+VI. (1) This science being therefore first placed as a common parent like
+unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue, _omnes cœlicolas_,
+_omnes supera alta tenetes_; we may return to the former distribution of
+the three philosophies—divine, natural, and human.  And as concerning
+divine philosophy or natural theology, it is that knowledge or rudiment
+of knowledge concerning God which may be obtained by the contemplation of
+His creatures; which knowledge may be truly termed divine in respect of
+the object, and natural in respect of the light.  The bounds of this
+knowledge are, that it sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform
+religion; and therefore there was never miracle wrought by God to convert
+an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a
+God; but miracles have been wrought to convert idolaters and the
+superstitious, because no light of nature extendeth to declare the will
+and true worship of God.  For as all works do show forth the power and
+skill of the workman, and not his image, so it is of the works of God,
+which do show the omnipotency and wisdom of the Maker, but not His image.
+And therefore therein the heathen opinion differeth from the sacred
+truth: for they supposed the world to be the image of God, and man to be
+an extract or compendious image of the world; but the Scriptures never
+vouchsafe to attribute to the world that honour, as to be the image of
+God, but only _the work of His hands_; neither do they speak of any other
+image of God but man.  Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to induce
+and enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to demonstrate His power,
+providence, and goodness, is an excellent argument, and hath been
+excellently handled by divers, but on the other side, out of the
+contemplation of nature, or ground of human knowledges, to induce any
+verity or persuasion concerning the points of faith, is in my judgment
+not safe; _Da fidei quæ fidei sunt_.  For the heathen themselves conclude
+as much in that excellent and divine fable of the golden chain, “That men
+and gods were not able to draw Jupiter down to the earth; but,
+contrariwise, Jupiter was able to draw them up to heaven.”  So as we
+ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God to our
+reason, but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason to the divine
+truth.  So as in this part of knowledge, touching divine philosophy, I am
+so far from noting any deficience, as I rather note an excess; whereunto
+I have digressed because of the extreme prejudice which both religion and
+philosophy hath received and may receive by being commixed together; as
+that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion, and an imaginary
+and fabulous philosophy.
+
+(2) Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, which is an
+appendix of theology, both divine and natural, and is neither inscrutable
+nor interdicted.  For although the Scripture saith, “Let no man deceive
+you in sublime discourse touching the worship of angels, pressing into
+that he knoweth not,” &c., yet notwithstanding if you observe well that
+precept, it may appear thereby that there be two things only
+forbidden—adoration of them, and opinion fantastical of them, either to
+extol them further than appertaineth to the degree of a creature, or to
+extol a man’s knowledge of them further than he hath ground.  But the
+sober and grounded inquiry, which may arise out of the passages of Holy
+Scriptures, or out of the gradations of nature, is not restrained.  So of
+degenerate and revolted spirits, the conversing with them or the
+employment of them is prohibited, much more any veneration towards them;
+but the contemplation or science of their nature, their power, their
+illusions, either by Scripture or reason, is a part of spiritual wisdom.
+For so the apostle saith, “We are not ignorant of his stratagems.”  And
+it is no more unlawful to inquire the nature of evil spirits, than to
+inquire the force of poisons in nature, or the nature of sin and vice in
+morality.  But this part touching angels and spirits I cannot note as
+deficient, for many have occupied themselves in it; I may rather
+challenge it, in many of the writers thereof, as fabulous and
+fantastical.
+
+VII. (1) Leaving therefore divine philosophy or natural theology (not
+divinity or inspired theology, which we reserve for the last of all as
+the haven and sabbath of all man’s contemplations) we will now proceed to
+natural philosophy.  If then it be true that Democritus said, “That the
+truth of nature lieth hid in certain deep mines and caves;” and if it be
+true likewise that the alchemists do so much inculcate, that Vulcan is a
+second nature, and imitateth that dexterously and compendiously, which
+nature worketh by ambages and length of time, it were good to divide
+natural philosophy into the mine and the furnace, and to make two
+professions or occupations of natural philosophers—some to be pioneers
+and some smiths; some to dig, and some to refine and hammer.  And surely
+I do best allow of a division of that kind, though in more familiar and
+scholastical terms: namely, that these be the two parts of natural
+philosophy—the inquisition of causes, and the production of effects;
+speculative and operative; natural science, and natural prudence.  For as
+in civil matters there is a wisdom of discourse, and a wisdom of
+direction; so is it in natural.  And here I will make a request, that for
+the latter (or at least for a part thereof) I may revive and reintegrate
+the misapplied and abused name of natural magic, which in the true sense
+is but natural wisdom, or natural prudence; taken according to the
+ancient acception, purged from vanity and superstition.  Now although it
+be true, and I know it well, that there is an intercourse between causes
+and effects, so as both these knowledges, speculative and operative, have
+a great connection between themselves; yet because all true and fruitful
+natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and
+descendent, ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and
+descending from causes to the invention of new experiments; therefore I
+judge it most requisite that these two parts be severally considered and
+handled.
+
+(2) Natural science or theory is divided into physic and metaphysic;
+wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the word metaphysic in a
+differing sense from that that is received.  And in like manner, I doubt
+not but it will easily appear to men of judgment, that in this and other
+particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the
+ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms.  For hoping well to
+deliver myself from mistaking, by the order and perspicuous expressing of
+that I do propound, I am otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as
+little from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may stand with
+truth and the proficience of knowledge.  And herein I cannot a little
+marvel at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed in such a spirit of
+difference and contradiction towards all antiquity; undertaking not only
+to frame new words of science at pleasure, but to confound and extinguish
+all ancient wisdom; insomuch as he never nameth or mentioneth an ancient
+author or opinion, but to confute and reprove; wherein for glory, and
+drawing followers and disciples, he took the right course.  For certainly
+there cometh to pass, and hath place in human truth, that which was noted
+and pronounced in the highest truth:—_Veni in nomine partis_, _nec
+recipits me_; _si quis venerit in nomine suo eum recipietis_.  But in
+this divine aphorism (considering to whom it was applied, namely, to
+antichrist, the highest deceiver), we may discern well that the coming in
+a man’s own name, without regard of antiquity or paternity, is no good
+sign of truth, although it be joined with the fortune and success of an
+_eum recipietis_.  But for this excellent person Aristotle, I will think
+of him that he learned that humour of his scholar, with whom it seemeth
+he did emulate; the one to conquer all opinions, as the other to conquer
+all nations.  Wherein, nevertheless, it may be, he may at some men’s
+hands, that are of a bitter disposition, get a like title as his scholar
+did:—
+
+    “Felix terrarum prædo, non utile mundo
+    Editus exemplum, &c.”
+
+So,
+
+    “Felix doctrinæ prædo.”
+
+But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth in my pen
+to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and proficience, it
+seemeth best to keep way with antiquity _usque ad aras_; and, therefore,
+to retain the ancient terms, though I sometimes alter the uses and
+definitions, according to the moderate proceeding in civil government;
+where, although there be some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus
+wisely noteth, _eadem magistratuum vocabula_.
+
+(3) To return, therefore, to the use and acception of the term metaphysic
+as I do now understand the word; it appeareth, by that which hath been
+already said, that I intend _philosophia prima_, summary philosophy and
+metaphysic, which heretofore have been confounded as one, to be two
+distinct things.  For the one I have made as a parent or common ancestor
+to all knowledge; and the other I have now brought in as a branch or
+descendant of natural science.  It appeareth likewise that I have
+assigned to summary philosophy the common principles and axioms which are
+promiscuous and indifferent to several sciences; I have assigned unto it
+likewise the inquiry touching the operation or the relative and adventive
+characters of essences, as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility,
+and the rest, with this distinction and provision; that they be handled
+as they have efficacy in nature, and not logically.  It appeareth
+likewise that natural theology, which heretofore hath been handled
+confusedly with metaphysic, I have enclosed and bounded by itself.  It is
+therefore now a question what is left remaining for metaphysic; wherein I
+may without prejudice preserve thus much of the conceit of antiquity,
+that physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and
+therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed.
+And again, that physic should handle that which supposeth in nature only
+a being and moving; and metaphysic should handle that which supposeth
+further in nature a reason, understanding, and platform.  But the
+difference, perspicuously expressed, is most familiar and sensible.  For
+as we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes
+and productions of effects, so that part which concerneth the inquiry of
+causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of
+causes.  The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the
+material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic,
+handleth the formal and final causes.
+
+(4) Physic (taking it according to the derivation, and not according to
+our idiom for medicine) is situate in a middle term or distance between
+natural history and metaphysic.  For natural history describeth the
+variety of things; physic the causes, but variable or respective causes;
+and metaphysic the fixed and constant causes.
+
+    “Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera liquescit,
+    Uno eodemque igni.”
+
+Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire is the
+cause of colliquation, but respective to wax.  But fire is no constant
+cause either of induration or colliquation; so then the physical causes
+are but the efficient and the matter.  Physic hath three parts, whereof
+two respect nature united or collected, the third contemplateth nature
+diffused or distributed.  Nature is collected either into one entire
+total, or else into the same principles or seeds.  So as the first
+doctrine is touching the contexture or configuration of things, as _de
+mundo_, _de universitate rerum_.  The second is the doctrine concerning
+the principles or originals of things.  The third is the doctrine
+concerning all variety and particularity of things; whether it be of the
+differing substances, or their differing qualities and natures; whereof
+there needeth no enumeration, this part being but as a gloss or
+paraphrase that attendeth upon the text of natural history.  Of these
+three I cannot report any as deficient.  In what truth or perfection they
+are handled, I make not now any judgment; but they are parts of knowledge
+not deserted by the labour of man.
+
+(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of formal and
+final causes; which assignation, as to the former of them, may seem to be
+nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion, that
+the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential forms or
+true differences; of which opinion we will take this hold, that the
+invention of forms is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be
+sought, if it be possible to be found.  As for the possibility, they are
+ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing
+but sea.  But it is manifest that Plato, in his opinion of ideas, as one
+that had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did descry that
+forms were the true object of knowledge; but lost the real fruit of his
+opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter,
+and not confined and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion
+upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected.  But if
+any man shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action,
+operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice what
+are the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and important to the
+state of man.  For as to the forms of substances (man only except, of
+whom it is said, _Formavit hominem de limo terræ_, _et spiravit in faciem
+ejus spiraculum vitæ_, and not as of all other creatures, _Producant
+aquæ_, _producat terra_), the forms of substances I say (as they are now
+by compounding and transplanting multiplied) are so perplexed, as they
+are not to be inquired; no more than it were either possible or to
+purpose to seek in gross the forms of those sounds which make words,
+which by composition and transposition of letters are infinite.  But, on
+the other side, to inquire the form of those sounds or voices which make
+simple letters is easily comprehensible; and being known induceth and
+manifesteth the forms of all words, which consist and are compounded of
+them.  In the same manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of
+gold; nay, of water, of air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the forms
+of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity and
+levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other natures
+and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not many, and of which the
+essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures do consist; to inquire, I
+say, the true forms of these, is that part of metaphysic which we now
+define of.  Not but that physic doth make inquiry and take consideration
+of the same natures; but how?  Only as to the material and efficient
+causes of them, and not as to the forms.  For example, if the cause of
+whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it be rendered thus, that the
+subtle intermixture of air and water is the cause, it is well rendered;
+but, nevertheless, is this the form of whiteness?  No; but it is the
+efficient, which is ever but _vehiculum formæ_.  This part of metaphysic
+I do not find laboured and performed; whereat I marvel not; because I
+hold it not possible to be invented by that course of invention which
+hath been used; in regard that men (which is the root of all error) have
+made too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from particulars.
+
+(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as deficient,
+is of the rest the most excellent in two respects: the one, because it is
+the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge the infinity of
+individual experience, as much as the conception of truth will permit,
+and to remedy the complaint of _vita brevis_, _ars longa_; which is
+performed by uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences.  For
+knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis.  So of natural
+philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage next the basis is
+physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic.  As for the
+vertical point, _opus quod operatur Deus à principio usque ad finem_, the
+summary law of nature, we know not whether man’s inquiry can attain unto
+it.  But these three be the true stages of knowledge, and are to them
+that are depraved no better than the giants’ hills:—
+
+    “Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,
+    Scilicet atque Ossæ frondsum involvere Olympum.”
+
+But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as the
+three acclamations, _Sante_, _sancte_, _sancte_! holy in the description
+or dilatation of His works; holy in the connection or concatenation of
+them; and holy in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law.  And,
+therefore, the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato,
+although but a speculation in them, that all things by scale did ascend
+to unity.  So then always that knowledge is worthiest which is charged
+with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be metaphysic; as that which
+considereth the simple forms or differences of things, which are few in
+number, and the degrees and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety.
+The second respect, which valueth and commendeth this part of metaphysic,
+is that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the greatest liberty
+and possibility of works and effects.  For physic carrieth men in narrow
+and restrained ways, subject to many accidents and impediments, imitating
+the ordinary flexuous courses of nature.  But _latæ undique sunt
+sapientibus viæ_; to sapience (which was anciently defined to be _rerum
+divinarum et humanarum scientia_) there is ever a choice of means.  For
+physical causes give light to new invention in _simili materia_.  But
+whosoever knoweth any form, knoweth the utmost possibility of
+superinducing that nature upon any variety of matter; and so is less
+restrained in operation, either to the basis of the matter, or the
+condition of the efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise,
+though in a more divine sense, elegantly describeth: _non arctabuntur
+gressus tui_, _et currens non habebis offendiculum_.  The ways of
+sapience are not much liable either to particularity or chance.
+
+(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes, which I
+am moved to report not as omitted, but as misplaced.  And yet if it were
+but a fault in order, I would not speak of it; for order is matter of
+illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance of sciences.  But this
+misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience in
+the sciences themselves.  For the handling of final causes, mixed with
+the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent
+inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to
+stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and
+prejudice of further discovery.  For this I find done not only by Plato,
+who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others
+which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes.
+For to say that “the hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence
+about the sight;” or that “the firmness of the skins and hides of living
+creatures is to defend them from the extremities of heat or cold;” or
+that “the bones are for the columns or beams, whereupon the frames of the
+bodies of living creatures are built;” or that “the leaves of trees are
+for protecting of the fruit;” or that “the clouds are for watering of the
+earth;” or that “the solidness of the earth is for the station and
+mansion of living creatures;” and the like, is well inquired and
+collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent.  Nay, they
+are, indeed, but _remoras_ and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from
+further sailing; and have brought this to pass, that the search of the
+physical causes hath been neglected and passed in silence.  And,
+therefore, the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who did
+not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the
+form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of
+Nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by
+the recital and fragments which remain unto us) in particularities of
+physical causes more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and
+Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of
+theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite
+studies respectively of both those persons; not because those final
+causes are not true and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their
+own province, but because their excursions into the limits of physical
+causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that tract.  For otherwise,
+keeping their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if they
+think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between them.  For the
+cause rendered, that “the hairs about the eyelids are for the safeguard
+of the sight,” doth not impugn the cause rendered, that “pilosity is
+incident to orifices of moisture—_muscosi fontes_, &c.”  Nor the cause
+rendered, that “the firmness of hides is for the armour of the body
+against extremities of heat or cold,” doth not impugn the cause rendered,
+that “contraction of pores is incident to the outwardest parts, in regard
+of their adjacence to foreign or unlike bodies;” and so of the rest, both
+causes being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the
+other a consequence only.  Neither doth this call in question or derogate
+from Divine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it.  For as in civil
+actions he is the greater and deeper politique that can make other men
+the instruments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint them with
+his purpose, so as they shall do it and yet not know what they do, than
+he that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of
+God more admirable, when Nature intendeth one thing and Providence
+draweth forth another, than if He had communicated to particular
+creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His Providence.
+And thus much for metaphysic; the latter part whereof I allow as extant,
+but wish it confined to his proper place.
+
+VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of natural
+philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth rank
+with physic special and metaphysic, which is mathematic; but I think it
+more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order, to
+place it as a branch of metaphysic.  For the subject of it being
+quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth
+to _philosophia prima_ (as hath been said), but quantity determined or
+proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the essential forms of things,
+as that that is causative in Nature of a number of effects; insomuch as
+we see in the schools both of Democritus and of Pythagoras that the one
+did ascribe figure to the first seeds of things, and the other did
+suppose numbers to be the principles and originals of things.  And it is
+true also that of all other forms (as we understand forms) it is the most
+abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore most proper to
+metaphysic; which hath likewise been the cause why it hath been better
+laboured and inquired than any of the other forms, which are more
+immersed in matter.  For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the
+extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of
+generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of
+particularity, the mathematics of all other knowledge were the goodliest
+fields to satisfy that appetite.  But for the placing of this science, it
+is not much material: only we have endeavoured in these our partitions to
+observe a kind of perspective, that one part may cast light upon another.
+
+(2) The mathematics are either pure or mixed.  To the pure mathematics
+are those sciences belonging which handle quantity determinate, merely
+severed from any axioms of natural philosophy; and these are two,
+geometry and arithmetic, the one handling quantity continued, and the
+other dissevered.  Mixed hath for subject some axioms or parts of natural
+philosophy, and considereth quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and
+incident unto them.  For many parts of Nature can neither be invented
+with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity,
+nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and
+intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music,
+astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.  In
+the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men do not
+sufficiently understand this excellent use of the pure mathematics, in
+that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties
+intellectual.  For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too
+wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it.
+So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in
+respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all
+postures, so in the mathematics that use which is collateral and
+intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended.
+And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that
+there cannot fail to be more kinds of them as Nature grows further
+disclosed.  Thus much of natural science, or the part of Nature
+speculative.
+
+(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural philosophy, we
+will divide it into three parts—experimental, philosophical, and magical;
+which three parts active have a correspondence and analogy with the three
+parts speculative, natural history, physic, and metaphysic.  For many
+operations have been invented, sometimes by a casual incidence and
+occurrence, sometimes by a purposed experiment; and of those which have
+been found by an intentional experiment, some have been found out by
+varying or extending the same experiment, some by transferring and
+compounding divers experiments the one into the other, which kind of
+invention an empiric may manage.  Again, by the knowledge of physical
+causes there cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of
+new particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon use
+and practice.  But these are but coastings along the shore, _premendo
+littus iniquum_; for it seemeth to me there can hardly be discovered any
+radical or fundamental alterations and innovations in Nature, either by
+the fortune and essays of experiments, or by the light and direction of
+physical causes.  If, therefore, we have reported metaphysic deficient,
+it must follow that we do the like of natural magic, which hath relation
+thereunto.  For as for the natural magic whereof now there is mention in
+books, containing certain credulous and superstitious conceits and
+observations of sympathies and antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and
+some frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement than in
+themselves, it is as far differing in truth of Nature from such a
+knowledge as we require as the story of King Arthur of Britain, or Hugh
+of Bourdeaux, differs from Cæsar’s Commentaries in truth of story; for it
+is manifest that Cæsar did greater things _de vero_ than those imaginary
+heroes were feigned to do.  But he did them not in that fabulous manner.
+Of this kind of learning the fable of Ixion was a figure, who designed to
+enjoy Juno, the goddess of power, and instead of her had copulation with
+a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and chimeras.  So
+whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a
+laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and beliefs of
+strange and impossible shapes.  And, therefore, we may note in these
+sciences which hold so much of imagination and belief, as this degenerate
+natural magic, alchemy, astrology, and the like, that in their
+propositions the description of the means is ever more monstrous than the
+pretence or end.  For it is a thing more probable that he that knoweth
+well the natures of weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect
+of the hammer, of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the
+rest, may superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such
+mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures afore rehearsed,
+than that some grains of the medicine projected should in a few moments
+of time turn a sea of quicksilver or other material into gold.  So it is
+more probable that he that knoweth the nature of arefaction, the nature
+of assimilation of nourishment to the thing nourished, the manner of
+increase and clearing of spirits, the manner of the depredations which
+spirits make upon the humours and solid parts, shall by ambages of diets,
+bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, and the like, prolong life, or
+restore some degree of youth or vivacity, than that it can be done with
+the use of a few drops or scruples of a liquor or receipt.  To conclude,
+therefore, the true natural magic, which is that great liberty and
+latitude of operation which dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I may
+report deficient, as the relative thereof is.  To which part, if we be
+serious and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the
+deriving and deducing the operations themselves from metaphysic, there
+are pertinent two points of much purpose, the one by way of preparation,
+the other by way of caution.  The first is, that there be made a
+calendar, resembling an inventory of the estate of man, containing all
+the inventions (being the works or fruits of Nature or art) which are now
+extant, and whereof man is already possessed; out of which doth naturally
+result a note what things are yet held impossible, or not invented, which
+calendar will be the more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed
+impossibility you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in
+degree to that impossibility; to the end that by these optatives and
+potentials man’s inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction of
+works from the speculation of causes.  And secondly, that these
+experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use,
+but those principally which are of most universal consequence for
+invention of other experiments, and those which give most light to the
+invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner’s needle, which
+giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the
+invention of the sails which give the motion.
+
+(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the deficiences
+thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient and received
+doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for my part, as I affect
+not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend.  If it be truth,
+
+    “Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvæ,”
+
+the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.  And
+as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for
+Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their
+lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of
+truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are
+capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity
+and contention.
+
+(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according to the
+report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or subject: and
+that is positive and considerative, when the inquiry reporteth either an
+assertion or a doubt.  These doubts or _non liquets_ are of two sorts,
+particular and total.  For the first, we see a good example thereof in
+Aristotle’s Problems which deserved to have had a better continuance; but
+so nevertheless as there is one point whereof warning is to be given and
+taken.  The registering of doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that
+it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not
+fully appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw
+error, but reserved in doubt; the other, that the entry of doubts are as
+so many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that
+which if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised, but
+passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts
+is made to be attended and applied.  But both these commodities do
+scarcely countervail and inconvenience, which will intrude itself if it
+be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labour
+rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it, and
+accordingly bend their wits.  Of this we see the familiar example in
+lawyers and scholars, both which, if they have once admitted a doubt, it
+goeth ever after authorised for a doubt.  But that use of wit and
+knowledge is to be allowed, which laboureth to make doubtful things
+certain, and not those which labour to make certain things doubtful.
+Therefore these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent things; so
+that there he this caution used, that when they be thoroughly sifted and
+brought to resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted, discarded, and
+not continued to cherish and encourage men in doubting.  To which
+calendar of doubts or problems I advise be annexed another calendar, as
+much or more material which is a calendar of popular errors: I mean
+chiefly in natural history, such as pass in speech and conceit, and are
+nevertheless apparently detected and convicted of untruth, that man’s
+knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and vanity.  As for
+the doubts or _non liquets_ general or in total, I understand those
+differences of opinions touching the principles of nature, and the
+fundamental points of the same, which have caused the diversity of sects,
+schools, and philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus,
+Parmenides, and the rest.  For although Aristotle, as though he had been
+of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first
+thing he did he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth and
+not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to see
+before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature.  Not
+for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for as the
+same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received astronomy of
+the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the planets, with their
+eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the theory of Copernicus, who
+supposed the earth to move, and the calculations are indifferently
+agreeable to both, so the ordinary face and view of experience is many
+times satisfied by several theories and philosophies; whereas to find the
+real truth requireth another manner of severity and attention.  For as
+Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call every woman mother,
+but afterward they come to distinguish according to truth, so experience,
+if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy mother, but when it
+cometh to ripeness it will discern the true mother.  So as in the
+meantime it is good to see the several glosses and opinions upon Nature,
+whereof it may be everyone in some one point hath seen clearer than his
+fellows, therefore I wish some collection to be made painfully and
+understandingly _de antiquis philosophiis_, out of all the possible light
+which remaineth to us of them: which kind of work I find deficient.  But
+here I must give warning, that it be done distinctly and severedly; the
+philosophies of everyone throughout by themselves, and not by titles
+packed and faggoted up together, as hath been done by Plutarch.  For it
+is the harmony of a philosophy in itself, which giveth it light and
+credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more foreign
+and dissonant.  For as when I read in Tacitus the actions of Nero or
+Claudius, with circumstances of times, inducements, and occasions, I find
+them not so strange; but when I read them in Suetonius Tranquillus,
+gathered into titles and bundles and not in order of time, they seem more
+monstrous and incredible: so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and
+dismembered by articles.  Neither do I exclude opinions of latter times
+to be likewise represented in this calendar of sects of philosophy, as
+that of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into an harmony by
+the pen of Severinus the Dane; and that of Tilesius, and his scholar
+Donius, being as a pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but of no great
+depth; and that of Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not to make any
+new philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own sense upon the
+old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who revived, with some
+alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes; and any other
+worthy to be admitted.
+
+(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man’s
+knowledge; that is _radius directus_, which is referred to nature,
+_radius refractus_, which is referred to God, and cannot report truly
+because of the inequality of the medium.  There resteth _radius
+reflexus_, whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.
+
+IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient
+oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth
+the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly.  This
+knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the
+intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural
+philosophy in the continent of Nature.  And generally let this be a rule,
+that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins
+than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and
+entireness of knowledge be preserved.  For the contrary hereof hath made
+particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they
+have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain.  So we
+see Cicero, the orator, complained of Socrates and his school, that he
+was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric
+became an empty and verbal art.  So we may see that the opinion of
+Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself
+cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the _phenomena_,
+yet natural philosophy may correct.  So we see also that the science of
+medicine if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is
+not much better than an empirical practice.  With this reservation,
+therefore, we proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two
+parts: the one considereth man segregate or distributively, the other
+congregate or in society; so as human philosophy is either simple and
+particular, or conjugate and civil.  Humanity particular consisteth of
+the same parts whereof man consisteth: that is, of knowledges which
+respect the body, and of knowledges that respect the mind.  But before we
+distribute so far, it is good to constitute.  For I do take the
+consideration in general, and at large, of human nature to be fit to be
+emancipate and made a knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those
+delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of
+man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his
+common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge
+concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body,
+which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either.
+
+(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and amities
+consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of mind
+and body hath these two parts: how the one discloseth the other, and how
+the one worketh upon the other; discovery and impression.  The former of
+these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof
+the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of
+Hippocrates.  And although they have of later time been used to be
+coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged and
+restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in
+Nature, and a profitable use in life.  The first is physiognomy, which
+discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body.
+The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the
+state of the body by the imaginations of the mind.  In the former of
+these I note a deficience.  For Aristotle hath very ingeniously and
+diligently handled the factures of the body, but not the gestures of the
+body, which are no less comprehensible by art, and of greater use and
+advantage.  For the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition
+and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions of the
+countenance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose the present
+humour and state of the mind and will.  For as your majesty saith most
+aptly and elegantly, “As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the gesture
+speaketh to the eye.”  And, therefore, a number of subtle persons, whose
+eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions of men, do well know the
+advantage of this observation, as being most part of their ability;
+neither can it be denied, but that it is a great discovery of
+dissimulations, and a great direction in business.
+
+(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected into
+art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or
+_antistrophe_ that the former hath.  For the consideration is
+double—either how and how far the humours and affects of the body do
+alter or work upon the mind, or, again, how and how far the passions or
+apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body.  The former of
+these hath been inquired and considered as a part and appendix of
+medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition.  For the
+physician prescribeth cures of the mind in frenzies and melancholy
+passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the
+mind, to control the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the
+memory, and the like; but the scruples and superstitions of diet and
+other regiment of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy
+of the Manichees, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed.  So likewise the
+ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood
+and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat,
+are many and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from
+all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences,
+and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and
+not figurative.  The root and life of all which prescripts is (besides
+the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which the affections
+of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition of the
+body.  And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of
+the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate
+from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught, in easy instances,
+that the infant in the mother’s womb is compatible with the mother, and
+yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his
+servants, and yet without subjection.  As for the reciprocal knowledge,
+which is the operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the
+body, we see all wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments
+to their patients, do ever consider _accidentia animi_, as of great force
+to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more specially it is an
+inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far
+it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for although it hath a
+manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power
+to help.  No more than a man can conclude, that because there be
+pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there
+should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness.  But
+the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as
+Socrates said, “a Delian diver,” being difficult and profound.  But unto
+all this knowledge _de communi vinculo_, of the concordances between the
+mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary which
+considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the
+mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath
+been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
+inquired.  For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the
+brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater
+mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the
+liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less to be allowed.  So,
+then, we have constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry
+touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be
+handled apart.
+
+X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man’s body is divided as the good of
+man’s body is divided, unto which it referreth.  The good of man’s body
+is of four kinds—health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the
+knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which is
+called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic; and art
+voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth _eruditus luxus_.  This subject
+of man’s body is, of all other things in nature, most susceptible of
+remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error; for the same
+subtlety of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing,
+and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.
+
+(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said,
+ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was
+_microcosmus_—an abstract or model of the world—hath been fantastically
+strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found
+in man’s body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have
+respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which
+are extant in the great world.  But thus much is evidently true, that of
+all substances which nature hath produced, man’s body is the most
+extremely compounded.  For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth
+and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh
+of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
+alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies before
+they come to be his food and aliment.  Add hereunto that beasts have a
+more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon
+their bodies, whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath
+infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of
+all other things is of the most compounded mass.  The soul, on the other
+side, is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:
+
+          “Purumque reliquit
+    Æthereum sensum atque auraï simplicis ignem.”
+
+So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that
+principle be true, that _Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum_, _placidus
+in loco_.  But to the purpose.  This variable composition of man’s body
+hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and, therefore, the
+poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the
+office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body and to
+reduce it to harmony.  So, then, the subject being so variable hath made
+the art by consequent more conjectural; and the art being conjectural
+hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture.  For almost
+all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may
+term them, and not by the successes and events.  The lawyer is judged by
+the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; this
+master in this ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not
+by the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps this
+politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is
+judged most by the event, which is ever but as it is taken: for who can
+tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined,
+whether it be art or accident?  And therefore many times the impostor is
+prized, and the man of virtue taxed.  Nay, we see [the] weakness and
+credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a mountebank or witch
+before a learned physician.  And therefore the poets were clear-sighted
+in discerning this extreme folly when they made Æsculapius and Circe,
+brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses—
+
+    “Ipse repertorem medicinæ talis et artis
+    Fulmine Phœbigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.”
+
+And again—
+
+    “Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos,” &c.
+
+For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women
+and impostors, have had a competition with physicians.  And what
+followeth?  Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon
+expresseth it upon a higher occasion, “If it befall to me as befalleth to
+the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?”  And therefore I cannot
+much blame physicians that they use commonly to intend some other art or
+practice, which they fancy more than their profession; for you shall have
+of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and
+in every of these better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon
+this ground that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art
+maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune: for
+the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope,
+maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects.  But,
+nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of are courses begotten
+between a little occasion and a great deal of sloth and default; for if
+we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see in familiar
+instances what a predominant faculty the subtlety of spirit hath over the
+variety of matter or form.  Nothing more variable than faces and
+countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of
+them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of
+his eye, and habit of his imagination, can imitate them all that ever
+have been, are, or may be, if they were brought before him.  Nothing more
+variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them personally: nay,
+you shall have a _buffon_ or _pantomimus_ will express as many as he
+pleaseth.  Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words; yet
+men have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters.  So that
+it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man’s mind, but it is the
+remote standing or placing thereof that breedeth these mazes and
+incomprehensions; for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is
+exact at hand, so is it of the understanding, the remedy whereof is, not
+to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and
+therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and use the
+true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the
+poet saith:
+
+    “Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;
+    Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.”
+
+Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve: well
+shadowed by the poets, in that they made Æsculapius to be the son of
+[the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the
+second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of our
+Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as the soul
+was the object of His doctrine.  For we read not that ever He vouchsafed
+to do any miracle about honour or money (except that one for giving
+tribute to Cæsar), but only about the preserving, sustaining, and healing
+the body of man.
+
+(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more
+professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour
+having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.  For I
+find much iteration, but small addition.  It considereth causes of
+diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with
+the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.  The deficiences
+which I think good to note, being a few of many, and those such as are of
+a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate and not place.
+
+(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence
+of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases
+of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by
+recovery or death.  Therefore having an example proper in the father of
+the art, I shall not need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of
+the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions, for the
+direction of future judgments.  This continuance of medicinal history I
+find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend
+to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders: for
+many things are new in this manner, which are not new in the kind; and if
+men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.
+
+(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience: for
+they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and
+collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the
+secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the humours, nor
+much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases.  The reason of which
+omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in
+the view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative and
+casual, must arise from the view of many.  And as to the diversity of
+parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward parts
+is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause
+continent of many diseases; which not being observed, they quarrel many
+times with the humours, which are not in fault; the fault being in the
+very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine
+alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines
+familiar.  And for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently
+noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they
+are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in
+life: which being supposed, though the inhumanity of _anatomia vivorum_
+was by Celsus justly reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this
+observation, the inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been
+relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery;
+but might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive,
+which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may sufficiently
+satisfy this inquiry.  And for the humours, they are commonly passed over
+in anatomies as purgaments; whereas it is most necessary to observe, what
+cavities, nests, and receptacles the humours do find in the parts, with
+the differing kind of the humour so lodged and received.  And as for the
+footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of the inward parts,
+impostumations, exulcerations, discontinuations, putrefactions,
+consumptions, contractions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations,
+obstructions, repletions, together with all preternatural substances, as
+stones, carnosities, excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to
+have been exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the
+contribution of men’s several experiences, and carefully set down both
+historically according to the appearances, and artificially with a
+reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from them, in case
+where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas now upon opening of
+bodies they are passed over slightly and in silence.
+
+(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of many, some
+as in their nature incurable, and others as past the period of cure; so
+that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die, as they
+do by their ignorant edicts: whereof numbers do escape with less
+difficulty than they did in the Roman prescriptions.  Therefore I will
+not doubt to note as a deficience, that they inquire not the perfect
+cures of many diseases, or extremities of diseases; but pronouncing them
+incurable do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from discredit.
+
+(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to
+restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not only when such
+mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair
+and easy passage.  For it is no small felicity which Augustus Cæsar was
+wont to wish to himself, that same _Euthanasia_; and which was specially
+noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the fashion,
+and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sheep.  So it is written of
+Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate, he drowned his
+stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of wine;
+whereupon the epigram was made, _Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas_; he
+was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water.  But
+the physicians contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to
+stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas in my
+judgment they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the
+attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies
+of death.
+
+(5) In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficience in
+the receipts of propriety, respecting the particular cures of diseases:
+for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition and experience
+by their magistralities, in adding and taking out and changing _quid pro
+qua_ in their receipts, at their pleasures; commanding so over the
+medicine, as the medicine cannot command over the disease.  For except it
+be treacle and _mithridatum_, and of late _diascordium_, and a few more,
+they tie themselves to no receipts severely and religiously.  For as to
+the confections of sale which are in the shops, they are for readiness
+and not for propriety.  For they are upon general intentions of purging,
+opening, comforting, altering, and not much appropriate to particular
+diseases.  And this is the cause why empirics and old women are more
+happy many times in their cures than learned physicians, because they are
+more religious in holding their medicines.  Therefore here is the
+deficience which I find, that physicians have not, partly out of their
+own practice, partly out of the constant probations reported in books,
+and partly out of the traditions of empirics, set down and delivered over
+certain experimental medicines for the cure of particular diseases,
+besides their own conjectural and magistral descriptions.  For as they
+were the men of the best composition in the state of Rome, which either
+being consuls inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to the
+senate; so in the matter we now handle, they be the best physicians,
+which being learned incline to the traditions of experience, or being
+empirics incline to the methods of learning.
+
+(9) In preparation of medicines I do find strange, specially considering
+how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that they are safer for the
+outward than inward parts, that no man hath sought to make an imitation
+by art of natural baths and medicinable fountains: which nevertheless are
+confessed to receive their virtues from minerals; and not so only, but
+discerned and distinguished from what particular mineral they receive
+tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which nature, if it
+may be reduced to compositions of art, both the variety of them will be
+increased, and the temper of them will be more commanded.
+
+(10) But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable either to my
+intention or to proportion, I will conclude this part with the note of
+one deficience more, which seemeth to me of greatest consequence: which
+is, that the prescripts in use are too compendious to attain their end;
+for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think
+any medicine can be so sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt or miss
+of it can work any great effect upon the body of man.  It were a strange
+speech which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to
+which he were by nature subject.  It is order, pursuit, sequence, and
+interchange of application, which is mighty in nature; which although it
+require more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience
+in observing, yet is recompensed with the magnitude of effects.  And
+although a man would think, by the daily visitations of the physicians,
+that there were a pursuance in the cure, yet let a man look into their
+prescripts and ministrations, and he shall find them but inconstancies
+and every day’s devices, without any settled providence or project.  Not
+that every scrupulous or superstitious prescript is effectual, no more
+than every straight way is the way to heaven; but the truth of the
+direction must precede severity of observance.
+
+(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate: for
+cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to
+God, to society, and to ourselves.  As for artificial decoration, it is
+well worthy of the deficiences which it hath; being neither fine enough
+to deceive, nor handsome to use, nor wholesome to please.
+
+(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say, for
+any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be brought, whether it
+be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two parts, strength
+and swiftness; and patience likewise hath two parts, hardness against
+wants and extremities, and endurance of pain or torment; whereof we see
+the practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer
+punishment.  Nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not within
+any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain a strange
+power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it to this part.
+Of these things the practices are known, but the philosophy that
+concerneth them is not much inquired; the rather, I think, because they
+are supposed to be obtained, either by an aptness of nature, which cannot
+be taught, or only by continual custom, which is soon prescribed which
+though it be not true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the
+Olympian games are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is
+for use; as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most part but
+for mercenary ostentation.
+
+(13) For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them is of
+laws to repress them.  For as it hath been well observed, that the arts
+which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military; and
+while virtue is in state, are liberal; and while virtue is in
+declination, are voluptuary: so I doubt that this age of the world is
+somewhat upon the descent of the wheel.  With arts voluptuary I couple
+practices joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the
+pleasures of the senses.  As for games of recreation, I hold them to
+belong to civil life and education.  And thus much of that particular
+human philosophy which concerns the body, which is but the tabernacle of
+the mind.
+
+XI. (1) For human knowledge which concerns the mind, it hath two parts;
+the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul or mind,
+the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions thereof.   Unto
+the first of these, the considerations of the original of the soul,
+whether it be native or adventive, and how far it is exempted from laws
+of matter, and of the immortality thereof, and many other points, do
+appertain: which have been not more laboriously inquired than variously
+reported; so as the travail therein taken seemeth to have been rather in
+a maze than in a way.  But although I am of opinion that this knowledge
+may be more really and soundly inquired, even in nature, than it hath
+been, yet I hold that in the end it must be hounded by religion, or else
+it will be subject to deceit and delusion.  For as the substance of the
+soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven and
+earth by the benediction of a _producat_, but was immediately inspired
+from God, so it is not possible that it should be (otherwise than by
+accident) subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which are the subject
+of philosophy; and therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state
+of the soul must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance.
+Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul there be two appendices;
+which, as they have been handled, have rather vapoured forth fables than
+kindled truth: divination and fascination.
+
+(2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial and
+natural: whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a prediction by
+argument, concluding upon signs and tokens; natural is, when the mind
+hath a presention by an internal power, without the inducement of a sign.
+Artificial is of two sorts: either when the argument is coupled with a
+derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it is only grounded upon
+a coincidence of the effect, which is experimental: whereof the latter
+for the most part is superstitious, such as were the heathen observations
+upon the inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the swarming of
+bees; and such as was the Chaldean astrology, and the like.  For
+artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are distributed amongst
+particular knowledges.  The astronomer hath his predictions, as of
+conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and the like.  The physician hath his
+predictions, of death, of recovery, of the accidents and issues of
+diseases.  The politique hath his predictions; _O urbem venalem_, _et
+cito perituram_, _si emptorem invenerit_! which stayed not long to be
+performed, in Sylla first, and after in Cæsar: so as these predictions
+are now impertinent, and to be referred over.  But the divination which
+springeth from the internal nature of the soul is that which we now speak
+of; which hath been made to be of two sorts, primitive and by influxion.
+Primitive is grounded upon the supposition that the mind, when it is
+withdrawn and collected into itself, and not diffused into the organs of
+the body, hath some extent and latitude of prenotion; which therefore
+appeareth most in sleep, in ecstasies, and near death, and more rarely in
+waking apprehensions; and is induced and furthered by those abstinences
+and observances which make the mind most to consist in itself.  By
+influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as a mirror or
+glass, should take illumination from the foreknowledge of God and
+spirits: unto which the same regiment doth likewise conduce.  For the
+retiring of the mind within itself is the state which is most susceptible
+of divine influxions; save that it is accompanied in this case with a
+fervency and elevation (which the ancients noted by fury), and not with a
+repose and quiet, as it is in the other.
+
+(3) Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive upon other
+bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of that we spake in the proper
+place.  Wherein the school of Paracelsus, and the disciples of pretended
+natural magic, have been so intemperate, as they have exalted the power
+of the imagination to be much one with the power of miracle-working
+faith.  Others, that draw nearer to probability, calling to their view
+the secret passages of things, and specially of the contagion that
+passeth from body to body, do conceive it should likewise be agreeable to
+nature that there should be some transmissions and operations from spirit
+to spirit without the mediation of the senses; whence the conceits have
+grown (now almost made civil) of the mastering spirit, and the force of
+confidence, and the like.  Incident unto this is the inquiry how to raise
+and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination fortified have power,
+then it is material to know how to fortify and exalt it.  And herein
+comes in crookedly and dangerously a palliation of a great part of
+ceremonial magic.  For it may be pretended that ceremonies, characters,
+and charms do work, not by any tacit or sacramental contract with evil
+spirits, but serve only to strengthen the imagination of him that useth
+it; as images are said by the Roman Church to fix the cogitations and
+raise the devotions of them that pray before them.  But for mine own
+judgment, if it be admitted that imagination hath power, and that
+ceremonies fortify imagination, and that they be used sincerely and
+intentionally for that purpose; yet I should hold them unlawful, as
+opposing to that first edict which God gave unto man, _In sudore vultus
+comedes panem tuum_.  For they propound those noble effects, which God
+hath set forth unto man to be bought at the price of labour, to be
+attained by a few easy and slothful observances.  Deficiences in these
+knowledges I will report none, other than the general deficience, that it
+is not known how much of them is verity, and how much vanity.
+
+XII. (1) The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the mind of man
+is of two kinds—the one respecting his understanding and reason, and the
+other his will, appetite, and affection; whereof the former produceth
+position or decree, the latter action or execution.  It is true that the
+imagination is an agent or _nuncius_ in both provinces, both the judicial
+and the ministerial.  For sense sendeth over to imagination before reason
+have judged, and reason sendeth over to imagination before the decree can
+be acted.  For imagination ever precedeth voluntary motion.  Saving that
+this Janus of imagination hath differing faces: for the face towards
+reason hath the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the
+print of good; which nevertheless are faces,
+
+    “Quales decet esse sororum.”
+
+Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger; but is invested
+with, or at least wise usurpeth no small authority in itself, besides the
+duty of the message.  For it was well said by Aristotle, “That the mind
+hath over the body that commandment, which the lord hath over a bondman;
+but that reason hath over the imagination that commandment which a
+magistrate hath over a free citizen,” who may come also to rule in his
+turn.  For we see that, in matters of faith and religion, we raise our
+imagination above our reason, which is the cause why religion sought ever
+access to the mind by similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams.  And
+again, in all persuasions that are wrought by eloquence, and other
+impressions of like nature, which do paint and disguise the true
+appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the
+imagination.  Nevertheless, because I find not any science that doth
+properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no cause to alter the
+former division.  For as for poesy, it is rather a pleasure or play of
+imagination than a work or duty thereof.  And if it be a work, we speak
+not now of such parts of learning as the imagination produceth, but of
+such sciences as handle and consider of the imagination.  No more than we
+shall speak now of such knowledges as reason produceth (for that
+extendeth to all philosophy), but of such knowledges as do handle and
+inquire of the faculty of reason: so as poesy had his true place.  As for
+the power of the imagination in nature, and the manner of fortifying the
+same, we have mentioned it in the doctrine _De Anima_, whereunto most
+fitly it belongeth.  And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative reason,
+which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to refer it to the
+arts of reason.  So therefore we content ourselves with the former
+division, that human philosophy, which respecteth the faculties of the
+mind of man, hath two parts, rational and moral.
+
+(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all knowledges,
+to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of subtlety
+and spinosity.  For as it was truly said, that knowledge is _pabulum
+animi_; so in the nature of men’s appetite to this food most men are of
+the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain
+have returned _ad ollas carnium_, and were weary of manna; which, though
+it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and comfortable.  So
+generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood,
+civil history, morality, policy, about the which men’s affections,
+praises, fortunes do turn and are conversant.  But this same _lumen
+siccum_ doth parch and offend most men’s watery and soft natures.  But to
+speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the
+keys of all other arts, for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, “That
+the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of
+forms;” so these be truly said to be the art of arts.  Neither do they
+only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of
+shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a
+stronger bow.
+
+(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the
+ends whereunto they are referred—for man’s labour is to invent that which
+is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain
+that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained.  So as
+the arts must be four—art of inquiry or invention; art of examination or
+judgment; art of custody or memory; and art of elocution or tradition.
+
+XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing—the one of arts and
+sciences, and the other of speech and arguments.  The former of these I
+do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if,
+in the making of an inventory touching the state of a defunct, it should
+be set down that there is no ready money.  For as money will fetch all
+other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all
+the rest.  And like as the West Indies had never been discovered if the
+use of the mariner’s needle had not been first discovered, though the one
+be vast regions, and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found
+strange if sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of
+invention and discovery hath been passed over.
+
+(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth
+plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences,
+or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a _cuique in sua arte
+credendum_.  And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the
+empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, “That medicines and cures
+were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were
+discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them
+the medicines and cures discovered.”  And Plato in his “Theætetus” noteth
+well, “That particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no
+sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which maketh the
+artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in
+every particular knowledge are taken from tradition and experience.”  And
+therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and
+originals of things refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather
+to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.
+
+    “Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab Ida,
+    Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem
+    Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris
+    Gramina, cum tergo volucres hæsere sagittæ.”
+
+So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate
+inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples,
+but almost all brute:
+
+    “Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,
+    Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c.”
+
+And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the
+first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus
+first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he
+first stroke the flints he expected the spark; and therefore we see the
+West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because of
+the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion.  So as it
+should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for
+surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of
+physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery, or generally to
+chance or anything else than to logic for the invention of arts and
+sciences.  Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much
+other:
+
+    “Ut varias usus meditande extunderet artes
+    Paulatim.”
+
+For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that which
+brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which is a perpetual
+intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute
+necessity of conservation of being.  For so Cicero saith very truly,
+_Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem sæpe vincit_.  And therefore if
+it be said of men,
+
+          “Labor omnia vincit
+    Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,”
+
+it is likewise said of beasts, _Quis psittaco docuit suum χαιρε_?  Who
+taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where
+she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it?
+Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or air, and to find
+the way from a field in a flower a great way off to her hive?  Who taught
+the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it
+should take root and grow?  Add then the word _extundere_, which
+importeth the extreme difficulty, and the word _paulatim_, which
+importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even amongst
+the Egyptians’ gods; there being little left to the faculty of reason,
+and nothing to the duty or art, for matter of invention.
+
+(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which
+seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may be
+pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation
+from the principles; their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious
+and incompetent; wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the
+duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have
+wronged, abused, and traduced nature.  For he that shall attentively
+observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge, like
+unto that which the poet speaketh of, _Aërei mellis cælestia dona_,
+distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial,
+as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find that the mind of
+herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than they
+describe it.  For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without
+instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can
+assure (in many subjects) upon those particulars which appear of a side,
+that there are not other on the contrary side which appear not?  As if
+Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought
+before him, and failed of David which was in the field.  And this form
+(to say truth), is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so
+subtle as have managed these things to have offered it to the world, but
+that they hasted to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious
+and scornful toward particulars; which their manner was to use but as
+_lictores_ and _viatores_, for sergeants and whifflers, _ad summovendam
+turbam_, to make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in
+their true use and service.  Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with
+a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very
+same in divine and human truth; for, as in divine truth man cannot endure
+to become as a child, so in human, they reputed the attending the
+inductions (whereof we speak), as if it were a second infancy or
+childhood.
+
+(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet,
+nevertheless, certain it is that middle propositions cannot be deduced
+from them in subject of nature by syllogism—that is, by touch and
+reduction of them to principles in a middle term.  It is true that in
+sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity
+(because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the
+simplest), that form may have use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by
+way of argument or satisfactory reason, _Quæ assensum parit operis effæta
+est_; but the subtlety of nature and operations will not be enchained in
+those bonds.  For arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of
+words, and words are but the current tokens or marks of popular notions
+of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably collected out
+of particulars, it is not the laborious examination either of
+consequences of arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can ever
+correct that error, being (as the physicians speak) in the first
+digestion.  And, therefore, it was not without cause, that so many
+excellent philosophers became sceptics and academics, and denied any
+certainty of knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion that the
+knowledge of man extended only to appearances and probabilities.  It is
+true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a form of irony,
+_Scientiam dissimulando simulavit_; for he used to disable his knowledge,
+to the end to enhance his knowledge; like the humour of Tiberius in his
+beginnings, that would reign, but would not acknowledge so much.  And in
+the later academy, which Cicero embraced, this opinion also of
+_acatalepsia_ (I doubt) was not held sincerely; for that all those which
+excelled in copy of speech seem to have chosen that sect, as that which
+was fittest to give glory to their eloquence and variable discourses;
+being rather like progresses of pleasure than journeys to an end.  But
+assuredly many scattered in both academies did hold it in subtlety and
+integrity.  But here was their chief error: they charged the deceit upon
+the senses; which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their cavillations)
+are very sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always
+immediately, yet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by producing
+and urging such things as are too subtle for the sense to some effect
+comprehensible by the sense, and other like assistance.  But they ought
+to have charged the deceit upon the weakness of the intellectual powers,
+and upon the manner of collecting and concluding upon the reports of the
+senses.  This I speak, not to disable the mind of man, but to stir it up
+to seek help; for no man, be he never so cunning or practised, can make a
+straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand, which may be
+easily done by help of a ruler or compass.
+
+(5) This part of invention, concerning the invention of sciences, I
+purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound, having digested it
+into two parts: whereof the one I term _experientia literata_, and the
+other _interpretatio naturæ_; the former being but a degree and rudiment
+of the latter.  But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too great upon a
+promise.
+
+(6) The invention of speech or argument is not properly an invention; for
+to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or resummon
+that which we already know; and the use of this invention is no other
+but, out of the knowledge whereof our mind is already possessed to draw
+forth or call before us that which may be pertinent to the purpose which
+we take into our consideration.  So as to speak truly, it is no
+invention, but a remembrance or suggestion, with an application; which is
+the cause why the schools do place it after judgment, as subsequent and
+not precedent.  Nevertheless, because we do account it a chase as well of
+deer in an enclosed park as in a forest at large, and that it hath
+already obtained the name, let it be called invention; so as it be
+perceived and discerned, that the scope and end of this invention is
+readiness and present use of our knowledge, and not addition or
+amplification thereof.
+
+(7) To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two courses,
+preparation and suggestion.  The former of these seemeth scarcely a part
+of knowledge, consisting rather of diligence than of any artificial
+erudition.  And herein Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully, doth deride the
+sophists near his time, saying, “They did as if one that professed the
+art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up a shoe, but only
+exhibit in a readiness a number of shoes of all fashions and sizes.”  But
+yet a man might reply, that if a shoemaker should have no shoes in his
+shop, but only work as he is bespoken, he should be weakly customed.  But
+our Saviour, speaking of divine knowledge, saith, “That the kingdom of
+heaven is like a good householder, that bringeth forth both new and old
+store;” and we see the ancient writers of rhetoric do give it in precept,
+that pleaders should have the places, whereof they have most continual
+use, ready handled in all the variety that may be; as that, to speak for
+the literal interpretation of the law against equity, and contrary; and
+to speak for presumptions and inferences against testimony, and contrary.
+And Cicero himself, being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth
+it plainly, that whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speak of (if he
+will take the pains), he may have it in effect premeditate and handled
+_in thesi_.  So that when he cometh to a particular he shall have nothing
+to do, but to put to names, and times, and places, and such other
+circumstances of individuals.  We see likewise the exact diligence of
+Demosthenes; who, in regard of the great force that the entrance and
+access into causes hath to make a good impression, had ready framed a
+number of prefaces for orations and speeches.  All which authorities and
+precedents may overweigh Aristotle’s opinion, that would have us change a
+rich wardrobe for a pair of shears.
+
+(8) But the nature of the collection of this provision or preparatory
+store, though it be common both to logic and rhetoric, yet having made an
+entry of it here, where it came first to be spoken of, I think fit to
+refer over the further handling of it to rhetoric.
+
+(9) The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, doth assign and
+direct us to certain marks, or places, which may excite our mind to
+return and produce such knowledge as it hath formerly collected, to the
+end we may make use thereof.  Neither is this use (truly taken) only to
+furnish argument to dispute, probably with others, but likewise to
+minister unto our judgment to conclude aright within ourselves.  Neither
+may these places serve only to apprompt our invention, but also to direct
+our inquiry.  For a faculty of wise interrogating is half a knowledge.
+For as Plato saith, “Whosoever seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for
+in a general notion; else how shall he know it when he hath found it?”
+And, therefore, the larger your anticipation is, the more direct and
+compendious is your search.  But the same places which will help us what
+to produce of that which we know already, will also help us, if a man of
+experience were before us, what questions to ask; or, if we have books
+and authors to instruct us, what points to search and revolve; so as I
+cannot report that this part of invention, which is that which the
+schools call topics, is deficient.
+
+(10) Nevertheless, topics are of two sorts, general and special.  The
+general we have spoken to; but the particular hath been touched by some,
+but rejected generally as inartificial and variable.  But leaving the
+humour which hath reigned too much in the schools (which is, to be vainly
+subtle in a few things which are within their command, and to reject the
+rest), I do receive particular topics; that is, places or directions of
+invention and inquiry in every particular knowledge, as things of great
+use, being mixtures of logic with the matter of sciences.  For in these
+it holdeth _ars inveniendi adolescit cum inventis_; for as in going of a
+way, we do not only gain that part of the way which is passed, but we
+gain the better sight of that part of the way which remaineth, so every
+degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light to that which followeth;
+which light, if we strengthen by drawing it forth into questions or
+places of inquiry, we do greatly advance our pursuit.
+
+XIV. (1) Now we pass unto the arts of judgment, which handle the natures
+of proofs and demonstrations, which as to induction hath a coincidence
+with invention; for all inductions, whether in good or vicious form, the
+same action of the mind which inventeth, judgeth—all one as in the sense.
+But otherwise it is in proof by syllogism, for the proof being not
+immediate, but by mean, the invention of the mean is one thing, and the
+judgment of the consequence is another; the one exciting only, the other
+examining.  Therefore, for the real and exact form of judgment, we refer
+ourselves to that which we have spoken of interpretation of Nature.
+
+(2) For the other judgment by syllogism, as it is a thing most agreeable
+to the mind of man, so it hath been vehemently end excellently laboured.
+For the nature of man doth extremely covet to have somewhat in his
+understanding fixed and unmovable, and as a rest and support of the mind.
+And, therefore, as Aristotle endeavoureth to prove, that in all motion
+there is some point quiescent; and as he elegantly expoundeth the ancient
+fable of Atlas (that stood fixed, and bare up the heaven from falling) to
+be meant of the poles or axle-tree of heaven, whereupon the conversion is
+accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to have an Atlas or
+axle-tree within to keep them from fluctuation, which is like to a
+perpetual peril of falling.  Therefore men did hasten to set down some
+principles about which the variety of their disputatious might turn.
+
+(3) So, then, this art of judgment is but the reduction of propositions
+to principles in a middle term.  The principles to be agreed by all and
+exempted from argument; the middle term to be elected at the liberty of
+every man’s invention; the reduction to be of two kinds, direct and
+inverted: the one when the proposition is reduced to the principle, which
+they term a probation ostensive; the other, when the contradictory of the
+proposition is reduced to the contradictory of the principle, which is
+that which they call _per incommodum_, or pressing an absurdity; the
+number of middle terms to be as the proposition standeth degrees more or
+less removed from the principle.
+
+(4) But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one by way of
+direction, the other by way of caution: the former frameth and setteth
+down a true form of consequence, by the variations and deflections from
+which errors and inconsequences may be exactly judged.  Toward the
+composition and structure of which form it is incident to handle the
+parts thereof, which are propositions, and the parts of propositions,
+which are simple words.  And this is that part of logic which is
+comprehended in the Analytics.
+
+(5) The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite use and
+assurance sake, discovering the more subtle forms of sophisms and
+illaqueations with their redargutions, which is that which is termed
+_elenches_.  For although in the more gross sorts of fallacies it
+happeneth (as Seneca maketh the comparison well) as in juggling feats,
+which, though we know not how they are done, yet we know well it is not
+as it seemeth to be; yet the more subtle sort of them doth not only put a
+man besides his answer, but doth many times abuse his judgment.
+
+(6) This part concerning _elenches_ is excellently handled by Aristotle
+in precept, but more excellently by Plato in example; not only in the
+persons of the sophists, but even in Socrates himself, who, professing to
+affirm nothing, but to infirm that which was affirmed by another, hath
+exactly expressed all the forms of objection, fallace, and redargution.
+And although we have said that the use of this doctrine is for
+redargution, yet it is manifest the degenerate and corrupt use is for
+caption and contradiction, which passeth for a great faculty, and no
+doubt is of very great advantage, though the difference be good which was
+made between orators and sophisters, that the one is as the greyhound,
+which hath his advantage in the race, and the other as the hare, which
+hath her advantage in the turn, so as it is the advantage of the weaker
+creature.
+
+(7) But yet further, this doctrine of elenches hath a more ample latitude
+and extent than is perceived; namely, unto divers parts of knowledge,
+whereof some are laboured and other omitted.  For first, I conceive
+(though it may seem at first somewhat strange) that that part which is
+variably referred, sometimes to logic, sometimes to metaphysic, touching
+the common adjuncts of essences, is but an _elenche_; for the great
+sophism of all sophisms being equivocation or ambiguity of words and
+phrase, specially of such words as are most general and intervene in
+every inquiry, it seemeth to me that the true and fruitful use (leaving
+vain subtleties and speculations) of the inquiry of majority, minority,
+priority, posteriority, identity, diversity, possibility, act, totality,
+parts, existence, privation, and the like, are but wise cautions against
+ambiguities of speech.  So, again, the distribution of things into
+certain tribes, which we call categories or predicaments, are but
+cautions against the confusion of definitions and divisions.
+
+(8) Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by the strength of the
+impression, and not by the subtlety of the illaqueation—not so much
+perplexing the reason, as overruling it by power of the imagination.  But
+this part I think more proper to handle when I shall speak of rhetoric.
+
+(9) But lastly, there is yet a much more important and profound kind of
+fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not observed or inquired at
+all, and think good to place here, as that which of all others
+appertaineth most to rectify judgment, the force whereof is such as it
+doth not dazzle or snare the understanding in some particulars, but doth
+more generally and inwardly infect and corrupt the state thereof.  For
+the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass,
+wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true
+incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of
+superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.  For this
+purpose, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us
+by the general nature of the mind, beholding them in an example or two;
+as first, in that instance which is the root of all superstition, namely,
+that to the nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the
+affirmative or active to affect more than the negative or privative.  So
+that a few times hitting or presence countervails ofttimes failing or
+absence, as was well answered by Diagoras to him that showed him in
+Neptune’s temple the great number of pictures of such as had escaped
+shipwreck, and had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, “Advise now, you
+that think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest.”  “Yea, but,” saith
+Diagoras, “where are they painted that are drowned?”  Let us behold it in
+another instance, namely, that the spirit of man, being of an equal and
+uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater
+equality and uniformity than is in truth.  Hence it cometh that the
+mathematicians cannot satisfy themselves except they reduce the motions
+of the celestial bodies to perfect circles, rejecting spiral lines, and
+labouring to be discharged of eccentrics.  Hence it cometh that whereas
+there are many things in Nature as it were _monodica_, _sui juris_, yet
+the cogitations of man do feign unto them relatives, parallels, and
+conjugates, whereas no such thing is; as they have feigned an element of
+fire to keep square with earth, water, and air, and the like.  Nay, it is
+not credible, till it be opened, what a number of fictions and fantasies
+the similitude of human actions and arts, together with the making of man
+_communis mensura_, have brought into natural philosophy; not much better
+than the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, bred in the cells of gross and
+solitary monks, and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in
+heathenism, who supposed the gods to be of human shape.  And, therefore,
+Velleius the Epicurean needed not to have asked why God should have
+adorned the heavens with stars, as if He had been an _ædilis_, one that
+should have set forth some magnificent shows or plays.  For if that great
+Work-master had been of a human disposition, He would have cast the stars
+into some pleasant and beautiful works and orders like the frets in the
+roofs of houses; whereas one can scarce find a posture in square, or
+triangle, or straight line, amongst such an infinite number, so differing
+a harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit of Nature.
+
+(10) Let us consider again the false appearances imposed upon us by every
+man’s own individual nature and custom in that feigned supposition that
+Plato maketh of the cave; for certainly if a child were continued in a
+grot or cave under the earth until maturity of age, and came suddenly
+abroad, he would have strange and absurd imaginations.  So, in like
+manner, although our persons live in the view of heaven, yet our spirits
+are included in the caves of our own complexions and customs, which
+minister unto us infinite errors and vain opinions if they be not
+recalled to examination.  But hereof we have given many examples in one
+of the errors, or peccant humours, which we ran briefly over in our first
+book.
+
+(11) And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed
+upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to the conceit
+and capacities of the vulgar sort; and although we think we govern our
+words, and prescribe it well _loquendum ut vulgus sentiendum ut
+sapientes_, yet certain it is that words, as a Tartar’s bow, do shoot
+back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and
+pervert the judgment.  So as it is almost necessary in all controversies
+and disputations to imitate the wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting
+down in the very beginning the definitions of our words and terms, that
+others may know how we accept and understand them, and whether they
+concur with us or no.  For it cometh to pass, for want of this, that we
+are sure to end there where we ought to have begun, which is, in
+questions and differences about words.  To conclude, therefore, it must
+be confessed that it is not possible to divorce ourselves from these
+fallacies and false appearances because they are inseparable from our
+nature and condition of life; so yet, nevertheless, the caution of them
+(for all elenches, as was said, are but cautions) doth extremely import
+the true conduct of human judgment.  The particular elenches or cautions
+against these three false appearances I find altogether deficient.
+
+(12) There remaineth one part of judgment of great excellency which to
+mine understanding is so slightly touched, as I may report that also
+deficient; which is the application of the differing kinds of proofs to
+the differing kinds of subjects.  For there being but four kinds of
+demonstrations, that is, by the immediate consent of the mind or sense,
+by induction, by syllogism, and by congruity, which is that which
+Aristotle calleth demonstration in orb or circle, and not _a notioribus_,
+every of these hath certain subjects in the matter of sciences, in which
+respectively they have chiefest use; and certain others, from which
+respectively they ought to be excluded; and the rigour and curiosity in
+requiring the more severe proofs in some things, and chiefly the facility
+in contenting ourselves with the more remiss proofs in others, hath been
+amongst the greatest causes of detriment and hindrance to knowledge.  The
+distributions and assignations of demonstrations according to the analogy
+of sciences I note as deficient.
+
+XV. (1) The custody or retaining of knowledge is either in writing or
+memory; whereof writing hath two parts, the nature of the character and
+the order of the entry.  For the art of characters, or other visible
+notes of words or things, it hath nearest conjugation with grammar, and,
+therefore, I refer it to the due place; for the disposition and
+collocation of that knowledge which we preserve in writing, it consisteth
+in a good digest of common-places, wherein I am not ignorant of the
+prejudice imputed to the use of common-place books, as causing a
+retardation of reading, and some sloth or relaxation of memory.  But
+because it is but a counterfeit thing in knowledges to be forward and
+pregnant, except a man be deep and full, I hold the entry of
+common-places to be a matter of great use and essence in studying, as
+that which assureth copy of invention, and contracteth judgment to a
+strength.  But this is true, that of the methods of common-places that I
+have seen, there is none of any sufficient worth, all of them carrying
+merely the face of a school and not of a world; and referring to vulgar
+matters and pedantical divisions, without all life or respect to action.
+
+(2) For the other principal part of the custody of knowledge, which is
+memory, I find that faculty in my judgment weakly inquired of.  An art
+there is extant of it; but it seemeth to me that there are better
+precepts than that art, and better practices of that art than those
+received.  It is certain the art (as it is) may be raised to points of
+ostentation prodigious; but in use (as is now managed) it is barren, not
+burdensome, nor dangerous to natural memory, as is imagined, but barren,
+that is, not dexterous to be applied to the serious use of business and
+occasions.  And, therefore, I make no more estimation of repeating a
+great number of names or words upon once hearing, or the pouring forth of
+a number of verses or rhymes _extempore_, or the making of a satirical
+simile of everything, or the turning of everything to a jest, or the
+falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like (whereof
+in the faculties of the mind there is great copy, and such as by device
+and practice may be exalted to an extreme degree of wonder), than I do of
+the tricks of tumblers, funambuloes, baladines; the one being the same in
+the mind that the other is in the body, matters of strangeness without
+worthiness.
+
+(3) This art of memory is but built upon two intentions; the one
+prenotion, the other emblem.  Prenotion dischargeth the indefinite
+seeking of that we would remember, and directeth us to seek in a narrow
+compass, that is, somewhat that hath congruity with our place of memory.
+Emblem reduceth conceits intellectual to images sensible, which strike
+the memory more; out of which axioms may be drawn much better practice
+than that in use; and besides which axioms, there are divers more
+touching help of memory not inferior to them.  But I did in the beginning
+distinguish, not to report those things deficient, which are but only ill
+managed.
+
+XVI. (1) There remaineth the fourth kind of rational knowledge, which is
+transitive, concerning the expressing or transferring our knowledge to
+others, which I will term by the general name of tradition or delivery.
+Tradition hath three parts: the first concerning the organ of tradition;
+the second concerning the method of tradition; and the third concerning
+the illustration of tradition.
+
+(2) For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or writing; for
+Aristotle saith well, “Words are the images of cogitations, and letters
+are the images of words.”  But yet it is not of necessity that
+cogitations be expressed by the medium of words.  For whatsoever is
+capable of sufficient differences, and those perceptible by the sense, is
+in nature competent to express cogitations.  And, therefore, we see in
+the commerce of barbarous people that understand not one another’s
+language, and in the practice of divers that are dumb and deaf, that
+men’s minds are expressed in gestures, though not exactly, yet to serve
+the turn.  And we understand further, that it is the use of China and the
+kingdoms of the High Levant to write in characters real, which express
+neither letters nor words in gross, but things or notions; insomuch as
+countries and provinces which understand not one another’s language can
+nevertheless read one another’s writings, because the characters are
+accepted more generally than the languages do extend; and, therefore,
+they have a vast multitude of characters, as many, I suppose, as radical
+words.
+
+(3) These notes of cogitations are of two sorts: the one when the note
+hath some similitude or congruity with the notion; the other _ad
+placitum_, having force only by contract or acceptation.  Of the former
+sort are hieroglyphics and gestures.  For as to hieroglyphics (things of
+ancient use and embraced chiefly by the Egyptians, one of the most
+ancient nations), they are but as continued impresses and emblems.  And
+as for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics, and are to
+hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in that they abide
+not; but they have evermore, as well as the other, an affinity with the
+things signified.  As Periander, being consulted with how to preserve a
+tyranny newly usurped, bid the messenger attend and report what he saw
+him do; and went into his garden and topped all the highest flowers,
+signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the
+nobility and grandees.  _Ad placitum_, are the characters real before
+mentioned, and words: although some have been willing by curious inquiry,
+or rather by apt feigning, to have derived imposition of names from
+reason and intendment; a speculation elegant, and, by reason it searcheth
+into antiquity, reverent, but sparingly mixed with truth, and of small
+fruit.  This portion of knowledge touching the notes of things and
+cogitations in general, I find not inquired, but deficient.  And although
+it may seem of no great use, considering that words and writings by
+letters do far excel all the other ways; yet because this part
+concerneth, as it were, the mint of knowledge (for words are the tokens
+current and accepted for conceits, as moneys are for values, and that it
+is fit men be not ignorant that moneys may be of another kind than gold
+and silver), I thought good to propound it to better inquiry.
+
+(4) Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath produced
+the science of grammar.  For man still striveth to reintegrate himself in
+those benedictions, from which by his fault he hath been deprived; and as
+he hath striven against the first general curse by the invention of all
+other arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse
+(which was the confusion of tongues) by the art of grammar; whereof the
+use in a mother tongue is small, in a foreign tongue more; but most in
+such foreign tongues as have ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned
+only to learned tongues.  The duty of it is of two natures: the one
+popular, which is for the speedy and perfect attaining languages, as well
+for intercourse of speech as for understanding of authors; the other
+philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as they are the
+footsteps and prints of reason: which kind of analogy between words and
+reason is handled _sparsim_, brokenly though not entirely; and,
+therefore, I cannot report it deficient, though I think it very worthy to
+be reduced into a science by itself.
+
+(5) Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the consideration of the
+accidents of words; which are measure, sound, and elevation or accent,
+and the sweetness and harshness of them: whence hath issued some curious
+observations in rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as we consider it, in
+respect of the verse and not of the argument.  Wherein though men in
+learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet in modern
+languages it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of verses as of
+dances; for a dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech.
+In these things this sense is better judge than the art:
+
+       “Cœnæ fercula nostræ
+    Mallem convivis quam placuisse cocis.”
+
+And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an unfit
+subject, it is well said, “_Quod tempore antiquum videtur_, _id
+incongruitate est maxime novum_.”
+
+(6) For ciphers, they are commonly in letters or alphabets, but may be in
+words.  The kinds of ciphers (besides the simple ciphers, with changes,
+and intermixtures of nulls and non-significants) are many, according to
+the nature or rule of the infolding, wheel-ciphers, key-ciphers, doubles,
+&c.  But the virtues of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are
+three; that they be not laborious to write and read; that they be
+impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that they be without
+suspicion.  The highest degree whereof is to write _omnia per omnia_;
+which is undoubtedly possible, with a proportion quintuple at most of the
+writing infolding to the writing infolded, and no other restraint
+whatsoever.  This art of ciphering hath for relative an art of
+deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, but, as things are, of great
+use.  For suppose that ciphers were well managed, there be multitudes of
+them which exclude the decipherer.  But in regard of the rawness and
+unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass, the greatest matters
+are many times carried in the weakest ciphers.
+
+(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it may be
+thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them for
+show and ostentation, and to little other purpose.  But let those, which
+are skilful in them, judge whether I bring them in only for appearance,
+or whether in that which I speak of them (though in few words) there be
+not some seed of proficience.  And this must be remembered, that as there
+be many of great account in their countries and provinces, which, when
+they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of mean rank and scarcely
+regarded; so these arts, being here placed with the principal and supreme
+sciences, seem petty things: yet to such as have chosen them to spend
+their labours and studies in them, they seem great matters.
+
+XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a controversy
+in our time.  But as in civil business, if there be a meeting, and men
+fall at words, there is commonly an end of the matter for that time, and
+no proceeding at all; so in learning, where there is much controversy,
+there is many times little inquiry.  For this part of knowledge of method
+seemeth to me so weakly inquired as I shall report it deficient.
+
+(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as a part of
+judgment.  For as the doctrine of syllogisms comprehendeth the rules of
+judgment upon that which is invented, so the doctrine of method
+containeth the rules of judgment upon that which is to be delivered; for
+judgment precedeth delivery, as it followeth invention.  Neither is the
+method or the nature of the tradition material only to the use of
+knowledge, but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since the
+labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of knowledge, the
+wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth the felicity of
+continuance and proceeding.  And therefore the most real diversity of
+method is of method referred to use, and method referred to progression:
+whereof the one may be termed magistral, and the other of probation.
+
+(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be _via deserta et interclusa_.  For as
+knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error
+between the deliverer and the receiver.  For he that delivereth knowledge
+desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as
+may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather
+present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt,
+than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open his weakness,
+and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength.
+
+(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought to be
+delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method wherein
+it was invented: and so is it possible of knowledge induced.  But in this
+same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man knoweth how he came to
+the knowledge which he hath obtained.  But yet, nevertheless, _secundum
+majus et minus_, a man may revisit and descend unto the foundations of
+his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it into another, as it grew
+in his own mind.  For it is in knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean
+to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots—but if you mean to remove
+it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the
+delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees
+without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter.  But
+if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body
+of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots.  Of which
+kind of delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath
+some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in
+inquisition, and therefore note it for deficient.
+
+(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some affinity with
+the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but
+disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it
+as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is
+enigmatical and disclosed.  The pretence whereof is, to remove the vulgar
+capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledges, and to
+reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can
+pierce the veil.
+
+(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great, is the
+delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods; wherein we may observe
+that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a few axioms or
+observations upon any subject, to make a solemn and formal art, filling
+it with some discourses, and illustrating it with examples, and digesting
+it into a sensible method.  But the writing in aphorisms hath many
+excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not approach.
+
+(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid:
+for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of
+the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off;
+recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is
+cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off.  So there remaineth
+nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and
+therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write
+aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded.  But in methods,
+
+       “Tantum series juncturaque pollet,
+    Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,”
+
+as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were disjointed,
+would come to little.  Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent or
+belief, but less fit to point to action; for they carry a kind of
+demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and
+therefore satisfy.  But particulars being dispersed do best agree with
+dispersed directions.  And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge
+broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the
+show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest.
+
+(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great weight, is
+the handling of knowledge by assertions and their proofs, or by questions
+and their determinations.  The latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately
+followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning as it is to the
+proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold.
+For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise pursued, those
+smaller things will come in of themselves: indeed a man would not leave
+some important piece enemy at his back.  In like manner, the use of
+confutation in the delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to
+serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to
+minister and excite disputatious and doubts.
+
+(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject or matter
+which is handled.  For there is a great difference in delivery of the
+mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy,
+which is the most immersed.  And howsoever contention hath been moved,
+touching a uniformity of method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how
+that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards
+learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain
+empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks and shells of
+sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture
+and press of the method.  And, therefore, as I did allow well of
+particular topics for invention, so I do allow likewise of particular
+methods of tradition.
+
+(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and teaching of
+knowledge is, according unto the light and presuppositions of that which
+is delivered.  For that knowledge which is new, and foreign from opinions
+received, is to be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable
+and familiar; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus,
+doth in truth commend him, where he saith “If we shall indeed dispute,
+and not follow after similitudes,” &c.  For those whose conceits are
+seated in popular opinions need only but to prove or dispute; but those
+whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the one
+to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate.  So
+that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and
+translations to express themselves.  And therefore in the infancy of
+learning, and in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial
+were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
+would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for
+paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood or judged.
+So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are, for
+it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not consonant to presuppositions
+must pray in aid of similitudes.
+
+(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and received: as
+that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or systasis, of
+concealment or cryptic, &c., which I do allow well of, though I have
+stood upon those which are least handled and observed.  All which I have
+remembered to this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one
+general inquiry (which seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of
+tradition.
+
+(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth further
+belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a work, but also
+the several beams and columns thereof; not as to their stuff, but as to
+their quantity and figure.  And therefore method considereth not only the
+disposition of the argument or subject, but likewise the propositions:
+not as to their truth or matter, but as to their limitation and manner.
+For herein Ramus merited better a great deal in reviving the good rules
+of propositions—Καθολον πρωτον, κυτα παντος &c.—than he did in
+introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet (as it is the condition of
+human things that, according to the ancient fables, “the most precious
+things have the most pernicious keepers”) it was so, that the attempt of
+the one made him fall upon the other.  For he had need be well conducted
+that should design to make axioms convertible, if he make them not withal
+circular, and non-promovent, or incurring into themselves; but yet the
+intention was excellent.
+
+(13) The other considerations of method, concerning propositions, are
+chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which limit the dimensions of
+sciences: for every knowledge may be fitly said, besides the profundity
+(which is the truth and substance of it, that makes it solid), to have a
+longitude and a latitude; accounting the latitude towards other sciences,
+and the longitude towards action; that is, from the greatest generality
+to the most particular precept.  The one giveth rule how far one
+knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of another, which is
+the rule they call Καθαυτο; the other giveth rule unto what degree of
+particularity a knowledge should descend: which latter I find passed over
+in silence, being in my judgment the more material.  For certainty there
+must be somewhat left to practice; but how much is worthy the inquiry?
+We see remote and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge to
+scorn of practical men; and are no more aiding to practice than an
+Ortelius’ universal map is to direct the way between London and York.
+The better sort of rules have been not unfitly compared to glasses of
+steel unpolished, where you may see the images of things, but first they
+must be filed: so the rules will help if they be laboured and polished by
+practice.  But how crystalline they may be made at the first, and how far
+forth they may be polished aforehand, is the question, the inquiry
+whereof seemeth to me deficient.
+
+(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a method, which is
+not a lawful method, but a method of imposture: which is, to deliver
+knowledges in such manner as men may speedily come to make a show of
+learning, who have it not.  Such was the travail of Raymundus Lullius in
+making that art which bears his name; not unlike to some books of
+typocosmy, which have been made since; being nothing but a mass of words
+of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms
+might be thought to understand the art; which collections are much like a
+fripper’s or broker’s shop, that hath ends of everything, but nothing of
+worth.
+
+XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration
+of tradition, comprehended in that science which we call rhetoric, or art
+of eloquence, a science excellent, and excellently well laboured.  For
+although in true value it is inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to
+Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, “Aaron shall be
+thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God”), yet with people it is the
+more mighty; for so Solomon saith, _Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens_,
+_sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet_, signifying that profoundness of
+wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence
+that prevaileth in an active life.  And as to the labouring of it, the
+emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the
+experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of rhetoric exceed
+themselves.  Again, the excellency of examples of eloquence in the
+orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the
+precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art; and
+therefore the deficiences which I shall note will rather be in some
+collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the rules or
+use of the art itself.
+
+(2)  Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots of this
+science, as we have done of the rest, the duty and office of rhetoric is
+to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will.  For we
+see reason is disturbed in the administration thereof by three means—by
+illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or
+impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or affection,
+which pertains to morality.  And as in negotiation with others, men are
+wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by vehemency; so in this
+negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences,
+solicited and importuned by impressions or observations, and transported
+by passions.  Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as
+that those powers and arts should have force to disturb reason, and not
+to establish and advance it.  For the end of logic is to teach a form of
+argument to secure reason, and not to entrap it; the end of morality is
+to procure the affections to obey reason, and not to invade it; the end
+of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second reason, and not to
+oppress it; for these abuses of arts come in but _ex oblique_, for
+caution.
+
+(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out
+of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric
+but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome
+meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the
+taste.  For we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning that
+which is good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is no man
+but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think; and it was
+excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that because he used to hold
+on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing
+against eloquence and good speech, knowing that no man can speak fair of
+courses sordid and base.  And therefore, as Plato said elegantly, “That
+virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection;” so
+seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the next
+degree is to show her to the imagination in lively representation; for to
+show her to reason only in subtlety of argument was a thing ever derided
+in Chrysippus and many of the Stoics, who thought to thrust virtue upon
+men by sharp disputations and conclusions, which have no sympathy with
+the will of man.
+
+(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to
+reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and
+insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and proofs; but
+in regard of the continual mutinies and seditious of the affections—
+
+       “Video meliora, proboque,
+    Deteriora sequor,”
+
+reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions did
+not practise and win the imagination from the affections’ part, and
+contract a confederacy between the reason and imagination against the
+affections; for the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good,
+as reason doth.  The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely
+the present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time.  And,
+therefore, the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly
+vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made
+things future and remote appear as present, then upon the revolt of the
+imagination reason prevaileth.
+
+(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more charged with the
+colouring of the worst part, than logic with sophistry, or morality with
+vice; for we know the doctrines of contraries are the same, though the
+use be opposite.  It appeareth also that logic differeth from rhetoric,
+not only as the fist from the palm—the one close, the other at large—but
+much more in this, that logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and
+rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions and manners.
+And therefore Aristotle doth wisely place rhetoric as between logic on
+the one side, and moral or civil knowledge on the other, as participating
+of both; for the proofs and demonstrations of logic are toward all men
+indifferent and the same, but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric
+ought to differ according to the auditors:
+
+    “Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion.”
+
+Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far that if a
+man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he should speak to
+them all respectively and several ways; though this politic part of
+eloquence in private speech it is easy for the greatest orators to want:
+whilst, by the observing their well-graced forms of speech, they leese
+the volubility of application; and therefore it shall not be amiss to
+recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it
+here or in that part which concerneth policy.
+
+(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as I said,
+are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom and diligence of
+Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a collection of the popular
+signs and colours of good and evil, both simple and comparative, which
+are as the sophisms of rhetoric (as I touched before).  For example—
+
+       “Sophisma.
+
+    Quod laudatur, bonum: quod vituperatur, malum.
+
+       Redargutio.
+
+    Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces.”
+
+_Malum est_, _malum est_ (_inquit emptor_): _sed cum recesserit_, _tum
+gloriabitur_!  The defects in the labour of Aristotle are three—one, that
+there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are not annexed;
+and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use of them: for their
+use is not only in probation, but much more in impression.  For many
+forms are equal in signification which are differing in impression, as
+the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp and that
+which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same.  For
+there is no man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said,
+“Your enemies will be glad of this”—
+
+    “Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ.”
+
+than by hearing it said only, “This is evil for you.”
+
+(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before, touching
+provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness
+of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts: the one in resemblance
+to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made
+up; both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request.
+The former of these I will call _antitheta_, and the latter _formulæ_.
+
+(8) _Antitheta_ are theses argued _pro et contra_, wherein men may be
+more large and laborious; but (in such as are able to do it) to avoid
+prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast
+up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be as
+skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be
+used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.
+
+       “_Pro verbis legis_.
+    Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quæ recedit a litera:
+    Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.
+
+       _Pro sententia legis_.
+    Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur singula.”
+
+(9) _Formulæ_ are but decent and apt passages or conveyances of speech,
+which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of preface,
+conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &c.  For as in buildings
+there is great pleasure and use in the well casting of the staircases,
+entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech, the conveyances and
+passages are of special ornament and effect.
+
+    “_A conclusion in a deliberative_.
+    So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences
+    future.”
+
+XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge,
+the one critical, the other pedantical.  For all knowledge is either
+delivered by teachers, or attained by men’s proper endeavours: and
+therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth
+chiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading
+of books; whereunto appertain incidently these considerations.  The first
+is concerning the true correction and edition of authors; wherein
+nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice.  For these critics
+have often presumed that that which they understand not is false set
+down: as the priest that, where he found it written of St. Paul _Demissus
+est per sportam_, mended his book, and made it _Demissus est per portam_;
+because _sporta_ was a hard word, and out of his reading: and surely
+their errors, though they be not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are of
+the same kind.  And therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most
+corrected copies are commonly the least correct.
+
+The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors, which
+resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein it is over usual to
+blanch the obscure places and discourse upon the plain.
+
+The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great light
+to true interpretations.
+
+The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the authors;
+that men thereby may make some election unto themselves what books to
+read.
+
+And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies; that
+men may know in what order or pursuit to read.
+
+(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of tradition
+which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers considerations of
+great fruit.
+
+As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what to
+initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.
+
+Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
+proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to press the more
+difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for it is one method
+to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing with
+heavy shoes.
+
+A third is the application of learning according unto the propriety of
+the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual, but
+seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies: as, for example,
+if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention,
+the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be
+caught away but a moment, one is new to begin.  And as sciences have a
+propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or powers
+have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy profiting: and
+therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what kinds of wits and
+natures are most apt and proper for what sciences.
+
+Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence to
+hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in exercising their
+faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise their faults and get
+ill habits as well as good; so as there is a great judgment to be had in
+the continuance and intermission of exercises.  It were too long to
+particularise a number of other considerations of this nature, things but
+of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy.  For as the wronging or
+cherishing of seeds or young plants is that that is most important to
+their thriving, and as it was noted that the first six kings being in
+truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the
+principal cause of the immense greatness of that state which followed, so
+the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible (though
+unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time or contention of labour
+can countervail it afterwards.  And it is not amiss to observe also how
+small and mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall into
+great men or great matters, do work great and important effects: whereof
+we see a notable example in Tacitus of two stage players, Percennius and
+Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian armies into
+an extreme tumult and combustion.  For there arising a mutiny amongst
+them upon the death of Augustus Cæsar, Blæsus the lieutenant had
+committed some of the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon
+Vibulenus got to be heard speak, which he did in this manner:—“These poor
+innocent wretches appointed to cruel death, you have restored to behold
+the light; but who shall restore my brother to me, or life unto my
+brother, that was sent hither in message from the legions of Germany, to
+treat of the common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by
+some of his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
+executioners upon soldiers.  Answer, Blæsus, what is done with his body?
+The mortalest enemies do not deny burial.  When I have performed my last
+duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain
+besides him; so that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true
+hearts to the legions, may have leave to bury us.”  With which speech he
+put the army into an infinite fury and uproar: whereas truth was he had
+no brother, neither was there any such matter; but he played it merely as
+if he had been upon the stage.
+
+(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational knowledges;
+wherein if I have made the divisions other than those that are received,
+yet would I not be thought to disallow all those divisions which I do not
+use.  For there is a double necessity imposed upon me of altering the
+divisions.  The one, because it differeth in end and purpose, to sort
+together those things which are next in nature, and those things which
+are next in use.  For if a secretary of estate should sort his papers, it
+is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort together things of
+a nature, as treaties, instructions, &c.  But in his boxes or particular
+cabinet he would sort together those that he were like to use together,
+though of several natures.  So in this general cabinet of knowledge it
+was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the nature of things;
+whereas if myself had been to handle any particular knowledge, I would
+have respected the divisions fittest for use.  The other, because the
+bringing in of the deficiences did by consequence alter the partitions of
+the rest.  For let the knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be
+fifteen.  Let the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty; the parts of
+fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three
+and five; the parts of twenty are two, four, five, and ten.  So as these
+things are without contradiction, and could not otherwise be.
+
+XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the
+appetite and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, _Ante omnia_, _fili_,
+_custodi cor tuum_: _nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ_.  In the handling
+of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a
+man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of
+alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions
+for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters.  So have they
+made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and
+portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well
+described as the true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires.  But
+how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will
+of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it
+over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably.  For it is not the
+disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by
+nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines
+and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and the
+like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence of this
+part.
+
+(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock
+whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast
+away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and
+common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the
+wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties),
+but contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain
+resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to
+the subtlety of disputatious, or to the eloquence of discourses.  But
+Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence, _Nocet illis eloquentia_,
+_quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit_, _sed sui_.  Doctrine should be such
+as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher;
+being directed to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s
+commendation.  And therefore those are of the right kind which may be
+concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel, _Quæ si feceritis_, _non
+oratorem dumtaxat in præsentia laudabitis_, _sed vosmetipsos etiam non
+ita multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore_.
+
+(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a
+fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who
+got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of
+the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas:
+
+    “Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
+    Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem.”
+
+And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure
+that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn
+action and active life, these Georgics of the mind, concerning the
+husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical
+descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity.  Wherefore the main and
+primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or
+platform of good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one
+describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue,
+apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.
+
+(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good considereth it
+either simple or compared; either the kinds of good, or the degrees of
+good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputatious which were
+touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude,
+or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen
+divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged.  And as Aristotle saith,
+“That young men may be happy, but not otherwise but by hope;” so we must
+all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope
+of the future world.
+
+(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the philosopher’s
+heaven, whereby they feigned a higher elevation of man’s nature than was
+(for we see in what height of style Seneca writeth, _Vere magnum_,
+_habere fragilitatem hominis_, _securitatem Dei_), we may with more
+sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and labours.
+Wherein for the nature of good positive or simple, they have set it down
+excellently in describing the forms of virtue and duty, with their
+situations and postures; in distributing them into their kinds, parts,
+provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like: nay further, they
+have commended them to man’s nature and spirit with great quickness of
+argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched
+them (as much as discourse can do) against corrupt and popular opinions.
+Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also
+excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the comparisons
+between a contemplative and an active life, in the distinction between
+virtue with reluctation and virtue secured, in their encounters between
+honesty and profit, in their balancing of virtue with virtue, and the
+like; so as this part deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.
+
+(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received
+notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had
+stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good and
+evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a
+great light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted
+with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound:
+which being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much
+confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.
+
+(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of good—the one, as
+everything is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it is a
+part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the
+greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a
+more general form.  Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy
+moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it
+forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth
+to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies; so may we
+go forward, and see that water and massy bodies move to the centre of the
+earth; but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of
+nature, they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking
+their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world.  This
+double nature of good, and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven
+upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the
+public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and
+being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being
+in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded
+with great vehemency and instance by his friends about him, that he
+should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only
+to them, _Necesse est ut eam_, _non ut vivam_.  But it may be truly
+affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other
+discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is
+communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as
+the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the same God that gave the
+Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate
+creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of
+God have wished themselves anathematised and razed out of the book of
+life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion.
+
+(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and determine
+most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant.  For
+first, it decideth the question touching the preferment of the
+contemplative or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle.  For all
+the reasons which he bringeth for the contemplative are private, and
+respecting the pleasure and dignity of a man’s self (in which respects no
+question the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike
+to that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying
+of philosophy and contemplation, who being asked what he was, answered,
+“That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner, that
+some came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some came as merchants
+to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer and meet
+their friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of them that
+came to look on.”  But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life
+it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.  Neither could
+the like question ever have been received in the Church, notwithstanding
+their _Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus_, by which place
+they would exalt their civil death and regular professions, but upon this
+defence, that the monastical life is not simple contemplative, but
+performeth the duty either of incessant prayers and supplications, which
+hath been truly esteemed as an office in the Church, or else of writing
+or taking instructions for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses
+did when he abode so long in the mount.  And so we see Enoch, the seventh
+from Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with God, yet did
+also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude citeth.  But for
+contemplation which should be finished in itself, without casting beams
+upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not.
+
+(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates, and
+their schools and successions, on the one side, who placed felicity in
+virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises whereof do chiefly
+embrace and concern society; and on the other side, the Cyrenaics and
+Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in
+some comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits)
+to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served and
+attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed it in
+serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation; as if they would have
+deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when there
+was no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and
+season; and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the
+disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming
+things according to the clearness of the desires, or the reluctation;
+which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, measuring
+things according to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or
+wavering of belief; all which are manifest to tend to private repose and
+contentment, and not to point of society.
+
+(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which presupposeth
+that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power, lest
+we be liable to fortune and disturbance; as if it were not a thing much
+more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends for the public, than to
+obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune: as
+Consalvo said to his soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he had
+rather die one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for long by
+one foot of retreat.  Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath
+signed, who hath affirmed that “a good conscience is a continual feast;”
+showing plainly that the conscience of good intentions, howsoever
+succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature than all the provision
+which can be made for security and repose.
+
+(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew general
+about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or
+profession; as if the purpose had been, not to resist and extinguish
+perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a
+particular kind and course of life to that end; introducing such a health
+of mind, as was that health of body of which Aristotle speaketh of
+Herodicus, who did nothing all his life long but intend his health;
+whereas if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of
+body is best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities,
+so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go through the
+greatest temptations and perturbations.  So as Diogenes’ opinion is to be
+accepted, who commended not them which abstained, but them which
+sustained, and could refrain their mind _in præcipitio_, and could give
+unto the mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn.
+
+(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in some
+of the most ancient and reverend philosophers and philosophical men, that
+did retire too easily from civil business, for avoiding of indignities
+and perturbations; whereas the resolution of men truly moral ought to be
+such as the same Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, _e telâ
+crassiore_, and not so fine as that everything should catch in it and
+endanger it.
+
+XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into the
+division of good active and passive; for this difference of good (not
+unlike to that which amongst the Romans was expressed in the familiar or
+household terms of _promus_ and _condus_) is formed also in all things,
+and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the one
+to preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or multiply
+themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the worthier; for in nature
+the heavens, which are the more worthy, are the agent, and the earth,
+which is the less worthy, is the patient.  In the pleasures of living
+creatures, that of generation is greater than that of food.  In divine
+doctrine, _beatius est dare quam accipere_.  And in life, there is no
+man’s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the effecting of somewhat that he
+hath fixed in his desire, more than sensuality, which priority of the
+active good is much upheld by the consideration of our estate to be
+mortal and exposed to fortune.  For if we might have a perpetuity and
+certainty in our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price.
+But when we see it is but _magni æstimamus mori tardius_, and _ne
+glorieris de crastino_, _nescis partum diei_, it maketh us to desire to
+have somewhat secured and exempted from time, which are only our deeds
+and works; as it is said, _Opera eorum sequuntur eos_.  The pre-eminence
+likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection which is natural
+in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the pleasures of the
+sense, which is the principal part of passive good, can have no great
+latitude.  _Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris_; _cibus_, _somnus_, _ludus per
+hunc circulum curritur_; _mori velle non tantum fortis_, _aut miser_,
+_aut prudens_, _sed etiam fastidiosus potest_.  But in enterprises,
+pursuits, and purposes of life, there is much variety; whereof men are
+sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils,
+reintegrations, approaches and attainings to their ends.  So as it was
+well said, _Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est_.  Neither hath this
+active good an identity with the good of society, though in some cases it
+hath an incidence into it.  For although it do many times bring forth
+acts of beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to a man’s own
+power, glory, amplification, continuance; as appeareth plainly, when it
+findeth a contrary subject.  For that gigantine state of mind which
+possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla and
+infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy
+as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world,
+according to their own humours (which is the true theomachy), pretendeth
+and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth furthest from good of
+society, which we have determined to be the greater.
+
+(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of conservative
+and effective.  For let us take a brief review of that which we have
+said: we have spoken first of the good of society, the intention whereof
+embraceth the form of human nature, whereof we are members and portions,
+and not our own proper and individual form; we have spoken of active
+good, and supposed it as a part of private and particular good.  And
+rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple desire or
+appetite proceeding from love to themselves: one of preserving and
+continuing their form; another of advancing and perfecting their form;
+and a third of multiplying and extending their form upon other things:
+whereof the multiplying, or signature of it upon other things, is that
+which we handled by the name of active good.  So as there remaineth the
+conserving of it, and perfecting or raising of it, which latter is the
+highest degree of passive good.  For to preserve in state is the less, to
+preserve with advancement is the greater.  So in man,
+
+    “Igneus est ollis vigor, et cælestis origo.”
+
+His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the
+perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which good is
+that which is the tempest of human life; while man, upon the instinct of
+an advancement, formal and essential, is carried to seek an advancement
+local.  For as those which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up and
+down and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove
+internal, so is it with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to
+exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their
+place.  So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative or
+perfective.
+
+(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth in
+the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; it seemeth to be
+most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and lowest.  And
+this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged of,
+nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
+either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour
+of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the
+one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good.
+Whether of these is the greater good is a question controverted; but
+whether man’s nature may not be capable of both is a question not
+inquired.
+
+(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a sophist,
+Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of mind, and the
+sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell from argument to
+ill words: the sophist saying that Socrates’ felicity was the felicity of
+a block or stone; and Socrates saying that the sophist’s felicity was the
+felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but itch and scratch.
+And both these opinions do not want their supports.  For the opinion of
+Socrates is much upheld by the general consent even of the epicures
+themselves, that virtue beareth a great part in felicity; and if so,
+certain it is, that virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then
+in compassing desires.  The sophist’s opinion is much favoured by the
+assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is greater than good
+of simple preservation; because every obtaining a desire hath a show of
+advancement, as motion though in a circle hath a show of progression.
+
+(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the former
+superfluous.  For can it be doubted, but that there are some who take
+more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some other, and yet,
+nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them?  So as
+this same, _Non uti ut non appetas_, _non appetere ut non metuas_, _sunt
+animi pusilli et diffidentis_.  And it seemeth to me that most of the
+doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautious than the
+nature of things requireth.  So have they increased the fear of death in
+offering to cure it.  For when they would have a man’s whole life to be
+but a discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men think
+that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of preparing.
+Better saith the poet:—
+
+    “Qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat
+    Naturæ.”
+
+So have they sought to make men’s minds too uniform and harmonical, by
+not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions; the reasons whereof I
+suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated to a private,
+free, and unapplied course of life.  For as we see, upon the lute or like
+instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many changes,
+yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops and passages, as
+a set song or voluntary; much after the same manner was the diversity
+between a philosophical and civil life.  And, therefore, men are to
+imitate the wisdom of jewellers: who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or
+an ice which may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone,
+they help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too much, they
+will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity as they
+destroy not magnanimity.
+
+(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private and
+particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good of man
+which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term duty; because
+the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed
+towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind well formed
+and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue
+without some relation to society, nor duty without an inward disposition.
+This part may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic; but
+not if it be well observed.  For it concerneth the regiment and
+government of every man over himself, and not over others.  And as in
+architecture the direction of framing the posts, beams, and other parts
+of building, is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting
+the building; and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame an
+instrument or engine is not the same with the manner of setting it on
+work and employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one
+you incidently express the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine of
+conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their conformity
+thereunto.
+
+(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common duty of
+every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the respective or
+special duty of every man in his profession, vocation, and place.  The
+first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said.  The
+second likewise I may report rather dispersed than deficient; which
+manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge to be
+best.  For who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue,
+challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and place?
+For although sometimes a looker on may see more than a gamester, and
+there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, “That the vale best
+discovereth the hill;” yet there is small doubt but that men can write
+best and most really and materially in their own professions; and that
+the writing of speculative men of active matter for the most part doth
+seem to men of experience, as Phormio’s argument of the wars seemed to
+Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage.  Only there is one vice which
+accompanieth them that write in their own professions, that they magnify
+them in excess.  But generally it were to be wished (as that which would
+make learning indeed solid and fruitful) that active men would or could
+become writers.
+
+(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, _honoris causa_, your Majesty’s
+excellent book touching the duty of a king; a work richly compounded of
+divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts;
+and being in some opinion one of the most sound and healthful writings
+that I have read: not distempered in the heat of invention, nor in the
+coldness of negligence; not sick of dizziness, as those are who leese
+themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in
+matters impertinent; not savouring of perfumes and paintings, as those do
+who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth; and chiefly well
+disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth and apt for
+action; and far removed from that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted
+those that write in their own professions to be subject—which is, that
+they exalt it above measure.  For your Majesty hath truly described, not
+a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory, but a Moses or a
+David, pastors of their people.  Neither can I ever leese out of my
+remembrance what I heard your Majesty in the same sacred spirit of
+government deliver in a great cause of judicature, which was, “That kings
+ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of nature; and ought as
+rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative as God doth His power of
+working miracles.”  And yet notwithstanding in your book of a free
+monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude
+of the power and right of a king, as well as the circle of his office and
+duty.  Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your
+Majesty, as a prime or eminent example of tractates concerning special
+and respective duties; wherein I should have said as much, if it had been
+written a thousand years since.  Neither am I moved with certain courtly
+decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in presence.  No, it is
+flattery to praise in absence—that is, when either the virtue is absent,
+or the occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural, but forced,
+either in truth or in time.  But let Cicero be read in his oration _pro
+Marcello_, which is nothing but an excellent table of Cæsar’s virtue, and
+made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent persons,
+wiser a great deal than such observers; and we will never doubt, upon a
+full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.
+
+(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of this part,
+touching the duties of professions and vocations, a relative or opposite,
+touching the frauds, cautels, impostures, and vices of every profession,
+which hath been likewise handled; but how? rather in a satire and
+cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit
+to deride and traduce much of that which is good in professions, than
+with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt.  For, as
+Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to
+scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no
+matter for his instruction: _Quærenti derisori scientiam ipsa se
+abscondit_; _sed studioso fit obviam_.  But the managing of this argument
+with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be
+one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be
+planted.  For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk—that if he see you
+first, you die for it; but if you see him first, he dieth—so is it with
+deceits and evil arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their
+life; but if they prevent, they endanger.  So that we are much beholden
+to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought
+to do.  For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the
+columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the
+serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and
+lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest—that is, all forms and
+natures of evil.  For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.  Nay,
+an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them,
+without the help of the knowledge of evil.  For men of corrupted minds
+presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and
+believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men’s exterior language.  So
+as, except you can make them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of
+their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality.  _Non recipit
+stultus verba prudentiæ_, _nisi ea dixeris quæ_, _versantur in corde
+ejus_.
+
+(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also appertain the
+duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant.
+So likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil bond of
+companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other
+proportionate duties; not as they are parts of government and society,
+but as to the framing of the mind of particular persons.
+
+(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth handle it
+also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto belongeth the
+weighing of duties between person and person, case and case, particular
+and public.  As we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own
+sons, which was so much extolled, yet what was said?
+
+    “Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata minores.”
+
+So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides.  Again, we see
+when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose opinions
+they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their associates,
+and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant being a
+usurper, they were divided in opinion; some holding that servitude was
+the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better than a civil
+war: and a number of the like cases there are of comparative duty.
+Amongst which that of all others is the most frequent, where the question
+is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice.  Which Jason of
+Thessalia determined against the truth: _Aliqua sunt injuste facienda_,
+_ut multa juste fieri possint_.  But the reply is good: _Auctorem
+præsentis justitiæ habes_, _sponsorem futuræ non habes_.  Men must pursue
+things which are just in present, and leave the future to the Divine
+Providence.  So then we pass on from this general part touching the
+exemplar and description of good.
+
+XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of life, it
+remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth thereunto, without
+which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image or
+statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and
+motion; whereunto Aristotle himself subscribeth in these words: _Necesse
+est scilicet de virtute dicere_, _et quid sit_, _et ex quibus gignatur_.
+_Inutile enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem nosse_, _acquirendæ autem ejus
+modos et vias ignorare_.  _Non enum de virtute tantum_, _qua specie sit_,
+_quærendum est_, _sed et quomodo sui copiam faciat_: _utrumque enum
+volumeus_, _et rem ipsam nosse_, _et ejus compotes fieri_: _hoc autem ex
+voto non succedet_, _nisi sciamus et ex quibus et quomodo_.  In such full
+words and with such iteration doth he inculcate this part.  So saith
+Cicero in great commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied
+himself to philosophy, _Non ita disputandi causa_, _sed ita vivendi_.
+And although the neglect of our times, wherein few men do hold any
+consultations touching the reformation of their life (as Seneca
+excellently saith, _De partibus vitæ quisque deliberat_, _de summa
+nemo_), may make this part seem superfluous; yet I must conclude with
+that aphorism of Hippocrates, _Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non
+sentiunt_, _iis mens ægrotat_.  They need medicine, not only to assuage
+the disease, but to awake the sense.  And if it be said that the cure of
+men’s minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral
+philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble
+handmaid.  For as the Psalm saith, “That the eyes of the handmaid look
+perpetually towards the mistress,” and yet no doubt many things are left
+to the discretion of the handmaid to discern of the mistress’ will; so
+ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of
+divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself (within due limits) many
+sound and profitable directions.
+
+(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I cannot but
+find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to written inquiry; the
+rather, because it consisteth of much matter, wherein both speech and
+action is often conversant; and such wherein the common talk of men
+(which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass) is wiser than their
+books.  It is reasonable, therefore, that we propound it in the more
+particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit
+ourselves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost incredible,
+and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those themselves that have
+written.  We will, therefore, enumerate some heads or points thereof,
+that it may appear the better what it is, and whether it be extant.
+
+(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical we
+ought to cast up our account, what is in our power, and what not; for the
+one may be dealt with by way of alteration, but the other by way of
+application only.  The husbandman cannot command neither the nature of
+the earth nor the seasons of the weather; no more can the physician the
+constitution of the patient nor the variety of accidents.  So in the
+culture and cure of the mind of man, two things are without our command:
+points of Nature, and points of fortune.  For to the basis of the one,
+and the conditions of the other, our work is limited and tied.  In these
+things, therefore, it is left unto us to proceed by application:—
+
+    “Vincenda est omnis fertuna ferendo:”
+
+and so likewise,
+
+    “Vincenda est omnis Natura ferendo.”
+
+But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and
+neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which
+draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth
+adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we call accommodating
+or applying.  Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the
+exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto
+which we do apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take
+measure of the body.
+
+(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set down sound
+and true distributions and descriptions of the several characters and
+tempers of men’s natures and dispositions, specially having regard to
+those differences which are most radical in being the fountains and
+causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture;
+wherein it is not the handling of a few of them in passage, the better to
+describe the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention.
+For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which are
+proportioned to great matters, and others to small (which Aristotle
+handleth, or ought to have bandied, by the name of magnanimity), doth it
+not deserve as well to be considered that there are minds proportioned to
+intend many matters, and others to few?  So that some can divide
+themselves: others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be but in
+few things at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as
+well as a pusillanimity.  And again, that some minds are proportioned to
+that which may be dispatched at once, or within a short return of time;
+others to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with length of
+pursuit:—
+
+    “Jam tum tenditqus fovetque.”
+
+So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly
+also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.  So further deserved it to be
+considered by Aristotle, “That there is a disposition in conversation
+(supposing it in things which do in no sort touch or concern a man’s
+self) to soothe and please, and a disposition contrary to contradict and
+cross;” and deserveth it not much better to be considered.  “That there
+is a disposition, not in conversation or talk, but in matter of more
+serious nature (and supposing it still in things merely indifferent), to
+take pleasure in the good of another; and a disposition contrariwise, to
+take distaste at the good of another?” which is that properly which we
+call good nature or ill nature, benignity or malignity; and, therefore, I
+cannot sufficiently marvel that this part of knowledge, touching the
+several characters of natures and dispositions, should be omitted both in
+morality and policy, considering it is of so great ministry and
+suppeditation to them both.  A man shall find in the traditions of
+astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men’s natures, according to
+the predominances of the planets: lovers of quiet, lovers of action,
+lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts,
+lovers of change, and so forth.  A man shall find in the wisest sort of
+these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures
+of the several cardinals handsomely and lively painted forth.  A man
+shall meet with in every day’s conference the denominations of sensitive,
+dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, _huomo di prima impressione_,
+_huomo di ultima impressione_, and the like; and yet, nevertheless, this
+kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.
+For the distinctions are found (many of them), but we conclude no
+precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both
+history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where these
+observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our hands, but
+no man bringeth them to the confectionary that receipts might be made of
+them for use of life.
+
+(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which are imposed
+upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and
+sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and
+not extern; and again, those which are caused by extern fortune, as
+sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy,
+privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune,
+rising _per saltum_, _per gradus_, and the like.  And, therefore, we see
+that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, _benignitas
+hujis ut adolescentuli est_.  Saint Paul concludeth that severity of
+discipline was to be used to the Cretans, _increpa eos dure_, upon the
+disposition of their country, _Cretensus semper mendaces_, _malæ bestiæ_,
+_ventres_.  Sallust noteth that it is usual with kings to desire
+contradictories: _Sed plerumque regiæ voluntates_, _ut vehementes sunt_,
+_sic mobiles_, _sæpeque ipsæ sibi advers_.  Tacitus observeth how rarely
+raising of the fortune mendeth the disposition: _solus Vespasianus
+mutatus in melius_.  Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and
+sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men _qui magnam felicitatem
+concoquere non possunt_.  So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep a
+measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune;
+_Divitiæ si affluant_, _nolite cor apponere_.  These observations and the
+like I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in
+his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses; but they
+were never incorporate into moral philosophy, to which they do
+essentially appertain; as the knowledge of this diversity of grounds and
+moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of
+complexions and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to
+follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to
+all patients.
+
+(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the
+affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to
+know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases;
+and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of
+the divers characters of men’s natures, it followeth in order to know the
+diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the
+perturbations and distempars of the affections.  For as the ancient
+politiques in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea,
+and the orators to the winds; because as the sea would of itself be calm
+and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would
+be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in
+working and agitation: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the
+nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as
+winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation.  And here again I
+find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written divers
+volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which is the
+principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are
+considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may be moved
+by speech), he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the
+quantity; but where their true place is he pretermitteth them.  For it is
+not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this
+inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light
+can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to
+the particular affections as light is to particular colours.  Better
+travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I
+can gather by that which we have at second hand.  But yet it is like it
+was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a
+subject of this nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
+descriptions and observations.  So likewise I find some particular
+writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections: as of
+anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance,
+and other.  But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors
+of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great life, how
+affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and
+how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
+themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify:
+how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and
+encounter one with another; and other the like particularities.  Amongst
+the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I
+say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another;
+even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which
+otherwise percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation
+is erected that excellent use of _præmium_ and _pæna_, whereby civil
+states consist: employing the predominant affections of fear and hope,
+for the suppressing and bridling the rest.  For as in the government of
+states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so
+it is in the government within.
+
+(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command, and
+have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite,
+and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled custom,
+exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company,
+friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these
+as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind
+suffereth, and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and
+described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate
+of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine: of which number we
+will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it
+were too long to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and
+habit to speak of.
+
+(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of
+those things which consist by Nature, nothing can be changed by custom;
+using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times up it
+will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or hearing we do not
+learn to see or hear the better.  For though this principle be true in
+things wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we cannot now
+stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein Nature admitteth
+a latitude.  For he might see that a strait glove will come more easily
+on with use; and that a wand will by use bend otherwise than it grew; and
+that by use of the voice we speak louder and stronger; and that by use of
+enduring heat or cold we endure it the better, and the like: which latter
+sort have a nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he handleth,
+than those instances which he allegeth.  But allowing his conclusion,
+that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more to
+have taught the manner of superinducing that habit: for there be many
+precepts of the wise ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of
+ordering the exercises of the body, whereof we will recite a few.
+
+(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either
+too high a strain or too weak: for if too high, in a diffident nature you
+discourage, in a confident nature you breed an opinion of facility, and
+so a sloth; and in all natures you breed a further expectation than can
+hold out, and so an insatisfaction in the end: if too weak, of the other
+side, you may not look to perform and overcome any great task.
+
+(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two several
+times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst
+disposed; that by the one you may gain a great step, by the other you may
+work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make the middle times the
+more easy and pleasant.
+
+(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way, which
+is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto we are by
+nature inclined; like unto the rowing against the stream, or making a
+wand straight by bending him contrary to his natural crookedness.
+
+(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything better, and
+with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not
+first in the intention, but _tanquam aliud agendo_, because of the
+natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint.  Many other
+axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and custom, which
+being so conducted doth prove indeed another nature; but, being governed
+by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of Nature, and bringeth forth
+that which is lame and counterfeit.
+
+(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and
+operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great
+caution and direction appertaining thereunto?  Did not one of the fathers
+in great indignation call poesy _vinum dæmonum_, because it increaseth
+temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions?  Is not the opinion of
+Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, “That young men are no
+fit auditors of moral philosophy, because they are not settled from the
+boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and
+experience”?  And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and
+discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded unto
+virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and majesty, and
+popular opinions against virtue in their parasites’ coats fit to be
+scorned and derided), are of so little effect towards honesty of life,
+because they are not read and revolved by men in their mature and settled
+years, but confined almost to boys and beginners?  But is it not true
+also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of policy,
+till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and morality; lest
+their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think that there are no
+true differences of things, but according to utility and fortune, as the
+verse describes it, _Prosperum et felix scelus virtus vocatur_; and
+again, _Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit_, _hic diadema_: which the
+poets do speak satirically and in indignation on virtue’s behalf; but
+books of policy do speak it seriously and positively; for so it pleaseth
+Machiavel to say, “That if Cæsar had been overthrown, he would have been
+more odious than ever was Catiline;” as if there had been no difference,
+but in fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
+excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world?  Again, is there
+not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities
+themselves (some kinds of them), lest they make men too precise,
+arrogant, incompatible; as Cicero saith of Cato, _In Marco Catone hæc
+bona quæ videmus divina et egregia_, _ipsius scitote esse propria_; _quæ
+nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non a natura_, _sed a magistro_?  Many
+other axioms and advices there are touching those proprieties and
+effects, which studies do infuse and instil into manners.  And so,
+likewise, is there touching the use of all those other points, of
+company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the beginning in
+the doctrine of morality.
+
+(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more
+accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground; that
+the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at
+other times in a state more depraved.  The purpose, therefore, of this
+practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to
+obliterate and take forth the evil.  The fixing of the good hath been
+practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and observances or
+exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as because
+they keep the mind in continual obedience.  The obliteration of the evil
+hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of
+that which is past, and an inception or account _de novo_ for the time to
+come.  But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all
+good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to religion.
+
+(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of all
+other means the most compendious and summary, and again, the most noble
+and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate;
+which is, the electing and propounding unto a man’s self good and
+virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his
+compass to attain.  For if these two things be supposed, that a man set
+before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute,
+constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould himself
+into all virtue at once.  And this indeed is like the work of nature;
+whereas the other course is like the work of the hand.  For as when a
+carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereupon he worketh; as
+if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude
+stone still, till such times as he comes to it.  But contrariwise when
+nature makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all
+the parts at one time.  So in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man
+practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude, nor the like
+but when he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look, what
+virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth commend
+unto him, he is invested of a precedent disposition to conform himself
+thereunto.  Which state of mind Aristotle doth excellently express
+himself, that it ought not to be called virtuous, but divine.  His words
+are these: _Immanitati autem consentaneum est opponere eam_, _quæ supra
+humanitatem est_, _heroicam sive divinam virtutem_; and a little after,
+_Nam ut feræ neque vitium neque virtus est_, _swic neque Dei_: _sed hic
+quidem status altius quiddam virtute est_, _ille aluid quiddam a vitio_.
+And therefore we may see what celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus
+attributeth to Trajan in his funeral oration, where he said, “That men
+needed to make no other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue
+as good lords to them as Trajan had been;” as if he had not been only an
+imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it.  But these be heathen
+and profane passages, having but a shadow of that divine state of mind,
+which religion and the holy faith doth conduct men unto, by imprinting
+upon their souls charity, which is excellently called the bond of
+perfection, because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together.
+And as it is elegantly said by Menander of vain love, which is but a
+false imitation of divine love, _Amor melior Sophista lœvo ad humanam
+vitam_—that love teacheth a man to carry himself better than the sophist
+or preceptor; which he calleth left-handed, because, with all his rules
+and preceptions, he cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that
+facility to prize himself and govern himself, as love can do: so
+certainly, if a man’s mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth work
+him suddenly into greater perfection than all the doctrine of morality
+can do, which is but a sophist in comparison of the other.  Nay, further,
+as Xenophon observed truly, that all other affections, though they raise
+the mind, yet they do it by distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or
+excesses; but only love doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same
+instant doth settle and compose it: so in all other excellences, though
+they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess.  Only charity
+admitteth no excess.  For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power,
+the angels transgressed and fell; _Ascendam_, _et ero similis altissimo_:
+by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell;
+_Eritis sicut Dii_, _scientes bonum et malum_: but by aspiring to a
+similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever
+transgressed, or shall transgress.  For unto that imitation we are
+called: _Diligite inimicos vestros_, _benefacite eis qui oderunt vos_,
+_et orate pro persequentibus et calumniantibus vos_, _ut sitis filii
+Patris vestri qui in cœlis est_, _qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos
+et malos_, _et pluit super justos et injustos_.  So in the first platform
+of the divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, _Optimus
+Maximus_: and the sacred Scriptures thus, _Miscericordia ejus super omnia
+opera ejus_.
+
+(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge, concerning the
+culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any man, considering the
+arts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is but to
+collect into an art or science that which hath been pretermitted by
+others, as matter of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.  But
+as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes, “You may not marvel (Athenians)
+that Demosthenes and I do differ; for he drinketh water, and I drink
+wine;” and like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of
+sleep—
+
+    “Sunt geminæ somni portæ: quarum altera fertur
+    Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
+    Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
+    Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes:”
+
+so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure maxim in
+knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor (“of wine”) is the more
+vaporous, and the braver gate (“of ivory”) sendeth forth the falser
+dreams.
+
+(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human philosophy,
+which contemplateth man segregate, and as he consisteth of body and
+spirit.  Wherein we may further note, that there seemeth to be a relation
+or conformity between the good of the mind and the good of the body.  For
+as we divided the good of the body into health, beauty, strength, and
+pleasure, so the good of the mind, inquired in rational and moral
+knowledges, tendeth to this, to make the mind sound, and without
+perturbation; beautiful, and graced with decency; and strong and agile
+for all duties of life.  These three, as in the body, so in the mind,
+seldom meet, and commonly sever.  For it is easy to observe, that many
+have strength of wit and courage, but have neither health from
+perturbations, nor any beauty or decency in their doings; some again have
+an elegancy and fineness of carriage which have neither soundness of
+honesty nor substance of sufficiency; and some again have honest and
+reformed minds, that can neither become themselves nor manage business;
+and sometimes two of them meet, and rarely all three.  As for pleasure,
+we have likewise determined that the mind ought not to be reduced to
+stupid, but to retain pleasure; confined rather in the subject of it,
+than in the strength and vigour of it.
+
+XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which of all
+others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom.
+Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said, “That the Romans were like sheep,
+for that a man were better drive a flock of them, than one of them; for
+in a flock, if you could get but some few go right, the rest would
+follow:” so in that respect moral philosophy is more difficile than
+policy.  Again, moral philosophy propoundeth to itself the framing of
+internal goodness; but civil knowledge requireth only an external
+goodness; for that as to society sufficeth.  And therefore it cometh oft
+to pass that there be evil times in good governments: for so we find in
+the Holy story, when the kings were good, yet it is added, _Sed adhuc
+poulus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum suorum_.  Again,
+states, as great engines, move slowly, and are not so soon put out of
+frame: for as in Egypt the seven good years sustained the seven bad, so
+governments for a time well grounded do bear out errors following; but
+the resolution of particular persons is more suddenly subverted.  These
+respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil knowledge.
+
+(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary
+actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation, and government.
+For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection; and they be
+three wisdoms of divers natures which do often sever—wisdom of the
+behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.
+
+(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected, but
+much less despised; for it hath not only an honour in itself, but an
+influence also into business and government.  The poet saith, _Nec vultu
+destrue verba tuo_: a man may destroy the force of his words with his
+countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero, recommending to his
+brother affability and easy access; _Nil interest habere ostium apertum_,
+_vultum clausum_: it is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and
+to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.  So we see Atticus,
+before the first interview between Cæsar and Cicero, the war depending,
+did seriously advise Cicero touching the composing and ordering of his
+countenance and gesture.  And if the government of the countenance be of
+such effect, much more is that of the speech, and other carriage
+appertaining to conversation; the true model whereof seemeth to me well
+expressed by Livy, though not meant for this purpose: _Ne aut arrogans
+videar_, _aut obnoxius_; _quorum alterum est àlienæ libertatis obliti_,
+_alterum suæ_: the sum of behaviour is to retain a man’s own dignity,
+without intruding upon the liberty of others.  On the other side, if
+behaviour and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may pass
+into affectation, and then _Quid deformius quam scenam in vitam
+transferre_—to act a man’s life?  But although it proceed not to that
+extreme, yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too much.  And
+therefore as we use to advise young students from company keeping, by
+saying, _Amici fures temporis_: so certainly the intending of the
+discretion of behaviour is a great thief of meditation.  Again, such as
+are accomplished in that form of urbanity please themselves in it, and
+seldom aspire to higher virtue; whereas those that have defect in it do
+seek comeliness by reputation; for where reputation is, almost everything
+becometh; but where that is not, it must be supplied by _puntos_ and
+compliments.  Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an
+over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of decency, which is
+time and season.  For as Solomon saith, _Qui respicit ad ventos_, _non
+seminat_; _et qui respicit ad nubes_, _non metet_: a man must make his
+opportunity, as oft as find it.  To conclude, behaviour seemeth to me as
+a garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a garment.  For it
+ought to be made in fashion; it ought not to be too curious; it ought to
+be shaped so as to set forth any good making of the mind and hide any
+deformity; and above all, it ought not to be too strait or restrained for
+exercise or motion.  But this part of civil knowledge hath been elegantly
+handled, and therefore I cannot report it for deficient.
+
+(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been hitherto
+collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning and the
+professors of learning.  For from this root springeth chiefly that note
+or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect, that there
+is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.  For of the three
+wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom of
+behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised, as an
+inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; for wisdom of government,
+they acquit themselves well when they are called to it, but that
+happeneth to few; but for the wisdom of business, wherein man’s life is
+most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered
+advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of this subject.
+For if books were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned
+men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without
+learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.
+
+(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge should
+be so variable as it falleth not under precept; for it is much less
+infinite than science of government, which we see is laboured and in some
+part reduced.  Of this wisdom it seemeth some of the ancient Romans in
+the saddest and wisest times were professors; for Cicero reporteth, that
+it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general
+wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at
+certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that would use
+their advice; and that the particular citizens would resort unto them,
+and consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, or of the employing
+of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or of an accusation, and every
+other occasion incident to man’s life.  So as there is a wisdom of
+counsel and advice even in private causes, arising out of a universal
+insight into the affairs of the world; which is used indeed upon
+particular causes propounded, but is gathered by general observation of
+causes of like nature.  For so we see in the book which Q. Cicero writeth
+to his brother, _De petitione consulatus_ (being the only book of
+business that I know written by the ancients), although it concerned a
+particular action then on foot, yet the substance thereof consisteth of
+many wise and politic axioms, which contain not a temporary, but a
+perpetual direction in the case of popular elections.  But chiefly we may
+see in those aphorisms which have place amongst divine writings, composed
+by Solomon the king, of whom the Scriptures testify that his heart was as
+the sands of the sea, encompassing the world and all worldly matters, we
+see, I say, not a few profound and excellent cautions, precepts,
+positions, extending to much variety of occasions; whereupon we will stay
+a while, offering to consideration some number of examples.
+
+(6) _Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes aurem tuam_,
+_ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem tibi_.  Here is commended the
+provident stay of inquiry of that which we would be loth to find: as it
+was judged great wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he burned Sertorius’
+papers unperused.
+
+_Vir sapiens_, _si cum stulto contenderit_, _sive irascatur_, _sive
+rideat_, _non inveniet requiem_.  Here is described the great
+disadvantage which a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than
+himself; which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to
+jest, or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no ways
+quit himself well of it.
+
+_Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum_, _postea sentiet eum
+contumacem_.  Here is signified, that if a man begin too high a pitch in
+his favours, it doth commonly end in unkindness and unthankfulness.
+
+_Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo_? _coram regibus stabit_, _nec erit
+inter ignobiles_.  Here is observed, that of all virtues for rising to
+honour, quickness of despatch is the best; for superiors many times love
+not to have those they employ too deep or too sufficient, but ready and
+diligent.
+
+_Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole_, _cum adolescente secundo
+qui consurgit pro eo_.  Here is expressed that which was noted by Sylla
+first, and after him by Tiberius.  _Plures adorant solem orientem quam
+occidentem vel meridianum_.
+
+_Si spiritus potestatem habentis ascenderit super te_, _locum tuum ne
+demiseris_; _quia curatio faciet cessare peccata maxima_.  Here caution
+is given, that upon displeasure, retiring is of all courses the
+unfittest; for a man leaveth things at worst, and depriveth himself of
+means to make them better.
+
+_Erat civitas parva_, _et pauci in ea viri_: _venit contra eam rex
+magnus_, _et vallavit eam_, _instruxitque munitones per gyrum_, _et
+perfecta est obsidio_; _inventusque est in ea vir pauper et sapiens_, _et
+liberavit eam per sapientiam suam_; _et nullus deinceps recordatus est
+huminis illius pauperis_.  Here the corruption of states is set forth,
+that esteem not virtue or merit longer than they have use of it.
+
+_Millis responsio frangit iram_.  Here is noted that silence or rough
+answer exasperateth; but an answer present and temperate pacifieth.
+
+_Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum_.  Here is lively represented how
+laborious sloth proveth in the end; for when things are deferred till the
+last instant, and nothing prepared beforehand, every step findeth a briar
+or impediment, which catcheth or stoppeth.
+
+_Melior est finis orationis quam principium_.  Here is taxed the vanity
+of formal speakers, that study more about prefaces and inducements, than
+upon the conclusions and issues of speech.
+
+_Qui cognoscit in judicio faciem_, _non bene facit_; _iste et pro
+buccella panis deseret veritatem_.  Here is noted, that a judge were
+better be a briber than a respecter of persons; for a corrupt judge
+offendeth not so lightly as a facile.
+
+_Vir pauper calumnians pauperes simils est imbri vehementi_, _in quo
+paratur fames_.  Here is expressed the extremity of necessitous
+extortions, figured in the ancient fable of the full and the hungry
+horseleech.
+
+_Fons turbatus pede_, _et vena corrupta_, _est justus cadens coram
+impio_.  Here is noted, that one judicial and exemplar iniquity in the
+face of the world doth trouble the fountains of justice more than many
+particular injuries passed over by connivance.
+
+_Qui subtrahit aliquid a patre et a matre_, _et dicit hoc non esse
+peccatum_, _particeps est homicidii_.  Here is noted that, whereas men in
+wronging their best friends use to extenuate their fault, as if they
+might presume or be bold upon them, it doth contrariwise indeed aggravate
+their fault, and turneth it from injury to impiety.
+
+_Noli esse amicus homini iracundo_, _nec ambulato cum homine furioso_.
+Here caution is given, that in the election of our friends we do
+principally avoid those which are impatient, as those that will espouse
+us to many factions and quarrels.
+
+_Qui conturbat domum suam_, _possidebit ventum_.  Here is noted, that in
+domestical separations and breaches men do promise to themselves quieting
+of their mind and contentment; but still they are deceived of their
+expectation, and it turneth to wind.
+
+_Filius sapiens lætificat patrem_: _filius vero stultus mæstitia est
+matri suæ_.  Here is distinguished, that fathers have most comfort of the
+good proof of their sons; but mothers have most discomfort of their ill
+proof, because women have little discerning of virtue, but of fortune.
+
+_Qui celat delictum_, _quærit amicitiam_; _sed qui altero sermone
+repetit_, _separat fæderatos_.  Here caution is given, that reconcilement
+is better managed by an amnesty, and passing over that which is past,
+than by apologies and excuses.
+
+_In omni opere bono erit abundantia_; _ubi autem verba sunt plurima_,
+_ibi frequenter egestas_.  Here is noted, that words and discourse
+aboundeth most where there is idleness and want.
+
+_Primus in sua causa justus_: _sed venit altera pars_, _et inquiret in
+eum_.  Here is observed, that in all causes the first tale possesseth
+much; in sort, that the prejudice thereby wrought will be hardly removed,
+except some abuse or falsity in the information be detected.
+
+_Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia_, _et ipsa perveniunt ad interiora
+ventris_.  Here is distinguished, that flattery and insinuation, which
+seemeth set and artificial, sinketh not far; but that entereth deep which
+hath show of nature, liberty, and simplicity.
+
+_Qui erudit derisorem_, _ipse sibi injuriam facit_; _et qui arguit
+impium_, _sibi maculam generat_.  Here caution is given how we tender
+reprehension to arrogant and scornful natures, whose manner is to esteem
+it for contumely, and accordingly to return it.
+
+_Da sapienti occasionem_, _et addetur ei sapientia_.  Here is
+distinguished the wisdom brought into habit, and that which is but verbal
+and swimming only in conceit; for the one upon the occasion presented is
+quickened and redoubled, the other is amazed and confused.
+
+_Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium_, _sic corda hominum
+manifesta sunt prudentibus_.  Here the mind of a wise man is compared to
+a glass, wherein the images of all diversity of natures and customs are
+represented; from which representation proceedeth that application,
+
+    “Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus erit.”
+
+(7) Thus have I stayed somewhat longer upon these sentences politic of
+Solomon than is agreeable to the proportion of an example; led with a
+desire to give authority to this part of knowledge, which I noted as
+deficient, by so excellent a precedent; and have also attended them with
+brief observations, such as to my understanding offer no violence to the
+sense, though I know they may be applied to a more divine use: but it is
+allowed, even in divinity, that some interpretations, yea, and some
+writings, have more of the eagle than others; but taking them as
+instructions for life, they might have received large discourse, if I
+would have broken them and illustrated them by deducements and examples.
+
+(8) Neither was this in use only with the Hebrews, but it is generally to
+be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times; that as men found out
+any observation that they thought was good for life, they would gather it
+and express it in parable or aphorism or fable.  But for fables, they
+were vicegerents and supplies where examples failed: now that the times
+abound with history, the aim is better when the mark is alive.  And
+therefore the form of writing which of all others is fittest for this
+variable argument of negotiation and occasions is that which Machiavel
+chose wisely and aptly for government; namely, discourse upon histories
+or examples.  For knowledge drawn freshly and in our view out of
+particulars, knoweth the way best to particulars again.  And it hath much
+greater life for practice when the discourse attendeth upon the example,
+than when the example attendeth upon the discourse.  For this is no point
+of order, as it seemeth at first, but of substance.  For when the example
+is the ground, being set down in a history at large, it is set down with
+all circumstances, which may sometimes control the discourse thereupon
+made, and sometimes supply it, as a very pattern for action; whereas the
+examples alleged for the discourse’s sake are cited succinctly, and
+without particularity, and carry a servile aspect towards the discourse
+which they are brought in to make good.
+
+(9) But this difference is not amiss to be remembered, that as history of
+times is the best ground for discourse of government, such as Machiavel
+handleth, so histories of lives is the most popular for discourse of
+business, because it is more conversant in private actions.  Nay, there
+is a ground of discourse for this purpose fitter than them both, which is
+discourse upon letters, such as are wise and weighty, as many are of
+Cicero _ad Atticum_, and others.  For letters have a great and more
+particular representation of business than either chronicles or lives.
+Thus have we spoken both of the matter and form of this part of civil
+knowledge, touching negotiation, which we note to be deficient.
+
+(10) But yet there is another part of this part, which differeth as much
+from that whereof we have spoken as _sapere_ and _sibi sapere_, the one
+moving as it were to the circumference, the other to the centre.  For
+there is a wisdom of counsel, and again there is a wisdom of pressing a
+man’s own fortune; and they do sometimes meet, and often sever.  For many
+are wise in their own ways that are weak for government or counsel; like
+ants, which is a wise creature for itself, but very hurtful for the
+garden.  This wisdom the Romans did take much knowledge of: _Nam pol
+sapiens_ (saith the comical poet) _fingit fortunam sibi_; and it grew to
+an adage, _Faber quisque fortunæ propriæ_; and Livy attributed it to Cato
+the first, _In hoc viro tanta vis animi et ingenii inerat_, _ut quocunque
+loco natus esset sibi ipse fortunam facturus videretur_.
+
+(11) This conceit or position, if it be too much declared and professed,
+hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was observed in
+Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great services to the state
+in his government, and giving an account thereof to the people as the
+manner was, did conclude every particular with this clause, “And in this
+fortune had no part.”  And it came so to pass, that he never prospered in
+anything he took in hand afterwards.  For this is too high and too
+arrogant, savouring of that which Ezekiel saith of Pharaoh, _Dicis_,
+_Fluvius est neus et ego feci memet ipsum_; or of that which another
+prophet speaketh, that men offer sacrifices to their nets and snares; and
+that which the poet expresseth,
+
+    “Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile libro,
+    Nunc adsint!”
+
+For these confidences were ever unhallowed, and unblessed; and,
+therefore, those that were great politiques indeed ever ascribed their
+successes to their felicity and not to their skill or virtue.  For so
+Sylla surnamed himself Felix, not Magnus.  So Cæsar said to the master of
+the ship, _Cæsarem portas et fortunam ejus_.
+
+(12) But yet, nevertheless, these positions, _Faber quisque fortunæ suæ_:
+_Sapiens dominabitur astris_: _Invia virtuti null est via_, and the like,
+being taken and used as spurs to industry, and not as stirrups to
+insolency, rather for resolution than for the presumption or outward
+declaration, have been ever thought sound and good; and are no question
+imprinted in the greatest minds, who are so sensible of this opinion as
+they can scarce contain it within.  As we see in Augustus Cæsar (who was
+rather diverse from his uncle than inferior in virtue), how when he died
+he desired his friends about him to give him a _plaudite_, as if he were
+conscious to himself that he had played his part well upon the stage.
+This part of knowledge we do report also as deficient; not but that it is
+practised too much, but it hath not been reduced to writing.  And,
+therefore, lest it should seem to any that it is not comprehensible by
+axiom, it is requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down some
+heads or passages of it.
+
+(13) Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument to
+teach men how to raise and make their fortune; a doctrine wherein every
+man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple, till he see the
+difficulty: for fortune layeth as heavy impositions as virtue; and it is
+as hard and severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be truly moral.
+But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly, both in honour and
+in substance.  In honour, because pragmatical men may not go away with an
+opinion that learning is like a lark, that can mount and sing, and please
+herself, and nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well of the
+hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the prey.
+In substance, because it is the perfect law of inquiry of truth, that
+nothing be in the globe of matter, which should not be likewise in the
+globe of crystal or form; that is, that there be not anything in being
+and action which should not be drawn and collected into contemplation and
+doctrine.  Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture of
+fortune otherwise than as of an inferior work, for no man’s fortune can
+be an end worthy of his being, and many times the worthiest men do
+abandon their fortune willingly for better respects: but nevertheless
+fortune as an organ of virtue and merit deserveth the consideration.
+
+(14) First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most summary
+towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that window which Momus
+did require; who seeing in the frame of man’s heart such angles and
+recesses, found fault there was not a window to look into them; that is,
+to procure good informations of particulars touching persons, their
+natures, their desires and ends, their customs and fashions, their helps
+and advantages, and whereby they chiefly stand, so again their weaknesses
+and disadvantages, and where they lie most open and obnoxious, their
+friends, factions, dependences; and again their opposites, enviers,
+competitors, their moods and times, _Sola viri molles aditus et tempora
+noras_; their principles, rules, and observations, and the like: and this
+not only of persons but of actions; what are on foot from time to time,
+and how they are conducted, favoured, opposed, and how they import, and
+the like.  For the knowledge of present actions is not only material in
+itself, but without it also the knowledge of persons is very erroneous:
+for men change with the actions; and whilst they are in pursuit they are
+one, and when they return to their nature they are another.  These
+informations of particulars, touching persons and actions, are as the
+minor propositions in every active syllogism; for no excellency of
+observations (which are as the major propositions) can suffice to ground
+a conclusion, if there be error and mistaking in the minors.
+
+(15) That this knowledge is possible, Solomon is our surety, who saith,
+_Consilium in corde viri tanquam aqua profunda_; _sed vir prudens
+exhauriet illud_.  And although the knowledge itself falleth not under
+precept because it is of individuals, yet the instructions for the
+obtaining of it may.
+
+(16) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the
+ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and
+distrust; that more trust be given to countenances and deeds than to
+words; and in words rather to sudden passages and surprised words than to
+set and purposed words.  Neither let that be feared which is said,
+_Fronti nulla fides_, which is meant of a general outward behaviour, and
+not of the private and subtle motions and labours of the countenance and
+gesture; which, as Q. Cicero elegantly saith, is _Animi janua_, “the gate
+of the mind.”  None more close than Tiberius, and yet Tacitus saith of
+Gallus, _Etenim vultu offensionem conjectaverat_.  So again, noting the
+differing character and manner of his commending Germanicus and Drusus in
+the Senate, he saith, touching his fashion wherein he carried his speech
+of Germanicus, thus: _Magis in speciem adornatis verbis_, _quam ut
+penitus sentire crederetur_; but of Drusus thus: _Paucioribus sed
+intentior_, _et fida oratione_; and in another place, speaking of his
+character of speech when he did anything that was gracious and popular,
+he saith, “That in other things he was _velut eluctantium verborum_;” but
+then again, _solutius loquebatur quando subveniret_.  So that there is no
+such artificer of dissimulation, nor no such commanded countenance
+(_vultus jussus_), that can sever from a feigned tale some of these
+fashions, either a more slight and careless fashion, or more set and
+formal, or more tedious and wandering, or coming from a man more drily
+and hardly.
+
+(17) Neither are deeds such assured pledges as that they may be trusted
+without a judicious consideration of their magnitude and nature: _Fraus
+sibi in parvis fidem præstruit ut majore emolumento fallat_; and the
+Italian thinketh himself upon the point to be bought and sold, when he is
+better used than he was wont to be without manifest cause.  For small
+favours, they do but lull men to sleep, both as to caution and as to
+industry; and are, as Demosthenes calleth them, _Alimenta socordiæ_.  So
+again we see how false the nature of some deeds are, in that particular
+which Mutianus practised upon Antonius Primus, upon that hollow and
+unfaithful reconcilement which was made between them; whereupon Mutianus
+advanced many of the friends of Antonius, _Simul amicis ejus præfecturas
+et tribunatus largitur_: wherein, under pretence to strengthen him, he
+did desolate him, and won from him his dependents.
+
+(18) As for words, though they be like waters to physicians, full of
+flattery and uncertainty, yet they are not to be despised specially with
+the advantage of passion and affection.  For so we see Tiberius, upon a
+stinging and incensing speech of Agrippina, came a step forth of his
+dissimulation when he said, “You are hurt because you do not reign;” of
+which Tacitus saith, _Audita hæc raram occulti pectoris vocem elicuere_:
+_correptamque Græco versu admonuit_, _ideo lædi quia non regnaret_.  And,
+therefore, the poet doth elegantly call passions tortures that urge men
+to confess their secrets:—
+
+    “Vino torus et ira.”
+
+And experience showeth there are few men so true to themselves and so
+settled but that, sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon bravery, sometimes
+upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind and weakness, they open
+themselves; specially if they be put to it with a counter-dissimulation,
+according to the proverb of Spain, _Di mentira_, _y sacar as verdad_:
+“Tell a lie and find a truth.”
+
+(19) As for the knowing of men which is at second hand from reports:
+men’s weaknesses and faults are best known from their enemies, their
+virtues and abilities from their friends, their customs and times from
+their servants, their conceits and opinions from their familiar friends,
+with whom they discourse most.  General fame is light, and the opinions
+conceived by superiors or equals are deceitful; for to such men are more
+masked: _Verior fama e domesticis emanat_.
+
+(20) But the soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by their
+natures and ends, wherein the weakest sort of men are best interpreted by
+their natures, and the wisest by their ends.  For it was both pleasantly
+and wisely said (though I think very untruly) by a nuncio of the Pope,
+returning from a certain nation where he served as lidger; whose opinion
+being asked touching the appointment of one to go in his place, he wished
+that in any case they did not send one that was too wise; because no very
+wise man would ever imagine what they in that country were like to do.
+And certainly it is an error frequent for men to shoot over, and to
+suppose deeper ends and more compass reaches than are: the Italian
+proverb being elegant, and for the most part true:—
+
+    “Di danari, di senno, e di fede,
+    C’è ne manco che non credi.”
+
+“There is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less good faith than men
+do account upon.”
+
+(21) But princes, upon a far other reason, are best interpreted by their
+natures, and private persons by their ends.  For princes being at the top
+of human desires, they have for the most part no particular ends whereto
+they aspire, by distance from which a man might take measure and scale of
+the rest of their actions and desires; which is one of the causes that
+maketh their hearts more inscrutable.  Neither is it sufficient to inform
+ourselves in men’s ends and natures of the variety of them only, but also
+of the predominancy, what humour reigneth most, and what end is
+principally sought.  For so we see, when Tigellinus saw himself
+outstripped by Petronius Turpilianus in Nero’s humours of pleasures,
+_metus ejus rimatur_, he wrought upon Nero’s fears, whereby he broke the
+other’s neck.
+
+(22) But to all this part of inquiry the most compendious way resteth in
+three things; the first, to have general acquaintance and inwardness with
+those which have general acquaintance and look most into the world; and
+specially according to the diversity of business, and the diversity of
+persons, to have privacy and conversation with some one friend at least
+which is perfect and well-intelligenced in every several kind.  The
+second is to keep a good mediocrity in liberty of speech and secrecy; in
+most things liberty; secrecy where it importeth; for liberty of speech
+inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to
+a man’s knowledge; and secrecy on the other side induceth trust and
+inwardness.  The last is the reducing of a man’s self to this watchful
+and serene habit, as to make account and purpose, in every conference and
+action, as well to observe as to act.  For as Epictetus would have a
+philosopher in every particular action to say to himself, _Et hoc volo_,
+_et etiam institutum servare_; so a politic man in everything should say
+to himself, _Et hoc volo_, _ac etiam aliquid addiscere_.  I have stayed
+the longer upon this precept of obtaining good information because it is
+a main part by itself, which answereth to all the rest.  But, above all
+things, caution must be taken that men have a good stay and hold of
+themselves, and that this much knowing do not draw on much meddling; for
+nothing is more unfortunate than light and rash intermeddling in many
+matters.  So that this variety of knowledge tendeth in conclusion but
+only to this, to make a better and freer choice of those actions which
+may concern us, and to conduct them with the less error and the more
+dexterity.
+
+(23) The second precept concerning this knowledge is, for men to take
+good information touching their own person, and well to understand
+themselves; knowing that, as St. James saith, though men look oft in a
+glass, yet they do suddenly forget themselves; wherein as the divine
+glass is the Word of God, so the politic glass is the state of the world,
+or times wherein we live, in the which we are to behold ourselves.
+
+(24) For men ought to take an impartial view of their own abilities and
+virtues; and again of their wants and impediments; accounting these with
+the most, and those other with the least; and from this view and
+examination to frame the considerations following.
+
+(25) First, to consider how the constitution of their nature sorteth with
+the general state of the times; which if they find agreeable and fit,
+then in all things to give themselves more scope and liberty; but if
+differing and dissonant, then in the whole course of their life to be
+more close retired, and reserved; as we see in Tiberius, who was never
+seen at a play, and came not into the senate in twelve of his last years;
+whereas Augustus Cæsar lived ever in men’s eyes, which Tacitus observeth,
+_alia Tiberio morum via_.
+
+(26) Secondly, to consider how their nature sorteth with professions and
+courses of life, and accordingly to make election, if they be free; and,
+if engaged, to make the departure at the first opportunity; as we see was
+done by Duke Valentine, that was designed by his father to a sacerdotal
+profession, but quitted it soon after in regard of his parts and
+inclination; being such, nevertheless, as a man cannot tell well whether
+they were worse for a prince or for a priest.
+
+(27) Thirdly, to consider how they sort with those whom they are like to
+have competitors and concurrents; and to take that course wherein there
+is most solitude, and themselves like to be most eminent; as Cæsar Julius
+did, who at first was an orator or pleader; but when he saw the
+excellency of Cicero, Hortensius, Catulus, and others for eloquence, and
+saw there was no man of reputation for the wars but Pompeius, upon whom
+the state was forced to rely, he forsook his course begun towards a civil
+and popular greatness, and transferred his designs to a martial
+greatness.
+
+(28) Fourthly, in the choice of their friends and dependents, to proceed
+according to the composition of their own nature; as we may see in Cæsar,
+all whose friends and followers were men active and effectual, but not
+solemn, or of reputation.
+
+(29) Fifthly, to take special heed how they guide themselves by examples,
+in thinking they can do as they see others do; whereas perhaps their
+natures and carriages are far differing.  In which error it seemeth
+Pompey was, of whom Cicero saith that he was wont often to say, _Sylla
+potuit_, _ego non potero_?  Wherein he was much abused, the natures and
+proceedings of himself and his example being the unlikest in the world;
+the one being fierce, violent, and pressing the fact; the other solemn,
+and full of majesty and circumstance, and therefore the less effectual.
+
+But this precept touching the politic knowledge of ourselves hath many
+other branches, whereupon we cannot insist.
+
+(30) Next to the well understanding and discerning of a man’s self, there
+followeth the well opening and revealing a man’s self; wherein we see
+nothing more usual than for the more able man to make the less show.  For
+there is a great advantage in the well setting forth of a man’s virtues,
+fortunes, merits; and again, in the artificial covering of a man’s
+weaknesses, defects, disgraces; staying upon the one, sliding from the
+other; cherishing the one by circumstances, gracing the other by
+exposition, and the like.  Wherein we see what Tacitus saith of Mutianus,
+who was the greatest politique of his time, _Omnium quæ dixerat
+feceratque arte quadam ostentator_, which requireth indeed some art, lest
+it turn tedious and arrogant; but yet so, as ostentation (though it be to
+the first degree of vanity) seemeth to me rather a vice in manners than
+in policy; for as it is said, _Audacter calumniare_, _semper aliquid
+hæret_; so, except it be in a ridiculous degree of deformity, _Audacter
+te vendita_, _semper aluquid hæret_.  For it will stick with the more
+ignorant and inferior sort of men, though men of wisdom and rank do smile
+at it and despise it; and yet the authority won with many doth
+countervail the disdain of a few.  But if it be carried with decency and
+government, as with a natural, pleasant, and ingenious fashion; or at
+times when it is mixed with some peril and unsafety (as in military
+persons); or at times when others are most envied; or with easy and
+careless passage to it and from it, without dwelling too long, or being
+too serious; or with an equal freedom of taxing a man’s self, as well as
+gracing himself; or by occasion of repelling or putting down others’
+injury or insolency; it doth greatly add to reputation: and surely not a
+few solid natures, that want this ventosity and cannot sail in the height
+of the winds, are not without some prejudice and disadvantage by their
+moderation.
+
+(31) But for these flourishes and enhancements of virtue, as they are not
+perchance unnecessary, so it is at least necessary that virtue be not
+disvalued and embased under the just price, which is done in three
+manners—by offering and obtruding a man’s self, wherein men think he is
+rewarded when he is accepted; by doing too much, which will not give that
+which is well done leave to settle, and in the end induceth satiety; and
+by finding too soon the fruit of a man’s virtue, in commendation,
+applause, honour, favour; wherein if a man be pleased with a little, let
+him hear what is truly said: _Cave ne insuetus rebus majoribus videaris_,
+_si hæc te res parva sicuti magna delectat_.
+
+(32) But the covering of defects is of no less importance than the
+valuing of good parts; which may be done likewise in three manners—by
+caution, by colour, and by confidence.  Caution is when men do
+ingeniously and discreetly avoid to be put into those things for which
+they are not proper; whereas contrariwise bold and unquiet spirits will
+thrust themselves into matters without difference, and so publish and
+proclaim all their wants.  Colour is when men make a way for themselves
+to have a construction made of their faults or wants, as proceeding from
+a better cause or intended for some other purpose.  For of the one it is
+well said,
+
+    “Sæpe latet vitium proximitate boni,”
+
+and therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he pretend the
+virtue that shadoweth it; as if he be dull, he must affect gravity; if a
+coward, mildness; and so the rest.  For the second, a man must frame some
+probable cause why he should not do his best, and why he should dissemble
+his abilities; and for that purpose must use to dissemble those abilities
+which are notorious in him, to give colour that his true wants are but
+industries and dissimulations.  For confidence, it is the last but the
+surest remedy—namely, to depress and seem to despise whatsoever a man
+cannot attain; observing the good principle of the merchants, who
+endeavour to raise the price of their own commodities, and to beat down
+the price of others.  But there is a confidence that passeth this other,
+which is to face out a man’s own defects, in seeming to conceive that he
+is best in those things wherein he is failing; and, to help that again,
+to seem on the other side that he hath least opinion of himself in those
+things wherein he is best: like as we shall see it commonly in poets,
+that if they show their verses, and you except to any, they will say,
+“That that line cost them more labour than any of the rest;” and
+presently will seem to disable and suspect rather some other line, which
+they know well enough to be the best in the number.  But above all, in
+this righting and helping of a man’s self in his own carriage, he must
+take heed he show not himself dismantled and exposed to scorn and injury,
+by too much dulceness, goodness, and facility of nature; but show some
+sparkles of liberty, spirit, and edge.  Which kind of fortified carriage,
+with a ready rescussing of a man’s self from scorns, is sometimes of
+necessity imposed upon men by somewhat in their person or fortune; but it
+ever succeedeth with good felicity.
+
+(33) Another precept of this knowledge is by all possible endeavour to
+frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion; for nothing
+hindereth men’s fortunes so much as this: _Idem manebat_, _neque idem
+decebat_—men are where they were, when occasions turn: and therefore to
+Cato, whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he addeth that he
+had _versatile ingenium_.  And thereof it cometh that these grave solemn
+wits, which must be like themselves and cannot make departures, have more
+dignity than felicity.  But in some it is nature to be somewhat vicious
+and enwrapped, and not easy to turn.  In some it is a conceit that is
+almost a nature, which is, that men can hardly make themselves believe
+that they ought to change their course, when they have found good by it
+in former experience.  For Machiavel noted wisely how Fabius Maximus
+would have been temporising still, according to his old bias, when the
+nature of the war was altered and required hot pursuit.  In some other it
+is want of point and penetration in their judgment, that they do not
+discern when things have a period, but come in too late after the
+occasion; as Demosthenes compareth the people of Athens to country
+fellows, when they play in a fence school, that if they have a blow, then
+they remove their weapon to that ward, and not before.  In some other it
+is a lothness to lose labours passed, and a conceit that they can bring
+about occasions to their ply; and yet in the end, when they see no other
+remedy, then they come to it with disadvantage; as Tarquinius, that gave
+for the third part of Sibylla’s books the treble price, when he might at
+first have had all three for the simple.  But from whatsoever root or
+cause this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most
+prejudicial; and nothing is more politic than to make the wheels of our
+mind concentric and voluble with the wheels of fortune.
+
+(34) Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some affinity with
+that we last spoke of, but with difference, is that which is well
+expressed, _Fatis accede deisque_, that men do not only turn with the
+occasions, but also run with the occasions, and not strain their credit
+or strength to over-hard or extreme points; but choose in their actions
+that which is most passable: for this will preserve men from foil, not
+occupy them too much about one matter, win opinion of moderation, please
+the most, and make a show of a perpetual felicity in all they undertake:
+which cannot but mightily increase reputation.
+
+(35) Another part of this knowledge seemeth to have some repugnancy with
+the former two, but not as I understand it; and it is that which
+Demosthenes uttereth in high terms: _Et quemadmodum receptum est_, _ut
+exercitum ducat imperator_, _sic et a cordatis viris res ipsæ ducendæ_;
+_ut quæipsis videntur_, _ea gerantur_, _et non ipsi eventus persequi
+cogantur_.  For if we observe we shall find two differing kinds of
+sufficiency in managing of business: some can make use of occasions aptly
+and dexterously, but plot little; some can urge and pursue their own
+plots well, but cannot accommodate nor take in; either of which is very
+imperfect without the other.
+
+(36) Another part of this knowledge is the observing a good mediocrity in
+the declaring or not declaring a man’s self: for although depth of
+secrecy, and making way (_qualis est via navis in mari_, which the French
+calleth _sourdes menées_, when men set things in work without opening
+themselves at all), be sometimes both prosperous and admirable; yet many
+times _dissimulatio errores parit_, _qui dissimulatorem ipsum
+illaqueant_.  And therefore we see the greatest politiques have in a
+natural and free manner professed their desires, rather than been
+reserved and disguised in them.  For so we see that Lucius Sylla made a
+kind of profession, “that he wished all men happy or unhappy, as they
+stood his friends or enemies.”  So Cæsar, when he went first into Gaul,
+made no scruple to profess “that he had rather be first in a village than
+second at Rome.”  So again, as soon as he had begun the war, we see what
+Cicero saith of him, _Alter_ (meaning of Cæsar) _non recusat_, _sed
+quodammodo postulat_, _ut_ (_ut est_) _sic appelletur tyrannus_.  So we
+may see in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, that Augustus Cæsar, in his
+very entrance into affairs, when he was a darling of the senate, yet in
+his harangues to the people would swear, _Ita parentis honores consequi
+liceat_ (which was no less than the tyranny), save that, to help it, he
+would stretch forth his hand towards a statue of Cæsar’s that was erected
+in the place: and men laughed and wondered, and said, “Is it possible?”
+or, “Did you ever hear the like?” and yet thought he meant no hurt; he
+did it so handsomely and ingenuously.  And all these were prosperous:
+whereas Pompey, who tended to the same ends, but in a more dark and
+dissembling manner as Tacitus saith of him, _Occultior non melior_,
+wherein Sallust concurreth, _Ore probo_, _animo inverecundo_, made it his
+design, by infinite secret engines, to cast the state into an absolute
+anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for
+necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power be put upon him, and
+he never seen in it: and when he had brought it (as he thought) to that
+point when he was chosen consul alone, as never any was, yet he could
+make no great matter of it, because men understood him not; but was fain
+in the end to go the beaten track of getting arms into his hands, by
+colour of the doubt of Cæsar’s designs: so tedious, casual, and
+unfortunate are these deep dissimulations: whereof it seemeth Tacitus
+made this judgment, that they were a cunning of an inferior form in
+regard of true policy; attributing the one to Augustus, the other to
+Tiberius; where, speaking of Livia, he saith, _Et cum artibus mariti
+simulatione filii bene compostia_: for surely the continual habit of
+dissimulation is but a weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly
+politic.
+
+(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to accustom our
+minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they conduce and
+are material to our particular ends; and that to do substantially and not
+superficially.  For we shall find the logical part (as I may term it) of
+some men’s minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous; that is, they
+can well judge of consequences, but not of proportions and comparison,
+preferring things of show and sense before things of substance and
+effect.  So some fall in love with access to princes, others with popular
+fame and applause, supposing they are things of great purchase, when in
+many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment.  So some
+measure things according to the labour and difficulty or assiduity which
+are spent about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that they must
+needs advance and proceed; as Cæsar saith in a despising manner of Cato
+the second, when he describeth how laborious and indefatigable he was to
+no great purpose, _Hæc omnia magno studio agebat_.  So in most things men
+are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest means to be best,
+when it should be the fittest.
+
+(38) As for the true marshalling of men’s pursuits towards their fortune,
+as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus.  First the
+amendment of their own minds.  For the removal of the impediments of the
+mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune
+will remove the impediments of the mind.  In the second place I set down
+wealth and means; which I know most men would have placed first, because
+of the general use which it beareth towards all variety of occasions.
+But that opinion I may condemn with like reason as Machiavel doth that
+other, that moneys were the sinews of the wars; whereas (saith he) the
+true sinews of the wars are the sinews of men’s arms, that is, a valiant,
+populous, and military nation: and he voucheth aptly the authority of
+Solon, who, when Crœsus showed him his treasury of gold, said to him,
+that if another came that had better iron, he would be master of his
+gold.  In like manner it may be truly affirmed that it is not moneys that
+are the sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men’s minds,
+wit, courage, audacity, resolution, temper, industry, and the like.  In
+the third place I set down reputation, because of the peremptory tides
+and currents it hath; which, if they be not taken in their due time, are
+seldom recovered, it being extreme hard to play an after-game of
+reputation.  And lastly I place honour, which is more easily won by any
+of the other three, much more by all, than any of them can be purchased
+by honour.  To conclude this precept, as there is order and priority in
+matter, so is there in time, the preposterous placing whereof is one of
+the commonest errors: while men fly to their ends when they should intend
+their beginnings, and do not take things in order of time as they come
+on, but marshal them according to greatness and not according to
+instance; not observing the good precept, _Quod nunc instat agamus_.
+
+(39) Another precept of this knowledge is not to embrace any matters
+which do occupy too great a quantity of time, but to have that sounding
+in a man’s ears, _Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus_: and that
+is the cause why those which take their course of rising by professions
+of burden, as lawyers, orators, painful divines, and the like, are not
+commonly so politic for their own fortune, otherwise than in their
+ordinary way, because they want time to learn particulars, to wait
+occasions, and to devise plots.
+
+(40) Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate nature, which doth
+nothing in vain; which surely a man may do if he do well interlace his
+business, and bend not his mind too much upon that which he principally
+intendeth.  For a man ought in every particular action so to carry the
+motions of his mind, and so to have one thing under another, as if he
+cannot have that he seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it in a
+second, or so in a third; and if he can have no part of that which he
+purposed, yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else; and if he cannot
+make anything of it for the present, yet to make it as a seed of somewhat
+in time to come; and if he can contrive no effect or substance from it,
+yet to win some good opinion by it, or the like.  So that he should exact
+an account of himself of every action, to reap somewhat, and not to stand
+amazed and confused if he fail of that he chiefly meant: for nothing is
+more impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one.  For he that doth
+so loseth infinite occasions which intervene, and are many times more
+proper and propitious for somewhat that he shall need afterwards, than
+for that which he urgeth for the present; and therefore men must be
+perfect in that rule, _Hæc oportet facere_, _et illa non imittere_.
+
+(41) Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a man’s self
+peremptorily in anything, though it seem not liable to accident; but ever
+to have a window to fly out at, or a way to retire: following the wisdom
+in the ancient fable of the two frogs, which consulted when their plash
+was dry whither they should go; and the one moved to go down into a pit,
+because it was not likely the water would dry there; but the other
+answered, “True, but if it do, how shall we get out again?”
+
+(42) Another precept of this knowledge is that ancient precept of Bias,
+construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but to caution and
+moderation, _Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus et odi tanquam amaturus_.
+For it utterly betrayeth all utility for men to embark themselves too far
+into unfortunate friendships, troublesome spleens, and childish and
+humorous envies or emulations.
+
+(43) But I continue this beyond the measure of an example; led, because I
+would not have such knowledges, which I note as deficient, to be thought
+things imaginative or in the air, or an observation or two much made of,
+but things of bulk and mass, whereof an end is more hardly made than a
+beginning.  It must be likewise conceived, that in these points which I
+mention and set down, they are far from complete tractates of them, but
+only as small pieces for patterns.  And lastly, no man I suppose will
+think that I mean fortunes are not obtained without all this ado; for I
+know they come tumbling into some men’s laps; and a number obtain good
+fortunes by diligence in a plain way, little intermeddling, and keeping
+themselves from gross errors.
+
+(44) But as Cicero, when he setteth down an idea of a perfect orator,
+doth not mean that every pleader should be such; and so likewise, when a
+prince or a courtier hath been described by such as have handled those
+subjects, the mould hath used to be made according to the perfection of
+the art, and not according to common practice: so I understand it, that
+it ought to be done in the description of a politic man, I mean politic
+for his own fortune.
+
+(45) But it must be remembered all this while, that the precepts which we
+have set down are of that kind which may be counted and called _Bonæ
+Artes_.  As for evil arts, if a man would set down for himself that
+principle of Machiavel, “That a man seek not to attain virtue itself, but
+the appearance only thereof; because the credit of virtue is a help, but
+the use of it is cumber:” or that other of his principles, “That he
+presuppose that men are not fitly to be wrought otherwise but by fear;
+and therefore that he seek to have every man obnoxious, low, and in
+straits,” which the Italians call _seminar spine_, to sow thorns: or that
+other principle, contained in the verse which Cicero citeth, _Cadant
+amici_, _dummodo inimici intercidant_, as the triumvirs, which sold every
+one to other the lives of their friends for the deaths of their enemies:
+or that other protestation of L. Catilina, to set on fire and trouble
+states, to the end to fish in droumy waters, and to unwrap their
+fortunes, _Ego si quid in fortunis meis excitatum sit incendium_, _id non
+aqua sed ruina restinguam_: or that other principle of Lysander, “That
+children are to be deceived with comfits, and men with oaths:” and the
+like evil and corrupt positions, whereof (as in all things) there are
+more in number than of the good: certainly with these dispensations from
+the laws of charity and integrity, the pressing of a man’s fortune may be
+more hasty and compendious.  But it is in life as it is in ways, the
+shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not
+much about.
+
+(46) But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and sustain
+themselves, and be not carried away with a whirlwind or tempest of
+ambition, ought in the pursuit of their own fortune to set before their
+eyes not only that general map of the world, “That all things are vanity
+and vexation of spirit,” but many other more particular cards and
+directions: chiefly that, that being without well-being is a curse, and
+the greater being the greater curse; and that all virtue is most rewarded
+and all wickedness most punished in itself: according as the poet saith
+excellently:
+
+    “Quæ vobis, quæ digna, viri pro laudibus istis
+    Præmia posse rear solvi? pulcherrima primum
+    Dii _moresque_ dabunt vestri.”
+
+And so of the contrary.  And secondly they ought to look up to the
+Eternal Providence and Divine Judgment, which often subverteth the wisdom
+of evil plots and imaginations, according to that scripture, “He hath
+conceived mischief, and shall bring forth a vain thing.”  And although
+men should refrain themselves from injury and evil arts, yet this
+incessant and Sabbathless pursuit of a man’s fortune leaveth not tribute
+which we owe to God of our time; who (we see) demandeth a tenth of our
+substance, and a seventh, which is more strict, of our time: and it is to
+small purpose to have an erected face towards heaven, and a perpetual
+grovelling spirit upon earth, eating dust as doth the serpent, _Atque
+affigit humo divinæ particulam auræ_.  And if any man flatter himself
+that he will employ his fortune well, though he should obtain it ill, as
+was said concerning Augustus Cæsar, and after of Septimius Severus, “That
+either they should never have been born, or else they should never have
+died,” they did so much mischief in the pursuit and ascent of their
+greatness, and so much good when they were established; yet these
+compensations and satisfactions are good to be used, but never good to be
+purposed.  And lastly, it is not amiss for men, in their race towards
+their fortune, to cool themselves a little with that conceit which is
+elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the
+king his son, “That fortune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, that
+if she he too much wooed she is the farther off.”  But this last is but a
+remedy for those whose tastes are corrupted: let men rather build upon
+that foundation which is as a corner-stone of divinity and philosophy,
+wherein they join close, namely that same _Primum quærite_.  For divinity
+saith, _Primum quærite regnum Dei_, _et ista omnia adjicientur vobis_:
+and philosophy saith, _Primum quærite bona animi_; _cætera aut aderunt_,
+_aut non oberunt_.  And although the human foundation hath somewhat of
+the sands, as we see in M. Brutus, when he broke forth into that speech,
+
+    “Te colui (Virtus) ut rem; ast tu nomen inane es;”
+
+yet the divine foundation is upon the rock.  But this may serve for a
+taste of that knowledge which I noted as deficient.
+
+(47) Concerning government, it is a part of knowledge secret and retired
+in both these respects in which things are deemed secret; for some things
+are secret because they are hard to know, and some because they are not
+fit to utter.  We see all governments are obscure and invisible:
+
+       “Totamque infusa per artus
+    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.”
+
+Such is the description of governments.  We see the government of God
+over the world is hidden, insomuch as it seemeth to participate of much
+irregularity and confusion.  The government of the soul in moving the
+body is inward and profound, and the passages thereof hardly to be
+reduced to demonstration.  Again, the wisdom of antiquity (the shadows
+whereof are in the poets) in the description of torments and pains, next
+unto the crime of rebellion, which was the giants’ offence, doth detest
+the offence of futility, as in Sisyphus and Tantalus.  But this was meant
+of particulars: nevertheless even unto the general rules and discourses
+of policy and government there is due a reverent and reserved handling.
+
+(48) But contrariwise in the governors towards the governed, all things
+ought as far as the frailty of man permitteth to be manifest and
+revealed.  For so it is expressed in the Scriptures touching the
+government of God, that this globe, which seemeth to us a dark and shady
+body, is in the view of God as crystal: _Et in conspectu sedis tanquam
+mare vitreum simile crystallo_.  So unto princes and states, and
+specially towards wise senates and councils, the natures and dispositions
+of the people, their conditions and necessities, their factions and
+combinations, their animosities and discontents, ought to be, in regard
+of the variety of their intelligences, the wisdom of their observations,
+and the height of their station where they keep sentinel, in great part
+clear and transparent.  Wherefore, considering that I write to a king
+that is a master of this science, and is so well assisted, I think it
+decent to pass over this part in silence, as willing to obtain the
+certificate which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto; who being
+silent, when others contended to make demonstration of their abilities by
+speech, desired it might be certified for his part, “That there was one
+that knew how to hold his peace.”
+
+(49) Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which is
+laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which is, that all those
+which have written of laws have written either as philosophers or as
+lawyers, and none as statesmen.  As for the philosophers, they make
+imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as
+the stars, which give little light because they are so high.  For the
+lawyers, they write according to the states where they live what is
+received law, and not what ought to be law; for the wisdom of a law-maker
+is one, and of a lawyer is another.  For there are in nature certain
+fountains of justice whence all civil laws are derived but as streams;
+and like as waters do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through
+which they run, so do civil laws vary according to the regions and
+governments where they are planted, though they proceed from the same
+fountains.  Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a
+platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into
+consideration by what means laws may be made certain, and what are the
+causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and uncertainty of law; by what
+means laws may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what are the
+impediments and remedies in the execution of laws; what influence laws
+touching private right of _meum_ and _tuum_ have into the public state,
+and how they may be made apt and agreeable; how laws are to be penned and
+delivered, whether in texts or in Acts, brief or large, with preambles or
+without; how they are to be pruned and reformed from time to time, and
+what is the best means to keep them from being too vast in volume, or too
+full of multiplicity and crossness; how they are to be expounded, when
+upon causes emergent and judicially discussed, and when upon responses
+and conferences touching general points or questions; how they are to be
+pressed, rigorously or tenderly; how they are to be mitigated by equity
+and good conscience, and whether discretion and strict law are to be
+mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several courts; again, how
+the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be censured and
+governed; and many other points touching the administration and (as I may
+term it) animation of laws.  Upon which I insist the less, because I
+purpose (if God give me leave), having begun a work of this nature in
+aphorisms, to propound it hereafter, noting it in the meantime for
+deficient.
+
+(50) And for your Majesty’s laws of England, I could say much of their
+dignity, and somewhat of their defect; but they cannot but excel the
+civil laws in fitness for the government, for the civil law was _nonhos
+quæsitum munus in usus_; it was not made for the countries which it
+governeth.  Hereof I cease to speak because I will not intermingle matter
+of action with matter of general learning.
+
+XXIV.  Thus have I concluded this portion of learning touching civil
+knowledge; and with civil knowledge have concluded human philosophy; and
+with human philosophy, philosophy in general.  And being now at some
+pause, looking back into that I have passed through, this writing seemeth
+to me (_si nunquam fallit imago_), as far as a man can judge of his own
+work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians make while
+they are in tuning their instruments, which is nothing pleasant to hear,
+but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards.  So have I been
+content to tune the instruments of the Muses, that they may play that
+have better hands.  And surely, when I set before me the condition of
+these times, in which learning hath made her third visitation or circuit
+in all the qualities thereof; as the excellency and vivacity of the wits
+of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of
+ancient writers; the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of
+all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation, which hath
+disclosed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of natural history; the
+leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so generally in
+civil business, as the states of Græcia did, in respect of their
+popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of their
+monarchy; the present disposition of these times at this instant to
+peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in controversies of
+religion, which have so much diverted men from other sciences; the
+perfection of your Majesty’s learning, which as a phœnix may call whole
+volleys of wits to follow you; and the inseparable propriety of time,
+which is ever more and more to disclose truth; I cannot but be raised to
+this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of
+the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their own strength
+and their own weakness both; and take, one from the other, light of
+invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem of the inquisition
+of truth as of an enterprise, and not as of a quality or ornament; and
+employ wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to
+things vulgar and of popular estimation.  As for my labours, if any man
+shall please himself or others in the reprehension of them, they shall
+make that ancient and patient request, _Verbera_, _sed audi_: let men
+reprehend them, so they observe and weigh them.  For the appeal is lawful
+(though it may be it shall not be needful) from the first cogitations of
+men to their second, and from the nearer times to the times further off.
+Now let us come to that learning, which both the former times were not so
+blessed as to know, sacred and inspired divinity, the Sabbath and port of
+all men’s labours and peregrinations.
+
+XXV. (1) The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as to the
+will of man: so that as we are to obey His law, though we find a
+reluctation in our will, so we are to believe His word, though we find a
+reluctation in our reason.  For if we believe only that which is
+agreeable to our sense we give consent to the matter, and not to the
+author; which is no more than we would do towards a suspected and
+discredited witness; but that faith which was accounted to Abraham for
+righteousness was of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein
+was an image of natural reason.
+
+(2) Howbeit (if we will truly consider of it) more worthy it is to
+believe than to know as we now know.  For in knowledge man’s mind
+suffereth from sense: but in belief it suffereth from spirit, such one as
+it holdeth for more authorised than itself and so suffereth from the
+worthier agent.  Otherwise it is of the state of man glorified; for then
+faith shall cease, and we shall know as we are known.
+
+(3) Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology (which in our idiom we
+call divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God, and not
+upon the light of nature: for it is written, _Cæli enarrant gloriam Dei_;
+but it is not written, _Cæli enarrant voluntatem Dei_: but of that it is
+said, _Ad legem et testimonium_: _si non fecerint secundum verbum istud_,
+&c.  This holdeth not only in those points of faith which concern the
+great mysteries of the Deity, of the creation, of the redemption, but
+likewise those which concern the law moral, truly interpreted: “Love your
+enemies: do good to them that hate you; be like to your heavenly Father,
+that suffereth His rain to fall upon the just and unjust.”  To this it
+ought to be applauded, _Nec vox hominem sonat_: it is a voice beyond the
+light of nature.  So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a
+libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moralities, as if
+they were opposite and malignant to nature: _Et quod natura remittit_,
+_invida jura negant_.  So said Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander’s
+messengers, that he had heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other of
+the wise men of Græcia, and that he held them for excellent men: but that
+they had a fault, which was that they had in too great reverence and
+veneration a thing they called law and manners.  So it must be confessed
+that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection whereunto the
+light of nature cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have,
+by the light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and
+vice, justice and wrong, good and evil?  Thus, because the light of
+nature is used in two several senses: the one, that which springeth from
+reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and
+earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an
+inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle
+of the purity of his first estate: in which latter sense only he is
+participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of the
+moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice but not to inform the
+duty.  So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral as mystical, is
+not to be attained but by inspiration and revelation from God.
+
+(4) The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, and the
+latitude thereof, is very great and general: for it is not for nothing
+that the apostle calleth religion “our reasonable service of God;”
+insomuch as the very ceremonies and figures of the old law were full of
+reason and signification, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and
+magic, that are full of non-significants and surd characters.  But most
+specially the Christian faith, as in all things so in this, deserveth to
+be highly magnified; holding and preserving the golden mediocrity in this
+point between the law of the heathen and the law of Mahomet, which have
+embraced the two extremes.  For the religion of the heathen had no
+constant belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of agent; and
+the religion of Mahomet on the other side interdicteth argument
+altogether: the one having the very face of error, and the other of
+imposture; whereas the Faith doth both admit and reject disputation with
+difference.
+
+(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the former, in
+the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us revealed;
+the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction
+thereupon.  The former extendeth to the mysteries themselves; but how? by
+way of illustration, and not by way of argument.  The latter consisteth
+indeed of probation and argument.  In the former we see God vouchsafeth
+to descend to our capacity, in the expressing of His mysteries in sort as
+may be sensible unto us; and doth graft His revelations and holy doctrine
+upon the notions of our reason, and applieth His inspirations to open our
+understanding, as the form of the key to the ward of the lock.  For the
+latter there is allowed us a use of reason and argument, secondary and
+respective, although not original and absolute.  For after the articles
+and principles of religion are placed and exempted from examination of
+reason, it is then permitted unto us to make derivations and inferences
+from and according to the analogy of them, for our better direction.  In
+nature this holdeth not; for both the principles are examinable by
+induction, though not by a medium or syllogism; and besides, those
+principles or first positions have no discordance with that reason which
+draweth down and deduceth the inferior positions.  But yet it holdeth not
+in religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and smaller
+nature, namely, wherein there are not only _posita_ but _placita_; for in
+such there can be no use of absolute reason.  We see it familiarly in
+games of wit, as chess, or the like.  The draughts and first laws of the
+game are positive, but how? merely _ad placitum_, and not examinable by
+reason; but then how to direct our play thereupon with best advantage to
+win the game is artificial and rational.  So in human laws there be many
+grounds and maxims which are _placita juris_, positive upon authority,
+and not upon reason, and therefore not to be disputed: but what is most
+just, not absolutely but relatively, and according to those maxims, that
+affordeth a long field of disputation.  Such therefore is that secondary
+reason, which hath place in divinity, which is grounded upon the
+_placets_ of God.
+
+(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath not been, to
+my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the true limits and
+use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of divine dialectic: which
+for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing usual, by pretext of
+true conceiving that which is revealed, to search and mine into that
+which is not revealed; and by pretext of enucleating inferences and
+contradictories, to examine that which is positive.  The one sort falling
+into the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have things made more sensible
+than it pleaseth God to reveal them, _Quomodo possit homo nasci cum sit
+senex_?  The other sort into the error of the disciples, which were
+scandalised at a show of contradiction, _Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis_?
+_Modicum et non videbitis me_; _et iterum_, _modicum_, _et videbitis me_,
+&c.
+
+(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great and
+blessed use thereof; for this point well laboured and defined of would in
+my judgment be an opiate to stay and bridle not only the vanity of
+curious speculations, wherewith the schools labour, but the fury of
+controversies, wherewith the Church laboureth.  For it cannot but open
+men’s eyes to see that many controversies do merely pertain to that which
+is either not revealed or positive; and that many others do grow upon
+weak and obscure inferences or derivations: which latter sort, if men
+would revive the blessed style of that great doctor of the Gentiles,
+would be carried thus, _ego_, _non dominus_; and again, _secundum
+consilium meum_, in opinions and counsels, and not in positions and
+oppositions.  But men are now over-ready to usurp the style, _non ego_,
+_sed dominus_; and not so only, but to bind it with the thunder and
+denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the terror of those which have
+not sufficiently learned out of Solomon that “The causeless curse shall
+not come.”
+
+(8) Divinity hath two principal parts: the matter informed or revealed,
+and the nature of the information or revelation; and with the latter we
+will begin, because it hath most coherence with that which we have now
+last handled.  The nature of the information consisteth of three
+branches: the limits of the information, the sufficiency of the
+information, and the acquiring or obtaining the information.  Unto the
+limits of the information belong these considerations: how far forth
+particular persons continue to be inspired; how far forth the Church is
+inspired; and how far forth reason may be used; the last point whereof I
+have noted as deficient.  Unto the sufficiency of the information belong
+two considerations: what points of religion are fundamental, and what
+perfective, being matter of further building and perfection upon one and
+the same foundation; and again, how the gradations of light according to
+the dispensation of times are material to the sufficiency of belief.
+
+(9) Here again I may rather give it in advice than note it as deficient,
+that the points fundamental, and the points of further perfection only,
+ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished; a subject tending to
+much like end as that I noted before; for as that other were likely to
+abate the number of controversies, so this is likely to abate the heat of
+many of them.  We see Moses when he saw the Israelite and the Egyptian
+fight, he did not say, “Why strive you?” but drew his sword and slew the
+Egyptian; but when he saw the two Israelites fight, he said, “You are
+brethren, why strive you?”  If the point of doctrine be an Egyptian, it
+must be slain by the sword of the Spirit, and not reconciled; but if it
+be an Israelite, though in the wrong, then, “Why strive you?”  We see of
+the fundamental points, our Saviour penneth the league thus, “He that is
+not with us is against us;” but of points not fundamental, thus, “He that
+is not against us is with us.”  So we see the coat of our Saviour was
+entire without seam, and so is the doctrine of the Scriptures in itself;
+but the garment of the Church was of divers colours and yet not divided.
+We see the chaff may and ought to be severed from the corn in the ear,
+but the tares may not be pulled up from the corn in the field.  So as it
+is a thing of great use well to define what, and of what latitude, those
+points are which do make men mere aliens and disincorporate from the
+Church of God.
+
+(10) For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the true and
+sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the fountains of the
+water of life.  The interpretations of the Scriptures are of two sorts:
+methodical, and solute or at large.  For this divine water, which
+excelleth so much that of Jacob’s well, is drawn forth much in the same
+kind as natural water useth to be out of wells and fountains; either it
+is first forced up into a cistern, and from thence fetched and derived
+for use; or else it is drawn and received in buckets and vessels
+immediately where it springeth.  The former sort whereof, though it seem
+to be the more ready, yet in my judgment is more subject to corrupt.
+This is that method which hath exhibited unto us the scholastical
+divinity; whereby divinity hath been reduced into an art, as into a
+cistern, and the streams of doctrine or positions fetched and derived
+from thence.
+
+(11) In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity, a compacted
+strength, and a complete perfection; whereof the two first they fail to
+find, and the last they ought not to seek.  For as to brevity, we see in
+all summary methods, while men purpose to abridge, they give cause to
+dilate.  For the sum or abridgment by contraction becometh obscure; the
+obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is deduced into large
+commentaries, or into commonplaces and titles, which grow to be more vast
+than the original writings, whence the sum was at first extracted.  So we
+see the volumes of the schoolmen are greater much than the first writings
+of the fathers, whence the master of the sentences made his sum or
+collection.  So in like manner the volumes of the modern doctors of the
+civil law exceed those of the ancient jurisconsults, of which Tribonian
+compiled the digest.  So as this course of sums and commentaries is that
+which doth infallibly make the body of sciences more immense in quantity,
+and more base in substance.
+
+(12) And for strength, it is true that knowledges reduced into exact
+methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth to support and
+sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory than substantial, like
+unto buildings which stand by architecture and compaction, which are more
+subject to ruin than those that are built more strong in their several
+parts, though less compacted.  But it is plain that the more you recede
+from your grounds, the weaker do you conclude; and as in nature, the more
+you remove yourself from particulars, the greater peril of error you do
+incur; so much more in divinity, the more you recede from the Scriptures
+by inferences and consequences, the more weak and dilute are your
+positions.
+
+(13) And as for perfection or completeness in divinity, it is not to be
+sought, which makes this course of artificial divinity the more suspect.
+For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art will make it round and
+uniform; but in divinity many things must be left abrupt, and concluded
+with this: _O altitudo sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei_! _quam
+incomprehensibilia sunt juducua ejus_, _et non investigabiles viæ ejus_.
+So again the apostle saith, _Ex parte scimus_: and to have the form of a
+total, where there is but matter for a part, cannot be without supplies
+by supposition and presumption.  And therefore I conclude that the true
+use of these sums and methods hath place in institutions or introductions
+preparatory unto knowledge; but in them, or by deducement from them, to
+handle the main body and substance of a knowledge is in all sciences
+prejudicial, and in divinity dangerous.
+
+(14) As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at large,
+there have been divers kinds introduced and devised; some of them rather
+curious and unsafe than sober and warranted.  Notwithstanding, thus much
+must be confessed, that the Scriptures, being given by inspiration and
+not by human reason, do differ from all other books in the Author, which
+by consequence doth draw on some difference to be used by the expositor.
+For the Inditer of them did know four things which no man attains to
+know; which are—the mysteries of the kingdom of glory, the perfection of
+the laws of nature, the secrets of the heart of man, and the future
+succession of all ages.  For as to the first it is said, “He that
+presseth into the light shall be oppressed of the glory.”  And again, “No
+man shall see My face and live.”  To the second, “When He prepared the
+heavens I was present, when by law and compass He enclosed the deep.”  To
+the third, “Neither was it needful that any should bear witness to Him of
+man, for He knew well what was in man.”  And to the last, “From the
+beginning are known to the Lord all His works.”
+
+(15) From the former two of these have been drawn certain senses and
+expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained within the bounds
+of sobriety—the one anagogical, and the other philosophical.  But as to
+the former, man is not to prevent his time: _Videmus nunc per speculum in
+ænigmate_, _tunc autem facie ad faciem_; wherein nevertheless there
+seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth as the polishing of this
+glass, or some moderate explication of this enigma.  But to press too far
+into it cannot but cause a dissolution and overthrow of the spirit of
+man.  For in the body there are three degrees of that we receive into
+it—aliment, medicine, and poison; whereof aliment is that which the
+nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome; medicine is that which is
+partly converted by nature, and partly converteth nature; and poison is
+that which worketh wholly upon nature, without that nature can in any
+part work upon it.  So in the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at
+all work upon and convert is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a
+dissolution of the mind and understanding.
+
+(16) But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late time
+by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended to find
+the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalising and
+traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane.  But there is
+no such enmity between God’s Word and His works; neither do they give
+honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embase them.  For to
+seek heaven and earth in the Word of God, whereof it is said, “Heaven and
+earth shall pass, but My word shall not pass,” is to seek temporary
+things amongst eternal: and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek
+the living amongst the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek
+the dead amongst the living: neither are the pots or lavers, whose place
+was in the outward part of the temple, to be sought in the holiest place
+of all where the ark of the testimony was seated.  And again, the scope
+or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to express matters of nature in
+the Scriptures, otherwise than in passage, and for application to man’s
+capacity and to matters moral or divine.  And it is a true rule,
+_Auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas_.  For it were a strange
+conclusion, if a man should use a similitude for ornament or illustration
+sake, borrowed from nature or history according to vulgar conceit, as of
+a basilisk, a unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, a hydra, or the like, that
+therefore he must needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof
+positively to be true.  To conclude therefore these two interpretations,
+the one by reduction or enigmatical, the other philosophical or physical,
+which have been received and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and
+cabalists, are to be confined with a _a noli akryn sapere_, _sed time_.
+
+(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to man, touching
+the secrets of the heart and the successions of time, doth make a just
+and sound difference between the manner of the exposition of the
+Scriptures and all other books.  For it is an excellent observation which
+hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the
+questions which were propounded to Him, how that they are impertinent to
+the state of the question demanded: the reason whereof is, because not
+being like man, which knows man’s thoughts by his words, but knowing
+man’s thoughts immediately, He never answered their words, but their
+thoughts.  Much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being
+written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a
+foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the
+Church, yea, and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted
+only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and
+respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were
+uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the words before or
+after, or in contemplation of the principal scope of the place; but have
+in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in
+clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the
+Church in every part.  And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were,
+the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the
+allegorical or typical, are they whereof the Church hath most use; not
+that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in
+allusions: but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the
+Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a
+profane book.
+
+(18) In this part touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can report
+no deficiency; but by way of remembrance this I will add.  In perusing
+books of divinity I find many books of controversies, and many of
+commonplaces and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as it is made an
+art: a number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix commentaries upon
+the Scriptures, with harmonies and concordances.  But that form of
+writing in divinity which in my judgment is of all others most rich and
+precious is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts of
+Scriptures in brief observations; not dilated into commonplaces, not
+chasing after controversies, not reduced into method of art; a thing
+abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in books which
+will remain, and a thing wherein this age excelleth.  For I am persuaded,
+and I may speak it with an _absit invidia verbo_, and nowise in
+derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between the vine and
+the olive, that if the choice and best of those observations upon texts
+of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons within this
+your Majesty’s Island of Brittany by the space of these forty years and
+more (leaving out the largeness of exhortations and applications
+thereupon) had been set down in a continuance, it had been the best work
+in divinity which had been written since the Apostles’ times.
+
+(19) The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds: matter of belief
+and truth of opinion, and matter of service and adoration; which is also
+judged and directed by the former—the one being as the internal soul of
+religion, and the other as the external body thereof.  And, therefore,
+the heathen religion was not only a worship of idols, but the whole
+religion was an idol in itself; for it had no soul; that is, no certainty
+of belief or confession: as a man may well think, considering the chief
+doctors of their church were the poets; and the reason was because the
+heathen gods were no jealous gods, but were glad to be admitted into
+part, as they had reason.  Neither did they respect the pureness of
+heart, so they might have external honour and rites.
+
+(20) But out of these two do result and issue four main branches of
+divinity: faith, manners, liturgy, and government.  Faith containeth the
+doctrine of the nature of God, of the attributes of God, and of the works
+of God.  The nature of God consisteth of three persons in unity of
+Godhead.  The attributes of God are either common to the Deity, or
+respective to the persons.  The works of God summary are two, that of the
+creation and that of the redemption; and both these works, as in total
+they appertain to the unity of the Godhead, so in their parts they refer
+to the three persons: that of the creation, in the mass of the matter, to
+the Father; in the disposition of the form, to the Son; and in the
+continuance and conservation of the being, to the Holy Spirit.  So that
+of the redemption, in the election and counsel, to the Father; in the
+whole act and consummation, to the Son; and in the application, to the
+Holy Spirit; for by the Holy Ghost was Christ conceived in flesh, and by
+the Holy Ghost are the elect regenerate in spirit.  This work likewise we
+consider either effectually, in the elect; or privately, in the
+reprobate; or according to appearance, in the visible Church.
+
+(21) For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the law, which
+discloseth sin.  The law itself is divided, according to the edition
+thereof, into the law of nature, the law moral, and the law positive; and
+according to the style, into negative and affirmative, prohibitions and
+commandments.  Sin, in the matter and subject thereof, is divided
+according to the commandments; in the form thereof it referreth to the
+three persons in Deity: sins of infirmity against the Father, whose more
+special attribute is power; sins of ignorance against the Son, whose
+attribute is wisdom; and sins of malice against the Holy Ghost, whose
+attribute is grace or love.  In the motions of it, it either moveth to
+the right hand or to the left; either to blind devotion or to profane and
+libertine transgression; either in imposing restraint where God granteth
+liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth restraint.  In the
+degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself into thought, word, or
+act.  And in this part I commend much the deducing of the law of God to
+cases of conscience; for that I take indeed to be a breaking, and not
+exhibiting whole of the bread of life.  But that which quickeneth both
+these doctrines of faith and manners is the elevation and consent of the
+heart; whereunto appertain books of exhortation, holy meditation,
+Christian resolution, and the like.
+
+(22) For the liturgy or service, it consisteth of the reciprocal acts
+between God and man; which, on the part of God, are the preaching of the
+word, and the sacraments, which are seals to the covenant, or as the
+visible word; and on the part of man, invocation of the name of God; and
+under the law, sacrifices; which were as visible prayers or confessions:
+but now the adoration being _in spiritu et veritate_, there remaineth
+only _vituli labiorum_; although the use of holy vows of thankfulness and
+retribution may be accounted also as sealed petitions.
+
+(23) And for the government of the Church, it consisteth of the patrimony
+of the Church, the franchises of the Church, and the offices and
+jurisdictions of the Church, and the laws of the Church directing the
+whole; all which have two considerations, the one in themselves, the
+other how they stand compatible and agreeable to the civil estate.
+
+(24) This matter of divinity is handled either in form of instruction of
+truth, or in form of confutation of falsehood.  The declinations from
+religion, besides the privative, which is atheism and the branches
+thereof, are three—heresies, idolatry, and witchcraft: heresies, when we
+serve the true God with a false worship; idolatry, when we worship false
+gods, supposing them to be true; and witchcraft, when we adore false
+gods, knowing them to be wicked and false.  For so your Majesty doth
+excellently well observe, that witchcraft is the height of idolatry.  And
+yet we see though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that they are
+all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the Word of God; for
+so he saith, _Quasi peccatum ariolandi est repugnare_, _et quasi scelus
+idololatriæ nolle acquiescere_.
+
+(25) These things I have passed over so briefly because I can report no
+deficiency concerning them: for I can find no space or ground that lieth
+vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity, so diligent have men been
+either in sowing of good seed, or in sowing of tares.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Thus have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual world, as
+truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note and description of
+those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or not well
+converted by the labour of man.  In which, if I have in any point receded
+from that which is commonly received, it hath been with a purpose of
+proceeding in _melius_, and not _in aliud_; a mind of amendment and
+proficiency, and not of change and difference.  For I could not be true
+and constant to the argument I handle if I were not willing to go beyond
+others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again:
+which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions
+naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men’s
+judgments by confutations.  For in anything which is well set down, I am
+in good hope that if the first reading move an objection, the second
+reading will make an answer.  And in those things wherein I have erred, I
+am sure I have not prejudiced the right by litigious arguments; which
+certainly have this contrary effect and operation, that they add
+authority to error, and destroy the authority of that which is well
+invented.  For question is an honour and preferment to falsehood, as on
+the other side it is a repulse to truth.  But the errors I claim and
+challenge to myself as mine own.  The good, it any be, is due _tanquam
+adeps sacrificii_, to be incensed to the honour, first of the Divine
+Majesty, and next of your Majesty, to whom on earth I am most bounden.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+
+{39}  Stoops in the rice and takes the speeding gold.  Ovid. Metam, x.
+667.
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Advancement of Learning, by Francis Bacon</div>
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+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Advancement of Learning</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Francis Bacon</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editor: Henry Morley</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #5500]<br />
+[Most recently updated: April 12, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell &amp; Company edition by
+David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org and Richard Tonsing</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING ***</div>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell &amp; Company edition by
+David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<p>Transcriber’s note:
+Changed “considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned
+times have been most subject to tumults, seditious, and changes” to
+“considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have
+been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes”.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline"> </div>
+<h1><span class="GutSmall">THE</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Advancement</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">OF</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Learning</span>.</h1>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br />
+FRANCIS BACON.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/tpb.jpg">
+<img alt= "Decorative graphic" title="Decorative graphic"  src="images/tps.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL &amp; COMPANY, Limited:<br />
+<span class="GutSmall"><i>LONDON</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, </span><span class="GutSmall"><i>PARIS &amp;
+MELBOURNE</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.</span><br />
+1893.</p>
+<div class='chapter' /><h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+<p>“<span class="smcap">The Tvvoo</span> Bookes of Francis
+Bacon.  Of the proficience and aduancement of Learning,
+divine and humane.  To the King.  At London.
+Printed for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop at
+Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605.”   That was
+the original title-page of the book now in the reader’s
+hand—a living book that led the way to a new world of
+thought.  It was the book in which Bacon, early in the reign
+of James the First, prepared the way for a full setting forth of
+his New Organon, or instrument of knowledge.</p>
+<p>The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which
+Aristotle had written the doctrine of propositions.  Study
+of these treatises was a chief occupation of young men when they
+passed from school to college, and proceeded from Grammar to
+Logic, the second of the Seven Sciences.  Francis Bacon as a
+youth of sixteen, at Trinity College, Cambridge, felt the
+unfruitfulness of this method of search after truth.  He was
+the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth’s Lord
+Keeper, and was born at York House, in the Strand, on the 22nd of
+January, 1561.  His mother was the Lord Keeper’s
+second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other married Sir
+William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh.  Sir Nicholas Bacon
+had six children by his former marriage, and by his second wife
+two sons, Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years
+the elder.  The family home was at York Place, and at
+Gorhambury, near St. Albans, from which town, in its ancient and
+its modern style, Bacon afterwards took his titles of Verulam and
+St. Albans.</p>
+<p>Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College,
+Cambridge, when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis
+twelve.  Francis remained at Cambridge only until his
+sixteenth year; and Dr. Rawley, his chaplain in after-years,
+reports of him that “whilst he was commorant in the
+University, about sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been
+pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell into dislike of the
+philosophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author,
+to whom he would ascribe all high attributes, but for the
+unfruitfulness of the way, being a philosophy (as his lordship
+used to say) only strong for disputatious and contentions, but
+barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of
+man; in which mind he continued to his dying day.”
+Bacon was sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with the ambassador
+Sir Amyas Paulet, to begin his training for the public service;
+but his father’s death, in February, 1579, before he had
+completed the provision he was making for his youngest children,
+obliged him to return to London, and, at the age of eighteen, to
+settle down at Gray’s Inn to the study of law as a
+profession.  He was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582,
+and about that time, at the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of
+his conception of a New Organon that should lead man to more
+fruitful knowledge, in a little Latin tract, which he called
+“Temporis Partus Maximus” (“The Greatest Birth
+of Time”).</p>
+<p>In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons
+as member for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire.  In October,
+1586, he sat for Taunton.  He was member afterwards for
+Liverpool; and he was one of those who petitioned for the speedy
+execution of Mary Queen of Scots.  In October, 1589, he
+obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk of the Council in
+the Star Chamber, which was worth £1,600 or £2,000 a
+year; but for the succession to this office he had to wait until
+1608.  It had not yet fallen to him when he wrote his
+“Two Books of the Advancement of Learning.”  In
+the Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as member
+for Middlesex.  He raised difficulties of procedure in the
+way of the grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the
+joining of the Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a
+desire to extend the time allowed for payment from three years to
+six; it was, in fact, extended to four years.  The Queen was
+offended.  Francis Bacon and his brother Antony had attached
+themselves to the young Earl of Essex, who was their friend and
+patron.  The office of Attorney-General became vacant.
+Essex asked the Queen to appoint Francis Bacon.  The Queen
+gave the office to Sir Edward Coke, who was already
+Solicitor-General, and by nine years Bacon’s senior.
+The office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and that was
+sought for Francis Bacon.  The Queen, after delay and
+hesitation, gave it, in November, 1595, to Serjeant
+Fleming.  The Earl of Essex consoled his friend by giving
+him “a piece of land”—Twickenham
+Park—which Bacon afterwards sold for
+£1,800—equal, say, to £12,000 in present buying
+power.  In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament as member
+for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the rich
+widow of Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady married,
+in the next year, Sir Edward Coke.  It was in 1597 that
+Bacon published the First Edition of his Essays.  That was a
+little book containing only ten essays in English, with twelve
+“Meditationes Sacræ,” which were essays in
+Latin on religious subjects.  From 1597 onward to the end of
+his life, Bacon’s Essays were subject to continuous
+addition and revision.  The author’s Second Edition,
+in which the number of the Essays was increased from ten to
+thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December, 1612,
+seven years later than these two books on the “Advancement
+of Learning;” and the final edition of the Essays, in which
+their number was increased from thirty-eight to fifty-eight,
+appeared only in 1625; and Bacon died on the 9th of April,
+1626.  The edition of the Essays published in 1597, under
+Elizabeth, marked only the beginning of a course of thought that
+afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in
+philosophy.</p>
+<p>In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex.
+Francis Bacon had separated himself from his patron after giving
+him advice that was disregarded.  Bacon, now Queen’s
+Counsel, not only appeared against his old friend, but with
+excess of zeal, by which, perhaps, he hoped to win back the
+Queen’s favour, he twice obtruded violent attacks upon
+Essex when he was not called upon to speak.  On the 25th of
+February, 1601, Essex was beheaded.  The genius of Bacon was
+next employed to justify that act by “A Declaration of the
+Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late
+Earle of Essex and his Complices.”  But James of
+Scotland, on whose behalf Essex had intervened, came to the
+throne by the death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March,
+1603.  Bacon was among the crowd of men who were made
+knights by James I., and he had to justify himself under the new
+order of things by writing “Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie
+in certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of
+Essex.”  He was returned to the first Parliament of
+James I. by Ipswich and St. Albans, and he was confirmed in his
+office of King’s Counsel in August, 1604; but he was not
+appointed to the office of Solicitor-General when it became
+vacant in that year.</p>
+<p>That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he
+published this work, where in his First Book he pointed out the
+discredits of learning from human defects of the learned, and
+emptiness of many of the studies chosen, or the way of dealing
+with them.  This came, he said, especially by the mistaking
+or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge, as if
+there were sought in it “a couch whereupon to rest a
+searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and
+variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a
+tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort
+or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for
+profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the
+Creator and the relief of man’s estate.”  The
+rest of the First Book was given to an argument upon the Dignity
+of Learning; and the Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning,
+is, as Bacon himself described it, “a general and faithful
+perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie
+fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry
+of man; to the end that such a plot made and recorded to memory
+may both minister light to any public designation and also serve
+to excite voluntary endeavours.”  Bacon makes, by a
+sort of exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all subjects of
+study, as an intellectual map, helping the right inquirer in his
+search for the right path.  The right path is that by which
+he has the best chance of adding to the stock of knowledge in the
+world something worth labouring for; and the true worth is in
+labour for “the glory of the Creator and the relief of
+man’s estate.”</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p>
+<div class='chapter' /><h2><span class="GutSmall">THE</span><br />
+FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON;<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">OF THE PROFICIENCE AND</span><br />
+ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">DIVINE AND HUMAN.</span></h2>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>To the King</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> were under the law, excellent
+King, both daily sacrifices and freewill offerings; the one
+proceeding upon ordinary observance, the other upon a devout
+cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth to kings from their
+servants both tribute of duty and presents of affection.  In
+the former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting,
+according to my most humble duty and the good pleasure of your
+Majesty’s employments: for the latter, I thought it more
+respective to make choice of some oblation which might rather
+refer to the propriety and excellency of your individual person,
+than to the business of your crown and state.</p>
+<p>Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind,
+and beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to
+discover that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but
+with the observant eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the
+other parts of your virtue and fortune, I have been
+touched—yea, and possessed—with an extreme wonder at
+those your virtues and faculties, which the philosophers call
+intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of
+your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration
+of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution:
+and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I
+have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of
+Plato’s opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and
+that the mind of man by Nature knoweth all things, and hath but
+her own native and original notions (which by the strangeness and
+darkness of this tabernacle of the body are sequestered) again
+revived and restored: such a light of Nature I have observed in
+your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and blaze from
+the least occasion presented, or the least spark of
+another’s knowledge delivered.  And as the Scripture
+saith of the wisest king, “That his heart was as the sands
+of the sea;” which, though it be one of the largest bodies,
+yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest portions; so hath
+God given your Majesty a composition of understanding admirable,
+being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters, and
+nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least; whereas it should
+seem an impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to make
+itself fit for great and small works.  And for your gift of
+speech, I call to mind what Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus
+Cæsar: <i>Augusto profluens</i>, <i>et quæ principem
+deceret</i>, <i>eloquentia fuit</i>.  For if we note it
+well, speech that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or
+speech that savoureth of the affectation of art and precepts, or
+speech that is framed after the imitation of some pattern of
+eloquence, though never so excellent; all this hath somewhat
+servile, and holding of the subject.  But your
+Majesty’s manner of speech is, indeed, prince-like, flowing
+as from a fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into
+Nature’s order, full of facility and felicity, imitating
+none, and inimitable by any.  And as in your civil estate
+there appeareth to be an emulation and contention of your
+Majesty’s virtue with your fortune; a virtuous disposition
+with a fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time was)
+of your greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in
+the due time; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage,
+with most blessed and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and
+most Christian desire of peace, with a fortunate inclination in
+your neighbour princes thereunto: so likewise in these
+intellectual matters there seemeth to be no less contention
+between the excellency of your Majesty’s gifts of Nature
+and the universality and perfection of your learning.  For I
+am well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification
+at all, but a positive and measured truth; which is, that there
+hath not been since Christ’s time any king or temporal
+monarch which hath been so learned in all literature and
+erudition, divine and human.  For let a man seriously and
+diligently revolve and peruse the succession of the Emperors of
+Rome, of which Cæsar the Dictator (who lived some years
+before Christ) and Marcus Antoninus were the best learned, and so
+descend to the Emperors of Græcia, or of the West, and then
+to the lines of France, Spain, England, Scotland, and the rest,
+and he shall find this judgment is truly made.  For it
+seemeth much in a king if, by the compendious extractions of
+other men’s wits and labours, he can take hold of any
+superficial ornaments and shows of learning, or if he countenance
+and prefer learning and learned men; but to drink, indeed, of the
+true fountains of learning—nay, to have such a fountain of
+learning in himself, in a king, and in a king born—is
+almost a miracle.  And the more, because there is met in
+your Majesty a rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred
+literature as of profane and human; so as your Majesty standeth
+invested of that triplicity, which in great veneration was
+ascribed to the ancient Hermes: the power and fortune of a king,
+the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the learning and
+universality of a philosopher.  This propriety inherent and
+individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be expressed
+not only in the fame and admiration of the present time, nor in
+the history or tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in some
+solid work, fixed memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a
+character or signature both of the power of a king and the
+difference and perfection of such a king.</p>
+<p>Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make
+unto your Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending
+to that end, whereof the sum will consist of these two parts: the
+former concerning the excellency of learning and knowledge, and
+the excellency of the merit and true glory in the augmentation
+and propagation thereof; the latter, what the particular acts and
+works are which have been embraced and undertaken for the
+advancement of learning; and again, what defects and undervalues
+I find in such particular acts: to the end that though I cannot
+positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound unto
+you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely
+cogitations to visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, and
+thence to extract particulars for this purpose agreeable to your
+magnanimity and wisdom.</p>
+<p>I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these—to clear
+the way and, as it were, to make silence, to have the true
+testimonies concerning the dignity of learning to be better
+heard, without the interruption of tacit objections—I think
+good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces which it
+hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance severally
+disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of
+divines, sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of politics, and
+sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned men
+themselves.</p>
+<p>(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those
+things which are to be accepted of with great limitation and
+caution; that the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original
+temptation and sin whereupon ensued the fall of man; that
+knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and, therefore,
+where it entereth into a man it makes him swell; <i>Scientia
+inflat</i>; that Solomon gives a censure, “That there is no
+end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the
+flesh;” and again in another place, “That in spacious
+knowledge there is much contristation, and that he that
+increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety;” that Saint Paul
+gives a caveat, “That we be not spoiled through vain
+philosophy;” that experience demonstrates how learned men
+have been arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to
+atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes doth derogate
+from our dependence upon God, who is the first cause.</p>
+<p>(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this
+opinion, and the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may
+well appear these men do not observe or consider that it was not
+the pure knowledge of Nature and universality, a knowledge by the
+light whereof man did give names unto other creatures in Paradise
+as they were brought before him according unto their proprieties,
+which gave the occasion to the fall; but it was the proud
+knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give law
+unto himself, and to depend no more upon God’s
+commandments, which was the form of the temptation.  Neither
+is it any quantity of knowledge, how great soever, that can make
+the mind of man to swell; for nothing can fill, much less extend
+the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of God; and,
+therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two principal senses of
+inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never
+satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and if there be
+no fulness, then is the continent greater than the content: so of
+knowledge itself and the mind of man, whereto the senses are but
+reporters, he defineth likewise in these words, placed after that
+calendar or ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of
+times and seasons for all actions and purposes, and concludeth
+thus: “God hath made all things beautiful, or decent, in
+the true return of their seasons.  Also He hath placed the
+world in man’s heart, yet cannot man find out the work
+which God worketh from the beginning to the
+end”—declaring not obscurely that God hath framed the
+mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the image of the
+universal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof, as
+the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only delighted in
+beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but
+raised also to find out and discern the ordinances and decrees
+which throughout all those changes are infallibly observed.
+And although he doth insinuate that the supreme or summary law of
+Nature (which he calleth “the work which God worketh from
+the beginning to the end”) is not possible to be found out
+by man, yet that doth not derogate from the capacity of the mind;
+but may be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life,
+ill conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from
+hand to hand, and many other inconveniences, whereunto the
+condition of man is subject.  For that nothing parcel of the
+world is denied to man’s inquiry and invention, he doth in
+another place rule over, when he saith, “The spirit of man
+is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the inwardness of
+all secrets.”  If, then, such be the capacity and
+receipt of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no
+danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how
+large soever, lest it should make it swell or out-compass itself;
+no, but it is merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in
+quantity more or less, if it be taken without the true corrective
+thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or malignity, and some
+effects of that venom, which is ventosity or swelling.  This
+corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so
+sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to
+the former clause; for so he saith, “Knowledge bloweth up,
+but charity buildeth up;” not unlike unto that which he
+deilvereth in another place: “If I spake,” saith he,
+“with the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity,
+it were but as a tinkling cymbal.”  Not but that it is
+an excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men and angels,
+but because, if it be severed from charity, and not referred to
+the good of men and mankind, it hath rather a sounding and
+unworthy glory than a meriting and substantial virtue.  And
+as for that censure of Solomon concerning the excess of writing
+and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth
+from knowledge, and that admonition of St. Paul, “That we
+be not seduced by vain philosophy,” let those places be
+rightly understood; and they do, indeed, excellently set forth
+the true bounds and limitations whereby human knowledge is
+confined and circumscribed, and yet without any such contracting
+or coarctation, but that it may comprehend all the universal
+nature of things; for these limitations are three: the first,
+“That we do not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we
+forget our mortality;” the second, “That we make
+application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and
+contentment, and not distaste or repining;” the third,
+“That we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to
+attain to the mysteries of God.”  For as touching the
+first of these, Solomon doth excellently expound himself in
+another place of the same book, where he saith: “I saw well
+that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance as light doth from
+darkness; and that the wise man’s eyes keep watch in his
+head, whereas this fool roundeth about in darkness: but withal I
+learned that the same mortality involveth them both.”
+And for the second, certain it is there is no vexation or anxiety
+of mind which resulteth from knowledge otherwise than merely by
+accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of
+knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when men
+fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it
+to their particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak
+fears or vast desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble
+of mind which is spoken of; for then knowledge is no more
+<i>Lumen siccum</i>, whereof Heraclitus the profound said,
+<i>Lumen siccum optima anima</i>; but it becometh <i>Lumen
+madidum</i>, or <i>maceratum</i>, being steeped and infused in
+the humours of the affections.  And as for the third point,
+it deserveth to be a little stood upon, and not to be lightly
+passed over; for if any man shall think by view and inquiry into
+these sensible and material things to attain that light, whereby
+he may reveal unto himself the nature or will of God, then,
+indeed, is he spoiled by vain philosophy; for the contemplation
+of God’s creatures and works produceth (having regard to
+the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having regard
+to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken
+knowledge.  And, therefore, it was most aptly said by one of
+Plato’s school, “That the sense of man carrieth a
+resemblance with the sun, which (as we see) openeth and revealeth
+all the terrestrial globe; but then, again, it obscureth and
+concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense
+discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
+divine.”  And hence it is true that it hath proceeded,
+that divers great learned men have been heretical, whilst they
+have sought to fly up to the secrets of the Deity by this waxen
+wings of the senses.  And as for the conceit that too much
+knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that the ignorance
+of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon God,
+which is the first cause; first, it is good to ask the question
+which Job asked of his friends: “Will you lie for God, as
+one man will lie for another, to gratify him?”  For
+certain it is that God worketh nothing in Nature but by second
+causes; and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere
+imposture, as it were in favour towards God, and nothing else but
+to offer to the Author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a
+lie.  But further, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion
+of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
+philosophy may incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further
+proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to
+religion.  For in the entrance of philosophy, when the
+second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer
+themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may
+induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth
+on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of
+Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will
+easily believe that the highest link of Nature’s chain must
+needs he tied to the foot of Jupiter’s chair.  To
+conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety
+or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can
+search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s
+word, or in the book of God’s works, divinity or
+philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or
+proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to
+charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and
+again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these
+learnings together.</p>
+<p>II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from
+politics, they be of this nature: that learning doth soften
+men’s minds, and makes them more unapt for the honour and
+exercise of arms; that it doth mar and pervert men’s
+dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making them
+too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too
+peremptory or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too
+immoderate and overweening by reason of the greatness of
+examples, or too incompatible and differing from the times by
+reason of the dissimilitude of examples; or at least, that it
+doth divert men’s travails from action and business, and
+bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it
+doth bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every
+man is more ready to argue than to obey and execute.  Out of
+this conceit Cato, surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men
+indeed that ever lived, when Carneades the philosopher came in
+embassage to Rome, and that the young men of Rome began to flock
+about him, being allured with the sweetness and majesty of his
+eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate that they
+should give him his despatch with all speed, lest he should
+infect and enchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at
+unawares bring in an alteration of the manners and customs of the
+state.  Out of the same conceit or humour did Virgil,
+turning his pen to the advantage of his country and the
+disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of separation
+between policy and government, and between arts and sciences, in
+the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging the one
+to the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other to the
+Grecians: <i>Tu regere imperio popules</i>, <i>Romane</i>,
+<i>memento</i>, <i>Hæ tibi erunt artes</i>, &amp;c.
+So likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid it
+as an article of charge and accusation against him, that he did,
+with the variety and power of his discourses and disputatious,
+withdraw young men from due reverence to the laws and customs of
+their country, and that he did profess a dangerous and pernicious
+science, which was to make the worse matter seem the better, and
+to suppress truth by force of eloquence and speech.</p>
+<p>(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a
+countenance of gravity than any ground of justice: for experience
+doth warrant that, both in persons and in times, there hath been
+a meeting and concurrence in learning and arms, flourishing and
+excelling in the same men and the same ages.  For as
+‘for men, there cannot be a better nor the hike instance as
+of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, the
+Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle’s scholar in
+philosophy, and the other was Cicero’s rival in eloquence;
+or if any man had rather call for scholars that were great
+generals, than generals that were great scholars, let him take
+Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian; whereof the one
+was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the other was
+the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of
+Persia.  And this concurrence is yet more visible in times
+than in persons, by how much an age is greater object than a
+man.  For both in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Græcia, and
+Rome, the same times that are most renowned for arms are,
+likewise, most admired for learning, so that the greatest authors
+and philosophers, and the greatest captains and governors, have
+lived in the same ages.  Neither can it otherwise he: for as
+in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much
+about an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat
+the more early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof the one
+correspondeth to the body, the other to the soul of man, have a
+concurrence or near sequence in times.</p>
+<p>(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning,
+should rather hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very
+improbable; we see it is accounted an error to commit a natural
+body to empiric physicians, which commonly have a few pleasing
+receipts whereupon they are confident and adventurous, but know
+neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions of patients,
+nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures; we see it
+is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are only
+men of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many
+times easily surprised when matter falleth out besides their
+experience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle: so by
+like reason it cannot be but a matter of doubtful consequence if
+states be managed by empiric statesmen, not well mingled with men
+grounded in learning.  But contrariwise, it is almost
+without instance contradictory that ever any government was
+disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors.  For
+howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and
+disable learned men by the names of <i>pedantes</i>; yet in the
+records of time it appeareth in many particulars that the
+governments of princes in minority (notwithstanding the infinite
+disadvantage of that kind of state)—have nevertheless
+excelled the government of princes of mature age, even for that
+reason which they seek to traduce, which is that by that occasion
+the state hath been in the hands of <i>pedantes</i>: for so was
+the state of Rome for the first five years, which are so much
+magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a
+<i>pedenti</i>; so it was again, for ten years’ space or
+more, during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great
+applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus, a
+<i>pedanti</i>: so was it before that, in the minority of
+Alexander Severus, in like happiness, in hands not much unlike,
+by reason of the rule of the women, who were aided by the
+teachers and preceptors.  Nay, let a man look into the
+government of the Bishops of Rome, as by name, into the
+government of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who
+were both at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars,
+and he shall find that such Popes do greater things, and proceed
+upon truer principles of state, than those which have ascended to
+the papacy from an education and breeding in affairs of state and
+courts of princes; for although men bred in learning are perhaps
+to seek in points of convenience and accommodating for the
+present, which the Italians call <i>ragioni di stato</i>, whereof
+the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with patience,
+terming them inventions against religion and the moral virtues;
+yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are perfect in
+those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral
+virtue, which if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will
+be seldom use of those other, no more than of physic in a sound
+or well-dieted body.  Neither can the experience of one
+man’s life furnish examples and precedents for the event of
+one man’s life.  For as it happeneth sometimes that
+the grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more
+than the son; so many times occurrences of present times may sort
+better with ancient examples than with those of the later or
+immediate times; and lastly, the wit of one man can no more
+countervail learning than one man’s means can hold way with
+a common purse.</p>
+<p>(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions
+of the mind for policy and government, which learning is
+pretended to insinuate; if it be granted that any such thing be,
+it must be remembered withal that learning ministereth in every
+of them greater strength of medicine or remedy than it offereth
+cause of indisposition or infirmity.  For if by a secret
+operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side
+by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what ground to
+resolve; yea, and how to carry things in suspense, without
+prejudice, till they resolve.  If it make men positive and
+regular, it teacheth them what things are in their nature
+demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and as well the use of
+distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of principles and
+rules.  If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of
+examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors
+of comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in
+all these it doth rectify more effectually than it can
+pervert.  And these medicines it conveyeth into men’s
+minds much more forcibly by the quickness and penetration of
+examples.  For let a man look into the errors of Clement
+VII., so lively described by Guicciardini, who served under him,
+or into the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in
+his Epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being
+irresolute.  Let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he
+will beware how he be obstinate or inflexible.  Let him but
+read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him from being vaporous
+or imaginative.  Let him look into the errors of Cato II.,
+and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to
+the present world.</p>
+<p>(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to
+leisure and privateness, and make men slothful: it were a strange
+thing if that which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion
+and agitation should induce slothfulness, whereas, contrariwise,
+it may be truly affirmed that no kind of men love business for
+itself but those that are learned; for other persons love it for
+profit, as a hireling that loves the work for the wages; or for
+honour, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of men, and
+refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or
+because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them
+occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth
+some faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in
+good-humour and pleasing conceits towards themselves; or because
+it advanceth any other their ends.  So that as it is said of
+untrue valours, that some men’s valours are in the eyes of
+them that look on, so such men’s industries are in the eyes
+of others, or, at least, in regard of their own designments; only
+learned men love business as an action according to nature, as
+agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body,
+taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase, so
+that of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards
+any business which can hold or detain their mind.</p>
+<p>(6) And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet
+idle in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of
+body or softness of spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of: <i>Quidam
+tam sunt umbratiles</i>, <i>ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in
+luce est</i>; and not of learning: well may it be that such a
+point of a man’s nature may make him give himself to
+learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in
+his nature.</p>
+<p>(7) And that learning should take up too much time or leisure:
+I answer, the most active or busy man that hath been or can be,
+hath (no question) many vacant times of leisure while he
+expecteth the tides and returns of business (except he be either
+tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious
+to meddle in things that may be better done by others), and then
+the question is but how those spaces and times of leisure shall
+be filled and spent; whether in pleasure or in studies; as was
+well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary Æschines,
+that was a man given to pleasure, and told him “That his
+orations did smell of the lamp.”
+“Indeed,” said Demosthenes, “there is a great
+difference between the things that you and I do by
+lamp-light.”  So as no man need doubt that learning
+will expel business, but rather it will keep and defend the
+possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which
+otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice of both.</p>
+<p>(8) Again, for that other conceit that learning should
+undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a
+mere depravation and calumny, without all shadow of truth.
+For to say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer
+obligation than duty taught and understood, it is to affirm that
+a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a
+light.  And it is without all controversy that learning doth
+make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, and pliant to
+government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and
+mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion,
+considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times
+have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes.</p>
+<p>(9) And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well
+punished for his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind
+wherein he offended; for when he was past threescore years old,
+he was taken with an extreme desire to go to school again, and to
+learn the Greek tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek authors;
+which doth well demonstrate that his former censure of the
+Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity, than according
+to the inward sense of his own opinion.  And as for
+Virgil’s verses, though it pleased him to brave the world
+in taking to the Romans the art of empire, and leaving to others
+the arts of subjects, yet so much is manifest—that the
+Romans never ascended to that height of empire till the time they
+had ascended to the height of other arts.  For in the time
+of the two first Cæsars, which had the art of government in
+greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro;
+the best historiographer, Titus Livius; the best antiquary,
+Marcus Varro; and the best or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that
+to the memory of man are known.  As for the accusation of
+Socrates, the time must be remembered when it was prosecuted;
+which was under the Thirty Tyrants, the most base, bloody, and
+envious persons that have governed; which revolution of state was
+no sooner over but Socrates, whom they had made a person
+criminal, was made a person heroical, and his memory accumulate
+with honours divine and human; and those discourses of his which
+were then termed corrupting of manners, were after acknowledged
+for sovereign medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been
+received ever since till this day.  Let this, therefore,
+serve for answer to politiques, which in their humorous severity,
+or in their feigned gravity, have presumed to throw imputations
+upon learning; which redargution nevertheless (save that we know
+not whether our labours may extend to other ages) were not
+needful for the present, in regard of the love and reverence
+towards learning which the example and countenance of two so
+learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as
+Castor and Pollux, <i>lucida sidera</i>, stars of excellent light
+and most benign influence, hath wrought in all men of place and
+authority in our nation.</p>
+<p>III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit
+or diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned
+men themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either
+from their fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of
+their studies.  For the first, it is not in their power; and
+the second is accidental; the third only is proper to be handled:
+but because we are not in hand with true measure, but with
+popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat
+of the two former.  The derogations therefore which grow to
+learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either
+in respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of
+life and meanness of employments.</p>
+<p>(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men
+usually to begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as
+other men, by reason they convert not their labours chiefly to
+lucre and increase, it were good to leave the commonplace in
+commendation of povery to some friar to handle, to whom much was
+attributed by Machiavel in this point when he said, “That
+the kingdom of the clergy had been long before at an end, if the
+reputation and reverence towards the poverty of friars had not
+borne out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of
+bishops and prelates.”  So a man might say that the
+felicity and delicacy of princes and great persons had long since
+turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had
+not kept up civility and honour of life; but without any such
+advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverent and
+honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in the Roman
+state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes.
+For we see what Titus Livius saith in his introduction:
+<i>Cæterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla
+unquam respublica nec major</i>, <i>nec sanctior</i>, <i>nec
+bonis exemplis ditior fuit</i>; <i>nec in quam tam sero avaritia
+luxuriaque immigraverint</i>; <i>nec ubi tantus ac tam diu
+paupertati ac parsimoniæ honos fuerit</i>.  We see
+likewise, after that the state of Rome was not itself, but did
+degenerate, how that person that took upon him to be counsellor
+to Julius Cæsar after his victory where to begin his
+restoration of the state, maketh it of all points the most
+summary to take away the estimation of wealth: <i>Verum hæc
+et omnia mala pariter cum honore pecuniæ desinent</i>;
+<i>si neque magistratus</i>, <i>neque alia vulgo cupienda</i>,
+<i>venalia erunt</i>.  To conclude this point: as it was
+truly said that <i>Paupertas est virtutis fortuna</i>, though
+sometimes it come from vice, so it may be fitly said that, though
+some times it may proceed from misgovernment and accident.
+Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure, <i>Qui
+festinat ad divitias non erit insons</i>; and in precept,
+“Buy the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and
+knowledge;” judging that means were to be spent upon
+learning, and not learning to be applied to means.  And as
+for the privateness or obscureness (as it may be in vulgar
+estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men, it is a theme
+so common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and
+sloth, in comparison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for
+safety, liberty, pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from
+indignity, as no man handleth it but handleth it well; such a
+consonancy it hath to men’s conceits in the expressing, and
+to men’s consents in the allowing.  This only I will
+add, that learned men forgotten in states and not living in the
+eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the
+funeral of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others
+were, Tacitus saith, <i>Eo ipso præfulgebant quod non
+visebantur</i>.</p>
+<p>(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most
+traduced to contempt is that the government of youth is commonly
+allotted to them; which age, because it is the age of least
+authority, it is transferred to the disesteeming of those
+employments wherein youth is conversant, and which are conversant
+about youth.  But how unjust this traducement is (if you
+will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure of
+reason) may appear in that we see men are more curious what they
+put into a new vessel than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould
+they lay about a young plant than about a plant corroborate; so
+as this weakest terms and times of all things use to have the
+best applications and helps.  And will you hearken to the
+Hebrew rabbins?  “Your young men shall see visions,
+and your old men shall dream dreams:” say they, youth is
+the worthier age, for that visions are nearer apparitions of God
+than dreams?  And let it be noted that howsoever the
+condition of life of <i>pedantes</i> hath been scorned upon
+theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern looseness or
+negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of
+schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best
+times did always make a just complaint, that states were too busy
+with their laws and too negligent in point of education: which
+excellent part of ancient discipline hath been in some sort
+revived of late times by the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom,
+although in regard of their superstition I may say, <i>Quo
+meliores</i>, <i>eo deteriores</i>; yet in regard of this, and
+some other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I
+may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus, <i>Talis
+quum sis</i>, <i>utunam noster esses</i>.  And that much
+touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of learned
+men.</p>
+<p>(4) As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing
+personal and individual: and no doubt there be amongst them, as
+in other professions, of all temperatures: but yet so as it is
+not without truth which is said, that <i>Abeunt studua in
+mores</i>, studies have an influence and operation upon the
+manners of those that are conversant in them.</p>
+<p>(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my
+part cannot find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the
+manners of learned men; not inherent to them as they are learned;
+except it be a fault (which was the supposed fault of
+Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato II., Seneca, and many more) that
+because the times they read of are commonly better than the times
+they live in, and the duties taught better than the duties
+practised, they contend sometimes too far to bring things to
+perfection, and to reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of
+precepts or examples of too great height.  And yet hereof
+they have caveats enough in their own walks.  For Solon,
+when he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best
+laws, answered wisely, “Yea, of such as they would
+receive:” and Plato, finding that his own heart could not
+agree with the corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear
+place or office, saying, “That a man’s country was to
+be used as his parents were, that is, with humble persuasions,
+and not with contestations.”  And Cæsar’s
+counsellor put in the same caveat, <i>Non ad vetera instituta
+revocans quæ jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt</i>;
+and Cicero noteth this error directly in Cato II. when he writes
+to his friend Atticus, <i>Cato optime sentit</i>, <i>sed nocet
+interdum reipublicæ</i>; <i>loquitur enim tanquam in
+republicâ Platonis</i>, <i>non tanquam in fæce
+Romuli</i>.  And the same Cicero doth excuse and expound the
+philosophers for going too far and being too exact in their
+prescripts when he saith, <i>Isti ipse præceptores virtutis
+et magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura
+vellet protulisse</i>, <i>ut cum ad ultimum animo
+contendissemus</i>, <i>ibi tamen</i>, <i>ubi oportet</i>,
+<i>consisteremus</i>: and yet himself might have said, <i>Monitis
+sum minor ipse meis</i>; for it was his own fault, though not in
+so extreme a degree.</p>
+<p>(6) Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been
+incident to learned men, which is, that they have esteemed the
+preservation, good, and honour of their countries or masters
+before their own fortunes or safeties.  For so saith
+Demosthenes unto the Athenians: “If it please you to note
+it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should grow great
+amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians; but they
+be of that nature as they are sometimes not good for me to give,
+but are always good for you to follow.”  And so
+Seneca, after he had consecrated that <i>Quinquennium Neronis</i>
+to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on his honest and
+loyal course of good and free counsel after his master grew
+extremely corrupt in his government.  Neither can this point
+otherwise be, for learning endueth men’s minds with a true
+sense of the frailty of their persons, the casualty of their
+fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and vocation, so that it
+is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness of their own
+fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being and
+ordainment, and therefore are desirous to give their account to
+God, and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings and the
+states that they serve) in those words, <i>Ecce tibi
+lucrefeci</i>, and not <i>Ecce mihi lucrefeci</i>; whereas the
+corrupter sort of mere politiques, that have not their thoughts
+established by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor
+never look abroad into universality, do refer all things to
+themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world,
+as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes, never
+caring in all tempests what becomes of the ship of state, so they
+may save themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune; whereas
+men that feel the weight of duty and know the limits of self-love
+use to make good their places and duties, though with peril; and
+if they stand in seditious and violent alterations, it is rather
+the reverence which many times both adverse parts do give to
+honesty, than any versatile advantage of their own
+carriage.  But for this point of tender sense and fast
+obligation of duty which learning doth endue the mind withal,
+howsoever fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their
+corrupt principles may despise it, yet it will receive an open
+allowance, and therefore needs the less disproof or excuse.</p>
+<p>(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may
+be more properly defended than truly denied, is that they fail
+sometimes in applying themselves to particular persons, which
+want of exact application ariseth from two causes—the one,
+because the largeness of their mind can hardly confine itself to
+dwell in the exquisite observation or examination of the nature
+and customs of one person, for it is a speech for a lover, and
+not for a wise man, <i>Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum
+sumus</i>.  Nevertheless I shall yield that he that cannot
+contract the sight of his mind as well as disperse and dilate it,
+wanteth a great faculty.  But there is a second cause, which
+is no inability, but a rejection upon choice and judgment.
+For the honest and just bounds of observation by one person upon
+another extend no further but to understand him sufficiently,
+whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give
+him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard
+and caution in respect of a man’s self.  But to be
+speculative into another man to the end to know how to work him,
+or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is
+double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous; which as in
+friendship it is want of integrity, so towards princes or
+superiors is want of duty.  For the custom of the Levant,
+which is that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix their eyes upon
+princes, is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but the moral is
+good; for men ought not, by cunning and bent observations, to
+pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings, which the
+Scripture hath declared to be inscrutable.</p>
+<p>(8) There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude
+this part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do many
+times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour
+and carriage, and commit errors in small and ordinary points of
+action, so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of
+them in greater matters by that which they find wanting in them
+in smaller.  But this consequence doth oft deceive men, for
+which I do refer them over to that which was said by
+Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself
+out of his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of
+this question, pertinently and justly, when, being invited to
+touch a lute, he said, “He could not fiddle, but he could
+make a small town a great state.”  So no doubt many
+may be well seen in the passages of government and policy which
+are to seek in little and punctual occasions.  I refer them
+also to that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he
+compared to the gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside
+had apes and owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign
+and precious liquors and confections; acknowledging that, to an
+external report, he was not without superficial levities and
+deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues
+and powers.  And so much touching the point of manners of
+learned men.</p>
+<p>(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to
+some conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers
+professors of learning have wronged themselves and gone too far;
+such as were those trencher philosophers which in the later age
+of the Roman state were usually in the houses of great persons,
+being little better than solemn parasites, of which kind, Lucian
+maketh a merry description of the philosopher that the great lady
+took to ride with her in her coach, and would needs have him
+carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and yet
+uncomely, the page scoffed and said, “That he doubted the
+philosopher of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic.”
+But, above all the rest, this gross and palpable flattery
+whereunto many not unlearned have abased and abused their wits
+and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into Helena, and
+Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and
+estimation of learning.  Neither is the modern dedication of
+books and writings, as to patrons, to be commended, for that
+books (such as are worthy the name of books) ought to have no
+patrons but truth and reason.  And the ancient custom was to
+dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or to entitle
+the books with their names; or if to kings and great persons, it
+was to some such as the argument of the book was fit and proper
+for; but these and the like courses may deserve rather
+reprehension than defence.</p>
+<p>(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or
+application of learned men to men in fortune.  For the
+answer was good that Diogenes made to one that asked him in
+mockery, “How it came to pass that philosophers were the
+followers of rich men, and not rich men of
+philosophers?”  He answered soberly, and yet sharply,
+“Because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the
+other did not.”  And of the like nature was the answer
+which Aristippus made, when having a petition to Dionysius, and
+no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon
+Dionysius stayed and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and
+afterwards some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy,
+reproved Aristippus that he would offer the profession of
+philosophy such an indignity as for a private suit to fall at a
+tyrant’s feet; but he answered, “It was not his
+fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in
+his feet.”  Neither was it accounted weakness, but
+discretion, in him that would not dispute his best with Adrianus
+Cæsar, excusing himself, “That it was reason to yield
+to him that commanded thirty legions.”  These and the
+like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and
+convenience, cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some
+outward baseness, yet in a judgment truly made they are to be
+accounted submissions to the occasion and not to the person.</p>
+<p>IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have
+intervened amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which
+is that which is principal and proper to the present argument;
+wherein my purpose is not to make a justification of the errors,
+but by a censure and separation of the errors to make a
+justification of that which is good and sound, and to deliver
+that from the aspersion of the other.  For we see that it is
+the manner of men to scandalise and deprave that which retaineth
+the state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is
+corrupt and degenerate, as the heathens in the primitive Church
+used to blemish and taint the Christians with the faults and
+corruptions of heretics.  But nevertheless I have no meaning
+at this time to make any exact animadversion of the errors and
+impediments in matters of learning, which are more secret and
+remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto such as do
+fall under or near unto a popular observation.</p>
+<p>(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies,
+whereby learning hath been most traduced.  For those things
+we do esteem vain which are either false or frivolous, those
+which either have no truth or no use; and those persons we esteem
+vain which are either credulous or curious; and curiosity is
+either in matter or words: so that in reason as well as in
+experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I may
+term them) of learning—the first, fantastical learning; the
+second, contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning;
+vain imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations; and
+with the last I will begin.  Martin Luther, conducted, no
+doubt, by a higher Providence, but in discourse of reason,
+finding what a province he had undertaken against the Bishop of
+Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and finding his
+own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his own
+time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former
+times to his succours to make a party against the present
+time.  So that the ancient authors, both in divinity and in
+humanity, which had long time slept in libraries, began generally
+to be read and revolved.  This, by consequence, did draw on
+a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the languages
+original, wherein those authors did write, for the better
+understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of
+pressing and applying their words.  And thereof grew, again,
+a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an admiration
+of that kind of writing, which was much furthered and
+precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of
+those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the
+schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose
+writings were altogether in a differing style and form; taking
+liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own
+sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the
+pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of the
+phrase or word.  And again, because the great labour then
+was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say,
+<i>Execrabilis ista turba</i>, <i>quæ non novit legem</i>),
+for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity
+in chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as
+the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar
+sort; so that these four causes concurring—the admiration
+of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of
+languages, and the efficacy of preaching—did bring in an
+affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then
+began to flourish.  This grew speedily to an excess; for men
+began to hunt more after words than matter—more after the
+choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of
+the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the
+varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures,
+than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of
+argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment.  Then
+grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop,
+to be in price.  Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and
+curious pains upon Cicero the Orator and Hermogenes the
+Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and Imitation, and
+the like.  Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their
+lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and
+allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and
+polished kind of learning.  Then did Erasmus take occasion
+to make the scoffing echo, <i>Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo
+Cicerone</i>; and the echo answered in Greek, <i>One</i>,
+<i>Asine</i>.  Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be
+utterly despised as barbarous.  In sum, the whole
+inclination and bent of those times was rather towards copy than
+weight.</p>
+<p>(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when
+men study words and not matter; whereof, though I have
+represented an example of late times, yet it hath been and will
+be <i>secundum majus et minus</i> in all time.  And how is
+it possible but this should have an operation to discredit
+learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
+men’s works like the first letter of a patent or limited
+book, which though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a
+letter?  It seems to me that Pygmalion’s frenzy is a
+good emblem or portraiture of this vanity; for words are but the
+images of matter, and except they have life of reason and
+invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in
+love with a picture.</p>
+<p>(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be
+condemned, to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy
+itself with sensible and plausible elocution.  For hereof we
+have great examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of
+Plato also in some degree; and hereof likewise there is great
+use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of truth and the deep
+progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because it is too
+early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire
+of further search before we come to a just period.  But then
+if a man be to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions,
+of conference, counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then
+shall he find it prepared to his hands in those authors which
+write in that manner.  But the excess of this is so justly
+contemptible, that as Hercules, when he saw the image of Adonis,
+Venus’ minion, in a temple, said in disdain, <i>Nil sacri
+es</i>; so there is none of Hercules’ followers in
+learning—that is, the more severe and laborious sort of
+inquirers into truth—but will despise those delicacies and
+affectations, as indeed capable of no divineness.  And thus
+much of the first disease or distemper of learning.</p>
+<p>(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the
+former: for as substance of matter is better than beauty of
+words, so contrariwise vain matter is worse than vain words:
+wherein it seemeth the reprehension of St. Paul was not only
+proper for those times, but prophetical for the times following;
+and not only respective to divinity, but extensive to all
+knowledge: <i>Devita profanas vocum novitates</i>, <i>et
+oppositiones falsi nominis scientiæ</i>.  For he
+assigneth two marks and badges of suspected and falsified
+science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the
+other, the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth
+induce oppositions, and so questions and altercations.
+Surely, like as many substances in nature which are solid do
+putrefy and corrupt into worms;—so it is the property of
+good and sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a number of
+subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term them) vermiculate
+questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of
+spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality.
+This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the
+schoolmen, who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of
+leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut
+up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their
+dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of
+monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of
+nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and
+infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs
+of learning which are extant in their books.  For the wit
+and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the
+contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the
+stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the
+spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth
+indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread
+and work, but of no substance or profit.</p>
+<p>(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two
+sorts: either in the subject itself that they handle, when it is
+a fruitless speculation or controversy (whereof there are no
+small number both in divinity and philosophy), or in the manner
+or method of handling of a knowledge, which amongst them was
+this—upon every particular position or assertion to frame
+objections, and to those objections, solutions; which solutions
+were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions:
+whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength
+of the old man’s faggot, in the bond.  For the harmony
+of a science, supporting each part the other, is and ought to be
+the true and brief confutation and suppression of all the smaller
+sort of objections.  But, on the other side, if you take out
+every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by one, you may
+quarrel with them and bend them and break them at your pleasure:
+so that, as was said of Seneca, <i>Verborum minutiis rerum
+frangit pondera</i>, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen,
+<i>Quæstionum minutiis scientiarum frangunt
+soliditatem</i>.  For were it not better for a man in fair
+room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of
+lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle into every
+corner?  And such is their method, that rests not so much
+upon evidence of truth proved by arguments, authorities,
+similitudes, examples, as upon particular confutations and
+solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and objection; breeding
+for the most part one question as fast as it solveth another;
+even as in the former resemblance, when you carry the light into
+one corner, you darken the rest; so that the fable and fiction of
+Scylla seemeth to be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or
+knowledge; which was transformed into a comely virgin for the
+upper parts; but then <i>Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina
+monstris</i>: so the generalities of the schoolmen are for a
+while good and proportionable; but then when you descend into
+their distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb for
+the use and benefit of man’s life, they end in monstrous
+altercations and barking questions.  So as it is not
+possible but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular
+contempt, the people being apt to contemn truths upon occasion of
+controversies and altercations, and to think they are all out of
+their way which never meet; and when they see such digladiation
+about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they easily
+fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, <i>Verba ista
+sunt senum otiosorum</i>.</p>
+<p>(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to
+their great thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had
+joined variety and universality of reading and contemplation,
+they had proved excellent lights, to the great advancement of all
+learning and knowledge; but as they are, they are great
+undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark keeping.  But as in
+the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined to leave
+the oracle of God’s word, and to vanish in the mixture of
+their own inventions; so in the inquisition of nature, they ever
+left the oracle of God’s works, and adored the deceiving
+and deformed images which the unequal mirror of their own minds,
+or a few received authors or principles, did represent unto
+them.  And thus much for the second disease of learning.</p>
+<p>(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which
+concerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest;
+as that which doth destroy the essential form of knowledge, which
+is nothing but a representation of truth: for the truth of being
+and the truth of knowing are one, differing no more than the
+direct beam and the beam reflected.  This vice therefore
+brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving and aptness
+to be deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they
+appear to be of a diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of
+cunning and the other of simplicity, yet certainly they do for
+the most part concur: for, as the verse noteth—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem
+est,”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a
+credulous man is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that
+will easily believe rumours will as easily augment rumours and
+add somewhat to them of his own; which Tacitus wisely noteth,
+when he saith, <i>Fingunt simul creduntque</i>: so great an
+affinity hath fiction and belief.</p>
+<p>(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things
+weakly authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the
+subject: for it is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers
+speak, matter of fact; or else of matter of art and
+opinion.  As to the former, we see the experience and
+inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history; which hath
+too easily received and registered reports and narrations of
+miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and
+other holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels and images:
+which though they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of
+the people, the superstitious simplicity of some and the politic
+toleration of others holding them but as divine poesies, yet
+after a period of time, when the mist began to clear up, they
+grew to be esteemed but as old wives’ fables, impostures of
+the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of Antichrist, to
+the great scandal and detriment of religion.</p>
+<p>(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that
+choice and judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in
+the writings of Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the
+Arabians, being fraught with much fabulous matter, a great part
+not only untried, but notoriously untrue, to the great derogation
+of the credit of natural philosophy with the grave and sober kind
+of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity of Aristotle is worthy
+to be observed, that, having made so diligent and exquisite a
+history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with any
+vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all
+prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording,
+into one book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest
+truth, such whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was
+not to be mingled or weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and
+yet again, that rarities and reports that seem uncredible are not
+to be suppressed or denied to the memory of men.</p>
+<p>(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to
+arts and opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too
+much belief is attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain
+authors in any art.  The sciences themselves, which have had
+better intelligence and confederacy with the imagination of man
+than with his reason, are three in number: astrology, natural
+magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless, the ends or
+pretences are noble.  For astrology pretendeth to discover
+that correspondence or concatenation which is between the
+superior globe and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call
+and reduce natural philosophy from variety of speculations to the
+magnitude of works; and alchemy pretendeth to make separation of
+all the unlike parts of bodies which in mixtures of natures are
+incorporate.  But the derivations and prosecutions to these
+ends, both in the theories and in the practices, are full of
+error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have
+sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and
+referring themselves to auricular traditions and such other
+devices, to save the credit of impostures.  And yet surely
+to alchemy this right is due, that it may be compared to the
+husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable; that, when he
+died, told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried
+underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground,
+and gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and
+digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a
+great vintage the year following: so assuredly the search and
+stir to make gold hath brought to light a great number of good
+and fruitful inventions and experiments, as well for the
+disclosing of nature as for the use of man’s life.</p>
+<p>(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto
+authors in sciences, in making them dictators, that their words
+should stand, and not consuls, to give advice; the damage is
+infinite that sciences have received thereby, as the principal
+cause that hath kept them low at a stay without growth or
+advancement.  For hence it hath come, that in arts
+mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth and
+perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and
+time leeseth and corrupteth.  So we see artillery, sailing,
+printing, and the like, were grossly managed at the first, and by
+time accommodated and refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies
+and sciences of Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates,
+Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at the first, and by time
+degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason is no other, but that
+in the former many wits and industries have contributed in one;
+and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about
+the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved
+than illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the
+level of the first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so
+knowledge derived from Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of
+examination, will not rise again higher than the knowledge of
+Aristotle.  And, therefore, although the position be good,
+<i>Oportet discentem credere</i>, yet it must be coupled with
+this, <i>Oportet edoctum judicare</i>; for disciples do owe unto
+masters only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own
+judgment till they be fully instructed, and not an absolute
+resignation or perpetual captivity; and therefore, to conclude
+this point, I will say no more, but so let great authors have
+their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not
+deprived of his due—which is, further and further to
+discover truth.  Thus have I gone over these three diseases
+of learning; besides the which there are some other rather
+peccant humours than formed diseases, which, nevertheless, are
+not so secret and intrinsic, but that they fall under a popular
+observation and traducement, and, therefore, are not to be passed
+over.</p>
+<p>V. (1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two
+extremities: the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it
+seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice
+of the father.  For as he devoureth his children, so one of
+them seeketh to devour and suppress the other; while antiquity
+envieth there should be new additions, and novelty cannot be
+content to add but it must deface; surely the advice of the
+prophet is the true direction in this matter, <i>State super vias
+antiquas</i>, <i>et videte quænam sit via recta et bona et
+ambulate in ea</i>.  Antiquity deserveth that reverence,
+that men should make a stand thereupon and discover what is the
+best way; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make
+progression.  And to speak truly, <i>Antiquitas sæculi
+juventus mundi</i>.  These times are the ancient times, when
+the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient
+<i>ordine retrogrado</i>, by a computation backward from
+ourselves.</p>
+<p>(2) Another error induced by the former is a distrust that
+anything should be now to be found out, which the world should
+have missed and passed over so long time: as if the same
+objection were to be made to time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter
+and other the heathen gods; of which he wondereth that they begot
+so many children in old time, and begot none in his time; and
+asketh whether they were become septuagenary, or whether the law
+<i>Papia</i>, made against old men’s marriages, had
+restrained them.  So it seemeth men doubt lest time is
+become past children and generation; wherein contrariwise we see
+commonly the levity and unconstancy of men’s judgments,
+which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and as
+soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as
+we see in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first
+was prejudged as a vast and impossible enterprise; and yet
+afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more of it than this,
+<i>Nil aliud quàm bene ausus vana contemnere</i>.
+And the same happened to Columbus in the western
+navigation.  But in intellectual matters it is much more
+common, as may be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid;
+which till they be demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent;
+but being demonstrate, our mind accepteth of them by a kind of
+relation (as the lawyers speak), as if we had known them
+before.</p>
+<p>(3) Another error, that hath also some affinity with the
+former, is a conceit that of former opinions or sects after
+variety and examination the best hath still prevailed and
+suppressed the rest; so as if a man should begin the labour of a
+new search, he were but like to light upon somewhat formerly
+rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion; as if the
+multitude, or the wisest for the multitude’s sake, were not
+ready to give passage rather to that which is popular and
+superficial than to that which is substantial and profound for
+the truth is, that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or
+stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown
+up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid.</p>
+<p>(4) Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is
+the over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts
+and methods; from which time commonly sciences receive small or
+no augmentation.  But as young men, when they knit and shape
+perfectly, do seldom grow to a further stature, so knowledge,
+while it is in aphorisms and observations, it is in growth; but
+when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it may, perchance,
+be further polished, and illustrate and accommodated for use and
+practice, but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.</p>
+<p>(5) Another error which doth succeed that which we last
+mentioned is, that after the distribution of particular arts and
+sciences, men have abandoned universality, or <i>philosophia
+prima</i>, which cannot but cease and stop all progression.
+For no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level;
+neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper
+parts of any science if you stand but upon the level of the same
+science, and ascend not to a higher science.</p>
+<p>(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence,
+and a kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by
+means whereof, men have withdrawn themselves too much from the
+contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and
+have tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits.
+Upon these intellectualists, which are notwithstanding commonly
+taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus
+gave a just censure, saying:—“Men sought truth in
+their own little worlds, and not in the great and common
+world;” for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to
+read in the volume of God’s works; and contrariwise by
+continual meditation and agitation of wit do urge and, as it
+were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles unto
+them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.</p>
+<p>(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter
+is, that men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and
+doctrines with some conceits which they have most admired, or
+some sciences which they have most applied, and given all things
+else a tincture according to them, utterly untrue and
+improper.  So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy with
+theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of
+Plato, Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were
+the arts which had a kind of primogeniture with them
+severally.  So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of
+a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus our countryman
+hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a
+loadstone.  So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of
+the nature of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul
+was but a harmony, saith pleasantly, <i>Hic ab arte sua non
+recessit</i>, <i>&amp;c.</i>  But of these conceits
+Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, <i>Qui
+respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant</i>.</p>
+<p>(8) Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to
+assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment.
+For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of
+action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and
+smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other
+rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and
+even.  So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with
+certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to
+begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.</p>
+<p>(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and
+delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and
+peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be
+soonest believed, and not easiest examined.  It is true,
+that in compendious treatises for practice that form is not to be
+disallowed; but in the true handling of knowledge men ought not
+to fall either on the one side into the vein of Velleius the
+Epicurean, <i>Nil tam metuens quam ne dubitare aliqua de
+revideretur</i>: nor, on the other side, into Socrates, his
+ironical doubting of all things; but to propound things sincerely
+with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a man’s
+own judgment proved more or less.</p>
+<p>(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to
+themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas
+the more constant and devote kind of professors of any science
+ought to propound to themselves to make some additions to their
+science, they convert their labours to aspire to certain second
+prizes: as to be a profound interpreter or commentor, to be a
+sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical compounder or
+abridger, and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be
+sometimes improved, but seldom augmented.</p>
+<p>(11) But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking
+or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge.  For
+men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge,
+sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite;
+sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight;
+sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable
+them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for
+lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account
+of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if
+there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a
+searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and
+variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a
+tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort
+or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for
+profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the
+Creator and the relief of man’s estate.  But this is
+that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if
+contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly
+conjoined and united together than they have been: a conjunction
+like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of
+rest and contemplation; and Jupiter, the planet of civil society
+and action, howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and
+action, that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to
+lucre and profession; for I am not ignorant how much that
+diverteth and interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of
+knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta,
+which, while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the race is
+hindered,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile
+tollit.” <a name="citation39"></a><a href="#footnote39" class="citation">[39]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call
+philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth—that
+is, to leave natural philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge
+only to manners and policy.  But as both heaven and earth do
+conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man, so the end
+ought to be, from both philosophies to separate and reject vain
+speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve
+and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that knowledge may
+not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a
+bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master’s use; but as
+a spouse, for generation, fruit, and comfort.</p>
+<p>(12) Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of
+dissection, those peccant humours (the principal of them) which
+have not only given impediment to the proficience of learning,
+but have given also occasion to the traducement thereof: wherein,
+if I have been too plain, it must be remembered, <i>fidelia
+vulnera amantis</i>, <i>sed dolosa oscula malignantis</i>.
+This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better
+believed in that which I shall say pertaining to commendation;
+because I have proceeded so freely in that which concerneth
+censure.  And yet I have no purpose to enter into a
+laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the Muses (though I
+am of opinion that it is long since their rites were duly
+celebrated), but my intent is, without varnish or amplification
+justly to weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with
+other things, and to take the true value thereof by testimonies
+and arguments, divine and human.</p>
+<p>VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge
+in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes
+and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be
+observed with sobriety; wherein we may not seek it by the name of
+learning, for all learning is knowledge acquired, and all
+knowledge in God is original, and therefore we must look for it
+by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures
+call it.</p>
+<p>(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a
+double emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more
+properly to power, the other to wisdom; the one expressed in
+making the subsistence of the matter, and the other in disposing
+the beauty of the form.  This being supposed, it is to be
+observed that for anything which appeareth in the history of the
+creation, the confused mass and matter of heaven and earth was
+made in a moment, and the order and disposition of that chaos or
+mass was the work of six days; such a note of difference it
+pleased God to put upon the works of power, and the works of
+wisdom; wherewith concurreth, that in the former it is not set
+down that God said, “Let there be heaven and earth,”
+as it is set down of the works following; but actually, that God
+made heaven and earth: the one carrying the style of a
+manufacture, and the other of a law, decree, or counsel.</p>
+<p>(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to
+spirits: we find, as far as credit is to be given to the
+celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of
+Athens, the first place or degree is given to the angels of love,
+which are termed seraphim; the second to the angels of light,
+which are termed cherubim; and the third, and so following
+places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all
+angels of power and ministry; so as this angels of knowledge and
+illumination are placed before the angels of office and
+domination.</p>
+<p>(4) To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible
+and material forms, we read the first form that was created was
+light, which hath a relation and correspondence in nature and
+corporal things to knowledge in spirits and incorporal
+things.</p>
+<p>(5) So in the distribution of days we see the day wherein God
+did rest and contemplate His own works was blessed above all the
+days wherein He did effect and accomplish them.</p>
+<p>(6) After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us
+that man was placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so
+appointed to him, could be no other than work of contemplation;
+that is, when the end of work is but for exercise and experiment,
+not for necessity; for there being then no reluctation of the
+creature, nor sweat of the brow, man’s employment must of
+consequence have been matter of delight in the experiment, and
+not matter of labour for the use.  Again, the first acts
+which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary
+parts of knowledge; the view of creatures, and the imposition of
+names.  As for the knowledge which induced the fall, it was,
+as was touched before, not the natural knowledge of creatures,
+but the moral knowledge of good and evil; wherein the supposition
+was, that God’s commandments or prohibitions were not the
+originals of good and evil, but that they had other beginnings,
+which man aspired to know, to the end to make a total defection
+from God and to depend wholly upon himself.</p>
+<p>(7) To pass on: in the first event or occurrence after the
+fall of man, we see (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries,
+not violating at all the truth of this story or letter) an image
+of the two estates, the contemplative state and the active state,
+figured in the two persons of Abel and Cain, and in the two
+simplest and most primitive trades of life; that of the shepherd
+(who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and lying in
+view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life), and
+that of the husbandman, where we see again the favour and
+election of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of
+the ground.</p>
+<p>(8) So in the age before the flood, the holy records within
+those few memorials which are there entered and registered have
+vouchsafed to mention and honour the name of the inventors and
+authors of music and works in metal.  In the age after the
+flood, the first great judgment of God upon the ambition of man
+was the confusion of tongues; whereby the open trade and
+intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly imbarred.</p>
+<p>(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God’s first
+pen: he is adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and
+commendation, “That he was seen in all the learning of the
+Egyptians,” which nation we know was one of the most
+ancient schools of the world: for so Plato brings in the Egyptian
+priest saying unto Solon, “You Grecians are ever children;
+you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of
+knowledge.”  Take a view of the ceremonial law of
+Moses; you shall find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the
+badge or difference of the people of God, the exercise and
+impression of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits
+thereof, that some of the most learned Rabbins have travailed
+profitably and profoundly to observe, some of them a natural,
+some of them a moral sense, or reduction of many of the
+ceremonies and ordinances.  As in the law of the leprosy,
+where it is said, “If the whiteness have overspread the
+flesh, the patient may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any
+whole flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean;”
+one of them noteth a principle of nature, that putrefaction is
+more contagious before maturity than after; and another noteth a
+position of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not
+so much corrupt manners, as those that are half good and half
+evil.  So in this and very many other places in that law,
+there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much
+aspersion of philosophy.</p>
+<p>(10)  So likewise in that excellent hook of Job, if it be
+revolved with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling
+with natural philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the
+roundness of the world, <i>Qui extendit aquilonem super
+vacuum</i>, <i>et appendit terram super nihilum</i>; wherein the
+pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north, and the
+finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched.
+So again, matter of astronomy: <i>Spiritus ejus ornavit
+cælos</i>, <i>et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est
+Coluber tortuoses</i>.  And in another place, <i>Nunquid
+conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas</i>, <i>aut gyrum
+Arcturi poteris dissipare</i>?  Where the fixing of the
+stars, ever standing at equal distance, is with great elegancy
+noted.  And in another place, <i>Qui facit Arcturum</i>,
+<i>et Oriona</i>, <i>et Hyadas</i>, <i>et interiora Austri</i>;
+where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern
+pole, calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern
+stars were in that climate unseen.  Matter of generation:
+<i>Annon sicut lac mulsisti me</i>, <i>et sicut caseum coagulasti
+me</i>? &amp;c.  Matter of minerals: <i>Habet argentum
+venarum suarum principia</i>; <i>et auro locus est in quo
+conflatur</i>, <i>ferrum de terra tollitur</i>, <i>et lapis
+solutus calore in æs vertitur</i>; and so forwards in that
+chapter.</p>
+<p>(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the
+gift or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon’s
+petition and in God’s assent thereunto, preferred before
+all other terrene and temporal felicity.  By virtue of which
+grant or donative of God Solomon became enabled not only to write
+those excellent parables or aphorisms concerning divine and moral
+philosophy, but also to compile a natural history of all verdure,
+from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon the wall (which
+is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb), and also of
+all things that breathe or move.  Nay, the same Solomon the
+king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and
+magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and
+attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no
+claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of
+inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, “The glory
+of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to
+find it out;” as if, according to the innocent play of
+children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to
+the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain
+a greater honour than to be God’s playfellows in that game;
+considering the great commandment of wits and means, whereby
+nothing needeth to be hidden from them.</p>
+<p>(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times
+after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself
+did first show His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference
+with the priests and doctors of the law, before He showed His
+power to subdue nature by His miracles.  And the coming of
+this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the
+similitude and gift of tongues, which are but <i>vehicula
+scientiæ</i>.</p>
+<p>(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased
+God to use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that
+at the first He did employ persons altogether unlearned,
+otherwise than by inspiration, more evidently to declare His
+immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom or knowledge;
+yet nevertheless that counsel of His was no sooner performed, but
+in the next vicissitude and succession He did send His divine
+truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with
+servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was only
+learned amongst the Apostles, had his pen most used in the
+Scriptures of the New Testament.</p>
+<p>(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and
+fathers of the Church were excellently read and studied in all
+the learning of this heathen; insomuch that the edict of the
+Emperor Julianus (whereby it was interdicted unto Christians to
+be admitted into schools, lectures, or exercises of learning) was
+esteemed and accounted a more pernicious engine and machination
+against the Christian Faith than were all the sanguinary
+prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation and
+jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever
+obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise
+received the censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity,
+even amongst holy men; in that he designed to obliterate and
+extinguish the memory of heathen antiquity and authors.  But
+contrariwise it was the Christian Church, which, amidst the
+inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the north-west,
+and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred lap
+and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning,
+which otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had
+ever been.</p>
+<p>(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves
+and our fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome
+to account for their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and
+sundry doctrines obnoxious and framed to uphold the same abuses;
+at one and the same time it was ordained by the Divine Providence
+that there should attend withal a renovation and new spring of
+all other knowledges.  And on the other side we see the
+Jesuits, who partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation
+and provocation of their example, have much quickened and
+strengthened the state of learning; we see (I say) what notable
+service and reparation they have done to the Roman see.</p>
+<p>(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed,
+that there be two principal duties and services, besides ornament
+and illustration, which philosophy and human learning do perform
+to faith and religion.  The one, because they are an
+effectual inducement to the exaltation of the glory of God.
+For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite us to
+consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if
+we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them
+as they first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like
+injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe
+of the store of some excellent jeweller by that only which is set
+out toward the street in his shop.  The other, because they
+minister a singular help and preservative against unbelief and
+error.  For our Saviour saith, “You err, not knowing
+the Scriptures, nor the power of God;” laying before us two
+books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error:
+first the Scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then the
+creatures expressing His power; whereof the latter is a key unto
+the former: not only opening our understanding to conceive the
+true sense of the Scriptures by the general notions of reason and
+rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us
+into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly
+signed and engraven upon His works.  Thus much therefore for
+divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and
+value of learning.</p>
+<p>VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a
+discourse of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use
+choice of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace
+the variety of them.  First, therefore, in the degrees of
+human honour amongst the heathen, it was the highest to obtain to
+a veneration and adoration as a God.  This unto the
+Christians is as the forbidden fruit.  But we speak now
+separately of human testimony, according to which—that
+which the Grecians call <i>apotheosis</i>, and the Latins
+<i>relatio inter divos</i>—was the supreme honour which man
+could attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a
+formal decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman
+Emperors), but by an inward assent and belief.  Which
+honour, being so high, had also a degree or middle term; for
+there were reckoned above human honours, honours heroical and
+divine: in the attribution and distribution of which honours we
+see antiquity made this difference; that whereas founders and
+uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants,
+fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit,
+were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods, such
+as were Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the like; on the
+other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts,
+endowments, and commodities towards man’s life, were ever
+consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as was Ceres, Bacchus,
+Mercurius, Apollo, and others.  And justly; for the merit of
+the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
+and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and
+good, yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground
+where they fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of
+heaven, which are permanent and universal.  The former again
+is mixed with strife and perturbation, but the latter hath the
+true character of Divine Presence, coming in <i>aura leni</i>,
+without noise or agitation.</p>
+<p>(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in
+repressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much
+inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities which arise
+from nature, which merit was lively set forth by the ancients in
+that feigned relation of Orpheus’ theatre, where all beasts
+and birds assembled, and, forgetting their several
+appetites—some of prey, some of game, some of
+quarrel—stood all sociably together listening unto the airs
+and accords of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or
+was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his
+own nature; wherein is aptly described the nature and condition
+of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, of
+profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to
+precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence
+and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is
+society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent,
+or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things
+dissolve into anarchy and confusion.</p>
+<p>(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves,
+or persons of authority under them, or other governors in
+commonwealths and popular estates, are endued with
+learning.  For although he might be thought partial to his
+own profession that said “Then should people and estates be
+happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers
+kings;” yet so much is verified by experience, that under
+learned princes and governors there have been ever the best
+times: for howsoever kings may have their imperfections in their
+passions and customs, yet, if they be illuminate by learning,
+they have those notions of religion, policy, and morality, which
+do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and peremptory
+errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when
+counsellors and servants stand mute and silent.  And
+senators or counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed
+upon more safe and substantial principles, than counsellors which
+are only men of experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar
+off, whereas the other discover them not till they come near
+hand, and then trust to the agility of their wit to ward or avoid
+them.</p>
+<p>(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep
+still the law of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected
+examples) doth best appear in the age which passed from the death
+of Domitianus the emperor until the reign of Commodus;
+comprehending a succession of six princes, all learned, or
+singular favourers and advancers of learning, which age for
+temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever
+the Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world)
+enjoyed—a matter revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a
+dream the night before he was slain: for he thought there was
+grown behind upon his shoulders a neck and a head of gold, which
+came accordingly to pass in those golden times which succeeded;
+of which princes we will make some commemoration; wherein,
+although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter for
+a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is,
+yet, because it is pertinent to the point in hand—<i>Neque
+semper arcum tendit Apollo</i>—and to name them only were
+too naked and cursory, I will not omit it altogether.  The
+first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose government is by a
+glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life: <i>Postquam
+divus Nerva res oluim insociabiles miscuisset</i>, <i>imperium et
+libertatem</i>.  And in token of his learning, the last act
+of his short reign left to memory was a missive to his adopted
+son, Trajan, proceeding upon some inward discontent at the
+ingratitude of the times, comprehended in a verse of
+Homer’s—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Telis, Phœbe, tuis, lacrymas
+ulciscere nostras.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but
+if we will hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith,
+“He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall
+have a prophet’s reward,” he deserveth to be placed
+amongst the most learned princes; for there was not a greater
+admirer of learning or benefactor of learning, a founder of
+famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned men to office,
+and familiar converser with learned professors and preceptors who
+were noted to have then most credit in court.  On the other
+side how much Trajan’s virtue and government was admired
+and renowned, surely no testimony of grave and faithful history
+doth more lively set forth than that legend tale of Gregorius
+Magnum, Bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme envy he
+bare towards all heathen excellency; and yet he is reported, out
+of the love and estimation of Trajan’s moral virtues, to
+have made unto God passionate and fervent prayers for the
+delivery of his soul out of hell, and to have obtained it, with a
+caveat that he should make no more such petitions.  In this
+prince’s time also the persecutions against the Christians
+received intermission upon the certificate of Plinius Secundus, a
+man of excellent learning and by Trajan advanced.</p>
+<p>(6) Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that
+lived, and the most universal inquirer: insomuch as it was noted
+for an error in his mind that he desired to comprehend all
+things, and not to reserve himself for the worthiest things,
+falling into the like humour that was long before noted in Philip
+of Macedon, who, when he would needs overrule and put down an
+excellent musician in an argument touching music, was well
+answered by him again—“God forbid, sir,” saith
+he, “that your fortune should be so bad as to know these
+things better than I.”  It pleased God likewise to use
+the curiosity of this emperor as an inducement to the peace of
+His Church in those days; for having Christ in veneration, not as
+a God or Saviour, but as a wonder or novelty, and having his
+picture in his gallery matched with Apollonius (with whom in his
+vain imagination he thought its had some conformity), yet it
+served the turn to allay the bitter hatred of those times against
+the Christian name, so as the Church had peace during his
+time.  And for his government civil, although he did not
+attain to that of Trajan’s in glory of arms or perfection
+of justice, yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he did
+exceed him.  For Trajan erected many famous monuments and
+buildings, insomuch as Constantine the Great in emulation was
+wont to call him <i>Parietaria</i>, “wall-flower,”
+because his name was upon so many walls; but his buildings and
+works were more of glory and triumph than use and
+necessity.  But Adrian spent his whole reign, which was
+peaceable, in a perambulation or survey of the Roman Empire,
+giving order and making assignation where he went for re-edifying
+of cities, towns, and forts decayed, and for cutting of rivers
+and streams, and for making bridges and passages, and for
+policing of cities and commonalties with new ordinances and
+constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so
+that his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and
+decays of former times.</p>
+<p>(7) Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince
+excellently learned, and had the patient and subtle wit of a
+schoolman, insomuch as in common speech (which leaves no virtue
+untaxed) he was called <i>Cymini Sector</i>, a carver or a
+divider of cummin seed, which is one of the least seeds.
+Such a patience he had and settled spirit to enter into the least
+and most exact differences of causes, a fruit no doubt of the
+exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which being no
+ways charged or encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or
+scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodness,
+without all fiction or affectation, that hath reigned or lived,
+made his mind continually present and entire.  He likewise
+approached a degree nearer unto Christianity, and became, as
+Agrippa said unto St. Paul, “half a Christian,”
+holding their religion and law in good opinion, and not only
+ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of
+Christians.</p>
+<p>(5) There succeeded him the first <i>Divi fratres</i>, the two
+adoptive brethren—Lucius Commodus Verus, son to Ælius
+Verus, who delighted much in the softer kind of learning, and was
+wont to call the poet Martial his Virgil; and Marcus Aurelius
+Antoninus: whereof the latter, who obscured his colleague and
+survived him long, was named the “Philosopher,” who,
+as he excelled all the rest in learning, so he excelled them
+likewise in perfection of all royal virtues; insomuch as Julianus
+the emperor, in his book entitled <i>Cærsares</i>, being as
+a pasquil or satire to deride all his predecessors, feigned that
+they were all invited to a banquet of the gods, and Silenus the
+jester sat at the nether end of the table and bestowed a scoff on
+everyone as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus came in,
+Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance, not knowing where
+to carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance at his patience
+towards his wife.  And the virtue of this prince, continued
+with that of his predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so
+sacred in the world, that though it were extremely dishonoured in
+Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, who all bare the name,
+yet, when Alexander Severus refused the name because he was a
+stranger to the family, the Senate with one acclamation said,
+<i>Quomodo Augustus</i>, <i>sic et Antoninus</i>.  In such
+renown and veneration was the name of these two princes in those
+days, that they would have had it as a perpetual addition in all
+the emperors’ style.  In this emperor’s time
+also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as in this
+sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning
+in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the
+world.</p>
+<p>(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not
+presuming to speak of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment
+the most excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate
+predecessor in this part of Britain; a prince that, if Plutarch
+were now alive to write lives by parallels, would trouble him, I
+think, to find for her a parallel amongst women.  This lady
+was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even
+amongst masculine princes—whether we speak of learning, of
+language, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or
+humanity—and unto the very last year of her life she
+accustomed to appoint set hours for reading, scarcely any young
+student in a university more daily or more duly.  As for her
+government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm)
+that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better
+tines, and yet not through the calmness of the season, but
+through the wisdom of her regiment.  For if there be
+considered, of the one side, the truth of religion established,
+the constant peace and security, the good administration of
+justice, the temperate use of the prerogative, not slackened, nor
+much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so
+excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means,
+both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the
+moderation of discontents; and there be considered, on the other
+side, the differences of religion, the troubles of neighbour
+countries, the ambition of Spain, and opposition of Rome, and
+then that she was solitary and of herself; these things, I say,
+considered, as I could not have chosen an instance so recent and
+so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more
+remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is
+concerning the conjunction of learning in the prince with
+felicity in the people.</p>
+<p>(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only
+upon civil merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of
+peace and peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less
+power and efficacy in enablement towards martial and military
+virtue and prowess, as may be notably represented in the examples
+of Alexander the Great and Cæsar the Dictator (mentioned
+before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose virtues and
+acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the
+wonders of time in that kind; but of their affections towards
+learning and perfections in learning it is pertinent to say
+somewhat.</p>
+<p>(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great
+philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto
+him; he was attended with Callisthenes and divers other learned
+persons, that followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and
+conquests.  What price and estimation he had learning in
+doth notably appear in these three particulars: first, in the
+envy he used to express that he bare towards Achilles, in this,
+that he had so good a trumpet of his praises as Homer’s
+verses; secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave touching
+that precious cabinet of Darius, which was found among his jewels
+(whereof question was made what thing was worthy to be put into
+it, and he gave his opinion for Homer’s works); thirdly, in
+his letter to Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of
+nature, wherein he expostulateth with him for publishing the
+secrets or mysteries of philosophy; and gave him to understand
+that himself esteemed it more to excel other men in learning and
+knowledge than in power and empire.  And what use he had of
+learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches and
+answers, being full of science and use of science, and that in
+all variety.</p>
+<p>(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and
+somewhat idle to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet,
+since the argument I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that
+men shall perceive I am as willing to flatter (if they will so
+call it) an Alexander, or a Cæsar, or an Antoninus, that
+are dead many hundred years since, as any that now liveth; for it
+is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty that I
+propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming in any
+man’s praises.  Observe, then, the speech he used of
+Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state of one of the
+greatest questions of moral philosophy: whether the enjoying of
+outward things, or the contemning of them, be the greatest
+happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly contented with
+so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition,
+“were I not Alexander, I would wish to be
+Diogenes.”  But Seneca inverteth it, and saith,
+“<i>Plus erat</i>, <i>quod hic nollet accipere</i>,
+<i>quàm quod ille posset dare</i>.”  There were
+more things which Diogenes would have refused than those were
+which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.</p>
+<p>(13) Observe, again, that speech which was usual with
+him,—“That he felt his mortality chiefly in two
+things, sleep and lust;” and see if it were not a speech
+extracted out of the depth of natural philosophy, and liker to
+have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus than from
+Alexander.</p>
+<p>(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon
+the bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his
+flatterers, that was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and
+said, “Look, this is very blood; this is not such a liquor
+as Homer speaketh of, which ran from Venus’ hand when it
+was pierced by Diomedes.”</p>
+<p>(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in
+the speech he used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made
+against his father Antipater; for when Alexander happened to say,
+“Do you think these men would have come from so far to
+complain except they had just cause of grief?” and
+Cassander answered, “Yea, that was the matter, because they
+thought they should not be disproved;” said Alexander,
+laughing, “See the subtleties of Aristotle, to take a
+matter both ways, <i>pro et contra</i>, &amp;c.”</p>
+<p>(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art which
+he reprehended to serve his own humour: when bearing a secret
+grudge to Callisthenes, because he was against the new ceremony
+of his adoration, feasting one night where the same Callisthenes
+was at the table, it was moved by some after supper, for
+entertainment sake, that Callisthenes, who was an eloquent man,
+might speak of some theme or purpose at his own choice; which
+Callisthenes did, choosing the praise of the Macedonian nation
+for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner as
+the hearers were much ravished; whereupon Alexander, nothing
+pleased, said, “It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a
+subject; but,” saith he, “turn your style, and let us
+hear what you can say against us;” which Callisthenes
+presently undertook, and did with that sting and life that
+Alexander interrupted him, and said, “The goodness of the
+cause made him eloquent before, and despite made him eloquent
+then again.”</p>
+<p>(17) Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent
+use of a metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxeth Antipater,
+who was an imperious and tyrannous governor; for when one of
+Antipater’s friends commended him to Alexander for his
+moderation, that he did not degenerate as his other lieutenants
+did into the Persian pride, in uses of purple, but kept the
+ancient habit of Macedon, of black.  “True,”
+saith Alexander; “but Antipater is all purple
+within.”  Or that other, when Parmenio came to him in
+the plain of Arbela and showed him the innumerable multitude of
+his enemies, specially as they appeared by the infinite number of
+lights as it had been a new firmament of stars, and thereupon
+advised him to assail them by night; whereupon he answered,
+“That he would not steal the victory.”</p>
+<p>(18) For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction,
+so much in all ages embraced, that he made between his two
+friends Hephæstion and Craterus, when he said, “That
+the one loved Alexander, and the other loved the king:”
+describing the principal difference of princes’ best
+servants, that some in affection love their person, and other in
+duty love their crown.</p>
+<p>(19) Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary
+with counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters
+according to the model of their own mind and fortune, and not of
+their masters.  When upon Darius’ great offers
+Parmenio had said, “Surely I would accept these offers were
+I as Alexander;” saith Alexander, “So would I were I
+as Parmenio.”</p>
+<p>(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made
+when he gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was
+asked what he did reserve for himself, and he answered,
+“Hope.”  Weigh, I say, whether he had not cast
+up his account aright, because <i>hope</i> must be the portion of
+all that resolve upon great enterprises; for this was
+Cæsar’s portion when he went first into Gaul, his
+estate being then utterly overthrown with largesses.  And
+this was likewise the portion of that noble prince, howsoever
+transported with ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was
+usually said that he was the greatest usurer in France, because
+he had turned all his estate into obligations.</p>
+<p>(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to
+say hyperbolically, “That if all sciences were lost they
+might be found in Virgil,” so certainly this may be said
+truly, there are the prints and footsteps of learning in those
+few speeches which are reported of this prince, the admiration of
+whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the Great, but as
+Aristotle’s scholar, hath carried me too far.</p>
+<p>(22) As for Julius Cæsar, the excellency of his learning
+needeth not to be argued from his education, or his company, or
+his speeches; but in a further degree doth declare itself in his
+writings and works: whereof some are extant and permanent, and
+some unfortunately perished.  For first, we see there is
+left unto us that excellent history of his own wars, which he
+entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times have
+admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and
+lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest
+propriety of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was;
+which that it was not the effect of a natural gift, but of
+learning and precept, is well witnessed by that work of his
+entitled <i>De Analogia</i>, being a grammatical philosophy,
+wherein he did labour to make this same <i>Vox ad placitum</i> to
+become <i>Vox ad licitum</i>, and to reduce custom of speech to
+congruity of speech; and took as it were the pictures of words
+from the life of reason.</p>
+<p>(23) So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power
+and learning, the then reformed computation of the year; well
+expressing that he took it to be as great a glory to himself to
+observe and know the law of the heavens, as to give law to men
+upon the earth.</p>
+<p>(24) So likewise in that book of his, <i>Anti-Cato</i>, it may
+easily appear that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as
+victory of war: undertaking therein a conflict against the
+greatest champion with the pen that then lived, Cicero the
+orator.</p>
+<p>(25) So, again, in his book of Apophthegms, which he
+collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself
+but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others,
+than to have every word of his own to be made an apophthegm or an
+oracle, as vain princes, by custom of flattery, pretend to
+do.  And yet if I should enumerate divers of his speeches,
+as I did those of Alexander, they are truly such as Solomon
+noteth, when he saith, <i>Verba sapientum tanquam aculei</i>,
+<i>et tanquam clavi in altum defixi</i>: whereof I will only
+recite three, not so delectable for elegancy, but admirable for
+vigour and efficacy.</p>
+<p>(26) As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words,
+that could with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was
+thus: The Romans, when their generals did speak to their army,
+did use the word <i>Milites</i>, but when the magistrates spake
+to the people they did use the word <i>Quirites</i>.  The
+soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to be cashiered;
+not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to draw
+Cæsar to other conditions; wherein he being resolute not to
+give way, after some silence, he began his speech, <i>Ego
+Quirites</i>, which did admit them already
+cashiered—wherewith they were so surprised, crossed, and
+confused, as they would not suffer him to go on in his speech,
+but relinquished their demands, and made it their suit to be
+again called by the name of <i>Milites</i>.</p>
+<p>(27) The second speech was thus: Cæsar did extremely
+affect the name of king; and some were set on as he passed by in
+popular acclamation to salute him king.  Whereupon, finding
+the cry weak and poor, he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as
+if they had mistaken his surname: <i>Non Rex sum</i>, <i>sed
+Cæsar</i>; a speech that, if it be searched, the life and
+fulness of it can scarce be expressed.  For, first, it was a
+refusal of the name, but yet not serious; again, it did signify
+an infinite confidence and magnanimity, as if he presumed
+Cæsar was the greater title, as by his worthiness it is
+come to pass till this day.  But chiefly it was a speech of
+great allurement toward his own purpose, as if the state did
+strive with him but for a name, whereof mean families were
+vested; for <i>Rex</i> was a surname with the Romans, as well as
+<i>King</i> is with us.</p>
+<p>(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to
+Metellus, when Cæsar, after war declared, did possess
+himself of this city of Rome; at which time, entering into the
+inner treasury to take the money there accumulate, Metellus,
+being tribune, forbade him.  Whereto Cæsar said,
+“That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the
+place.”  And presently taking himself up, he added,
+“Young man, it is harder for me to speak it than to do
+it—<i>Adolescens</i>, <i>durius est mihi hoc dicere
+quàm facere</i>.”  A speech compounded of the
+greatest terror and greatest clemency that could proceed out of
+the mouth of man.</p>
+<p>(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident
+himself knew well his own perfection in learning, and took it
+upon him, as appeared when upon occasion that some spake what a
+strange resolution it was in Lucius Sylla to resign his
+dictators, he, scoffing at him to his own advantage, answered,
+“That Sylla could not skill of letters, and therefore knew
+not how to dictate.”</p>
+<p>(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the
+concurrence of military virtue and learning (for what example
+should come with any grace after those two of Alexander and
+Cæsar?), were it not in regard of the rareness of
+circumstance, that I find in one other particular, as that which
+did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme wonder: and it
+is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from Socrates’
+school into Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against
+King Artaxerxes.  This Xenophon at that time was very young,
+and never had seen the wars before, neither had any command in
+the army, but only followed the war as a voluntary, for the love
+and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.  He was present
+when Falinus came in message from the great king to the Grecians,
+after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of
+men, left to themselves in the midst of the king’s
+territories, cut off from their country by many navigable rivers
+and many hundred miles.  The message imported that they
+should deliver up their arms and submit themselves to the
+king’s mercy.  To which message, before answer was
+made, divers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus; and
+amongst the rest Xenophon happened to say, “Why, Falinus,
+we have now but these two things left, our arms and our virtue;
+and if we yield up our arms, how shall we make use of our
+virtue?”  Whereto Falinus, smiling on him, said,
+“If I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an
+Athenian, and I believe you study philosophy, and it is pretty
+that you say; but you are much abused if you think your virtue
+can withstand the king’s power.”  Here was the
+scorn; the wonder followed: which was that this young scholar or
+philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by
+treason, conducted those ten thousand foot, through the heart of
+all the king’s high countries, from Babylon to Græcia
+in safety, in despite of all the king’s forces, to the
+astonishment of the world, and the encouragement of the Grecians
+in times succeeding to make invasion upon the kings of Persia, as
+was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian, attempted by
+Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the Macedonian,
+all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.</p>
+<p>VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to
+moral and private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is
+contained in the verses:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter
+artes<br />
+Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of
+men’s minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon
+<i>fideliter</i>; for a little superficial learning doth rather
+work a contrary effect.  It taketh away all levity,
+temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and
+difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both
+sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the
+mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried.  It
+taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all
+weakness.  For all things are admired, either because they
+are new, or because they are great.  For novelty, no man
+that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly but will find
+that printed in his heart, <i>Nil novi super terram</i>.
+Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth
+behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion.  And
+for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to
+great armies, and the great conquests of the spacious provinces
+in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights
+and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a fort,
+or some walled town at the most, he said:—“It seemed
+to him that he was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the
+mice, that the old tales went of.”  So certainly, if a
+man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth
+with men upon it (the divineness of souls except) will not seem
+much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, and
+some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a
+little heap of dust.  It taketh away or mitigateth fear of
+death or adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest
+impediments of virtue and imperfections of manners.  For if
+a man’s mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of
+the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily
+concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman
+weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth
+the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead,
+and thereupon said, “<i>Heri vidi fragilem frangi</i>,
+<i>hodie vidi mortalem mori</i>.”  And, therefore,
+Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of
+causes and the conquest of all fears together, as
+<i>concomitantia</i>.</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere
+causas,<br />
+Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum<br />
+Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which
+learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes
+purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions,
+sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increasing appetite,
+sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the
+like; and, therefore, I will conclude with that which hath
+<i>rationem totius</i>—which is, that it disposeth the
+constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the
+defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of
+growth and reformation.  For the unlearned man knows not
+what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to
+account, nor the pleasure of that <i>suavissima vita</i>,
+<i>indies sentire se fieri meliorem</i>.  The good parts he
+hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously,
+but not much to increase them.  The faults he hath he will
+learn how to hide and colour them, but not much to amend them;
+like an ill mower, that mows on still, and never whets his
+scythe.  Whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise,
+that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his
+mind with the use and employment thereof.  Nay, further, in
+general and in sum, certain it is that <i>Veritas</i> and
+<i>Bonitas</i> differ but as the seal and the print; for truth
+prints goodness, and they be the clouds of error which descend in
+the storms of passions and perturbations.</p>
+<p>(3) From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and
+commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be any
+comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth
+man’s nature.  We see the dignity of the commandment
+is according to the dignity of the commanded; to have commandment
+over beasts as herdmen have, is a thing contemptible; to have
+commandment over children as schoolmasters have, is a matter of
+small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves is a
+disparagement rather than an honour.  Neither is the
+commandment of tyrants much better, over people which have put
+off the generosity of their minds; and, therefore, it was ever
+holden that honours in free monarchies and commonwealths had a
+sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the commandment
+extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over their
+deeds and services.  And therefore, when Virgil putteth
+himself forth to attribute to Augustus Cæsar the best of
+human honours, he doth it in these words:—</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>      “Victorque
+volentes<br />
+Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the
+commandment over the will; for it is a commandment over the
+reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest
+part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself.  For
+there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of
+estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations,
+imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and
+learning.  And therefore we see the detestable and extreme
+pleasure that arch-heretics, and false prophets, and impostors
+are transported with, when they once find in themselves that they
+have a superiority in the faith and conscience of men; so great
+as if they have once tasted of it, it is seldom seen that any
+torture or persecution can make them relinquish or abandon
+it.  But as this is that which the author of the Revelation
+calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so by argument of
+contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men’s
+understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that
+which approacheth nearest to the similitude of the divine
+rule.</p>
+<p>(4) As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of
+learning is not so confined to give fortune only to states and
+commonwealths, as it doth not likewise give fortune to particular
+persons.  For it was well noted long ago, that Homer hath
+given more men their livings, than either Sylla, or Cæsar,
+or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding their great largesses and
+donatives, and distributions of lands to so many legions.
+And no doubt it is hard to say whether arms or learning have
+advanced greater numbers.  And in case of sovereignty we
+see, that if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet
+learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in
+some competition with empire.</p>
+<p>(5) Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and
+learning, it far surpasseth all other in nature.  For, shall
+the pleasures of the affections so exceed the pleasure of the
+sense, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a
+song or a dinner? and must not of consequence the pleasures of
+the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the
+affections?  We see in all other pleasures there is satiety,
+and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth
+well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that
+it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality.  And,
+therefore, we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitions
+princes turn melancholy.  But of knowledge there is no
+satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually
+interchangeable; and, therefore, appeareth to be good in itself
+simply, without fallacy or accident.  Neither is that
+pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man,
+which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora
+ventis, &amp;c.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>“It is a view of delight,” saith he, “to
+stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with
+tempest upon the sea; or to be in a fortified tower, and to see
+two battles join upon a plain.  But it is a pleasure
+incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and
+fortified in the certainty of truth; and from thence to descry
+and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up
+and down of other men.”</p>
+<p>(6) Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man
+excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by
+learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in
+body he cannot come; and the like: let us conclude with the
+dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that
+whereunto man’s nature doth most aspire, which is
+immortality, or continuance; for to this tendeth generation, and
+raising of houses and families; to this tend buildings,
+foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory,
+fame, and celebration; and in effect the strength of all other
+human desires.  We see then how far the monuments of wit and
+learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the
+hands.  For have not the verses of Homer continued
+twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a
+syllable or letter; during which the infinite palaces, temples,
+castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished?  It is
+not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus,
+Alexander, Cæsar, no nor of the kings or great personages
+of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the
+copies cannot but leese of the life and truth.  But the
+images of men’s wits and knowledges remain in books,
+exempted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual
+renovation.  Neither are they fitly to be called images,
+because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of
+others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in
+succeeding ages.  So that if the invention of the ship was
+thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from
+place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in
+participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be
+magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and
+make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations,
+and inventions, the one of the other?  Nay, further, we see
+some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most
+immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of
+the soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the
+spirit of man could act and perform without the organs of the
+body, they thought might remain after death, which were only
+those of the understanding and not of the affection; so immortal
+and incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to
+be.  But we, that know by divine revelation that not only
+the understanding but the affections purified, not only the
+spirit but the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, do
+disclaim in these rudiments of the senses.  But it must be
+remembered, both in this last point, and so it may likewise be
+needful in other places, that in probation of the dignity of
+knowledge or learning, I did in the beginning separate divine
+testimony from human, which method I have pursued, and so handled
+them both apart.</p>
+<p>(7) Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be
+impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the
+judgment, either of Æsop’s cock, that preferred the
+barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that being chosen judge
+between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god of the
+flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty
+and love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, <i>occidat
+matrem</i>, <i>modo imperet</i>, that preferred empire with any
+condition never so detestable; or of Ulysses, <i>qui vetulam
+prætulit immortalitati</i>, being a figure of those which
+prefer custom and habit before all excellency, or of a number of
+the like popular judgments.  For these things must continue
+as they have been; but so will that also continue whereupon
+learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not: <i>Justificata
+est sapientia a filiis suis</i>.</p>
+<div class='chapter' /><h2>THE SECOND BOOK.</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>To the King</i>.</p>
+<p>1.  <span class="smcap">It</span> might seem to have more
+convenience, though it come often otherwise to pass (excellent
+King), that those which are fruitful in their generations, and
+have in themselves the foresight of immortality in their
+descendants, should likewise be more careful of the good estate
+of future times, unto which they know they must transmit and
+commend over their dearest pledges.  Queen Elizabeth was a
+sojourner in the world in respect of her unmarried life, and was
+a blessing to her own times; and yet so as the impression of her
+good government, besides her happy memory, is not without some
+effect which doth survive her.  But to your Majesty, whom
+God hath already blessed with so much royal issue, worthy to
+continue and represent you for ever, and whose youthful and
+fruitful bed doth yet promise many the like renovations, it is
+proper and agreeable to be conversant not only in the transitory
+parts of good government, but in those acts also which are in
+their nature permanent and perpetual.  Amongst the which (if
+affection do not transport me) there is not any more worthy than
+the further endowment of the world with sound and fruitful
+knowledge.  For why should a few received authors stand up
+like Hercules’ columns, beyond which there should be no
+sailing or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a star
+as your Majesty to conduct and prosper us?  To return
+therefore where we left, it remaineth to consider of what kind
+those acts are which have been undertaken and performed by kings
+and others for the increase and advancement of learning, wherein
+I purpose to speak actively, without digressing or dilating.</p>
+<p>2.  Let this ground therefore be laid, that all works are
+over common by amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction,
+and by the conjunction of labours.  The first multiplieth
+endeavour, the second preventeth error, and the third supplieth
+the frailty of man.  But the principal of these is
+direction, for <i>claudus in via antevertit cursorem extra
+viam</i>; and Solomon excellently setteth it down, “If the
+iron be not sharp, it requireth more strength, but wisdom is that
+which prevaileth,” signifying that the invention or
+election of the mean is more effectual than any enforcement or
+accumulation of endeavours.  This I am induced to speak, for
+that (not derogating from the noble intention of any that have
+been deservers towards the state of learning), I do observe
+nevertheless that their works and acts are rather matters of
+magnificence and memory than of progression and proficience, and
+tend rather to augment the mass of learning in the multitude of
+learned men than to rectify or raise the sciences themselves.</p>
+<p>3.  The works or acts of merit towards learning are
+conversant about three objects—the places of learning, the
+books of learning, and the persons of the learned.  For as
+water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of the
+earth, doth scatter and leese itself in the ground, except it be
+collected into some receptacle where it may by union comfort and
+sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man hath made
+and framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men
+have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with
+accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and
+necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it
+descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense,
+would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not
+preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places
+appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the
+receipt and comforting of the same.</p>
+<p>4.  The works which concern the seats and places of
+learning are four—foundations and buildings, endowments
+with revenues, endowments with franchises and privileges,
+institutions and ordinances for government—all tending to
+quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and
+troubles; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth for the
+hiving of bees:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Principio sedes apibus statioque
+petenda,<br />
+Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &amp;c.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>5.  The works touching books are two—first,
+libraries, which are as the shrines where all the relics of the
+ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or
+imposture, are preserved and reposed; secondly, new editions of
+authors, with more correct impressions, more faithful
+translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annotations,
+and the like.</p>
+<p>6.  The works pertaining to the persons of learned men
+(besides the advancement and countenancing of them in general)
+are two—the reward and designation of readers in sciences
+already extant and invented; and the reward and designation of
+writers and inquirers concerning any parts of learning not
+sufficiently laboured and prosecuted.</p>
+<p>7.  These are summarily the works and acts wherein the
+merits of many excellent princes and other worthy personages,
+have been conversant.  As for any particular commemorations,
+I call to mind what Cicero said when he gave general thanks,
+<i>Difficile non aliquem</i>, <i>ingratum quenquam
+præterire</i>.  Let us rather, according to the
+Scriptures, look unto that part of the race which is before us,
+than look back to that which is already attained.</p>
+<p>8.  First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations
+of colleges in Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated
+to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at
+large.  For if men judge that learning should be referred to
+action, they judge well; but in this they fall into the error
+described in the ancient fable, in which the other parts of the
+body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it neither
+performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as
+the head doth; but yet notwithstanding it is the stomach that
+digesteth and distributeth to all the rest.  So if any man
+think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not
+consider that all professions are from thence served and
+supplied.  And this I take to be a great cause that hath
+hindered the progression of learning, because these fundamental
+knowledges have been studied but in passage.  For if you
+will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is
+not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of
+the earth and putting new mould about thee roots that must work
+it.  Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of
+foundations and dotations to professory learning hath not only
+had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences,
+but hath also been prejudicial to states, and governments.
+For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in regard of
+able men to serve them in causes of estate, because there is no
+education collegiate which is free, where such as were so
+disposed might give themselves in histories, modern languages,
+books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like
+enablements unto service of estate.</p>
+<p>9.  And because founders of colleges do plant, and
+founders of lectures do water, it followeth well in order to
+speak of the defect which is in public lectures; namely, in the
+smallness, and meanness of the salary or reward which in most
+places is assigned unto them, whether they be lectures of arts,
+or of professions.  For it is necessary to the progression
+of sciences that readers be of the most able and sufficient men;
+as those which are ordained for generating and propagating of
+sciences, and not for transitory use.  This cannot be,
+except their condition and endowment be such as may content the
+ablest man to appropriate his whole labour and continue his whole
+age in that function and attendance; and therefore must have a
+proportion answerable to that mediocrity or competency of
+advancement, which may be expected from a profession or the
+practice of a profession.  So as, if you will have sciences
+flourish, you must observe David’s military law, which was,
+“That those which stayed with the carriage should have
+equal part with those which were in the action;” else will
+the carriages be ill attended.  So readers in sciences are
+indeed the guardians of the stores and provisions of sciences,
+whence men in active courses are furnished, and therefore ought
+to have equal entertainment with them; otherwise if the fathers
+in sciences be of the weakest sort or be ill maintained,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Et patrum invalidi referent jejunia
+nati.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>10.  Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some
+alchemist to help me, who call upon men to sell their books, and
+to build furnaces; quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses
+as barren virgins, and relying upon Vulcan.  But certain it
+is, that unto the deep, fruitful, and operative study of many
+sciences, specialty natural philosophy and physic, books be not
+only the instrumentals; wherein also the beneficence of men hath
+not been altogether wanting.  For we see spheres, globes,
+astrolabes, maps, and the like, have been provided as
+appurtenances to astronomy and cosmography, as well as
+books.  We see likewise that some places instituted for
+physic have annexed the commodity of gardens for simples of all
+sorts, and do likewise command the use of dead bodies for
+anatomies.  But these do respect but a few things.  In
+general, there will hardly be any main proficience in the
+disclosing of nature, except there be some allowance for expenses
+about experiments; whether they be experiments appertaining to
+Vulcanus or Dædalus, furnace or engine, or any other
+kind.  And therefore as secretaries and spials of princes
+and states bring in bills for intelligence, so you must allow the
+spials and intelligencers of nature to bring in their bills; or
+else you shall be ill advertised.</p>
+<p>11.  And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to
+Aristotle of treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers,
+fishers, and the like, that he might compile a history of nature,
+much better do they deserve it that travail in arts of
+nature.</p>
+<p>12.  Another defect which I note is an intermission or
+neglect in those which are governors in universities, of
+consultation, and in princes or superior persons, of visitation:
+to enter into account and consideration, whether the readings,
+exercises, and other customs appertaining unto learning,
+anciently begun and since continued, be well instituted or no;
+and thereupon to ground an amendment or reformation in that which
+shall be found inconvenient.  For it is one of your
+Majesty’s own most wise and princely maxims, “That in
+all usages and precedents, the times be considered wherein they
+first began; which if they were weak or ignorant, it derogateth
+from the authority of the usage, and leaveth it for
+suspect.”  And therefore inasmuch as most of the
+usages and orders of the universities were derived from more
+obscure times, it is the more requisite they be
+re-examined.  In this kind I will give an instance or two,
+for example sake, of things that are the most obvious and
+familiar.  The one is a matter, which though it be ancient
+and general, yet I hold to be an error; which is, that scholars
+in universities come too soon and too unripe to logic and
+rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than children and
+novices.  For these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of
+sciences, being the arts of arts; the one for judgment, the other
+for ornament.  And they be the rules and directions how to
+set forth and dispose matter: and therefore for minds empty and
+unfraught with matter, and which have not gathered that which
+Cicero calleth <i>sylva</i> and <i>supellex</i>, stuff and
+variety, to begin with those arts (as if one should learn to
+weigh, or to measure, or to paint the wind) doth work but this
+effect, that the wisdom of those arts, which is great and
+universal, is almost made contemptible, and is degenerate into
+childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation.  And further,
+the untimely learning of them hath drawn on by consequence the
+superficial and unprofitable teaching and writing of them, as
+fitteth indeed to the capacity of children.  Another is a
+lack I find in the exercises used in the universities, which do
+snake too great a divorce between invention and memory.  For
+their speeches are either premeditate, in <i>verbis
+conceptis</i>, where nothing is left to invention, or merely
+extemporal, where little is left to memory.  Whereas in life
+and action there is least use of either of these, but rather of
+intermixtures of premeditation and invention, notes and
+memory.  So as the exercise fitteth not the practice, nor
+the image the life; and it is ever a true rule in exercises, that
+they be framed as near as may be to the life of practice; for
+otherwise they do pervert the motions and faculties of the mind,
+and not prepare them.  The truth whereof is not obscure,
+when scholars come to the practices of professions, or other
+actions of civil life; which when they set into, this want is
+soon found by themselves, and sooner by others.  But this
+part, touching the amendment of the institutions and orders of
+universities, I will conclude with the clause of
+Cæsar’s letter to Oppius and Balbes, <i>Hoc
+quemadmodum fieri possit</i>, <i>nonnulla mihi in mentem
+veniunt</i>, <i>et multa reperiri possunt</i>: <i>de iis rebus
+rgo vos ut cogitationem suscipiatis</i>.</p>
+<p>13.  Another defect which I note ascendeth a little
+higher than the precedent.  For as the proficience of
+learning consisteth much in the orders and institutions of
+universities in the same states and kingdoms, so it would be yet
+more advanced, if there were more intelligence mutual between the
+universities of Europe than now there is.  We see there be
+many orders and foundations, which though they be divided under
+several sovereignties and territories, yet they take themselves
+to have a kind of contract, fraternity, and correspondence one
+with the other, insomuch as they have provincials and
+generals.  And surely as nature createth brotherhood in
+families, and arts mechanical contract brotherhoods in
+communalties, and the anointment of God superinduceth a
+brotherhood in kings and bishops, so in like manner there cannot
+but be a fraternity in learning and illumination, relating to
+that paternity which is attributed to God, who is called the
+Father of illuminations or lights.</p>
+<p>14.  The last defect which I will note is, that there
+hath not been, or very rarely been, any public designation of
+writers or inquirers concerning such parts of knowledge as may
+appear not to have been already sufficiently laboured or
+undertaken; unto which point it is an inducement to enter into a
+view and examination what parts of learning have been prosecuted,
+and what omitted.  For the opinion of plenty is amongst the
+causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show
+rather of superfluity than lack; which surcharge nevertheless is
+not to be remedied by making no more books, but by making more
+good books, which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour the
+serpents of the enchanters.</p>
+<p>15.  The removing of all the defects formerly enumerate,
+except the last, and of the active part also of the last (which
+is the designation of writers), are <i>opera basilica</i>;
+towards which the endeavours of a private man may be but as an
+image in a crossway, that may point at the way, but cannot go
+it.  But the inducing part of the latter (which is the
+survey of learning) may be set forward by private travail.
+Wherefore I will now attempt to make a general and faithful
+perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie
+fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry
+of man, to the end that such a plot made and recorded to memory
+may both minister light to any public designation, and, also
+serve to excite voluntary endeavours.  Wherein,
+nevertheless, my purpose is at this time to note only omissions
+and deficiences, and not to make any redargution of errors or
+incomplete prosecutions.  For it is one thing to set forth
+what ground lieth unmanured, and another thing to correct ill
+husbandry in that which is manured.</p>
+<p>In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not
+ignorant what it is that I do now move and attempt, nor
+insensible of mine own weakness to sustain my purpose.  But
+my hope is, that if my extreme love to learning carry me too far,
+I may obtain the excuse of affection; for that “It is not
+granted to man to love and to be wise.”  But I know
+well I can use no other liberty of judgment than I must leave to
+others; and I for my part shall be indifferently glad either to
+perform myself, or accept from another, that duty of
+humanity—<i>Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam</i>,
+&amp;c.  I do foresee likewise that of those things which I
+shall enter and register as deficiences and omissions, many will
+conceive and censure that some of them are already done and
+extant; others to be but curiosities, and things of no great use;
+and others to be of too great difficulty, and almost
+impossibility to be compassed and effected.  But for the two
+first, I refer myself to the particulars.  For the last,
+touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held
+possible which may be done by some person, though not by every
+one; and which may be done by many, though not by any one; and
+which may be done in the succession of ages, though not within
+the hourglass of one man’s life; and which may be done by
+public designation, though not by private endeavour.  But,
+notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather that of
+Solomon, “<i>Dicit piger</i>, <i>Leo est in via</i>,”
+than that of Virgil, “<i>Possunt quia posse
+videntur</i>,” I shall be content that my labours be
+esteemed but as the better sort of wishes; for as it asketh some
+knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth
+some sense to make a wish not absurd.</p>
+<p>I. (1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three
+parts of man’s understanding, which is the seat of
+learning: history to his memory, poesy to his imagination, and
+philosophy to his reason.  Divine learning receiveth the
+same distribution; for, the spirit of man is the same, though the
+revelation of oracle and sense be diverse.  So as theology
+consisteth also of history of the Church; of parables, which is
+divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept.  For as for
+that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is
+but divine history, which hath that prerogative over human, as
+the narration may be before the fact as well as after.</p>
+<p>(2) History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary;
+whereof the first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as
+deficient.  For no man hath propounded to himself the
+general state of learning to be described and represented from
+age to age, as many have done the works of Nature, and the state,
+civil and ecclesiastical; without which the history of the world
+seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus with his eye out,
+that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit and life
+of the person.  And yet I am not ignorant that in divers
+particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians,
+the rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small
+memorials of the schools, authors, and books; and so likewise
+some barren relations touching the invention of arts or
+usages.  But a just story of learning, containing the
+antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their
+inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations and
+managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays,
+depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of
+them, and all other events concerning learning, throughout the
+ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting; the use and
+end of which work I do not so much design for curiosity or
+satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning, but
+chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in
+few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and
+administration of learning.  For it is not Saint
+Augustine’s nor Saint Ambrose’s works that will make
+so wise a divine as ecclesiastical history thoroughly read and
+observed, and the same reason is of learning.</p>
+<p>(3) History of Nature is of three sorts; of Nature in course,
+of Nature erring or varying, and of Nature altered or wrought;
+that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of
+arts.  The first of these no doubt is extant, and that in
+good perfection; the two latter are bandied so weakly and
+unprofitably as I am moved to note them as deficient.  For I
+find no sufficient or competent collection of the works of Nature
+which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary course of
+generations, productions, and motions; whether they be
+singularities of place and region, or the strange events of time
+and chance, or the effects of yet unknown properties, or the
+instances of exception to general kinds.  It is true I find
+a number of books of fabulous experiments and secrets, and
+frivolous impostures for pleasure and strangeness; but a
+substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites or
+irregulars of Nature, well examined and described, I find not,
+specially not with due rejection of fables and popular
+errors.  For as things now are, if an untruth in Nature be
+once on foot, what by reason of the neglect of examination, and
+countenance of antiquity, and what by reason of the use of the
+opinion in similitudes and ornaments of speech, it is never
+called down.</p>
+<p>(4) The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in
+Aristotle, is nothing less than to give contentment to the
+appetite of curious and vain wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries
+is to do; but for two reasons, both of great weight: the one to
+correct the partiality of axioms and opinions, which are commonly
+framed only upon common and familiar examples; the other because
+from the wonders of Nature is the nearest intelligence and
+passage towards the wonders of art, for it is no more but by
+following and, as it were, hounding Nature in her wanderings, to
+be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.
+Neither am I of opinion, in this history of marvels, that
+superstitious narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams,
+divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear
+evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded.  For it is not
+yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to
+superstition do participate of natural causes; and, therefore,
+howsoever the practice of such things is to be condemned, yet
+from the speculation and consideration of them light may be
+taken, not only for the discerning of the offences, but for the
+further disclosing of Nature.  Neither ought a man to make
+scruple of entering into these things for inquisition of truth,
+as your Majesty hath showed in your own example, who, with the
+two clear eyes of religion and natural philosophy, have looked
+deeply and wisely into these shadows, and yet proved yourself to
+be of the nature of the sun, which passeth through pollutions and
+itself remains as pure as before.  But this I hold fit, that
+these narrations, which have mixture with superstition, be sorted
+by themselves, and not to be mingled with the narrations which
+are merely and sincerely natural.  But as for the narrations
+touching the prodigies and miracles of religions, they are either
+not true or not natural; and, therefore, impertinent for the
+story of Nature.</p>
+<p>(5) For history of Nature, wrought or mechanical, I find some
+collections made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts; but
+commonly with a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar; for
+it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to
+inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be
+such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtleties;
+which humour of vain and supercilious arrogancy is justly derided
+in Plato, where he brings in Hippias, a vaunting sophist,
+disputing with Socrates, a true and unfeigned inquisitor of
+truth; where, the subject being touching beauty, Socrates, after
+his wandering manner of inductions, put first an example of a
+fair virgin, and then of a fair horse, and then of a fair pot
+well glazed, whereat Hippias was offended, and said, “More
+than for courtesy’s sake, he did think much to dispute with
+any that did allege such base and sordid instances.”
+Whereunto Socrates answereth, “You have reason, and it
+becomes you well, being a man so trim in your vestments,”
+&amp;c., and so goeth on in an irony.  But the truth is,
+they be not the highest instances that give the securest
+information, as may be well expressed in the tale so common of
+the philosopher that, while he gazed upwards to the stars, fell
+into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the
+stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water
+in the stars.  So it cometh often to pass that mean and
+small things discover great, better than great can discover the
+small; and therefore Aristotle noteth well, “That the
+nature of everything is best seen in his smallest
+portions.”  And for that cause he inquireth the nature
+of a commonwealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations
+of man and wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are
+in every cottage.  Even so likewise the nature of this great
+city of the world, and the policy thereof, must be first sought
+in mean concordances and small portions.  So we see how that
+secret of Nature, of the turning of iron touched with the
+loadstone towards the north, was found out in needles of iron,
+not in bars of iron.</p>
+<p>(6) But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of history
+mechanical is of all others the most radical and fundamental
+towards natural philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not
+vanish in the fume of subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation,
+but such as shall be operative to the endowment and benefit of
+man’s life.  For it will not only minister and suggest
+for the present many ingenious practices in all trades, by a
+connection and transferring of the observations of one art to the
+use of another, when the experiences of several mysteries shall
+fall under the consideration of one man’s mind; but
+further, it will give a more true and real illumination
+concerning causes and axioms than is hitherto attained.  For
+like as a man’s disposition is never well known till he be
+crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened
+and held fast; so the passages and variations of nature cannot
+appear so fully in the liberty of nature as in the trials and
+vexations of art.</p>
+<p>II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly
+to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images.
+For of pictures or images we see some are unfinished, some are
+perfect, and some are defaced.  So of histories we may find
+three kinds: memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for
+memorials are history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of
+history; and antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of
+history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.</p>
+<p>(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts;
+whereof the one may be termed commentaries, and the other
+registers.  Commentaries are they which set down a
+continuance of the naked events and actions, without the motives
+or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts, the
+occasions, and other passages of action.  For this is the
+true nature of a commentary (though Cæsar, in modesty mixed
+with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name of a
+commentary to the best history of the world).  Registers are
+collections of public acts, as decrees of council, judicial
+proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and
+the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the
+thread of the narration.</p>
+<p>(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said,
+<i>tanquam tabula naufragii</i>: when industrious persons, by an
+exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments,
+names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and
+evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern
+not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the
+deluge of time.</p>
+<p>(4) In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign no
+deficience, for they are <i>tanquam imperfecte mista</i>; and
+therefore any deficience in them is but their nature.  As
+for the corruptions and moths of history, which are epitomes, the
+use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of sound
+judgment have confessed, as those that have fretted and corroded
+the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them
+into base and unprofitable dregs.</p>
+<p>(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is
+of three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or
+pretendeth to represent: for it either representeth a time, or a
+person, or an action.  The first we call chronicles, the
+second lives, and the third narrations or relations.  Of
+these, although the first be the most complete and absolute kind
+of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the second
+excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and
+sincerity.  For history of times representeth the magnitude
+of actions, and the public faces and deportments of persons, and
+passeth over in silence the smaller passages and motions of men
+and matters.  But such being the workmanship of God, as He
+doth hang the greatest weight upon the smallest wires, <i>maxima
+è minimis</i>, <i>suspendens</i>, it comes therefore to
+pass, that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of
+business than the true and inward resorts thereof.  But
+lives, if they be well written, propounding to themselves a
+person to represent, in whom actions, both greater and smaller,
+public and private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain
+a more true, native, and lively representation.  So again
+narrations and relations of actions, as the war of Peloponnesus,
+the expedition of Cyrus Minor, the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot
+but be more purely and exactly true than histories of times,
+because they may choose an argument comprehensible within the
+notice and instructions of the writer: whereas he that
+undertaketh the story of a time, specially of any length, cannot
+but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must be forced to
+fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.</p>
+<p>(6) For the history of times, I mean of civil history, the
+providence of God hath made the distribution.  For it hath
+pleased God to ordain and illustrate two exemplar states of the
+world for arms, learning, moral virtue, policy, and laws; the
+state of Græcia and the state of Rome; the histories
+whereof occupying the middle part of time, have more ancient to
+them histories which may by one common name be termed the
+antiquities of the world; and after them, histories which may be
+likewise called by the name of modern history.</p>
+<p>(7) Now to speak of the deficiences.  As to the heathen
+antiquities of the world it is in vain to note them for
+deficient.  Deficient they are no doubt, consisting most of
+fables and fragments; but the deficience cannot be holpen; for
+antiquity is like fame, <i>caput inter nubila condit</i>, her
+head is muffled from our sight.  For the history of the
+exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection.  Not but I
+could wish there were a perfect course of history for
+Græcia, from Theseus to Philopœmen (what time the
+affairs of Græcia drowned and extinguished in the affairs
+of Rome), and for Rome from Romulus to Justinianus, who may be
+truly said to be <i>ultimus Romanorum</i>.  In which
+sequences of story the text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the
+one, and the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, Cæsar,
+Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other, to be kept entire,
+without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied and
+continued.  But this is a matter of magnificence, rather to
+be commended than required; and we speak now of parts of learning
+supplemental, and not of supererogation.</p>
+<p>(8) But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very
+worthy, but the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care
+of foreign stories to foreign states, because I will not be
+<i>curiosus in aliena republica</i>, I cannot fail to represent
+to your Majesty the unworthiness of the history of England in the
+main continuance thereof, and the partiality and obliquity of
+that of Scotland in the latest and largest author that I have
+seen: supposing that it would be honour for your Majesty, and a
+work very memorable, if this island of Great Britain, as it is
+now joined in monarchy for the ages to come, so were joined in
+one history for the times passed, after the manner of the sacred
+history, which draweth down the story of the ten tribes and of
+the two tribes as twins together.  And if it shall seem that
+the greatness of this work may make it less exactly performed,
+there is an excellent period of a much smaller compass of time,
+as to the story of England; that is to say, from the uniting of
+the Roses to the uniting of the kingdoms; a portion of time
+wherein, to my understanding, there hath been the rarest
+varieties that in like number of successions of any hereditary
+monarchy hath been known.  For it beginneth with the mixed
+adoption of a crown by arms and title; an entry by battle, an
+establishment by marriage; and therefore times answerable, like
+waters after a tempest, full of working and swelling, though
+without extremity of storm; but well passed through by the wisdom
+of the pilot, being one of the most sufficient kings of all the
+number.  Then followeth the reign of a king, whose actions,
+howsoever conducted, had much intermixture with the affairs of
+Europe, balancing and inclining them variably; in whose time also
+began that great alteration in the state ecclesiastical, an
+action which seldom cometh upon the stage.  Then the reign
+of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it was but as
+<i>febris ephemera</i>).  Then the reign of a queen matched
+with a foreigner; then of a queen that lived solitary and
+unmarried, and yet her government so masculine, as it had greater
+impression and operation upon the states abroad than it any ways
+received from thence.  And now last, this most happy and
+glorious event, that this island of Britain, divided from all the
+world, should be united in itself, and that oracle of rest given
+to ÆNeas, <i>antiquam exquirite matrem</i>, should now be
+performed and fulfilled upon the nations of England and Scotland,
+being now reunited in the ancient mother name of Britain, as a
+full period of all instability and peregrinations.  So that
+as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that they have certain
+trepidations and waverings before they fix and settle, so it
+seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it
+was to settle in your majesty and your generations (in which I
+hope it is now established for ever), it had these prelusive
+changes and varieties.</p>
+<p>(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so
+little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writings of
+lives should be no more frequent.  For although there be not
+many sovereign princes or absolute commanders, and that states
+are most collected into monarchies, yet are there many worthy
+personages that deserve better than dispersed report or barren
+eulogies.  For herein the invention of one of the late poets
+is proper, and doth well enrich the ancient fiction.  For he
+feigneth that at the end of the thread or web of every
+man’s life there was a little medal containing the
+person’s name, and that Time waited upon the shears, and as
+soon as the thread was cut caught the medals, and carried them to
+the river of Lathe; and about the bank there were many birds
+flying up and down, that would get the medals and carry them in
+their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the
+river.  Only there were a few swans, which if they got a
+name would carry it to a temple where it was consecrate.
+And although many men, more mortal in their affections than in
+their bodies, do esteem desire of name and memory but as a vanity
+and ventosity,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Animi nil magnæ laudis
+egentes;”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>which opinion cometh from that root, <i>Non prius laudes
+contempsimus</i>, <i>quam laudanda facere desivimus</i>: yet that
+will not alter Solomon’s judgment, <i>Memoria justi cum
+laudibus</i>, <i>at impiorum nomen putrescet</i>: the one
+flourisheth, the other either consumeth to present oblivion, or
+turneth to an ill odour.  And therefore in that style or
+addition, which is and hath been long well received and brought
+in use, <i>felicis memoriæ</i>, <i>piæ
+memoriæ</i>, <i>bonæ memoriæ</i>, we do
+acknowledge that which Cicero saith, borrowing it from
+Demosthenes, that <i>bona fama propria possessio defunctorum</i>;
+which possession I cannot but note that in our times it lieth
+much waste, and that therein there is a deficience.</p>
+<p>(10) For narrations and relations of particular actions, there
+were also to be wished a greater diligence therein; for there is
+no great action but hath some good pen which attends it.
+And because it is an ability not common to write a good history,
+as may well appear by the small number of them; yet if
+particularity of actions memorable were but tolerably reported as
+they pass, the compiling of a complete history of times might be
+the better expected, when a writer should arise that were fit for
+it: for the collection of such relations might be as a nursery
+garden, whereby to plant a fair and stately garden when time
+should serve.</p>
+<p>(11) There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius
+Tacitus maketh, which is not to be forgotten, specially with that
+application which he accoupleth it withal, annals and journals:
+appropriating to the former matters of estate, and to the latter
+acts and accidents of a meaner nature.  For giving but a
+touch of certain magnificent buildings, he addeth, <i>Cum ex
+dignitate populi Romani repertum sit</i>, <i>res illustres
+annalibus</i>, <i>talia diurnis urbis actis mandare</i>.  So
+as there is a kind of contemplative heraldry, as well as
+civil.  And as nothing doth derogate from the dignity of a
+state more than confusion of degrees, so it doth not a little
+imbase the authority of a history to intermingle matters of
+triumph, or matters of ceremony, or matters of novelty, with
+matters of state.  But the use of a journal hath not only
+been in the history of time, but likewise in the history of
+persons, and chiefly of actions; for princes in ancient time had,
+upon point of honour and policy both, journals kept, what passed
+day by day.  For we see the chronicle which was read before
+Ahasuerus, when he could not take rest, contained matter of
+affairs, indeed, but such as had passed in his own time and very
+lately before.  But the journal of Alexander’s house
+expressed every small particularity, even concerning his person
+and court; and it is yet a use well received in enterprises
+memorable, as expeditions of war, navigations, and the like, to
+keep diaries of that which passeth continually.</p>
+<p>(12) I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing which
+some grave and wise men have used, containing a scattered history
+of those actions which they have thought worthy of memory, with
+politic discourse and observation thereupon: not incorporate into
+the history, but separately, and as the more principal in their
+intention; which kind of ruminated history I think more fit to
+place amongst books of policy, whereof we shall hereafter speak,
+than amongst books of history.  For it is the true office of
+history to represent the events themselves together with the
+counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon
+to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgment.
+But mixtures are things irregular, whereof no man can define.</p>
+<p>(13) So also is there another kind of history manifoldly
+mixed, and that is history of cosmography: being compounded of
+natural history, in respect of the regions themselves; of history
+civil, in respect of the habitations, regiments, and manners of
+the people; and the mathematics, in respect of the climates and
+configurations towards the heavens: which part of learning of all
+others in this latter time hath obtained most proficience.
+For it may be truly affirmed to the honour of these times, and in
+a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of
+the world had never through-lights made in it, till the age of us
+and our fathers.  For although they had knowledge of the
+antipodes,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit
+anhelis,<br />
+Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper,”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>yet that might be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by
+travel, it requireth the voyage but of half the globe.  But
+to circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor
+enterprised till these later times: and therefore these times may
+justly bear in their word, not only <i>plus ultra</i>, in
+precedence of the ancient <i>non ultra</i>, and <i>imitabile
+fulmen</i>, in precedence of the ancient <i>non imitabile
+fulmen</i>,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Demens qui nimbos et non imitabile
+fulmen,” &amp;c.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>but likewise <i>imitabile cælum</i>; in respect of the
+many memorable voyages after the manner of heaven about the globe
+of the earth.</p>
+<p>(14) And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may
+plant also an expectation of the further proficience and
+augmentation of all sciences; because it may seem they are
+ordained by God to be coevals, that is, to meet in one age.
+For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times
+foretelleth, <i>Plurimi pertransibunt</i>, <i>et multiplex erit
+scientia</i>: as if the openness and through-passage of the world
+and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the same
+ages; as we see it is already performed in great part: the
+learning of these later times not much giving place to the former
+two periods or returns of learning, the one of the Grecians, the
+other of the Romans.</p>
+<p>III. (1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions
+with history civil: but further in the propriety thereof may be
+divided into the history of the Church, by a general name;
+history of prophecy; and history of providence.  The first
+describeth the times of the militant Church, whether it be
+fluctuant, as the ark of Noah, or movable, as the ark in the
+wilderness, or at rest, as the ark in the Temple: that is, the
+state of the Church in persecution, in remove, and in
+peace.  This part I ought in no sort to note as deficient;
+only I would that the virtue and sincerity of it were according
+to the mass and quantity.  But I am not now in hand with
+censures, but with omissions.</p>
+<p>(2) The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of
+two relatives—the prophecy and the accomplishment; and,
+therefore, the nature of such a work ought to be, that every
+prophecy of the Scripture be sorted with the event fulfilling the
+same throughout the ages of the world, both for the better
+confirmation of faith and for the better illumination of the
+Church touching those parts of prophecies which are yet
+unfulfilled: allowing, nevertheless, that latitude which is
+agreeable and familiar unto divine prophecies, being of the
+nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one
+day, and therefore are not fulfilled punctually at once, but have
+springing and germinant accomplishment throughout many ages,
+though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one
+age.  This is a work which I find deficient, but is to be
+done with wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.</p>
+<p>(3) The third, which is history of Providence, containeth that
+excellent correspondence which is between God’s revealed
+will and His secret will; which though it be so obscure, as for
+the most part it is not legible to the natural man—no, nor
+many times to those that behold it from the tabernacle—yet,
+at some times it pleaseth God, for our better establishment and
+the confuting of those which are as without God in the world, to
+write it in such text and capital letters, that, as the prophet
+saith, “He that runneth by may read it”—that
+is, mere sensual persons, which hasten by God’s judgments,
+and never bend or fix their cogitations upon them, are
+nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern it.
+Such are the notable events and examples of God’s
+judgments, chastisements, deliverances, and blessings; and this
+is a work which has passed through the labour of many, and
+therefore I cannot present as omitted.</p>
+<p>(4) There are also other parts of learning which are
+appendices to history.  For all the exterior proceedings of
+man consist of words and deeds, whereof history doth properly
+receive and retain in memory the deeds; and if words, yet but as
+inducements and passages to deeds; so are there other books and
+writings which are appropriate to the custody and receipt of
+words only, which likewise are of three sorts—orations,
+letters, and brief speeches or sayings.  Orations are
+pleadings, speeches of counsel, laudatives, invectives,
+apologies, reprehensions, orations of formality or ceremony, and
+the like.  Letters are according to all the variety of
+occasions, advertisements, advises, directions, propositions,
+petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of
+compliment, of pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of
+action.  And such as are written from wise men, are of all
+the words of man, in my judgment, the best; for they are more
+natural than orations and public speeches, and more advised than
+conferences or present speeches.  So again letters of
+affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them, are of
+all others the best instructions for history, and to a diligent
+reader the best histories in themselves.  For apophthegms,
+it is a great loss of that book of Cæsar’s; for as
+his history, and those few letters of his which we have, and
+those apophthegms which were of his own, excel all men’s
+else, so I suppose would his collection of apophthegms have done;
+for as for those which are collected by others, either I have no
+taste in such matters or else their choice hath not been
+happy.  But upon these three kinds of writings I do not
+insist, because I have no deficiences to propound concerning
+them.</p>
+<p>(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that part
+of learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or
+offices of the mind of man, which is that of the memory.</p>
+<p>IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for
+the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely
+licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination; which, being
+not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which
+nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined, and
+so make unlawful matches and divorces of
+things—<i>Pictoribus atque poetis</i>, &amp;c.  It is
+taken in two senses in respect of words or matter.  In the
+first sense, it is but a character of style, and belongeth to
+arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the present.  In
+the latter, it is—as hath been said—one of the
+principal portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned
+history, which may be styled as well in prose as in verse.</p>
+<p>(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some
+shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein
+the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion
+inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to
+the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness,
+and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of
+things.  Therefore, because the acts or events of true
+history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man,
+poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.
+Because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of
+actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice,
+therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more
+according to revealed Providence.  Because true history
+representeth actions and events more ordinary and less
+interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and
+more unexpected and alternative variations.  So as it
+appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity,
+morality and to delectation.  And therefore, it was ever
+thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth
+raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to
+the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the
+mind unto the nature of things.  And we see that by these
+insinuations and congruities with man’s nature and
+pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it hath with
+music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times and
+barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded.</p>
+<p>(3) The division of poesy which is aptest in the propriety
+thereof (besides those divisions which are common unto it with
+history, as feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices
+of history, as feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest)
+is into poesy narrative, representative, and allusive.  The
+narrative is a mere imitation of history, with the excesses
+before remembered, choosing for subjects commonly wars and love,
+rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or mirth.
+Representative is as a visible history, and is an image of
+actions as if they were present, as history is of actions in
+nature as they are (that is) past.  Allusive, or
+parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some special
+purpose or conceit; which latter kind of parabolical wisdom was
+much more in use in the ancient times, as by the fables of
+Æsop, and the brief sentences of the seven, and the use of
+hieroglyphics may appear.  And the cause was (for that it
+was then of necessity to express any point of reason which was
+more sharp or subtle than the vulgar in that manner) because men
+in those times wanted both variety of examples and subtlety of
+conceit.  And as hieroglyphics were before letters, so
+parables were before arguments; and nevertheless now and at all
+times they do retain much life and rigour, because reason cannot
+be so sensible nor examples so fit.</p>
+<p>(4) But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical,
+opposite to that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to
+demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and
+this other to retire and obscure it—that is, when the
+secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, or philosophy, are
+involved in fables or parables.  Of this in divine poesy we
+see the use is authorised.  In heathen poesy we see the
+exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity:
+as in the fable that the giants being overthrown in their war
+against the gods, the earth their mother in revenge thereof
+brought forth Fame:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Illam terra parens, ira irritat Deorum,<br />
+Extremam, ut perhibent, Cœo Enceladoque soroem,<br />
+Progenuit.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed
+actual and open rebels, then the malignity of people (which is
+the mother of rebellion) doth bring forth libels and slanders,
+and taxations of the states, which is of the same kind with
+rebellion but more feminine.  So in the fable that the rest
+of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called
+Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid: expounded that
+monarchies need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by
+mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the
+people, who will be sure to come in on their side.  So in
+the fable that Achilles was brought up under Chiron, the centaur,
+who was part a man and part a beast, expounded ingeniously but
+corruptly by Machiavel, that it belongeth to the education and
+discipline of princes to know as well how to play the part of a
+lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue
+and justice.  Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I
+do rather think that the fable was first, and the exposition
+devised, than that the moral was first, and thereupon the fable
+framed; for I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that
+troubled himself with great contention to fasten the assertions
+of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets; but yet
+that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure
+and not figure, I interpose no opinion.  Surely of these
+poets which are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding
+he was made a kind of scripture by the later schools of the
+Grecians), yet I should without any difficulty pronounce that his
+fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning.  But what
+they might have upon a more original tradition is not easy to
+affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of them.</p>
+<p>(5) In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can
+report no deficience; for being as a plant that cometh of the
+lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and
+spread abroad more than any other kind.  But to ascribe unto
+it that which is due, for the expressing of affections, passions,
+corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to poets more than to
+the philosophers’ works; and for wit and eloquence, not
+much less than to orators’ harangues.  But it is not
+good to stay too long in the theatre.  Let us now pass on to
+the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to
+approach and view with more reverence and attention.</p>
+<p>V. (1) The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending
+from above, and some springing from beneath: the one informed by
+the light of nature, the other inspired by divine
+revelation.  The light of nature consisteth in the notions
+of the mind and the reports of the senses; for as for knowledge
+which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not
+original, as in a water that besides his own spring-head is fed
+with other springs and streams.  So then, according to these
+two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of
+all divided into divinity and philosophy.</p>
+<p>(2) In philosophy the contemplations of man do either
+penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to nature, or are
+reflected or reverted upon himself.  Out of which several
+inquiries there do arise three knowledges—divine
+philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy or
+humanity.  For all things are marked and stamped with this
+triple character—the power of God, the difference of nature
+and the use of man.  But because the distributions and
+partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in
+one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of
+a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity
+of entireness and continuance before it come to discontinue and
+break itself into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, before
+we enter into the former distribution, to erect and constitute
+one universal science, by the name of <i>philosophia prima</i>,
+primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way,
+before we come where the ways part and divide themselves; which
+science whether I should report as deficient or no, I stand
+doubtful.  For I find a certain rhapsody of natural
+theology, and of divers parts of logic; and of that part of
+natural philosophy which concerneth the principles, and of that
+other part of natural philosophy which concerneth the soul or
+spirit—all these strangely commixed and confused; but being
+examined, it seemeth to me rather a depredation of other
+sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms, than
+anything solid or substantive of itself.  Nevertheless I
+cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is current, that the
+same things are handled but in several respects.  As for
+example, that logic considereth of many things as they are in
+notion, and this philosophy as they are in nature—the one
+in appearance, the other in existence; but I find this difference
+better made than pursued.  For if they had considered
+quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest of those extern
+characters of things, as philosophers, and in nature, their
+inquiries must of force have been of a far other kind than they
+are.  For doth any of them, in handling quantity, speak of
+the force of union, how and how far it multiplieth virtue?
+Doth any give the reason why some things in nature are so common,
+and in so great mass, and others so rare, and in so small
+quantity?  Doth any, in handling similitude and diversity,
+assign the cause why iron should not move to iron, which is more
+like, but move to the loadstone, which is less like?  Why in
+all diversities of things there should be certain participles in
+nature which are almost ambiguous to which kind they should be
+referred?  But there is a mere and deep silence touching the
+nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in
+nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of
+them in speech or argument.  Therefore, because in a writing
+of this nature I avoid all subtlety, my meaning touching this
+original or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross
+description by negative: “That it be a receptacle for all
+such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the
+compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences,
+but are more common and of a higher stage.”</p>
+<p>(3) Now that there are many of that kind need not be
+doubted.  For example: Is not the rule, <i>Si
+inœqualibus æqualia addas</i>, <i>omnia erunt
+inæqualia</i>, an axiom as well of justice as of the
+mathematics? and is there not a true coincidence between
+commutative and distributive justice, and arithmetical and
+geometrical proportion?  Is not that other rule,
+<i>Quæ in eodem tertio conveniunt</i>, <i>et inter se
+conveniunt</i>, a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent
+in logic as all syllogisms are built upon it?  Is not the
+observation, <i>Omnia mutantur</i>, <i>nil interit</i>, a
+contemplation in philosophy thus, that the <i>quantum</i> of
+nature is eternal? in natural theology thus, that it requireth
+the same omnipotency to make somewhat nothing, which at the first
+made nothing somewhat? according to the Scripture, <i>Didici quod
+omnia opera</i>, <i>quœ fecit Deus</i>, <i>perseverent in
+perpetuum</i>; <i>non possumus eis quicquam addere nec
+auferre</i>.  Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and
+largely discourseth concerning governments, that the way to
+establish and preserve them is to reduce them <i>ad
+principia</i>—a rule in religion and nature, as well as in
+civil administration?  Was not the Persian magic a reduction
+or correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature
+to the rules and policy of governments?  Is not the precept
+of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a
+concord or sweet accord, alike true in affection?  Is not
+the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence,
+common with the trope of rhetoric of deceiving expectation?
+Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same
+with the playing of light upon the water?</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Splendet tremulo sub lumine
+pontus.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs
+of reflection, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or
+strait, determined and bounded?  Neither are these only
+similitudes, as men of narrow observation may conceive them to
+be, but the same footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon
+several subjects or matters.  This science therefore (as I
+understand it) I may justly report as deficient; for I see
+sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling some
+particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water out
+of this well for their present use; but the spring-head thereof
+seemeth to me not to have been visited, being of so excellent use
+both for the disclosing of nature and the abridgment of art.</p>
+<p>VI. (1) This science being therefore first placed as a common
+parent like unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue,
+<i>omnes cœlicolas</i>, <i>omnes supera alta tenetes</i>;
+we may return to the former distribution of the three
+philosophies—divine, natural, and human.  And as
+concerning divine philosophy or natural theology, it is that
+knowledge or rudiment of knowledge concerning God which may be
+obtained by the contemplation of His creatures; which knowledge
+may be truly termed divine in respect of the object, and natural
+in respect of the light.  The bounds of this knowledge are,
+that it sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform
+religion; and therefore there was never miracle wrought by God to
+convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led
+him to confess a God; but miracles have been wrought to convert
+idolaters and the superstitious, because no light of nature
+extendeth to declare the will and true worship of God.  For
+as all works do show forth the power and skill of the workman,
+and not his image, so it is of the works of God, which do show
+the omnipotency and wisdom of the Maker, but not His image.
+And therefore therein the heathen opinion differeth from the
+sacred truth: for they supposed the world to be the image of God,
+and man to be an extract or compendious image of the world; but
+the Scriptures never vouchsafe to attribute to the world that
+honour, as to be the image of God, but only <i>the work of His
+hands</i>; neither do they speak of any other image of God but
+man.  Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to induce and
+enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to demonstrate His power,
+providence, and goodness, is an excellent argument, and hath been
+excellently handled by divers, but on the other side, out of the
+contemplation of nature, or ground of human knowledges, to induce
+any verity or persuasion concerning the points of faith, is in my
+judgment not safe; <i>Da fidei quæ fidei sunt</i>.
+For the heathen themselves conclude as much in that excellent and
+divine fable of the golden chain, “That men and gods were
+not able to draw Jupiter down to the earth; but, contrariwise,
+Jupiter was able to draw them up to heaven.”  So as we
+ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God
+to our reason, but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason
+to the divine truth.  So as in this part of knowledge,
+touching divine philosophy, I am so far from noting any
+deficience, as I rather note an excess; whereunto I have
+digressed because of the extreme prejudice which both religion
+and philosophy hath received and may receive by being commixed
+together; as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical
+religion, and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy.</p>
+<p>(2) Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, which
+is an appendix of theology, both divine and natural, and is
+neither inscrutable nor interdicted.  For although the
+Scripture saith, “Let no man deceive you in sublime
+discourse touching the worship of angels, pressing into that he
+knoweth not,” &amp;c., yet notwithstanding if you observe
+well that precept, it may appear thereby that there be two things
+only forbidden—adoration of them, and opinion fantastical
+of them, either to extol them further than appertaineth to the
+degree of a creature, or to extol a man’s knowledge of them
+further than he hath ground.  But the sober and grounded
+inquiry, which may arise out of the passages of Holy Scriptures,
+or out of the gradations of nature, is not restrained.  So
+of degenerate and revolted spirits, the conversing with them or
+the employment of them is prohibited, much more any veneration
+towards them; but the contemplation or science of their nature,
+their power, their illusions, either by Scripture or reason, is a
+part of spiritual wisdom.  For so the apostle saith,
+“We are not ignorant of his stratagems.”  And it
+is no more unlawful to inquire the nature of evil spirits, than
+to inquire the force of poisons in nature, or the nature of sin
+and vice in morality.  But this part touching angels and
+spirits I cannot note as deficient, for many have occupied
+themselves in it; I may rather challenge it, in many of the
+writers thereof, as fabulous and fantastical.</p>
+<p>VII. (1) Leaving therefore divine philosophy or natural
+theology (not divinity or inspired theology, which we reserve for
+the last of all as the haven and sabbath of all man’s
+contemplations) we will now proceed to natural philosophy.
+If then it be true that Democritus said, “That the truth of
+nature lieth hid in certain deep mines and caves;” and if
+it be true likewise that the alchemists do so much inculcate,
+that Vulcan is a second nature, and imitateth that dexterously
+and compendiously, which nature worketh by ambages and length of
+time, it were good to divide natural philosophy into the mine and
+the furnace, and to make two professions or occupations of
+natural philosophers—some to be pioneers and some smiths;
+some to dig, and some to refine and hammer.  And surely I do
+best allow of a division of that kind, though in more familiar
+and scholastical terms: namely, that these be the two parts of
+natural philosophy—the inquisition of causes, and the
+production of effects; speculative and operative; natural
+science, and natural prudence.  For as in civil matters
+there is a wisdom of discourse, and a wisdom of direction; so is
+it in natural.  And here I will make a request, that for the
+latter (or at least for a part thereof) I may revive and
+reintegrate the misapplied and abused name of natural magic,
+which in the true sense is but natural wisdom, or natural
+prudence; taken according to the ancient acception, purged from
+vanity and superstition.  Now although it be true, and I
+know it well, that there is an intercourse between causes and
+effects, so as both these knowledges, speculative and operative,
+have a great connection between themselves; yet because all true
+and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder,
+ascendent and descendent, ascending from experiments to the
+invention of causes, and descending from causes to the invention
+of new experiments; therefore I judge it most requisite that
+these two parts be severally considered and handled.</p>
+<p>(2) Natural science or theory is divided into physic and
+metaphysic; wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the
+word metaphysic in a differing sense from that that is
+received.  And in like manner, I doubt not but it will
+easily appear to men of judgment, that in this and other
+particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from
+the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms.
+For hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by the order
+and perspicuous expressing of that I do propound, I am otherwise
+zealous and affectionate to recede as little from antiquity,
+either in terms or opinions, as may stand with truth and the
+proficience of knowledge.  And herein I cannot a little
+marvel at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed in such a
+spirit of difference and contradiction towards all antiquity;
+undertaking not only to frame new words of science at pleasure,
+but to confound and extinguish all ancient wisdom; insomuch as he
+never nameth or mentioneth an ancient author or opinion, but to
+confute and reprove; wherein for glory, and drawing followers and
+disciples, he took the right course.  For certainly there
+cometh to pass, and hath place in human truth, that which was
+noted and pronounced in the highest truth:—<i>Veni in
+nomine partis</i>, <i>nec recipits me</i>; <i>si quis venerit in
+nomine suo eum recipietis</i>.  But in this divine aphorism
+(considering to whom it was applied, namely, to antichrist, the
+highest deceiver), we may discern well that the coming in a
+man’s own name, without regard of antiquity or paternity,
+is no good sign of truth, although it be joined with the fortune
+and success of an <i>eum recipietis</i>.  But for this
+excellent person Aristotle, I will think of him that he learned
+that humour of his scholar, with whom it seemeth he did emulate;
+the one to conquer all opinions, as the other to conquer all
+nations.  Wherein, nevertheless, it may be, he may at some
+men’s hands, that are of a bitter disposition, get a like
+title as his scholar did:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Felix terrarum prædo, non utile
+mundo<br />
+Editus exemplum, &amp;c.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Felix doctrinæ
+prædo.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth
+in my pen to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and
+proficience, it seemeth best to keep way with antiquity <i>usque
+ad aras</i>; and, therefore, to retain the ancient terms, though
+I sometimes alter the uses and definitions, according to the
+moderate proceeding in civil government; where, although there be
+some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus wisely noteth,
+<i>eadem magistratuum vocabula</i>.</p>
+<p>(3) To return, therefore, to the use and acception of the term
+metaphysic as I do now understand the word; it appeareth, by that
+which hath been already said, that I intend <i>philosophia
+prima</i>, summary philosophy and metaphysic, which heretofore
+have been confounded as one, to be two distinct things.  For
+the one I have made as a parent or common ancestor to all
+knowledge; and the other I have now brought in as a branch or
+descendant of natural science.  It appeareth likewise that I
+have assigned to summary philosophy the common principles and
+axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent to several sciences;
+I have assigned unto it likewise the inquiry touching the
+operation or the relative and adventive characters of essences,
+as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility, and the rest,
+with this distinction and provision; that they be handled as they
+have efficacy in nature, and not logically.  It appeareth
+likewise that natural theology, which heretofore hath been
+handled confusedly with metaphysic, I have enclosed and bounded
+by itself.  It is therefore now a question what is left
+remaining for metaphysic; wherein I may without prejudice
+preserve thus much of the conceit of antiquity, that physic
+should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and
+therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and
+fixed.  And again, that physic should handle that which
+supposeth in nature only a being and moving; and metaphysic
+should handle that which supposeth further in nature a reason,
+understanding, and platform.  But the difference,
+perspicuously expressed, is most familiar and sensible.  For
+as we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of
+causes and productions of effects, so that part which concerneth
+the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received
+and sound division of causes.  The one part, which is
+physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes;
+and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final
+causes.</p>
+<p>(4) Physic (taking it according to the derivation, and not
+according to our idiom for medicine) is situate in a middle term
+or distance between natural history and metaphysic.  For
+natural history describeth the variety of things; physic the
+causes, but variable or respective causes; and metaphysic the
+fixed and constant causes.</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera
+liquescit,<br />
+Uno eodemque igni.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire
+is the cause of colliquation, but respective to wax.  But
+fire is no constant cause either of induration or colliquation;
+so then the physical causes are but the efficient and the
+matter.  Physic hath three parts, whereof two respect nature
+united or collected, the third contemplateth nature diffused or
+distributed.  Nature is collected either into one entire
+total, or else into the same principles or seeds.  So as the
+first doctrine is touching the contexture or configuration of
+things, as <i>de mundo</i>, <i>de universitate rerum</i>.
+The second is the doctrine concerning the principles or originals
+of things.  The third is the doctrine concerning all variety
+and particularity of things; whether it be of the differing
+substances, or their differing qualities and natures; whereof
+there needeth no enumeration, this part being but as a gloss or
+paraphrase that attendeth upon the text of natural history.
+Of these three I cannot report any as deficient.  In what
+truth or perfection they are handled, I make not now any
+judgment; but they are parts of knowledge not deserted by the
+labour of man.</p>
+<p>(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of
+formal and final causes; which assignation, as to the former of
+them, may seem to be nugatory and void, because of the received
+and inveterate opinion, that the inquisition of man is not
+competent to find out essential forms or true differences; of
+which opinion we will take this hold, that the invention of forms
+is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if
+it be possible to be found.  As for the possibility, they
+are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can
+see nothing but sea.  But it is manifest that Plato, in his
+opinion of ideas, as one that had a wit of elevation situate as
+upon a cliff, did descry that forms were the true object of
+knowledge; but lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering
+of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined
+and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion upon
+theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected.
+But if any man shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye
+upon action, operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise
+and take notice what are the forms, the disclosures whereof are
+fruitful and important to the state of man.  For as to the
+forms of substances (man only except, of whom it is said,
+<i>Formavit hominem de limo terræ</i>, <i>et spiravit in
+faciem ejus spiraculum vitæ</i>, and not as of all other
+creatures, <i>Producant aquæ</i>, <i>producat terra</i>),
+the forms of substances I say (as they are now by compounding and
+transplanting multiplied) are so perplexed, as they are not to be
+inquired; no more than it were either possible or to purpose to
+seek in gross the forms of those sounds which make words, which
+by composition and transposition of letters are infinite.
+But, on the other side, to inquire the form of those sounds or
+voices which make simple letters is easily comprehensible; and
+being known induceth and manifesteth the forms of all words,
+which consist and are compounded of them.  In the same
+manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of gold; nay, of
+water, of air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the forms of
+sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity
+and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all
+other natures and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not
+many, and of which the essences (upheld by matter) of all
+creatures do consist; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these,
+is that part of metaphysic which we now define of.  Not but
+that physic doth make inquiry and take consideration of the same
+natures; but how?  Only as to the material and efficient
+causes of them, and not as to the forms.  For example, if
+the cause of whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it be
+rendered thus, that the subtle intermixture of air and water is
+the cause, it is well rendered; but, nevertheless, is this the
+form of whiteness?  No; but it is the efficient, which is
+ever but <i>vehiculum formæ</i>.  This part of
+metaphysic I do not find laboured and performed; whereat I marvel
+not; because I hold it not possible to be invented by that course
+of invention which hath been used; in regard that men (which is
+the root of all error) have made too untimely a departure, and
+too remote a recess from particulars.</p>
+<p>(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as
+deficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects: the
+one, because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to
+abridge the infinity of individual experience, as much as the
+conception of truth will permit, and to remedy the complaint of
+<i>vita brevis</i>, <i>ars longa</i>; which is performed by
+uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences.  For
+knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis.
+So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage
+next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is
+metaphysic.  As for the vertical point, <i>opus quod
+operatur Deus à principio usque ad finem</i>, the summary
+law of nature, we know not whether man’s inquiry can attain
+unto it.  But these three be the true stages of knowledge,
+and are to them that are depraved no better than the
+giants’ hills:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,<br />
+Scilicet atque Ossæ frondsum involvere Olympum.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they
+are as the three acclamations, <i>Sante</i>, <i>sancte</i>,
+<i>sancte</i>! holy in the description or dilatation of His
+works; holy in the connection or concatenation of them; and holy
+in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law.  And,
+therefore, the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato,
+although but a speculation in them, that all things by scale did
+ascend to unity.  So then always that knowledge is worthiest
+which is charged with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be
+metaphysic; as that which considereth the simple forms or
+differences of things, which are few in number, and the degrees
+and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety.  The
+second respect, which valueth and commendeth this part of
+metaphysic, is that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the
+greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects.  For
+physic carrieth men in narrow and restrained ways, subject to
+many accidents and impediments, imitating the ordinary flexuous
+courses of nature.  But <i>latæ undique sunt
+sapientibus viæ</i>; to sapience (which was anciently
+defined to be <i>rerum divinarum et humanarum scientia</i>) there
+is ever a choice of means.  For physical causes give light
+to new invention in <i>simili materia</i>.  But whosoever
+knoweth any form, knoweth the utmost possibility of superinducing
+that nature upon any variety of matter; and so is less restrained
+in operation, either to the basis of the matter, or the condition
+of the efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise,
+though in a more divine sense, elegantly describeth: <i>non
+arctabuntur gressus tui</i>, <i>et currens non habebis
+offendiculum</i>.  The ways of sapience are not much liable
+either to particularity or chance.</p>
+<p>(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final
+causes, which I am moved to report not as omitted, but as
+misplaced.  And yet if it were but a fault in order, I would
+not speak of it; for order is matter of illustration, but
+pertaineth not to the substance of sciences.  But this
+misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great
+improficience in the sciences themselves.  For the handling
+of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath
+intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and
+physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these
+satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and
+prejudice of further discovery.  For this I find done not
+only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by
+Aristotle, Galen, and others which do usually likewise fall upon
+these flats of discoursing causes.  For to say that
+“the hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence
+about the sight;” or that “the firmness of the skins
+and hides of living creatures is to defend them from the
+extremities of heat or cold;” or that “the bones are
+for the columns or beams, whereupon the frames of the bodies of
+living creatures are built;” or that “the leaves of
+trees are for protecting of the fruit;” or that “the
+clouds are for watering of the earth;” or that “the
+solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living
+creatures;” and the like, is well inquired and collected in
+metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent.  Nay, they
+are, indeed, but <i>remoras</i> and hindrances to stay and slug
+the ship from further sailing; and have brought this to pass,
+that the search of the physical causes hath been neglected and
+passed in silence.  And, therefore, the natural philosophy
+of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind or
+reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof
+able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of Nature,
+which they term fortune, seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by
+the recital and fragments which remain unto us) in
+particularities of physical causes more real and better inquired
+than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled final
+causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part of
+logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both
+those persons; not because those final causes are not true and
+worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province, but
+because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath
+bred a vastness and solitude in that tract.  For otherwise,
+keeping their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived
+if they think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between
+them.  For the cause rendered, that “the hairs about
+the eyelids are for the safeguard of the sight,” doth not
+impugn the cause rendered, that “pilosity is incident to
+orifices of moisture—<i>muscosi fontes</i>,
+&amp;c.”  Nor the cause rendered, that “the
+firmness of hides is for the armour of the body against
+extremities of heat or cold,” doth not impugn the cause
+rendered, that “contraction of pores is incident to the
+outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or
+unlike bodies;” and so of the rest, both causes being true
+and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a
+consequence only.  Neither doth this call in question or
+derogate from Divine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt
+it.  For as in civil actions he is the greater and deeper
+politique that can make other men the instruments of his will and
+ends, and yet never acquaint them with his purpose, so as they
+shall do it and yet not know what they do, than he that imparteth
+his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of God more
+admirable, when Nature intendeth one thing and Providence draweth
+forth another, than if He had communicated to particular
+creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His
+Providence.  And thus much for metaphysic; the latter part
+whereof I allow as extant, but wish it confined to his proper
+place.</p>
+<p>VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of
+natural philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and
+holdeth rank with physic special and metaphysic, which is
+mathematic; but I think it more agreeable to the nature of
+things, and to the light of order, to place it as a branch of
+metaphysic.  For the subject of it being quantity, not
+quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth to
+<i>philosophia prima</i> (as hath been said), but quantity
+determined or proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the
+essential forms of things, as that that is causative in Nature of
+a number of effects; insomuch as we see in the schools both of
+Democritus and of Pythagoras that the one did ascribe figure to
+the first seeds of things, and the other did suppose numbers to
+be the principles and originals of things.  And it is true
+also that of all other forms (as we understand forms) it is the
+most abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore most
+proper to metaphysic; which hath likewise been the cause why it
+hath been better laboured and inquired than any of the other
+forms, which are more immersed in matter.  For it being the
+nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge)
+to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a
+champaign region, and not in the inclosures of particularity, the
+mathematics of all other knowledge were the goodliest fields to
+satisfy that appetite.  But for the placing of this science,
+it is not much material: only we have endeavoured in these our
+partitions to observe a kind of perspective, that one part may
+cast light upon another.</p>
+<p>(2) The mathematics are either pure or mixed.  To the
+pure mathematics are those sciences belonging which handle
+quantity determinate, merely severed from any axioms of natural
+philosophy; and these are two, geometry and arithmetic, the one
+handling quantity continued, and the other dissevered.
+Mixed hath for subject some axioms or parts of natural
+philosophy, and considereth quantity determined, as it is
+auxiliary and incident unto them.  For many parts of Nature
+can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor
+demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto
+use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of
+the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy,
+cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.  In
+the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men
+do not sufficiently understand this excellent use of the pure
+mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the
+wit and faculties intellectual.  For if the wit be too dull,
+they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent
+in the sense, they abstract it.  So that as tennis is a game
+of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a
+quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all postures, so in
+the mathematics that use which is collateral and intervenient is
+no less worthy than that which is principal and intended.
+And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only make this
+prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them as
+Nature grows further disclosed.  Thus much of natural
+science, or the part of Nature speculative.</p>
+<p>(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural
+philosophy, we will divide it into three
+parts—experimental, philosophical, and magical; which three
+parts active have a correspondence and analogy with the three
+parts speculative, natural history, physic, and metaphysic.
+For many operations have been invented, sometimes by a casual
+incidence and occurrence, sometimes by a purposed experiment; and
+of those which have been found by an intentional experiment, some
+have been found out by varying or extending the same experiment,
+some by transferring and compounding divers experiments the one
+into the other, which kind of invention an empiric may
+manage.  Again, by the knowledge of physical causes there
+cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of new
+particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon
+use and practice.  But these are but coastings along the
+shore, <i>premendo littus iniquum</i>; for it seemeth to me there
+can hardly be discovered any radical or fundamental alterations
+and innovations in Nature, either by the fortune and essays of
+experiments, or by the light and direction of physical
+causes.  If, therefore, we have reported metaphysic
+deficient, it must follow that we do the like of natural magic,
+which hath relation thereunto.  For as for the natural magic
+whereof now there is mention in books, containing certain
+credulous and superstitious conceits and observations of
+sympathies and antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and some
+frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement than in
+themselves, it is as far differing in truth of Nature from such a
+knowledge as we require as the story of King Arthur of Britain,
+or Hugh of Bourdeaux, differs from Cæsar’s
+Commentaries in truth of story; for it is manifest that
+Cæsar did greater things <i>de vero</i> than those
+imaginary heroes were feigned to do.  But he did them not in
+that fabulous manner.  Of this kind of learning the fable of
+Ixion was a figure, who designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess of
+power, and instead of her had copulation with a cloud, of which
+mixture were begotten centaurs and chimeras.  So whosoever
+shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a
+laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and
+beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.  And, therefore,
+we may note in these sciences which hold so much of imagination
+and belief, as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy, astrology,
+and the like, that in their propositions the description of the
+means is ever more monstrous than the pretence or end.  For
+it is a thing more probable that he that knoweth well the natures
+of weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect of the
+hammer, of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the
+rest, may superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold
+by such mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures
+afore rehearsed, than that some grains of the medicine projected
+should in a few moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver or
+other material into gold.  So it is more probable that he
+that knoweth the nature of arefaction, the nature of assimilation
+of nourishment to the thing nourished, the manner of increase and
+clearing of spirits, the manner of the depredations which spirits
+make upon the humours and solid parts, shall by ambages of diets,
+bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, and the like, prolong
+life, or restore some degree of youth or vivacity, than that it
+can be done with the use of a few drops or scruples of a liquor
+or receipt.  To conclude, therefore, the true natural magic,
+which is that great liberty and latitude of operation which
+dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I may report deficient, as
+the relative thereof is.  To which part, if we be serious
+and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the
+deriving and deducing the operations themselves from metaphysic,
+there are pertinent two points of much purpose, the one by way of
+preparation, the other by way of caution.  The first is,
+that there be made a calendar, resembling an inventory of the
+estate of man, containing all the inventions (being the works or
+fruits of Nature or art) which are now extant, and whereof man is
+already possessed; out of which doth naturally result a note what
+things are yet held impossible, or not invented, which calendar
+will be the more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed
+impossibility you add what thing is extant which cometh the
+nearest in degree to that impossibility; to the end that by these
+optatives and potentials man’s inquiry may be the more
+awake in deducing direction of works from the speculation of
+causes.  And secondly, that these experiments be not only
+esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those
+principally which are of most universal consequence for invention
+of other experiments, and those which give most light to the
+invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner’s
+needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for
+navigation than the invention of the sails which give the
+motion.</p>
+<p>(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the
+deficiences thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient
+and received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for
+my part, as I affect not to dissent, so I purpose not to
+contend.  If it be truth,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia
+sylvæ,”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do
+or no.  And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the
+expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in
+their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to
+fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh
+peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to
+lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and
+contention.</p>
+<p>(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy
+according to the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning
+the matter or subject: and that is positive and considerative,
+when the inquiry reporteth either an assertion or a doubt.
+These doubts or <i>non liquets</i> are of two sorts, particular
+and total.  For the first, we see a good example thereof in
+Aristotle’s Problems which deserved to have had a better
+continuance; but so nevertheless as there is one point whereof
+warning is to be given and taken.  The registering of doubts
+hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy from
+errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing is
+not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but
+reserved in doubt; the other, that the entry of doubts are as so
+many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as
+that which if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have
+advised, but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and
+solicitation of doubts is made to be attended and applied.
+But both these commodities do scarcely countervail and
+inconvenience, which will intrude itself if it be not debarred;
+which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labour rather
+how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it, and
+accordingly bend their wits.  Of this we see the familiar
+example in lawyers and scholars, both which, if they have once
+admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for a
+doubt.  But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed,
+which laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those
+which labour to make certain things doubtful.  Therefore
+these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent things; so that
+there he this caution used, that when they be thoroughly sifted
+and brought to resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted,
+discarded, and not continued to cherish and encourage men in
+doubting.  To which calendar of doubts or problems I advise
+be annexed another calendar, as much or more material which is a
+calendar of popular errors: I mean chiefly in natural history,
+such as pass in speech and conceit, and are nevertheless
+apparently detected and convicted of untruth, that man’s
+knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and
+vanity.  As for the doubts or <i>non liquets</i> general or
+in total, I understand those differences of opinions touching the
+principles of nature, and the fundamental points of the same,
+which have caused the diversity of sects, schools, and
+philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus,
+Parmenides, and the rest.  For although Aristotle, as though
+he had been of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not
+reign except the first thing he did he killed all his brethren;
+yet to those that seek truth and not magistrality, it cannot but
+seem a matter of great profit, to see before them the several
+opinions touching the foundations of nature.  Not for any
+exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for as the
+same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received
+astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the
+planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the
+theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move, and the
+calculations are indifferently agreeable to both, so the ordinary
+face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several
+theories and philosophies; whereas to find the real truth
+requireth another manner of severity and attention.  For as
+Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call every woman
+mother, but afterward they come to distinguish according to
+truth, so experience, if it be in childhood, will call every
+philosophy mother, but when it cometh to ripeness it will discern
+the true mother.  So as in the meantime it is good to see
+the several glosses and opinions upon Nature, whereof it may be
+everyone in some one point hath seen clearer than his fellows,
+therefore I wish some collection to be made painfully and
+understandingly <i>de antiquis philosophiis</i>, out of all the
+possible light which remaineth to us of them: which kind of work
+I find deficient.  But here I must give warning, that it be
+done distinctly and severedly; the philosophies of everyone
+throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed and faggoted
+up together, as hath been done by Plutarch.  For it is the
+harmony of a philosophy in itself, which giveth it light and
+credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more
+foreign and dissonant.  For as when I read in Tacitus the
+actions of Nero or Claudius, with circumstances of times,
+inducements, and occasions, I find them not so strange; but when
+I read them in Suetonius Tranquillus, gathered into titles and
+bundles and not in order of time, they seem more monstrous and
+incredible: so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and
+dismembered by articles.  Neither do I exclude opinions of
+latter times to be likewise represented in this calendar of sects
+of philosophy, as that of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently
+reduced into an harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane; and
+that of Tilesius, and his scholar Donius, being as a pastoral
+philosophy, full of sense, but of no great depth; and that of
+Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not to make any new
+philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own sense upon
+the old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who revived, with
+some alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes;
+and any other worthy to be admitted.</p>
+<p>(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of
+man’s knowledge; that is <i>radius directus</i>, which is
+referred to nature, <i>radius refractus</i>, which is referred to
+God, and cannot report truly because of the inequality of the
+medium.  There resteth <i>radius reflexus</i>, whereby man
+beholdeth and contemplateth himself.</p>
+<p>IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the
+ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves;
+which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it
+toucheth us more nearly.  This knowledge, as it is the end
+and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so
+notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the
+continent of Nature.  And generally let this be a rule, that
+all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and
+veins than for sections and separations; and that the continuance
+and entireness of knowledge be preserved.  For the contrary
+hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow,
+and erroneous, while they have not been nourished and maintained
+from the common fountain.  So we see Cicero, the orator,
+complained of Socrates and his school, that he was the first that
+separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an
+empty and verbal art.  So we may see that the opinion of
+Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy
+itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the
+<i>phenomena</i>, yet natural philosophy may correct.  So we
+see also that the science of medicine if it be destituted and
+forsaken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an
+empirical practice.  With this reservation, therefore, we
+proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two parts:
+the one considereth man segregate or distributively, the other
+congregate or in society; so as human philosophy is either simple
+and particular, or conjugate and civil.  Humanity particular
+consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth: that is, of
+knowledges which respect the body, and of knowledges that respect
+the mind.  But before we distribute so far, it is good to
+constitute.  For I do take the consideration in general, and
+at large, of human nature to be fit to be emancipate and made a
+knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those delightful
+and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of
+man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like
+adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in
+regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and
+concordances between the mind and body, which being mixed cannot
+be properly assigned to the sciences of either.</p>
+<p>(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and
+amities consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so
+this league of mind and body hath these two parts: how the one
+discloseth the other, and how the one worketh upon the other;
+discovery and impression.  The former of these hath begotten
+two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof the one is
+honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of
+Hippocrates.  And although they have of later time been used
+to be coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being
+purged and restored to their true state, they have both of them a
+solid ground in Nature, and a profitable use in life.  The
+first is physiognomy, which discovereth the disposition of the
+mind by the lineaments of the body.  The second is the
+exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the state of the
+body by the imaginations of the mind.  In the former of
+these I note a deficience.  For Aristotle hath very
+ingeniously and diligently handled the factures of the body, but
+not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by
+art, and of greater use and advantage.  For the lineaments
+of the body do disclose the disposition and inclination of the
+mind in general; but the motions of the countenance and parts do
+not only so, but do further disclose the present humour and state
+of the mind and will.  For as your majesty saith most aptly
+and elegantly, “As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the
+gesture speaketh to the eye.”  And, therefore, a
+number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the faces and
+fashions of men, do well know the advantage of this observation,
+as being most part of their ability; neither can it be denied,
+but that it is a great discovery of dissimulations, and a great
+direction in business.</p>
+<p>(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been
+collected into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it
+hath the same relation or <i>antistrophe</i> that the former
+hath.  For the consideration is double—either how and
+how far the humours and affects of the body do alter or work upon
+the mind, or, again, how and how far the passions or
+apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body.
+The former of these hath been inquired and considered as a part
+and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or
+superstition.  For the physician prescribeth cures of the
+mind in frenzies and melancholy passions, and pretendeth also to
+exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to control the courage,
+to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like; but
+the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regiment of the
+body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the
+Manichees, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed.  So
+likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the
+eating of the blood and the fat, distinguishing between beasts
+clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict; nay, the faith
+itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet
+retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences, and other
+macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and not
+figurative.  The root and life of all which prescripts is
+(besides the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which
+the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and
+disposition of the body.  And if any man of weak judgment do
+conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth
+either question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty
+of the soul, he may be taught, in easy instances, that the infant
+in the mother’s womb is compatible with the mother, and yet
+separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his
+servants, and yet without subjection.  As for the reciprocal
+knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits and passions of
+the mind upon the body, we see all wise physicians, in the
+prescriptions of their regiments to their patients, do ever
+consider <i>accidentia animi</i>, as of great force to further or
+hinder remedies or recoveries: and more specially it is an
+inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and
+how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for
+although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it
+hath the same degree of power to help.  No more than a man
+can conclude, that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly
+to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign
+airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness.  But the
+inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as
+Socrates said, “a Delian diver,” being difficult and
+profound.  But unto all this knowledge <i>de communi
+vinculo</i>, of the concordances between the mind and the body,
+that part of inquiry is most necessary which considereth of the
+seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do
+take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath
+been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much
+better inquired.  For the opinion of Plato, who placed the
+understanding in the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call
+anger, having a greater mixture with pride) in the heart, and
+concupiscence or sensuality in the liver, deserveth not to be
+despised, but much less to be allowed.  So, then, we have
+constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry touching
+human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be handled
+apart.</p>
+<p>X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man’s body is
+divided as the good of man’s body is divided, unto which it
+referreth.  The good of man’s body is of four
+kinds—health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the
+knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which
+is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic;
+and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth <i>eruditus
+luxus</i>.  This subject of man’s body is, of all
+other things in nature, most susceptible of remedy; but then that
+remedy is most susceptible of error; for the same subtlety of the
+subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing, and
+therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.</p>
+<p>(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we
+have said, ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that
+man was <i>microcosmus</i>—an abstract or model of the
+world—hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and
+the alchemists, as if there were to be found in man’s body
+certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect
+to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which
+are extant in the great world.  But thus much is evidently
+true, that of all substances which nature hath produced,
+man’s body is the most extremely compounded.  For we
+see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for
+the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts,
+birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
+alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies
+before they come to be his food and aliment.  Add hereunto
+that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of
+affections to work upon their bodies, whereas man in his mansion,
+sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations: and it
+cannot be denied but that the body of man of all other things is
+of the most compounded mass.  The soul, on the other side,
+is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>      “Purumque
+reliquit<br />
+Æthereum sensum atque auraï simplicis
+ignem.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no
+rest, if that principle be true, that <i>Motus rerum est rapidus
+extra locum</i>, <i>placidus in loco</i>.  But to the
+purpose.  This variable composition of man’s body hath
+made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and, therefore, the
+poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because
+the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of
+man’s body and to reduce it to harmony.  So, then, the
+subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent more
+conjectural; and the art being conjectural hath made so much the
+more place to be left for imposture.  For almost all other
+arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may
+term them, and not by the successes and events.  The lawyer
+is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of
+the cause; this master in this ship is judged by the directing
+his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage; but the
+physician, and perhaps this politique, hath no particular acts
+demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event,
+which is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient
+die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it
+be art or accident?  And therefore many times the impostor
+is prized, and the man of virtue taxed.  Nay, we see [the]
+weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a
+mountebank or witch before a learned physician.  And
+therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme
+folly when they made Æsculapius and Circe, brother and
+sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Ipse repertorem medicinæ talis et
+artis<br />
+Fulmine Phœbigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And again—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia
+lucos,” &amp;c.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and
+old women and impostors, have had a competition with
+physicians.  And what followeth?  Even this, that
+physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon a
+higher occasion, “If it befall to me as befalleth to the
+fools, why should I labour to be more wise?”  And
+therefore I cannot much blame physicians that they use commonly
+to intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than
+their profession; for you shall have of them antiquaries, poets,
+humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these
+better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon this
+ground that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art
+maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their
+fortune: for the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and
+nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all their
+defects.  But, nevertheless, these things which we have
+spoken of are courses begotten between a little occasion and a
+great deal of sloth and default; for if we will excite and awake
+our observation, we shall see in familiar instances what a
+predominant faculty the subtlety of spirit hath over the variety
+of matter or form.  Nothing more variable than faces and
+countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite
+distinctions of them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of
+colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his
+imagination, can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or
+may be, if they were brought before him.  Nothing more
+variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them
+personally: nay, you shall have a <i>buffon</i> or
+<i>pantomimus</i> will express as many as he pleaseth.
+Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words; yet men
+have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters.
+So that it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man’s
+mind, but it is the remote standing or placing thereof that
+breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions; for as the sense afar
+off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so is it of the
+understanding, the remedy whereof is, not to quicken or
+strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and
+therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and
+use the true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as
+much as the poet saith:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus
+artes;<br />
+Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth
+deserve: well shadowed by the poets, in that they made
+Æsculapius to be the son of [the] sun, the one being the
+fountain of life, the other as the second-stream; but infinitely
+more honoured by the example of our Saviour, who made the body of
+man the object of His miracles, as the soul was the object of His
+doctrine.  For we read not that ever He vouchsafed to do any
+miracle about honour or money (except that one for giving tribute
+to Cæsar), but only about the preserving, sustaining, and
+healing the body of man.</p>
+<p>(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said)
+more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than
+advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in
+circle than in progression.  For I find much iteration, but
+small addition.  It considereth causes of diseases, with the
+occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the
+accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.  The
+deficiences which I think good to note, being a few of many, and
+those such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will
+enumerate and not place.</p>
+<p>(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious
+diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of
+the special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and
+how they were judged by recovery or death.  Therefore having
+an example proper in the father of the art, I shall not need to
+allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of the lawyers, who are
+careful to report new cases and decisions, for the direction of
+future judgments.  This continuance of medicinal history I
+find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as
+to extend to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none
+but wonders: for many things are new in this manner, which are
+not new in the kind; and if men will intend to observe, they
+shall find much worthy to observe.</p>
+<p>(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much
+deficience: for they inquire of the parts, and their substances,
+figures, and collocations; but they inquire not of the
+diversities of the parts, the secrecies of the passages, and the
+seats or nestling of the humours, nor much of the footsteps and
+impressions of diseases.  The reason of which omission I
+suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in the
+view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative
+and casual, must arise from the view of many.  And as to the
+diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing
+of the inward parts is as full of difference as the outward, and
+in that is the cause continent of many diseases; which not being
+observed, they quarrel many times with the humours, which are not
+in fault; the fault being in the very frame and mechanic of the
+part, which cannot be removed by medicine alterative, but must be
+accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines familiar.
+And for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently
+noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies,
+because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be
+open and manifest in life: which being supposed, though the
+inhumanity of <i>anatomia vivorum</i> was by Celsus justly
+reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this observation, the
+inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished
+altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but
+might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts
+alive, which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may
+sufficiently satisfy this inquiry.  And for the humours,
+they are commonly passed over in anatomies as purgaments; whereas
+it is most necessary to observe, what cavities, nests, and
+receptacles the humours do find in the parts, with the differing
+kind of the humour so lodged and received.  And as for the
+footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of the inward
+parts, impostumations, exulcerations, discontinuations,
+putrefactions, consumptions, contractions, extensions,
+convulsions, dislocations, obstructions, repletions, together
+with all preternatural substances, as stones, carnosities,
+excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to have been
+exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the contribution
+of men’s several experiences, and carefully set down both
+historically according to the appearances, and artificially with
+a reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from
+them, in case where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas
+now upon opening of bodies they are passed over slightly and in
+silence.</p>
+<p>(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of
+many, some as in their nature incurable, and others as past the
+period of cure; so that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed
+so many men to die, as they do by their ignorant edicts: whereof
+numbers do escape with less difficulty than they did in the Roman
+prescriptions.  Therefore I will not doubt to note as a
+deficience, that they inquire not the perfect cures of many
+diseases, or extremities of diseases; but pronouncing them
+incurable do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from
+discredit.</p>
+<p>(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not
+only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not
+only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it
+may serve to make a fair and easy passage.  For it is no
+small felicity which Augustus Cæsar was wont to wish to
+himself, that same <i>Euthanasia</i>; and which was specially
+noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the
+fashion, and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sheep.  So
+it is written of Epicurus, that after his disease was judged
+desperate, he drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught
+and ingurgitation of wine; whereupon the epigram was made,
+<i>Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas</i>; he was not sober enough
+to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water.  But the
+physicians contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to
+stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas in
+my judgment they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the
+attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and
+agonies of death.</p>
+<p>(5) In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a
+deficience in the receipts of propriety, respecting the
+particular cures of diseases: for the physicians have frustrated
+the fruit of tradition and experience by their magistralities, in
+adding and taking out and changing <i>quid pro qua</i> in their
+receipts, at their pleasures; commanding so over the medicine, as
+the medicine cannot command over the disease.  For except it
+be treacle and <i>mithridatum</i>, and of late
+<i>diascordium</i>, and a few more, they tie themselves to no
+receipts severely and religiously.  For as to the
+confections of sale which are in the shops, they are for
+readiness and not for propriety.  For they are upon general
+intentions of purging, opening, comforting, altering, and not
+much appropriate to particular diseases.  And this is the
+cause why empirics and old women are more happy many times in
+their cures than learned physicians, because they are more
+religious in holding their medicines.  Therefore here is the
+deficience which I find, that physicians have not, partly out of
+their own practice, partly out of the constant probations
+reported in books, and partly out of the traditions of empirics,
+set down and delivered over certain experimental medicines for
+the cure of particular diseases, besides their own conjectural
+and magistral descriptions.  For as they were the men of the
+best composition in the state of Rome, which either being consuls
+inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to the senate;
+so in the matter we now handle, they be the best physicians,
+which being learned incline to the traditions of experience, or
+being empirics incline to the methods of learning.</p>
+<p>(9) In preparation of medicines I do find strange, specially
+considering how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that
+they are safer for the outward than inward parts, that no man
+hath sought to make an imitation by art of natural baths and
+medicinable fountains: which nevertheless are confessed to
+receive their virtues from minerals; and not so only, but
+discerned and distinguished from what particular mineral they
+receive tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which
+nature, if it may be reduced to compositions of art, both the
+variety of them will be increased, and the temper of them will be
+more commanded.</p>
+<p>(10) But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable
+either to my intention or to proportion, I will conclude this
+part with the note of one deficience more, which seemeth to me of
+greatest consequence: which is, that the prescripts in use are
+too compendious to attain their end; for, to my understanding, it
+is a vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so
+sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt or miss of it can work
+any great effect upon the body of man.  It were a strange
+speech which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a
+vice to which he were by nature subject.  It is order,
+pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, which is
+mighty in nature; which although it require more exact knowledge
+in prescribing, and more precise obedience in observing, yet is
+recompensed with the magnitude of effects.  And although a
+man would think, by the daily visitations of the physicians, that
+there were a pursuance in the cure, yet let a man look into their
+prescripts and ministrations, and he shall find them but
+inconstancies and every day’s devices, without any settled
+providence or project.  Not that every scrupulous or
+superstitious prescript is effectual, no more than every straight
+way is the way to heaven; but the truth of the direction must
+precede severity of observance.</p>
+<p>(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate:
+for cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due
+reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.  As for
+artificial decoration, it is well worthy of the deficiences which
+it hath; being neither fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to
+use, nor wholesome to please.</p>
+<p>(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is
+to say, for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be
+brought, whether it be of activity, or of patience; whereof
+activity hath two parts, strength and swiftness; and patience
+likewise hath two parts, hardness against wants and extremities,
+and endurance of pain or torment; whereof we see the practices in
+tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer punishment.
+Nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not within any of
+the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain a
+strange power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it
+to this part.  Of these things the practices are known, but
+the philosophy that concerneth them is not much inquired; the
+rather, I think, because they are supposed to be obtained, either
+by an aptness of nature, which cannot be taught, or only by
+continual custom, which is soon prescribed which though it be not
+true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the Olympian
+games are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is
+for use; as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most
+part but for mercenary ostentation.</p>
+<p>(13) For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in
+them is of laws to repress them.  For as it hath been well
+observed, that the arts which flourish in times while virtue is
+in growth, are military; and while virtue is in state, are
+liberal; and while virtue is in declination, are voluptuary: so I
+doubt that this age of the world is somewhat upon the descent of
+the wheel.  With arts voluptuary I couple practices
+joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures
+of the senses.  As for games of recreation, I hold them to
+belong to civil life and education.  And thus much of that
+particular human philosophy which concerns the body, which is but
+the tabernacle of the mind.</p>
+<p>XI. (1) For human knowledge which concerns the mind, it hath
+two parts; the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of
+the soul or mind, the other that inquireth of the faculties or
+functions thereof.   Unto the first of these, the
+considerations of the original of the soul, whether it be native
+or adventive, and how far it is exempted from laws of matter, and
+of the immortality thereof, and many other points, do appertain:
+which have been not more laboriously inquired than variously
+reported; so as the travail therein taken seemeth to have been
+rather in a maze than in a way.  But although I am of
+opinion that this knowledge may be more really and soundly
+inquired, even in nature, than it hath been, yet I hold that in
+the end it must be hounded by religion, or else it will be
+subject to deceit and delusion.  For as the substance of the
+soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven
+and earth by the benediction of a <i>producat</i>, but was
+immediately inspired from God, so it is not possible that it
+should be (otherwise than by accident) subject to the laws of
+heaven and earth, which are the subject of philosophy; and
+therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state of the soul
+must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance.
+Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul there be two
+appendices; which, as they have been handled, have rather
+vapoured forth fables than kindled truth: divination and
+fascination.</p>
+<p>(2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into
+artificial and natural: whereof artificial is, when the mind
+maketh a prediction by argument, concluding upon signs and
+tokens; natural is, when the mind hath a presention by an
+internal power, without the inducement of a sign.
+Artificial is of two sorts: either when the argument is coupled
+with a derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it is
+only grounded upon a coincidence of the effect, which is
+experimental: whereof the latter for the most part is
+superstitious, such as were the heathen observations upon the
+inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the swarming of
+bees; and such as was the Chaldean astrology, and the like.
+For artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are
+distributed amongst particular knowledges.  The astronomer
+hath his predictions, as of conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and
+the like.  The physician hath his predictions, of death, of
+recovery, of the accidents and issues of diseases.  The
+politique hath his predictions; <i>O urbem venalem</i>, <i>et
+cito perituram</i>, <i>si emptorem invenerit</i>! which stayed
+not long to be performed, in Sylla first, and after in
+Cæsar: so as these predictions are now impertinent, and to
+be referred over.  But the divination which springeth from
+the internal nature of the soul is that which we now speak of;
+which hath been made to be of two sorts, primitive and by
+influxion.  Primitive is grounded upon the supposition that
+the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected into itself, and not
+diffused into the organs of the body, hath some extent and
+latitude of prenotion; which therefore appeareth most in sleep,
+in ecstasies, and near death, and more rarely in waking
+apprehensions; and is induced and furthered by those abstinences
+and observances which make the mind most to consist in
+itself.  By influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the
+mind, as a mirror or glass, should take illumination from the
+foreknowledge of God and spirits: unto which the same regiment
+doth likewise conduce.  For the retiring of the mind within
+itself is the state which is most susceptible of divine
+influxions; save that it is accompanied in this case with a
+fervency and elevation (which the ancients noted by fury), and
+not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other.</p>
+<p>(3) Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive
+upon other bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of that we
+spake in the proper place.  Wherein the school of
+Paracelsus, and the disciples of pretended natural magic, have
+been so intemperate, as they have exalted the power of the
+imagination to be much one with the power of miracle-working
+faith.  Others, that draw nearer to probability, calling to
+their view the secret passages of things, and specially of the
+contagion that passeth from body to body, do conceive it should
+likewise be agreeable to nature that there should be some
+transmissions and operations from spirit to spirit without the
+mediation of the senses; whence the conceits have grown (now
+almost made civil) of the mastering spirit, and the force of
+confidence, and the like.  Incident unto this is the inquiry
+how to raise and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination
+fortified have power, then it is material to know how to fortify
+and exalt it.  And herein comes in crookedly and dangerously
+a palliation of a great part of ceremonial magic.  For it
+may be pretended that ceremonies, characters, and charms do work,
+not by any tacit or sacramental contract with evil spirits, but
+serve only to strengthen the imagination of him that useth it; as
+images are said by the Roman Church to fix the cogitations and
+raise the devotions of them that pray before them.  But for
+mine own judgment, if it be admitted that imagination hath power,
+and that ceremonies fortify imagination, and that they be used
+sincerely and intentionally for that purpose; yet I should hold
+them unlawful, as opposing to that first edict which God gave
+unto man, <i>In sudore vultus comedes panem tuum</i>.  For
+they propound those noble effects, which God hath set forth unto
+man to be bought at the price of labour, to be attained by a few
+easy and slothful observances.  Deficiences in these
+knowledges I will report none, other than the general deficience,
+that it is not known how much of them is verity, and how much
+vanity.</p>
+<p>XII. (1) The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the
+mind of man is of two kinds—the one respecting his
+understanding and reason, and the other his will, appetite, and
+affection; whereof the former produceth position or decree, the
+latter action or execution.  It is true that the imagination
+is an agent or <i>nuncius</i> in both provinces, both the
+judicial and the ministerial.  For sense sendeth over to
+imagination before reason have judged, and reason sendeth over to
+imagination before the decree can be acted.  For imagination
+ever precedeth voluntary motion.  Saving that this Janus of
+imagination hath differing faces: for the face towards reason
+hath the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the
+print of good; which nevertheless are faces,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Quales decet esse sororum.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger; but is
+invested with, or at least wise usurpeth no small authority in
+itself, besides the duty of the message.  For it was well
+said by Aristotle, “That the mind hath over the body that
+commandment, which the lord hath over a bondman; but that reason
+hath over the imagination that commandment which a magistrate
+hath over a free citizen,” who may come also to rule in his
+turn.  For we see that, in matters of faith and religion, we
+raise our imagination above our reason, which is the cause why
+religion sought ever access to the mind by similitudes, types,
+parables, visions, dreams.  And again, in all persuasions
+that are wrought by eloquence, and other impressions of like
+nature, which do paint and disguise the true appearance of
+things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the
+imagination.  Nevertheless, because I find not any science
+that doth properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no
+cause to alter the former division.  For as for poesy, it is
+rather a pleasure or play of imagination than a work or duty
+thereof.  And if it be a work, we speak not now of such
+parts of learning as the imagination produceth, but of such
+sciences as handle and consider of the imagination.  No more
+than we shall speak now of such knowledges as reason produceth
+(for that extendeth to all philosophy), but of such knowledges as
+do handle and inquire of the faculty of reason: so as poesy had
+his true place.  As for the power of the imagination in
+nature, and the manner of fortifying the same, we have mentioned
+it in the doctrine <i>De Anima</i>, whereunto most fitly it
+belongeth.  And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative
+reason, which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to
+refer it to the arts of reason.  So therefore we content
+ourselves with the former division, that human philosophy, which
+respecteth the faculties of the mind of man, hath two parts,
+rational and moral.</p>
+<p>(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all
+knowledges, to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth
+but a net of subtlety and spinosity.  For as it was truly
+said, that knowledge is <i>pabulum animi</i>; so in the nature of
+men’s appetite to this food most men are of the taste and
+stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain have
+returned <i>ad ollas carnium</i>, and were weary of manna; which,
+though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and
+comfortable.  So generally men taste well knowledges that
+are drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy,
+about the which men’s affections, praises, fortunes do turn
+and are conversant.  But this same <i>lumen siccum</i> doth
+parch and offend most men’s watery and soft natures.
+But to speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational
+knowledges are the keys of all other arts, for as Aristotle saith
+aptly and elegantly, “That the hand is the instrument of
+instruments, and the mind is the form of forms;” so these
+be truly said to be the art of arts.  Neither do they only
+direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of
+shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also
+to draw a stronger bow.</p>
+<p>(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided
+according to the ends whereunto they are referred—for
+man’s labour is to invent that which is sought or
+propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain that
+which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained.
+So as the arts must be four—art of inquiry or invention;
+art of examination or judgment; art of custody or memory; and art
+of elocution or tradition.</p>
+<p>XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing—the
+one of arts and sciences, and the other of speech and
+arguments.  The former of these I do report deficient; which
+seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if, in the making of an
+inventory touching the state of a defunct, it should be set down
+that there is no ready money.  For as money will fetch all
+other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should
+purchase all the rest.  And like as the West Indies had
+never been discovered if the use of the mariner’s needle
+had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions,
+and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found strange if
+sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of invention
+and discovery hath been passed over.</p>
+<p>(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment
+standeth plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to
+invent sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over
+with a <i>cuique in sua arte credendum</i>.  And Celsus
+acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the empirical and
+dogmatical sects of physicians, “That medicines and cures
+were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were
+discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from
+them the medicines and cures discovered.”  And Plato
+in his “Theætetus” noteth well, “That
+particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no
+sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which
+maketh the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle
+propositions, which in every particular knowledge are taken from
+tradition and experience.”  And therefore we see, that
+they which discourse of the inventions and originals of things
+refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather to beasts,
+birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab
+Ida,<br />
+Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem<br />
+Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris<br />
+Gramina, cum tergo volucres hæsere
+sagittæ.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to
+consecrate inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols
+in their temples, but almost all brute:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator
+Anubis,<br />
+Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam,
+&amp;c.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and
+ascribe the first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe
+that Prometheus first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the
+spark, than that when he first stroke the flints he expected the
+spark; and therefore we see the West Indian Prometheus had no
+intelligence with the European, because of the rareness with them
+of flint, that gave the first occasion.  So as it should
+seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for
+surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some
+part of physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery,
+or generally to chance or anything else than to logic for the
+invention of arts and sciences.  Neither is the form of
+invention which Virgil describeth much other:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Ut varias usus meditande extunderet
+artes<br />
+Paulatim.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than
+that which brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which
+is a perpetual intending or practising some one thing, urged and
+imposed by an absolute necessity of conservation of being.
+For so Cicero saith very truly, <i>Usus uni rei deditus et
+naturam et artem sæpe vincit</i>.  And therefore if it
+be said of men,</p>
+<blockquote><p>      “Labor
+omnia vincit<br />
+Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>it is likewise said of beasts, <i>Quis psittaco docuit suum
+χαιρε</i>?  Who taught the raven
+in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where she spied
+water, that the water might rise so as she might come to
+it?  Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or
+air, and to find the way from a field in a flower a great way off
+to her hive?  Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn
+that she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and
+grow?  Add then the word <i>extundere</i>, which importeth
+the extreme difficulty, and the word <i>paulatim</i>, which
+importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even
+amongst the Egyptians’ gods; there being little left to the
+faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty or art, for matter of
+invention.</p>
+<p>(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and
+which seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of
+sciences may be pretended to be invented, and so the middle
+propositions by derivation from the principles; their form of
+induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incompetent; wherein
+their error is the fouler, because it is the duty of art to
+perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have wronged,
+abused, and traduced nature.  For he that shall attentively
+observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge,
+like unto that which the poet speaketh of, <i>Aërei mellis
+cælestia dona</i>, distilling and contriving it out of
+particulars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the field
+and garden, shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth
+manage and act an induction much better than they describe
+it.  For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars,
+without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a
+conjecture; for who can assure (in many subjects) upon those
+particulars which appear of a side, that there are not other on
+the contrary side which appear not?  As if Samuel should
+have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought before
+him, and failed of David which was in the field.  And this
+form (to say truth), is so gross, as it had not been possible for
+wits so subtle as have managed these things to have offered it to
+the world, but that they hasted to their theories and
+dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful toward particulars;
+which their manner was to use but as <i>lictores</i> and
+<i>viatores</i>, for sergeants and whifflers, <i>ad summovendam
+turbam</i>, to make way and make room for their opinions, rather
+than in their true use and service.  Certainly it is a thing
+may touch a man with a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps
+of seducement are the very same in divine and human truth; for,
+as in divine truth man cannot endure to become as a child, so in
+human, they reputed the attending the inductions (whereof we
+speak), as if it were a second infancy or childhood.</p>
+<p>(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly
+induced, yet, nevertheless, certain it is that middle
+propositions cannot be deduced from them in subject of nature by
+syllogism—that is, by touch and reduction of them to
+principles in a middle term.  It is true that in sciences
+popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity
+(because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the
+simplest), that form may have use; and in natural philosophy
+likewise, by way of argument or satisfactory reason, <i>Quæ
+assensum parit operis effæta est</i>; but the subtlety of
+nature and operations will not be enchained in those bonds.
+For arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of words,
+and words are but the current tokens or marks of popular notions
+of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably
+collected out of particulars, it is not the laborious examination
+either of consequences of arguments, or of the truth of
+propositions, that can ever correct that error, being (as the
+physicians speak) in the first digestion.  And, therefore,
+it was not without cause, that so many excellent philosophers
+became sceptics and academics, and denied any certainty of
+knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion that the knowledge
+of man extended only to appearances and probabilities.  It
+is true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a form of
+irony, <i>Scientiam dissimulando simulavit</i>; for he used to
+disable his knowledge, to the end to enhance his knowledge; like
+the humour of Tiberius in his beginnings, that would reign, but
+would not acknowledge so much.  And in the later academy,
+which Cicero embraced, this opinion also of <i>acatalepsia</i> (I
+doubt) was not held sincerely; for that all those which excelled
+in copy of speech seem to have chosen that sect, as that which
+was fittest to give glory to their eloquence and variable
+discourses; being rather like progresses of pleasure than
+journeys to an end.  But assuredly many scattered in both
+academies did hold it in subtlety and integrity.  But here
+was their chief error: they charged the deceit upon the senses;
+which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their cavillations) are
+very sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always
+immediately, yet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by
+producing and urging such things as are too subtle for the sense
+to some effect comprehensible by the sense, and other like
+assistance.  But they ought to have charged the deceit upon
+the weakness of the intellectual powers, and upon the manner of
+collecting and concluding upon the reports of the senses.
+This I speak, not to disable the mind of man, but to stir it up
+to seek help; for no man, be he never so cunning or practised,
+can make a straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand,
+which may be easily done by help of a ruler or compass.</p>
+<p>(5) This part of invention, concerning the invention of
+sciences, I purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound,
+having digested it into two parts: whereof the one I term
+<i>experientia literata</i>, and the other <i>interpretatio
+naturæ</i>; the former being but a degree and rudiment of
+the latter.  But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too
+great upon a promise.</p>
+<p>(6) The invention of speech or argument is not properly an
+invention; for to invent is to discover that we know not, and not
+to recover or resummon that which we already know; and the use of
+this invention is no other but, out of the knowledge whereof our
+mind is already possessed to draw forth or call before us that
+which may be pertinent to the purpose which we take into our
+consideration.  So as to speak truly, it is no invention,
+but a remembrance or suggestion, with an application; which is
+the cause why the schools do place it after judgment, as
+subsequent and not precedent.  Nevertheless, because we do
+account it a chase as well of deer in an enclosed park as in a
+forest at large, and that it hath already obtained the name, let
+it be called invention; so as it be perceived and discerned, that
+the scope and end of this invention is readiness and present use
+of our knowledge, and not addition or amplification thereof.</p>
+<p>(7) To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two
+courses, preparation and suggestion.  The former of these
+seemeth scarcely a part of knowledge, consisting rather of
+diligence than of any artificial erudition.  And herein
+Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully, doth deride the sophists near
+his time, saying, “They did as if one that professed the
+art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up a shoe, but
+only exhibit in a readiness a number of shoes of all fashions and
+sizes.”  But yet a man might reply, that if a
+shoemaker should have no shoes in his shop, but only work as he
+is bespoken, he should be weakly customed.  But our Saviour,
+speaking of divine knowledge, saith, “That the kingdom of
+heaven is like a good householder, that bringeth forth both new
+and old store;” and we see the ancient writers of rhetoric
+do give it in precept, that pleaders should have the places,
+whereof they have most continual use, ready handled in all the
+variety that may be; as that, to speak for the literal
+interpretation of the law against equity, and contrary; and to
+speak for presumptions and inferences against testimony, and
+contrary.  And Cicero himself, being broken unto it by great
+experience, delivereth it plainly, that whatsoever a man shall
+have occasion to speak of (if he will take the pains), he may
+have it in effect premeditate and handled <i>in thesi</i>.
+So that when he cometh to a particular he shall have nothing to
+do, but to put to names, and times, and places, and such other
+circumstances of individuals.  We see likewise the exact
+diligence of Demosthenes; who, in regard of the great force that
+the entrance and access into causes hath to make a good
+impression, had ready framed a number of prefaces for orations
+and speeches.  All which authorities and precedents may
+overweigh Aristotle’s opinion, that would have us change a
+rich wardrobe for a pair of shears.</p>
+<p>(8) But the nature of the collection of this provision or
+preparatory store, though it be common both to logic and
+rhetoric, yet having made an entry of it here, where it came
+first to be spoken of, I think fit to refer over the further
+handling of it to rhetoric.</p>
+<p>(9) The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, doth
+assign and direct us to certain marks, or places, which may
+excite our mind to return and produce such knowledge as it hath
+formerly collected, to the end we may make use thereof.
+Neither is this use (truly taken) only to furnish argument to
+dispute, probably with others, but likewise to minister unto our
+judgment to conclude aright within ourselves.  Neither may
+these places serve only to apprompt our invention, but also to
+direct our inquiry.  For a faculty of wise interrogating is
+half a knowledge.  For as Plato saith, “Whosoever
+seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for in a general notion;
+else how shall he know it when he hath found it?”
+And, therefore, the larger your anticipation is, the more direct
+and compendious is your search.  But the same places which
+will help us what to produce of that which we know already, will
+also help us, if a man of experience were before us, what
+questions to ask; or, if we have books and authors to instruct
+us, what points to search and revolve; so as I cannot report that
+this part of invention, which is that which the schools call
+topics, is deficient.</p>
+<p>(10) Nevertheless, topics are of two sorts, general and
+special.  The general we have spoken to; but the particular
+hath been touched by some, but rejected generally as inartificial
+and variable.  But leaving the humour which hath reigned too
+much in the schools (which is, to be vainly subtle in a few
+things which are within their command, and to reject the rest), I
+do receive particular topics; that is, places or directions of
+invention and inquiry in every particular knowledge, as things of
+great use, being mixtures of logic with the matter of
+sciences.  For in these it holdeth <i>ars inveniendi
+adolescit cum inventis</i>; for as in going of a way, we do not
+only gain that part of the way which is passed, but we gain the
+better sight of that part of the way which remaineth, so every
+degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light to that which
+followeth; which light, if we strengthen by drawing it forth into
+questions or places of inquiry, we do greatly advance our
+pursuit.</p>
+<p>XIV. (1) Now we pass unto the arts of judgment, which handle
+the natures of proofs and demonstrations, which as to induction
+hath a coincidence with invention; for all inductions, whether in
+good or vicious form, the same action of the mind which
+inventeth, judgeth—all one as in the sense.  But
+otherwise it is in proof by syllogism, for the proof being not
+immediate, but by mean, the invention of the mean is one thing,
+and the judgment of the consequence is another; the one exciting
+only, the other examining.  Therefore, for the real and
+exact form of judgment, we refer ourselves to that which we have
+spoken of interpretation of Nature.</p>
+<p>(2) For the other judgment by syllogism, as it is a thing most
+agreeable to the mind of man, so it hath been vehemently end
+excellently laboured.  For the nature of man doth extremely
+covet to have somewhat in his understanding fixed and unmovable,
+and as a rest and support of the mind.  And, therefore, as
+Aristotle endeavoureth to prove, that in all motion there is some
+point quiescent; and as he elegantly expoundeth the ancient fable
+of Atlas (that stood fixed, and bare up the heaven from falling)
+to be meant of the poles or axle-tree of heaven, whereupon the
+conversion is accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to
+have an Atlas or axle-tree within to keep them from fluctuation,
+which is like to a perpetual peril of falling.  Therefore
+men did hasten to set down some principles about which the
+variety of their disputatious might turn.</p>
+<p>(3) So, then, this art of judgment is but the reduction of
+propositions to principles in a middle term.  The principles
+to be agreed by all and exempted from argument; the middle term
+to be elected at the liberty of every man’s invention; the
+reduction to be of two kinds, direct and inverted: the one when
+the proposition is reduced to the principle, which they term a
+probation ostensive; the other, when the contradictory of the
+proposition is reduced to the contradictory of the principle,
+which is that which they call <i>per incommodum</i>, or pressing
+an absurdity; the number of middle terms to be as the proposition
+standeth degrees more or less removed from the principle.</p>
+<p>(4) But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one
+by way of direction, the other by way of caution: the former
+frameth and setteth down a true form of consequence, by the
+variations and deflections from which errors and inconsequences
+may be exactly judged.  Toward the composition and structure
+of which form it is incident to handle the parts thereof, which
+are propositions, and the parts of propositions, which are simple
+words.  And this is that part of logic which is comprehended
+in the Analytics.</p>
+<p>(5) The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite
+use and assurance sake, discovering the more subtle forms of
+sophisms and illaqueations with their redargutions, which is that
+which is termed <i>elenches</i>.  For although in the more
+gross sorts of fallacies it happeneth (as Seneca maketh the
+comparison well) as in juggling feats, which, though we know not
+how they are done, yet we know well it is not as it seemeth to
+be; yet the more subtle sort of them doth not only put a man
+besides his answer, but doth many times abuse his judgment.</p>
+<p>(6) This part concerning <i>elenches</i> is excellently
+handled by Aristotle in precept, but more excellently by Plato in
+example; not only in the persons of the sophists, but even in
+Socrates himself, who, professing to affirm nothing, but to
+infirm that which was affirmed by another, hath exactly expressed
+all the forms of objection, fallace, and redargution.  And
+although we have said that the use of this doctrine is for
+redargution, yet it is manifest the degenerate and corrupt use is
+for caption and contradiction, which passeth for a great faculty,
+and no doubt is of very great advantage, though the difference be
+good which was made between orators and sophisters, that the one
+is as the greyhound, which hath his advantage in the race, and
+the other as the hare, which hath her advantage in the turn, so
+as it is the advantage of the weaker creature.</p>
+<p>(7) But yet further, this doctrine of elenches hath a more
+ample latitude and extent than is perceived; namely, unto divers
+parts of knowledge, whereof some are laboured and other
+omitted.  For first, I conceive (though it may seem at first
+somewhat strange) that that part which is variably referred,
+sometimes to logic, sometimes to metaphysic, touching the common
+adjuncts of essences, is but an <i>elenche</i>; for the great
+sophism of all sophisms being equivocation or ambiguity of words
+and phrase, specially of such words as are most general and
+intervene in every inquiry, it seemeth to me that the true and
+fruitful use (leaving vain subtleties and speculations) of the
+inquiry of majority, minority, priority, posteriority, identity,
+diversity, possibility, act, totality, parts, existence,
+privation, and the like, are but wise cautions against
+ambiguities of speech.  So, again, the distribution of
+things into certain tribes, which we call categories or
+predicaments, are but cautions against the confusion of
+definitions and divisions.</p>
+<p>(8) Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by the
+strength of the impression, and not by the subtlety of the
+illaqueation—not so much perplexing the reason, as
+overruling it by power of the imagination.  But this part I
+think more proper to handle when I shall speak of rhetoric.</p>
+<p>(9) But lastly, there is yet a much more important and
+profound kind of fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not
+observed or inquired at all, and think good to place here, as
+that which of all others appertaineth most to rectify judgment,
+the force whereof is such as it doth not dazzle or snare the
+understanding in some particulars, but doth more generally and
+inwardly infect and corrupt the state thereof.  For the mind
+of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein
+the beams of things should reflect according to their true
+incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of
+superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and
+reduced.  For this purpose, let us consider the false
+appearances that are imposed upon us by the general nature of the
+mind, beholding them in an example or two; as first, in that
+instance which is the root of all superstition, namely, that to
+the nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the
+affirmative or active to affect more than the negative or
+privative.  So that a few times hitting or presence
+countervails ofttimes failing or absence, as was well answered by
+Diagoras to him that showed him in Neptune’s temple the
+great number of pictures of such as had escaped shipwreck, and
+had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, “Advise now, you
+that think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest.”
+“Yea, but,” saith Diagoras, “where are they
+painted that are drowned?”  Let us behold it in
+another instance, namely, that the spirit of man, being of an
+equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in
+nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in truth.
+Hence it cometh that the mathematicians cannot satisfy themselves
+except they reduce the motions of the celestial bodies to perfect
+circles, rejecting spiral lines, and labouring to be discharged
+of eccentrics.  Hence it cometh that whereas there are many
+things in Nature as it were <i>monodica</i>, <i>sui juris</i>,
+yet the cogitations of man do feign unto them relatives,
+parallels, and conjugates, whereas no such thing is; as they have
+feigned an element of fire to keep square with earth, water, and
+air, and the like.  Nay, it is not credible, till it be
+opened, what a number of fictions and fantasies the similitude of
+human actions and arts, together with the making of man
+<i>communis mensura</i>, have brought into natural philosophy;
+not much better than the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, bred in
+the cells of gross and solitary monks, and the opinion of
+Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism, who supposed the
+gods to be of human shape.  And, therefore, Velleius the
+Epicurean needed not to have asked why God should have adorned
+the heavens with stars, as if He had been an <i>ædilis</i>,
+one that should have set forth some magnificent shows or
+plays.  For if that great Work-master had been of a human
+disposition, He would have cast the stars into some pleasant and
+beautiful works and orders like the frets in the roofs of houses;
+whereas one can scarce find a posture in square, or triangle, or
+straight line, amongst such an infinite number, so differing a
+harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit of
+Nature.</p>
+<p>(10) Let us consider again the false appearances imposed upon
+us by every man’s own individual nature and custom in that
+feigned supposition that Plato maketh of the cave; for certainly
+if a child were continued in a grot or cave under the earth until
+maturity of age, and came suddenly abroad, he would have strange
+and absurd imaginations.  So, in like manner, although our
+persons live in the view of heaven, yet our spirits are included
+in the caves of our own complexions and customs, which minister
+unto us infinite errors and vain opinions if they be not recalled
+to examination.  But hereof we have given many examples in
+one of the errors, or peccant humours, which we ran briefly over
+in our first book.</p>
+<p>(11) And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that
+are imposed upon us by words, which are framed and applied
+according to the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort; and
+although we think we govern our words, and prescribe it well
+<i>loquendum ut vulgus sentiendum ut sapientes</i>, yet certain
+it is that words, as a Tartar’s bow, do shoot back upon the
+understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert
+the judgment.  So as it is almost necessary in all
+controversies and disputations to imitate the wisdom of the
+mathematicians, in setting down in the very beginning the
+definitions of our words and terms, that others may know how we
+accept and understand them, and whether they concur with us or
+no.  For it cometh to pass, for want of this, that we are
+sure to end there where we ought to have begun, which is, in
+questions and differences about words.  To conclude,
+therefore, it must be confessed that it is not possible to
+divorce ourselves from these fallacies and false appearances
+because they are inseparable from our nature and condition of
+life; so yet, nevertheless, the caution of them (for all
+elenches, as was said, are but cautions) doth extremely import
+the true conduct of human judgment.  The particular elenches
+or cautions against these three false appearances I find
+altogether deficient.</p>
+<p>(12) There remaineth one part of judgment of great excellency
+which to mine understanding is so slightly touched, as I may
+report that also deficient; which is the application of the
+differing kinds of proofs to the differing kinds of
+subjects.  For there being but four kinds of demonstrations,
+that is, by the immediate consent of the mind or sense, by
+induction, by syllogism, and by congruity, which is that which
+Aristotle calleth demonstration in orb or circle, and not <i>a
+notioribus</i>, every of these hath certain subjects in the
+matter of sciences, in which respectively they have chiefest use;
+and certain others, from which respectively they ought to be
+excluded; and the rigour and curiosity in requiring the more
+severe proofs in some things, and chiefly the facility in
+contenting ourselves with the more remiss proofs in others, hath
+been amongst the greatest causes of detriment and hindrance to
+knowledge.  The distributions and assignations of
+demonstrations according to the analogy of sciences I note as
+deficient.</p>
+<p>XV. (1) The custody or retaining of knowledge is either in
+writing or memory; whereof writing hath two parts, the nature of
+the character and the order of the entry.  For the art of
+characters, or other visible notes of words or things, it hath
+nearest conjugation with grammar, and, therefore, I refer it to
+the due place; for the disposition and collocation of that
+knowledge which we preserve in writing, it consisteth in a good
+digest of common-places, wherein I am not ignorant of the
+prejudice imputed to the use of common-place books, as causing a
+retardation of reading, and some sloth or relaxation of
+memory.  But because it is but a counterfeit thing in
+knowledges to be forward and pregnant, except a man be deep and
+full, I hold the entry of common-places to be a matter of great
+use and essence in studying, as that which assureth copy of
+invention, and contracteth judgment to a strength.  But this
+is true, that of the methods of common-places that I have seen,
+there is none of any sufficient worth, all of them carrying
+merely the face of a school and not of a world; and referring to
+vulgar matters and pedantical divisions, without all life or
+respect to action.</p>
+<p>(2) For the other principal part of the custody of knowledge,
+which is memory, I find that faculty in my judgment weakly
+inquired of.  An art there is extant of it; but it seemeth
+to me that there are better precepts than that art, and better
+practices of that art than those received.  It is certain
+the art (as it is) may be raised to points of ostentation
+prodigious; but in use (as is now managed) it is barren, not
+burdensome, nor dangerous to natural memory, as is imagined, but
+barren, that is, not dexterous to be applied to the serious use
+of business and occasions.  And, therefore, I make no more
+estimation of repeating a great number of names or words upon
+once hearing, or the pouring forth of a number of verses or
+rhymes <i>extempore</i>, or the making of a satirical simile of
+everything, or the turning of everything to a jest, or the
+falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like
+(whereof in the faculties of the mind there is great copy, and
+such as by device and practice may be exalted to an extreme
+degree of wonder), than I do of the tricks of tumblers,
+funambuloes, baladines; the one being the same in the mind that
+the other is in the body, matters of strangeness without
+worthiness.</p>
+<p>(3) This art of memory is but built upon two intentions; the
+one prenotion, the other emblem.  Prenotion dischargeth the
+indefinite seeking of that we would remember, and directeth us to
+seek in a narrow compass, that is, somewhat that hath congruity
+with our place of memory.  Emblem reduceth conceits
+intellectual to images sensible, which strike the memory more;
+out of which axioms may be drawn much better practice than that
+in use; and besides which axioms, there are divers more touching
+help of memory not inferior to them.  But I did in the
+beginning distinguish, not to report those things deficient,
+which are but only ill managed.</p>
+<p>XVI. (1) There remaineth the fourth kind of rational
+knowledge, which is transitive, concerning the expressing or
+transferring our knowledge to others, which I will term by the
+general name of tradition or delivery.  Tradition hath three
+parts: the first concerning the organ of tradition; the second
+concerning the method of tradition; and the third concerning the
+illustration of tradition.</p>
+<p>(2) For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or
+writing; for Aristotle saith well, “Words are the images of
+cogitations, and letters are the images of words.”
+But yet it is not of necessity that cogitations be expressed by
+the medium of words.  For whatsoever is capable of
+sufficient differences, and those perceptible by the sense, is in
+nature competent to express cogitations.  And, therefore, we
+see in the commerce of barbarous people that understand not one
+another’s language, and in the practice of divers that are
+dumb and deaf, that men’s minds are expressed in gestures,
+though not exactly, yet to serve the turn.  And we
+understand further, that it is the use of China and the kingdoms
+of the High Levant to write in characters real, which express
+neither letters nor words in gross, but things or notions;
+insomuch as countries and provinces which understand not one
+another’s language can nevertheless read one
+another’s writings, because the characters are accepted
+more generally than the languages do extend; and, therefore, they
+have a vast multitude of characters, as many, I suppose, as
+radical words.</p>
+<p>(3) These notes of cogitations are of two sorts: the one when
+the note hath some similitude or congruity with the notion; the
+other <i>ad placitum</i>, having force only by contract or
+acceptation.  Of the former sort are hieroglyphics and
+gestures.  For as to hieroglyphics (things of ancient use
+and embraced chiefly by the Egyptians, one of the most ancient
+nations), they are but as continued impresses and emblems.
+And as for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics, and
+are to hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in
+that they abide not; but they have evermore, as well as the
+other, an affinity with the things signified.  As Periander,
+being consulted with how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid
+the messenger attend and report what he saw him do; and went into
+his garden and topped all the highest flowers, signifying that it
+consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the nobility and
+grandees.  <i>Ad placitum</i>, are the characters real
+before mentioned, and words: although some have been willing by
+curious inquiry, or rather by apt feigning, to have derived
+imposition of names from reason and intendment; a speculation
+elegant, and, by reason it searcheth into antiquity, reverent,
+but sparingly mixed with truth, and of small fruit.  This
+portion of knowledge touching the notes of things and cogitations
+in general, I find not inquired, but deficient.  And
+although it may seem of no great use, considering that words and
+writings by letters do far excel all the other ways; yet because
+this part concerneth, as it were, the mint of knowledge (for
+words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits, as moneys
+are for values, and that it is fit men be not ignorant that
+moneys may be of another kind than gold and silver), I thought
+good to propound it to better inquiry.</p>
+<p>(4) Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them
+hath produced the science of grammar.  For man still
+striveth to reintegrate himself in those benedictions, from which
+by his fault he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven
+against the first general curse by the invention of all other
+arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse
+(which was the confusion of tongues) by the art of grammar;
+whereof the use in a mother tongue is small, in a foreign tongue
+more; but most in such foreign tongues as have ceased to be
+vulgar tongues, and are turned only to learned tongues.  The
+duty of it is of two natures: the one popular, which is for the
+speedy and perfect attaining languages, as well for intercourse
+of speech as for understanding of authors; the other
+philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as they
+are the footsteps and prints of reason: which kind of analogy
+between words and reason is handled <i>sparsim</i>, brokenly
+though not entirely; and, therefore, I cannot report it
+deficient, though I think it very worthy to be reduced into a
+science by itself.</p>
+<p>(5) Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the
+consideration of the accidents of words; which are measure,
+sound, and elevation or accent, and the sweetness and harshness
+of them: whence hath issued some curious observations in
+rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as we consider it, in respect of the
+verse and not of the argument.  Wherein though men in
+learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet in
+modern languages it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of
+verses as of dances; for a dance is a measured pace, as a verse
+is a measured speech.  In these things this sense is better
+judge than the art:</p>
+<blockquote><p>   “Cœnæ fercula
+nostræ<br />
+Mallem convivis quam placuisse cocis.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an
+unfit subject, it is well said, “<i>Quod tempore antiquum
+videtur</i>, <i>id incongruitate est maxime novum</i>.”</p>
+<p>(6) For ciphers, they are commonly in letters or alphabets,
+but may be in words.  The kinds of ciphers (besides the
+simple ciphers, with changes, and intermixtures of nulls and
+non-significants) are many, according to the nature or rule of
+the infolding, wheel-ciphers, key-ciphers, doubles, &amp;c.
+But the virtues of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are
+three; that they be not laborious to write and read; that they be
+impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that they be without
+suspicion.  The highest degree whereof is to write <i>omnia
+per omnia</i>; which is undoubtedly possible, with a proportion
+quintuple at most of the writing infolding to the writing
+infolded, and no other restraint whatsoever.  This art of
+ciphering hath for relative an art of deciphering, by supposition
+unprofitable, but, as things are, of great use.  For suppose
+that ciphers were well managed, there be multitudes of them which
+exclude the decipherer.  But in regard of the rawness and
+unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass, the greatest
+matters are many times carried in the weakest ciphers.</p>
+<p>(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it
+may be thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences,
+naming them for show and ostentation, and to little other
+purpose.  But let those, which are skilful in them, judge
+whether I bring them in only for appearance, or whether in that
+which I speak of them (though in few words) there be not some
+seed of proficience.  And this must be remembered, that as
+there be many of great account in their countries and provinces,
+which, when they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of
+mean rank and scarcely regarded; so these arts, being here placed
+with the principal and supreme sciences, seem petty things: yet
+to such as have chosen them to spend their labours and studies in
+them, they seem great matters.</p>
+<p>XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a
+controversy in our time.  But as in civil business, if there
+be a meeting, and men fall at words, there is commonly an end of
+the matter for that time, and no proceeding at all; so in
+learning, where there is much controversy, there is many times
+little inquiry.  For this part of knowledge of method
+seemeth to me so weakly inquired as I shall report it
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as
+a part of judgment.  For as the doctrine of syllogisms
+comprehendeth the rules of judgment upon that which is invented,
+so the doctrine of method containeth the rules of judgment upon
+that which is to be delivered; for judgment precedeth delivery,
+as it followeth invention.  Neither is the method or the
+nature of the tradition material only to the use of knowledge,
+but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since the
+labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of
+knowledge, the wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth
+the felicity of continuance and proceeding.  And therefore
+the most real diversity of method is of method referred to use,
+and method referred to progression: whereof the one may be termed
+magistral, and the other of probation.</p>
+<p>(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be <i>via deserta et
+interclusa</i>.  For as knowledges are now delivered, there
+is a kind of contract of error between the deliverer and the
+receiver.  For he that delivereth knowledge desireth to
+deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as may
+be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather
+present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to
+doubt, than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open
+his weakness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his
+strength.</p>
+<p>(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on
+ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the
+same method wherein it was invented: and so is it possible of
+knowledge induced.  But in this same anticipated and
+prevented knowledge, no man knoweth how he came to the knowledge
+which he hath obtained.  But yet, nevertheless, <i>secundum
+majus et minus</i>, a man may revisit and descend unto the
+foundations of his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it
+into another, as it grew in his own mind.  For it is in
+knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean to use the plant, it
+is no matter for the roots—but if you mean to remove it to
+grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so
+the delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair
+bodies of trees without the roots; good for the carpenter, but
+not for the planter.  But if you will have sciences grow, it
+is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look
+well to the taking up of the roots.  Of which kind of
+delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath
+some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in
+inquisition, and therefore note it for deficient.</p>
+<p>(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some
+affinity with the former, used in some cases by the discretion of
+the ancients, but disgraced since by the impostures of many vain
+persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit
+merchandises; and that is enigmatical and disclosed.  The
+pretence whereof is, to remove the vulgar capacities from being
+admitted to the secrets of knowledges, and to reserve them to
+selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can pierce the
+veil.</p>
+<p>(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is
+great, is the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods;
+wherein we may observe that it hath been too much taken into
+custom, out of a few axioms or observations upon any subject, to
+make a solemn and formal art, filling it with some discourses,
+and illustrating it with examples, and digesting it into a
+sensible method.  But the writing in aphorisms hath many
+excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not
+approach.</p>
+<p>(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial
+or solid: for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot
+be made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of
+illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off;
+discourse of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of
+practice are cut off.  So there remaineth nothing to fill
+the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and
+therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to
+write aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded.  But in
+methods,</p>
+<blockquote><p>   “Tantum series juncturaque
+pollet,<br />
+Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were
+disjointed, would come to little.  Secondly, methods are
+more fit to win consent or belief, but less fit to point to
+action; for they carry a kind of demonstration in orb or circle,
+one part illuminating another, and therefore satisfy.  But
+particulars being dispersed do best agree with dispersed
+directions.  And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge
+broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods,
+carrying the show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at
+furthest.</p>
+<p>(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great
+weight, is the handling of knowledge by assertions and their
+proofs, or by questions and their determinations.  The
+latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately followed, is as
+prejudicial to the proceeding of learning as it is to the
+proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or
+hold.  For if the field be kept, and the sum of the
+enterprise pursued, those smaller things will come in of
+themselves: indeed a man would not leave some important piece
+enemy at his back.  In like manner, the use of confutation
+in the delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to
+serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not
+to minister and excite disputatious and doubts.</p>
+<p>(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject
+or matter which is handled.  For there is a great difference
+in delivery of the mathematics, which are the most abstracted of
+knowledges, and policy, which is the most immersed.  And
+howsoever contention hath been moved, touching a uniformity of
+method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how that opinion,
+besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards
+learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to
+certain empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks
+and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and
+expulsed with the torture and press of the method.  And,
+therefore, as I did allow well of particular topics for
+invention, so I do allow likewise of particular methods of
+tradition.</p>
+<p>(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and
+teaching of knowledge is, according unto the light and
+presuppositions of that which is delivered.  For that
+knowledge which is new, and foreign from opinions received, is to
+be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable and
+familiar; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax
+Democritus, doth in truth commend him, where he saith “If
+we shall indeed dispute, and not follow after similitudes,”
+&amp;c.  For those whose conceits are seated in popular
+opinions need only but to prove or dispute; but those whose
+conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the
+one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and
+demonstrate.  So that it is of necessity with them to have
+recourse to similitudes and translations to express
+themselves.  And therefore in the infancy of learning, and
+in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial were then
+new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
+would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected
+for paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood
+or judged.  So in divine learning, we see how frequent
+parables and tropes are, for it is a rule, that whatsoever
+science is not consonant to presuppositions must pray in aid of
+similitudes.</p>
+<p>(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and
+received: as that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or
+systasis, of concealment or cryptic, &amp;c., which I do allow
+well of, though I have stood upon those which are least handled
+and observed.  All which I have remembered to this purpose,
+because I would erect and constitute one general inquiry (which
+seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of tradition.</p>
+<p>(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth
+further belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a
+work, but also the several beams and columns thereof; not as to
+their stuff, but as to their quantity and figure.  And
+therefore method considereth not only the disposition of the
+argument or subject, but likewise the propositions: not as to
+their truth or matter, but as to their limitation and
+manner.  For herein Ramus merited better a great deal in
+reviving the good rules of
+propositions—Καθολον
+πρωτον, κυτα
+παντος &amp;c.—than he did
+in introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet (as it is the
+condition of human things that, according to the ancient fables,
+“the most precious things have the most pernicious
+keepers”) it was so, that the attempt of the one made him
+fall upon the other.  For he had need be well conducted that
+should design to make axioms convertible, if he make them not
+withal circular, and non-promovent, or incurring into themselves;
+but yet the intention was excellent.</p>
+<p>(13) The other considerations of method, concerning
+propositions, are chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which
+limit the dimensions of sciences: for every knowledge may be
+fitly said, besides the profundity (which is the truth and
+substance of it, that makes it solid), to have a longitude and a
+latitude; accounting the latitude towards other sciences, and the
+longitude towards action; that is, from the greatest generality
+to the most particular precept.  The one giveth rule how far
+one knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of
+another, which is the rule they call
+Καθαυτο; the other
+giveth rule unto what degree of particularity a knowledge should
+descend: which latter I find passed over in silence, being in my
+judgment the more material.  For certainty there must be
+somewhat left to practice; but how much is worthy the
+inquiry?  We see remote and superficial generalities do but
+offer knowledge to scorn of practical men; and are no more aiding
+to practice than an Ortelius’ universal map is to direct
+the way between London and York.  The better sort of rules
+have been not unfitly compared to glasses of steel unpolished,
+where you may see the images of things, but first they must be
+filed: so the rules will help if they be laboured and polished by
+practice.  But how crystalline they may be made at the
+first, and how far forth they may be polished aforehand, is the
+question, the inquiry whereof seemeth to me deficient.</p>
+<p>(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a
+method, which is not a lawful method, but a method of imposture:
+which is, to deliver knowledges in such manner as men may
+speedily come to make a show of learning, who have it not.
+Such was the travail of Raymundus Lullius in making that art
+which bears his name; not unlike to some books of typocosmy,
+which have been made since; being nothing but a mass of words of
+all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms
+might be thought to understand the art; which collections are
+much like a fripper’s or broker’s shop, that hath
+ends of everything, but nothing of worth.</p>
+<p>XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the
+illustration of tradition, comprehended in that science which we
+call rhetoric, or art of eloquence, a science excellent, and
+excellently well laboured.  For although in true value it is
+inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to Moses, when he
+disabled himself for want of this faculty, “Aaron shall be
+thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God”), yet with
+people it is the more mighty; for so Solomon saith, <i>Sapiens
+corde appellabitur prudens</i>, <i>sed dulcis eloquio majora
+reperiet</i>, signifying that profoundness of wisdom will help a
+man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence that
+prevaileth in an active life.  And as to the labouring of
+it, the emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time,
+and the experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of
+rhetoric exceed themselves.  Again, the excellency of
+examples of eloquence in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero,
+added to the perfection of the precepts of eloquence, hath
+doubled the progression in this art; and therefore the
+deficiences which I shall note will rather be in some
+collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the
+rules or use of the art itself.</p>
+<p>(2)  Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about
+the roots of this science, as we have done of the rest, the duty
+and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the
+better moving of the will.  For we see reason is disturbed
+in the administration thereof by three means—by
+illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination
+or impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or
+affection, which pertains to morality.  And as in
+negotiation with others, men are wrought by cunning, by
+importunity, and by vehemency; so in this negotiation within
+ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences, solicited and
+importuned by impressions or observations, and transported by
+passions.  Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately
+built, as that those powers and arts should have force to disturb
+reason, and not to establish and advance it.  For the end of
+logic is to teach a form of argument to secure reason, and not to
+entrap it; the end of morality is to procure the affections to
+obey reason, and not to invade it; the end of rhetoric is to fill
+the imagination to second reason, and not to oppress it; for
+these abuses of arts come in but <i>ex oblique</i>, for
+caution.</p>
+<p>(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though
+springing out of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time,
+to esteem of rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to
+cookery, that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome by
+variety of sauces to the pleasure of the taste.  For we see
+that speech is much more conversant in adorning that which is
+good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is no man
+but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think; and it was
+excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that because he used
+to hold on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was
+ever inveighing against eloquence and good speech, knowing that
+no man can speak fair of courses sordid and base.  And
+therefore, as Plato said elegantly, “That virtue, if she
+could be seen, would move great love and affection;” so
+seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape,
+the next degree is to show her to the imagination in lively
+representation; for to show her to reason only in subtlety of
+argument was a thing ever derided in Chrysippus and many of the
+Stoics, who thought to thrust virtue upon men by sharp
+disputations and conclusions, which have no sympathy with the
+will of man.</p>
+<p>(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and
+obedient to reason, it were true there should be no great use of
+persuasions and insinuations to the will, more than of naked
+proposition and proofs; but in regard of the continual mutinies
+and seditious of the affections—</p>
+<blockquote><p>   “Video meliora,
+proboque,<br />
+Deteriora sequor,”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of
+persuasions did not practise and win the imagination from the
+affections’ part, and contract a confederacy between the
+reason and imagination against the affections; for the affections
+themselves carry ever an appetite to good, as reason doth.
+The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the
+present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time.  And,
+therefore, the present filling the imagination more, reason is
+commonly vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and
+persuasion hath made things future and remote appear as present,
+then upon the revolt of the imagination reason prevaileth.</p>
+<p>(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more
+charged with the colouring of the worst part, than logic with
+sophistry, or morality with vice; for we know the doctrines of
+contraries are the same, though the use be opposite.  It
+appeareth also that logic differeth from rhetoric, not only as
+the fist from the palm—the one close, the other at
+large—but much more in this, that logic handleth reason
+exact and in truth, and rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in
+popular opinions and manners.  And therefore Aristotle doth
+wisely place rhetoric as between logic on the one side, and moral
+or civil knowledge on the other, as participating of both; for
+the proofs and demonstrations of logic are toward all men
+indifferent and the same, but the proofs and persuasions of
+rhetoric ought to differ according to the auditors:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas
+Arion.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far
+that if a man should speak of the same thing to several persons,
+he should speak to them all respectively and several ways; though
+this politic part of eloquence in private speech it is easy for
+the greatest orators to want: whilst, by the observing their
+well-graced forms of speech, they leese the volubility of
+application; and therefore it shall not be amiss to recommend
+this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it
+here or in that part which concerneth policy.</p>
+<p>(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as
+I said, are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom
+and diligence of Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a
+collection of the popular signs and colours of good and evil,
+both simple and comparative, which are as the sophisms of
+rhetoric (as I touched before).  For example—</p>
+<blockquote><p>   “Sophisma.</p>
+<p>Quod laudatur, bonum: quod vituperatur, malum.</p>
+<p>   Redargutio.</p>
+<p>Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Malum est</i>, <i>malum est</i> (<i>inquit emptor</i>):
+<i>sed cum recesserit</i>, <i>tum gloriabitur</i>!  The
+defects in the labour of Aristotle are three—one, that
+there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are not
+annexed; and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use
+of them: for their use is not only in probation, but much more in
+impression.  For many forms are equal in signification which
+are differing in impression, as the difference is great in the
+piercing of that which is sharp and that which is flat, though
+the strength of the percussion be the same.  For there is no
+man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said,
+“Your enemies will be glad of this”—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur
+Atridæ.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>than by hearing it said only, “This is evil for
+you.”</p>
+<p>(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before,
+touching provision or preparatory store for the furniture of
+speech and readiness of invention, which appeareth to be of two
+sorts: the one in resemblance to a shop of pieces unmade up, the
+other to a shop of things ready made up; both to be applied to
+that which is frequent and most in request.  The former of
+these I will call <i>antitheta</i>, and the latter
+<i>formulæ</i>.</p>
+<p>(8) <i>Antitheta</i> are theses argued <i>pro et contra</i>,
+wherein men may be more large and laborious; but (in such as are
+able to do it) to avoid prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of
+the several arguments to be cast up into some brief and acute
+sentences, not to be cited, but to be as skeins or bottoms of
+thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be used;
+supplying authorities and examples by reference.</p>
+<blockquote><p>   “<i>Pro verbis
+legis</i>.<br />
+Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quæ recedit a
+litera:<br />
+Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.</p>
+<p>   <i>Pro sententia legis</i>.<br />
+Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur
+singula.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(9) <i>Formulæ</i> are but decent and apt passages or
+conveyances of speech, which may serve indifferently for
+differing subjects; as of preface, conclusion, digression,
+transition, excusation, &amp;c.  For as in buildings there
+is great pleasure and use in the well casting of the staircases,
+entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech, the
+conveyances and passages are of special ornament and effect.</p>
+<blockquote><p>“<i>A conclusion in a deliberative</i>.<br />
+So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the
+inconveniences future.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of
+knowledge, the one critical, the other pedantical.  For all
+knowledge is either delivered by teachers, or attained by
+men’s proper endeavours: and therefore as the principal
+part of tradition of knowledge concerneth chiefly writing of
+books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading of books;
+whereunto appertain incidently these considerations.  The
+first is concerning the true correction and edition of authors;
+wherein nevertheless rash diligence hath done great
+prejudice.  For these critics have often presumed that that
+which they understand not is false set down: as the priest that,
+where he found it written of St. Paul <i>Demissus est per
+sportam</i>, mended his book, and made it <i>Demissus est per
+portam</i>; because <i>sporta</i> was a hard word, and out of his
+reading: and surely their errors, though they be not so palpable
+and ridiculous, yet are of the same kind.  And therefore, as
+it hath been wisely noted, the most corrected copies are commonly
+the least correct.</p>
+<p>The second is concerning the exposition and explication of
+authors, which resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein
+it is over usual to blanch the obscure places and discourse upon
+the plain.</p>
+<p>The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give
+great light to true interpretations.</p>
+<p>The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of
+the authors; that men thereby may make some election unto
+themselves what books to read.</p>
+<p>And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of
+studies; that men may know in what order or pursuit to read.</p>
+<p>(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of
+tradition which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers
+considerations of great fruit.</p>
+<p>As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what
+to initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.</p>
+<p>Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest,
+and so proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to
+press the more difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy;
+for it is one method to practise swimming with bladders, and
+another to practise dancing with heavy shoes.</p>
+<p>A third is the application of learning according unto the
+propriety of the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties
+intellectual, but seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some
+studies: as, for example, if a child be bird-witted, that is,
+hath not the faculty of attention, the mathematics giveth a
+remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be caught away but a
+moment, one is new to begin.  And as sciences have a
+propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or
+powers have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy
+profiting: and therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what
+kinds of wits and natures are most apt and proper for what
+sciences.</p>
+<p>Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great
+consequence to hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero,
+men in exercising their faculties, if they be not well advised,
+do exercise their faults and get ill habits as well as good; so
+as there is a great judgment to be had in the continuance and
+intermission of exercises.  It were too long to
+particularise a number of other considerations of this nature,
+things but of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy.
+For as the wronging or cherishing of seeds or young plants is
+that that is most important to their thriving, and as it was
+noted that the first six kings being in truth as tutors of the
+state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the principal cause of
+the immense greatness of that state which followed, so the
+culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible
+(though unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time or
+contention of labour can countervail it afterwards.  And it
+is not amiss to observe also how small and mean faculties gotten
+by education, yet when they fall into great men or great matters,
+do work great and important effects: whereof we see a notable
+example in Tacitus of two stage players, Percennius and
+Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian
+armies into an extreme tumult and combustion.  For there
+arising a mutiny amongst them upon the death of Augustus
+Cæsar, Blæsus the lieutenant had committed some of
+the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon Vibulenus
+got to be heard speak, which he did in this
+manner:—“These poor innocent wretches appointed to
+cruel death, you have restored to behold the light; but who shall
+restore my brother to me, or life unto my brother, that was sent
+hither in message from the legions of Germany, to treat of the
+common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by some of
+his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
+executioners upon soldiers.  Answer, Blæsus, what is
+done with his body?  The mortalest enemies do not deny
+burial.  When I have performed my last duties to the corpse
+with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain besides him; so
+that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true hearts
+to the legions, may have leave to bury us.”  With
+which speech he put the army into an infinite fury and uproar:
+whereas truth was he had no brother, neither was there any such
+matter; but he played it merely as if he had been upon the
+stage.</p>
+<p>(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational
+knowledges; wherein if I have made the divisions other than those
+that are received, yet would I not be thought to disallow all
+those divisions which I do not use.  For there is a double
+necessity imposed upon me of altering the divisions.  The
+one, because it differeth in end and purpose, to sort together
+those things which are next in nature, and those things which are
+next in use.  For if a secretary of estate should sort his
+papers, it is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort
+together things of a nature, as treaties, instructions,
+&amp;c.  But in his boxes or particular cabinet he would
+sort together those that he were like to use together, though of
+several natures.  So in this general cabinet of knowledge it
+was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the nature of
+things; whereas if myself had been to handle any particular
+knowledge, I would have respected the divisions fittest for
+use.  The other, because the bringing in of the deficiences
+did by consequence alter the partitions of the rest.  For
+let the knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be
+fifteen.  Let the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty;
+the parts of fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts
+of fifteen are three and five; the parts of twenty are two, four,
+five, and ten.  So as these things are without
+contradiction, and could not otherwise be.</p>
+<p>XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of
+the appetite and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, <i>Ante
+omnia</i>, <i>fili</i>, <i>custodi cor tuum</i>: <i>nam inde
+procedunt actiones vitæ</i>.  In the handling of this
+science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a
+man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair
+copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giving any
+precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand and framing
+of the letters.  So have they made good and fair exemplars
+and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good,
+virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well described as the
+true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires.
+But how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and
+subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these
+pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and
+unprofitably.  For it is not the disputing that moral
+virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by nature, or the
+distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines and
+persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and
+the like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the
+absence of this part.</p>
+<p>(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden
+rock whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have
+been cast away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant
+in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof
+nevertheless is the wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in
+novelties nor subtleties), but contrariwise they have compounded
+sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of
+matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of
+disputatious, or to the eloquence of discourses.  But Seneca
+giveth an excellent check to eloquence, <i>Nocet illis
+eloquentia</i>, <i>quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit</i>, <i>sed
+sui</i>.  Doctrine should be such as should make men in love
+with the lesson, and not with the teacher; being directed to the
+auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s
+commendation.  And therefore those are of the right kind
+which may be concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel,
+<i>Quæ si feceritis</i>, <i>non oratorem dumtaxat in
+præsentia laudabitis</i>, <i>sed vosmetipsos etiam non ita
+multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore</i>.</p>
+<p>(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired
+of a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed
+obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning
+in the expressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the
+heroical acts of Æneas:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere
+magnum<br />
+Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at
+leisure that which men may read at leisure, but really to
+instruct and suborn action and active life, these Georgics of the
+mind, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less
+worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and
+felicity.  Wherefore the main and primitive division of
+moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or platform of
+good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one describing
+the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue,
+apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.</p>
+<p>(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good
+considereth it either simple or compared; either the kinds of
+good, or the degrees of good; in the latter whereof those
+infinite disputatious which were touching the supreme degree
+thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude, or the highest
+good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen
+divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged.  And as
+Aristotle saith, “That young men may be happy, but not
+otherwise but by hope;” so we must all acknowledge our
+minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope of the future
+world.</p>
+<p>(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the
+philosopher’s heaven, whereby they feigned a higher
+elevation of man’s nature than was (for we see in what
+height of style Seneca writeth, <i>Vere magnum</i>, <i>habere
+fragilitatem hominis</i>, <i>securitatem Dei</i>), we may with
+more sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and
+labours.  Wherein for the nature of good positive or simple,
+they have set it down excellently in describing the forms of
+virtue and duty, with their situations and postures; in
+distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions,
+and administrations, and the like: nay further, they have
+commended them to man’s nature and spirit with great
+quickness of argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and
+fortified and entrenched them (as much as discourse can do)
+against corrupt and popular opinions.  Again, for the
+degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also
+excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the
+comparisons between a contemplative and an active life, in the
+distinction between virtue with reluctation and virtue secured,
+in their encounters between honesty and profit, in their
+balancing of virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part
+deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.</p>
+<p>(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular
+and received notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and
+the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry
+concerning the roots of good and evil, and the strings of those
+roots, they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that which
+followed; and specially if they had consulted with nature, they
+had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound: which
+being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much
+confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear
+manner.</p>
+<p>(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of
+good—the one, as everything is a total or substantive in
+itself; the other, as it is a part or member of a greater body;
+whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier,
+because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general
+form.  Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy
+moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity,
+it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good
+patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region and country of
+massy bodies; so may we go forward, and see that water and massy
+bodies move to the centre of the earth; but rather than to suffer
+a divulsion in the continuance of nature, they will move upwards
+from the centre of the earth, forsaking their duty to the earth
+in regard of their duty to the world.  This double nature of
+good, and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven upon
+man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to
+the public ought to be much more precious than the conservation
+of life and being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius
+Magnus, when being in commission of purveyance for a famine at
+Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by
+his friends about him, that he should not hazard himself to sea
+in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, <i>Necesse est
+ut eam</i>, <i>non ut vivam</i>.  But it may be truly
+affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other
+discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which
+is communicative, and depress the good which is private and
+particular, as the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the
+same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws
+of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before; for we
+read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves
+anathematised and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of
+charity and infinite feeling of communion.</p>
+<p>(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and
+determine most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is
+conversant.  For first, it decideth the question touching
+the preferment of the contemplative or active life, and decideth
+it against Aristotle.  For all the reasons which he bringeth
+for the contemplative are private, and respecting the pleasure
+and dignity of a man’s self (in which respects no question
+the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike to
+that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and
+magnifying of philosophy and contemplation, who being asked what
+he was, answered, “That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian
+games, he knew the manner, that some came to try their fortune
+for the prizes, and some came as merchants to utter their
+commodities, and some came to make good cheer and meet their
+friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of them
+that came to look on.”  But men must know, that in
+this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and
+angels to be lookers on.  Neither could the like question
+ever have been received in the Church, notwithstanding their
+<i>Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus</i>, by which
+place they would exalt their civil death and regular professions,
+but upon this defence, that the monastical life is not simple
+contemplative, but performeth the duty either of incessant
+prayers and supplications, which hath been truly esteemed as an
+office in the Church, or else of writing or taking instructions
+for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses did when he abode
+so long in the mount.  And so we see Enoch, the seventh from
+Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with God, yet
+did also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude
+citeth.  But for contemplation which should be finished in
+itself, without casting beams upon society, assuredly divinity
+knoweth it not.</p>
+<p>(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and
+Socrates, and their schools and successions, on the one side, who
+placed felicity in virtue simply or attended, the actions and
+exercises whereof do chiefly embrace and concern society; and on
+the other side, the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed it in
+pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in some comedies of
+errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits) to be
+but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served and
+attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed
+it in serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation; as if they
+would have deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and the
+first age, when there was no summer nor winter, spring nor
+autumn, but all after one air and season; and Herillus, which
+placed felicity in extinguishment of the disputes of the mind,
+making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming things
+according to the clearness of the desires, or the reluctation;
+which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists,
+measuring things according to the motions of the spirit, and the
+constancy or wavering of belief; all which are manifest to tend
+to private repose and contentment, and not to point of
+society.</p>
+<p>(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which
+presupposeth that felicity must be placed in those things which
+are in our power, lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance;
+as if it were not a thing much more happy to fail in good and
+virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain all that we can wish
+to ourselves in our proper fortune: as Consalvo said to his
+soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he had rather die
+one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for long by one
+foot of retreat.  Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly
+leader hath signed, who hath affirmed that “a good
+conscience is a continual feast;” showing plainly that the
+conscience of good intentions, howsoever succeeding, is a more
+continual joy to nature than all the provision which can be made
+for security and repose.</p>
+<p>(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew
+general about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an
+occupation or profession; as if the purpose had been, not to
+resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly and avoid the
+causes of them, and to shape a particular kind and course of life
+to that end; introducing such a health of mind, as was that
+health of body of which Aristotle speaketh of Herodicus, who did
+nothing all his life long but intend his health; whereas if men
+refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of body is
+best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities,
+so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go
+through the greatest temptations and perturbations.  So as
+Diogenes’ opinion is to be accepted, who commended not them
+which abstained, but them which sustained, and could refrain
+their mind <i>in præcipitio</i>, and could give unto the
+mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn.</p>
+<p>(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of
+application in some of the most ancient and reverend philosophers
+and philosophical men, that did retire too easily from civil
+business, for avoiding of indignities and perturbations; whereas
+the resolution of men truly moral ought to be such as the same
+Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, <i>e telâ
+crassiore</i>, and not so fine as that everything should catch in
+it and endanger it.</p>
+<p>XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into
+the division of good active and passive; for this difference of
+good (not unlike to that which amongst the Romans was expressed
+in the familiar or household terms of <i>promus</i> and
+<i>condus</i>) is formed also in all things, and is best
+disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the one to
+preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or
+multiply themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the
+worthier; for in nature the heavens, which are the more worthy,
+are the agent, and the earth, which is the less worthy, is the
+patient.  In the pleasures of living creatures, that of
+generation is greater than that of food.  In divine
+doctrine, <i>beatius est dare quam accipere</i>.  And in
+life, there is no man’s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the
+effecting of somewhat that he hath fixed in his desire, more than
+sensuality, which priority of the active good is much upheld by
+the consideration of our estate to be mortal and exposed to
+fortune.  For if we might have a perpetuity and certainty in
+our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price.
+But when we see it is but <i>magni æstimamus mori
+tardius</i>, and <i>ne glorieris de crastino</i>, <i>nescis
+partum diei</i>, it maketh us to desire to have somewhat secured
+and exempted from time, which are only our deeds and works; as it
+is said, <i>Opera eorum sequuntur eos</i>.  The pre-eminence
+likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection which is
+natural in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the
+pleasures of the sense, which is the principal part of passive
+good, can have no great latitude.  <i>Cogita quamdiu eadem
+feceris</i>; <i>cibus</i>, <i>somnus</i>, <i>ludus per hunc
+circulum curritur</i>; <i>mori velle non tantum fortis</i>,
+<i>aut miser</i>, <i>aut prudens</i>, <i>sed etiam fastidiosus
+potest</i>.  But in enterprises, pursuits, and purposes of
+life, there is much variety; whereof men are sensible with
+pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils,
+reintegrations, approaches and attainings to their ends.  So
+as it was well said, <i>Vita sine proposito languida et vaga
+est</i>.  Neither hath this active good an identity with the
+good of society, though in some cases it hath an incidence into
+it.  For although it do many times bring forth acts of
+beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to a man’s
+own power, glory, amplification, continuance; as appeareth
+plainly, when it findeth a contrary subject.  For that
+gigantine state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the
+world, such as was Lucius Sylla and infinite other in smaller
+model, who would have all men happy or unhappy as they were their
+friends or enemies, and would give form to the world, according
+to their own humours (which is the true theomachy), pretendeth
+and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth furthest from
+good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.</p>
+<p>(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of
+conservative and effective.  For let us take a brief review
+of that which we have said: we have spoken first of the good of
+society, the intention whereof embraceth the form of human
+nature, whereof we are members and portions, and not our own
+proper and individual form; we have spoken of active good, and
+supposed it as a part of private and particular good.  And
+rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple desire
+or appetite proceeding from love to themselves: one of preserving
+and continuing their form; another of advancing and perfecting
+their form; and a third of multiplying and extending their form
+upon other things: whereof the multiplying, or signature of it
+upon other things, is that which we handled by the name of active
+good.  So as there remaineth the conserving of it, and
+perfecting or raising of it, which latter is the highest degree
+of passive good.  For to preserve in state is the less, to
+preserve with advancement is the greater.  So in man,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Igneus est ollis vigor, et cælestis
+origo.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is
+the perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which
+good is that which is the tempest of human life; while man, upon
+the instinct of an advancement, formal and essential, is carried
+to seek an advancement local.  For as those which are sick,
+and find no remedy, do tumble up and down and change place, as if
+by a remove local they could obtain a remove internal, so is it
+with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to exalt their
+nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their
+place.  So then passive good is, as was said, either
+conservative or perfective.</p>
+<p>(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which
+consisteth in the fruition of that which is agreeable to our
+natures; it seemeth to be most pure and natural of pleasures, but
+yet the softest and lowest.  And this also receiveth a
+difference, which hath neither been well judged of, nor well
+inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
+either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness
+and vigour of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by
+vicissitude; the one having less mixture of evil, the other more
+impression of good.  Whether of these is the greater good is
+a question controverted; but whether man’s nature may not
+be capable of both is a question not inquired.</p>
+<p>(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a
+sophist, Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace
+of mind, and the sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they
+fell from argument to ill words: the sophist saying that
+Socrates’ felicity was the felicity of a block or stone;
+and Socrates saying that the sophist’s felicity was the
+felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but itch and
+scratch.  And both these opinions do not want their
+supports.  For the opinion of Socrates is much upheld by the
+general consent even of the epicures themselves, that virtue
+beareth a great part in felicity; and if so, certain it is, that
+virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then in compassing
+desires.  The sophist’s opinion is much favoured by
+the assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is
+greater than good of simple preservation; because every obtaining
+a desire hath a show of advancement, as motion though in a circle
+hath a show of progression.</p>
+<p>(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the
+former superfluous.  For can it be doubted, but that there
+are some who take more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some
+other, and yet, nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or
+leaving of them?  So as this same, <i>Non uti ut non
+appetas</i>, <i>non appetere ut non metuas</i>, <i>sunt animi
+pusilli et diffidentis</i>.  And it seemeth to me that most
+of the doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and
+cautious than the nature of things requireth.  So have they
+increased the fear of death in offering to cure it.  For
+when they would have a man’s whole life to be but a
+discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men think
+that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of
+preparing.  Better saith the poet:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera
+ponat<br />
+Naturæ.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So have they sought to make men’s minds too uniform and
+harmonical, by not breaking them sufficiently to contrary
+motions; the reasons whereof I suppose to be, because they
+themselves were men dedicated to a private, free, and unapplied
+course of life.  For as we see, upon the lute or like
+instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many
+changes, yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops
+and passages, as a set song or voluntary; much after the same
+manner was the diversity between a philosophical and civil
+life.  And, therefore, men are to imitate the wisdom of
+jewellers: who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or an ice which
+may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone, they
+help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too much,
+they will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity
+as they destroy not magnanimity.</p>
+<p>(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private
+and particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that
+good of man which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may
+term duty; because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well
+framed and disposed towards others, as the term of virtue is
+applied to a mind well formed and composed in itself; though
+neither can a man understand virtue without some relation to
+society, nor duty without an inward disposition.  This part
+may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic; but
+not if it be well observed.  For it concerneth the regiment
+and government of every man over himself, and not over
+others.  And as in architecture the direction of framing the
+posts, beams, and other parts of building, is not the same with
+the manner of joining them and erecting the building; and in
+mechanicals, the direction how to frame an instrument or engine
+is not the same with the manner of setting it on work and
+employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one you
+incidently express the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine
+of conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their
+conformity thereunto.</p>
+<p>(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common
+duty of every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the
+respective or special duty of every man in his profession,
+vocation, and place.  The first of these is extant and well
+laboured, as hath been said.  The second likewise I may
+report rather dispersed than deficient; which manner of dispersed
+writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge to be best.
+For who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue,
+challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and
+place?  For although sometimes a looker on may see more than
+a gamester, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound,
+“That the vale best discovereth the hill;” yet there
+is small doubt but that men can write best and most really and
+materially in their own professions; and that the writing of
+speculative men of active matter for the most part doth seem to
+men of experience, as Phormio’s argument of the wars seemed
+to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage.  Only there is one
+vice which accompanieth them that write in their own professions,
+that they magnify them in excess.  But generally it were to
+be wished (as that which would make learning indeed solid and
+fruitful) that active men would or could become writers.</p>
+<p>(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, <i>honoris causa</i>,
+your Majesty’s excellent book touching the duty of a king;
+a work richly compounded of divinity, morality, and policy, with
+great aspersion of all other arts; and being in some opinion one
+of the most sound and healthful writings that I have read: not
+distempered in the heat of invention, nor in the coldness of
+negligence; not sick of dizziness, as those are who leese
+themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which
+cramp in matters impertinent; not savouring of perfumes and
+paintings, as those do who seek to please the reader more than
+nature beareth; and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof,
+being agreeable to truth and apt for action; and far removed from
+that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted those that write in
+their own professions to be subject—which is, that they
+exalt it above measure.  For your Majesty hath truly
+described, not a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory,
+but a Moses or a David, pastors of their people.  Neither
+can I ever leese out of my remembrance what I heard your Majesty
+in the same sacred spirit of government deliver in a great cause
+of judicature, which was, “That kings ruled by their laws,
+as God did by the laws of nature; and ought as rarely to put in
+use their supreme prerogative as God doth His power of working
+miracles.”  And yet notwithstanding in your book of a
+free monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know
+the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as well as the
+circle of his office and duty.  Thus have I presumed to
+allege this excellent writing of your Majesty, as a prime or
+eminent example of tractates concerning special and respective
+duties; wherein I should have said as much, if it had been
+written a thousand years since.  Neither am I moved with
+certain courtly decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in
+presence.  No, it is flattery to praise in
+absence—that is, when either the virtue is absent, or the
+occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural, but forced,
+either in truth or in time.  But let Cicero be read in his
+oration <i>pro Marcello</i>, which is nothing but an excellent
+table of Cæsar’s virtue, and made to his face;
+besides the example of many other excellent persons, wiser a
+great deal than such observers; and we will never doubt, upon a
+full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.</p>
+<p>(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of
+this part, touching the duties of professions and vocations, a
+relative or opposite, touching the frauds, cautels, impostures,
+and vices of every profession, which hath been likewise handled;
+but how? rather in a satire and cynically, than seriously and
+wisely; for men have rather sought by wit to deride and traduce
+much of that which is good in professions, than with judgment to
+discover and sever that which is corrupt.  For, as Solomon
+saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to
+scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humour,
+but no matter for his instruction: <i>Quærenti derisori
+scientiam ipsa se abscondit</i>; <i>sed studioso fit
+obviam</i>.  But the managing of this argument with
+integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to
+be one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can
+be planted.  For, as the fable goeth of the
+basilisk—that if he see you first, you die for it; but if
+you see him first, he dieth—so is it with deceits and evil
+arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their life; but
+if they prevent, they endanger.  So that we are much
+beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not
+what they ought to do.  For it is not possible to join
+serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know
+exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going
+upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting,
+and the rest—that is, all forms and natures of evil.
+For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.  Nay, an
+honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim
+them, without the help of the knowledge of evil.  For men of
+corrupted minds presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity
+of manners, and believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and
+men’s exterior language.  So as, except you can make
+them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of their own
+corrupt opinions, they despise all morality.  <i>Non recipit
+stultus verba prudentiæ</i>, <i>nisi ea dixeris
+quæ</i>, <i>versantur in corde ejus</i>.</p>
+<p>(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also
+appertain the duties between husband and wife, parent and child,
+master and servant.  So likewise the laws of friendship and
+gratitude, the civil bond of companies, colleges, and politic
+bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other proportionate duties; not
+as they are parts of government and society, but as to the
+framing of the mind of particular persons.</p>
+<p>(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth
+handle it also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto
+belongeth the weighing of duties between person and person, case
+and case, particular and public.  As we see in the
+proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own sons, which was so
+much extolled, yet what was said?</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata
+minores.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides.
+Again, we see when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper
+certain whose opinions they meant to feel, whether they were fit
+to be made their associates, and cast forth the question touching
+the killing of a tyrant being a usurper, they were divided in
+opinion; some holding that servitude was the extreme of evils,
+and others that tyranny was better than a civil war: and a number
+of the like cases there are of comparative duty.  Amongst
+which that of all others is the most frequent, where the question
+is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice.
+Which Jason of Thessalia determined against the truth: <i>Aliqua
+sunt injuste facienda</i>, <i>ut multa juste fieri
+possint</i>.  But the reply is good: <i>Auctorem
+præsentis justitiæ habes</i>, <i>sponsorem
+futuræ non habes</i>.  Men must pursue things which
+are just in present, and leave the future to the Divine
+Providence.  So then we pass on from this general part
+touching the exemplar and description of good.</p>
+<p>XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of
+life, it remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth
+thereunto, without which part the former seemeth to be no better
+than a fair image or statue, which is beautiful to contemplate,
+but is without life and motion; whereunto Aristotle himself
+subscribeth in these words: <i>Necesse est scilicet de virtute
+dicere</i>, <i>et quid sit</i>, <i>et ex quibus
+gignatur</i>.  <i>Inutile enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem
+nosse</i>, <i>acquirendæ autem ejus modos et vias
+ignorare</i>.  <i>Non enum de virtute tantum</i>, <i>qua
+specie sit</i>, <i>quærendum est</i>, <i>sed et quomodo sui
+copiam faciat</i>: <i>utrumque enum volumeus</i>, <i>et rem ipsam
+nosse</i>, <i>et ejus compotes fieri</i>: <i>hoc autem ex voto
+non succedet</i>, <i>nisi sciamus et ex quibus et
+quomodo</i>.  In such full words and with such iteration
+doth he inculcate this part.  So saith Cicero in great
+commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied himself to
+philosophy, <i>Non ita disputandi causa</i>, <i>sed ita
+vivendi</i>.  And although the neglect of our times, wherein
+few men do hold any consultations touching the reformation of
+their life (as Seneca excellently saith, <i>De partibus
+vitæ quisque deliberat</i>, <i>de summa nemo</i>), may make
+this part seem superfluous; yet I must conclude with that
+aphorism of Hippocrates, <i>Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non
+sentiunt</i>, <i>iis mens ægrotat</i>.  They need
+medicine, not only to assuage the disease, but to awake the
+sense.  And if it be said that the cure of men’s minds
+belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral
+philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble
+handmaid.  For as the Psalm saith, “That the eyes of
+the handmaid look perpetually towards the mistress,” and
+yet no doubt many things are left to the discretion of the
+handmaid to discern of the mistress’ will; so ought moral
+philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of
+divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself (within due
+limits) many sound and profitable directions.</p>
+<p>(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I
+cannot but find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to
+written inquiry; the rather, because it consisteth of much
+matter, wherein both speech and action is often conversant; and
+such wherein the common talk of men (which is rare, but yet
+cometh sometimes to pass) is wiser than their books.  It is
+reasonable, therefore, that we propound it in the more
+particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit
+ourselves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost
+incredible, and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those
+themselves that have written.  We will, therefore, enumerate
+some heads or points thereof, that it may appear the better what
+it is, and whether it be extant.</p>
+<p>(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are
+practical we ought to cast up our account, what is in our power,
+and what not; for the one may be dealt with by way of alteration,
+but the other by way of application only.  The husbandman
+cannot command neither the nature of the earth nor the seasons of
+the weather; no more can the physician the constitution of the
+patient nor the variety of accidents.  So in the culture and
+cure of the mind of man, two things are without our command:
+points of Nature, and points of fortune.  For to the basis
+of the one, and the conditions of the other, our work is limited
+and tied.  In these things, therefore, it is left unto us to
+proceed by application:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Vincenda est omnis fertuna
+ferendo:”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and so likewise,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Vincenda est omnis Natura
+ferendo.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull
+and neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering,
+which draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which
+seemeth adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we
+call accommodating or applying.  Now the wisdom of
+application resteth principally in the exact and distinct
+knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which we do
+apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take measure
+of the body.</p>
+<p>(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set
+down sound and true distributions and descriptions of the several
+characters and tempers of men’s natures and dispositions,
+specially having regard to those differences which are most
+radical in being the fountains and causes of the rest, or most
+frequent in concurrence or commixture; wherein it is not the
+handling of a few of them in passage, the better to describe the
+mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention.
+For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which
+are proportioned to great matters, and others to small (which
+Aristotle handleth, or ought to have bandied, by the name of
+magnanimity), doth it not deserve as well to be considered that
+there are minds proportioned to intend many matters, and others
+to few?  So that some can divide themselves: others can
+perchance do exactly well, but it must be but in few things at
+once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as well as
+a pusillanimity.  And again, that some minds are
+proportioned to that which may be dispatched at once, or within a
+short return of time; others to that which begins afar off, and
+is to be won with length of pursuit:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Jam tum tenditqus fovetque.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is
+commonly also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.  So further
+deserved it to be considered by Aristotle, “That there is a
+disposition in conversation (supposing it in things which do in
+no sort touch or concern a man’s self) to soothe and
+please, and a disposition contrary to contradict and
+cross;” and deserveth it not much better to be
+considered.  “That there is a disposition, not in
+conversation or talk, but in matter of more serious nature (and
+supposing it still in things merely indifferent), to take
+pleasure in the good of another; and a disposition contrariwise,
+to take distaste at the good of another?” which is that
+properly which we call good nature or ill nature, benignity or
+malignity; and, therefore, I cannot sufficiently marvel that this
+part of knowledge, touching the several characters of natures and
+dispositions, should be omitted both in morality and policy,
+considering it is of so great ministry and suppeditation to them
+both.  A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some
+pretty and apt divisions of men’s natures, according to the
+predominances of the planets: lovers of quiet, lovers of action,
+lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers
+of arts, lovers of change, and so forth.  A man shall find
+in the wisest sort of these relations which the Italians make
+touching conclaves, the natures of the several cardinals
+handsomely and lively painted forth.  A man shall meet with
+in every day’s conference the denominations of sensitive,
+dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, <i>huomo di prima
+impressione</i>, <i>huomo di ultima impressione</i>, and the
+like; and yet, nevertheless, this kind of observations wandereth
+in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.  For the distinctions
+are found (many of them), but we conclude no precepts upon them:
+wherein our fault is the greater, because both history, poesy,
+and daily experience are as goodly fields where these
+observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our
+hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary that
+receipts might be made of them for use of life.</p>
+<p>(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which
+are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region,
+by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like,
+which are inherent and not extern; and again, those which are
+caused by extern fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, obscure
+birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity,
+adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune, rising <i>per
+saltum</i>, <i>per gradus</i>, and the like.  And,
+therefore, we see that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old
+man beneficent, <i>benignitas hujis ut adolescentuli
+est</i>.  Saint Paul concludeth that severity of discipline
+was to be used to the Cretans, <i>increpa eos dure</i>, upon the
+disposition of their country, <i>Cretensus semper mendaces</i>,
+<i>malæ bestiæ</i>, <i>ventres</i>.  Sallust
+noteth that it is usual with kings to desire contradictories:
+<i>Sed plerumque regiæ voluntates</i>, <i>ut vehementes
+sunt</i>, <i>sic mobiles</i>, <i>sæpeque ipsæ sibi
+advers</i>.  Tacitus observeth how rarely raising of the
+fortune mendeth the disposition: <i>solus Vespasianus mutatus in
+melius</i>.  Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and
+sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men <i>qui magnam
+felicitatem concoquere non possunt</i>.  So the Psalm
+showeth it is more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying of
+fortune, than in the increase of fortune; <i>Divitiæ si
+affluant</i>, <i>nolite cor apponere</i>.  These
+observations and the like I deny not but are touched a little by
+Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some
+scattered discourses; but they were never incorporate into moral
+philosophy, to which they do essentially appertain; as the
+knowledge of this diversity of grounds and moulds doth to
+agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of complexions
+and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to follow
+the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines
+to all patients.</p>
+<p>(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching
+the affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order
+first to know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly,
+the diseases; and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the
+mind, after knowledge of the divers characters of men’s
+natures, it followeth in order to know the diseases and
+infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the
+perturbations and distempars of the affections.  For as the
+ancient politiques in popular estates were wont to compare the
+people to the sea, and the orators to the winds; because as the
+sea would of itself be calm and quiet, if the winds did not move
+and trouble it; so the people would be peaceable and tractable if
+the seditious orators did not set them in working and agitation:
+so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the nature thereof
+would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as winds, did
+not put it into tumult and perturbation.  And here again I
+find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written
+divers volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which
+is the principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where
+they are considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as
+they may be moved by speech), he findeth place for them, and
+handleth them well for the quantity; but where their true place
+is he pretermitteth them.  For it is not his disputations
+about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this inquiry, no more
+than he that should generally handle the nature of light can be
+said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are
+to the particular affections as light is to particular
+colours.  Better travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken
+in this argument, as far as I can gather by that which we have at
+second hand.  But yet it is like it was after their manner,
+rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a subject of this
+nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
+descriptions and observations.  So likewise I find some
+particular writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the
+affections: as of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of
+tenderness of countenance, and other.  But the poets and
+writers of histories are the best doctors of this knowledge;
+where we may find painted forth, with great life, how affections
+are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how
+again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
+themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and
+fortify: how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they
+do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like
+particularities.  Amongst the which this last is of special
+use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection
+against affection, and to master one by another; even as we used
+to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise
+percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation is
+erected that excellent use of <i>præmium</i> and
+<i>pæna</i>, whereby civil states consist: employing the
+predominant affections of fear and hope, for the suppressing and
+bridling the rest.  For as in the government of states it is
+sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so it is
+in the government within.</p>
+<p>(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own
+command, and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect
+the will and appetite, and to alter manners: wherein they ought
+to have handled custom, exercise, habit, education, example,
+imitation, emulation, company, friends, praise, reproof,
+exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these as they have
+determinate use in moralities, from these the mind suffereth, and
+of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and
+described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and
+good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine:
+of which number we will insist upon some one or two, as an
+example of the rest, because it were too long to prosecute all;
+and therefore we do resume custom and habit to speak of.</p>
+<p>(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent
+opinion, that of those things which consist by Nature, nothing
+can be changed by custom; using for example, that if a stone be
+thrown ten thousand times up it will not learn to ascend; and
+that by often seeing or hearing we do not learn to see or hear
+the better.  For though this principle be true in things
+wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we cannot now
+stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein Nature
+admitteth a latitude.  For he might see that a strait glove
+will come more easily on with use; and that a wand will by use
+bend otherwise than it grew; and that by use of the voice we
+speak louder and stronger; and that by use of enduring heat or
+cold we endure it the better, and the like: which latter sort
+have a nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he
+handleth, than those instances which he allegeth.  But
+allowing his conclusion, that virtues and vices consist in habit,
+he ought so much the more to have taught the manner of
+superinducing that habit: for there be many precepts of the wise
+ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of ordering the
+exercises of the body, whereof we will recite a few.</p>
+<p>(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the
+first either too high a strain or too weak: for if too high, in a
+diffident nature you discourage, in a confident nature you breed
+an opinion of facility, and so a sloth; and in all natures you
+breed a further expectation than can hold out, and so an
+insatisfaction in the end: if too weak, of the other side, you
+may not look to perform and overcome any great task.</p>
+<p>(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two
+several times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other
+when it is worst disposed; that by the one you may gain a great
+step, by the other you may work out the knots and stonds of the
+mind, and make the middle times the more easy and pleasant.</p>
+<p>(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the
+way, which is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that
+whereunto we are by nature inclined; like unto the rowing against
+the stream, or making a wand straight by bending him contrary to
+his natural crookedness.</p>
+<p>(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything
+better, and with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto
+you pretend be not first in the intention, but <i>tanquam aliud
+agendo</i>, because of the natural hatred of the mind against
+necessity and constraint.  Many other axioms there are
+touching the managing of exercise and custom, which being so
+conducted doth prove indeed another nature; but, being governed
+by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of Nature, and bringeth
+forth that which is lame and counterfeit.</p>
+<p>(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what
+influence and operation they have upon manners, are there not
+divers precepts of great caution and direction appertaining
+thereunto?  Did not one of the fathers in great indignation
+call poesy <i>vinum dæmonum</i>, because it increaseth
+temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions?  Is not the
+opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith,
+“That young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy,
+because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their
+affections, nor attempered with time and experience”?
+And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and
+discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded
+unto virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and
+majesty, and popular opinions against virtue in their
+parasites’ coats fit to be scorned and derided), are of so
+little effect towards honesty of life, because they are not read
+and revolved by men in their mature and settled years, but
+confined almost to boys and beginners?  But is it not true
+also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of
+policy, till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and
+morality; lest their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to
+think that there are no true differences of things, but according
+to utility and fortune, as the verse describes it, <i>Prosperum
+et felix scelus virtus vocatur</i>; and again, <i>Ille crucem
+pretium sceleris tulit</i>, <i>hic diadema</i>: which the poets
+do speak satirically and in indignation on virtue’s behalf;
+but books of policy do speak it seriously and positively; for so
+it pleaseth Machiavel to say, “That if Cæsar had been
+overthrown, he would have been more odious than ever was
+Catiline;” as if there had been no difference, but in
+fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
+excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world?
+Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the
+doctrines of moralities themselves (some kinds of them), lest
+they make men too precise, arrogant, incompatible; as Cicero
+saith of Cato, <i>In Marco Catone hæc bona quæ
+videmus divina et egregia</i>, <i>ipsius scitote esse
+propria</i>; <i>quæ nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non
+a natura</i>, <i>sed a magistro</i>?  Many other axioms and
+advices there are touching those proprieties and effects, which
+studies do infuse and instil into manners.  And so,
+likewise, is there touching the use of all those other points, of
+company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the
+beginning in the doctrine of morality.</p>
+<p>(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth
+yet more accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon
+this ground; that the minds of all men are at some times in a
+state more perfect, and at other times in a state more
+depraved.  The purpose, therefore, of this practice is to
+fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and
+take forth the evil.  The fixing of the good hath been
+practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and
+observances or exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in
+themselves, as because they keep the mind in continual
+obedience.  The obliteration of the evil hath been practised
+by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of that which
+is past, and an inception or account <i>de novo</i> for the time
+to come.  But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and
+justly; for all good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a
+handmaid to religion.</p>
+<p>(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is
+of all other means the most compendious and summary, and again,
+the most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto
+virtue and good estate; which is, the electing and propounding
+unto a man’s self good and virtuous ends of his life, such
+as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to
+attain.  For if these two things be supposed, that a man set
+before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute,
+constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould
+himself into all virtue at once.  And this indeed is like
+the work of nature; whereas the other course is like the work of
+the hand.  For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes
+only that part whereupon he worketh; as if he be upon the face,
+that part which shall be the body is but a rude stone still, till
+such times as he comes to it.  But contrariwise when nature
+makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all
+the parts at one time.  So in obtaining virtue by habit,
+while a man practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to
+fortitude, nor the like but when he dedicateth and applieth
+himself to good ends, look, what virtue soever the pursuit and
+passage towards those ends doth commend unto him, he is invested
+of a precedent disposition to conform himself thereunto.
+Which state of mind Aristotle doth excellently express himself,
+that it ought not to be called virtuous, but divine.  His
+words are these: <i>Immanitati autem consentaneum est opponere
+eam</i>, <i>quæ supra humanitatem est</i>, <i>heroicam sive
+divinam virtutem</i>; and a little after, <i>Nam ut feræ
+neque vitium neque virtus est</i>, <i>swic neque Dei</i>: <i>sed
+hic quidem status altius quiddam virtute est</i>, <i>ille aluid
+quiddam a vitio</i>.  And therefore we may see what
+celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus attributeth to Trajan in his
+funeral oration, where he said, “That men needed to make no
+other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue as good
+lords to them as Trajan had been;” as if he had not been
+only an imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it.
+But these be heathen and profane passages, having but a shadow of
+that divine state of mind, which religion and the holy faith doth
+conduct men unto, by imprinting upon their souls charity, which
+is excellently called the bond of perfection, because it
+comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together.  And as it
+is elegantly said by Menander of vain love, which is but a false
+imitation of divine love, <i>Amor melior Sophista lœvo ad
+humanam vitam</i>—that love teacheth a man to carry himself
+better than the sophist or preceptor; which he calleth
+left-handed, because, with all his rules and preceptions, he
+cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that facility to prize
+himself and govern himself, as love can do: so certainly, if a
+man’s mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth work him
+suddenly into greater perfection than all the doctrine of
+morality can do, which is but a sophist in comparison of the
+other.  Nay, further, as Xenophon observed truly, that all
+other affections, though they raise the mind, yet they do it by
+distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or excesses; but only
+love doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same instant
+doth settle and compose it: so in all other excellences, though
+they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess.  Only
+charity admitteth no excess.  For so we see, aspiring to be
+like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell;
+<i>Ascendam</i>, <i>et ero similis altissimo</i>: by aspiring to
+be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; <i>Eritis
+sicut Dii</i>, <i>scientes bonum et malum</i>: but by aspiring to
+a similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel
+ever transgressed, or shall transgress.  For unto that
+imitation we are called: <i>Diligite inimicos vestros</i>,
+<i>benefacite eis qui oderunt vos</i>, <i>et orate pro
+persequentibus et calumniantibus vos</i>, <i>ut sitis filii
+Patris vestri qui in cœlis est</i>, <i>qui solem suum oriri
+facit super bonos et malos</i>, <i>et pluit super justos et
+injustos</i>.  So in the first platform of the divine nature
+itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, <i>Optimus
+Maximus</i>: and the sacred Scriptures thus, <i>Miscericordia
+ejus super omnia opera ejus</i>.</p>
+<p>(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge,
+concerning the culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any
+man, considering the arts thereof which I have enumerated, do
+judge that my labour is but to collect into an art or science
+that which hath been pretermitted by others, as matter of common
+sense and experience, he judgeth well.  But as Philocrates
+sported with Demosthenes, “You may not marvel (Athenians)
+that Demosthenes and I do differ; for he drinketh water, and I
+drink wine;” and like as we read of an ancient parable of
+the two gates of sleep—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Sunt geminæ somni portæ: quarum
+altera fertur<br />
+Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:<br />
+Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,<br />
+Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes:”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a
+sure maxim in knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor (“of
+wine”) is the more vaporous, and the braver gate (“of
+ivory”) sendeth forth the falser dreams.</p>
+<p>(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human
+philosophy, which contemplateth man segregate, and as he
+consisteth of body and spirit.  Wherein we may further note,
+that there seemeth to be a relation or conformity between the
+good of the mind and the good of the body.  For as we
+divided the good of the body into health, beauty, strength, and
+pleasure, so the good of the mind, inquired in rational and moral
+knowledges, tendeth to this, to make the mind sound, and without
+perturbation; beautiful, and graced with decency; and strong and
+agile for all duties of life.  These three, as in the body,
+so in the mind, seldom meet, and commonly sever.  For it is
+easy to observe, that many have strength of wit and courage, but
+have neither health from perturbations, nor any beauty or decency
+in their doings; some again have an elegancy and fineness of
+carriage which have neither soundness of honesty nor substance of
+sufficiency; and some again have honest and reformed minds, that
+can neither become themselves nor manage business; and sometimes
+two of them meet, and rarely all three.  As for pleasure, we
+have likewise determined that the mind ought not to be reduced to
+stupid, but to retain pleasure; confined rather in the subject of
+it, than in the strength and vigour of it.</p>
+<p>XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which
+of all others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced
+to axiom.  Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said,
+“That the Romans were like sheep, for that a man were
+better drive a flock of them, than one of them; for in a flock,
+if you could get but some few go right, the rest would
+follow:” so in that respect moral philosophy is more
+difficile than policy.  Again, moral philosophy propoundeth
+to itself the framing of internal goodness; but civil knowledge
+requireth only an external goodness; for that as to society
+sufficeth.  And therefore it cometh oft to pass that there
+be evil times in good governments: for so we find in the Holy
+story, when the kings were good, yet it is added, <i>Sed adhuc
+poulus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum
+suorum</i>.  Again, states, as great engines, move slowly,
+and are not so soon put out of frame: for as in Egypt the seven
+good years sustained the seven bad, so governments for a time
+well grounded do bear out errors following; but the resolution of
+particular persons is more suddenly subverted.  These
+respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil
+knowledge.</p>
+<p>(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three
+summary actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation,
+and government.  For man seeketh in society comfort, use,
+and protection; and they be three wisdoms of divers natures which
+do often sever—wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business,
+and wisdom of state.</p>
+<p>(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much
+affected, but much less despised; for it hath not only an honour
+in itself, but an influence also into business and
+government.  The poet saith, <i>Nec vultu destrue verba
+tuo</i>: a man may destroy the force of his words with his
+countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero, recommending
+to his brother affability and easy access; <i>Nil interest habere
+ostium apertum</i>, <i>vultum clausum</i>: it is nothing won to
+admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and
+reserved countenance.  So we see Atticus, before the first
+interview between Cæsar and Cicero, the war depending, did
+seriously advise Cicero touching the composing and ordering of
+his countenance and gesture.  And if the government of the
+countenance be of such effect, much more is that of the speech,
+and other carriage appertaining to conversation; the true model
+whereof seemeth to me well expressed by Livy, though not meant
+for this purpose: <i>Ne aut arrogans videar</i>, <i>aut
+obnoxius</i>; <i>quorum alterum est àlienæ
+libertatis obliti</i>, <i>alterum suæ</i>: the sum of
+behaviour is to retain a man’s own dignity, without
+intruding upon the liberty of others.  On the other side, if
+behaviour and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may
+pass into affectation, and then <i>Quid deformius quam scenam in
+vitam transferre</i>—to act a man’s life?  But
+although it proceed not to that extreme, yet it consumeth time,
+and employeth the mind too much.  And therefore as we use to
+advise young students from company keeping, by saying, <i>Amici
+fures temporis</i>: so certainly the intending of the discretion
+of behaviour is a great thief of meditation.  Again, such as
+are accomplished in that form of urbanity please themselves in
+it, and seldom aspire to higher virtue; whereas those that have
+defect in it do seek comeliness by reputation; for where
+reputation is, almost everything becometh; but where that is not,
+it must be supplied by <i>puntos</i> and compliments.
+Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an
+over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of decency,
+which is time and season.  For as Solomon saith, <i>Qui
+respicit ad ventos</i>, <i>non seminat</i>; <i>et qui respicit ad
+nubes</i>, <i>non metet</i>: a man must make his opportunity, as
+oft as find it.  To conclude, behaviour seemeth to me as a
+garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a
+garment.  For it ought to be made in fashion; it ought not
+to be too curious; it ought to be shaped so as to set forth any
+good making of the mind and hide any deformity; and above all, it
+ought not to be too strait or restrained for exercise or
+motion.  But this part of civil knowledge hath been
+elegantly handled, and therefore I cannot report it for
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been
+hitherto collected into writing, to the great derogation of
+learning and the professors of learning.  For from this root
+springeth chiefly that note or opinion, which by us is expressed
+in adage to this effect, that there is no great concurrence
+between learning and wisdom.  For of the three wisdoms which
+we have set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom of
+behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised, as an
+inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; for wisdom of
+government, they acquit themselves well when they are called to
+it, but that happeneth to few; but for the wisdom of business,
+wherein man’s life is most conversant, there be no books of
+it, except some few scattered advertisements, that have no
+proportion to the magnitude of this subject.  For if books
+were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned men
+with mean experience would far excel men of long experience
+without learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.</p>
+<p>(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this
+knowledge should be so variable as it falleth not under precept;
+for it is much less infinite than science of government, which we
+see is laboured and in some part reduced.  Of this wisdom it
+seemeth some of the ancient Romans in the saddest and wisest
+times were professors; for Cicero reporteth, that it was then in
+use for senators that had name and opinion for general wise men,
+as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at
+certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that
+would use their advice; and that the particular citizens would
+resort unto them, and consult with them of the marriage of a
+daughter, or of the employing of a son, or of a purchase or
+bargain, or of an accusation, and every other occasion incident
+to man’s life.  So as there is a wisdom of counsel and
+advice even in private causes, arising out of a universal insight
+into the affairs of the world; which is used indeed upon
+particular causes propounded, but is gathered by general
+observation of causes of like nature.  For so we see in the
+book which Q. Cicero writeth to his brother, <i>De petitione
+consulatus</i> (being the only book of business that I know
+written by the ancients), although it concerned a particular
+action then on foot, yet the substance thereof consisteth of many
+wise and politic axioms, which contain not a temporary, but a
+perpetual direction in the case of popular elections.  But
+chiefly we may see in those aphorisms which have place amongst
+divine writings, composed by Solomon the king, of whom the
+Scriptures testify that his heart was as the sands of the sea,
+encompassing the world and all worldly matters, we see, I say,
+not a few profound and excellent cautions, precepts, positions,
+extending to much variety of occasions; whereupon we will stay a
+while, offering to consideration some number of examples.</p>
+<p>(6) <i>Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes
+aurem tuam</i>, <i>ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem
+tibi</i>.  Here is commended the provident stay of inquiry
+of that which we would be loth to find: as it was judged great
+wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he burned Sertorius’ papers
+unperused.</p>
+<p><i>Vir sapiens</i>, <i>si cum stulto contenderit</i>, <i>sive
+irascatur</i>, <i>sive rideat</i>, <i>non inveniet
+requiem</i>.  Here is described the great disadvantage which
+a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than himself;
+which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to
+jest, or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no
+ways quit himself well of it.</p>
+<p><i>Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum</i>, <i>postea
+sentiet eum contumacem</i>.  Here is signified, that if a
+man begin too high a pitch in his favours, it doth commonly end
+in unkindness and unthankfulness.</p>
+<p><i>Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo</i>? <i>coram regibus
+stabit</i>, <i>nec erit inter ignobiles</i>.  Here is
+observed, that of all virtues for rising to honour, quickness of
+despatch is the best; for superiors many times love not to have
+those they employ too deep or too sufficient, but ready and
+diligent.</p>
+<p><i>Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole</i>, <i>cum
+adolescente secundo qui consurgit pro eo</i>.  Here is
+expressed that which was noted by Sylla first, and after him by
+Tiberius.  <i>Plures adorant solem orientem quam occidentem
+vel meridianum</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Si spiritus potestatem habentis ascenderit super te</i>,
+<i>locum tuum ne demiseris</i>; <i>quia curatio faciet cessare
+peccata maxima</i>.  Here caution is given, that upon
+displeasure, retiring is of all courses the unfittest; for a man
+leaveth things at worst, and depriveth himself of means to make
+them better.</p>
+<p><i>Erat civitas parva</i>, <i>et pauci in ea viri</i>:
+<i>venit contra eam rex magnus</i>, <i>et vallavit eam</i>,
+<i>instruxitque munitones per gyrum</i>, <i>et perfecta est
+obsidio</i>; <i>inventusque est in ea vir pauper et sapiens</i>,
+<i>et liberavit eam per sapientiam suam</i>; <i>et nullus
+deinceps recordatus est huminis illius pauperis</i>.  Here
+the corruption of states is set forth, that esteem not virtue or
+merit longer than they have use of it.</p>
+<p><i>Millis responsio frangit iram</i>.  Here is noted that
+silence or rough answer exasperateth; but an answer present and
+temperate pacifieth.</p>
+<p><i>Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum</i>.  Here is
+lively represented how laborious sloth proveth in the end; for
+when things are deferred till the last instant, and nothing
+prepared beforehand, every step findeth a briar or impediment,
+which catcheth or stoppeth.</p>
+<p><i>Melior est finis orationis quam principium</i>.  Here
+is taxed the vanity of formal speakers, that study more about
+prefaces and inducements, than upon the conclusions and issues of
+speech.</p>
+<p><i>Qui cognoscit in judicio faciem</i>, <i>non bene facit</i>;
+<i>iste et pro buccella panis deseret veritatem</i>.  Here
+is noted, that a judge were better be a briber than a respecter
+of persons; for a corrupt judge offendeth not so lightly as a
+facile.</p>
+<p><i>Vir pauper calumnians pauperes simils est imbri
+vehementi</i>, <i>in quo paratur fames</i>.  Here is
+expressed the extremity of necessitous extortions, figured in the
+ancient fable of the full and the hungry horseleech.</p>
+<p><i>Fons turbatus pede</i>, <i>et vena corrupta</i>, <i>est
+justus cadens coram impio</i>.  Here is noted, that one
+judicial and exemplar iniquity in the face of the world doth
+trouble the fountains of justice more than many particular
+injuries passed over by connivance.</p>
+<p><i>Qui subtrahit aliquid a patre et a matre</i>, <i>et dicit
+hoc non esse peccatum</i>, <i>particeps est homicidii</i>.
+Here is noted that, whereas men in wronging their best friends
+use to extenuate their fault, as if they might presume or be bold
+upon them, it doth contrariwise indeed aggravate their fault, and
+turneth it from injury to impiety.</p>
+<p><i>Noli esse amicus homini iracundo</i>, <i>nec ambulato cum
+homine furioso</i>.  Here caution is given, that in the
+election of our friends we do principally avoid those which are
+impatient, as those that will espouse us to many factions and
+quarrels.</p>
+<p><i>Qui conturbat domum suam</i>, <i>possidebit
+ventum</i>.  Here is noted, that in domestical separations
+and breaches men do promise to themselves quieting of their mind
+and contentment; but still they are deceived of their
+expectation, and it turneth to wind.</p>
+<p><i>Filius sapiens lætificat patrem</i>: <i>filius vero
+stultus mæstitia est matri suæ</i>.  Here is
+distinguished, that fathers have most comfort of the good proof
+of their sons; but mothers have most discomfort of their ill
+proof, because women have little discerning of virtue, but of
+fortune.</p>
+<p><i>Qui celat delictum</i>, <i>quærit amicitiam</i>;
+<i>sed qui altero sermone repetit</i>, <i>separat
+fæderatos</i>.  Here caution is given, that
+reconcilement is better managed by an amnesty, and passing over
+that which is past, than by apologies and excuses.</p>
+<p><i>In omni opere bono erit abundantia</i>; <i>ubi autem verba
+sunt plurima</i>, <i>ibi frequenter egestas</i>.  Here is
+noted, that words and discourse aboundeth most where there is
+idleness and want.</p>
+<p><i>Primus in sua causa justus</i>: <i>sed venit altera
+pars</i>, <i>et inquiret in eum</i>.  Here is observed, that
+in all causes the first tale possesseth much; in sort, that the
+prejudice thereby wrought will be hardly removed, except some
+abuse or falsity in the information be detected.</p>
+<p><i>Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia</i>, <i>et ipsa perveniunt
+ad interiora ventris</i>.  Here is distinguished, that
+flattery and insinuation, which seemeth set and artificial,
+sinketh not far; but that entereth deep which hath show of
+nature, liberty, and simplicity.</p>
+<p><i>Qui erudit derisorem</i>, <i>ipse sibi injuriam facit</i>;
+<i>et qui arguit impium</i>, <i>sibi maculam generat</i>.
+Here caution is given how we tender reprehension to arrogant and
+scornful natures, whose manner is to esteem it for contumely, and
+accordingly to return it.</p>
+<p><i>Da sapienti occasionem</i>, <i>et addetur ei
+sapientia</i>.  Here is distinguished the wisdom brought
+into habit, and that which is but verbal and swimming only in
+conceit; for the one upon the occasion presented is quickened and
+redoubled, the other is amazed and confused.</p>
+<p><i>Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium</i>,
+<i>sic corda hominum manifesta sunt prudentibus</i>.  Here
+the mind of a wise man is compared to a glass, wherein the images
+of all diversity of natures and customs are represented; from
+which representation proceedeth that application,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus
+erit.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(7) Thus have I stayed somewhat longer upon these sentences
+politic of Solomon than is agreeable to the proportion of an
+example; led with a desire to give authority to this part of
+knowledge, which I noted as deficient, by so excellent a
+precedent; and have also attended them with brief observations,
+such as to my understanding offer no violence to the sense,
+though I know they may be applied to a more divine use: but it is
+allowed, even in divinity, that some interpretations, yea, and
+some writings, have more of the eagle than others; but taking
+them as instructions for life, they might have received large
+discourse, if I would have broken them and illustrated them by
+deducements and examples.</p>
+<p>(8) Neither was this in use only with the Hebrews, but it is
+generally to be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times;
+that as men found out any observation that they thought was good
+for life, they would gather it and express it in parable or
+aphorism or fable.  But for fables, they were vicegerents
+and supplies where examples failed: now that the times abound
+with history, the aim is better when the mark is alive.  And
+therefore the form of writing which of all others is fittest for
+this variable argument of negotiation and occasions is that which
+Machiavel chose wisely and aptly for government; namely,
+discourse upon histories or examples.  For knowledge drawn
+freshly and in our view out of particulars, knoweth the way best
+to particulars again.  And it hath much greater life for
+practice when the discourse attendeth upon the example, than when
+the example attendeth upon the discourse.  For this is no
+point of order, as it seemeth at first, but of substance.
+For when the example is the ground, being set down in a history
+at large, it is set down with all circumstances, which may
+sometimes control the discourse thereupon made, and sometimes
+supply it, as a very pattern for action; whereas the examples
+alleged for the discourse’s sake are cited succinctly, and
+without particularity, and carry a servile aspect towards the
+discourse which they are brought in to make good.</p>
+<p>(9) But this difference is not amiss to be remembered, that as
+history of times is the best ground for discourse of government,
+such as Machiavel handleth, so histories of lives is the most
+popular for discourse of business, because it is more conversant
+in private actions.  Nay, there is a ground of discourse for
+this purpose fitter than them both, which is discourse upon
+letters, such as are wise and weighty, as many are of Cicero
+<i>ad Atticum</i>, and others.  For letters have a great and
+more particular representation of business than either chronicles
+or lives.  Thus have we spoken both of the matter and form
+of this part of civil knowledge, touching negotiation, which we
+note to be deficient.</p>
+<p>(10) But yet there is another part of this part, which
+differeth as much from that whereof we have spoken as
+<i>sapere</i> and <i>sibi sapere</i>, the one moving as it were
+to the circumference, the other to the centre.  For there is
+a wisdom of counsel, and again there is a wisdom of pressing a
+man’s own fortune; and they do sometimes meet, and often
+sever.  For many are wise in their own ways that are weak
+for government or counsel; like ants, which is a wise creature
+for itself, but very hurtful for the garden.  This wisdom
+the Romans did take much knowledge of: <i>Nam pol sapiens</i>
+(saith the comical poet) <i>fingit fortunam sibi</i>; and it grew
+to an adage, <i>Faber quisque fortunæ propriæ</i>;
+and Livy attributed it to Cato the first, <i>In hoc viro tanta
+vis animi et ingenii inerat</i>, <i>ut quocunque loco natus esset
+sibi ipse fortunam facturus videretur</i>.</p>
+<p>(11) This conceit or position, if it be too much declared and
+professed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as
+was observed in Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many
+great services to the state in his government, and giving an
+account thereof to the people as the manner was, did conclude
+every particular with this clause, “And in this fortune had
+no part.”  And it came so to pass, that he never
+prospered in anything he took in hand afterwards.  For this
+is too high and too arrogant, savouring of that which Ezekiel
+saith of Pharaoh, <i>Dicis</i>, <i>Fluvius est neus et ego feci
+memet ipsum</i>; or of that which another prophet speaketh, that
+men offer sacrifices to their nets and snares; and that which the
+poet expresseth,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile
+libro,<br />
+Nunc adsint!”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For these confidences were ever unhallowed, and unblessed;
+and, therefore, those that were great politiques indeed ever
+ascribed their successes to their felicity and not to their skill
+or virtue.  For so Sylla surnamed himself Felix, not
+Magnus.  So Cæsar said to the master of the ship,
+<i>Cæsarem portas et fortunam ejus</i>.</p>
+<p>(12) But yet, nevertheless, these positions, <i>Faber quisque
+fortunæ suæ</i>: <i>Sapiens dominabitur astris</i>:
+<i>Invia virtuti null est via</i>, and the like, being taken and
+used as spurs to industry, and not as stirrups to insolency,
+rather for resolution than for the presumption or outward
+declaration, have been ever thought sound and good; and are no
+question imprinted in the greatest minds, who are so sensible of
+this opinion as they can scarce contain it within.  As we
+see in Augustus Cæsar (who was rather diverse from his
+uncle than inferior in virtue), how when he died he desired his
+friends about him to give him a <i>plaudite</i>, as if he were
+conscious to himself that he had played his part well upon the
+stage.  This part of knowledge we do report also as
+deficient; not but that it is practised too much, but it hath not
+been reduced to writing.  And, therefore, lest it should
+seem to any that it is not comprehensible by axiom, it is
+requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down some heads
+or passages of it.</p>
+<p>(13) Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted
+argument to teach men how to raise and make their fortune; a
+doctrine wherein every man perchance will be ready to yield
+himself a disciple, till he see the difficulty: for fortune
+layeth as heavy impositions as virtue; and it is as hard and
+severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be truly
+moral.  But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly,
+both in honour and in substance.  In honour, because
+pragmatical men may not go away with an opinion that learning is
+like a lark, that can mount and sing, and please herself, and
+nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well of the hawk,
+that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the
+prey.  In substance, because it is the perfect law of
+inquiry of truth, that nothing be in the globe of matter, which
+should not be likewise in the globe of crystal or form; that is,
+that there be not anything in being and action which should not
+be drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine.
+Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture of
+fortune otherwise than as of an inferior work, for no man’s
+fortune can be an end worthy of his being, and many times the
+worthiest men do abandon their fortune willingly for better
+respects: but nevertheless fortune as an organ of virtue and
+merit deserveth the consideration.</p>
+<p>(14) First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most
+summary towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that
+window which Momus did require; who seeing in the frame of
+man’s heart such angles and recesses, found fault there was
+not a window to look into them; that is, to procure good
+informations of particulars touching persons, their natures,
+their desires and ends, their customs and fashions, their helps
+and advantages, and whereby they chiefly stand, so again their
+weaknesses and disadvantages, and where they lie most open and
+obnoxious, their friends, factions, dependences; and again their
+opposites, enviers, competitors, their moods and times, <i>Sola
+viri molles aditus et tempora noras</i>; their principles, rules,
+and observations, and the like: and this not only of persons but
+of actions; what are on foot from time to time, and how they are
+conducted, favoured, opposed, and how they import, and the
+like.  For the knowledge of present actions is not only
+material in itself, but without it also the knowledge of persons
+is very erroneous: for men change with the actions; and whilst
+they are in pursuit they are one, and when they return to their
+nature they are another.  These informations of particulars,
+touching persons and actions, are as the minor propositions in
+every active syllogism; for no excellency of observations (which
+are as the major propositions) can suffice to ground a
+conclusion, if there be error and mistaking in the minors.</p>
+<p>(15) That this knowledge is possible, Solomon is our surety,
+who saith, <i>Consilium in corde viri tanquam aqua profunda</i>;
+<i>sed vir prudens exhauriet illud</i>.  And although the
+knowledge itself falleth not under precept because it is of
+individuals, yet the instructions for the obtaining of it
+may.</p>
+<p>(16) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to
+the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of
+belief and distrust; that more trust be given to countenances and
+deeds than to words; and in words rather to sudden passages and
+surprised words than to set and purposed words.  Neither let
+that be feared which is said, <i>Fronti nulla fides</i>, which is
+meant of a general outward behaviour, and not of the private and
+subtle motions and labours of the countenance and gesture; which,
+as Q. Cicero elegantly saith, is <i>Animi janua</i>, “the
+gate of the mind.”  None more close than Tiberius, and
+yet Tacitus saith of Gallus, <i>Etenim vultu offensionem
+conjectaverat</i>.  So again, noting the differing character
+and manner of his commending Germanicus and Drusus in the Senate,
+he saith, touching his fashion wherein he carried his speech of
+Germanicus, thus: <i>Magis in speciem adornatis verbis</i>,
+<i>quam ut penitus sentire crederetur</i>; but of Drusus thus:
+<i>Paucioribus sed intentior</i>, <i>et fida oratione</i>; and in
+another place, speaking of his character of speech when he did
+anything that was gracious and popular, he saith, “That in
+other things he was <i>velut eluctantium verborum</i>;” but
+then again, <i>solutius loquebatur quando subveniret</i>.
+So that there is no such artificer of dissimulation, nor no such
+commanded countenance (<i>vultus jussus</i>), that can sever from
+a feigned tale some of these fashions, either a more slight and
+careless fashion, or more set and formal, or more tedious and
+wandering, or coming from a man more drily and hardly.</p>
+<p>(17) Neither are deeds such assured pledges as that they may
+be trusted without a judicious consideration of their magnitude
+and nature: <i>Fraus sibi in parvis fidem præstruit ut
+majore emolumento fallat</i>; and the Italian thinketh himself
+upon the point to be bought and sold, when he is better used than
+he was wont to be without manifest cause.  For small
+favours, they do but lull men to sleep, both as to caution and as
+to industry; and are, as Demosthenes calleth them, <i>Alimenta
+socordiæ</i>.  So again we see how false the nature of
+some deeds are, in that particular which Mutianus practised upon
+Antonius Primus, upon that hollow and unfaithful reconcilement
+which was made between them; whereupon Mutianus advanced many of
+the friends of Antonius, <i>Simul amicis ejus præfecturas
+et tribunatus largitur</i>: wherein, under pretence to strengthen
+him, he did desolate him, and won from him his dependents.</p>
+<p>(18) As for words, though they be like waters to physicians,
+full of flattery and uncertainty, yet they are not to be despised
+specially with the advantage of passion and affection.  For
+so we see Tiberius, upon a stinging and incensing speech of
+Agrippina, came a step forth of his dissimulation when he said,
+“You are hurt because you do not reign;” of which
+Tacitus saith, <i>Audita hæc raram occulti pectoris vocem
+elicuere</i>: <i>correptamque Græco versu admonuit</i>,
+<i>ideo lædi quia non regnaret</i>.  And, therefore,
+the poet doth elegantly call passions tortures that urge men to
+confess their secrets:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Vino torus et ira.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And experience showeth there are few men so true to themselves
+and so settled but that, sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon
+bravery, sometimes upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind
+and weakness, they open themselves; specially if they be put to
+it with a counter-dissimulation, according to the proverb of
+Spain, <i>Di mentira</i>, <i>y sacar as verdad</i>: “Tell a
+lie and find a truth.”</p>
+<p>(19) As for the knowing of men which is at second hand from
+reports: men’s weaknesses and faults are best known from
+their enemies, their virtues and abilities from their friends,
+their customs and times from their servants, their conceits and
+opinions from their familiar friends, with whom they discourse
+most.  General fame is light, and the opinions conceived by
+superiors or equals are deceitful; for to such men are more
+masked: <i>Verior fama e domesticis emanat</i>.</p>
+<p>(20) But the soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by
+their natures and ends, wherein the weakest sort of men are best
+interpreted by their natures, and the wisest by their ends.
+For it was both pleasantly and wisely said (though I think very
+untruly) by a nuncio of the Pope, returning from a certain nation
+where he served as lidger; whose opinion being asked touching the
+appointment of one to go in his place, he wished that in any case
+they did not send one that was too wise; because no very wise man
+would ever imagine what they in that country were like to
+do.  And certainly it is an error frequent for men to shoot
+over, and to suppose deeper ends and more compass reaches than
+are: the Italian proverb being elegant, and for the most part
+true:—</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Di danari, di senno, e di fede,<br />
+C’è ne manco che non credi.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>“There is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less
+good faith than men do account upon.”</p>
+<p>(21) But princes, upon a far other reason, are best
+interpreted by their natures, and private persons by their
+ends.  For princes being at the top of human desires, they
+have for the most part no particular ends whereto they aspire, by
+distance from which a man might take measure and scale of the
+rest of their actions and desires; which is one of the causes
+that maketh their hearts more inscrutable.  Neither is it
+sufficient to inform ourselves in men’s ends and natures of
+the variety of them only, but also of the predominancy, what
+humour reigneth most, and what end is principally sought.
+For so we see, when Tigellinus saw himself outstripped by
+Petronius Turpilianus in Nero’s humours of pleasures,
+<i>metus ejus rimatur</i>, he wrought upon Nero’s fears,
+whereby he broke the other’s neck.</p>
+<p>(22) But to all this part of inquiry the most compendious way
+resteth in three things; the first, to have general acquaintance
+and inwardness with those which have general acquaintance and
+look most into the world; and specially according to the
+diversity of business, and the diversity of persons, to have
+privacy and conversation with some one friend at least which is
+perfect and well-intelligenced in every several kind.  The
+second is to keep a good mediocrity in liberty of speech and
+secrecy; in most things liberty; secrecy where it importeth; for
+liberty of speech inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used
+again, and so bringeth much to a man’s knowledge; and
+secrecy on the other side induceth trust and inwardness.
+The last is the reducing of a man’s self to this watchful
+and serene habit, as to make account and purpose, in every
+conference and action, as well to observe as to act.  For as
+Epictetus would have a philosopher in every particular action to
+say to himself, <i>Et hoc volo</i>, <i>et etiam institutum
+servare</i>; so a politic man in everything should say to
+himself, <i>Et hoc volo</i>, <i>ac etiam aliquid
+addiscere</i>.  I have stayed the longer upon this precept
+of obtaining good information because it is a main part by
+itself, which answereth to all the rest.  But, above all
+things, caution must be taken that men have a good stay and hold
+of themselves, and that this much knowing do not draw on much
+meddling; for nothing is more unfortunate than light and rash
+intermeddling in many matters.  So that this variety of
+knowledge tendeth in conclusion but only to this, to make a
+better and freer choice of those actions which may concern us,
+and to conduct them with the less error and the more
+dexterity.</p>
+<p>(23) The second precept concerning this knowledge is, for men
+to take good information touching their own person, and well to
+understand themselves; knowing that, as St. James saith, though
+men look oft in a glass, yet they do suddenly forget themselves;
+wherein as the divine glass is the Word of God, so the politic
+glass is the state of the world, or times wherein we live, in the
+which we are to behold ourselves.</p>
+<p>(24) For men ought to take an impartial view of their own
+abilities and virtues; and again of their wants and impediments;
+accounting these with the most, and those other with the least;
+and from this view and examination to frame the considerations
+following.</p>
+<p>(25) First, to consider how the constitution of their nature
+sorteth with the general state of the times; which if they find
+agreeable and fit, then in all things to give themselves more
+scope and liberty; but if differing and dissonant, then in the
+whole course of their life to be more close retired, and
+reserved; as we see in Tiberius, who was never seen at a play,
+and came not into the senate in twelve of his last years; whereas
+Augustus Cæsar lived ever in men’s eyes, which
+Tacitus observeth, <i>alia Tiberio morum via</i>.</p>
+<p>(26) Secondly, to consider how their nature sorteth with
+professions and courses of life, and accordingly to make
+election, if they be free; and, if engaged, to make the departure
+at the first opportunity; as we see was done by Duke Valentine,
+that was designed by his father to a sacerdotal profession, but
+quitted it soon after in regard of his parts and inclination;
+being such, nevertheless, as a man cannot tell well whether they
+were worse for a prince or for a priest.</p>
+<p>(27) Thirdly, to consider how they sort with those whom they
+are like to have competitors and concurrents; and to take that
+course wherein there is most solitude, and themselves like to be
+most eminent; as Cæsar Julius did, who at first was an
+orator or pleader; but when he saw the excellency of Cicero,
+Hortensius, Catulus, and others for eloquence, and saw there was
+no man of reputation for the wars but Pompeius, upon whom the
+state was forced to rely, he forsook his course begun towards a
+civil and popular greatness, and transferred his designs to a
+martial greatness.</p>
+<p>(28) Fourthly, in the choice of their friends and dependents,
+to proceed according to the composition of their own nature; as
+we may see in Cæsar, all whose friends and followers were
+men active and effectual, but not solemn, or of reputation.</p>
+<p>(29) Fifthly, to take special heed how they guide themselves
+by examples, in thinking they can do as they see others do;
+whereas perhaps their natures and carriages are far
+differing.  In which error it seemeth Pompey was, of whom
+Cicero saith that he was wont often to say, <i>Sylla potuit</i>,
+<i>ego non potero</i>?  Wherein he was much abused, the
+natures and proceedings of himself and his example being the
+unlikest in the world; the one being fierce, violent, and
+pressing the fact; the other solemn, and full of majesty and
+circumstance, and therefore the less effectual.</p>
+<p>But this precept touching the politic knowledge of ourselves
+hath many other branches, whereupon we cannot insist.</p>
+<p>(30) Next to the well understanding and discerning of a
+man’s self, there followeth the well opening and revealing
+a man’s self; wherein we see nothing more usual than for
+the more able man to make the less show.  For there is a
+great advantage in the well setting forth of a man’s
+virtues, fortunes, merits; and again, in the artificial covering
+of a man’s weaknesses, defects, disgraces; staying upon the
+one, sliding from the other; cherishing the one by circumstances,
+gracing the other by exposition, and the like.  Wherein we
+see what Tacitus saith of Mutianus, who was the greatest
+politique of his time, <i>Omnium quæ dixerat feceratque
+arte quadam ostentator</i>, which requireth indeed some art, lest
+it turn tedious and arrogant; but yet so, as ostentation (though
+it be to the first degree of vanity) seemeth to me rather a vice
+in manners than in policy; for as it is said, <i>Audacter
+calumniare</i>, <i>semper aliquid hæret</i>; so, except it
+be in a ridiculous degree of deformity, <i>Audacter te
+vendita</i>, <i>semper aluquid hæret</i>.  For it will
+stick with the more ignorant and inferior sort of men, though men
+of wisdom and rank do smile at it and despise it; and yet the
+authority won with many doth countervail the disdain of a
+few.  But if it be carried with decency and government, as
+with a natural, pleasant, and ingenious fashion; or at times when
+it is mixed with some peril and unsafety (as in military
+persons); or at times when others are most envied; or with easy
+and careless passage to it and from it, without dwelling too
+long, or being too serious; or with an equal freedom of taxing a
+man’s self, as well as gracing himself; or by occasion of
+repelling or putting down others’ injury or insolency; it
+doth greatly add to reputation: and surely not a few solid
+natures, that want this ventosity and cannot sail in the height
+of the winds, are not without some prejudice and disadvantage by
+their moderation.</p>
+<p>(31) But for these flourishes and enhancements of virtue, as
+they are not perchance unnecessary, so it is at least necessary
+that virtue be not disvalued and embased under the just price,
+which is done in three manners—by offering and obtruding a
+man’s self, wherein men think he is rewarded when he is
+accepted; by doing too much, which will not give that which is
+well done leave to settle, and in the end induceth satiety; and
+by finding too soon the fruit of a man’s virtue, in
+commendation, applause, honour, favour; wherein if a man be
+pleased with a little, let him hear what is truly said: <i>Cave
+ne insuetus rebus majoribus videaris</i>, <i>si hæc te res
+parva sicuti magna delectat</i>.</p>
+<p>(32) But the covering of defects is of no less importance than
+the valuing of good parts; which may be done likewise in three
+manners—by caution, by colour, and by confidence.
+Caution is when men do ingeniously and discreetly avoid to be put
+into those things for which they are not proper; whereas
+contrariwise bold and unquiet spirits will thrust themselves into
+matters without difference, and so publish and proclaim all their
+wants.  Colour is when men make a way for themselves to have
+a construction made of their faults or wants, as proceeding from
+a better cause or intended for some other purpose.  For of
+the one it is well said,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Sæpe latet vitium proximitate
+boni,”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he
+pretend the virtue that shadoweth it; as if he be dull, he must
+affect gravity; if a coward, mildness; and so the rest.  For
+the second, a man must frame some probable cause why he should
+not do his best, and why he should dissemble his abilities; and
+for that purpose must use to dissemble those abilities which are
+notorious in him, to give colour that his true wants are but
+industries and dissimulations.  For confidence, it is the
+last but the surest remedy—namely, to depress and seem to
+despise whatsoever a man cannot attain; observing the good
+principle of the merchants, who endeavour to raise the price of
+their own commodities, and to beat down the price of
+others.  But there is a confidence that passeth this other,
+which is to face out a man’s own defects, in seeming to
+conceive that he is best in those things wherein he is failing;
+and, to help that again, to seem on the other side that he hath
+least opinion of himself in those things wherein he is best: like
+as we shall see it commonly in poets, that if they show their
+verses, and you except to any, they will say, “That that
+line cost them more labour than any of the rest;” and
+presently will seem to disable and suspect rather some other
+line, which they know well enough to be the best in the
+number.  But above all, in this righting and helping of a
+man’s self in his own carriage, he must take heed he show
+not himself dismantled and exposed to scorn and injury, by too
+much dulceness, goodness, and facility of nature; but show some
+sparkles of liberty, spirit, and edge.  Which kind of
+fortified carriage, with a ready rescussing of a man’s self
+from scorns, is sometimes of necessity imposed upon men by
+somewhat in their person or fortune; but it ever succeedeth with
+good felicity.</p>
+<p>(33) Another precept of this knowledge is by all possible
+endeavour to frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to
+occasion; for nothing hindereth men’s fortunes so much as
+this: <i>Idem manebat</i>, <i>neque idem decebat</i>—men
+are where they were, when occasions turn: and therefore to Cato,
+whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he addeth that he
+had <i>versatile ingenium</i>.  And thereof it cometh that
+these grave solemn wits, which must be like themselves and cannot
+make departures, have more dignity than felicity.  But in
+some it is nature to be somewhat vicious and enwrapped, and not
+easy to turn.  In some it is a conceit that is almost a
+nature, which is, that men can hardly make themselves believe
+that they ought to change their course, when they have found good
+by it in former experience.  For Machiavel noted wisely how
+Fabius Maximus would have been temporising still, according to
+his old bias, when the nature of the war was altered and required
+hot pursuit.  In some other it is want of point and
+penetration in their judgment, that they do not discern when
+things have a period, but come in too late after the occasion; as
+Demosthenes compareth the people of Athens to country fellows,
+when they play in a fence school, that if they have a blow, then
+they remove their weapon to that ward, and not before.  In
+some other it is a lothness to lose labours passed, and a conceit
+that they can bring about occasions to their ply; and yet in the
+end, when they see no other remedy, then they come to it with
+disadvantage; as Tarquinius, that gave for the third part of
+Sibylla’s books the treble price, when he might at first
+have had all three for the simple.  But from whatsoever root
+or cause this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most
+prejudicial; and nothing is more politic than to make the wheels
+of our mind concentric and voluble with the wheels of
+fortune.</p>
+<p>(34) Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some
+affinity with that we last spoke of, but with difference, is that
+which is well expressed, <i>Fatis accede deisque</i>, that men do
+not only turn with the occasions, but also run with the
+occasions, and not strain their credit or strength to over-hard
+or extreme points; but choose in their actions that which is most
+passable: for this will preserve men from foil, not occupy them
+too much about one matter, win opinion of moderation, please the
+most, and make a show of a perpetual felicity in all they
+undertake: which cannot but mightily increase reputation.</p>
+<p>(35) Another part of this knowledge seemeth to have some
+repugnancy with the former two, but not as I understand it; and
+it is that which Demosthenes uttereth in high terms: <i>Et
+quemadmodum receptum est</i>, <i>ut exercitum ducat
+imperator</i>, <i>sic et a cordatis viris res ipsæ
+ducendæ</i>; <i>ut quæipsis videntur</i>, <i>ea
+gerantur</i>, <i>et non ipsi eventus persequi cogantur</i>.
+For if we observe we shall find two differing kinds of
+sufficiency in managing of business: some can make use of
+occasions aptly and dexterously, but plot little; some can urge
+and pursue their own plots well, but cannot accommodate nor take
+in; either of which is very imperfect without the other.</p>
+<p>(36) Another part of this knowledge is the observing a good
+mediocrity in the declaring or not declaring a man’s self:
+for although depth of secrecy, and making way (<i>qualis est via
+navis in mari</i>, which the French calleth <i>sourdes
+menées</i>, when men set things in work without opening
+themselves at all), be sometimes both prosperous and admirable;
+yet many times <i>dissimulatio errores parit</i>, <i>qui
+dissimulatorem ipsum illaqueant</i>.  And therefore we see
+the greatest politiques have in a natural and free manner
+professed their desires, rather than been reserved and disguised
+in them.  For so we see that Lucius Sylla made a kind of
+profession, “that he wished all men happy or unhappy, as
+they stood his friends or enemies.”  So Cæsar,
+when he went first into Gaul, made no scruple to profess
+“that he had rather be first in a village than second at
+Rome.”  So again, as soon as he had begun the war, we
+see what Cicero saith of him, <i>Alter</i> (meaning of
+Cæsar) <i>non recusat</i>, <i>sed quodammodo postulat</i>,
+<i>ut</i> (<i>ut est</i>) <i>sic appelletur tyrannus</i>.
+So we may see in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, that Augustus
+Cæsar, in his very entrance into affairs, when he was a
+darling of the senate, yet in his harangues to the people would
+swear, <i>Ita parentis honores consequi liceat</i> (which was no
+less than the tyranny), save that, to help it, he would stretch
+forth his hand towards a statue of Cæsar’s that was
+erected in the place: and men laughed and wondered, and said,
+“Is it possible?” or, “Did you ever hear the
+like?” and yet thought he meant no hurt; he did it so
+handsomely and ingenuously.  And all these were prosperous:
+whereas Pompey, who tended to the same ends, but in a more dark
+and dissembling manner as Tacitus saith of him, <i>Occultior non
+melior</i>, wherein Sallust concurreth, <i>Ore probo</i>,
+<i>animo inverecundo</i>, made it his design, by infinite secret
+engines, to cast the state into an absolute anarchy and
+confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for
+necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power be put upon
+him, and he never seen in it: and when he had brought it (as he
+thought) to that point when he was chosen consul alone, as never
+any was, yet he could make no great matter of it, because men
+understood him not; but was fain in the end to go the beaten
+track of getting arms into his hands, by colour of the doubt of
+Cæsar’s designs: so tedious, casual, and unfortunate
+are these deep dissimulations: whereof it seemeth Tacitus made
+this judgment, that they were a cunning of an inferior form in
+regard of true policy; attributing the one to Augustus, the other
+to Tiberius; where, speaking of Livia, he saith, <i>Et cum
+artibus mariti simulatione filii bene compostia</i>: for surely
+the continual habit of dissimulation is but a weak and sluggish
+cunning, and not greatly politic.</p>
+<p>(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to
+accustom our minds to judge of the proportion or value of things,
+as they conduce and are material to our particular ends; and that
+to do substantially and not superficially.  For we shall
+find the logical part (as I may term it) of some men’s
+minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous; that is, they
+can well judge of consequences, but not of proportions and
+comparison, preferring things of show and sense before things of
+substance and effect.  So some fall in love with access to
+princes, others with popular fame and applause, supposing they
+are things of great purchase, when in many cases they are but
+matters of envy, peril, and impediment.  So some measure
+things according to the labour and difficulty or assiduity which
+are spent about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that
+they must needs advance and proceed; as Cæsar saith in a
+despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth how
+laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose,
+<i>Hæc omnia magno studio agebat</i>.  So in most
+things men are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest
+means to be best, when it should be the fittest.</p>
+<p>(38) As for the true marshalling of men’s pursuits
+towards their fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold
+them to stand thus.  First the amendment of their own
+minds.  For the removal of the impediments of the mind will
+sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune
+will remove the impediments of the mind.  In the second
+place I set down wealth and means; which I know most men would
+have placed first, because of the general use which it beareth
+towards all variety of occasions.  But that opinion I may
+condemn with like reason as Machiavel doth that other, that
+moneys were the sinews of the wars; whereas (saith he) the true
+sinews of the wars are the sinews of men’s arms, that is, a
+valiant, populous, and military nation: and he voucheth aptly the
+authority of Solon, who, when Crœsus showed him his
+treasury of gold, said to him, that if another came that had
+better iron, he would be master of his gold.  In like manner
+it may be truly affirmed that it is not moneys that are the
+sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men’s
+minds, wit, courage, audacity, resolution, temper, industry, and
+the like.  In the third place I set down reputation, because
+of the peremptory tides and currents it hath; which, if they be
+not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered, it being
+extreme hard to play an after-game of reputation.  And
+lastly I place honour, which is more easily won by any of the
+other three, much more by all, than any of them can be purchased
+by honour.  To conclude this precept, as there is order and
+priority in matter, so is there in time, the preposterous placing
+whereof is one of the commonest errors: while men fly to their
+ends when they should intend their beginnings, and do not take
+things in order of time as they come on, but marshal them
+according to greatness and not according to instance; not
+observing the good precept, <i>Quod nunc instat agamus</i>.</p>
+<p>(39) Another precept of this knowledge is not to embrace any
+matters which do occupy too great a quantity of time, but to have
+that sounding in a man’s ears, <i>Sed fugit interea fugit
+irreparabile tempus</i>: and that is the cause why those which
+take their course of rising by professions of burden, as lawyers,
+orators, painful divines, and the like, are not commonly so
+politic for their own fortune, otherwise than in their ordinary
+way, because they want time to learn particulars, to wait
+occasions, and to devise plots.</p>
+<p>(40) Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate nature,
+which doth nothing in vain; which surely a man may do if he do
+well interlace his business, and bend not his mind too much upon
+that which he principally intendeth.  For a man ought in
+every particular action so to carry the motions of his mind, and
+so to have one thing under another, as if he cannot have that he
+seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it in a second, or so in
+a third; and if he can have no part of that which he purposed,
+yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else; and if he cannot make
+anything of it for the present, yet to make it as a seed of
+somewhat in time to come; and if he can contrive no effect or
+substance from it, yet to win some good opinion by it, or the
+like.  So that he should exact an account of himself of
+every action, to reap somewhat, and not to stand amazed and
+confused if he fail of that he chiefly meant: for nothing is more
+impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one.  For he
+that doth so loseth infinite occasions which intervene, and are
+many times more proper and propitious for somewhat that he shall
+need afterwards, than for that which he urgeth for the present;
+and therefore men must be perfect in that rule, <i>Hæc
+oportet facere</i>, <i>et illa non imittere</i>.</p>
+<p>(41) Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a
+man’s self peremptorily in anything, though it seem not
+liable to accident; but ever to have a window to fly out at, or a
+way to retire: following the wisdom in the ancient fable of the
+two frogs, which consulted when their plash was dry whither they
+should go; and the one moved to go down into a pit, because it
+was not likely the water would dry there; but the other answered,
+“True, but if it do, how shall we get out again?”</p>
+<p>(42) Another precept of this knowledge is that ancient precept
+of Bias, construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but to
+caution and moderation, <i>Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus et odi
+tanquam amaturus</i>.  For it utterly betrayeth all utility
+for men to embark themselves too far into unfortunate
+friendships, troublesome spleens, and childish and humorous
+envies or emulations.</p>
+<p>(43) But I continue this beyond the measure of an example;
+led, because I would not have such knowledges, which I note as
+deficient, to be thought things imaginative or in the air, or an
+observation or two much made of, but things of bulk and mass,
+whereof an end is more hardly made than a beginning.  It
+must be likewise conceived, that in these points which I mention
+and set down, they are far from complete tractates of them, but
+only as small pieces for patterns.  And lastly, no man I
+suppose will think that I mean fortunes are not obtained without
+all this ado; for I know they come tumbling into some men’s
+laps; and a number obtain good fortunes by diligence in a plain
+way, little intermeddling, and keeping themselves from gross
+errors.</p>
+<p>(44) But as Cicero, when he setteth down an idea of a perfect
+orator, doth not mean that every pleader should be such; and so
+likewise, when a prince or a courtier hath been described by such
+as have handled those subjects, the mould hath used to be made
+according to the perfection of the art, and not according to
+common practice: so I understand it, that it ought to be done in
+the description of a politic man, I mean politic for his own
+fortune.</p>
+<p>(45) But it must be remembered all this while, that the
+precepts which we have set down are of that kind which may be
+counted and called <i>Bonæ Artes</i>.  As for evil
+arts, if a man would set down for himself that principle of
+Machiavel, “That a man seek not to attain virtue itself,
+but the appearance only thereof; because the credit of virtue is
+a help, but the use of it is cumber:” or that other of his
+principles, “That he presuppose that men are not fitly to
+be wrought otherwise but by fear; and therefore that he seek to
+have every man obnoxious, low, and in straits,” which the
+Italians call <i>seminar spine</i>, to sow thorns: or that other
+principle, contained in the verse which Cicero citeth, <i>Cadant
+amici</i>, <i>dummodo inimici intercidant</i>, as the triumvirs,
+which sold every one to other the lives of their friends for the
+deaths of their enemies: or that other protestation of L.
+Catilina, to set on fire and trouble states, to the end to fish
+in droumy waters, and to unwrap their fortunes, <i>Ego si quid in
+fortunis meis excitatum sit incendium</i>, <i>id non aqua sed
+ruina restinguam</i>: or that other principle of Lysander,
+“That children are to be deceived with comfits, and men
+with oaths:” and the like evil and corrupt positions,
+whereof (as in all things) there are more in number than of the
+good: certainly with these dispensations from the laws of charity
+and integrity, the pressing of a man’s fortune may be more
+hasty and compendious.  But it is in life as it is in ways,
+the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer
+way is not much about.</p>
+<p>(46) But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and
+sustain themselves, and be not carried away with a whirlwind or
+tempest of ambition, ought in the pursuit of their own fortune to
+set before their eyes not only that general map of the world,
+“That all things are vanity and vexation of spirit,”
+but many other more particular cards and directions: chiefly
+that, that being without well-being is a curse, and the greater
+being the greater curse; and that all virtue is most rewarded and
+all wickedness most punished in itself: according as the poet
+saith excellently:</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Quæ vobis, quæ digna, viri pro
+laudibus istis<br />
+Præmia posse rear solvi? pulcherrima primum<br />
+Dii <i>moresque</i> dabunt vestri.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And so of the contrary.  And secondly they ought to look
+up to the Eternal Providence and Divine Judgment, which often
+subverteth the wisdom of evil plots and imaginations, according
+to that scripture, “He hath conceived mischief, and shall
+bring forth a vain thing.”  And although men should
+refrain themselves from injury and evil arts, yet this incessant
+and Sabbathless pursuit of a man’s fortune leaveth not
+tribute which we owe to God of our time; who (we see) demandeth a
+tenth of our substance, and a seventh, which is more strict, of
+our time: and it is to small purpose to have an erected face
+towards heaven, and a perpetual grovelling spirit upon earth,
+eating dust as doth the serpent, <i>Atque affigit humo
+divinæ particulam auræ</i>.  And if any man
+flatter himself that he will employ his fortune well, though he
+should obtain it ill, as was said concerning Augustus
+Cæsar, and after of Septimius Severus, “That either
+they should never have been born, or else they should never have
+died,” they did so much mischief in the pursuit and ascent
+of their greatness, and so much good when they were established;
+yet these compensations and satisfactions are good to be used,
+but never good to be purposed.  And lastly, it is not amiss
+for men, in their race towards their fortune, to cool themselves
+a little with that conceit which is elegantly expressed by the
+Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the king his son,
+“That fortune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, that
+if she he too much wooed she is the farther off.”  But
+this last is but a remedy for those whose tastes are corrupted:
+let men rather build upon that foundation which is as a
+corner-stone of divinity and philosophy, wherein they join close,
+namely that same <i>Primum quærite</i>.  For divinity
+saith, <i>Primum quærite regnum Dei</i>, <i>et ista omnia
+adjicientur vobis</i>: and philosophy saith, <i>Primum
+quærite bona animi</i>; <i>cætera aut aderunt</i>,
+<i>aut non oberunt</i>.  And although the human foundation
+hath somewhat of the sands, as we see in M. Brutus, when he broke
+forth into that speech,</p>
+<blockquote><p>“Te colui (Virtus) ut rem; ast tu nomen
+inane es;”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>yet the divine foundation is upon the rock.  But this may
+serve for a taste of that knowledge which I noted as
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(47) Concerning government, it is a part of knowledge secret
+and retired in both these respects in which things are deemed
+secret; for some things are secret because they are hard to know,
+and some because they are not fit to utter.  We see all
+governments are obscure and invisible:</p>
+<blockquote><p>   “Totamque infusa per
+artus<br />
+Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Such is the description of governments.  We see the
+government of God over the world is hidden, insomuch as it
+seemeth to participate of much irregularity and confusion.
+The government of the soul in moving the body is inward and
+profound, and the passages thereof hardly to be reduced to
+demonstration.  Again, the wisdom of antiquity (the shadows
+whereof are in the poets) in the description of torments and
+pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was the
+giants’ offence, doth detest the offence of futility, as in
+Sisyphus and Tantalus.  But this was meant of particulars:
+nevertheless even unto the general rules and discourses of policy
+and government there is due a reverent and reserved handling.</p>
+<p>(48) But contrariwise in the governors towards the governed,
+all things ought as far as the frailty of man permitteth to be
+manifest and revealed.  For so it is expressed in the
+Scriptures touching the government of God, that this globe, which
+seemeth to us a dark and shady body, is in the view of God as
+crystal: <i>Et in conspectu sedis tanquam mare vitreum simile
+crystallo</i>.  So unto princes and states, and specially
+towards wise senates and councils, the natures and dispositions
+of the people, their conditions and necessities, their factions
+and combinations, their animosities and discontents, ought to be,
+in regard of the variety of their intelligences, the wisdom of
+their observations, and the height of their station where they
+keep sentinel, in great part clear and transparent.
+Wherefore, considering that I write to a king that is a master of
+this science, and is so well assisted, I think it decent to pass
+over this part in silence, as willing to obtain the certificate
+which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto; who being
+silent, when others contended to make demonstration of their
+abilities by speech, desired it might be certified for his part,
+“That there was one that knew how to hold his
+peace.”</p>
+<p>(49) Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government,
+which is laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which
+is, that all those which have written of laws have written either
+as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen.  As
+for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary
+commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give
+little light because they are so high.  For the lawyers,
+they write according to the states where they live what is
+received law, and not what ought to be law; for the wisdom of a
+law-maker is one, and of a lawyer is another.  For there are
+in nature certain fountains of justice whence all civil laws are
+derived but as streams; and like as waters do take tinctures and
+tastes from the soils through which they run, so do civil laws
+vary according to the regions and governments where they are
+planted, though they proceed from the same fountains.
+Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a
+platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into
+consideration by what means laws may be made certain, and what
+are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and uncertainty
+of law; by what means laws may be made apt and easy to be
+executed, and what are the impediments and remedies in the
+execution of laws; what influence laws touching private right of
+<i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i> have into the public state, and how
+they may be made apt and agreeable; how laws are to be penned and
+delivered, whether in texts or in Acts, brief or large, with
+preambles or without; how they are to be pruned and reformed from
+time to time, and what is the best means to keep them from being
+too vast in volume, or too full of multiplicity and crossness;
+how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent and
+judicially discussed, and when upon responses and conferences
+touching general points or questions; how they are to be pressed,
+rigorously or tenderly; how they are to be mitigated by equity
+and good conscience, and whether discretion and strict law are to
+be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several courts;
+again, how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to
+be censured and governed; and many other points touching the
+administration and (as I may term it) animation of laws.
+Upon which I insist the less, because I purpose (if God give me
+leave), having begun a work of this nature in aphorisms, to
+propound it hereafter, noting it in the meantime for
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(50) And for your Majesty’s laws of England, I could say
+much of their dignity, and somewhat of their defect; but they
+cannot but excel the civil laws in fitness for the government,
+for the civil law was <i>nonhos quæsitum munus in usus</i>;
+it was not made for the countries which it governeth.
+Hereof I cease to speak because I will not intermingle matter of
+action with matter of general learning.</p>
+<p>XXIV.  Thus have I concluded this portion of learning
+touching civil knowledge; and with civil knowledge have concluded
+human philosophy; and with human philosophy, philosophy in
+general.  And being now at some pause, looking back into
+that I have passed through, this writing seemeth to me (<i>si
+nunquam fallit imago</i>), as far as a man can judge of his own
+work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians
+make while they are in tuning their instruments, which is nothing
+pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter
+afterwards.  So have I been content to tune the instruments
+of the Muses, that they may play that have better hands.
+And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in
+which learning hath made her third visitation or circuit in all
+the qualities thereof; as the excellency and vivacity of the wits
+of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the
+travails of ancient writers; the art of printing, which
+communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness of the
+world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of
+experiments, and a mass of natural history; the leisure wherewith
+these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil
+business, as the states of Græcia did, in respect of their
+popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of
+their monarchy; the present disposition of these times at this
+instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in
+controversies of religion, which have so much diverted men from
+other sciences; the perfection of your Majesty’s learning,
+which as a phœnix may call whole volleys of wits to follow
+you; and the inseparable propriety of time, which is ever more
+and more to disclose truth; I cannot but be raised to this
+persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that
+of the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their
+own strength and their own weakness both; and take, one from the
+other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction; and
+esteem of the inquisition of truth as of an enterprise, and not
+as of a quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence to
+things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of
+popular estimation.  As for my labours, if any man shall
+please himself or others in the reprehension of them, they shall
+make that ancient and patient request, <i>Verbera</i>, <i>sed
+audi</i>: let men reprehend them, so they observe and weigh
+them.  For the appeal is lawful (though it may be it shall
+not be needful) from the first cogitations of men to their
+second, and from the nearer times to the times further off.
+Now let us come to that learning, which both the former times
+were not so blessed as to know, sacred and inspired divinity, the
+Sabbath and port of all men’s labours and
+peregrinations.</p>
+<p>XXV. (1) The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the
+reason as to the will of man: so that as we are to obey His law,
+though we find a reluctation in our will, so we are to believe
+His word, though we find a reluctation in our reason.  For
+if we believe only that which is agreeable to our sense we give
+consent to the matter, and not to the author; which is no more
+than we would do towards a suspected and discredited witness; but
+that faith which was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was
+of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein was an
+image of natural reason.</p>
+<p>(2) Howbeit (if we will truly consider of it) more worthy it
+is to believe than to know as we now know.  For in knowledge
+man’s mind suffereth from sense: but in belief it suffereth
+from spirit, such one as it holdeth for more authorised than
+itself and so suffereth from the worthier agent.  Otherwise
+it is of the state of man glorified; for then faith shall cease,
+and we shall know as we are known.</p>
+<p>(3) Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology (which in our
+idiom we call divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle
+of God, and not upon the light of nature: for it is written,
+<i>Cæli enarrant gloriam Dei</i>; but it is not written,
+<i>Cæli enarrant voluntatem Dei</i>: but of that it is
+said, <i>Ad legem et testimonium</i>: <i>si non fecerint secundum
+verbum istud</i>, &amp;c.  This holdeth not only in those
+points of faith which concern the great mysteries of the Deity,
+of the creation, of the redemption, but likewise those which
+concern the law moral, truly interpreted: “Love your
+enemies: do good to them that hate you; be like to your heavenly
+Father, that suffereth His rain to fall upon the just and
+unjust.”  To this it ought to be applauded, <i>Nec vox
+hominem sonat</i>: it is a voice beyond the light of
+nature.  So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a
+libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moralities,
+as if they were opposite and malignant to nature: <i>Et quod
+natura remittit</i>, <i>invida jura negant</i>.  So said
+Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander’s messengers, that he
+had heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other of the wise men
+of Græcia, and that he held them for excellent men: but
+that they had a fault, which was that they had in too great
+reverence and veneration a thing they called law and
+manners.  So it must be confessed that a great part of the
+law moral is of that perfection whereunto the light of nature
+cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have, by the
+light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and
+vice, justice and wrong, good and evil?  Thus, because the
+light of nature is used in two several senses: the one, that
+which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argument,
+according to the laws of heaven and earth; the other, that which
+is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct,
+according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the
+purity of his first estate: in which latter sense only he is
+participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection
+of the moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice but not
+to inform the duty.  So then the doctrine of religion, as
+well moral as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration
+and revelation from God.</p>
+<p>(4) The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, and
+the latitude thereof, is very great and general: for it is not
+for nothing that the apostle calleth religion “our
+reasonable service of God;” insomuch as the very ceremonies
+and figures of the old law were full of reason and signification,
+much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and magic, that are
+full of non-significants and surd characters.  But most
+specially the Christian faith, as in all things so in this,
+deserveth to be highly magnified; holding and preserving the
+golden mediocrity in this point between the law of the heathen
+and the law of Mahomet, which have embraced the two
+extremes.  For the religion of the heathen had no constant
+belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of agent; and
+the religion of Mahomet on the other side interdicteth argument
+altogether: the one having the very face of error, and the other
+of imposture; whereas the Faith doth both admit and reject
+disputation with difference.</p>
+<p>(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the
+former, in the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of
+God to us revealed; the other, in the inferring and deriving of
+doctrine and direction thereupon.  The former extendeth to
+the mysteries themselves; but how? by way of illustration, and
+not by way of argument.  The latter consisteth indeed of
+probation and argument.  In the former we see God
+vouchsafeth to descend to our capacity, in the expressing of His
+mysteries in sort as may be sensible unto us; and doth graft His
+revelations and holy doctrine upon the notions of our reason, and
+applieth His inspirations to open our understanding, as the form
+of the key to the ward of the lock.  For the latter there is
+allowed us a use of reason and argument, secondary and
+respective, although not original and absolute.  For after
+the articles and principles of religion are placed and exempted
+from examination of reason, it is then permitted unto us to make
+derivations and inferences from and according to the analogy of
+them, for our better direction.  In nature this holdeth not;
+for both the principles are examinable by induction, though not
+by a medium or syllogism; and besides, those principles or first
+positions have no discordance with that reason which draweth down
+and deduceth the inferior positions.  But yet it holdeth not
+in religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and
+smaller nature, namely, wherein there are not only <i>posita</i>
+but <i>placita</i>; for in such there can be no use of absolute
+reason.  We see it familiarly in games of wit, as chess, or
+the like.  The draughts and first laws of the game are
+positive, but how? merely <i>ad placitum</i>, and not examinable
+by reason; but then how to direct our play thereupon with best
+advantage to win the game is artificial and rational.  So in
+human laws there be many grounds and maxims which are <i>placita
+juris</i>, positive upon authority, and not upon reason, and
+therefore not to be disputed: but what is most just, not
+absolutely but relatively, and according to those maxims, that
+affordeth a long field of disputation.  Such therefore is
+that secondary reason, which hath place in divinity, which is
+grounded upon the <i>placets</i> of God.</p>
+<p>(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath not
+been, to my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the
+true limits and use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of
+divine dialectic: which for that it is not done, it seemeth to me
+a thing usual, by pretext of true conceiving that which is
+revealed, to search and mine into that which is not revealed; and
+by pretext of enucleating inferences and contradictories, to
+examine that which is positive.  The one sort falling into
+the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have things made more
+sensible than it pleaseth God to reveal them, <i>Quomodo possit
+homo nasci cum sit senex</i>?  The other sort into the error
+of the disciples, which were scandalised at a show of
+contradiction, <i>Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis</i>?
+<i>Modicum et non videbitis me</i>; <i>et iterum</i>,
+<i>modicum</i>, <i>et videbitis me</i>, &amp;c.</p>
+<p>(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great
+and blessed use thereof; for this point well laboured and defined
+of would in my judgment be an opiate to stay and bridle not only
+the vanity of curious speculations, wherewith the schools labour,
+but the fury of controversies, wherewith the Church
+laboureth.  For it cannot but open men’s eyes to see
+that many controversies do merely pertain to that which is either
+not revealed or positive; and that many others do grow upon weak
+and obscure inferences or derivations: which latter sort, if men
+would revive the blessed style of that great doctor of the
+Gentiles, would be carried thus, <i>ego</i>, <i>non dominus</i>;
+and again, <i>secundum consilium meum</i>, in opinions and
+counsels, and not in positions and oppositions.  But men are
+now over-ready to usurp the style, <i>non ego</i>, <i>sed
+dominus</i>; and not so only, but to bind it with the thunder and
+denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the terror of those
+which have not sufficiently learned out of Solomon that
+“The causeless curse shall not come.”</p>
+<p>(8) Divinity hath two principal parts: the matter informed or
+revealed, and the nature of the information or revelation; and
+with the latter we will begin, because it hath most coherence
+with that which we have now last handled.  The nature of the
+information consisteth of three branches: the limits of the
+information, the sufficiency of the information, and the
+acquiring or obtaining the information.  Unto the limits of
+the information belong these considerations: how far forth
+particular persons continue to be inspired; how far forth the
+Church is inspired; and how far forth reason may be used; the
+last point whereof I have noted as deficient.  Unto the
+sufficiency of the information belong two considerations: what
+points of religion are fundamental, and what perfective, being
+matter of further building and perfection upon one and the same
+foundation; and again, how the gradations of light according to
+the dispensation of times are material to the sufficiency of
+belief.</p>
+<p>(9) Here again I may rather give it in advice than note it as
+deficient, that the points fundamental, and the points of further
+perfection only, ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished;
+a subject tending to much like end as that I noted before; for as
+that other were likely to abate the number of controversies, so
+this is likely to abate the heat of many of them.  We see
+Moses when he saw the Israelite and the Egyptian fight, he did
+not say, “Why strive you?” but drew his sword and
+slew the Egyptian; but when he saw the two Israelites fight, he
+said, “You are brethren, why strive you?”  If
+the point of doctrine be an Egyptian, it must be slain by the
+sword of the Spirit, and not reconciled; but if it be an
+Israelite, though in the wrong, then, “Why strive
+you?”  We see of the fundamental points, our Saviour
+penneth the league thus, “He that is not with us is against
+us;” but of points not fundamental, thus, “He that is
+not against us is with us.”  So we see the coat of our
+Saviour was entire without seam, and so is the doctrine of the
+Scriptures in itself; but the garment of the Church was of divers
+colours and yet not divided.  We see the chaff may and ought
+to be severed from the corn in the ear, but the tares may not be
+pulled up from the corn in the field.  So as it is a thing
+of great use well to define what, and of what latitude, those
+points are which do make men mere aliens and disincorporate from
+the Church of God.</p>
+<p>(10) For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the
+true and sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the
+fountains of the water of life.  The interpretations of the
+Scriptures are of two sorts: methodical, and solute or at
+large.  For this divine water, which excelleth so much that
+of Jacob’s well, is drawn forth much in the same kind as
+natural water useth to be out of wells and fountains; either it
+is first forced up into a cistern, and from thence fetched and
+derived for use; or else it is drawn and received in buckets and
+vessels immediately where it springeth.  The former sort
+whereof, though it seem to be the more ready, yet in my judgment
+is more subject to corrupt.  This is that method which hath
+exhibited unto us the scholastical divinity; whereby divinity
+hath been reduced into an art, as into a cistern, and the streams
+of doctrine or positions fetched and derived from thence.</p>
+<p>(11) In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity,
+a compacted strength, and a complete perfection; whereof the two
+first they fail to find, and the last they ought not to
+seek.  For as to brevity, we see in all summary methods,
+while men purpose to abridge, they give cause to dilate.
+For the sum or abridgment by contraction becometh obscure; the
+obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is deduced
+into large commentaries, or into commonplaces and titles, which
+grow to be more vast than the original writings, whence the sum
+was at first extracted.  So we see the volumes of the
+schoolmen are greater much than the first writings of the
+fathers, whence the master of the sentences made his sum or
+collection.  So in like manner the volumes of the modern
+doctors of the civil law exceed those of the ancient
+jurisconsults, of which Tribonian compiled the digest.  So
+as this course of sums and commentaries is that which doth
+infallibly make the body of sciences more immense in quantity,
+and more base in substance.</p>
+<p>(12) And for strength, it is true that knowledges reduced into
+exact methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth
+to support and sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory
+than substantial, like unto buildings which stand by architecture
+and compaction, which are more subject to ruin than those that
+are built more strong in their several parts, though less
+compacted.  But it is plain that the more you recede from
+your grounds, the weaker do you conclude; and as in nature, the
+more you remove yourself from particulars, the greater peril of
+error you do incur; so much more in divinity, the more you recede
+from the Scriptures by inferences and consequences, the more weak
+and dilute are your positions.</p>
+<p>(13) And as for perfection or completeness in divinity, it is
+not to be sought, which makes this course of artificial divinity
+the more suspect.  For he that will reduce a knowledge into
+an art will make it round and uniform; but in divinity many
+things must be left abrupt, and concluded with this: <i>O
+altitudo sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei</i>! <i>quam
+incomprehensibilia sunt juducua ejus</i>, <i>et non
+investigabiles viæ ejus</i>.  So again the apostle
+saith, <i>Ex parte scimus</i>: and to have the form of a total,
+where there is but matter for a part, cannot be without supplies
+by supposition and presumption.  And therefore I conclude
+that the true use of these sums and methods hath place in
+institutions or introductions preparatory unto knowledge; but in
+them, or by deducement from them, to handle the main body and
+substance of a knowledge is in all sciences prejudicial, and in
+divinity dangerous.</p>
+<p>(14) As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at
+large, there have been divers kinds introduced and devised; some
+of them rather curious and unsafe than sober and warranted.
+Notwithstanding, thus much must be confessed, that the
+Scriptures, being given by inspiration and not by human reason,
+do differ from all other books in the Author, which by
+consequence doth draw on some difference to be used by the
+expositor.  For the Inditer of them did know four things
+which no man attains to know; which are—the mysteries of
+the kingdom of glory, the perfection of the laws of nature, the
+secrets of the heart of man, and the future succession of all
+ages.  For as to the first it is said, “He that
+presseth into the light shall be oppressed of the
+glory.”  And again, “No man shall see My face
+and live.”  To the second, “When He prepared the
+heavens I was present, when by law and compass He enclosed the
+deep.”  To the third, “Neither was it needful
+that any should bear witness to Him of man, for He knew well what
+was in man.”  And to the last, “From the
+beginning are known to the Lord all His works.”</p>
+<p>(15) From the former two of these have been drawn certain
+senses and expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained
+within the bounds of sobriety—the one anagogical, and the
+other philosophical.  But as to the former, man is not to
+prevent his time: <i>Videmus nunc per speculum in
+ænigmate</i>, <i>tunc autem facie ad faciem</i>; wherein
+nevertheless there seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth
+as the polishing of this glass, or some moderate explication of
+this enigma.  But to press too far into it cannot but cause
+a dissolution and overthrow of the spirit of man.  For in
+the body there are three degrees of that we receive into
+it—aliment, medicine, and poison; whereof aliment is that
+which the nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome;
+medicine is that which is partly converted by nature, and partly
+converteth nature; and poison is that which worketh wholly upon
+nature, without that nature can in any part work upon it.
+So in the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at all work
+upon and convert is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a
+dissolution of the mind and understanding.</p>
+<p>(16) But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of
+late time by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have
+pretended to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the
+Scriptures; scandalising and traducing all other philosophy as
+heathenish and profane.  But there is no such enmity between
+God’s Word and His works; neither do they give honour to
+the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embase them.  For
+to seek heaven and earth in the Word of God, whereof it is said,
+“Heaven and earth shall pass, but My word shall not
+pass,” is to seek temporary things amongst eternal: and as
+to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek the living amongst the
+dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead
+amongst the living: neither are the pots or lavers, whose place
+was in the outward part of the temple, to be sought in the
+holiest place of all where the ark of the testimony was
+seated.  And again, the scope or purpose of the Spirit of
+God is not to express matters of nature in the Scriptures,
+otherwise than in passage, and for application to man’s
+capacity and to matters moral or divine.  And it is a true
+rule, <i>Auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas</i>.  For
+it were a strange conclusion, if a man should use a similitude
+for ornament or illustration sake, borrowed from nature or
+history according to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, a unicorn,
+a centaur, a Briareus, a hydra, or the like, that therefore he
+must needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof positively to
+be true.  To conclude therefore these two interpretations,
+the one by reduction or enigmatical, the other philosophical or
+physical, which have been received and pursued in imitation of
+the rabbins and cabalists, are to be confined with a <i>a noli
+akryn sapere</i>, <i>sed time</i>.</p>
+<p>(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to
+man, touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of
+time, doth make a just and sound difference between the manner of
+the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books.  For
+it is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the
+answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were
+propounded to Him, how that they are impertinent to the state of
+the question demanded: the reason whereof is, because not being
+like man, which knows man’s thoughts by his words, but
+knowing man’s thoughts immediately, He never answered their
+words, but their thoughts.  Much in the like manner it is
+with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men,
+and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all
+heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the Church, yea,
+and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only
+according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and
+respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words
+were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the
+words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal scope
+of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or
+collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite
+springs and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every
+part.  And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were,
+the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and
+sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the Church
+hath most use; not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or
+indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that
+interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as
+men use to interpret a profane book.</p>
+<p>(18) In this part touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I
+can report no deficiency; but by way of remembrance this I will
+add.  In perusing books of divinity I find many books of
+controversies, and many of commonplaces and treatises, a mass of
+positive divinity, as it is made an art: a number of sermons and
+lectures, and many prolix commentaries upon the Scriptures, with
+harmonies and concordances.  But that form of writing in
+divinity which in my judgment is of all others most rich and
+precious is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts of
+Scriptures in brief observations; not dilated into commonplaces,
+not chasing after controversies, not reduced into method of art;
+a thing abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in
+books which will remain, and a thing wherein this age
+excelleth.  For I am persuaded, and I may speak it with an
+<i>absit invidia verbo</i>, and nowise in derogation of
+antiquity, but as in a good emulation between the vine and the
+olive, that if the choice and best of those observations upon
+texts of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons
+within this your Majesty’s Island of Brittany by the space
+of these forty years and more (leaving out the largeness of
+exhortations and applications thereupon) had been set down in a
+continuance, it had been the best work in divinity which had been
+written since the Apostles’ times.</p>
+<p>(19) The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds: matter
+of belief and truth of opinion, and matter of service and
+adoration; which is also judged and directed by the
+former—the one being as the internal soul of religion, and
+the other as the external body thereof.  And, therefore, the
+heathen religion was not only a worship of idols, but the whole
+religion was an idol in itself; for it had no soul; that is, no
+certainty of belief or confession: as a man may well think,
+considering the chief doctors of their church were the poets; and
+the reason was because the heathen gods were no jealous gods, but
+were glad to be admitted into part, as they had reason.
+Neither did they respect the pureness of heart, so they might
+have external honour and rites.</p>
+<p>(20) But out of these two do result and issue four main
+branches of divinity: faith, manners, liturgy, and
+government.  Faith containeth the doctrine of the nature of
+God, of the attributes of God, and of the works of God.  The
+nature of God consisteth of three persons in unity of
+Godhead.  The attributes of God are either common to the
+Deity, or respective to the persons.  The works of God
+summary are two, that of the creation and that of the redemption;
+and both these works, as in total they appertain to the unity of
+the Godhead, so in their parts they refer to the three persons:
+that of the creation, in the mass of the matter, to the Father;
+in the disposition of the form, to the Son; and in the
+continuance and conservation of the being, to the Holy
+Spirit.  So that of the redemption, in the election and
+counsel, to the Father; in the whole act and consummation, to the
+Son; and in the application, to the Holy Spirit; for by the Holy
+Ghost was Christ conceived in flesh, and by the Holy Ghost are
+the elect regenerate in spirit.  This work likewise we
+consider either effectually, in the elect; or privately, in the
+reprobate; or according to appearance, in the visible Church.</p>
+<p>(21) For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the
+law, which discloseth sin.  The law itself is divided,
+according to the edition thereof, into the law of nature, the law
+moral, and the law positive; and according to the style, into
+negative and affirmative, prohibitions and commandments.
+Sin, in the matter and subject thereof, is divided according to
+the commandments; in the form thereof it referreth to the three
+persons in Deity: sins of infirmity against the Father, whose
+more special attribute is power; sins of ignorance against the
+Son, whose attribute is wisdom; and sins of malice against the
+Holy Ghost, whose attribute is grace or love.  In the
+motions of it, it either moveth to the right hand or to the left;
+either to blind devotion or to profane and libertine
+transgression; either in imposing restraint where God granteth
+liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth restraint.
+In the degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself into
+thought, word, or act.  And in this part I commend much the
+deducing of the law of God to cases of conscience; for that I
+take indeed to be a breaking, and not exhibiting whole of the
+bread of life.  But that which quickeneth both these
+doctrines of faith and manners is the elevation and consent of
+the heart; whereunto appertain books of exhortation, holy
+meditation, Christian resolution, and the like.</p>
+<p>(22) For the liturgy or service, it consisteth of the
+reciprocal acts between God and man; which, on the part of God,
+are the preaching of the word, and the sacraments, which are
+seals to the covenant, or as the visible word; and on the part of
+man, invocation of the name of God; and under the law,
+sacrifices; which were as visible prayers or confessions: but now
+the adoration being <i>in spiritu et veritate</i>, there
+remaineth only <i>vituli labiorum</i>; although the use of holy
+vows of thankfulness and retribution may be accounted also as
+sealed petitions.</p>
+<p>(23) And for the government of the Church, it consisteth of
+the patrimony of the Church, the franchises of the Church, and
+the offices and jurisdictions of the Church, and the laws of the
+Church directing the whole; all which have two considerations,
+the one in themselves, the other how they stand compatible and
+agreeable to the civil estate.</p>
+<p>(24) This matter of divinity is handled either in form of
+instruction of truth, or in form of confutation of
+falsehood.  The declinations from religion, besides the
+privative, which is atheism and the branches thereof, are
+three—heresies, idolatry, and witchcraft: heresies, when we
+serve the true God with a false worship; idolatry, when we
+worship false gods, supposing them to be true; and witchcraft,
+when we adore false gods, knowing them to be wicked and
+false.  For so your Majesty doth excellently well observe,
+that witchcraft is the height of idolatry.  And yet we see
+though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that they are
+all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the Word of
+God; for so he saith, <i>Quasi peccatum ariolandi est
+repugnare</i>, <i>et quasi scelus idololatriæ nolle
+acquiescere</i>.</p>
+<p>(25) These things I have passed over so briefly because I can
+report no deficiency concerning them: for I can find no space or
+ground that lieth vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity, so
+diligent have men been either in sowing of good seed, or in
+sowing of tares.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace"> </div>
+<p>Thus have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual
+world, as truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note
+and description of those parts which seem to me not constantly
+occupate, or not well converted by the labour of man.  In
+which, if I have in any point receded from that which is commonly
+received, it hath been with a purpose of proceeding in
+<i>melius</i>, and not <i>in aliud</i>; a mind of amendment and
+proficiency, and not of change and difference.  For I could
+not be true and constant to the argument I handle if I were not
+willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to
+have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by
+this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not
+seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men’s judgments by
+confutations.  For in anything which is well set down, I am
+in good hope that if the first reading move an objection, the
+second reading will make an answer.  And in those things
+wherein I have erred, I am sure I have not prejudiced the right
+by litigious arguments; which certainly have this contrary effect
+and operation, that they add authority to error, and destroy the
+authority of that which is well invented.  For question is
+an honour and preferment to falsehood, as on the other side it is
+a repulse to truth.  But the errors I claim and challenge to
+myself as mine own.  The good, it any be, is due <i>tanquam
+adeps sacrificii</i>, to be incensed to the honour, first of the
+Divine Majesty, and next of your Majesty, to whom on earth I am
+most bounden.</p>
+<div class='chapter' /><h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote39"></a><a href="#citation39" class="footnote">[39]</a>  Stoops in the rice and takes the
+speeding gold.  Ovid. Metam, x. 667.</p>
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #5500 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5500)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Advancement of Learning, by Francis
+Bacon, Edited by Henry Morley
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Advancement of Learning
+
+
+Author: Francis Bacon
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: November 4, 2014  [eBook #5500]
+[This file was first posted on July 16, 2002]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+                       CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                               ADVANCEMENT
+                                    OF
+                                LEARNING.
+
+
+                                    BY
+                              FRANCIS BACON.
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+                       CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
+                      _LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
+                                  1893.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+“THE TVVOO Bookes of Francis Bacon.  Of the proficience and aduancement
+of Learning, divine and humane.  To the King.  At London.  Printed for
+Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop at Graies Inne Gate in
+Holborne. 1605.”   That was the original title-page of the book now in
+the reader’s hand—a living book that led the way to a new world of
+thought.  It was the book in which Bacon, early in the reign of James the
+First, prepared the way for a full setting forth of his New Organon, or
+instrument of knowledge.
+
+The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which Aristotle had
+written the doctrine of propositions.  Study of these treatises was a
+chief occupation of young men when they passed from school to college,
+and proceeded from Grammar to Logic, the second of the Seven Sciences.
+Francis Bacon as a youth of sixteen, at Trinity College, Cambridge, felt
+the unfruitfulness of this method of search after truth.  He was the son
+of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Keeper, and was born at
+York House, in the Strand, on the 22nd of January, 1561.  His mother was
+the Lord Keeper’s second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other
+married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh.  Sir Nicholas Bacon
+had six children by his former marriage, and by his second wife two sons,
+Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years the elder.  The
+family home was at York Place, and at Gorhambury, near St. Albans, from
+which town, in its ancient and its modern style, Bacon afterwards took
+his titles of Verulam and St. Albans.
+
+Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College, Cambridge,
+when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis twelve.  Francis remained
+at Cambridge only until his sixteenth year; and Dr. Rawley, his chaplain
+in after-years, reports of him that “whilst he was commorant in the
+University, about sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been pleased
+to impart unto myself), he first fell into dislike of the philosophy of
+Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would
+ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being
+a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputatious
+and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of
+the life of man; in which mind he continued to his dying day.”  Bacon was
+sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with the ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet,
+to begin his training for the public service; but his father’s death, in
+February, 1579, before he had completed the provision he was making for
+his youngest children, obliged him to return to London, and, at the age
+of eighteen, to settle down at Gray’s Inn to the study of law as a
+profession.  He was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582, and about
+that time, at the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of his conception of
+a New Organon that should lead man to more fruitful knowledge, in a
+little Latin tract, which he called “Temporis Partus Maximus” (“The
+Greatest Birth of Time”).
+
+In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons as member
+for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire.  In October, 1586, he sat for
+Taunton.  He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one of those
+who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of Scots.  In
+October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk of the
+Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth £1,600 or £2,000 a year; but
+for the succession to this office he had to wait until 1608.  It had not
+yet fallen to him when he wrote his “Two Books of the Advancement of
+Learning.”  In the Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as
+member for Middlesex.  He raised difficulties of procedure in the way of
+the grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the joining of the
+Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a desire to extend the time
+allowed for payment from three years to six; it was, in fact, extended to
+four years.  The Queen was offended.  Francis Bacon and his brother
+Antony had attached themselves to the young Earl of Essex, who was their
+friend and patron.  The office of Attorney-General became vacant.  Essex
+asked the Queen to appoint Francis Bacon.  The Queen gave the office to
+Sir Edward Coke, who was already Solicitor-General, and by nine years
+Bacon’s senior.  The office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and
+that was sought for Francis Bacon.  The Queen, after delay and
+hesitation, gave it, in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming.  The Earl of
+Essex consoled his friend by giving him “a piece of land”—Twickenham
+Park—which Bacon afterwards sold for £1,800—equal, say, to £12,000 in
+present buying power.  In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament as member
+for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the rich widow of
+Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady married, in the next
+year, Sir Edward Coke.  It was in 1597 that Bacon published the First
+Edition of his Essays.  That was a little book containing only ten essays
+in English, with twelve “Meditationes Sacræ,” which were essays in Latin
+on religious subjects.  From 1597 onward to the end of his life, Bacon’s
+Essays were subject to continuous addition and revision.  The author’s
+Second Edition, in which the number of the Essays was increased from ten
+to thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December, 1612, seven
+years later than these two books on the “Advancement of Learning;” and
+the final edition of the Essays, in which their number was increased from
+thirty-eight to fifty-eight, appeared only in 1625; and Bacon died on the
+9th of April, 1626.  The edition of the Essays published in 1597, under
+Elizabeth, marked only the beginning of a course of thought that
+afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in philosophy.
+
+In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex.  Francis Bacon had
+separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that was
+disregarded.  Bacon, now Queen’s Counsel, not only appeared against his
+old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps, he hoped to win
+back the Queen’s favour, he twice obtruded violent attacks upon Essex
+when he was not called upon to speak.  On the 25th of February, 1601,
+Essex was beheaded.  The genius of Bacon was next employed to justify
+that act by “A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and
+committed by Robert late Earle of Essex and his Complices.”  But James of
+Scotland, on whose behalf Essex had intervened, came to the throne by the
+death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March, 1603.  Bacon was among the crowd
+of men who were made knights by James I., and he had to justify himself
+under the new order of things by writing “Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie
+in certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex.”  He was
+returned to the first Parliament of James I. by Ipswich and St. Albans,
+and he was confirmed in his office of King’s Counsel in August, 1604; but
+he was not appointed to the office of Solicitor-General when it became
+vacant in that year.
+
+That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published this
+work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of learning
+from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of the studies
+chosen, or the way of dealing with them.  This came, he said, especially
+by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge,
+as if there were sought in it “a couch whereupon to rest a searching and
+restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk
+up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to
+raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and
+contention; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for
+the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.”  The rest of
+the First Book was given to an argument upon the Dignity of Learning; and
+the Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning, is, as Bacon himself
+described it, “a general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an
+inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and
+converted by the industry of man; to the end that such a plot made and
+recorded to memory may both minister light to any public designation and
+also serve to excite voluntary endeavours.”  Bacon makes, by a sort of
+exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all subjects of study, as an
+intellectual map, helping the right inquirer in his search for the right
+path.  The right path is that by which he has the best chance of adding
+to the stock of knowledge in the world something worth labouring for; and
+the true worth is in labour for “the glory of the Creator and the relief
+of man’s estate.”
+
+                                                                     H. M.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON;
+OF THE PROFICIENCE AND
+ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,
+DIVINE AND HUMAN.
+
+
+                              _To the King_.
+
+THERE were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and
+freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon ordinary observance, the
+other upon a devout cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth to kings
+from their servants both tribute of duty and presents of affection.  In
+the former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting, according to
+my most humble duty and the good pleasure of your Majesty’s employments:
+for the latter, I thought it more respective to make choice of some
+oblation which might rather refer to the propriety and excellency of your
+individual person, than to the business of your crown and state.
+
+Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind, and
+beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to discover
+that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but with the
+observant eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the other parts of
+your virtue and fortune, I have been touched—yea, and possessed—with an
+extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the
+philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the
+faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the
+penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your
+elocution: and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I
+have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato’s
+opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man
+by Nature knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original
+notions (which by the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the
+body are sequestered) again revived and restored: such a light of Nature
+I have observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and
+blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark of another’s
+knowledge delivered.  And as the Scripture saith of the wisest king,
+“That his heart was as the sands of the sea;” which, though it be one of
+the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest
+portions; so hath God given your Majesty a composition of understanding
+admirable, being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters, and
+nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least; whereas it should seem an
+impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to make itself fit for
+great and small works.  And for your gift of speech, I call to mind what
+Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Cæsar: _Augusto profluens_, _et quæ
+principem deceret_, _eloquentia fuit_.  For if we note it well, speech
+that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or speech that savoureth of
+the affectation of art and precepts, or speech that is framed after the
+imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though never so excellent; all
+this hath somewhat servile, and holding of the subject.  But your
+Majesty’s manner of speech is, indeed, prince-like, flowing as from a
+fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into Nature’s order,
+full of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any.
+And as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emulation and
+contention of your Majesty’s virtue with your fortune; a virtuous
+disposition with a fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time
+was) of your greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the
+due time; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with most
+blessed and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and most Christian desire
+of peace, with a fortunate inclination in your neighbour princes
+thereunto: so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be
+no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty’s gifts of
+Nature and the universality and perfection of your learning.  For I am
+well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all, but
+a positive and measured truth; which is, that there hath not been since
+Christ’s time any king or temporal monarch which hath been so learned in
+all literature and erudition, divine and human.  For let a man seriously
+and diligently revolve and peruse the succession of the Emperors of Rome,
+of which Cæsar the Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and
+Marcus Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the Emperors of
+Græcia, or of the West, and then to the lines of France, Spain, England,
+Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judgment is truly made.
+For it seemeth much in a king if, by the compendious extractions of other
+men’s wits and labours, he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and
+shows of learning, or if he countenance and prefer learning and learned
+men; but to drink, indeed, of the true fountains of learning—nay, to have
+such a fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a king born—is
+almost a miracle.  And the more, because there is met in your Majesty a
+rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred literature as of profane
+and human; so as your Majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, which
+in great veneration was ascribed to the ancient Hermes: the power and
+fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the
+learning and universality of a philosopher.  This propriety inherent and
+individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be expressed not only
+in the fame and admiration of the present time, nor in the history or
+tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in some solid work, fixed
+memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a character or signature both of
+the power of a king and the difference and perfection of such a king.
+
+Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make unto your
+Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending to that end,
+whereof the sum will consist of these two parts: the former concerning
+the excellency of learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the merit
+and true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof; the latter,
+what the particular acts and works are which have been embraced and
+undertaken for the advancement of learning; and again, what defects and
+undervalues I find in such particular acts: to the end that though I
+cannot positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound unto
+you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely cogitations to
+visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, and thence to extract
+particulars for this purpose agreeable to your magnanimity and wisdom.
+
+I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these—to clear the way and, as it
+were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning the
+dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit
+objections—I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces
+which it hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance severally
+disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines,
+sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of politics, and sometimes in the
+errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.
+
+(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those things which
+are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution; that the
+aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and sin
+whereupon ensued the fall of man; that knowledge hath in it somewhat of
+the serpent, and, therefore, where it entereth into a man it makes him
+swell; _Scientia inflat_; that Solomon gives a censure, “That there is no
+end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the flesh;”
+and again in another place, “That in spacious knowledge there is much
+contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety;”
+that Saint Paul gives a caveat, “That we be not spoiled through vain
+philosophy;” that experience demonstrates how learned men have been
+arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how
+the contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our dependence upon
+God, who is the first cause.
+
+(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, and the
+misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well appear these men do
+not observe or consider that it was not the pure knowledge of Nature and
+universality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give names unto
+other creatures in Paradise as they were brought before him according
+unto their proprieties, which gave the occasion to the fall; but it was
+the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give law
+unto himself, and to depend no more upon God’s commandments, which was
+the form of the temptation.  Neither is it any quantity of knowledge, how
+great soever, that can make the mind of man to swell; for nothing can
+fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of
+God; and, therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two principal senses of
+inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never
+satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and if there be no
+fulness, then is the continent greater than the content: so of knowledge
+itself and the mind of man, whereto the senses are but reporters, he
+defineth likewise in these words, placed after that calendar or
+ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of times and seasons for
+all actions and purposes, and concludeth thus: “God hath made all things
+beautiful, or decent, in the true return of their seasons.  Also He hath
+placed the world in man’s heart, yet cannot man find out the work which
+God worketh from the beginning to the end”—declaring not obscurely that
+God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the
+image of the universal world, and joyful to receive the impression
+thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only delighted in
+beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but raised also
+to find out and discern the ordinances and decrees which throughout all
+those changes are infallibly observed.  And although he doth insinuate
+that the supreme or summary law of Nature (which he calleth “the work
+which God worketh from the beginning to the end”) is not possible to be
+found out by man, yet that doth not derogate from the capacity of the
+mind; but may be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life,
+ill conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from hand to
+hand, and many other inconveniences, whereunto the condition of man is
+subject.  For that nothing parcel of the world is denied to man’s inquiry
+and invention, he doth in another place rule over, when he saith, “The
+spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the
+inwardness of all secrets.”  If, then, such be the capacity and receipt
+of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no danger at all in the
+proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it should
+make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of
+knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken without
+the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or
+malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or
+swelling.  This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so
+sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to the former
+clause; for so he saith, “Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up;”
+not unlike unto that which he deilvereth in another place: “If I spake,”
+saith he, “with the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it
+were but as a tinkling cymbal.”  Not but that it is an excellent thing to
+speak with the tongues of men and angels, but because, if it be severed
+from charity, and not referred to the good of men and mankind, it hath
+rather a sounding and unworthy glory than a meriting and substantial
+virtue.  And as for that censure of Solomon concerning the excess of
+writing and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth
+from knowledge, and that admonition of St. Paul, “That we be not seduced
+by vain philosophy,” let those places be rightly understood; and they do,
+indeed, excellently set forth the true bounds and limitations whereby
+human knowledge is confined and circumscribed, and yet without any such
+contracting or coarctation, but that it may comprehend all the universal
+nature of things; for these limitations are three: the first, “That we do
+not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality;” the
+second, “That we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves
+repose and contentment, and not distaste or repining;” the third, “That
+we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the
+mysteries of God.”  For as touching the first of these, Solomon doth
+excellently expound himself in another place of the same book, where he
+saith: “I saw well that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance as light
+doth from darkness; and that the wise man’s eyes keep watch in his head,
+whereas this fool roundeth about in darkness: but withal I learned that
+the same mortality involveth them both.”  And for the second, certain it
+is there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which resulteth from knowledge
+otherwise than merely by accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is
+the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when
+men fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it to
+their particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak fears or
+vast desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble of mind which is
+spoken of; for then knowledge is no more _Lumen siccum_, whereof
+Heraclitus the profound said, _Lumen siccum optima anima_; but it
+becometh _Lumen madidum_, or _maceratum_, being steeped and infused in
+the humours of the affections.  And as for the third point, it deserveth
+to be a little stood upon, and not to be lightly passed over; for if any
+man shall think by view and inquiry into these sensible and material
+things to attain that light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the
+nature or will of God, then, indeed, is he spoiled by vain philosophy;
+for the contemplation of God’s creatures and works produceth (having
+regard to the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having
+regard to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken
+knowledge.  And, therefore, it was most aptly said by one of Plato’s
+school, “That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which
+(as we see) openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then,
+again, it obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth
+the sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
+divine.”  And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great
+learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the
+secrets of the Deity by this waxen wings of the senses.  And as for the
+conceit that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that
+the ignorance of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon
+God, which is the first cause; first, it is good to ask the question
+which Job asked of his friends: “Will you lie for God, as one man will
+lie for another, to gratify him?”  For certain it is that God worketh
+nothing in Nature but by second causes; and if they would have it
+otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards
+God, and nothing else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean
+sacrifice of a lie.  But further, it is an assured truth, and a
+conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
+philosophy may incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further
+proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion.  For in
+the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto
+the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay
+there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man
+passeth on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of
+Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily
+believe that the highest link of Nature’s chain must needs he tied to the
+foot of Jupiter’s chair.  To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak
+conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a
+man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word,
+or in the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men
+endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware
+that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to
+ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound
+these learnings together.
+
+II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from politics,
+they be of this nature: that learning doth soften men’s minds, and makes
+them more unapt for the honour and exercise of arms; that it doth mar and
+pervert men’s dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making
+them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too peremptory
+or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too immoderate and
+overweening by reason of the greatness of examples, or too incompatible
+and differing from the times by reason of the dissimilitude of examples;
+or at least, that it doth divert men’s travails from action and business,
+and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it doth
+bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more
+ready to argue than to obey and execute.  Out of this conceit Cato,
+surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed that ever lived, when
+Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to Rome, and that the young
+men of Rome began to flock about him, being allured with the sweetness
+and majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate
+that they should give him his despatch with all speed, lest he should
+infect and enchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at unawares
+bring in an alteration of the manners and customs of the state.  Out of
+the same conceit or humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage
+of his country and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of
+separation between policy and government, and between arts and sciences,
+in the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging the one to
+the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other to the Grecians: _Tu
+regere imperio popules_, _Romane_, _memento_, _Hæ tibi erunt artes_, &c.
+So likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid it as an
+article of charge and accusation against him, that he did, with the
+variety and power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men
+from due reverence to the laws and customs of their country, and that he
+did profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the
+worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence
+and speech.
+
+(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a countenance of
+gravity than any ground of justice: for experience doth warrant that,
+both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and concurrence
+in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the
+same ages.  For as ‘for men, there cannot be a better nor the hike
+instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, the
+Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle’s scholar in philosophy, and the
+other was Cicero’s rival in eloquence; or if any man had rather call for
+scholars that were great generals, than generals that were great
+scholars, let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian;
+whereof the one was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the
+other was the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of
+Persia.  And this concurrence is yet more visible in times than in
+persons, by how much an age is greater object than a man.  For both in
+Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Græcia, and Rome, the same times that are most
+renowned for arms are, likewise, most admired for learning, so that the
+greatest authors and philosophers, and the greatest captains and
+governors, have lived in the same ages.  Neither can it otherwise he: for
+as in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much about
+an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the more
+early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof the one correspondeth to
+the body, the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or near
+sequence in times.
+
+(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning, should rather
+hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable; we see it is
+accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians, which
+commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are confident and
+adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions
+of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures; we see
+it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are only men
+of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many times easily
+surprised when matter falleth out besides their experience, to the
+prejudice of the causes they handle: so by like reason it cannot be but a
+matter of doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric statesmen,
+not well mingled with men grounded in learning.  But contrariwise, it is
+almost without instance contradictory that ever any government was
+disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors.  For howsoever it
+hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and disable learned men
+by the names of _pedantes_; yet in the records of time it appeareth in
+many particulars that the governments of princes in minority
+(notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state)—have
+nevertheless excelled the government of princes of mature age, even for
+that reason which they seek to traduce, which is that by that occasion
+the state hath been in the hands of _pedantes_: for so was the state of
+Rome for the first five years, which are so much magnified, during the
+minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a _pedenti_; so it was again,
+for ten years’ space or more, during the minority of Gordianus the
+younger, with great applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus,
+a _pedanti_: so was it before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus,
+in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the
+women, who were aided by the teachers and preceptors.  Nay, let a man
+look into the government of the Bishops of Rome, as by name, into the
+government of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who were both
+at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find
+that such Popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of
+state, than those which have ascended to the papacy from an education and
+breeding in affairs of state and courts of princes; for although men bred
+in learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and
+accommodating for the present, which the Italians call _ragioni di
+stato_, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with
+patience, terming them inventions against religion and the moral virtues;
+yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are perfect in those same
+plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, which if
+they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of those
+other, no more than of physic in a sound or well-dieted body.  Neither
+can the experience of one man’s life furnish examples and precedents for
+the event of one man’s life.  For as it happeneth sometimes that the
+grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more than the
+son; so many times occurrences of present times may sort better with
+ancient examples than with those of the later or immediate times; and
+lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning than one
+man’s means can hold way with a common purse.
+
+(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions of the mind
+for policy and government, which learning is pretended to insinuate; if
+it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered withal that
+learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine or
+remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity.  For if by a
+secret operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side
+by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve;
+yea, and how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till they
+resolve.  If it make men positive and regular, it teacheth them what
+things are in their nature demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and
+as well the use of distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of
+principles and rules.  If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of
+examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of
+comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in all these it
+doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert.  And these medicines
+it conveyeth into men’s minds much more forcibly by the quickness and
+penetration of examples.  For let a man look into the errors of Clement
+VII., so lively described by Guicciardini, who served under him, or into
+the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles to
+Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute.  Let him look into
+the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how he be obstinate or
+inflexible.  Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him
+from being vaporous or imaginative.  Let him look into the errors of Cato
+II., and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the
+present world.
+
+(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to leisure and
+privateness, and make men slothful: it were a strange thing if that which
+accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should induce
+slothfulness, whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed that no
+kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned; for
+other persons love it for profit, as a hireling that loves the work for
+the wages; or for honour, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of
+men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or
+because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them
+occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth some
+faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good-humour
+and pleasing conceits towards themselves; or because it advanceth any
+other their ends.  So that as it is said of untrue valours, that some
+men’s valours are in the eyes of them that look on, so such men’s
+industries are in the eyes of others, or, at least, in regard of their
+own designments; only learned men love business as an action according to
+nature, as agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body,
+taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase, so that of
+all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business
+which can hold or detain their mind.
+
+(6) And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle in
+business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or softness of
+spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of: _Quidam tam sunt umbratiles_, _ut
+putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est_; and not of learning: well
+may it be that such a point of a man’s nature may make him give himself
+to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in his
+nature.
+
+(7) And that learning should take up too much time or leisure: I answer,
+the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath (no question)
+many vacant times of leisure while he expecteth the tides and returns of
+business (except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and
+unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done by
+others), and then the question is but how those spaces and times of
+leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in pleasure or in studies; as
+was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary Æschines, that was a
+man given to pleasure, and told him “That his orations did smell of the
+lamp.”  “Indeed,” said Demosthenes, “there is a great difference between
+the things that you and I do by lamp-light.”  So as no man need doubt
+that learning will expel business, but rather it will keep and defend the
+possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at
+unawares may enter to the prejudice of both.
+
+(8) Again, for that other conceit that learning should undermine the
+reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation and
+calumny, without all shadow of truth.  For to say that a blind custom of
+obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood,
+it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing
+man can by a light.  And it is without all controversy that learning doth
+make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, and pliant to
+government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous:
+and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the
+most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to
+tumults, seditious, and changes.
+
+(9) And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well punished for
+his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he offended; for
+when he was past threescore years old, he was taken with an extreme
+desire to go to school again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to the end
+to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well demonstrate that his former
+censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity, than
+according to the inward sense of his own opinion.  And as for Virgil’s
+verses, though it pleased him to brave the world in taking to the Romans
+the art of empire, and leaving to others the arts of subjects, yet so
+much is manifest—that the Romans never ascended to that height of empire
+till the time they had ascended to the height of other arts.  For in the
+time of the two first Cæsars, which had the art of government in greatest
+perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro; the best
+historiographer, Titus Livius; the best antiquary, Marcus Varro; and the
+best or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are
+known.  As for the accusation of Socrates, the time must be remembered
+when it was prosecuted; which was under the Thirty Tyrants, the most
+base, bloody, and envious persons that have governed; which revolution of
+state was no sooner over but Socrates, whom they had made a person
+criminal, was made a person heroical, and his memory accumulate with
+honours divine and human; and those discourses of his which were then
+termed corrupting of manners, were after acknowledged for sovereign
+medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been received ever since
+till this day.  Let this, therefore, serve for answer to politiques,
+which in their humorous severity, or in their feigned gravity, have
+presumed to throw imputations upon learning; which redargution
+nevertheless (save that we know not whether our labours may extend to
+other ages) were not needful for the present, in regard of the love and
+reverence towards learning which the example and countenance of two so
+learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as Castor and
+Pollux, _lucida sidera_, stars of excellent light and most benign
+influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority in our nation.
+
+III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or
+diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men
+themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their
+fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their studies.  For
+the first, it is not in their power; and the second is accidental; the
+third only is proper to be handled: but because we are not in hand with
+true measure, but with popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to
+speak somewhat of the two former.  The derogations therefore which grow
+to learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either in
+respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life and
+meanness of employments.
+
+(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually to
+begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as other men, by reason
+they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase, it were
+good to leave the commonplace in commendation of povery to some friar to
+handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this point when he
+said, “That the kingdom of the clergy had been long before at an end, if
+the reputation and reverence towards the poverty of friars had not borne
+out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of bishops and
+prelates.”  So a man might say that the felicity and delicacy of princes
+and great persons had long since turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the
+poverty of learning had not kept up civility and honour of life; but
+without any such advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverent
+and honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in the Roman
+state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes.  For we see what
+Titus Livius saith in his introduction: _Cæterum aut me amor negotii
+suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec major_, _nec sanctior_,
+_nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit_; _nec in quam tam sero avaritia
+luxuriaque immigraverint_; _nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac
+parsimoniæ honos fuerit_.  We see likewise, after that the state of Rome
+was not itself, but did degenerate, how that person that took upon him to
+be counsellor to Julius Cæsar after his victory where to begin his
+restoration of the state, maketh it of all points the most summary to
+take away the estimation of wealth: _Verum hæc et omnia mala pariter cum
+honore pecuniæ desinent_; _si neque magistratus_, _neque alia vulgo
+cupienda_, _venalia erunt_.  To conclude this point: as it was truly said
+that _Paupertas est virtutis fortuna_, though sometimes it come from
+vice, so it may be fitly said that, though some times it may proceed from
+misgovernment and accident.  Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in
+censure, _Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons_; and in precept, “Buy
+the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and knowledge;” judging that
+means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to
+means.  And as for the privateness or obscureness (as it may be in vulgar
+estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men, it is a theme so
+common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in
+comparison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty,
+pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no man
+handleth it but handleth it well; such a consonancy it hath to men’s
+conceits in the expressing, and to men’s consents in the allowing.  This
+only I will add, that learned men forgotten in states and not living in
+the eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral
+of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others were, Tacitus
+saith, _Eo ipso præfulgebant quod non visebantur_.
+
+(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most traduced to
+contempt is that the government of youth is commonly allotted to them;
+which age, because it is the age of least authority, it is transferred to
+the disesteeming of those employments wherein youth is conversant, and
+which are conversant about youth.  But how unjust this traducement is (if
+you will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure of reason)
+may appear in that we see men are more curious what they put into a new
+vessel than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould they lay about a young
+plant than about a plant corroborate; so as this weakest terms and times
+of all things use to have the best applications and helps.  And will you
+hearken to the Hebrew rabbins?  “Your young men shall see visions, and
+your old men shall dream dreams:” say they, youth is the worthier age,
+for that visions are nearer apparitions of God than dreams?  And let it
+be noted that howsoever the condition of life of _pedantes_ hath been
+scorned upon theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern
+looseness or negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of
+schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times did
+always make a just complaint, that states were too busy with their laws
+and too negligent in point of education: which excellent part of ancient
+discipline hath been in some sort revived of late times by the colleges
+of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard of their superstition I may
+say, _Quo meliores_, _eo deteriores_; yet in regard of this, and some
+other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I may say, as
+Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus, _Talis quum sis_, _utunam noster
+esses_.  And that much touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of
+learned men.
+
+(4) As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing personal and
+individual: and no doubt there be amongst them, as in other professions,
+of all temperatures: but yet so as it is not without truth which is said,
+that _Abeunt studua in mores_, studies have an influence and operation
+upon the manners of those that are conversant in them.
+
+(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my part cannot
+find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of learned
+men; not inherent to them as they are learned; except it be a fault
+(which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato II., Seneca,
+and many more) that because the times they read of are commonly better
+than the times they live in, and the duties taught better than the duties
+practised, they contend sometimes too far to bring things to perfection,
+and to reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of precepts or
+examples of too great height.  And yet hereof they have caveats enough in
+their own walks.  For Solon, when he was asked whether he had given his
+citizens the best laws, answered wisely, “Yea, of such as they would
+receive:” and Plato, finding that his own heart could not agree with the
+corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear place or office, saying,
+“That a man’s country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with
+humble persuasions, and not with contestations.”  And Cæsar’s counsellor
+put in the same caveat, _Non ad vetera instituta revocans quæ jampridem
+corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt_; and Cicero noteth this error directly
+in Cato II. when he writes to his friend Atticus, _Cato optime sentit_,
+_sed nocet interdum reipublicæ_; _loquitur enim tanquam in republicâ
+Platonis_, _non tanquam in fæce Romuli_.  And the same Cicero doth excuse
+and expound the philosophers for going too far and being too exact in
+their prescripts when he saith, _Isti ipse præceptores virtutis et
+magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura vellet
+protulisse_, _ut cum ad ultimum animo contendissemus_, _ibi tamen_, _ubi
+oportet_, _consisteremus_: and yet himself might have said, _Monitis sum
+minor ipse meis_; for it was his own fault, though not in so extreme a
+degree.
+
+(6) Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been incident to
+learned men, which is, that they have esteemed the preservation, good,
+and honour of their countries or masters before their own fortunes or
+safeties.  For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians: “If it please you
+to note it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should grow great
+amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians; but they be of
+that nature as they are sometimes not good for me to give, but are always
+good for you to follow.”  And so Seneca, after he had consecrated that
+_Quinquennium Neronis_ to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on
+his honest and loyal course of good and free counsel after his master
+grew extremely corrupt in his government.  Neither can this point
+otherwise be, for learning endueth men’s minds with a true sense of the
+frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity
+of their soul and vocation, so that it is impossible for them to esteem
+that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of
+their being and ordainment, and therefore are desirous to give their
+account to God, and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings and
+the states that they serve) in those words, _Ecce tibi lucrefeci_, and
+not _Ecce mihi lucrefeci_; whereas the corrupter sort of mere politiques,
+that have not their thoughts established by learning in the love and
+apprehension of duty, nor never look abroad into universality, do refer
+all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the
+world, as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes, never
+caring in all tempests what becomes of the ship of state, so they may
+save themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune; whereas men that
+feel the weight of duty and know the limits of self-love use to make good
+their places and duties, though with peril; and if they stand in
+seditious and violent alterations, it is rather the reverence which many
+times both adverse parts do give to honesty, than any versatile advantage
+of their own carriage.  But for this point of tender sense and fast
+obligation of duty which learning doth endue the mind withal, howsoever
+fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their corrupt principles may
+despise it, yet it will receive an open allowance, and therefore needs
+the less disproof or excuse.
+
+(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be more
+properly defended than truly denied, is that they fail sometimes in
+applying themselves to particular persons, which want of exact
+application ariseth from two causes—the one, because the largeness of
+their mind can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite
+observation or examination of the nature and customs of one person, for
+it is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man, _Satis magnum alter
+alteri theatrum sumus_.  Nevertheless I shall yield that he that cannot
+contract the sight of his mind as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth
+a great faculty.  But there is a second cause, which is no inability, but
+a rejection upon choice and judgment.  For the honest and just bounds of
+observation by one person upon another extend no further but to
+understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby
+to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon
+reasonable guard and caution in respect of a man’s self.  But to be
+speculative into another man to the end to know how to work him, or wind
+him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven,
+and not entire and ingenuous; which as in friendship it is want of
+integrity, so towards princes or superiors is want of duty.  For the
+custom of the Levant, which is that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix
+their eyes upon princes, is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but the
+moral is good; for men ought not, by cunning and bent observations, to
+pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings, which the Scripture hath
+declared to be inscrutable.
+
+(8) There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part)
+which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to
+observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and
+commit errors in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar
+sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that
+which they find wanting in them in smaller.  But this consequence doth
+oft deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which was said by
+Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of
+his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this question,
+pertinently and justly, when, being invited to touch a lute, he said, “He
+could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state.”  So no
+doubt many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy
+which are to seek in little and punctual occasions.  I refer them also to
+that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the
+gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and owls and
+antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious liquors and
+confections; acknowledging that, to an external report, he was not
+without superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly
+replenished with excellent virtues and powers.  And so much touching the
+point of manners of learned men.
+
+(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to some
+conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors of
+learning have wronged themselves and gone too far; such as were those
+trencher philosophers which in the later age of the Roman state were
+usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn
+parasites, of which kind, Lucian maketh a merry description of the
+philosopher that the great lady took to ride with her in her coach, and
+would needs have him carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and
+yet uncomely, the page scoffed and said, “That he doubted the philosopher
+of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic.”  But, above all the rest, this
+gross and palpable flattery whereunto many not unlearned have abased and
+abused their wits and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into
+Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and
+estimation of learning.  Neither is the modern dedication of books and
+writings, as to patrons, to be commended, for that books (such as are
+worthy the name of books) ought to have no patrons but truth and reason.
+And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to private and equal
+friends, or to entitle the books with their names; or if to kings and
+great persons, it was to some such as the argument of the book was fit
+and proper for; but these and the like courses may deserve rather
+reprehension than defence.
+
+(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application of
+learned men to men in fortune.  For the answer was good that Diogenes
+made to one that asked him in mockery, “How it came to pass that
+philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of
+philosophers?”  He answered soberly, and yet sharply, “Because the one
+sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not.”  And of the like
+nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having a petition to
+Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon
+Dionysius stayed and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and afterwards
+some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that
+he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a
+private suit to fall at a tyrant’s feet; but he answered, “It was not his
+fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in his feet.”
+Neither was it accounted weakness, but discretion, in him that would not
+dispute his best with Adrianus Cæsar, excusing himself, “That it was
+reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions.”  These and the
+like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience,
+cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some outward baseness, yet
+in a judgment truly made they are to be accounted submissions to the
+occasion and not to the person.
+
+IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have intervened
+amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is that which is
+principal and proper to the present argument; wherein my purpose is not
+to make a justification of the errors, but by a censure and separation of
+the errors to make a justification of that which is good and sound, and
+to deliver that from the aspersion of the other.  For we see that it is
+the manner of men to scandalise and deprave that which retaineth the
+state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is corrupt and
+degenerate, as the heathens in the primitive Church used to blemish and
+taint the Christians with the faults and corruptions of heretics.  But
+nevertheless I have no meaning at this time to make any exact
+animadversion of the errors and impediments in matters of learning, which
+are more secret and remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto
+such as do fall under or near unto a popular observation.
+
+(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby
+learning hath been most traduced.  For those things we do esteem vain
+which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth or
+no use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either credulous or
+curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason as
+well as in experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I
+may term them) of learning—the first, fantastical learning; the second,
+contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning; vain imaginations,
+vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the last I will begin.
+Martin Luther, conducted, no doubt, by a higher Providence, but in
+discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against
+the Bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and
+finding his own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his
+own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times
+to his succours to make a party against the present time.  So that the
+ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long time
+slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved.  This, by
+consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the
+languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better
+understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and
+applying their words.  And thereof grew, again, a delight in their manner
+of style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing, which was
+much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the
+propounders of those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the
+schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings
+were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and
+frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit
+of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may
+call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word.  And again, because the great
+labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say,
+_Execrabilis ista turba_, _quæ non novit legem_), for the winning and
+persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request
+eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access
+into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes
+concurring—the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen,
+the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching—did bring in
+an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began
+to flourish.  This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more
+after words than matter—more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the
+round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the
+clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and
+figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of
+argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment.  Then grew the flowing
+and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price.  Then
+did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator
+and Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and
+Imitation, and the like.  Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their
+lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all
+young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of
+learning.  Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo,
+_Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone_; and the echo answered in
+Greek, _One_, _Asine_.  Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be
+utterly despised as barbarous.  In sum, the whole inclination and bent of
+those times was rather towards copy than weight.
+
+(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when men study
+words and not matter; whereof, though I have represented an example of
+late times, yet it hath been and will be _secundum majus et minus_ in all
+time.  And how is it possible but this should have an operation to
+discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
+men’s works like the first letter of a patent or limited book, which
+though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter?  It seems to me
+that Pygmalion’s frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity;
+for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of
+reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in
+love with a picture.
+
+(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be condemned, to
+clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy itself with sensible
+and plausible elocution.  For hereof we have great examples in Xenophon,
+Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree; and hereof
+likewise there is great use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of
+truth and the deep progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because
+it is too early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire
+of further search before we come to a just period.  But then if a man be
+to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of conference,
+counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall he find it
+prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that manner.  But
+the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules, when he
+saw the image of Adonis, Venus’ minion, in a temple, said in disdain,
+_Nil sacri es_; so there is none of Hercules’ followers in learning—that
+is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers into truth—but will
+despise those delicacies and affectations, as indeed capable of no
+divineness.  And thus much of the first disease or distemper of learning.
+
+(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former: for as
+substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so contrariwise vain
+matter is worse than vain words: wherein it seemeth the reprehension of
+St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the
+times following; and not only respective to divinity, but extensive to
+all knowledge: _Devita profanas vocum novitates_, _et oppositiones falsi
+nominis scientiæ_.  For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected
+and falsified science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the
+other, the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce
+oppositions, and so questions and altercations.  Surely, like as many
+substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into
+worms;—so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and
+dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term
+them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and
+life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality.  This
+kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who
+having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety
+of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors
+(chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the
+cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of
+nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite
+agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which
+are extant in their books.  For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon
+matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh
+according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon
+itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings
+forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread
+and work, but of no substance or profit.
+
+(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two sorts: either
+in the subject itself that they handle, when it is a fruitless
+speculation or controversy (whereof there are no small number both in
+divinity and philosophy), or in the manner or method of handling of a
+knowledge, which amongst them was this—upon every particular position or
+assertion to frame objections, and to those objections, solutions; which
+solutions were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions:
+whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of the
+old man’s faggot, in the bond.  For the harmony of a science, supporting
+each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation
+and suppression of all the smaller sort of objections.  But, on the other
+side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by
+one, you may quarrel with them and bend them and break them at your
+pleasure: so that, as was said of Seneca, _Verborum minutiis rerum
+frangit pondera_, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen, _Quæstionum
+minutiis scientiarum frangunt soliditatem_.  For were it not better for a
+man in fair room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of
+lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle into every corner?
+And such is their method, that rests not so much upon evidence of truth
+proved by arguments, authorities, similitudes, examples, as upon
+particular confutations and solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and
+objection; breeding for the most part one question as fast as it solveth
+another; even as in the former resemblance, when you carry the light into
+one corner, you darken the rest; so that the fable and fiction of Scylla
+seemeth to be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge;
+which was transformed into a comely virgin for the upper parts; but then
+_Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris_: so the generalities of
+the schoolmen are for a while good and proportionable; but then when you
+descend into their distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb
+for the use and benefit of man’s life, they end in monstrous altercations
+and barking questions.  So as it is not possible but this quality of
+knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to
+contemn truths upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to
+think they are all out of their way which never meet; and when they see
+such digladiation about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they
+easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, _Verba ista sunt
+senum otiosorum_.
+
+(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to their great
+thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had joined variety and
+universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent
+lights, to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge; but as
+they are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark
+keeping.  But as in the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined
+to leave the oracle of God’s word, and to vanish in the mixture of their
+own inventions; so in the inquisition of nature, they ever left the
+oracle of God’s works, and adored the deceiving and deformed images which
+the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few received authors or
+principles, did represent unto them.  And thus much for the second
+disease of learning.
+
+(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth deceit or
+untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest; as that which doth destroy
+the essential form of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of
+truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing
+no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected.  This vice therefore
+brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving and aptness to be
+deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they appear to be of a
+diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning and the other of
+simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most part concur: for, as the
+verse noteth—
+
+    “Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est,”
+
+an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a credulous man
+is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe
+rumours will as easily augment rumours and add somewhat to them of his
+own; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, _Fingunt simul
+creduntque_: so great an affinity hath fiction and belief.
+
+(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things weakly
+authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the subject: for it
+is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact;
+or else of matter of art and opinion.  As to the former, we see the
+experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history;
+which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations of
+miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and other
+holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels and images: which though
+they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the
+superstitious simplicity of some and the politic toleration of others
+holding them but as divine poesies, yet after a period of time, when the
+mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives’
+fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of
+Antichrist, to the great scandal and detriment of religion.
+
+(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and
+judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in the writings of
+Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught
+with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously
+untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural philosophy with
+the grave and sober kind of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity of
+Aristotle is worthy to be observed, that, having made so diligent and
+exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with
+any vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all
+prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into one
+book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such
+whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or
+weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities and
+reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the
+memory of men.
+
+(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and
+opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too much belief is
+attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art.  The
+sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and confederacy
+with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number:
+astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless,
+the ends or pretences are noble.  For astrology pretendeth to discover
+that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe
+and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural
+philosophy from variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and
+alchemy pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies
+which in mixtures of natures are incorporate.  But the derivations and
+prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the practices,
+are full of error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have
+sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring
+themselves to auricular traditions and such other devices, to save the
+credit of impostures.  And yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that
+it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable; that,
+when he died, told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried
+underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground, and
+gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and digging the
+mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year
+following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to
+light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as
+well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man’s life.
+
+(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors in
+sciences, in making them dictators, that their words should stand, and
+not consuls, to give advice; the damage is infinite that sciences have
+received thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low at a
+stay without growth or advancement.  For hence it hath come, that in arts
+mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth and
+perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and time
+leeseth and corrupteth.  So we see artillery, sailing, printing, and the
+like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accommodated and
+refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies and sciences of Aristotle,
+Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at
+the first, and by time degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason is no
+other, but that in the former many wits and industries have contributed
+in one; and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about
+the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved than
+illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the level of the
+first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so knowledge derived from
+Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of examination, will not rise again
+higher than the knowledge of Aristotle.  And, therefore, although the
+position be good, _Oportet discentem credere_, yet it must be coupled
+with this, _Oportet edoctum judicare_; for disciples do owe unto masters
+only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own judgment till they
+be fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual
+captivity; and therefore, to conclude this point, I will say no more, but
+so let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of
+authors, be not deprived of his due—which is, further and further to
+discover truth.  Thus have I gone over these three diseases of learning;
+besides the which there are some other rather peccant humours than formed
+diseases, which, nevertheless, are not so secret and intrinsic, but that
+they fall under a popular observation and traducement, and, therefore,
+are not to be passed over.
+
+V. (1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two extremities:
+the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it seemeth the children of
+time do take after the nature and malice of the father.  For as he
+devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the
+other; while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and novelty
+cannot be content to add but it must deface; surely the advice of the
+prophet is the true direction in this matter, _State super vias
+antiquas_, _et videte quænam sit via recta et bona et ambulate in ea_.
+Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand
+thereupon and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is
+well taken, then to make progression.  And to speak truly, _Antiquitas
+sæculi juventus mundi_.  These times are the ancient times, when the
+world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient _ordine
+retrogrado_, by a computation backward from ourselves.
+
+(2) Another error induced by the former is a distrust that anything
+should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed and
+passed over so long time: as if the same objection were to be made to
+time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods; of which
+he wondereth that they begot so many children in old time, and begot none
+in his time; and asketh whether they were become septuagenary, or whether
+the law _Papia_, made against old men’s marriages, had restrained them.
+So it seemeth men doubt lest time is become past children and generation;
+wherein contrariwise we see commonly the levity and unconstancy of men’s
+judgments, which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and
+as soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as we see
+in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as
+a vast and impossible enterprise; and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to
+make no more of it than this, _Nil aliud quàm bene ausus vana
+contemnere_.  And the same happened to Columbus in the western
+navigation.  But in intellectual matters it is much more common, as may
+be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid; which till they be
+demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent; but being demonstrate, our
+mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation (as the lawyers speak), as
+if we had known them before.
+
+(3) Another error, that hath also some affinity with the former, is a
+conceit that of former opinions or sects after variety and examination
+the best hath still prevailed and suppressed the rest; so as if a man
+should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light upon
+somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion; as if
+the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude’s sake, were not ready to
+give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial than to that
+which is substantial and profound for the truth is, that time seemeth to
+be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that
+which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is
+weighty and solid.
+
+(4) Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the
+over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods;
+from which time commonly sciences receive small or no augmentation.  But
+as young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a
+further stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations,
+it is in growth; but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it
+may, perchance, be further polished, and illustrate and accommodated for
+use and practice, but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.
+
+(5) Another error which doth succeed that which we last mentioned is,
+that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have
+abandoned universality, or _philosophia prima_, which cannot but cease
+and stop all progression.  For no perfect discovery can be made upon a
+flat or a level; neither is it possible to discover the more remote and
+deeper parts of any science if you stand but upon the level of the same
+science, and ascend not to a higher science.
+
+(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a kind
+of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means whereof, men
+have withdrawn themselves too much from the contemplation of nature, and
+the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in their own
+reason and conceits.  Upon these intellectualists, which are
+notwithstanding commonly taken for the most sublime and divine
+philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying:—“Men sought truth
+in their own little worlds, and not in the great and common world;” for
+they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of God’s
+works; and contrariwise by continual meditation and agitation of wit do
+urge and, as it were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give
+oracles unto them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.
+
+(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter is, that men
+have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines with some
+conceits which they have most admired, or some sciences which they have
+most applied, and given all things else a tincture according to them,
+utterly untrue and improper.  So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy
+with theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of Plato,
+Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were the arts which
+had a kind of primogeniture with them severally.  So have the alchemists
+made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus
+our countryman hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a
+loadstone.  So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of the nature
+of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a harmony,
+saith pleasantly, _Hic ab arte sua non recessit_, _&c._  But of these
+conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, _Qui
+respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant_.
+
+(8) Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion
+without due and mature suspension of judgment.  For the two ways of
+contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by
+the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end
+impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a
+while fair and even.  So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with
+certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin
+with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
+
+(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of
+knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and not
+ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and not
+easiest examined.  It is true, that in compendious treatises for practice
+that form is not to be disallowed; but in the true handling of knowledge
+men ought not to fall either on the one side into the vein of Velleius
+the Epicurean, _Nil tam metuens quam ne dubitare aliqua de revideretur_:
+nor, on the other side, into Socrates, his ironical doubting of all
+things; but to propound things sincerely with more or less asseveration,
+as they stand in a man’s own judgment proved more or less.
+
+(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to themselves,
+whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas the more constant and
+devote kind of professors of any science ought to propound to themselves
+to make some additions to their science, they convert their labours to
+aspire to certain second prizes: as to be a profound interpreter or
+commentor, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical
+compounder or abridger, and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be
+sometimes improved, but seldom augmented.
+
+(11) But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or
+misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge.  For men have
+entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural
+curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds
+with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and
+sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most
+times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true
+account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if
+there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and
+restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk
+up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind
+to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and
+contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for
+the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.  But this is
+that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and
+action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than
+they have been: a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets,
+Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation; and Jupiter, the planet of
+civil society and action, howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and
+action, that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre
+and profession; for I am not ignorant how much that diverteth and
+interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of knowledge, like unto the
+golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which, while she goeth aside and
+stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered,
+
+    “Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.” {39}
+
+Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy down
+from heaven to converse upon the earth—that is, to leave natural
+philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and policy.  But
+as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and
+benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both philosophies to
+separate and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void,
+and to preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that
+knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as
+a bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master’s use; but as a spouse,
+for generation, fruit, and comfort.
+
+(12) Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissection, those
+peccant humours (the principal of them) which have not only given
+impediment to the proficience of learning, but have given also occasion
+to the traducement thereof: wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be
+remembered, _fidelia vulnera amantis_, _sed dolosa oscula malignantis_.
+This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better believed in
+that which I shall say pertaining to commendation; because I have
+proceeded so freely in that which concerneth censure.  And yet I have no
+purpose to enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the
+Muses (though I am of opinion that it is long since their rites were duly
+celebrated), but my intent is, without varnish or amplification justly to
+weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other things, and to
+take the true value thereof by testimonies and arguments, divine and
+human.
+
+VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the
+archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of God,
+as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with sobriety;
+wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning, for all learning is
+knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original, and therefore
+we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the
+Scriptures call it.
+
+(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a double
+emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more properly to power,
+the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the subsistence of the
+matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of the form.  This being
+supposed, it is to be observed that for anything which appeareth in the
+history of the creation, the confused mass and matter of heaven and earth
+was made in a moment, and the order and disposition of that chaos or mass
+was the work of six days; such a note of difference it pleased God to put
+upon the works of power, and the works of wisdom; wherewith concurreth,
+that in the former it is not set down that God said, “Let there be heaven
+and earth,” as it is set down of the works following; but actually, that
+God made heaven and earth: the one carrying the style of a manufacture,
+and the other of a law, decree, or counsel.
+
+(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to spirits: we
+find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that
+supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, the first place or degree is
+given to the angels of love, which are termed seraphim; the second to the
+angels of light, which are termed cherubim; and the third, and so
+following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all
+angels of power and ministry; so as this angels of knowledge and
+illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.
+
+(4) To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and
+material forms, we read the first form that was created was light, which
+hath a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal things to
+knowledge in spirits and incorporal things.
+
+(5) So in the distribution of days we see the day wherein God did rest
+and contemplate His own works was blessed above all the days wherein He
+did effect and accomplish them.
+
+(6) After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man was
+placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so appointed to him,
+could be no other than work of contemplation; that is, when the end of
+work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity; for there
+being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, man’s
+employment must of consequence have been matter of delight in the
+experiment, and not matter of labour for the use.  Again, the first acts
+which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary parts of
+knowledge; the view of creatures, and the imposition of names.  As for
+the knowledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched before, not
+the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge of good and
+evil; wherein the supposition was, that God’s commandments or
+prohibitions were not the originals of good and evil, but that they had
+other beginnings, which man aspired to know, to the end to make a total
+defection from God and to depend wholly upon himself.
+
+(7) To pass on: in the first event or occurrence after the fall of man,
+we see (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not violating at all
+the truth of this story or letter) an image of the two estates, the
+contemplative state and the active state, figured in the two persons of
+Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most primitive trades of life;
+that of the shepherd (who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and
+lying in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life), and
+that of the husbandman, where we see again the favour and election of God
+went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of the ground.
+
+(8) So in the age before the flood, the holy records within those few
+memorials which are there entered and registered have vouchsafed to
+mention and honour the name of the inventors and authors of music and
+works in metal.  In the age after the flood, the first great judgment of
+God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues; whereby the
+open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly
+imbarred.
+
+(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God’s first pen: he is adorned
+by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, “That he was seen
+in all the learning of the Egyptians,” which nation we know was one of
+the most ancient schools of the world: for so Plato brings in the
+Egyptian priest saying unto Solon, “You Grecians are ever children; you
+have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of knowledge.”  Take a view
+of the ceremonial law of Moses; you shall find, besides the prefiguration
+of Christ, the badge or difference of the people of God, the exercise and
+impression of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits thereof, that
+some of the most learned Rabbins have travailed profitably and profoundly
+to observe, some of them a natural, some of them a moral sense, or
+reduction of many of the ceremonies and ordinances.  As in the law of the
+leprosy, where it is said, “If the whiteness have overspread the flesh,
+the patient may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any whole flesh
+remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean;” one of them noteth a
+principle of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before maturity
+than after; and another noteth a position of moral philosophy, that men
+abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners, as those that are half
+good and half evil.  So in this and very many other places in that law,
+there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion of
+philosophy.
+
+(10)  So likewise in that excellent hook of Job, if it be revolved with
+diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural
+philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the roundness of the world,
+_Qui extendit aquilonem super vacuum_, _et appendit terram super
+nihilum_; wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north,
+and the finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched.  So
+again, matter of astronomy: _Spiritus ejus ornavit cælos_, _et
+obstetricante manu ejus eductus est Coluber tortuoses_.  And in another
+place, _Nunquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas_, _aut gyrum
+Arcturi poteris dissipare_?  Where the fixing of the stars, ever standing
+at equal distance, is with great elegancy noted.  And in another place,
+_Qui facit Arcturum_, _et Oriona_, _et Hyadas_, _et interiora Austri_;
+where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern pole,
+calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern stars were in
+that climate unseen.  Matter of generation: _Annon sicut lac mulsisti
+me_, _et sicut caseum coagulasti me_? &c.  Matter of minerals: _Habet
+argentum venarum suarum principia_; _et auro locus est in quo conflatur_,
+_ferrum de terra tollitur_, _et lapis solutus calore in æs vertitur_; and
+so forwards in that chapter.
+
+(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift or
+endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon’s petition and in God’s
+assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and temporal
+felicity.  By virtue of which grant or donative of God Solomon became
+enabled not only to write those excellent parables or aphorisms
+concerning divine and moral philosophy, but also to compile a natural
+history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon
+the wall (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb), and
+also of all things that breathe or move.  Nay, the same Solomon the king,
+although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings,
+of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and
+renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but
+only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly,
+“The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to
+find it out;” as if, according to the innocent play of children, the
+Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them
+found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be
+God’s playfellows in that game; considering the great commandment of wits
+and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them.
+
+(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our
+Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His
+power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors
+of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles.
+And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in
+the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but _vehicula scientiæ_.
+
+(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to use
+for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first He did
+employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, more
+evidently to declare His immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom
+or knowledge; yet nevertheless that counsel of His was no sooner
+performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession He did send His
+divine truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with
+servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was only learned
+amongst the Apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New
+Testament.
+
+(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the
+Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of this
+heathen; insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julianus (whereby it was
+interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or
+exercises of learning) was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious
+engine and machination against the Christian Faith than were all the
+sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation
+and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever
+obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the
+censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men;
+in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen
+antiquity and authors.  But contrariwise it was the Christian Church,
+which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the
+north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred
+lap and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning, which
+otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been.
+
+(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our
+fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to account for
+their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious
+and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was
+ordained by the Divine Providence that there should attend withal a
+renovation and new spring of all other knowledges.  And on the other side
+we see the Jesuits, who partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation
+and provocation of their example, have much quickened and strengthened
+the state of learning; we see (I say) what notable service and reparation
+they have done to the Roman see.
+
+(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be
+two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration,
+which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion.
+The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation of
+the glory of God.  For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite
+us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if we
+should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they
+first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the
+majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some
+excellent jeweller by that only which is set out toward the street in his
+shop.  The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative
+against unbelief and error.  For our Saviour saith, “You err, not knowing
+the Scriptures, nor the power of God;” laying before us two books or
+volumes to study, if we will be secured from error: first the Scriptures,
+revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing His power;
+whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our
+understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general
+notions of reason and rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in
+drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is
+chiefly signed and engraven upon His works.  Thus much therefore for
+divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of
+learning.
+
+VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a discourse
+of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice of those things
+which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them.  First,
+therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the
+highest to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God.  This unto the
+Christians is as the forbidden fruit.  But we speak now separately of
+human testimony, according to which—that which the Grecians call
+_apotheosis_, and the Latins _relatio inter divos_—was the supreme honour
+which man could attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a
+formal decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman Emperors),
+but by an inward assent and belief.  Which honour, being so high, had
+also a degree or middle term; for there were reckoned above human
+honours, honours heroical and divine: in the attribution and distribution
+of which honours we see antiquity made this difference; that whereas
+founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of
+tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit,
+were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods, such as were
+Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the like; on the other side, such
+as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities
+towards man’s life, were ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as
+was Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and others.  And justly; for the
+merit of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
+and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and good,
+yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where they
+fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of heaven, which are
+permanent and universal.  The former again is mixed with strife and
+perturbation, but the latter hath the true character of Divine Presence,
+coming in _aura leni_, without noise or agitation.
+
+(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the
+inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former,
+of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which merit was
+lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus’
+theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their
+several appetites—some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel—stood all
+sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp, the
+sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but
+every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the
+nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed
+desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear
+to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and
+persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and
+peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition
+and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and
+confusion.
+
+(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves, or persons
+of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular
+estates, are endued with learning.  For although he might be thought
+partial to his own profession that said “Then should people and estates
+be happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings;” yet
+so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and
+governors there have been ever the best times: for howsoever kings may
+have their imperfections in their passions and customs, yet, if they be
+illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and
+morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and
+peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when
+counsellors and servants stand mute and silent.  And senators or
+counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed upon more safe and
+substantial principles, than counsellors which are only men of
+experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other
+discover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to the agility
+of their wit to ward or avoid them.
+
+(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still the law
+of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples) doth best
+appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitianus the emperor
+until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a succession of six princes,
+all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of learning, which age
+for temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever the
+Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world) enjoyed—a matter
+revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was
+slain: for he thought there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck
+and a head of gold, which came accordingly to pass in those golden times
+which succeeded; of which princes we will make some commemoration;
+wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter
+for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, yet,
+because it is pertinent to the point in hand—_Neque semper arcum tendit
+Apollo_—and to name them only were too naked and cursory, I will not omit
+it altogether.  The first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose
+government is by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life:
+_Postquam divus Nerva res oluim insociabiles miscuisset_, _imperium et
+libertatem_.  And in token of his learning, the last act of his short
+reign left to memory was a missive to his adopted son, Trajan, proceeding
+upon some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended
+in a verse of Homer’s—
+
+    “Telis, Phœbe, tuis, lacrymas ulciscere nostras.”
+
+(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but if we will
+hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, “He that receiveth a
+prophet in the name of a prophet shall have a prophet’s reward,” he
+deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes; for there was
+not a greater admirer of learning or benefactor of learning, a founder of
+famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned men to office, and
+familiar converser with learned professors and preceptors who were noted
+to have then most credit in court.  On the other side how much Trajan’s
+virtue and government was admired and renowned, surely no testimony of
+grave and faithful history doth more lively set forth than that legend
+tale of Gregorius Magnum, Bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme
+envy he bare towards all heathen excellency; and yet he is reported, out
+of the love and estimation of Trajan’s moral virtues, to have made unto
+God passionate and fervent prayers for the delivery of his soul out of
+hell, and to have obtained it, with a caveat that he should make no more
+such petitions.  In this prince’s time also the persecutions against the
+Christians received intermission upon the certificate of Plinius
+Secundus, a man of excellent learning and by Trajan advanced.
+
+(6) Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that lived, and the
+most universal inquirer: insomuch as it was noted for an error in his
+mind that he desired to comprehend all things, and not to reserve himself
+for the worthiest things, falling into the like humour that was long
+before noted in Philip of Macedon, who, when he would needs overrule and
+put down an excellent musician in an argument touching music, was well
+answered by him again—“God forbid, sir,” saith he, “that your fortune
+should be so bad as to know these things better than I.”  It pleased God
+likewise to use the curiosity of this emperor as an inducement to the
+peace of His Church in those days; for having Christ in veneration, not
+as a God or Saviour, but as a wonder or novelty, and having his picture
+in his gallery matched with Apollonius (with whom in his vain imagination
+he thought its had some conformity), yet it served the turn to allay the
+bitter hatred of those times against the Christian name, so as the Church
+had peace during his time.  And for his government civil, although he did
+not attain to that of Trajan’s in glory of arms or perfection of justice,
+yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he did exceed him.  For
+Trajan erected many famous monuments and buildings, insomuch as
+Constantine the Great in emulation was wont to call him _Parietaria_,
+“wall-flower,” because his name was upon so many walls; but his buildings
+and works were more of glory and triumph than use and necessity.  But
+Adrian spent his whole reign, which was peaceable, in a perambulation or
+survey of the Roman Empire, giving order and making assignation where he
+went for re-edifying of cities, towns, and forts decayed, and for cutting
+of rivers and streams, and for making bridges and passages, and for
+policing of cities and commonalties with new ordinances and
+constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so that
+his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and decays of
+former times.
+
+(7) Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently learned,
+and had the patient and subtle wit of a schoolman, insomuch as in common
+speech (which leaves no virtue untaxed) he was called _Cymini Sector_, a
+carver or a divider of cummin seed, which is one of the least seeds.
+Such a patience he had and settled spirit to enter into the least and
+most exact differences of causes, a fruit no doubt of the exceeding
+tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which being no ways charged or
+encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or scruples, but having been
+noted for a man of the purest goodness, without all fiction or
+affectation, that hath reigned or lived, made his mind continually
+present and entire.  He likewise approached a degree nearer unto
+Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto St. Paul, “half a
+Christian,” holding their religion and law in good opinion, and not only
+ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of Christians.
+
+(5) There succeeded him the first _Divi fratres_, the two adoptive
+brethren—Lucius Commodus Verus, son to Ælius Verus, who delighted much in
+the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the poet Martial his
+Virgil; and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: whereof the latter, who obscured
+his colleague and survived him long, was named the “Philosopher,” who, as
+he excelled all the rest in learning, so he excelled them likewise in
+perfection of all royal virtues; insomuch as Julianus the emperor, in his
+book entitled _Cærsares_, being as a pasquil or satire to deride all his
+predecessors, feigned that they were all invited to a banquet of the
+gods, and Silenus the jester sat at the nether end of the table and
+bestowed a scoff on everyone as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus
+came in, Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance, not knowing where
+to carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance at his patience towards
+his wife.  And the virtue of this prince, continued with that of his
+predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the world, that
+though it were extremely dishonoured in Commodus, Caracalla, and
+Heliogabalus, who all bare the name, yet, when Alexander Severus refused
+the name because he was a stranger to the family, the Senate with one
+acclamation said, _Quomodo Augustus_, _sic et Antoninus_.  In such renown
+and veneration was the name of these two princes in those days, that they
+would have had it as a perpetual addition in all the emperors’ style.  In
+this emperor’s time also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as
+in this sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning
+in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the world.
+
+(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not presuming to speak
+of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment the most excellent is that
+of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of Britain; a
+prince that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels,
+would trouble him, I think, to find for her a parallel amongst women.
+This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even
+amongst masculine princes—whether we speak of learning, of language, or
+of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity—and unto the very
+last year of her life she accustomed to appoint set hours for reading,
+scarcely any young student in a university more daily or more duly.  As
+for her government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm)
+that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better tines,
+and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of
+her regiment.  For if there be considered, of the one side, the truth of
+religion established, the constant peace and security, the good
+administration of justice, the temperate use of the prerogative, not
+slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable
+to so excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means,
+both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of
+discontents; and there be considered, on the other side, the differences
+of religion, the troubles of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain,
+and opposition of Rome, and then that she was solitary and of herself;
+these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an instance
+so recent and so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more
+remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is concerning the
+conjunction of learning in the prince with felicity in the people.
+
+(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil
+merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and
+peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy in
+enablement towards martial and military virtue and prowess, as may be
+notably represented in the examples of Alexander the Great and Cæsar the
+Dictator (mentioned before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose
+virtues and acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the
+wonders of time in that kind; but of their affections towards learning
+and perfections in learning it is pertinent to say somewhat.
+
+(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great
+philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto him; he
+was attended with Callisthenes and divers other learned persons, that
+followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and conquests.  What price
+and estimation he had learning in doth notably appear in these three
+particulars: first, in the envy he used to express that he bare towards
+Achilles, in this, that he had so good a trumpet of his praises as
+Homer’s verses; secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave touching
+that precious cabinet of Darius, which was found among his jewels
+(whereof question was made what thing was worthy to be put into it, and
+he gave his opinion for Homer’s works); thirdly, in his letter to
+Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of nature, wherein he
+expostulateth with him for publishing the secrets or mysteries of
+philosophy; and gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more to
+excel other men in learning and knowledge than in power and empire.  And
+what use he had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his
+speeches and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that
+in all variety.
+
+(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat idle
+to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet, since the argument I
+handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall perceive I am as
+willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an Alexander, or a Cæsar, or
+an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred years since, as any that now
+liveth; for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty
+that I propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming in any man’s
+praises.  Observe, then, the speech he used of Diogenes, and see if it
+tend not to the true state of one of the greatest questions of moral
+philosophy: whether the enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of
+them, be the greatest happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly
+contented with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition,
+“were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.”  But Seneca
+inverteth it, and saith, “_Plus erat_, _quod hic nollet accipere_, _quàm
+quod ille posset dare_.”  There were more things which Diogenes would
+have refused than those were which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.
+
+(13) Observe, again, that speech which was usual with him,—“That he felt
+his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust;” and see if it were
+not a speech extracted out of the depth of natural philosophy, and liker
+to have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus than from
+Alexander.
+
+(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon the
+bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his flatterers, that
+was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and said, “Look, this is very
+blood; this is not such a liquor as Homer speaketh of, which ran from
+Venus’ hand when it was pierced by Diomedes.”
+
+(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in the speech he
+used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made against his father
+Antipater; for when Alexander happened to say, “Do you think these men
+would have come from so far to complain except they had just cause of
+grief?” and Cassander answered, “Yea, that was the matter, because they
+thought they should not be disproved;” said Alexander, laughing, “See the
+subtleties of Aristotle, to take a matter both ways, _pro et contra_,
+&c.”
+
+(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art which he
+reprehended to serve his own humour: when bearing a secret grudge to
+Callisthenes, because he was against the new ceremony of his adoration,
+feasting one night where the same Callisthenes was at the table, it was
+moved by some after supper, for entertainment sake, that Callisthenes,
+who was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or purpose at his own
+choice; which Callisthenes did, choosing the praise of the Macedonian
+nation for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner as
+the hearers were much ravished; whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased,
+said, “It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a subject; but,” saith he,
+“turn your style, and let us hear what you can say against us;” which
+Callisthenes presently undertook, and did with that sting and life that
+Alexander interrupted him, and said, “The goodness of the cause made him
+eloquent before, and despite made him eloquent then again.”
+
+(17) Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent use of a
+metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxeth Antipater, who was an
+imperious and tyrannous governor; for when one of Antipater’s friends
+commended him to Alexander for his moderation, that he did not degenerate
+as his other lieutenants did into the Persian pride, in uses of purple,
+but kept the ancient habit of Macedon, of black.  “True,” saith
+Alexander; “but Antipater is all purple within.”  Or that other, when
+Parmenio came to him in the plain of Arbela and showed him the
+innumerable multitude of his enemies, specially as they appeared by the
+infinite number of lights as it had been a new firmament of stars, and
+thereupon advised him to assail them by night; whereupon he answered,
+“That he would not steal the victory.”
+
+(18) For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, so much in
+all ages embraced, that he made between his two friends Hephæstion and
+Craterus, when he said, “That the one loved Alexander, and the other
+loved the king:” describing the principal difference of princes’ best
+servants, that some in affection love their person, and other in duty
+love their crown.
+
+(19) Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary with
+counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters according to the
+model of their own mind and fortune, and not of their masters.  When upon
+Darius’ great offers Parmenio had said, “Surely I would accept these
+offers were I as Alexander;” saith Alexander, “So would I were I as
+Parmenio.”
+
+(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made when he gave
+so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was asked what he did
+reserve for himself, and he answered, “Hope.”  Weigh, I say, whether he
+had not cast up his account aright, because _hope_ must be the portion of
+all that resolve upon great enterprises; for this was Cæsar’s portion
+when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then utterly overthrown
+with largesses.  And this was likewise the portion of that noble prince,
+howsoever transported with ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was
+usually said that he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had
+turned all his estate into obligations.
+
+(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to say
+hyperbolically, “That if all sciences were lost they might be found in
+Virgil,” so certainly this may be said truly, there are the prints and
+footsteps of learning in those few speeches which are reported of this
+prince, the admiration of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the
+Great, but as Aristotle’s scholar, hath carried me too far.
+
+(22) As for Julius Cæsar, the excellency of his learning needeth not to
+be argued from his education, or his company, or his speeches; but in a
+further degree doth declare itself in his writings and works: whereof
+some are extant and permanent, and some unfortunately perished.  For
+first, we see there is left unto us that excellent history of his own
+wars, which he entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times
+have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and lively
+images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of
+words and perspicuity of narration that ever was; which that it was not
+the effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept, is well
+witnessed by that work of his entitled _De Analogia_, being a grammatical
+philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same _Vox ad placitum_ to
+become _Vox ad licitum_, and to reduce custom of speech to congruity of
+speech; and took as it were the pictures of words from the life of
+reason.
+
+(23) So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power and
+learning, the then reformed computation of the year; well expressing that
+he took it to be as great a glory to himself to observe and know the law
+of the heavens, as to give law to men upon the earth.
+
+(24) So likewise in that book of his, _Anti-Cato_, it may easily appear
+that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as victory of war:
+undertaking therein a conflict against the greatest champion with the pen
+that then lived, Cicero the orator.
+
+(25) So, again, in his book of Apophthegms, which he collected, we see
+that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to
+take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his
+own to be made an apophthegm or an oracle, as vain princes, by custom of
+flattery, pretend to do.  And yet if I should enumerate divers of his
+speeches, as I did those of Alexander, they are truly such as Solomon
+noteth, when he saith, _Verba sapientum tanquam aculei_, _et tanquam
+clavi in altum defixi_: whereof I will only recite three, not so
+delectable for elegancy, but admirable for vigour and efficacy.
+
+(26) As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, that could
+with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was thus: The Romans,
+when their generals did speak to their army, did use the word _Milites_,
+but when the magistrates spake to the people they did use the word
+_Quirites_.  The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to be
+cashiered; not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to draw
+Cæsar to other conditions; wherein he being resolute not to give way,
+after some silence, he began his speech, _Ego Quirites_, which did admit
+them already cashiered—wherewith they were so surprised, crossed, and
+confused, as they would not suffer him to go on in his speech, but
+relinquished their demands, and made it their suit to be again called by
+the name of _Milites_.
+
+(27) The second speech was thus: Cæsar did extremely affect the name of
+king; and some were set on as he passed by in popular acclamation to
+salute him king.  Whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off
+thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname: _Non Rex
+sum_, _sed Cæsar_; a speech that, if it be searched, the life and fulness
+of it can scarce be expressed.  For, first, it was a refusal of the name,
+but yet not serious; again, it did signify an infinite confidence and
+magnanimity, as if he presumed Cæsar was the greater title, as by his
+worthiness it is come to pass till this day.  But chiefly it was a speech
+of great allurement toward his own purpose, as if the state did strive
+with him but for a name, whereof mean families were vested; for _Rex_ was
+a surname with the Romans, as well as _King_ is with us.
+
+(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus, when
+Cæsar, after war declared, did possess himself of this city of Rome; at
+which time, entering into the inner treasury to take the money there
+accumulate, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him.  Whereto Cæsar said,
+“That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place.”  And
+presently taking himself up, he added, “Young man, it is harder for me to
+speak it than to do it—_Adolescens_, _durius est mihi hoc dicere quàm
+facere_.”  A speech compounded of the greatest terror and greatest
+clemency that could proceed out of the mouth of man.
+
+(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident himself knew well
+his own perfection in learning, and took it upon him, as appeared when
+upon occasion that some spake what a strange resolution it was in Lucius
+Sylla to resign his dictators, he, scoffing at him to his own advantage,
+answered, “That Sylla could not skill of letters, and therefore knew not
+how to dictate.”
+
+(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the concurrence
+of military virtue and learning (for what example should come with any
+grace after those two of Alexander and Cæsar?), were it not in regard of
+the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one other particular, as
+that which did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme wonder: and
+it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from Socrates’ school into
+Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against King Artaxerxes.
+This Xenophon at that time was very young, and never had seen the wars
+before, neither had any command in the army, but only followed the war as
+a voluntary, for the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.  He
+was present when Falinus came in message from the great king to the
+Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of
+men, left to themselves in the midst of the king’s territories, cut off
+from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles.  The
+message imported that they should deliver up their arms and submit
+themselves to the king’s mercy.  To which message, before answer was
+made, divers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus; and amongst
+the rest Xenophon happened to say, “Why, Falinus, we have now but these
+two things left, our arms and our virtue; and if we yield up our arms,
+how shall we make use of our virtue?”  Whereto Falinus, smiling on him,
+said, “If I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I
+believe you study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say; but you are
+much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the king’s power.”
+Here was the scorn; the wonder followed: which was that this young
+scholar or philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by
+treason, conducted those ten thousand foot, through the heart of all the
+king’s high countries, from Babylon to Græcia in safety, in despite of
+all the king’s forces, to the astonishment of the world, and the
+encouragement of the Grecians in times succeeding to make invasion upon
+the kings of Persia, as was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian,
+attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the
+Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.
+
+VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral and
+private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is contained in the
+verses:—
+
+    “Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
+    Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.”
+
+It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men’s minds;
+but indeed the accent had need be upon _fideliter_; for a little
+superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect.  It taketh away
+all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts
+and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both
+sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to
+accept of nothing but examined and tried.  It taketh away vain admiration
+of anything, which is the root of all weakness.  For all things are
+admired, either because they are new, or because they are great.  For
+novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly but
+will find that printed in his heart, _Nil novi super terram_.  Neither
+can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain,
+and adviseth well of the motion.  And for magnitude, as Alexander the
+Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of
+the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece,
+of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a
+fort, or some walled town at the most, he said:—“It seemed to him that he
+was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the mice, that the old
+tales went of.”  So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal
+frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls
+except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants
+carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and
+fro a little heap of dust.  It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death or
+adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and
+imperfections of manners.  For if a man’s mind be deeply seasoned with
+the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he
+will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman
+weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth the next
+day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon
+said, “_Heri vidi fragilem frangi_, _hodie vidi mortalem mori_.”  And,
+therefore, Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of
+causes and the conquest of all fears together, as _concomitantia_.
+
+    “Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
+    Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
+    Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”
+
+(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning
+doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes purging the ill
+humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion,
+sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and
+exulcerations thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will conclude with
+that which hath _rationem totius_—which is, that it disposeth the
+constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects
+thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and
+reformation.  For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into
+himself, or to call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that
+_suavissima vita_, _indies sentire se fieri meliorem_.  The good parts he
+hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not
+much to increase them.  The faults he hath he will learn how to hide and
+colour them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that mows on
+still, and never whets his scythe.  Whereas with the learned man it fares
+otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his
+mind with the use and employment thereof.  Nay, further, in general and
+in sum, certain it is that _Veritas_ and _Bonitas_ differ but as the seal
+and the print; for truth prints goodness, and they be the clouds of error
+which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations.
+
+(3) From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and commandment,
+and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable with that
+wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man’s nature.  We see the
+dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of the commanded;
+to have commandment over beasts as herdmen have, is a thing contemptible;
+to have commandment over children as schoolmasters have, is a matter of
+small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves is a disparagement
+rather than an honour.  Neither is the commandment of tyrants much
+better, over people which have put off the generosity of their minds;
+and, therefore, it was ever holden that honours in free monarchies and
+commonwealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the
+commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over their
+deeds and services.  And therefore, when Virgil putteth himself forth to
+attribute to Augustus Cæsar the best of human honours, he doth it in
+these words:—
+
+          “Victorque volentes
+    Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.”
+
+But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment
+over the will; for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and
+understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth
+law to the will itself.  For there is no power on earth which setteth up
+a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their
+cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and
+learning.  And therefore we see the detestable and extreme pleasure that
+arch-heretics, and false prophets, and impostors are transported with,
+when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority in the
+faith and conscience of men; so great as if they have once tasted of it,
+it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make them
+relinquish or abandon it.  But as this is that which the author of the
+Revelation calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so by argument of
+contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men’s understanding, by
+force of truth rightly interpreted, is that which approacheth nearest to
+the similitude of the divine rule.
+
+(4) As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of learning is not so
+confined to give fortune only to states and commonwealths, as it doth not
+likewise give fortune to particular persons.  For it was well noted long
+ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings, than either Sylla, or
+Cæsar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding their great largesses and
+donatives, and distributions of lands to so many legions.  And no doubt
+it is hard to say whether arms or learning have advanced greater numbers.
+And in case of sovereignty we see, that if arms or descent have carried
+away the kingdom, yet learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever
+hath been in some competition with empire.
+
+(5) Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it far
+surpasseth all other in nature.  For, shall the pleasures of the
+affections so exceed the pleasure of the sense, as much as the obtaining
+of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner? and must not of
+consequence the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the
+pleasures of the affections?  We see in all other pleasures there is
+satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth
+well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was
+the novelty which pleased, and not the quality.  And, therefore, we see
+that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitions princes turn melancholy.
+But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are
+perpetually interchangeable; and, therefore, appeareth to be good in
+itself simply, without fallacy or accident.  Neither is that pleasure of
+small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet
+Lucretius describeth elegantly:—
+
+    “Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, &c.”
+
+“It is a view of delight,” saith he, “to stand or walk upon the shore
+side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea; or to be in a
+fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain.  But it is a
+pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and
+fortified in the certainty of truth; and from thence to descry and behold
+the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down of other
+men.”
+
+(6) Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man excelleth
+man in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by learning man ascendeth
+to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot come; and the
+like: let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and
+learning in that whereunto man’s nature doth most aspire, which is
+immortality, or continuance; for to this tendeth generation, and raising
+of houses and families; to this tend buildings, foundations, and
+monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration;
+and in effect the strength of all other human desires.  We see then how
+far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments
+of power or of the hands.  For have not the verses of Homer continued
+twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or
+letter; during which the infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have
+been decayed and demolished?  It is not possible to have the true
+pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar, no nor of the kings or
+great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and
+the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth.  But the images of
+men’s wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of
+time and capable of perpetual renovation.  Neither are they fitly to be
+called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the
+minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in
+succeeding ages.  So that if the invention of the ship was thought so
+noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and
+consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits,
+how much more are letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through
+the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the
+wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?  Nay,
+further, we see some of the philosophers which were least divine, and
+most immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the
+soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man
+could act and perform without the organs of the body, they thought might
+remain after death, which were only those of the understanding and not of
+the affection; so immortal and incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem
+unto them to be.  But we, that know by divine revelation that not only
+the understanding but the affections purified, not only the spirit but
+the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, do disclaim in these
+rudiments of the senses.  But it must be remembered, both in this last
+point, and so it may likewise be needful in other places, that in
+probation of the dignity of knowledge or learning, I did in the beginning
+separate divine testimony from human, which method I have pursued, and so
+handled them both apart.
+
+(7) Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for
+me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of Æsop’s
+cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that
+being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god
+of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty and
+love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, _occidat matrem_, _modo
+imperet_, that preferred empire with any condition never so detestable;
+or of Ulysses, _qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati_, being a figure of
+those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency, or of a number
+of the like popular judgments.  For these things must continue as they
+have been; but so will that also continue whereupon learning hath ever
+relied, and which faileth not: _Justificata est sapientia a filiis suis_.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND BOOK.
+
+
+                              _To the King_.
+
+1.  IT might seem to have more convenience, though it come often
+otherwise to pass (excellent King), that those which are fruitful in
+their generations, and have in themselves the foresight of immortality in
+their descendants, should likewise be more careful of the good estate of
+future times, unto which they know they must transmit and commend over
+their dearest pledges.  Queen Elizabeth was a sojourner in the world in
+respect of her unmarried life, and was a blessing to her own times; and
+yet so as the impression of her good government, besides her happy
+memory, is not without some effect which doth survive her.  But to your
+Majesty, whom God hath already blessed with so much royal issue, worthy
+to continue and represent you for ever, and whose youthful and fruitful
+bed doth yet promise many the like renovations, it is proper and
+agreeable to be conversant not only in the transitory parts of good
+government, but in those acts also which are in their nature permanent
+and perpetual.  Amongst the which (if affection do not transport me)
+there is not any more worthy than the further endowment of the world with
+sound and fruitful knowledge.  For why should a few received authors
+stand up like Hercules’ columns, beyond which there should be no sailing
+or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a star as your Majesty
+to conduct and prosper us?  To return therefore where we left, it
+remaineth to consider of what kind those acts are which have been
+undertaken and performed by kings and others for the increase and
+advancement of learning, wherein I purpose to speak actively, without
+digressing or dilating.
+
+2.  Let this ground therefore be laid, that all works are over common by
+amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction, and by the conjunction of
+labours.  The first multiplieth endeavour, the second preventeth error,
+and the third supplieth the frailty of man.  But the principal of these
+is direction, for _claudus in via antevertit cursorem extra viam_; and
+Solomon excellently setteth it down, “If the iron be not sharp, it
+requireth more strength, but wisdom is that which prevaileth,” signifying
+that the invention or election of the mean is more effectual than any
+enforcement or accumulation of endeavours.  This I am induced to speak,
+for that (not derogating from the noble intention of any that have been
+deservers towards the state of learning), I do observe nevertheless that
+their works and acts are rather matters of magnificence and memory than
+of progression and proficience, and tend rather to augment the mass of
+learning in the multitude of learned men than to rectify or raise the
+sciences themselves.
+
+3.  The works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant about
+three objects—the places of learning, the books of learning, and the
+persons of the learned.  For as water, whether it be the dew of heaven or
+the springs of the earth, doth scatter and leese itself in the ground,
+except it be collected into some receptacle where it may by union comfort
+and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man hath made and
+framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have
+accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of
+magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so this
+excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine
+inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to
+oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and
+places appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt
+and comforting of the same.
+
+4.  The works which concern the seats and places of learning are
+four—foundations and buildings, endowments with revenues, endowments with
+franchises and privileges, institutions and ordinances for government—all
+tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and
+troubles; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth for the hiving
+of bees:
+
+    “Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda,
+    Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &c.”
+
+5.  The works touching books are two—first, libraries, which are as the
+shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue,
+and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed;
+secondly, new editions of authors, with more correct impressions, more
+faithful translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent
+annotations, and the like.
+
+6.  The works pertaining to the persons of learned men (besides the
+advancement and countenancing of them in general) are two—the reward and
+designation of readers in sciences already extant and invented; and the
+reward and designation of writers and inquirers concerning any parts of
+learning not sufficiently laboured and prosecuted.
+
+7.  These are summarily the works and acts wherein the merits of many
+excellent princes and other worthy personages, have been conversant.  As
+for any particular commemorations, I call to mind what Cicero said when
+he gave general thanks, _Difficile non aliquem_, _ingratum quenquam
+præterire_.  Let us rather, according to the Scriptures, look unto that
+part of the race which is before us, than look back to that which is
+already attained.
+
+8.  First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations of colleges in
+Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and
+none left free to arts and sciences at large.  For if men judge that
+learning should be referred to action, they judge well; but in this they
+fall into the error described in the ancient fable, in which the other
+parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it
+neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as
+the head doth; but yet notwithstanding it is the stomach that digesteth
+and distributeth to all the rest.  So if any man think philosophy and
+universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all
+professions are from thence served and supplied.  And this I take to be a
+great cause that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these
+fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage.  For if you will
+have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not anything
+you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth and putting
+new mould about thee roots that must work it.  Neither is it to be
+forgotten, that this dedicating of foundations and dotations to
+professory learning hath not only had a malign aspect and influence upon
+the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial to states, and
+governments.  For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in
+regard of able men to serve them in causes of estate, because there is no
+education collegiate which is free, where such as were so disposed might
+give themselves in histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil
+discourse, and other the like enablements unto service of estate.
+
+9.  And because founders of colleges do plant, and founders of lectures
+do water, it followeth well in order to speak of the defect which is in
+public lectures; namely, in the smallness, and meanness of the salary or
+reward which in most places is assigned unto them, whether they be
+lectures of arts, or of professions.  For it is necessary to the
+progression of sciences that readers be of the most able and sufficient
+men; as those which are ordained for generating and propagating of
+sciences, and not for transitory use.  This cannot be, except their
+condition and endowment be such as may content the ablest man to
+appropriate his whole labour and continue his whole age in that function
+and attendance; and therefore must have a proportion answerable to that
+mediocrity or competency of advancement, which may be expected from a
+profession or the practice of a profession.  So as, if you will have
+sciences flourish, you must observe David’s military law, which was,
+“That those which stayed with the carriage should have equal part with
+those which were in the action;” else will the carriages be ill attended.
+So readers in sciences are indeed the guardians of the stores and
+provisions of sciences, whence men in active courses are furnished, and
+therefore ought to have equal entertainment with them; otherwise if the
+fathers in sciences be of the weakest sort or be ill maintained,
+
+    “Et patrum invalidi referent jejunia nati.”
+
+10.  Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some alchemist to help
+me, who call upon men to sell their books, and to build furnaces;
+quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses as barren virgins, and
+relying upon Vulcan.  But certain it is, that unto the deep, fruitful,
+and operative study of many sciences, specialty natural philosophy and
+physic, books be not only the instrumentals; wherein also the beneficence
+of men hath not been altogether wanting.  For we see spheres, globes,
+astrolabes, maps, and the like, have been provided as appurtenances to
+astronomy and cosmography, as well as books.  We see likewise that some
+places instituted for physic have annexed the commodity of gardens for
+simples of all sorts, and do likewise command the use of dead bodies for
+anatomies.  But these do respect but a few things.  In general, there
+will hardly be any main proficience in the disclosing of nature, except
+there be some allowance for expenses about experiments; whether they be
+experiments appertaining to Vulcanus or Dædalus, furnace or engine, or
+any other kind.  And therefore as secretaries and spials of princes and
+states bring in bills for intelligence, so you must allow the spials and
+intelligencers of nature to bring in their bills; or else you shall be
+ill advertised.
+
+11.  And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to Aristotle of
+treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, fishers, and the like,
+that he might compile a history of nature, much better do they deserve it
+that travail in arts of nature.
+
+12.  Another defect which I note is an intermission or neglect in those
+which are governors in universities, of consultation, and in princes or
+superior persons, of visitation: to enter into account and consideration,
+whether the readings, exercises, and other customs appertaining unto
+learning, anciently begun and since continued, be well instituted or no;
+and thereupon to ground an amendment or reformation in that which shall
+be found inconvenient.  For it is one of your Majesty’s own most wise and
+princely maxims, “That in all usages and precedents, the times be
+considered wherein they first began; which if they were weak or ignorant,
+it derogateth from the authority of the usage, and leaveth it for
+suspect.”  And therefore inasmuch as most of the usages and orders of the
+universities were derived from more obscure times, it is the more
+requisite they be re-examined.  In this kind I will give an instance or
+two, for example sake, of things that are the most obvious and familiar.
+The one is a matter, which though it be ancient and general, yet I hold
+to be an error; which is, that scholars in universities come too soon and
+too unripe to logic and rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than children
+and novices.  For these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of sciences,
+being the arts of arts; the one for judgment, the other for ornament.
+And they be the rules and directions how to set forth and dispose matter:
+and therefore for minds empty and unfraught with matter, and which have
+not gathered that which Cicero calleth _sylva_ and _supellex_, stuff and
+variety, to begin with those arts (as if one should learn to weigh, or to
+measure, or to paint the wind) doth work but this effect, that the wisdom
+of those arts, which is great and universal, is almost made contemptible,
+and is degenerate into childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation.
+And further, the untimely learning of them hath drawn on by consequence
+the superficial and unprofitable teaching and writing of them, as fitteth
+indeed to the capacity of children.  Another is a lack I find in the
+exercises used in the universities, which do snake too great a divorce
+between invention and memory.  For their speeches are either premeditate,
+in _verbis conceptis_, where nothing is left to invention, or merely
+extemporal, where little is left to memory.  Whereas in life and action
+there is least use of either of these, but rather of intermixtures of
+premeditation and invention, notes and memory.  So as the exercise
+fitteth not the practice, nor the image the life; and it is ever a true
+rule in exercises, that they be framed as near as may be to the life of
+practice; for otherwise they do pervert the motions and faculties of the
+mind, and not prepare them.  The truth whereof is not obscure, when
+scholars come to the practices of professions, or other actions of civil
+life; which when they set into, this want is soon found by themselves,
+and sooner by others.  But this part, touching the amendment of the
+institutions and orders of universities, I will conclude with the clause
+of Cæsar’s letter to Oppius and Balbes, _Hoc quemadmodum fieri possit_,
+_nonnulla mihi in mentem veniunt_, _et multa reperiri possunt_: _de iis
+rebus rgo vos ut cogitationem suscipiatis_.
+
+13.  Another defect which I note ascendeth a little higher than the
+precedent.  For as the proficience of learning consisteth much in the
+orders and institutions of universities in the same states and kingdoms,
+so it would be yet more advanced, if there were more intelligence mutual
+between the universities of Europe than now there is.  We see there be
+many orders and foundations, which though they be divided under several
+sovereignties and territories, yet they take themselves to have a kind of
+contract, fraternity, and correspondence one with the other, insomuch as
+they have provincials and generals.  And surely as nature createth
+brotherhood in families, and arts mechanical contract brotherhoods in
+communalties, and the anointment of God superinduceth a brotherhood in
+kings and bishops, so in like manner there cannot but be a fraternity in
+learning and illumination, relating to that paternity which is attributed
+to God, who is called the Father of illuminations or lights.
+
+14.  The last defect which I will note is, that there hath not been, or
+very rarely been, any public designation of writers or inquirers
+concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to have been already
+sufficiently laboured or undertaken; unto which point it is an inducement
+to enter into a view and examination what parts of learning have been
+prosecuted, and what omitted.  For the opinion of plenty is amongst the
+causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show rather of
+superfluity than lack; which surcharge nevertheless is not to be remedied
+by making no more books, but by making more good books, which, as the
+serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents of the enchanters.
+
+15.  The removing of all the defects formerly enumerate, except the last,
+and of the active part also of the last (which is the designation of
+writers), are _opera basilica_; towards which the endeavours of a private
+man may be but as an image in a crossway, that may point at the way, but
+cannot go it.  But the inducing part of the latter (which is the survey
+of learning) may be set forward by private travail.  Wherefore I will now
+attempt to make a general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an
+inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and
+converted by the industry of man, to the end that such a plot made and
+recorded to memory may both minister light to any public designation,
+and, also serve to excite voluntary endeavours.  Wherein, nevertheless,
+my purpose is at this time to note only omissions and deficiences, and
+not to make any redargution of errors or incomplete prosecutions.  For it
+is one thing to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and another thing
+to correct ill husbandry in that which is manured.
+
+In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant what it
+is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own weakness to
+sustain my purpose.  But my hope is, that if my extreme love to learning
+carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection; for that “It is
+not granted to man to love and to be wise.”  But I know well I can use no
+other liberty of judgment than I must leave to others; and I for my part
+shall be indifferently glad either to perform myself, or accept from
+another, that duty of humanity—_Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam_,
+&c.  I do foresee likewise that of those things which I shall enter and
+register as deficiences and omissions, many will conceive and censure
+that some of them are already done and extant; others to be but
+curiosities, and things of no great use; and others to be of too great
+difficulty, and almost impossibility to be compassed and effected.  But
+for the two first, I refer myself to the particulars.  For the last,
+touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held possible
+which may be done by some person, though not by every one; and which may
+be done by many, though not by any one; and which may be done in the
+succession of ages, though not within the hourglass of one man’s life;
+and which may be done by public designation, though not by private
+endeavour.  But, notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather
+that of Solomon, “_Dicit piger_, _Leo est in via_,” than that of Virgil,
+“_Possunt quia posse videntur_,” I shall be content that my labours be
+esteemed but as the better sort of wishes; for as it asketh some
+knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some
+sense to make a wish not absurd.
+
+I. (1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of
+man’s understanding, which is the seat of learning: history to his
+memory, poesy to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason.  Divine
+learning receiveth the same distribution; for, the spirit of man is the
+same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse.  So as
+theology consisteth also of history of the Church; of parables, which is
+divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept.  For as for that part
+which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is but divine history,
+which hath that prerogative over human, as the narration may be before
+the fact as well as after.
+
+(2) History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary; whereof the
+first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient.  For no
+man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be
+described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of
+Nature, and the state, civil and ecclesiastical; without which the
+history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus with
+his eye out, that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit and
+life of the person.  And yet I am not ignorant that in divers particular
+sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians,
+the philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the schools,
+authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations touching the
+invention of arts or usages.  But a just story of learning, containing
+the antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their
+inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations and
+managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions,
+oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them, and all other
+events concerning learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may truly
+affirm to be wanting; the use and end of which work I do not so much
+design for curiosity or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of
+learning, but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this
+in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and
+administration of learning.  For it is not Saint Augustine’s nor Saint
+Ambrose’s works that will make so wise a divine as ecclesiastical history
+thoroughly read and observed, and the same reason is of learning.
+
+(3) History of Nature is of three sorts; of Nature in course, of Nature
+erring or varying, and of Nature altered or wrought; that is, history of
+creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts.  The first of these
+no doubt is extant, and that in good perfection; the two latter are
+bandied so weakly and unprofitably as I am moved to note them as
+deficient.  For I find no sufficient or competent collection of the works
+of Nature which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary course
+of generations, productions, and motions; whether they be singularities
+of place and region, or the strange events of time and chance, or the
+effects of yet unknown properties, or the instances of exception to
+general kinds.  It is true I find a number of books of fabulous
+experiments and secrets, and frivolous impostures for pleasure and
+strangeness; but a substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites
+or irregulars of Nature, well examined and described, I find not,
+specially not with due rejection of fables and popular errors.  For as
+things now are, if an untruth in Nature be once on foot, what by reason
+of the neglect of examination, and countenance of antiquity, and what by
+reason of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments of speech,
+it is never called down.
+
+(4) The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is
+nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and vain
+wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries is to do; but for two reasons, both
+of great weight: the one to correct the partiality of axioms and
+opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar
+examples; the other because from the wonders of Nature is the nearest
+intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art, for it is no more
+but by following and, as it were, hounding Nature in her wanderings, to
+be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.  Neither am I of
+opinion, in this history of marvels, that superstitious narrations of
+sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams, divinations, and the like, where there is
+an assurance and clear evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded.  For
+it is not yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to
+superstition do participate of natural causes; and, therefore, howsoever
+the practice of such things is to be condemned, yet from the speculation
+and consideration of them light may be taken, not only for the discerning
+of the offences, but for the further disclosing of Nature.  Neither ought
+a man to make scruple of entering into these things for inquisition of
+truth, as your Majesty hath showed in your own example, who, with the two
+clear eyes of religion and natural philosophy, have looked deeply and
+wisely into these shadows, and yet proved yourself to be of the nature of
+the sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as
+before.  But this I hold fit, that these narrations, which have mixture
+with superstition, be sorted by themselves, and not to be mingled with
+the narrations which are merely and sincerely natural.  But as for the
+narrations touching the prodigies and miracles of religions, they are
+either not true or not natural; and, therefore, impertinent for the story
+of Nature.
+
+(5) For history of Nature, wrought or mechanical, I find some collections
+made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts; but commonly with a
+rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar; for it is esteemed a kind
+of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation upon
+matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets,
+rarities, and special subtleties; which humour of vain and supercilious
+arrogancy is justly derided in Plato, where he brings in Hippias, a
+vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates, a true and unfeigned
+inquisitor of truth; where, the subject being touching beauty, Socrates,
+after his wandering manner of inductions, put first an example of a fair
+virgin, and then of a fair horse, and then of a fair pot well glazed,
+whereat Hippias was offended, and said, “More than for courtesy’s sake,
+he did think much to dispute with any that did allege such base and
+sordid instances.”  Whereunto Socrates answereth, “You have reason, and
+it becomes you well, being a man so trim in your vestments,” &c., and so
+goeth on in an irony.  But the truth is, they be not the highest
+instances that give the securest information, as may be well expressed in
+the tale so common of the philosopher that, while he gazed upwards to the
+stars, fell into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen
+the stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in
+the stars.  So it cometh often to pass that mean and small things
+discover great, better than great can discover the small; and therefore
+Aristotle noteth well, “That the nature of everything is best seen in his
+smallest portions.”  And for that cause he inquireth the nature of a
+commonwealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and
+wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage.
+Even so likewise the nature of this great city of the world, and the
+policy thereof, must be first sought in mean concordances and small
+portions.  So we see how that secret of Nature, of the turning of iron
+touched with the loadstone towards the north, was found out in needles of
+iron, not in bars of iron.
+
+(6) But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of history mechanical is
+of all others the most radical and fundamental towards natural
+philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of
+subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall be
+operative to the endowment and benefit of man’s life.  For it will not
+only minister and suggest for the present many ingenious practices in all
+trades, by a connection and transferring of the observations of one art
+to the use of another, when the experiences of several mysteries shall
+fall under the consideration of one man’s mind; but further, it will give
+a more true and real illumination concerning causes and axioms than is
+hitherto attained.  For like as a man’s disposition is never well known
+till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was
+straitened and held fast; so the passages and variations of nature cannot
+appear so fully in the liberty of nature as in the trials and vexations
+of art.
+
+II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be
+compared with the three kinds of pictures or images.  For of pictures or
+images we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are
+defaced.  So of histories we may find three kinds: memorials, perfect
+histories, and antiquities; for memorials are history unfinished, or the
+first or rough drafts of history; and antiquities are history defaced, or
+some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of
+time.
+
+(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts; whereof the one
+may be termed commentaries, and the other registers.  Commentaries are
+they which set down a continuance of the naked events and actions,
+without the motives or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts,
+the occasions, and other passages of action.  For this is the true nature
+of a commentary (though Cæsar, in modesty mixed with greatness, did for
+his pleasure apply the name of a commentary to the best history of the
+world).  Registers are collections of public acts, as decrees of council,
+judicial proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and
+the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread of
+the narration.
+
+(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, _tanquam
+tabula naufragii_: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous
+diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs,
+traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages
+of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover
+somewhat from the deluge of time.
+
+(4) In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign no deficience, for
+they are _tanquam imperfecte mista_; and therefore any deficience in them
+is but their nature.  As for the corruptions and moths of history, which
+are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of
+sound judgment have confessed, as those that have fretted and corroded
+the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base
+and unprofitable dregs.
+
+(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three
+kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or pretendeth to
+represent: for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action.
+The first we call chronicles, the second lives, and the third narrations
+or relations.  Of these, although the first be the most complete and
+absolute kind of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the
+second excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and
+sincerity.  For history of times representeth the magnitude of actions,
+and the public faces and deportments of persons, and passeth over in
+silence the smaller passages and motions of men and matters.  But such
+being the workmanship of God, as He doth hang the greatest weight upon
+the smallest wires, _maxima è minimis_, _suspendens_, it comes therefore
+to pass, that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of business
+than the true and inward resorts thereof.  But lives, if they be well
+written, propounding to themselves a person to represent, in whom
+actions, both greater and smaller, public and private, have a commixture,
+must of necessity contain a more true, native, and lively representation.
+So again narrations and relations of actions, as the war of Peloponnesus,
+the expedition of Cyrus Minor, the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be
+more purely and exactly true than histories of times, because they may
+choose an argument comprehensible within the notice and instructions of
+the writer: whereas he that undertaketh the story of a time, specially of
+any length, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must be
+forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.
+
+(6) For the history of times, I mean of civil history, the providence of
+God hath made the distribution.  For it hath pleased God to ordain and
+illustrate two exemplar states of the world for arms, learning, moral
+virtue, policy, and laws; the state of Græcia and the state of Rome; the
+histories whereof occupying the middle part of time, have more ancient to
+them histories which may by one common name be termed the antiquities of
+the world; and after them, histories which may be likewise called by the
+name of modern history.
+
+(7) Now to speak of the deficiences.  As to the heathen antiquities of
+the world it is in vain to note them for deficient.  Deficient they are
+no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments; but the deficience
+cannot be holpen; for antiquity is like fame, _caput inter nubila
+condit_, her head is muffled from our sight.  For the history of the
+exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection.  Not but I could wish
+there were a perfect course of history for Græcia, from Theseus to
+Philopœmen (what time the affairs of Græcia drowned and extinguished in
+the affairs of Rome), and for Rome from Romulus to Justinianus, who may
+be truly said to be _ultimus Romanorum_.  In which sequences of story the
+text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the one, and the texts of Livius,
+Polybius, Sallustius, Cæsar, Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other,
+to be kept entire, without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied
+and continued.  But this is a matter of magnificence, rather to be
+commended than required; and we speak now of parts of learning
+supplemental, and not of supererogation.
+
+(8) But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very worthy, but
+the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of foreign stories
+to foreign states, because I will not be _curiosus in aliena republica_,
+I cannot fail to represent to your Majesty the unworthiness of the
+history of England in the main continuance thereof, and the partiality
+and obliquity of that of Scotland in the latest and largest author that I
+have seen: supposing that it would be honour for your Majesty, and a work
+very memorable, if this island of Great Britain, as it is now joined in
+monarchy for the ages to come, so were joined in one history for the
+times passed, after the manner of the sacred history, which draweth down
+the story of the ten tribes and of the two tribes as twins together.  And
+if it shall seem that the greatness of this work may make it less exactly
+performed, there is an excellent period of a much smaller compass of
+time, as to the story of England; that is to say, from the uniting of the
+Roses to the uniting of the kingdoms; a portion of time wherein, to my
+understanding, there hath been the rarest varieties that in like number
+of successions of any hereditary monarchy hath been known.  For it
+beginneth with the mixed adoption of a crown by arms and title; an entry
+by battle, an establishment by marriage; and therefore times answerable,
+like waters after a tempest, full of working and swelling, though without
+extremity of storm; but well passed through by the wisdom of the pilot,
+being one of the most sufficient kings of all the number.  Then followeth
+the reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much
+intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining them
+variably; in whose time also began that great alteration in the state
+ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage.  Then the
+reign of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it was but as
+_febris ephemera_).  Then the reign of a queen matched with a foreigner;
+then of a queen that lived solitary and unmarried, and yet her government
+so masculine, as it had greater impression and operation upon the states
+abroad than it any ways received from thence.  And now last, this most
+happy and glorious event, that this island of Britain, divided from all
+the world, should be united in itself, and that oracle of rest given to
+ÆNeas, _antiquam exquirite matrem_, should now be performed and fulfilled
+upon the nations of England and Scotland, being now reunited in the
+ancient mother name of Britain, as a full period of all instability and
+peregrinations.  So that as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that
+they have certain trepidations and waverings before they fix and settle,
+so it seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it was
+to settle in your majesty and your generations (in which I hope it is now
+established for ever), it had these prelusive changes and varieties.
+
+(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so little esteemed
+the virtues of the times, as that the writings of lives should be no more
+frequent.  For although there be not many sovereign princes or absolute
+commanders, and that states are most collected into monarchies, yet are
+there many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed report or
+barren eulogies.  For herein the invention of one of the late poets is
+proper, and doth well enrich the ancient fiction.  For he feigneth that
+at the end of the thread or web of every man’s life there was a little
+medal containing the person’s name, and that Time waited upon the shears,
+and as soon as the thread was cut caught the medals, and carried them to
+the river of Lathe; and about the bank there were many birds flying up
+and down, that would get the medals and carry them in their beak a little
+while, and then let them fall into the river.  Only there were a few
+swans, which if they got a name would carry it to a temple where it was
+consecrate.  And although many men, more mortal in their affections than
+in their bodies, do esteem desire of name and memory but as a vanity and
+ventosity,
+
+    “Animi nil magnæ laudis egentes;”
+
+which opinion cometh from that root, _Non prius laudes contempsimus_,
+_quam laudanda facere desivimus_: yet that will not alter Solomon’s
+judgment, _Memoria justi cum laudibus_, _at impiorum nomen putrescet_:
+the one flourisheth, the other either consumeth to present oblivion, or
+turneth to an ill odour.  And therefore in that style or addition, which
+is and hath been long well received and brought in use, _felicis
+memoriæ_, _piæ memoriæ_, _bonæ memoriæ_, we do acknowledge that which
+Cicero saith, borrowing it from Demosthenes, that _bona fama propria
+possessio defunctorum_; which possession I cannot but note that in our
+times it lieth much waste, and that therein there is a deficience.
+
+(10) For narrations and relations of particular actions, there were also
+to be wished a greater diligence therein; for there is no great action
+but hath some good pen which attends it.  And because it is an ability
+not common to write a good history, as may well appear by the small
+number of them; yet if particularity of actions memorable were but
+tolerably reported as they pass, the compiling of a complete history of
+times might be the better expected, when a writer should arise that were
+fit for it: for the collection of such relations might be as a nursery
+garden, whereby to plant a fair and stately garden when time should
+serve.
+
+(11) There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius Tacitus
+maketh, which is not to be forgotten, specially with that application
+which he accoupleth it withal, annals and journals: appropriating to the
+former matters of estate, and to the latter acts and accidents of a
+meaner nature.  For giving but a touch of certain magnificent buildings,
+he addeth, _Cum ex dignitate populi Romani repertum sit_, _res illustres
+annalibus_, _talia diurnis urbis actis mandare_.  So as there is a kind
+of contemplative heraldry, as well as civil.  And as nothing doth
+derogate from the dignity of a state more than confusion of degrees, so
+it doth not a little imbase the authority of a history to intermingle
+matters of triumph, or matters of ceremony, or matters of novelty, with
+matters of state.  But the use of a journal hath not only been in the
+history of time, but likewise in the history of persons, and chiefly of
+actions; for princes in ancient time had, upon point of honour and policy
+both, journals kept, what passed day by day.  For we see the chronicle
+which was read before Ahasuerus, when he could not take rest, contained
+matter of affairs, indeed, but such as had passed in his own time and
+very lately before.  But the journal of Alexander’s house expressed every
+small particularity, even concerning his person and court; and it is yet
+a use well received in enterprises memorable, as expeditions of war,
+navigations, and the like, to keep diaries of that which passeth
+continually.
+
+(12) I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing which some grave
+and wise men have used, containing a scattered history of those actions
+which they have thought worthy of memory, with politic discourse and
+observation thereupon: not incorporate into the history, but separately,
+and as the more principal in their intention; which kind of ruminated
+history I think more fit to place amongst books of policy, whereof we
+shall hereafter speak, than amongst books of history.  For it is the true
+office of history to represent the events themselves together with the
+counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the
+liberty and faculty of every man’s judgment.  But mixtures are things
+irregular, whereof no man can define.
+
+(13) So also is there another kind of history manifoldly mixed, and that
+is history of cosmography: being compounded of natural history, in
+respect of the regions themselves; of history civil, in respect of the
+habitations, regiments, and manners of the people; and the mathematics,
+in respect of the climates and configurations towards the heavens: which
+part of learning of all others in this latter time hath obtained most
+proficience.  For it may be truly affirmed to the honour of these times,
+and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of
+the world had never through-lights made in it, till the age of us and our
+fathers.  For although they had knowledge of the antipodes,
+
+    “Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,
+    Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper,”
+
+yet that might be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by travel, it
+requireth the voyage but of half the globe.  But to circle the earth, as
+the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor enterprised till these later
+times: and therefore these times may justly bear in their word, not only
+_plus ultra_, in precedence of the ancient _non ultra_, and _imitabile
+fulmen_, in precedence of the ancient _non imitabile fulmen_,
+
+    “Demens qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen,” &c.
+
+but likewise _imitabile cælum_; in respect of the many memorable voyages
+after the manner of heaven about the globe of the earth.
+
+(14) And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also an
+expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of all sciences;
+because it may seem they are ordained by God to be coevals, that is, to
+meet in one age.  For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times
+foretelleth, _Plurimi pertransibunt_, _et multiplex erit scientia_: as if
+the openness and through-passage of the world and the increase of
+knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages; as we see it is already
+performed in great part: the learning of these later times not much
+giving place to the former two periods or returns of learning, the one of
+the Grecians, the other of the Romans.
+
+III. (1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions with history
+civil: but further in the propriety thereof may be divided into the
+history of the Church, by a general name; history of prophecy; and
+history of providence.  The first describeth the times of the militant
+Church, whether it be fluctuant, as the ark of Noah, or movable, as the
+ark in the wilderness, or at rest, as the ark in the Temple: that is, the
+state of the Church in persecution, in remove, and in peace.  This part I
+ought in no sort to note as deficient; only I would that the virtue and
+sincerity of it were according to the mass and quantity.  But I am not
+now in hand with censures, but with omissions.
+
+(2) The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of two
+relatives—the prophecy and the accomplishment; and, therefore, the nature
+of such a work ought to be, that every prophecy of the Scripture be
+sorted with the event fulfilling the same throughout the ages of the
+world, both for the better confirmation of faith and for the better
+illumination of the Church touching those parts of prophecies which are
+yet unfulfilled: allowing, nevertheless, that latitude which is agreeable
+and familiar unto divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author,
+with whom a thousand years are but as one day, and therefore are not
+fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant
+accomplishment throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of them
+may refer to some one age.  This is a work which I find deficient, but is
+to be done with wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.
+
+(3) The third, which is history of Providence, containeth that excellent
+correspondence which is between God’s revealed will and His secret will;
+which though it be so obscure, as for the most part it is not legible to
+the natural man—no, nor many times to those that behold it from the
+tabernacle—yet, at some times it pleaseth God, for our better
+establishment and the confuting of those which are as without God in the
+world, to write it in such text and capital letters, that, as the prophet
+saith, “He that runneth by may read it”—that is, mere sensual persons,
+which hasten by God’s judgments, and never bend or fix their cogitations
+upon them, are nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern
+it.  Such are the notable events and examples of God’s judgments,
+chastisements, deliverances, and blessings; and this is a work which has
+passed through the labour of many, and therefore I cannot present as
+omitted.
+
+(4) There are also other parts of learning which are appendices to
+history.  For all the exterior proceedings of man consist of words and
+deeds, whereof history doth properly receive and retain in memory the
+deeds; and if words, yet but as inducements and passages to deeds; so are
+there other books and writings which are appropriate to the custody and
+receipt of words only, which likewise are of three sorts—orations,
+letters, and brief speeches or sayings.  Orations are pleadings, speeches
+of counsel, laudatives, invectives, apologies, reprehensions, orations of
+formality or ceremony, and the like.  Letters are according to all the
+variety of occasions, advertisements, advises, directions, propositions,
+petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of compliment, of
+pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of action.  And such as
+are written from wise men, are of all the words of man, in my judgment,
+the best; for they are more natural than orations and public speeches,
+and more advised than conferences or present speeches.  So again letters
+of affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them, are of all
+others the best instructions for history, and to a diligent reader the
+best histories in themselves.  For apophthegms, it is a great loss of
+that book of Cæsar’s; for as his history, and those few letters of his
+which we have, and those apophthegms which were of his own, excel all
+men’s else, so I suppose would his collection of apophthegms have done;
+for as for those which are collected by others, either I have no taste in
+such matters or else their choice hath not been happy.  But upon these
+three kinds of writings I do not insist, because I have no deficiences to
+propound concerning them.
+
+(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that part of
+learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or offices of
+the mind of man, which is that of the memory.
+
+IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for the most
+part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth
+truly refer to the imagination; which, being not tied to the laws of
+matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever
+that which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces
+of things—_Pictoribus atque poetis_, &c.  It is taken in two senses in
+respect of words or matter.  In the first sense, it is but a character of
+style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the
+present.  In the latter, it is—as hath been said—one of the principal
+portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may
+be styled as well in prose as in verse.
+
+(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of
+satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of
+things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul;
+by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample
+greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can
+be found in the nature of things.  Therefore, because the acts or events
+of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man,
+poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.  Because true
+history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable
+to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just
+in retribution, and more according to revealed Providence.  Because true
+history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less
+interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and more
+unexpected and alternative variations.  So as it appeareth that poesy
+serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality and to delectation.  And
+therefore, it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness,
+because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of
+things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the
+mind unto the nature of things.  And we see that by these insinuations
+and congruities with man’s nature and pleasure, joined also with the
+agreement and consort it hath with music, it hath had access and
+estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning
+stood excluded.
+
+(3) The division of poesy which is aptest in the propriety thereof
+(besides those divisions which are common unto it with history, as
+feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of history, as
+feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest) is into poesy
+narrative, representative, and allusive.  The narrative is a mere
+imitation of history, with the excesses before remembered, choosing for
+subjects commonly wars and love, rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or
+mirth.  Representative is as a visible history, and is an image of
+actions as if they were present, as history is of actions in nature as
+they are (that is) past.  Allusive, or parabolical, is a narration
+applied only to express some special purpose or conceit; which latter
+kind of parabolical wisdom was much more in use in the ancient times, as
+by the fables of Æsop, and the brief sentences of the seven, and the use
+of hieroglyphics may appear.  And the cause was (for that it was then of
+necessity to express any point of reason which was more sharp or subtle
+than the vulgar in that manner) because men in those times wanted both
+variety of examples and subtlety of conceit.  And as hieroglyphics were
+before letters, so parables were before arguments; and nevertheless now
+and at all times they do retain much life and rigour, because reason
+cannot be so sensible nor examples so fit.
+
+(4) But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical, opposite to
+that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to demonstrate and
+illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other to retire
+and obscure it—that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion,
+policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables or parables.  Of this in
+divine poesy we see the use is authorised.  In heathen poesy we see the
+exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity: as in
+the fable that the giants being overthrown in their war against the gods,
+the earth their mother in revenge thereof brought forth Fame:
+
+    “Illam terra parens, ira irritat Deorum,
+    Extremam, ut perhibent, Cœo Enceladoque soroem,
+    Progenuit.”
+
+Expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open
+rebels, then the malignity of people (which is the mother of rebellion)
+doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the states, which
+is of the same kind with rebellion but more feminine.  So in the fable
+that the rest of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called
+Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid: expounded that monarchies
+need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as
+long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be sure to
+come in on their side.  So in the fable that Achilles was brought up
+under Chiron, the centaur, who was part a man and part a beast, expounded
+ingeniously but corruptly by Machiavel, that it belongeth to the
+education and discipline of princes to know as well how to play the part
+of a lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and
+justice.  Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I do rather think
+that the fable was first, and the exposition devised, than that the moral
+was first, and thereupon the fable framed; for I find it was an ancient
+vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled himself with great contention to
+fasten the assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient
+poets; but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but
+pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion.  Surely of these poets
+which are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made a
+kind of scripture by the later schools of the Grecians), yet I should
+without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no such inwardness
+in his own meaning.  But what they might have upon a more original
+tradition is not easy to affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of
+them.
+
+(5) In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can report no
+deficience; for being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth,
+without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than any
+other kind.  But to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the expressing
+of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to
+poets more than to the philosophers’ works; and for wit and eloquence,
+not much less than to orators’ harangues.  But it is not good to stay too
+long in the theatre.  Let us now pass on to the judicial place or palace
+of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and
+attention.
+
+V. (1) The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above,
+and some springing from beneath: the one informed by the light of nature,
+the other inspired by divine revelation.  The light of nature consisteth
+in the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses; for as for
+knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not
+original, as in a water that besides his own spring-head is fed with
+other springs and streams.  So then, according to these two differing
+illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of all divided into
+divinity and philosophy.
+
+(2) In philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God,
+or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself.
+Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges—divine
+philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy or humanity.  For
+all things are marked and stamped with this triple character—the power of
+God, the difference of nature and the use of man.  But because the
+distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that
+meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of
+a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of
+entireness and continuance before it come to discontinue and break itself
+into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, before we enter into the
+former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, by
+the name of _philosophia prima_, primitive or summary philosophy, as the
+main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide
+themselves; which science whether I should report as deficient or no, I
+stand doubtful.  For I find a certain rhapsody of natural theology, and
+of divers parts of logic; and of that part of natural philosophy which
+concerneth the principles, and of that other part of natural philosophy
+which concerneth the soul or spirit—all these strangely commixed and
+confused; but being examined, it seemeth to me rather a depredation of
+other sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms, than
+anything solid or substantive of itself.  Nevertheless I cannot be
+ignorant of the distinction which is current, that the same things are
+handled but in several respects.  As for example, that logic considereth
+of many things as they are in notion, and this philosophy as they are in
+nature—the one in appearance, the other in existence; but I find this
+difference better made than pursued.  For if they had considered
+quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest of those extern characters
+of things, as philosophers, and in nature, their inquiries must of force
+have been of a far other kind than they are.  For doth any of them, in
+handling quantity, speak of the force of union, how and how far it
+multiplieth virtue?  Doth any give the reason why some things in nature
+are so common, and in so great mass, and others so rare, and in so small
+quantity?  Doth any, in handling similitude and diversity, assign the
+cause why iron should not move to iron, which is more like, but move to
+the loadstone, which is less like?  Why in all diversities of things
+there should be certain participles in nature which are almost ambiguous
+to which kind they should be referred?  But there is a mere and deep
+silence touching the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of
+things, as in nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and
+use of them in speech or argument.  Therefore, because in a writing of
+this nature I avoid all subtlety, my meaning touching this original or
+universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by
+negative: “That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations
+and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of
+philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage.”
+
+(3) Now that there are many of that kind need not be doubted.  For
+example: Is not the rule, _Si inœqualibus æqualia addas_, _omnia erunt
+inæqualia_, an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics? and is
+there not a true coincidence between commutative and distributive
+justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion?  Is not that other
+rule, _Quæ in eodem tertio conveniunt_, _et inter se conveniunt_, a rule
+taken from the mathematics, but so potent in logic as all syllogisms are
+built upon it?  Is not the observation, _Omnia mutantur_, _nil interit_,
+a contemplation in philosophy thus, that the _quantum_ of nature is
+eternal? in natural theology thus, that it requireth the same omnipotency
+to make somewhat nothing, which at the first made nothing somewhat?
+according to the Scripture, _Didici quod omnia opera_, _quœ fecit Deus_,
+_perseverent in perpetuum_; _non possumus eis quicquam addere nec
+auferre_.  Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely
+discourseth concerning governments, that the way to establish and
+preserve them is to reduce them _ad principia_—a rule in religion and
+nature, as well as in civil administration?  Was not the Persian magic a
+reduction or correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature
+to the rules and policy of governments?  Is not the precept of a
+musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet
+accord, alike true in affection?  Is not the trope of music, to avoid or
+slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric of
+deceiving expectation?  Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop
+in music the same with the playing of light upon the water?
+
+    “Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus.”
+
+Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of
+reflection, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or strait,
+determined and bounded?  Neither are these only similitudes, as men of
+narrow observation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of
+nature, treading or printing upon several subjects or matters.  This
+science therefore (as I understand it) I may justly report as deficient;
+for I see sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling some
+particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water out of this
+well for their present use; but the spring-head thereof seemeth to me not
+to have been visited, being of so excellent use both for the disclosing
+of nature and the abridgment of art.
+
+VI. (1) This science being therefore first placed as a common parent like
+unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue, _omnes cœlicolas_,
+_omnes supera alta tenetes_; we may return to the former distribution of
+the three philosophies—divine, natural, and human.  And as concerning
+divine philosophy or natural theology, it is that knowledge or rudiment
+of knowledge concerning God which may be obtained by the contemplation of
+His creatures; which knowledge may be truly termed divine in respect of
+the object, and natural in respect of the light.  The bounds of this
+knowledge are, that it sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform
+religion; and therefore there was never miracle wrought by God to convert
+an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a
+God; but miracles have been wrought to convert idolaters and the
+superstitious, because no light of nature extendeth to declare the will
+and true worship of God.  For as all works do show forth the power and
+skill of the workman, and not his image, so it is of the works of God,
+which do show the omnipotency and wisdom of the Maker, but not His image.
+And therefore therein the heathen opinion differeth from the sacred
+truth: for they supposed the world to be the image of God, and man to be
+an extract or compendious image of the world; but the Scriptures never
+vouchsafe to attribute to the world that honour, as to be the image of
+God, but only _the work of His hands_; neither do they speak of any other
+image of God but man.  Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to induce
+and enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to demonstrate His power,
+providence, and goodness, is an excellent argument, and hath been
+excellently handled by divers, but on the other side, out of the
+contemplation of nature, or ground of human knowledges, to induce any
+verity or persuasion concerning the points of faith, is in my judgment
+not safe; _Da fidei quæ fidei sunt_.  For the heathen themselves conclude
+as much in that excellent and divine fable of the golden chain, “That men
+and gods were not able to draw Jupiter down to the earth; but,
+contrariwise, Jupiter was able to draw them up to heaven.”  So as we
+ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God to our
+reason, but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason to the divine
+truth.  So as in this part of knowledge, touching divine philosophy, I am
+so far from noting any deficience, as I rather note an excess; whereunto
+I have digressed because of the extreme prejudice which both religion and
+philosophy hath received and may receive by being commixed together; as
+that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion, and an imaginary
+and fabulous philosophy.
+
+(2) Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, which is an
+appendix of theology, both divine and natural, and is neither inscrutable
+nor interdicted.  For although the Scripture saith, “Let no man deceive
+you in sublime discourse touching the worship of angels, pressing into
+that he knoweth not,” &c., yet notwithstanding if you observe well that
+precept, it may appear thereby that there be two things only
+forbidden—adoration of them, and opinion fantastical of them, either to
+extol them further than appertaineth to the degree of a creature, or to
+extol a man’s knowledge of them further than he hath ground.  But the
+sober and grounded inquiry, which may arise out of the passages of Holy
+Scriptures, or out of the gradations of nature, is not restrained.  So of
+degenerate and revolted spirits, the conversing with them or the
+employment of them is prohibited, much more any veneration towards them;
+but the contemplation or science of their nature, their power, their
+illusions, either by Scripture or reason, is a part of spiritual wisdom.
+For so the apostle saith, “We are not ignorant of his stratagems.”  And
+it is no more unlawful to inquire the nature of evil spirits, than to
+inquire the force of poisons in nature, or the nature of sin and vice in
+morality.  But this part touching angels and spirits I cannot note as
+deficient, for many have occupied themselves in it; I may rather
+challenge it, in many of the writers thereof, as fabulous and
+fantastical.
+
+VII. (1) Leaving therefore divine philosophy or natural theology (not
+divinity or inspired theology, which we reserve for the last of all as
+the haven and sabbath of all man’s contemplations) we will now proceed to
+natural philosophy.  If then it be true that Democritus said, “That the
+truth of nature lieth hid in certain deep mines and caves;” and if it be
+true likewise that the alchemists do so much inculcate, that Vulcan is a
+second nature, and imitateth that dexterously and compendiously, which
+nature worketh by ambages and length of time, it were good to divide
+natural philosophy into the mine and the furnace, and to make two
+professions or occupations of natural philosophers—some to be pioneers
+and some smiths; some to dig, and some to refine and hammer.  And surely
+I do best allow of a division of that kind, though in more familiar and
+scholastical terms: namely, that these be the two parts of natural
+philosophy—the inquisition of causes, and the production of effects;
+speculative and operative; natural science, and natural prudence.  For as
+in civil matters there is a wisdom of discourse, and a wisdom of
+direction; so is it in natural.  And here I will make a request, that for
+the latter (or at least for a part thereof) I may revive and reintegrate
+the misapplied and abused name of natural magic, which in the true sense
+is but natural wisdom, or natural prudence; taken according to the
+ancient acception, purged from vanity and superstition.  Now although it
+be true, and I know it well, that there is an intercourse between causes
+and effects, so as both these knowledges, speculative and operative, have
+a great connection between themselves; yet because all true and fruitful
+natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and
+descendent, ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and
+descending from causes to the invention of new experiments; therefore I
+judge it most requisite that these two parts be severally considered and
+handled.
+
+(2) Natural science or theory is divided into physic and metaphysic;
+wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the word metaphysic in a
+differing sense from that that is received.  And in like manner, I doubt
+not but it will easily appear to men of judgment, that in this and other
+particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the
+ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms.  For hoping well to
+deliver myself from mistaking, by the order and perspicuous expressing of
+that I do propound, I am otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as
+little from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may stand with
+truth and the proficience of knowledge.  And herein I cannot a little
+marvel at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed in such a spirit of
+difference and contradiction towards all antiquity; undertaking not only
+to frame new words of science at pleasure, but to confound and extinguish
+all ancient wisdom; insomuch as he never nameth or mentioneth an ancient
+author or opinion, but to confute and reprove; wherein for glory, and
+drawing followers and disciples, he took the right course.  For certainly
+there cometh to pass, and hath place in human truth, that which was noted
+and pronounced in the highest truth:—_Veni in nomine partis_, _nec
+recipits me_; _si quis venerit in nomine suo eum recipietis_.  But in
+this divine aphorism (considering to whom it was applied, namely, to
+antichrist, the highest deceiver), we may discern well that the coming in
+a man’s own name, without regard of antiquity or paternity, is no good
+sign of truth, although it be joined with the fortune and success of an
+_eum recipietis_.  But for this excellent person Aristotle, I will think
+of him that he learned that humour of his scholar, with whom it seemeth
+he did emulate; the one to conquer all opinions, as the other to conquer
+all nations.  Wherein, nevertheless, it may be, he may at some men’s
+hands, that are of a bitter disposition, get a like title as his scholar
+did:—
+
+    “Felix terrarum prædo, non utile mundo
+    Editus exemplum, &c.”
+
+So,
+
+    “Felix doctrinæ prædo.”
+
+But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth in my pen
+to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and proficience, it
+seemeth best to keep way with antiquity _usque ad aras_; and, therefore,
+to retain the ancient terms, though I sometimes alter the uses and
+definitions, according to the moderate proceeding in civil government;
+where, although there be some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus
+wisely noteth, _eadem magistratuum vocabula_.
+
+(3) To return, therefore, to the use and acception of the term metaphysic
+as I do now understand the word; it appeareth, by that which hath been
+already said, that I intend _philosophia prima_, summary philosophy and
+metaphysic, which heretofore have been confounded as one, to be two
+distinct things.  For the one I have made as a parent or common ancestor
+to all knowledge; and the other I have now brought in as a branch or
+descendant of natural science.  It appeareth likewise that I have
+assigned to summary philosophy the common principles and axioms which are
+promiscuous and indifferent to several sciences; I have assigned unto it
+likewise the inquiry touching the operation or the relative and adventive
+characters of essences, as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility,
+and the rest, with this distinction and provision; that they be handled
+as they have efficacy in nature, and not logically.  It appeareth
+likewise that natural theology, which heretofore hath been handled
+confusedly with metaphysic, I have enclosed and bounded by itself.  It is
+therefore now a question what is left remaining for metaphysic; wherein I
+may without prejudice preserve thus much of the conceit of antiquity,
+that physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and
+therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed.
+And again, that physic should handle that which supposeth in nature only
+a being and moving; and metaphysic should handle that which supposeth
+further in nature a reason, understanding, and platform.  But the
+difference, perspicuously expressed, is most familiar and sensible.  For
+as we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes
+and productions of effects, so that part which concerneth the inquiry of
+causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of
+causes.  The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the
+material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic,
+handleth the formal and final causes.
+
+(4) Physic (taking it according to the derivation, and not according to
+our idiom for medicine) is situate in a middle term or distance between
+natural history and metaphysic.  For natural history describeth the
+variety of things; physic the causes, but variable or respective causes;
+and metaphysic the fixed and constant causes.
+
+    “Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera liquescit,
+    Uno eodemque igni.”
+
+Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire is the
+cause of colliquation, but respective to wax.  But fire is no constant
+cause either of induration or colliquation; so then the physical causes
+are but the efficient and the matter.  Physic hath three parts, whereof
+two respect nature united or collected, the third contemplateth nature
+diffused or distributed.  Nature is collected either into one entire
+total, or else into the same principles or seeds.  So as the first
+doctrine is touching the contexture or configuration of things, as _de
+mundo_, _de universitate rerum_.  The second is the doctrine concerning
+the principles or originals of things.  The third is the doctrine
+concerning all variety and particularity of things; whether it be of the
+differing substances, or their differing qualities and natures; whereof
+there needeth no enumeration, this part being but as a gloss or
+paraphrase that attendeth upon the text of natural history.  Of these
+three I cannot report any as deficient.  In what truth or perfection they
+are handled, I make not now any judgment; but they are parts of knowledge
+not deserted by the labour of man.
+
+(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of formal and
+final causes; which assignation, as to the former of them, may seem to be
+nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion, that
+the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential forms or
+true differences; of which opinion we will take this hold, that the
+invention of forms is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be
+sought, if it be possible to be found.  As for the possibility, they are
+ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing
+but sea.  But it is manifest that Plato, in his opinion of ideas, as one
+that had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did descry that
+forms were the true object of knowledge; but lost the real fruit of his
+opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter,
+and not confined and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion
+upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected.  But if
+any man shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action,
+operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice what
+are the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and important to the
+state of man.  For as to the forms of substances (man only except, of
+whom it is said, _Formavit hominem de limo terræ_, _et spiravit in faciem
+ejus spiraculum vitæ_, and not as of all other creatures, _Producant
+aquæ_, _producat terra_), the forms of substances I say (as they are now
+by compounding and transplanting multiplied) are so perplexed, as they
+are not to be inquired; no more than it were either possible or to
+purpose to seek in gross the forms of those sounds which make words,
+which by composition and transposition of letters are infinite.  But, on
+the other side, to inquire the form of those sounds or voices which make
+simple letters is easily comprehensible; and being known induceth and
+manifesteth the forms of all words, which consist and are compounded of
+them.  In the same manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of
+gold; nay, of water, of air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the forms
+of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity and
+levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other natures
+and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not many, and of which the
+essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures do consist; to inquire, I
+say, the true forms of these, is that part of metaphysic which we now
+define of.  Not but that physic doth make inquiry and take consideration
+of the same natures; but how?  Only as to the material and efficient
+causes of them, and not as to the forms.  For example, if the cause of
+whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it be rendered thus, that the
+subtle intermixture of air and water is the cause, it is well rendered;
+but, nevertheless, is this the form of whiteness?  No; but it is the
+efficient, which is ever but _vehiculum formæ_.  This part of metaphysic
+I do not find laboured and performed; whereat I marvel not; because I
+hold it not possible to be invented by that course of invention which
+hath been used; in regard that men (which is the root of all error) have
+made too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from particulars.
+
+(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as deficient,
+is of the rest the most excellent in two respects: the one, because it is
+the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge the infinity of
+individual experience, as much as the conception of truth will permit,
+and to remedy the complaint of _vita brevis_, _ars longa_; which is
+performed by uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences.  For
+knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis.  So of natural
+philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage next the basis is
+physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic.  As for the
+vertical point, _opus quod operatur Deus à principio usque ad finem_, the
+summary law of nature, we know not whether man’s inquiry can attain unto
+it.  But these three be the true stages of knowledge, and are to them
+that are depraved no better than the giants’ hills:—
+
+    “Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,
+    Scilicet atque Ossæ frondsum involvere Olympum.”
+
+But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as the
+three acclamations, _Sante_, _sancte_, _sancte_! holy in the description
+or dilatation of His works; holy in the connection or concatenation of
+them; and holy in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law.  And,
+therefore, the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato,
+although but a speculation in them, that all things by scale did ascend
+to unity.  So then always that knowledge is worthiest which is charged
+with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be metaphysic; as that which
+considereth the simple forms or differences of things, which are few in
+number, and the degrees and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety.
+The second respect, which valueth and commendeth this part of metaphysic,
+is that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the greatest liberty
+and possibility of works and effects.  For physic carrieth men in narrow
+and restrained ways, subject to many accidents and impediments, imitating
+the ordinary flexuous courses of nature.  But _latæ undique sunt
+sapientibus viæ_; to sapience (which was anciently defined to be _rerum
+divinarum et humanarum scientia_) there is ever a choice of means.  For
+physical causes give light to new invention in _simili materia_.  But
+whosoever knoweth any form, knoweth the utmost possibility of
+superinducing that nature upon any variety of matter; and so is less
+restrained in operation, either to the basis of the matter, or the
+condition of the efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise,
+though in a more divine sense, elegantly describeth: _non arctabuntur
+gressus tui_, _et currens non habebis offendiculum_.  The ways of
+sapience are not much liable either to particularity or chance.
+
+(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes, which I
+am moved to report not as omitted, but as misplaced.  And yet if it were
+but a fault in order, I would not speak of it; for order is matter of
+illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance of sciences.  But this
+misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience in
+the sciences themselves.  For the handling of final causes, mixed with
+the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent
+inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to
+stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and
+prejudice of further discovery.  For this I find done not only by Plato,
+who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others
+which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes.
+For to say that “the hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence
+about the sight;” or that “the firmness of the skins and hides of living
+creatures is to defend them from the extremities of heat or cold;” or
+that “the bones are for the columns or beams, whereupon the frames of the
+bodies of living creatures are built;” or that “the leaves of trees are
+for protecting of the fruit;” or that “the clouds are for watering of the
+earth;” or that “the solidness of the earth is for the station and
+mansion of living creatures;” and the like, is well inquired and
+collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent.  Nay, they
+are, indeed, but _remoras_ and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from
+further sailing; and have brought this to pass, that the search of the
+physical causes hath been neglected and passed in silence.  And,
+therefore, the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who did
+not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the
+form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of
+Nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by
+the recital and fragments which remain unto us) in particularities of
+physical causes more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and
+Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of
+theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite
+studies respectively of both those persons; not because those final
+causes are not true and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their
+own province, but because their excursions into the limits of physical
+causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that tract.  For otherwise,
+keeping their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if they
+think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between them.  For the
+cause rendered, that “the hairs about the eyelids are for the safeguard
+of the sight,” doth not impugn the cause rendered, that “pilosity is
+incident to orifices of moisture—_muscosi fontes_, &c.”  Nor the cause
+rendered, that “the firmness of hides is for the armour of the body
+against extremities of heat or cold,” doth not impugn the cause rendered,
+that “contraction of pores is incident to the outwardest parts, in regard
+of their adjacence to foreign or unlike bodies;” and so of the rest, both
+causes being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the
+other a consequence only.  Neither doth this call in question or derogate
+from Divine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it.  For as in civil
+actions he is the greater and deeper politique that can make other men
+the instruments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint them with
+his purpose, so as they shall do it and yet not know what they do, than
+he that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of
+God more admirable, when Nature intendeth one thing and Providence
+draweth forth another, than if He had communicated to particular
+creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His Providence.
+And thus much for metaphysic; the latter part whereof I allow as extant,
+but wish it confined to his proper place.
+
+VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of natural
+philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth rank
+with physic special and metaphysic, which is mathematic; but I think it
+more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order, to
+place it as a branch of metaphysic.  For the subject of it being
+quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth
+to _philosophia prima_ (as hath been said), but quantity determined or
+proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the essential forms of things,
+as that that is causative in Nature of a number of effects; insomuch as
+we see in the schools both of Democritus and of Pythagoras that the one
+did ascribe figure to the first seeds of things, and the other did
+suppose numbers to be the principles and originals of things.  And it is
+true also that of all other forms (as we understand forms) it is the most
+abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore most proper to
+metaphysic; which hath likewise been the cause why it hath been better
+laboured and inquired than any of the other forms, which are more
+immersed in matter.  For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the
+extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of
+generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of
+particularity, the mathematics of all other knowledge were the goodliest
+fields to satisfy that appetite.  But for the placing of this science, it
+is not much material: only we have endeavoured in these our partitions to
+observe a kind of perspective, that one part may cast light upon another.
+
+(2) The mathematics are either pure or mixed.  To the pure mathematics
+are those sciences belonging which handle quantity determinate, merely
+severed from any axioms of natural philosophy; and these are two,
+geometry and arithmetic, the one handling quantity continued, and the
+other dissevered.  Mixed hath for subject some axioms or parts of natural
+philosophy, and considereth quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and
+incident unto them.  For many parts of Nature can neither be invented
+with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity,
+nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and
+intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music,
+astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.  In
+the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men do not
+sufficiently understand this excellent use of the pure mathematics, in
+that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties
+intellectual.  For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too
+wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it.
+So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in
+respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all
+postures, so in the mathematics that use which is collateral and
+intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended.
+And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that
+there cannot fail to be more kinds of them as Nature grows further
+disclosed.  Thus much of natural science, or the part of Nature
+speculative.
+
+(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural philosophy, we
+will divide it into three parts—experimental, philosophical, and magical;
+which three parts active have a correspondence and analogy with the three
+parts speculative, natural history, physic, and metaphysic.  For many
+operations have been invented, sometimes by a casual incidence and
+occurrence, sometimes by a purposed experiment; and of those which have
+been found by an intentional experiment, some have been found out by
+varying or extending the same experiment, some by transferring and
+compounding divers experiments the one into the other, which kind of
+invention an empiric may manage.  Again, by the knowledge of physical
+causes there cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of
+new particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon use
+and practice.  But these are but coastings along the shore, _premendo
+littus iniquum_; for it seemeth to me there can hardly be discovered any
+radical or fundamental alterations and innovations in Nature, either by
+the fortune and essays of experiments, or by the light and direction of
+physical causes.  If, therefore, we have reported metaphysic deficient,
+it must follow that we do the like of natural magic, which hath relation
+thereunto.  For as for the natural magic whereof now there is mention in
+books, containing certain credulous and superstitious conceits and
+observations of sympathies and antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and
+some frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement than in
+themselves, it is as far differing in truth of Nature from such a
+knowledge as we require as the story of King Arthur of Britain, or Hugh
+of Bourdeaux, differs from Cæsar’s Commentaries in truth of story; for it
+is manifest that Cæsar did greater things _de vero_ than those imaginary
+heroes were feigned to do.  But he did them not in that fabulous manner.
+Of this kind of learning the fable of Ixion was a figure, who designed to
+enjoy Juno, the goddess of power, and instead of her had copulation with
+a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and chimeras.  So
+whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a
+laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and beliefs of
+strange and impossible shapes.  And, therefore, we may note in these
+sciences which hold so much of imagination and belief, as this degenerate
+natural magic, alchemy, astrology, and the like, that in their
+propositions the description of the means is ever more monstrous than the
+pretence or end.  For it is a thing more probable that he that knoweth
+well the natures of weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect
+of the hammer, of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the
+rest, may superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such
+mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures afore rehearsed,
+than that some grains of the medicine projected should in a few moments
+of time turn a sea of quicksilver or other material into gold.  So it is
+more probable that he that knoweth the nature of arefaction, the nature
+of assimilation of nourishment to the thing nourished, the manner of
+increase and clearing of spirits, the manner of the depredations which
+spirits make upon the humours and solid parts, shall by ambages of diets,
+bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, and the like, prolong life, or
+restore some degree of youth or vivacity, than that it can be done with
+the use of a few drops or scruples of a liquor or receipt.  To conclude,
+therefore, the true natural magic, which is that great liberty and
+latitude of operation which dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I may
+report deficient, as the relative thereof is.  To which part, if we be
+serious and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the
+deriving and deducing the operations themselves from metaphysic, there
+are pertinent two points of much purpose, the one by way of preparation,
+the other by way of caution.  The first is, that there be made a
+calendar, resembling an inventory of the estate of man, containing all
+the inventions (being the works or fruits of Nature or art) which are now
+extant, and whereof man is already possessed; out of which doth naturally
+result a note what things are yet held impossible, or not invented, which
+calendar will be the more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed
+impossibility you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in
+degree to that impossibility; to the end that by these optatives and
+potentials man’s inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction of
+works from the speculation of causes.  And secondly, that these
+experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use,
+but those principally which are of most universal consequence for
+invention of other experiments, and those which give most light to the
+invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner’s needle, which
+giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the
+invention of the sails which give the motion.
+
+(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the deficiences
+thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient and received
+doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for my part, as I affect
+not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend.  If it be truth,
+
+    “Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvæ,”
+
+the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.  And
+as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for
+Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their
+lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of
+truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are
+capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity
+and contention.
+
+(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according to the
+report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or subject: and
+that is positive and considerative, when the inquiry reporteth either an
+assertion or a doubt.  These doubts or _non liquets_ are of two sorts,
+particular and total.  For the first, we see a good example thereof in
+Aristotle’s Problems which deserved to have had a better continuance; but
+so nevertheless as there is one point whereof warning is to be given and
+taken.  The registering of doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that
+it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not
+fully appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw
+error, but reserved in doubt; the other, that the entry of doubts are as
+so many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that
+which if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised, but
+passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts
+is made to be attended and applied.  But both these commodities do
+scarcely countervail and inconvenience, which will intrude itself if it
+be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labour
+rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it, and
+accordingly bend their wits.  Of this we see the familiar example in
+lawyers and scholars, both which, if they have once admitted a doubt, it
+goeth ever after authorised for a doubt.  But that use of wit and
+knowledge is to be allowed, which laboureth to make doubtful things
+certain, and not those which labour to make certain things doubtful.
+Therefore these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent things; so
+that there he this caution used, that when they be thoroughly sifted and
+brought to resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted, discarded, and
+not continued to cherish and encourage men in doubting.  To which
+calendar of doubts or problems I advise be annexed another calendar, as
+much or more material which is a calendar of popular errors: I mean
+chiefly in natural history, such as pass in speech and conceit, and are
+nevertheless apparently detected and convicted of untruth, that man’s
+knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and vanity.  As for
+the doubts or _non liquets_ general or in total, I understand those
+differences of opinions touching the principles of nature, and the
+fundamental points of the same, which have caused the diversity of sects,
+schools, and philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus,
+Parmenides, and the rest.  For although Aristotle, as though he had been
+of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first
+thing he did he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth and
+not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to see
+before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature.  Not
+for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for as the
+same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received astronomy of
+the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the planets, with their
+eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the theory of Copernicus, who
+supposed the earth to move, and the calculations are indifferently
+agreeable to both, so the ordinary face and view of experience is many
+times satisfied by several theories and philosophies; whereas to find the
+real truth requireth another manner of severity and attention.  For as
+Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call every woman mother,
+but afterward they come to distinguish according to truth, so experience,
+if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy mother, but when it
+cometh to ripeness it will discern the true mother.  So as in the
+meantime it is good to see the several glosses and opinions upon Nature,
+whereof it may be everyone in some one point hath seen clearer than his
+fellows, therefore I wish some collection to be made painfully and
+understandingly _de antiquis philosophiis_, out of all the possible light
+which remaineth to us of them: which kind of work I find deficient.  But
+here I must give warning, that it be done distinctly and severedly; the
+philosophies of everyone throughout by themselves, and not by titles
+packed and faggoted up together, as hath been done by Plutarch.  For it
+is the harmony of a philosophy in itself, which giveth it light and
+credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more foreign
+and dissonant.  For as when I read in Tacitus the actions of Nero or
+Claudius, with circumstances of times, inducements, and occasions, I find
+them not so strange; but when I read them in Suetonius Tranquillus,
+gathered into titles and bundles and not in order of time, they seem more
+monstrous and incredible: so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and
+dismembered by articles.  Neither do I exclude opinions of latter times
+to be likewise represented in this calendar of sects of philosophy, as
+that of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into an harmony by
+the pen of Severinus the Dane; and that of Tilesius, and his scholar
+Donius, being as a pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but of no great
+depth; and that of Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not to make any
+new philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own sense upon the
+old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who revived, with some
+alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes; and any other
+worthy to be admitted.
+
+(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man’s
+knowledge; that is _radius directus_, which is referred to nature,
+_radius refractus_, which is referred to God, and cannot report truly
+because of the inequality of the medium.  There resteth _radius
+reflexus_, whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.
+
+IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient
+oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth
+the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly.  This
+knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the
+intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural
+philosophy in the continent of Nature.  And generally let this be a rule,
+that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins
+than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and
+entireness of knowledge be preserved.  For the contrary hereof hath made
+particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they
+have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain.  So we
+see Cicero, the orator, complained of Socrates and his school, that he
+was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric
+became an empty and verbal art.  So we may see that the opinion of
+Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself
+cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the _phenomena_,
+yet natural philosophy may correct.  So we see also that the science of
+medicine if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is
+not much better than an empirical practice.  With this reservation,
+therefore, we proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two
+parts: the one considereth man segregate or distributively, the other
+congregate or in society; so as human philosophy is either simple and
+particular, or conjugate and civil.  Humanity particular consisteth of
+the same parts whereof man consisteth: that is, of knowledges which
+respect the body, and of knowledges that respect the mind.  But before we
+distribute so far, it is good to constitute.  For I do take the
+consideration in general, and at large, of human nature to be fit to be
+emancipate and made a knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those
+delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of
+man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his
+common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge
+concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body,
+which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either.
+
+(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and amities
+consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of mind
+and body hath these two parts: how the one discloseth the other, and how
+the one worketh upon the other; discovery and impression.  The former of
+these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof
+the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of
+Hippocrates.  And although they have of later time been used to be
+coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged and
+restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in
+Nature, and a profitable use in life.  The first is physiognomy, which
+discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body.
+The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the
+state of the body by the imaginations of the mind.  In the former of
+these I note a deficience.  For Aristotle hath very ingeniously and
+diligently handled the factures of the body, but not the gestures of the
+body, which are no less comprehensible by art, and of greater use and
+advantage.  For the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition
+and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions of the
+countenance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose the present
+humour and state of the mind and will.  For as your majesty saith most
+aptly and elegantly, “As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the gesture
+speaketh to the eye.”  And, therefore, a number of subtle persons, whose
+eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions of men, do well know the
+advantage of this observation, as being most part of their ability;
+neither can it be denied, but that it is a great discovery of
+dissimulations, and a great direction in business.
+
+(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected into
+art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or
+_antistrophe_ that the former hath.  For the consideration is
+double—either how and how far the humours and affects of the body do
+alter or work upon the mind, or, again, how and how far the passions or
+apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body.  The former of
+these hath been inquired and considered as a part and appendix of
+medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition.  For the
+physician prescribeth cures of the mind in frenzies and melancholy
+passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the
+mind, to control the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the
+memory, and the like; but the scruples and superstitions of diet and
+other regiment of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy
+of the Manichees, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed.  So likewise the
+ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood
+and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat,
+are many and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from
+all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences,
+and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and
+not figurative.  The root and life of all which prescripts is (besides
+the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which the affections
+of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition of the
+body.  And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of
+the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate
+from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught, in easy instances,
+that the infant in the mother’s womb is compatible with the mother, and
+yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his
+servants, and yet without subjection.  As for the reciprocal knowledge,
+which is the operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the
+body, we see all wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments
+to their patients, do ever consider _accidentia animi_, as of great force
+to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more specially it is an
+inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far
+it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for although it hath a
+manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power
+to help.  No more than a man can conclude, that because there be
+pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there
+should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness.  But
+the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as
+Socrates said, “a Delian diver,” being difficult and profound.  But unto
+all this knowledge _de communi vinculo_, of the concordances between the
+mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary which
+considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the
+mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath
+been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
+inquired.  For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the
+brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater
+mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the
+liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less to be allowed.  So,
+then, we have constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry
+touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be
+handled apart.
+
+X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man’s body is divided as the good of
+man’s body is divided, unto which it referreth.  The good of man’s body
+is of four kinds—health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the
+knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which is
+called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic; and art
+voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth _eruditus luxus_.  This subject
+of man’s body is, of all other things in nature, most susceptible of
+remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error; for the same
+subtlety of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing,
+and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.
+
+(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said,
+ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was
+_microcosmus_—an abstract or model of the world—hath been fantastically
+strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found
+in man’s body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have
+respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which
+are extant in the great world.  But thus much is evidently true, that of
+all substances which nature hath produced, man’s body is the most
+extremely compounded.  For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth
+and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh
+of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
+alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies before
+they come to be his food and aliment.  Add hereunto that beasts have a
+more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon
+their bodies, whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath
+infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of
+all other things is of the most compounded mass.  The soul, on the other
+side, is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:
+
+          “Purumque reliquit
+    Æthereum sensum atque auraï simplicis ignem.”
+
+So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that
+principle be true, that _Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum_, _placidus
+in loco_.  But to the purpose.  This variable composition of man’s body
+hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and, therefore, the
+poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the
+office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body and to
+reduce it to harmony.  So, then, the subject being so variable hath made
+the art by consequent more conjectural; and the art being conjectural
+hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture.  For almost
+all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may
+term them, and not by the successes and events.  The lawyer is judged by
+the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; this
+master in this ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not
+by the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps this
+politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is
+judged most by the event, which is ever but as it is taken: for who can
+tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined,
+whether it be art or accident?  And therefore many times the impostor is
+prized, and the man of virtue taxed.  Nay, we see [the] weakness and
+credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a mountebank or witch
+before a learned physician.  And therefore the poets were clear-sighted
+in discerning this extreme folly when they made Æsculapius and Circe,
+brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses—
+
+    “Ipse repertorem medicinæ talis et artis
+    Fulmine Phœbigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.”
+
+And again—
+
+    “Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos,” &c.
+
+For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women
+and impostors, have had a competition with physicians.  And what
+followeth?  Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon
+expresseth it upon a higher occasion, “If it befall to me as befalleth to
+the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?”  And therefore I cannot
+much blame physicians that they use commonly to intend some other art or
+practice, which they fancy more than their profession; for you shall have
+of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and
+in every of these better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon
+this ground that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art
+maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune: for
+the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope,
+maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects.  But,
+nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of are courses begotten
+between a little occasion and a great deal of sloth and default; for if
+we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see in familiar
+instances what a predominant faculty the subtlety of spirit hath over the
+variety of matter or form.  Nothing more variable than faces and
+countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of
+them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of
+his eye, and habit of his imagination, can imitate them all that ever
+have been, are, or may be, if they were brought before him.  Nothing more
+variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them personally: nay,
+you shall have a _buffon_ or _pantomimus_ will express as many as he
+pleaseth.  Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words; yet
+men have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters.  So that
+it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man’s mind, but it is the
+remote standing or placing thereof that breedeth these mazes and
+incomprehensions; for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is
+exact at hand, so is it of the understanding, the remedy whereof is, not
+to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and
+therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and use the
+true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the
+poet saith:
+
+    “Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;
+    Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.”
+
+Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve: well
+shadowed by the poets, in that they made Æsculapius to be the son of
+[the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the
+second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of our
+Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as the soul
+was the object of His doctrine.  For we read not that ever He vouchsafed
+to do any miracle about honour or money (except that one for giving
+tribute to Cæsar), but only about the preserving, sustaining, and healing
+the body of man.
+
+(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more
+professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour
+having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.  For I
+find much iteration, but small addition.  It considereth causes of
+diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with
+the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.  The deficiences
+which I think good to note, being a few of many, and those such as are of
+a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate and not place.
+
+(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence
+of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases
+of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by
+recovery or death.  Therefore having an example proper in the father of
+the art, I shall not need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of
+the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions, for the
+direction of future judgments.  This continuance of medicinal history I
+find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend
+to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders: for
+many things are new in this manner, which are not new in the kind; and if
+men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.
+
+(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience: for
+they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and
+collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the
+secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the humours, nor
+much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases.  The reason of which
+omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in
+the view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative and
+casual, must arise from the view of many.  And as to the diversity of
+parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward parts
+is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause
+continent of many diseases; which not being observed, they quarrel many
+times with the humours, which are not in fault; the fault being in the
+very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine
+alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines
+familiar.  And for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently
+noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they
+are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in
+life: which being supposed, though the inhumanity of _anatomia vivorum_
+was by Celsus justly reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this
+observation, the inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been
+relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery;
+but might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive,
+which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may sufficiently
+satisfy this inquiry.  And for the humours, they are commonly passed over
+in anatomies as purgaments; whereas it is most necessary to observe, what
+cavities, nests, and receptacles the humours do find in the parts, with
+the differing kind of the humour so lodged and received.  And as for the
+footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of the inward parts,
+impostumations, exulcerations, discontinuations, putrefactions,
+consumptions, contractions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations,
+obstructions, repletions, together with all preternatural substances, as
+stones, carnosities, excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to
+have been exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the
+contribution of men’s several experiences, and carefully set down both
+historically according to the appearances, and artificially with a
+reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from them, in case
+where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas now upon opening of
+bodies they are passed over slightly and in silence.
+
+(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of many, some
+as in their nature incurable, and others as past the period of cure; so
+that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die, as they
+do by their ignorant edicts: whereof numbers do escape with less
+difficulty than they did in the Roman prescriptions.  Therefore I will
+not doubt to note as a deficience, that they inquire not the perfect
+cures of many diseases, or extremities of diseases; but pronouncing them
+incurable do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from discredit.
+
+(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to
+restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not only when such
+mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair
+and easy passage.  For it is no small felicity which Augustus Cæsar was
+wont to wish to himself, that same _Euthanasia_; and which was specially
+noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the fashion,
+and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sheep.  So it is written of
+Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate, he drowned his
+stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of wine;
+whereupon the epigram was made, _Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas_; he
+was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water.  But
+the physicians contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to
+stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas in my
+judgment they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the
+attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies
+of death.
+
+(5) In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficience in
+the receipts of propriety, respecting the particular cures of diseases:
+for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition and experience
+by their magistralities, in adding and taking out and changing _quid pro
+qua_ in their receipts, at their pleasures; commanding so over the
+medicine, as the medicine cannot command over the disease.  For except it
+be treacle and _mithridatum_, and of late _diascordium_, and a few more,
+they tie themselves to no receipts severely and religiously.  For as to
+the confections of sale which are in the shops, they are for readiness
+and not for propriety.  For they are upon general intentions of purging,
+opening, comforting, altering, and not much appropriate to particular
+diseases.  And this is the cause why empirics and old women are more
+happy many times in their cures than learned physicians, because they are
+more religious in holding their medicines.  Therefore here is the
+deficience which I find, that physicians have not, partly out of their
+own practice, partly out of the constant probations reported in books,
+and partly out of the traditions of empirics, set down and delivered over
+certain experimental medicines for the cure of particular diseases,
+besides their own conjectural and magistral descriptions.  For as they
+were the men of the best composition in the state of Rome, which either
+being consuls inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to the
+senate; so in the matter we now handle, they be the best physicians,
+which being learned incline to the traditions of experience, or being
+empirics incline to the methods of learning.
+
+(9) In preparation of medicines I do find strange, specially considering
+how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that they are safer for the
+outward than inward parts, that no man hath sought to make an imitation
+by art of natural baths and medicinable fountains: which nevertheless are
+confessed to receive their virtues from minerals; and not so only, but
+discerned and distinguished from what particular mineral they receive
+tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which nature, if it
+may be reduced to compositions of art, both the variety of them will be
+increased, and the temper of them will be more commanded.
+
+(10) But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable either to my
+intention or to proportion, I will conclude this part with the note of
+one deficience more, which seemeth to me of greatest consequence: which
+is, that the prescripts in use are too compendious to attain their end;
+for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think
+any medicine can be so sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt or miss
+of it can work any great effect upon the body of man.  It were a strange
+speech which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to
+which he were by nature subject.  It is order, pursuit, sequence, and
+interchange of application, which is mighty in nature; which although it
+require more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience
+in observing, yet is recompensed with the magnitude of effects.  And
+although a man would think, by the daily visitations of the physicians,
+that there were a pursuance in the cure, yet let a man look into their
+prescripts and ministrations, and he shall find them but inconstancies
+and every day’s devices, without any settled providence or project.  Not
+that every scrupulous or superstitious prescript is effectual, no more
+than every straight way is the way to heaven; but the truth of the
+direction must precede severity of observance.
+
+(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate: for
+cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to
+God, to society, and to ourselves.  As for artificial decoration, it is
+well worthy of the deficiences which it hath; being neither fine enough
+to deceive, nor handsome to use, nor wholesome to please.
+
+(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say, for
+any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be brought, whether it
+be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two parts, strength
+and swiftness; and patience likewise hath two parts, hardness against
+wants and extremities, and endurance of pain or torment; whereof we see
+the practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer
+punishment.  Nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not within
+any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain a strange
+power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it to this part.
+Of these things the practices are known, but the philosophy that
+concerneth them is not much inquired; the rather, I think, because they
+are supposed to be obtained, either by an aptness of nature, which cannot
+be taught, or only by continual custom, which is soon prescribed which
+though it be not true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the
+Olympian games are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is
+for use; as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most part but
+for mercenary ostentation.
+
+(13) For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them is of
+laws to repress them.  For as it hath been well observed, that the arts
+which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military; and
+while virtue is in state, are liberal; and while virtue is in
+declination, are voluptuary: so I doubt that this age of the world is
+somewhat upon the descent of the wheel.  With arts voluptuary I couple
+practices joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the
+pleasures of the senses.  As for games of recreation, I hold them to
+belong to civil life and education.  And thus much of that particular
+human philosophy which concerns the body, which is but the tabernacle of
+the mind.
+
+XI. (1) For human knowledge which concerns the mind, it hath two parts;
+the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul or mind,
+the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions thereof.   Unto
+the first of these, the considerations of the original of the soul,
+whether it be native or adventive, and how far it is exempted from laws
+of matter, and of the immortality thereof, and many other points, do
+appertain: which have been not more laboriously inquired than variously
+reported; so as the travail therein taken seemeth to have been rather in
+a maze than in a way.  But although I am of opinion that this knowledge
+may be more really and soundly inquired, even in nature, than it hath
+been, yet I hold that in the end it must be hounded by religion, or else
+it will be subject to deceit and delusion.  For as the substance of the
+soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven and
+earth by the benediction of a _producat_, but was immediately inspired
+from God, so it is not possible that it should be (otherwise than by
+accident) subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which are the subject
+of philosophy; and therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state
+of the soul must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance.
+Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul there be two appendices;
+which, as they have been handled, have rather vapoured forth fables than
+kindled truth: divination and fascination.
+
+(2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial and
+natural: whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a prediction by
+argument, concluding upon signs and tokens; natural is, when the mind
+hath a presention by an internal power, without the inducement of a sign.
+Artificial is of two sorts: either when the argument is coupled with a
+derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it is only grounded upon
+a coincidence of the effect, which is experimental: whereof the latter
+for the most part is superstitious, such as were the heathen observations
+upon the inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the swarming of
+bees; and such as was the Chaldean astrology, and the like.  For
+artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are distributed amongst
+particular knowledges.  The astronomer hath his predictions, as of
+conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and the like.  The physician hath his
+predictions, of death, of recovery, of the accidents and issues of
+diseases.  The politique hath his predictions; _O urbem venalem_, _et
+cito perituram_, _si emptorem invenerit_! which stayed not long to be
+performed, in Sylla first, and after in Cæsar: so as these predictions
+are now impertinent, and to be referred over.  But the divination which
+springeth from the internal nature of the soul is that which we now speak
+of; which hath been made to be of two sorts, primitive and by influxion.
+Primitive is grounded upon the supposition that the mind, when it is
+withdrawn and collected into itself, and not diffused into the organs of
+the body, hath some extent and latitude of prenotion; which therefore
+appeareth most in sleep, in ecstasies, and near death, and more rarely in
+waking apprehensions; and is induced and furthered by those abstinences
+and observances which make the mind most to consist in itself.  By
+influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as a mirror or
+glass, should take illumination from the foreknowledge of God and
+spirits: unto which the same regiment doth likewise conduce.  For the
+retiring of the mind within itself is the state which is most susceptible
+of divine influxions; save that it is accompanied in this case with a
+fervency and elevation (which the ancients noted by fury), and not with a
+repose and quiet, as it is in the other.
+
+(3) Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive upon other
+bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of that we spake in the proper
+place.  Wherein the school of Paracelsus, and the disciples of pretended
+natural magic, have been so intemperate, as they have exalted the power
+of the imagination to be much one with the power of miracle-working
+faith.  Others, that draw nearer to probability, calling to their view
+the secret passages of things, and specially of the contagion that
+passeth from body to body, do conceive it should likewise be agreeable to
+nature that there should be some transmissions and operations from spirit
+to spirit without the mediation of the senses; whence the conceits have
+grown (now almost made civil) of the mastering spirit, and the force of
+confidence, and the like.  Incident unto this is the inquiry how to raise
+and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination fortified have power,
+then it is material to know how to fortify and exalt it.  And herein
+comes in crookedly and dangerously a palliation of a great part of
+ceremonial magic.  For it may be pretended that ceremonies, characters,
+and charms do work, not by any tacit or sacramental contract with evil
+spirits, but serve only to strengthen the imagination of him that useth
+it; as images are said by the Roman Church to fix the cogitations and
+raise the devotions of them that pray before them.  But for mine own
+judgment, if it be admitted that imagination hath power, and that
+ceremonies fortify imagination, and that they be used sincerely and
+intentionally for that purpose; yet I should hold them unlawful, as
+opposing to that first edict which God gave unto man, _In sudore vultus
+comedes panem tuum_.  For they propound those noble effects, which God
+hath set forth unto man to be bought at the price of labour, to be
+attained by a few easy and slothful observances.  Deficiences in these
+knowledges I will report none, other than the general deficience, that it
+is not known how much of them is verity, and how much vanity.
+
+XII. (1) The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the mind of man
+is of two kinds—the one respecting his understanding and reason, and the
+other his will, appetite, and affection; whereof the former produceth
+position or decree, the latter action or execution.  It is true that the
+imagination is an agent or _nuncius_ in both provinces, both the judicial
+and the ministerial.  For sense sendeth over to imagination before reason
+have judged, and reason sendeth over to imagination before the decree can
+be acted.  For imagination ever precedeth voluntary motion.  Saving that
+this Janus of imagination hath differing faces: for the face towards
+reason hath the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the
+print of good; which nevertheless are faces,
+
+    “Quales decet esse sororum.”
+
+Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger; but is invested
+with, or at least wise usurpeth no small authority in itself, besides the
+duty of the message.  For it was well said by Aristotle, “That the mind
+hath over the body that commandment, which the lord hath over a bondman;
+but that reason hath over the imagination that commandment which a
+magistrate hath over a free citizen,” who may come also to rule in his
+turn.  For we see that, in matters of faith and religion, we raise our
+imagination above our reason, which is the cause why religion sought ever
+access to the mind by similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams.  And
+again, in all persuasions that are wrought by eloquence, and other
+impressions of like nature, which do paint and disguise the true
+appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the
+imagination.  Nevertheless, because I find not any science that doth
+properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no cause to alter the
+former division.  For as for poesy, it is rather a pleasure or play of
+imagination than a work or duty thereof.  And if it be a work, we speak
+not now of such parts of learning as the imagination produceth, but of
+such sciences as handle and consider of the imagination.  No more than we
+shall speak now of such knowledges as reason produceth (for that
+extendeth to all philosophy), but of such knowledges as do handle and
+inquire of the faculty of reason: so as poesy had his true place.  As for
+the power of the imagination in nature, and the manner of fortifying the
+same, we have mentioned it in the doctrine _De Anima_, whereunto most
+fitly it belongeth.  And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative reason,
+which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to refer it to the
+arts of reason.  So therefore we content ourselves with the former
+division, that human philosophy, which respecteth the faculties of the
+mind of man, hath two parts, rational and moral.
+
+(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all knowledges,
+to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of subtlety
+and spinosity.  For as it was truly said, that knowledge is _pabulum
+animi_; so in the nature of men’s appetite to this food most men are of
+the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain
+have returned _ad ollas carnium_, and were weary of manna; which, though
+it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and comfortable.  So
+generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood,
+civil history, morality, policy, about the which men’s affections,
+praises, fortunes do turn and are conversant.  But this same _lumen
+siccum_ doth parch and offend most men’s watery and soft natures.  But to
+speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the
+keys of all other arts, for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, “That
+the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of
+forms;” so these be truly said to be the art of arts.  Neither do they
+only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of
+shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a
+stronger bow.
+
+(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the
+ends whereunto they are referred—for man’s labour is to invent that which
+is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain
+that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained.  So as
+the arts must be four—art of inquiry or invention; art of examination or
+judgment; art of custody or memory; and art of elocution or tradition.
+
+XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing—the one of arts and
+sciences, and the other of speech and arguments.  The former of these I
+do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if,
+in the making of an inventory touching the state of a defunct, it should
+be set down that there is no ready money.  For as money will fetch all
+other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all
+the rest.  And like as the West Indies had never been discovered if the
+use of the mariner’s needle had not been first discovered, though the one
+be vast regions, and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found
+strange if sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of
+invention and discovery hath been passed over.
+
+(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth
+plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences,
+or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a _cuique in sua arte
+credendum_.  And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the
+empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, “That medicines and cures
+were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were
+discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them
+the medicines and cures discovered.”  And Plato in his “Theætetus” noteth
+well, “That particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no
+sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which maketh the
+artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in
+every particular knowledge are taken from tradition and experience.”  And
+therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and
+originals of things refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather
+to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.
+
+    “Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab Ida,
+    Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem
+    Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris
+    Gramina, cum tergo volucres hæsere sagittæ.”
+
+So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate
+inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples,
+but almost all brute:
+
+    “Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,
+    Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c.”
+
+And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the
+first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus
+first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he
+first stroke the flints he expected the spark; and therefore we see the
+West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because of
+the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion.  So as it
+should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for
+surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of
+physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery, or generally to
+chance or anything else than to logic for the invention of arts and
+sciences.  Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much
+other:
+
+    “Ut varias usus meditande extunderet artes
+    Paulatim.”
+
+For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that which
+brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which is a perpetual
+intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute
+necessity of conservation of being.  For so Cicero saith very truly,
+_Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem sæpe vincit_.  And therefore if
+it be said of men,
+
+          “Labor omnia vincit
+    Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,”
+
+it is likewise said of beasts, _Quis psittaco docuit suum χαιρε_?  Who
+taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where
+she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it?
+Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or air, and to find
+the way from a field in a flower a great way off to her hive?  Who taught
+the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it
+should take root and grow?  Add then the word _extundere_, which
+importeth the extreme difficulty, and the word _paulatim_, which
+importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even amongst
+the Egyptians’ gods; there being little left to the faculty of reason,
+and nothing to the duty or art, for matter of invention.
+
+(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which
+seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may be
+pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation
+from the principles; their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious
+and incompetent; wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the
+duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have
+wronged, abused, and traduced nature.  For he that shall attentively
+observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge, like
+unto that which the poet speaketh of, _Aërei mellis cælestia dona_,
+distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial,
+as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find that the mind of
+herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than they
+describe it.  For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without
+instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can
+assure (in many subjects) upon those particulars which appear of a side,
+that there are not other on the contrary side which appear not?  As if
+Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought
+before him, and failed of David which was in the field.  And this form
+(to say truth), is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so
+subtle as have managed these things to have offered it to the world, but
+that they hasted to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious
+and scornful toward particulars; which their manner was to use but as
+_lictores_ and _viatores_, for sergeants and whifflers, _ad summovendam
+turbam_, to make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in
+their true use and service.  Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with
+a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very
+same in divine and human truth; for, as in divine truth man cannot endure
+to become as a child, so in human, they reputed the attending the
+inductions (whereof we speak), as if it were a second infancy or
+childhood.
+
+(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet,
+nevertheless, certain it is that middle propositions cannot be deduced
+from them in subject of nature by syllogism—that is, by touch and
+reduction of them to principles in a middle term.  It is true that in
+sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity
+(because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the
+simplest), that form may have use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by
+way of argument or satisfactory reason, _Quæ assensum parit operis effæta
+est_; but the subtlety of nature and operations will not be enchained in
+those bonds.  For arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of
+words, and words are but the current tokens or marks of popular notions
+of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably collected out
+of particulars, it is not the laborious examination either of
+consequences of arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can ever
+correct that error, being (as the physicians speak) in the first
+digestion.  And, therefore, it was not without cause, that so many
+excellent philosophers became sceptics and academics, and denied any
+certainty of knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion that the
+knowledge of man extended only to appearances and probabilities.  It is
+true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a form of irony,
+_Scientiam dissimulando simulavit_; for he used to disable his knowledge,
+to the end to enhance his knowledge; like the humour of Tiberius in his
+beginnings, that would reign, but would not acknowledge so much.  And in
+the later academy, which Cicero embraced, this opinion also of
+_acatalepsia_ (I doubt) was not held sincerely; for that all those which
+excelled in copy of speech seem to have chosen that sect, as that which
+was fittest to give glory to their eloquence and variable discourses;
+being rather like progresses of pleasure than journeys to an end.  But
+assuredly many scattered in both academies did hold it in subtlety and
+integrity.  But here was their chief error: they charged the deceit upon
+the senses; which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their cavillations)
+are very sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always
+immediately, yet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by producing
+and urging such things as are too subtle for the sense to some effect
+comprehensible by the sense, and other like assistance.  But they ought
+to have charged the deceit upon the weakness of the intellectual powers,
+and upon the manner of collecting and concluding upon the reports of the
+senses.  This I speak, not to disable the mind of man, but to stir it up
+to seek help; for no man, be he never so cunning or practised, can make a
+straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand, which may be
+easily done by help of a ruler or compass.
+
+(5) This part of invention, concerning the invention of sciences, I
+purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound, having digested it
+into two parts: whereof the one I term _experientia literata_, and the
+other _interpretatio naturæ_; the former being but a degree and rudiment
+of the latter.  But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too great upon a
+promise.
+
+(6) The invention of speech or argument is not properly an invention; for
+to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or resummon
+that which we already know; and the use of this invention is no other
+but, out of the knowledge whereof our mind is already possessed to draw
+forth or call before us that which may be pertinent to the purpose which
+we take into our consideration.  So as to speak truly, it is no
+invention, but a remembrance or suggestion, with an application; which is
+the cause why the schools do place it after judgment, as subsequent and
+not precedent.  Nevertheless, because we do account it a chase as well of
+deer in an enclosed park as in a forest at large, and that it hath
+already obtained the name, let it be called invention; so as it be
+perceived and discerned, that the scope and end of this invention is
+readiness and present use of our knowledge, and not addition or
+amplification thereof.
+
+(7) To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two courses,
+preparation and suggestion.  The former of these seemeth scarcely a part
+of knowledge, consisting rather of diligence than of any artificial
+erudition.  And herein Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully, doth deride the
+sophists near his time, saying, “They did as if one that professed the
+art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up a shoe, but only
+exhibit in a readiness a number of shoes of all fashions and sizes.”  But
+yet a man might reply, that if a shoemaker should have no shoes in his
+shop, but only work as he is bespoken, he should be weakly customed.  But
+our Saviour, speaking of divine knowledge, saith, “That the kingdom of
+heaven is like a good householder, that bringeth forth both new and old
+store;” and we see the ancient writers of rhetoric do give it in precept,
+that pleaders should have the places, whereof they have most continual
+use, ready handled in all the variety that may be; as that, to speak for
+the literal interpretation of the law against equity, and contrary; and
+to speak for presumptions and inferences against testimony, and contrary.
+And Cicero himself, being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth
+it plainly, that whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speak of (if he
+will take the pains), he may have it in effect premeditate and handled
+_in thesi_.  So that when he cometh to a particular he shall have nothing
+to do, but to put to names, and times, and places, and such other
+circumstances of individuals.  We see likewise the exact diligence of
+Demosthenes; who, in regard of the great force that the entrance and
+access into causes hath to make a good impression, had ready framed a
+number of prefaces for orations and speeches.  All which authorities and
+precedents may overweigh Aristotle’s opinion, that would have us change a
+rich wardrobe for a pair of shears.
+
+(8) But the nature of the collection of this provision or preparatory
+store, though it be common both to logic and rhetoric, yet having made an
+entry of it here, where it came first to be spoken of, I think fit to
+refer over the further handling of it to rhetoric.
+
+(9) The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, doth assign and
+direct us to certain marks, or places, which may excite our mind to
+return and produce such knowledge as it hath formerly collected, to the
+end we may make use thereof.  Neither is this use (truly taken) only to
+furnish argument to dispute, probably with others, but likewise to
+minister unto our judgment to conclude aright within ourselves.  Neither
+may these places serve only to apprompt our invention, but also to direct
+our inquiry.  For a faculty of wise interrogating is half a knowledge.
+For as Plato saith, “Whosoever seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for
+in a general notion; else how shall he know it when he hath found it?”
+And, therefore, the larger your anticipation is, the more direct and
+compendious is your search.  But the same places which will help us what
+to produce of that which we know already, will also help us, if a man of
+experience were before us, what questions to ask; or, if we have books
+and authors to instruct us, what points to search and revolve; so as I
+cannot report that this part of invention, which is that which the
+schools call topics, is deficient.
+
+(10) Nevertheless, topics are of two sorts, general and special.  The
+general we have spoken to; but the particular hath been touched by some,
+but rejected generally as inartificial and variable.  But leaving the
+humour which hath reigned too much in the schools (which is, to be vainly
+subtle in a few things which are within their command, and to reject the
+rest), I do receive particular topics; that is, places or directions of
+invention and inquiry in every particular knowledge, as things of great
+use, being mixtures of logic with the matter of sciences.  For in these
+it holdeth _ars inveniendi adolescit cum inventis_; for as in going of a
+way, we do not only gain that part of the way which is passed, but we
+gain the better sight of that part of the way which remaineth, so every
+degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light to that which followeth;
+which light, if we strengthen by drawing it forth into questions or
+places of inquiry, we do greatly advance our pursuit.
+
+XIV. (1) Now we pass unto the arts of judgment, which handle the natures
+of proofs and demonstrations, which as to induction hath a coincidence
+with invention; for all inductions, whether in good or vicious form, the
+same action of the mind which inventeth, judgeth—all one as in the sense.
+But otherwise it is in proof by syllogism, for the proof being not
+immediate, but by mean, the invention of the mean is one thing, and the
+judgment of the consequence is another; the one exciting only, the other
+examining.  Therefore, for the real and exact form of judgment, we refer
+ourselves to that which we have spoken of interpretation of Nature.
+
+(2) For the other judgment by syllogism, as it is a thing most agreeable
+to the mind of man, so it hath been vehemently end excellently laboured.
+For the nature of man doth extremely covet to have somewhat in his
+understanding fixed and unmovable, and as a rest and support of the mind.
+And, therefore, as Aristotle endeavoureth to prove, that in all motion
+there is some point quiescent; and as he elegantly expoundeth the ancient
+fable of Atlas (that stood fixed, and bare up the heaven from falling) to
+be meant of the poles or axle-tree of heaven, whereupon the conversion is
+accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to have an Atlas or
+axle-tree within to keep them from fluctuation, which is like to a
+perpetual peril of falling.  Therefore men did hasten to set down some
+principles about which the variety of their disputatious might turn.
+
+(3) So, then, this art of judgment is but the reduction of propositions
+to principles in a middle term.  The principles to be agreed by all and
+exempted from argument; the middle term to be elected at the liberty of
+every man’s invention; the reduction to be of two kinds, direct and
+inverted: the one when the proposition is reduced to the principle, which
+they term a probation ostensive; the other, when the contradictory of the
+proposition is reduced to the contradictory of the principle, which is
+that which they call _per incommodum_, or pressing an absurdity; the
+number of middle terms to be as the proposition standeth degrees more or
+less removed from the principle.
+
+(4) But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one by way of
+direction, the other by way of caution: the former frameth and setteth
+down a true form of consequence, by the variations and deflections from
+which errors and inconsequences may be exactly judged.  Toward the
+composition and structure of which form it is incident to handle the
+parts thereof, which are propositions, and the parts of propositions,
+which are simple words.  And this is that part of logic which is
+comprehended in the Analytics.
+
+(5) The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite use and
+assurance sake, discovering the more subtle forms of sophisms and
+illaqueations with their redargutions, which is that which is termed
+_elenches_.  For although in the more gross sorts of fallacies it
+happeneth (as Seneca maketh the comparison well) as in juggling feats,
+which, though we know not how they are done, yet we know well it is not
+as it seemeth to be; yet the more subtle sort of them doth not only put a
+man besides his answer, but doth many times abuse his judgment.
+
+(6) This part concerning _elenches_ is excellently handled by Aristotle
+in precept, but more excellently by Plato in example; not only in the
+persons of the sophists, but even in Socrates himself, who, professing to
+affirm nothing, but to infirm that which was affirmed by another, hath
+exactly expressed all the forms of objection, fallace, and redargution.
+And although we have said that the use of this doctrine is for
+redargution, yet it is manifest the degenerate and corrupt use is for
+caption and contradiction, which passeth for a great faculty, and no
+doubt is of very great advantage, though the difference be good which was
+made between orators and sophisters, that the one is as the greyhound,
+which hath his advantage in the race, and the other as the hare, which
+hath her advantage in the turn, so as it is the advantage of the weaker
+creature.
+
+(7) But yet further, this doctrine of elenches hath a more ample latitude
+and extent than is perceived; namely, unto divers parts of knowledge,
+whereof some are laboured and other omitted.  For first, I conceive
+(though it may seem at first somewhat strange) that that part which is
+variably referred, sometimes to logic, sometimes to metaphysic, touching
+the common adjuncts of essences, is but an _elenche_; for the great
+sophism of all sophisms being equivocation or ambiguity of words and
+phrase, specially of such words as are most general and intervene in
+every inquiry, it seemeth to me that the true and fruitful use (leaving
+vain subtleties and speculations) of the inquiry of majority, minority,
+priority, posteriority, identity, diversity, possibility, act, totality,
+parts, existence, privation, and the like, are but wise cautions against
+ambiguities of speech.  So, again, the distribution of things into
+certain tribes, which we call categories or predicaments, are but
+cautions against the confusion of definitions and divisions.
+
+(8) Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by the strength of the
+impression, and not by the subtlety of the illaqueation—not so much
+perplexing the reason, as overruling it by power of the imagination.  But
+this part I think more proper to handle when I shall speak of rhetoric.
+
+(9) But lastly, there is yet a much more important and profound kind of
+fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not observed or inquired at
+all, and think good to place here, as that which of all others
+appertaineth most to rectify judgment, the force whereof is such as it
+doth not dazzle or snare the understanding in some particulars, but doth
+more generally and inwardly infect and corrupt the state thereof.  For
+the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass,
+wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true
+incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of
+superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.  For this
+purpose, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us
+by the general nature of the mind, beholding them in an example or two;
+as first, in that instance which is the root of all superstition, namely,
+that to the nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the
+affirmative or active to affect more than the negative or privative.  So
+that a few times hitting or presence countervails ofttimes failing or
+absence, as was well answered by Diagoras to him that showed him in
+Neptune’s temple the great number of pictures of such as had escaped
+shipwreck, and had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, “Advise now, you
+that think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest.”  “Yea, but,” saith
+Diagoras, “where are they painted that are drowned?”  Let us behold it in
+another instance, namely, that the spirit of man, being of an equal and
+uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater
+equality and uniformity than is in truth.  Hence it cometh that the
+mathematicians cannot satisfy themselves except they reduce the motions
+of the celestial bodies to perfect circles, rejecting spiral lines, and
+labouring to be discharged of eccentrics.  Hence it cometh that whereas
+there are many things in Nature as it were _monodica_, _sui juris_, yet
+the cogitations of man do feign unto them relatives, parallels, and
+conjugates, whereas no such thing is; as they have feigned an element of
+fire to keep square with earth, water, and air, and the like.  Nay, it is
+not credible, till it be opened, what a number of fictions and fantasies
+the similitude of human actions and arts, together with the making of man
+_communis mensura_, have brought into natural philosophy; not much better
+than the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, bred in the cells of gross and
+solitary monks, and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in
+heathenism, who supposed the gods to be of human shape.  And, therefore,
+Velleius the Epicurean needed not to have asked why God should have
+adorned the heavens with stars, as if He had been an _ædilis_, one that
+should have set forth some magnificent shows or plays.  For if that great
+Work-master had been of a human disposition, He would have cast the stars
+into some pleasant and beautiful works and orders like the frets in the
+roofs of houses; whereas one can scarce find a posture in square, or
+triangle, or straight line, amongst such an infinite number, so differing
+a harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit of Nature.
+
+(10) Let us consider again the false appearances imposed upon us by every
+man’s own individual nature and custom in that feigned supposition that
+Plato maketh of the cave; for certainly if a child were continued in a
+grot or cave under the earth until maturity of age, and came suddenly
+abroad, he would have strange and absurd imaginations.  So, in like
+manner, although our persons live in the view of heaven, yet our spirits
+are included in the caves of our own complexions and customs, which
+minister unto us infinite errors and vain opinions if they be not
+recalled to examination.  But hereof we have given many examples in one
+of the errors, or peccant humours, which we ran briefly over in our first
+book.
+
+(11) And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed
+upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to the conceit
+and capacities of the vulgar sort; and although we think we govern our
+words, and prescribe it well _loquendum ut vulgus sentiendum ut
+sapientes_, yet certain it is that words, as a Tartar’s bow, do shoot
+back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and
+pervert the judgment.  So as it is almost necessary in all controversies
+and disputations to imitate the wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting
+down in the very beginning the definitions of our words and terms, that
+others may know how we accept and understand them, and whether they
+concur with us or no.  For it cometh to pass, for want of this, that we
+are sure to end there where we ought to have begun, which is, in
+questions and differences about words.  To conclude, therefore, it must
+be confessed that it is not possible to divorce ourselves from these
+fallacies and false appearances because they are inseparable from our
+nature and condition of life; so yet, nevertheless, the caution of them
+(for all elenches, as was said, are but cautions) doth extremely import
+the true conduct of human judgment.  The particular elenches or cautions
+against these three false appearances I find altogether deficient.
+
+(12) There remaineth one part of judgment of great excellency which to
+mine understanding is so slightly touched, as I may report that also
+deficient; which is the application of the differing kinds of proofs to
+the differing kinds of subjects.  For there being but four kinds of
+demonstrations, that is, by the immediate consent of the mind or sense,
+by induction, by syllogism, and by congruity, which is that which
+Aristotle calleth demonstration in orb or circle, and not _a notioribus_,
+every of these hath certain subjects in the matter of sciences, in which
+respectively they have chiefest use; and certain others, from which
+respectively they ought to be excluded; and the rigour and curiosity in
+requiring the more severe proofs in some things, and chiefly the facility
+in contenting ourselves with the more remiss proofs in others, hath been
+amongst the greatest causes of detriment and hindrance to knowledge.  The
+distributions and assignations of demonstrations according to the analogy
+of sciences I note as deficient.
+
+XV. (1) The custody or retaining of knowledge is either in writing or
+memory; whereof writing hath two parts, the nature of the character and
+the order of the entry.  For the art of characters, or other visible
+notes of words or things, it hath nearest conjugation with grammar, and,
+therefore, I refer it to the due place; for the disposition and
+collocation of that knowledge which we preserve in writing, it consisteth
+in a good digest of common-places, wherein I am not ignorant of the
+prejudice imputed to the use of common-place books, as causing a
+retardation of reading, and some sloth or relaxation of memory.  But
+because it is but a counterfeit thing in knowledges to be forward and
+pregnant, except a man be deep and full, I hold the entry of
+common-places to be a matter of great use and essence in studying, as
+that which assureth copy of invention, and contracteth judgment to a
+strength.  But this is true, that of the methods of common-places that I
+have seen, there is none of any sufficient worth, all of them carrying
+merely the face of a school and not of a world; and referring to vulgar
+matters and pedantical divisions, without all life or respect to action.
+
+(2) For the other principal part of the custody of knowledge, which is
+memory, I find that faculty in my judgment weakly inquired of.  An art
+there is extant of it; but it seemeth to me that there are better
+precepts than that art, and better practices of that art than those
+received.  It is certain the art (as it is) may be raised to points of
+ostentation prodigious; but in use (as is now managed) it is barren, not
+burdensome, nor dangerous to natural memory, as is imagined, but barren,
+that is, not dexterous to be applied to the serious use of business and
+occasions.  And, therefore, I make no more estimation of repeating a
+great number of names or words upon once hearing, or the pouring forth of
+a number of verses or rhymes _extempore_, or the making of a satirical
+simile of everything, or the turning of everything to a jest, or the
+falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like (whereof
+in the faculties of the mind there is great copy, and such as by device
+and practice may be exalted to an extreme degree of wonder), than I do of
+the tricks of tumblers, funambuloes, baladines; the one being the same in
+the mind that the other is in the body, matters of strangeness without
+worthiness.
+
+(3) This art of memory is but built upon two intentions; the one
+prenotion, the other emblem.  Prenotion dischargeth the indefinite
+seeking of that we would remember, and directeth us to seek in a narrow
+compass, that is, somewhat that hath congruity with our place of memory.
+Emblem reduceth conceits intellectual to images sensible, which strike
+the memory more; out of which axioms may be drawn much better practice
+than that in use; and besides which axioms, there are divers more
+touching help of memory not inferior to them.  But I did in the beginning
+distinguish, not to report those things deficient, which are but only ill
+managed.
+
+XVI. (1) There remaineth the fourth kind of rational knowledge, which is
+transitive, concerning the expressing or transferring our knowledge to
+others, which I will term by the general name of tradition or delivery.
+Tradition hath three parts: the first concerning the organ of tradition;
+the second concerning the method of tradition; and the third concerning
+the illustration of tradition.
+
+(2) For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or writing; for
+Aristotle saith well, “Words are the images of cogitations, and letters
+are the images of words.”  But yet it is not of necessity that
+cogitations be expressed by the medium of words.  For whatsoever is
+capable of sufficient differences, and those perceptible by the sense, is
+in nature competent to express cogitations.  And, therefore, we see in
+the commerce of barbarous people that understand not one another’s
+language, and in the practice of divers that are dumb and deaf, that
+men’s minds are expressed in gestures, though not exactly, yet to serve
+the turn.  And we understand further, that it is the use of China and the
+kingdoms of the High Levant to write in characters real, which express
+neither letters nor words in gross, but things or notions; insomuch as
+countries and provinces which understand not one another’s language can
+nevertheless read one another’s writings, because the characters are
+accepted more generally than the languages do extend; and, therefore,
+they have a vast multitude of characters, as many, I suppose, as radical
+words.
+
+(3) These notes of cogitations are of two sorts: the one when the note
+hath some similitude or congruity with the notion; the other _ad
+placitum_, having force only by contract or acceptation.  Of the former
+sort are hieroglyphics and gestures.  For as to hieroglyphics (things of
+ancient use and embraced chiefly by the Egyptians, one of the most
+ancient nations), they are but as continued impresses and emblems.  And
+as for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics, and are to
+hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in that they abide
+not; but they have evermore, as well as the other, an affinity with the
+things signified.  As Periander, being consulted with how to preserve a
+tyranny newly usurped, bid the messenger attend and report what he saw
+him do; and went into his garden and topped all the highest flowers,
+signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the
+nobility and grandees.  _Ad placitum_, are the characters real before
+mentioned, and words: although some have been willing by curious inquiry,
+or rather by apt feigning, to have derived imposition of names from
+reason and intendment; a speculation elegant, and, by reason it searcheth
+into antiquity, reverent, but sparingly mixed with truth, and of small
+fruit.  This portion of knowledge touching the notes of things and
+cogitations in general, I find not inquired, but deficient.  And although
+it may seem of no great use, considering that words and writings by
+letters do far excel all the other ways; yet because this part
+concerneth, as it were, the mint of knowledge (for words are the tokens
+current and accepted for conceits, as moneys are for values, and that it
+is fit men be not ignorant that moneys may be of another kind than gold
+and silver), I thought good to propound it to better inquiry.
+
+(4) Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath produced
+the science of grammar.  For man still striveth to reintegrate himself in
+those benedictions, from which by his fault he hath been deprived; and as
+he hath striven against the first general curse by the invention of all
+other arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse
+(which was the confusion of tongues) by the art of grammar; whereof the
+use in a mother tongue is small, in a foreign tongue more; but most in
+such foreign tongues as have ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned
+only to learned tongues.  The duty of it is of two natures: the one
+popular, which is for the speedy and perfect attaining languages, as well
+for intercourse of speech as for understanding of authors; the other
+philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as they are the
+footsteps and prints of reason: which kind of analogy between words and
+reason is handled _sparsim_, brokenly though not entirely; and,
+therefore, I cannot report it deficient, though I think it very worthy to
+be reduced into a science by itself.
+
+(5) Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the consideration of the
+accidents of words; which are measure, sound, and elevation or accent,
+and the sweetness and harshness of them: whence hath issued some curious
+observations in rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as we consider it, in
+respect of the verse and not of the argument.  Wherein though men in
+learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet in modern
+languages it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of verses as of
+dances; for a dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech.
+In these things this sense is better judge than the art:
+
+       “Cœnæ fercula nostræ
+    Mallem convivis quam placuisse cocis.”
+
+And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an unfit
+subject, it is well said, “_Quod tempore antiquum videtur_, _id
+incongruitate est maxime novum_.”
+
+(6) For ciphers, they are commonly in letters or alphabets, but may be in
+words.  The kinds of ciphers (besides the simple ciphers, with changes,
+and intermixtures of nulls and non-significants) are many, according to
+the nature or rule of the infolding, wheel-ciphers, key-ciphers, doubles,
+&c.  But the virtues of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are
+three; that they be not laborious to write and read; that they be
+impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that they be without
+suspicion.  The highest degree whereof is to write _omnia per omnia_;
+which is undoubtedly possible, with a proportion quintuple at most of the
+writing infolding to the writing infolded, and no other restraint
+whatsoever.  This art of ciphering hath for relative an art of
+deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, but, as things are, of great
+use.  For suppose that ciphers were well managed, there be multitudes of
+them which exclude the decipherer.  But in regard of the rawness and
+unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass, the greatest matters
+are many times carried in the weakest ciphers.
+
+(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it may be
+thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them for
+show and ostentation, and to little other purpose.  But let those, which
+are skilful in them, judge whether I bring them in only for appearance,
+or whether in that which I speak of them (though in few words) there be
+not some seed of proficience.  And this must be remembered, that as there
+be many of great account in their countries and provinces, which, when
+they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of mean rank and scarcely
+regarded; so these arts, being here placed with the principal and supreme
+sciences, seem petty things: yet to such as have chosen them to spend
+their labours and studies in them, they seem great matters.
+
+XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a controversy
+in our time.  But as in civil business, if there be a meeting, and men
+fall at words, there is commonly an end of the matter for that time, and
+no proceeding at all; so in learning, where there is much controversy,
+there is many times little inquiry.  For this part of knowledge of method
+seemeth to me so weakly inquired as I shall report it deficient.
+
+(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as a part of
+judgment.  For as the doctrine of syllogisms comprehendeth the rules of
+judgment upon that which is invented, so the doctrine of method
+containeth the rules of judgment upon that which is to be delivered; for
+judgment precedeth delivery, as it followeth invention.  Neither is the
+method or the nature of the tradition material only to the use of
+knowledge, but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since the
+labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of knowledge, the
+wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth the felicity of
+continuance and proceeding.  And therefore the most real diversity of
+method is of method referred to use, and method referred to progression:
+whereof the one may be termed magistral, and the other of probation.
+
+(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be _via deserta et interclusa_.  For as
+knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error
+between the deliverer and the receiver.  For he that delivereth knowledge
+desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as
+may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather
+present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt,
+than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open his weakness,
+and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength.
+
+(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought to be
+delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method wherein
+it was invented: and so is it possible of knowledge induced.  But in this
+same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man knoweth how he came to
+the knowledge which he hath obtained.  But yet, nevertheless, _secundum
+majus et minus_, a man may revisit and descend unto the foundations of
+his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it into another, as it grew
+in his own mind.  For it is in knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean
+to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots—but if you mean to remove
+it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the
+delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees
+without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter.  But
+if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body
+of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots.  Of which
+kind of delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath
+some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in
+inquisition, and therefore note it for deficient.
+
+(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some affinity with
+the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but
+disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it
+as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is
+enigmatical and disclosed.  The pretence whereof is, to remove the vulgar
+capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledges, and to
+reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can
+pierce the veil.
+
+(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great, is the
+delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods; wherein we may observe
+that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a few axioms or
+observations upon any subject, to make a solemn and formal art, filling
+it with some discourses, and illustrating it with examples, and digesting
+it into a sensible method.  But the writing in aphorisms hath many
+excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not approach.
+
+(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid:
+for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of
+the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off;
+recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is
+cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off.  So there remaineth
+nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and
+therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write
+aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded.  But in methods,
+
+       “Tantum series juncturaque pollet,
+    Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,”
+
+as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were disjointed,
+would come to little.  Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent or
+belief, but less fit to point to action; for they carry a kind of
+demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and
+therefore satisfy.  But particulars being dispersed do best agree with
+dispersed directions.  And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge
+broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the
+show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest.
+
+(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great weight, is
+the handling of knowledge by assertions and their proofs, or by questions
+and their determinations.  The latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately
+followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning as it is to the
+proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold.
+For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise pursued, those
+smaller things will come in of themselves: indeed a man would not leave
+some important piece enemy at his back.  In like manner, the use of
+confutation in the delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to
+serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to
+minister and excite disputatious and doubts.
+
+(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject or matter
+which is handled.  For there is a great difference in delivery of the
+mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy,
+which is the most immersed.  And howsoever contention hath been moved,
+touching a uniformity of method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how
+that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards
+learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain
+empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks and shells of
+sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture
+and press of the method.  And, therefore, as I did allow well of
+particular topics for invention, so I do allow likewise of particular
+methods of tradition.
+
+(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and teaching of
+knowledge is, according unto the light and presuppositions of that which
+is delivered.  For that knowledge which is new, and foreign from opinions
+received, is to be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable
+and familiar; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus,
+doth in truth commend him, where he saith “If we shall indeed dispute,
+and not follow after similitudes,” &c.  For those whose conceits are
+seated in popular opinions need only but to prove or dispute; but those
+whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the one
+to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate.  So
+that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and
+translations to express themselves.  And therefore in the infancy of
+learning, and in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial
+were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
+would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for
+paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood or judged.
+So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are, for
+it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not consonant to presuppositions
+must pray in aid of similitudes.
+
+(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and received: as
+that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or systasis, of
+concealment or cryptic, &c., which I do allow well of, though I have
+stood upon those which are least handled and observed.  All which I have
+remembered to this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one
+general inquiry (which seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of
+tradition.
+
+(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth further
+belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a work, but also
+the several beams and columns thereof; not as to their stuff, but as to
+their quantity and figure.  And therefore method considereth not only the
+disposition of the argument or subject, but likewise the propositions:
+not as to their truth or matter, but as to their limitation and manner.
+For herein Ramus merited better a great deal in reviving the good rules
+of propositions—Καθολον πρωτον, κυτα παντος &c.—than he did in
+introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet (as it is the condition of
+human things that, according to the ancient fables, “the most precious
+things have the most pernicious keepers”) it was so, that the attempt of
+the one made him fall upon the other.  For he had need be well conducted
+that should design to make axioms convertible, if he make them not withal
+circular, and non-promovent, or incurring into themselves; but yet the
+intention was excellent.
+
+(13) The other considerations of method, concerning propositions, are
+chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which limit the dimensions of
+sciences: for every knowledge may be fitly said, besides the profundity
+(which is the truth and substance of it, that makes it solid), to have a
+longitude and a latitude; accounting the latitude towards other sciences,
+and the longitude towards action; that is, from the greatest generality
+to the most particular precept.  The one giveth rule how far one
+knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of another, which is
+the rule they call Καθαυτο; the other giveth rule unto what degree of
+particularity a knowledge should descend: which latter I find passed over
+in silence, being in my judgment the more material.  For certainty there
+must be somewhat left to practice; but how much is worthy the inquiry?
+We see remote and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge to
+scorn of practical men; and are no more aiding to practice than an
+Ortelius’ universal map is to direct the way between London and York.
+The better sort of rules have been not unfitly compared to glasses of
+steel unpolished, where you may see the images of things, but first they
+must be filed: so the rules will help if they be laboured and polished by
+practice.  But how crystalline they may be made at the first, and how far
+forth they may be polished aforehand, is the question, the inquiry
+whereof seemeth to me deficient.
+
+(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a method, which is
+not a lawful method, but a method of imposture: which is, to deliver
+knowledges in such manner as men may speedily come to make a show of
+learning, who have it not.  Such was the travail of Raymundus Lullius in
+making that art which bears his name; not unlike to some books of
+typocosmy, which have been made since; being nothing but a mass of words
+of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms
+might be thought to understand the art; which collections are much like a
+fripper’s or broker’s shop, that hath ends of everything, but nothing of
+worth.
+
+XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration
+of tradition, comprehended in that science which we call rhetoric, or art
+of eloquence, a science excellent, and excellently well laboured.  For
+although in true value it is inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to
+Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, “Aaron shall be
+thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God”), yet with people it is the
+more mighty; for so Solomon saith, _Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens_,
+_sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet_, signifying that profoundness of
+wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence
+that prevaileth in an active life.  And as to the labouring of it, the
+emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the
+experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of rhetoric exceed
+themselves.  Again, the excellency of examples of eloquence in the
+orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the
+precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art; and
+therefore the deficiences which I shall note will rather be in some
+collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the rules or
+use of the art itself.
+
+(2)  Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots of this
+science, as we have done of the rest, the duty and office of rhetoric is
+to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will.  For we
+see reason is disturbed in the administration thereof by three means—by
+illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or
+impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or affection,
+which pertains to morality.  And as in negotiation with others, men are
+wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by vehemency; so in this
+negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences,
+solicited and importuned by impressions or observations, and transported
+by passions.  Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as
+that those powers and arts should have force to disturb reason, and not
+to establish and advance it.  For the end of logic is to teach a form of
+argument to secure reason, and not to entrap it; the end of morality is
+to procure the affections to obey reason, and not to invade it; the end
+of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second reason, and not to
+oppress it; for these abuses of arts come in but _ex oblique_, for
+caution.
+
+(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out
+of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric
+but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome
+meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the
+taste.  For we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning that
+which is good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is no man
+but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think; and it was
+excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that because he used to hold
+on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing
+against eloquence and good speech, knowing that no man can speak fair of
+courses sordid and base.  And therefore, as Plato said elegantly, “That
+virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection;” so
+seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the next
+degree is to show her to the imagination in lively representation; for to
+show her to reason only in subtlety of argument was a thing ever derided
+in Chrysippus and many of the Stoics, who thought to thrust virtue upon
+men by sharp disputations and conclusions, which have no sympathy with
+the will of man.
+
+(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to
+reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and
+insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and proofs; but
+in regard of the continual mutinies and seditious of the affections—
+
+       “Video meliora, proboque,
+    Deteriora sequor,”
+
+reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions did
+not practise and win the imagination from the affections’ part, and
+contract a confederacy between the reason and imagination against the
+affections; for the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good,
+as reason doth.  The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely
+the present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time.  And,
+therefore, the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly
+vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made
+things future and remote appear as present, then upon the revolt of the
+imagination reason prevaileth.
+
+(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more charged with the
+colouring of the worst part, than logic with sophistry, or morality with
+vice; for we know the doctrines of contraries are the same, though the
+use be opposite.  It appeareth also that logic differeth from rhetoric,
+not only as the fist from the palm—the one close, the other at large—but
+much more in this, that logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and
+rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions and manners.
+And therefore Aristotle doth wisely place rhetoric as between logic on
+the one side, and moral or civil knowledge on the other, as participating
+of both; for the proofs and demonstrations of logic are toward all men
+indifferent and the same, but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric
+ought to differ according to the auditors:
+
+    “Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion.”
+
+Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far that if a
+man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he should speak to
+them all respectively and several ways; though this politic part of
+eloquence in private speech it is easy for the greatest orators to want:
+whilst, by the observing their well-graced forms of speech, they leese
+the volubility of application; and therefore it shall not be amiss to
+recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it
+here or in that part which concerneth policy.
+
+(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as I said,
+are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom and diligence of
+Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a collection of the popular
+signs and colours of good and evil, both simple and comparative, which
+are as the sophisms of rhetoric (as I touched before).  For example—
+
+       “Sophisma.
+
+    Quod laudatur, bonum: quod vituperatur, malum.
+
+       Redargutio.
+
+    Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces.”
+
+_Malum est_, _malum est_ (_inquit emptor_): _sed cum recesserit_, _tum
+gloriabitur_!  The defects in the labour of Aristotle are three—one, that
+there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are not annexed;
+and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use of them: for their
+use is not only in probation, but much more in impression.  For many
+forms are equal in signification which are differing in impression, as
+the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp and that
+which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same.  For
+there is no man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said,
+“Your enemies will be glad of this”—
+
+    “Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ.”
+
+than by hearing it said only, “This is evil for you.”
+
+(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before, touching
+provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness
+of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts: the one in resemblance
+to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made
+up; both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request.
+The former of these I will call _antitheta_, and the latter _formulæ_.
+
+(8) _Antitheta_ are theses argued _pro et contra_, wherein men may be
+more large and laborious; but (in such as are able to do it) to avoid
+prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast
+up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be as
+skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be
+used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.
+
+       “_Pro verbis legis_.
+    Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quæ recedit a litera:
+    Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.
+
+       _Pro sententia legis_.
+    Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur singula.”
+
+(9) _Formulæ_ are but decent and apt passages or conveyances of speech,
+which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of preface,
+conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &c.  For as in buildings
+there is great pleasure and use in the well casting of the staircases,
+entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech, the conveyances and
+passages are of special ornament and effect.
+
+    “_A conclusion in a deliberative_.
+    So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences
+    future.”
+
+XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge,
+the one critical, the other pedantical.  For all knowledge is either
+delivered by teachers, or attained by men’s proper endeavours: and
+therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth
+chiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading
+of books; whereunto appertain incidently these considerations.  The first
+is concerning the true correction and edition of authors; wherein
+nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice.  For these critics
+have often presumed that that which they understand not is false set
+down: as the priest that, where he found it written of St. Paul _Demissus
+est per sportam_, mended his book, and made it _Demissus est per portam_;
+because _sporta_ was a hard word, and out of his reading: and surely
+their errors, though they be not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are of
+the same kind.  And therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most
+corrected copies are commonly the least correct.
+
+The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors, which
+resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein it is over usual to
+blanch the obscure places and discourse upon the plain.
+
+The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great light
+to true interpretations.
+
+The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the authors;
+that men thereby may make some election unto themselves what books to
+read.
+
+And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies; that
+men may know in what order or pursuit to read.
+
+(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of tradition
+which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers considerations of
+great fruit.
+
+As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what to
+initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.
+
+Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
+proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to press the more
+difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for it is one method
+to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing with
+heavy shoes.
+
+A third is the application of learning according unto the propriety of
+the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual, but
+seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies: as, for example,
+if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention,
+the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be
+caught away but a moment, one is new to begin.  And as sciences have a
+propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or powers
+have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy profiting: and
+therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what kinds of wits and
+natures are most apt and proper for what sciences.
+
+Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence to
+hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in exercising their
+faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise their faults and get
+ill habits as well as good; so as there is a great judgment to be had in
+the continuance and intermission of exercises.  It were too long to
+particularise a number of other considerations of this nature, things but
+of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy.  For as the wronging or
+cherishing of seeds or young plants is that that is most important to
+their thriving, and as it was noted that the first six kings being in
+truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the
+principal cause of the immense greatness of that state which followed, so
+the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible (though
+unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time or contention of labour
+can countervail it afterwards.  And it is not amiss to observe also how
+small and mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall into
+great men or great matters, do work great and important effects: whereof
+we see a notable example in Tacitus of two stage players, Percennius and
+Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian armies into
+an extreme tumult and combustion.  For there arising a mutiny amongst
+them upon the death of Augustus Cæsar, Blæsus the lieutenant had
+committed some of the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon
+Vibulenus got to be heard speak, which he did in this manner:—“These poor
+innocent wretches appointed to cruel death, you have restored to behold
+the light; but who shall restore my brother to me, or life unto my
+brother, that was sent hither in message from the legions of Germany, to
+treat of the common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by
+some of his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
+executioners upon soldiers.  Answer, Blæsus, what is done with his body?
+The mortalest enemies do not deny burial.  When I have performed my last
+duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain
+besides him; so that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true
+hearts to the legions, may have leave to bury us.”  With which speech he
+put the army into an infinite fury and uproar: whereas truth was he had
+no brother, neither was there any such matter; but he played it merely as
+if he had been upon the stage.
+
+(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational knowledges;
+wherein if I have made the divisions other than those that are received,
+yet would I not be thought to disallow all those divisions which I do not
+use.  For there is a double necessity imposed upon me of altering the
+divisions.  The one, because it differeth in end and purpose, to sort
+together those things which are next in nature, and those things which
+are next in use.  For if a secretary of estate should sort his papers, it
+is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort together things of
+a nature, as treaties, instructions, &c.  But in his boxes or particular
+cabinet he would sort together those that he were like to use together,
+though of several natures.  So in this general cabinet of knowledge it
+was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the nature of things;
+whereas if myself had been to handle any particular knowledge, I would
+have respected the divisions fittest for use.  The other, because the
+bringing in of the deficiences did by consequence alter the partitions of
+the rest.  For let the knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be
+fifteen.  Let the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty; the parts of
+fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three
+and five; the parts of twenty are two, four, five, and ten.  So as these
+things are without contradiction, and could not otherwise be.
+
+XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the
+appetite and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, _Ante omnia_, _fili_,
+_custodi cor tuum_: _nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ_.  In the handling
+of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a
+man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of
+alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions
+for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters.  So have they
+made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and
+portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well
+described as the true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires.  But
+how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will
+of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it
+over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably.  For it is not the
+disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by
+nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines
+and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and the
+like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence of this
+part.
+
+(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock
+whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast
+away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and
+common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the
+wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties),
+but contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain
+resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to
+the subtlety of disputatious, or to the eloquence of discourses.  But
+Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence, _Nocet illis eloquentia_,
+_quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit_, _sed sui_.  Doctrine should be such
+as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher;
+being directed to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s
+commendation.  And therefore those are of the right kind which may be
+concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel, _Quæ si feceritis_, _non
+oratorem dumtaxat in præsentia laudabitis_, _sed vosmetipsos etiam non
+ita multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore_.
+
+(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a
+fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who
+got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of
+the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas:
+
+    “Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
+    Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem.”
+
+And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure
+that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn
+action and active life, these Georgics of the mind, concerning the
+husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical
+descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity.  Wherefore the main and
+primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or
+platform of good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one
+describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue,
+apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.
+
+(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good considereth it
+either simple or compared; either the kinds of good, or the degrees of
+good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputatious which were
+touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude,
+or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen
+divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged.  And as Aristotle saith,
+“That young men may be happy, but not otherwise but by hope;” so we must
+all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope
+of the future world.
+
+(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the philosopher’s
+heaven, whereby they feigned a higher elevation of man’s nature than was
+(for we see in what height of style Seneca writeth, _Vere magnum_,
+_habere fragilitatem hominis_, _securitatem Dei_), we may with more
+sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and labours.
+Wherein for the nature of good positive or simple, they have set it down
+excellently in describing the forms of virtue and duty, with their
+situations and postures; in distributing them into their kinds, parts,
+provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like: nay further, they
+have commended them to man’s nature and spirit with great quickness of
+argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched
+them (as much as discourse can do) against corrupt and popular opinions.
+Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also
+excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the comparisons
+between a contemplative and an active life, in the distinction between
+virtue with reluctation and virtue secured, in their encounters between
+honesty and profit, in their balancing of virtue with virtue, and the
+like; so as this part deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.
+
+(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received
+notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had
+stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good and
+evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a
+great light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted
+with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound:
+which being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much
+confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.
+
+(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of good—the one, as
+everything is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it is a
+part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the
+greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a
+more general form.  Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy
+moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it
+forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth
+to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies; so may we
+go forward, and see that water and massy bodies move to the centre of the
+earth; but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of
+nature, they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking
+their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world.  This
+double nature of good, and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven
+upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the
+public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and
+being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being
+in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded
+with great vehemency and instance by his friends about him, that he
+should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only
+to them, _Necesse est ut eam_, _non ut vivam_.  But it may be truly
+affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other
+discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is
+communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as
+the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the same God that gave the
+Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate
+creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of
+God have wished themselves anathematised and razed out of the book of
+life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion.
+
+(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and determine
+most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant.  For
+first, it decideth the question touching the preferment of the
+contemplative or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle.  For all
+the reasons which he bringeth for the contemplative are private, and
+respecting the pleasure and dignity of a man’s self (in which respects no
+question the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike
+to that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying
+of philosophy and contemplation, who being asked what he was, answered,
+“That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner, that
+some came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some came as merchants
+to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer and meet
+their friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of them that
+came to look on.”  But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life
+it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.  Neither could
+the like question ever have been received in the Church, notwithstanding
+their _Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus_, by which place
+they would exalt their civil death and regular professions, but upon this
+defence, that the monastical life is not simple contemplative, but
+performeth the duty either of incessant prayers and supplications, which
+hath been truly esteemed as an office in the Church, or else of writing
+or taking instructions for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses
+did when he abode so long in the mount.  And so we see Enoch, the seventh
+from Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with God, yet did
+also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude citeth.  But for
+contemplation which should be finished in itself, without casting beams
+upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not.
+
+(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates, and
+their schools and successions, on the one side, who placed felicity in
+virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises whereof do chiefly
+embrace and concern society; and on the other side, the Cyrenaics and
+Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in
+some comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits)
+to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served and
+attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed it in
+serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation; as if they would have
+deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when there
+was no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and
+season; and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the
+disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming
+things according to the clearness of the desires, or the reluctation;
+which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, measuring
+things according to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or
+wavering of belief; all which are manifest to tend to private repose and
+contentment, and not to point of society.
+
+(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which presupposeth
+that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power, lest
+we be liable to fortune and disturbance; as if it were not a thing much
+more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends for the public, than to
+obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune: as
+Consalvo said to his soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he had
+rather die one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for long by
+one foot of retreat.  Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath
+signed, who hath affirmed that “a good conscience is a continual feast;”
+showing plainly that the conscience of good intentions, howsoever
+succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature than all the provision
+which can be made for security and repose.
+
+(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew general
+about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or
+profession; as if the purpose had been, not to resist and extinguish
+perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a
+particular kind and course of life to that end; introducing such a health
+of mind, as was that health of body of which Aristotle speaketh of
+Herodicus, who did nothing all his life long but intend his health;
+whereas if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of
+body is best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities,
+so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go through the
+greatest temptations and perturbations.  So as Diogenes’ opinion is to be
+accepted, who commended not them which abstained, but them which
+sustained, and could refrain their mind _in præcipitio_, and could give
+unto the mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn.
+
+(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in some
+of the most ancient and reverend philosophers and philosophical men, that
+did retire too easily from civil business, for avoiding of indignities
+and perturbations; whereas the resolution of men truly moral ought to be
+such as the same Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, _e telâ
+crassiore_, and not so fine as that everything should catch in it and
+endanger it.
+
+XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into the
+division of good active and passive; for this difference of good (not
+unlike to that which amongst the Romans was expressed in the familiar or
+household terms of _promus_ and _condus_) is formed also in all things,
+and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the one
+to preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or multiply
+themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the worthier; for in nature
+the heavens, which are the more worthy, are the agent, and the earth,
+which is the less worthy, is the patient.  In the pleasures of living
+creatures, that of generation is greater than that of food.  In divine
+doctrine, _beatius est dare quam accipere_.  And in life, there is no
+man’s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the effecting of somewhat that he
+hath fixed in his desire, more than sensuality, which priority of the
+active good is much upheld by the consideration of our estate to be
+mortal and exposed to fortune.  For if we might have a perpetuity and
+certainty in our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price.
+But when we see it is but _magni æstimamus mori tardius_, and _ne
+glorieris de crastino_, _nescis partum diei_, it maketh us to desire to
+have somewhat secured and exempted from time, which are only our deeds
+and works; as it is said, _Opera eorum sequuntur eos_.  The pre-eminence
+likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection which is natural
+in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the pleasures of the
+sense, which is the principal part of passive good, can have no great
+latitude.  _Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris_; _cibus_, _somnus_, _ludus per
+hunc circulum curritur_; _mori velle non tantum fortis_, _aut miser_,
+_aut prudens_, _sed etiam fastidiosus potest_.  But in enterprises,
+pursuits, and purposes of life, there is much variety; whereof men are
+sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils,
+reintegrations, approaches and attainings to their ends.  So as it was
+well said, _Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est_.  Neither hath this
+active good an identity with the good of society, though in some cases it
+hath an incidence into it.  For although it do many times bring forth
+acts of beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to a man’s own
+power, glory, amplification, continuance; as appeareth plainly, when it
+findeth a contrary subject.  For that gigantine state of mind which
+possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla and
+infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy
+as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world,
+according to their own humours (which is the true theomachy), pretendeth
+and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth furthest from good of
+society, which we have determined to be the greater.
+
+(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of conservative
+and effective.  For let us take a brief review of that which we have
+said: we have spoken first of the good of society, the intention whereof
+embraceth the form of human nature, whereof we are members and portions,
+and not our own proper and individual form; we have spoken of active
+good, and supposed it as a part of private and particular good.  And
+rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple desire or
+appetite proceeding from love to themselves: one of preserving and
+continuing their form; another of advancing and perfecting their form;
+and a third of multiplying and extending their form upon other things:
+whereof the multiplying, or signature of it upon other things, is that
+which we handled by the name of active good.  So as there remaineth the
+conserving of it, and perfecting or raising of it, which latter is the
+highest degree of passive good.  For to preserve in state is the less, to
+preserve with advancement is the greater.  So in man,
+
+    “Igneus est ollis vigor, et cælestis origo.”
+
+His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the
+perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which good is
+that which is the tempest of human life; while man, upon the instinct of
+an advancement, formal and essential, is carried to seek an advancement
+local.  For as those which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up and
+down and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove
+internal, so is it with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to
+exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their
+place.  So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative or
+perfective.
+
+(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth in
+the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; it seemeth to be
+most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and lowest.  And
+this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged of,
+nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
+either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour
+of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the
+one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good.
+Whether of these is the greater good is a question controverted; but
+whether man’s nature may not be capable of both is a question not
+inquired.
+
+(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a sophist,
+Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of mind, and the
+sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell from argument to
+ill words: the sophist saying that Socrates’ felicity was the felicity of
+a block or stone; and Socrates saying that the sophist’s felicity was the
+felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but itch and scratch.
+And both these opinions do not want their supports.  For the opinion of
+Socrates is much upheld by the general consent even of the epicures
+themselves, that virtue beareth a great part in felicity; and if so,
+certain it is, that virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then
+in compassing desires.  The sophist’s opinion is much favoured by the
+assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is greater than good
+of simple preservation; because every obtaining a desire hath a show of
+advancement, as motion though in a circle hath a show of progression.
+
+(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the former
+superfluous.  For can it be doubted, but that there are some who take
+more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some other, and yet,
+nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them?  So as
+this same, _Non uti ut non appetas_, _non appetere ut non metuas_, _sunt
+animi pusilli et diffidentis_.  And it seemeth to me that most of the
+doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautious than the
+nature of things requireth.  So have they increased the fear of death in
+offering to cure it.  For when they would have a man’s whole life to be
+but a discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men think
+that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of preparing.
+Better saith the poet:—
+
+    “Qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat
+    Naturæ.”
+
+So have they sought to make men’s minds too uniform and harmonical, by
+not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions; the reasons whereof I
+suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated to a private,
+free, and unapplied course of life.  For as we see, upon the lute or like
+instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many changes,
+yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops and passages, as
+a set song or voluntary; much after the same manner was the diversity
+between a philosophical and civil life.  And, therefore, men are to
+imitate the wisdom of jewellers: who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or
+an ice which may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone,
+they help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too much, they
+will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity as they
+destroy not magnanimity.
+
+(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private and
+particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good of man
+which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term duty; because
+the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed
+towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind well formed
+and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue
+without some relation to society, nor duty without an inward disposition.
+This part may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic; but
+not if it be well observed.  For it concerneth the regiment and
+government of every man over himself, and not over others.  And as in
+architecture the direction of framing the posts, beams, and other parts
+of building, is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting
+the building; and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame an
+instrument or engine is not the same with the manner of setting it on
+work and employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one
+you incidently express the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine of
+conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their conformity
+thereunto.
+
+(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common duty of
+every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the respective or
+special duty of every man in his profession, vocation, and place.  The
+first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said.  The
+second likewise I may report rather dispersed than deficient; which
+manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge to be
+best.  For who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue,
+challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and place?
+For although sometimes a looker on may see more than a gamester, and
+there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, “That the vale best
+discovereth the hill;” yet there is small doubt but that men can write
+best and most really and materially in their own professions; and that
+the writing of speculative men of active matter for the most part doth
+seem to men of experience, as Phormio’s argument of the wars seemed to
+Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage.  Only there is one vice which
+accompanieth them that write in their own professions, that they magnify
+them in excess.  But generally it were to be wished (as that which would
+make learning indeed solid and fruitful) that active men would or could
+become writers.
+
+(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, _honoris causa_, your Majesty’s
+excellent book touching the duty of a king; a work richly compounded of
+divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts;
+and being in some opinion one of the most sound and healthful writings
+that I have read: not distempered in the heat of invention, nor in the
+coldness of negligence; not sick of dizziness, as those are who leese
+themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in
+matters impertinent; not savouring of perfumes and paintings, as those do
+who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth; and chiefly well
+disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth and apt for
+action; and far removed from that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted
+those that write in their own professions to be subject—which is, that
+they exalt it above measure.  For your Majesty hath truly described, not
+a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory, but a Moses or a
+David, pastors of their people.  Neither can I ever leese out of my
+remembrance what I heard your Majesty in the same sacred spirit of
+government deliver in a great cause of judicature, which was, “That kings
+ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of nature; and ought as
+rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative as God doth His power of
+working miracles.”  And yet notwithstanding in your book of a free
+monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude
+of the power and right of a king, as well as the circle of his office and
+duty.  Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your
+Majesty, as a prime or eminent example of tractates concerning special
+and respective duties; wherein I should have said as much, if it had been
+written a thousand years since.  Neither am I moved with certain courtly
+decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in presence.  No, it is
+flattery to praise in absence—that is, when either the virtue is absent,
+or the occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural, but forced,
+either in truth or in time.  But let Cicero be read in his oration _pro
+Marcello_, which is nothing but an excellent table of Cæsar’s virtue, and
+made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent persons,
+wiser a great deal than such observers; and we will never doubt, upon a
+full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.
+
+(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of this part,
+touching the duties of professions and vocations, a relative or opposite,
+touching the frauds, cautels, impostures, and vices of every profession,
+which hath been likewise handled; but how? rather in a satire and
+cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit
+to deride and traduce much of that which is good in professions, than
+with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt.  For, as
+Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to
+scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no
+matter for his instruction: _Quærenti derisori scientiam ipsa se
+abscondit_; _sed studioso fit obviam_.  But the managing of this argument
+with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be
+one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be
+planted.  For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk—that if he see you
+first, you die for it; but if you see him first, he dieth—so is it with
+deceits and evil arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their
+life; but if they prevent, they endanger.  So that we are much beholden
+to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought
+to do.  For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the
+columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the
+serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and
+lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest—that is, all forms and
+natures of evil.  For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.  Nay,
+an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them,
+without the help of the knowledge of evil.  For men of corrupted minds
+presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and
+believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men’s exterior language.  So
+as, except you can make them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of
+their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality.  _Non recipit
+stultus verba prudentiæ_, _nisi ea dixeris quæ_, _versantur in corde
+ejus_.
+
+(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also appertain the
+duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant.
+So likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil bond of
+companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other
+proportionate duties; not as they are parts of government and society,
+but as to the framing of the mind of particular persons.
+
+(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth handle it
+also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto belongeth the
+weighing of duties between person and person, case and case, particular
+and public.  As we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own
+sons, which was so much extolled, yet what was said?
+
+    “Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata minores.”
+
+So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides.  Again, we see
+when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose opinions
+they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their associates,
+and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant being a
+usurper, they were divided in opinion; some holding that servitude was
+the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better than a civil
+war: and a number of the like cases there are of comparative duty.
+Amongst which that of all others is the most frequent, where the question
+is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice.  Which Jason of
+Thessalia determined against the truth: _Aliqua sunt injuste facienda_,
+_ut multa juste fieri possint_.  But the reply is good: _Auctorem
+præsentis justitiæ habes_, _sponsorem futuræ non habes_.  Men must pursue
+things which are just in present, and leave the future to the Divine
+Providence.  So then we pass on from this general part touching the
+exemplar and description of good.
+
+XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of life, it
+remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth thereunto, without
+which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image or
+statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and
+motion; whereunto Aristotle himself subscribeth in these words: _Necesse
+est scilicet de virtute dicere_, _et quid sit_, _et ex quibus gignatur_.
+_Inutile enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem nosse_, _acquirendæ autem ejus
+modos et vias ignorare_.  _Non enum de virtute tantum_, _qua specie sit_,
+_quærendum est_, _sed et quomodo sui copiam faciat_: _utrumque enum
+volumeus_, _et rem ipsam nosse_, _et ejus compotes fieri_: _hoc autem ex
+voto non succedet_, _nisi sciamus et ex quibus et quomodo_.  In such full
+words and with such iteration doth he inculcate this part.  So saith
+Cicero in great commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied
+himself to philosophy, _Non ita disputandi causa_, _sed ita vivendi_.
+And although the neglect of our times, wherein few men do hold any
+consultations touching the reformation of their life (as Seneca
+excellently saith, _De partibus vitæ quisque deliberat_, _de summa
+nemo_), may make this part seem superfluous; yet I must conclude with
+that aphorism of Hippocrates, _Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non
+sentiunt_, _iis mens ægrotat_.  They need medicine, not only to assuage
+the disease, but to awake the sense.  And if it be said that the cure of
+men’s minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral
+philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble
+handmaid.  For as the Psalm saith, “That the eyes of the handmaid look
+perpetually towards the mistress,” and yet no doubt many things are left
+to the discretion of the handmaid to discern of the mistress’ will; so
+ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of
+divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself (within due limits) many
+sound and profitable directions.
+
+(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I cannot but
+find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to written inquiry; the
+rather, because it consisteth of much matter, wherein both speech and
+action is often conversant; and such wherein the common talk of men
+(which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass) is wiser than their
+books.  It is reasonable, therefore, that we propound it in the more
+particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit
+ourselves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost incredible,
+and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those themselves that have
+written.  We will, therefore, enumerate some heads or points thereof,
+that it may appear the better what it is, and whether it be extant.
+
+(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical we
+ought to cast up our account, what is in our power, and what not; for the
+one may be dealt with by way of alteration, but the other by way of
+application only.  The husbandman cannot command neither the nature of
+the earth nor the seasons of the weather; no more can the physician the
+constitution of the patient nor the variety of accidents.  So in the
+culture and cure of the mind of man, two things are without our command:
+points of Nature, and points of fortune.  For to the basis of the one,
+and the conditions of the other, our work is limited and tied.  In these
+things, therefore, it is left unto us to proceed by application:—
+
+    “Vincenda est omnis fertuna ferendo:”
+
+and so likewise,
+
+    “Vincenda est omnis Natura ferendo.”
+
+But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and
+neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which
+draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth
+adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we call accommodating
+or applying.  Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the
+exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto
+which we do apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take
+measure of the body.
+
+(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set down sound
+and true distributions and descriptions of the several characters and
+tempers of men’s natures and dispositions, specially having regard to
+those differences which are most radical in being the fountains and
+causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture;
+wherein it is not the handling of a few of them in passage, the better to
+describe the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention.
+For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which are
+proportioned to great matters, and others to small (which Aristotle
+handleth, or ought to have bandied, by the name of magnanimity), doth it
+not deserve as well to be considered that there are minds proportioned to
+intend many matters, and others to few?  So that some can divide
+themselves: others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be but in
+few things at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as
+well as a pusillanimity.  And again, that some minds are proportioned to
+that which may be dispatched at once, or within a short return of time;
+others to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with length of
+pursuit:—
+
+    “Jam tum tenditqus fovetque.”
+
+So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly
+also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.  So further deserved it to be
+considered by Aristotle, “That there is a disposition in conversation
+(supposing it in things which do in no sort touch or concern a man’s
+self) to soothe and please, and a disposition contrary to contradict and
+cross;” and deserveth it not much better to be considered.  “That there
+is a disposition, not in conversation or talk, but in matter of more
+serious nature (and supposing it still in things merely indifferent), to
+take pleasure in the good of another; and a disposition contrariwise, to
+take distaste at the good of another?” which is that properly which we
+call good nature or ill nature, benignity or malignity; and, therefore, I
+cannot sufficiently marvel that this part of knowledge, touching the
+several characters of natures and dispositions, should be omitted both in
+morality and policy, considering it is of so great ministry and
+suppeditation to them both.  A man shall find in the traditions of
+astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men’s natures, according to
+the predominances of the planets: lovers of quiet, lovers of action,
+lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts,
+lovers of change, and so forth.  A man shall find in the wisest sort of
+these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures
+of the several cardinals handsomely and lively painted forth.  A man
+shall meet with in every day’s conference the denominations of sensitive,
+dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, _huomo di prima impressione_,
+_huomo di ultima impressione_, and the like; and yet, nevertheless, this
+kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.
+For the distinctions are found (many of them), but we conclude no
+precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both
+history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where these
+observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our hands, but
+no man bringeth them to the confectionary that receipts might be made of
+them for use of life.
+
+(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which are imposed
+upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and
+sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and
+not extern; and again, those which are caused by extern fortune, as
+sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy,
+privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune,
+rising _per saltum_, _per gradus_, and the like.  And, therefore, we see
+that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, _benignitas
+hujis ut adolescentuli est_.  Saint Paul concludeth that severity of
+discipline was to be used to the Cretans, _increpa eos dure_, upon the
+disposition of their country, _Cretensus semper mendaces_, _malæ bestiæ_,
+_ventres_.  Sallust noteth that it is usual with kings to desire
+contradictories: _Sed plerumque regiæ voluntates_, _ut vehementes sunt_,
+_sic mobiles_, _sæpeque ipsæ sibi advers_.  Tacitus observeth how rarely
+raising of the fortune mendeth the disposition: _solus Vespasianus
+mutatus in melius_.  Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and
+sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men _qui magnam felicitatem
+concoquere non possunt_.  So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep a
+measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune;
+_Divitiæ si affluant_, _nolite cor apponere_.  These observations and the
+like I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in
+his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses; but they
+were never incorporate into moral philosophy, to which they do
+essentially appertain; as the knowledge of this diversity of grounds and
+moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of
+complexions and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to
+follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to
+all patients.
+
+(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the
+affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to
+know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases;
+and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of
+the divers characters of men’s natures, it followeth in order to know the
+diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the
+perturbations and distempars of the affections.  For as the ancient
+politiques in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea,
+and the orators to the winds; because as the sea would of itself be calm
+and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would
+be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in
+working and agitation: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the
+nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as
+winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation.  And here again I
+find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written divers
+volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which is the
+principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are
+considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may be moved
+by speech), he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the
+quantity; but where their true place is he pretermitteth them.  For it is
+not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this
+inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light
+can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to
+the particular affections as light is to particular colours.  Better
+travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I
+can gather by that which we have at second hand.  But yet it is like it
+was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a
+subject of this nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
+descriptions and observations.  So likewise I find some particular
+writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections: as of
+anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance,
+and other.  But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors
+of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great life, how
+affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and
+how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
+themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify:
+how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and
+encounter one with another; and other the like particularities.  Amongst
+the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I
+say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another;
+even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which
+otherwise percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation
+is erected that excellent use of _præmium_ and _pæna_, whereby civil
+states consist: employing the predominant affections of fear and hope,
+for the suppressing and bridling the rest.  For as in the government of
+states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so
+it is in the government within.
+
+(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command, and
+have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite,
+and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled custom,
+exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company,
+friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these
+as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind
+suffereth, and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and
+described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate
+of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine: of which number we
+will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it
+were too long to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and
+habit to speak of.
+
+(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of
+those things which consist by Nature, nothing can be changed by custom;
+using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times up it
+will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or hearing we do not
+learn to see or hear the better.  For though this principle be true in
+things wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we cannot now
+stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein Nature admitteth
+a latitude.  For he might see that a strait glove will come more easily
+on with use; and that a wand will by use bend otherwise than it grew; and
+that by use of the voice we speak louder and stronger; and that by use of
+enduring heat or cold we endure it the better, and the like: which latter
+sort have a nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he handleth,
+than those instances which he allegeth.  But allowing his conclusion,
+that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more to
+have taught the manner of superinducing that habit: for there be many
+precepts of the wise ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of
+ordering the exercises of the body, whereof we will recite a few.
+
+(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either
+too high a strain or too weak: for if too high, in a diffident nature you
+discourage, in a confident nature you breed an opinion of facility, and
+so a sloth; and in all natures you breed a further expectation than can
+hold out, and so an insatisfaction in the end: if too weak, of the other
+side, you may not look to perform and overcome any great task.
+
+(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two several
+times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst
+disposed; that by the one you may gain a great step, by the other you may
+work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make the middle times the
+more easy and pleasant.
+
+(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way, which
+is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto we are by
+nature inclined; like unto the rowing against the stream, or making a
+wand straight by bending him contrary to his natural crookedness.
+
+(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything better, and
+with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not
+first in the intention, but _tanquam aliud agendo_, because of the
+natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint.  Many other
+axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and custom, which
+being so conducted doth prove indeed another nature; but, being governed
+by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of Nature, and bringeth forth
+that which is lame and counterfeit.
+
+(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and
+operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great
+caution and direction appertaining thereunto?  Did not one of the fathers
+in great indignation call poesy _vinum dæmonum_, because it increaseth
+temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions?  Is not the opinion of
+Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, “That young men are no
+fit auditors of moral philosophy, because they are not settled from the
+boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and
+experience”?  And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and
+discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded unto
+virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and majesty, and
+popular opinions against virtue in their parasites’ coats fit to be
+scorned and derided), are of so little effect towards honesty of life,
+because they are not read and revolved by men in their mature and settled
+years, but confined almost to boys and beginners?  But is it not true
+also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of policy,
+till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and morality; lest
+their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think that there are no
+true differences of things, but according to utility and fortune, as the
+verse describes it, _Prosperum et felix scelus virtus vocatur_; and
+again, _Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit_, _hic diadema_: which the
+poets do speak satirically and in indignation on virtue’s behalf; but
+books of policy do speak it seriously and positively; for so it pleaseth
+Machiavel to say, “That if Cæsar had been overthrown, he would have been
+more odious than ever was Catiline;” as if there had been no difference,
+but in fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
+excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world?  Again, is there
+not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities
+themselves (some kinds of them), lest they make men too precise,
+arrogant, incompatible; as Cicero saith of Cato, _In Marco Catone hæc
+bona quæ videmus divina et egregia_, _ipsius scitote esse propria_; _quæ
+nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non a natura_, _sed a magistro_?  Many
+other axioms and advices there are touching those proprieties and
+effects, which studies do infuse and instil into manners.  And so,
+likewise, is there touching the use of all those other points, of
+company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the beginning in
+the doctrine of morality.
+
+(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more
+accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground; that
+the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at
+other times in a state more depraved.  The purpose, therefore, of this
+practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to
+obliterate and take forth the evil.  The fixing of the good hath been
+practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and observances or
+exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as because
+they keep the mind in continual obedience.  The obliteration of the evil
+hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of
+that which is past, and an inception or account _de novo_ for the time to
+come.  But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all
+good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to religion.
+
+(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of all
+other means the most compendious and summary, and again, the most noble
+and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate;
+which is, the electing and propounding unto a man’s self good and
+virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his
+compass to attain.  For if these two things be supposed, that a man set
+before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute,
+constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould himself
+into all virtue at once.  And this indeed is like the work of nature;
+whereas the other course is like the work of the hand.  For as when a
+carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereupon he worketh; as
+if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude
+stone still, till such times as he comes to it.  But contrariwise when
+nature makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all
+the parts at one time.  So in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man
+practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude, nor the like
+but when he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look, what
+virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth commend
+unto him, he is invested of a precedent disposition to conform himself
+thereunto.  Which state of mind Aristotle doth excellently express
+himself, that it ought not to be called virtuous, but divine.  His words
+are these: _Immanitati autem consentaneum est opponere eam_, _quæ supra
+humanitatem est_, _heroicam sive divinam virtutem_; and a little after,
+_Nam ut feræ neque vitium neque virtus est_, _swic neque Dei_: _sed hic
+quidem status altius quiddam virtute est_, _ille aluid quiddam a vitio_.
+And therefore we may see what celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus
+attributeth to Trajan in his funeral oration, where he said, “That men
+needed to make no other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue
+as good lords to them as Trajan had been;” as if he had not been only an
+imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it.  But these be heathen
+and profane passages, having but a shadow of that divine state of mind,
+which religion and the holy faith doth conduct men unto, by imprinting
+upon their souls charity, which is excellently called the bond of
+perfection, because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together.
+And as it is elegantly said by Menander of vain love, which is but a
+false imitation of divine love, _Amor melior Sophista lœvo ad humanam
+vitam_—that love teacheth a man to carry himself better than the sophist
+or preceptor; which he calleth left-handed, because, with all his rules
+and preceptions, he cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that
+facility to prize himself and govern himself, as love can do: so
+certainly, if a man’s mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth work
+him suddenly into greater perfection than all the doctrine of morality
+can do, which is but a sophist in comparison of the other.  Nay, further,
+as Xenophon observed truly, that all other affections, though they raise
+the mind, yet they do it by distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or
+excesses; but only love doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same
+instant doth settle and compose it: so in all other excellences, though
+they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess.  Only charity
+admitteth no excess.  For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power,
+the angels transgressed and fell; _Ascendam_, _et ero similis altissimo_:
+by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell;
+_Eritis sicut Dii_, _scientes bonum et malum_: but by aspiring to a
+similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever
+transgressed, or shall transgress.  For unto that imitation we are
+called: _Diligite inimicos vestros_, _benefacite eis qui oderunt vos_,
+_et orate pro persequentibus et calumniantibus vos_, _ut sitis filii
+Patris vestri qui in cœlis est_, _qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos
+et malos_, _et pluit super justos et injustos_.  So in the first platform
+of the divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, _Optimus
+Maximus_: and the sacred Scriptures thus, _Miscericordia ejus super omnia
+opera ejus_.
+
+(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge, concerning the
+culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any man, considering the
+arts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is but to
+collect into an art or science that which hath been pretermitted by
+others, as matter of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.  But
+as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes, “You may not marvel (Athenians)
+that Demosthenes and I do differ; for he drinketh water, and I drink
+wine;” and like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of
+sleep—
+
+    “Sunt geminæ somni portæ: quarum altera fertur
+    Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
+    Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
+    Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes:”
+
+so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure maxim in
+knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor (“of wine”) is the more
+vaporous, and the braver gate (“of ivory”) sendeth forth the falser
+dreams.
+
+(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human philosophy,
+which contemplateth man segregate, and as he consisteth of body and
+spirit.  Wherein we may further note, that there seemeth to be a relation
+or conformity between the good of the mind and the good of the body.  For
+as we divided the good of the body into health, beauty, strength, and
+pleasure, so the good of the mind, inquired in rational and moral
+knowledges, tendeth to this, to make the mind sound, and without
+perturbation; beautiful, and graced with decency; and strong and agile
+for all duties of life.  These three, as in the body, so in the mind,
+seldom meet, and commonly sever.  For it is easy to observe, that many
+have strength of wit and courage, but have neither health from
+perturbations, nor any beauty or decency in their doings; some again have
+an elegancy and fineness of carriage which have neither soundness of
+honesty nor substance of sufficiency; and some again have honest and
+reformed minds, that can neither become themselves nor manage business;
+and sometimes two of them meet, and rarely all three.  As for pleasure,
+we have likewise determined that the mind ought not to be reduced to
+stupid, but to retain pleasure; confined rather in the subject of it,
+than in the strength and vigour of it.
+
+XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which of all
+others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom.
+Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said, “That the Romans were like sheep,
+for that a man were better drive a flock of them, than one of them; for
+in a flock, if you could get but some few go right, the rest would
+follow:” so in that respect moral philosophy is more difficile than
+policy.  Again, moral philosophy propoundeth to itself the framing of
+internal goodness; but civil knowledge requireth only an external
+goodness; for that as to society sufficeth.  And therefore it cometh oft
+to pass that there be evil times in good governments: for so we find in
+the Holy story, when the kings were good, yet it is added, _Sed adhuc
+poulus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum suorum_.  Again,
+states, as great engines, move slowly, and are not so soon put out of
+frame: for as in Egypt the seven good years sustained the seven bad, so
+governments for a time well grounded do bear out errors following; but
+the resolution of particular persons is more suddenly subverted.  These
+respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil knowledge.
+
+(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary
+actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation, and government.
+For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection; and they be
+three wisdoms of divers natures which do often sever—wisdom of the
+behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.
+
+(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected, but
+much less despised; for it hath not only an honour in itself, but an
+influence also into business and government.  The poet saith, _Nec vultu
+destrue verba tuo_: a man may destroy the force of his words with his
+countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero, recommending to his
+brother affability and easy access; _Nil interest habere ostium apertum_,
+_vultum clausum_: it is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and
+to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.  So we see Atticus,
+before the first interview between Cæsar and Cicero, the war depending,
+did seriously advise Cicero touching the composing and ordering of his
+countenance and gesture.  And if the government of the countenance be of
+such effect, much more is that of the speech, and other carriage
+appertaining to conversation; the true model whereof seemeth to me well
+expressed by Livy, though not meant for this purpose: _Ne aut arrogans
+videar_, _aut obnoxius_; _quorum alterum est àlienæ libertatis obliti_,
+_alterum suæ_: the sum of behaviour is to retain a man’s own dignity,
+without intruding upon the liberty of others.  On the other side, if
+behaviour and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may pass
+into affectation, and then _Quid deformius quam scenam in vitam
+transferre_—to act a man’s life?  But although it proceed not to that
+extreme, yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too much.  And
+therefore as we use to advise young students from company keeping, by
+saying, _Amici fures temporis_: so certainly the intending of the
+discretion of behaviour is a great thief of meditation.  Again, such as
+are accomplished in that form of urbanity please themselves in it, and
+seldom aspire to higher virtue; whereas those that have defect in it do
+seek comeliness by reputation; for where reputation is, almost everything
+becometh; but where that is not, it must be supplied by _puntos_ and
+compliments.  Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an
+over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of decency, which is
+time and season.  For as Solomon saith, _Qui respicit ad ventos_, _non
+seminat_; _et qui respicit ad nubes_, _non metet_: a man must make his
+opportunity, as oft as find it.  To conclude, behaviour seemeth to me as
+a garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a garment.  For it
+ought to be made in fashion; it ought not to be too curious; it ought to
+be shaped so as to set forth any good making of the mind and hide any
+deformity; and above all, it ought not to be too strait or restrained for
+exercise or motion.  But this part of civil knowledge hath been elegantly
+handled, and therefore I cannot report it for deficient.
+
+(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been hitherto
+collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning and the
+professors of learning.  For from this root springeth chiefly that note
+or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect, that there
+is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.  For of the three
+wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom of
+behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised, as an
+inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; for wisdom of government,
+they acquit themselves well when they are called to it, but that
+happeneth to few; but for the wisdom of business, wherein man’s life is
+most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered
+advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of this subject.
+For if books were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned
+men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without
+learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.
+
+(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge should
+be so variable as it falleth not under precept; for it is much less
+infinite than science of government, which we see is laboured and in some
+part reduced.  Of this wisdom it seemeth some of the ancient Romans in
+the saddest and wisest times were professors; for Cicero reporteth, that
+it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general
+wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at
+certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that would use
+their advice; and that the particular citizens would resort unto them,
+and consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, or of the employing
+of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or of an accusation, and every
+other occasion incident to man’s life.  So as there is a wisdom of
+counsel and advice even in private causes, arising out of a universal
+insight into the affairs of the world; which is used indeed upon
+particular causes propounded, but is gathered by general observation of
+causes of like nature.  For so we see in the book which Q. Cicero writeth
+to his brother, _De petitione consulatus_ (being the only book of
+business that I know written by the ancients), although it concerned a
+particular action then on foot, yet the substance thereof consisteth of
+many wise and politic axioms, which contain not a temporary, but a
+perpetual direction in the case of popular elections.  But chiefly we may
+see in those aphorisms which have place amongst divine writings, composed
+by Solomon the king, of whom the Scriptures testify that his heart was as
+the sands of the sea, encompassing the world and all worldly matters, we
+see, I say, not a few profound and excellent cautions, precepts,
+positions, extending to much variety of occasions; whereupon we will stay
+a while, offering to consideration some number of examples.
+
+(6) _Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes aurem tuam_,
+_ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem tibi_.  Here is commended the
+provident stay of inquiry of that which we would be loth to find: as it
+was judged great wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he burned Sertorius’
+papers unperused.
+
+_Vir sapiens_, _si cum stulto contenderit_, _sive irascatur_, _sive
+rideat_, _non inveniet requiem_.  Here is described the great
+disadvantage which a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than
+himself; which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to
+jest, or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no ways
+quit himself well of it.
+
+_Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum_, _postea sentiet eum
+contumacem_.  Here is signified, that if a man begin too high a pitch in
+his favours, it doth commonly end in unkindness and unthankfulness.
+
+_Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo_? _coram regibus stabit_, _nec erit
+inter ignobiles_.  Here is observed, that of all virtues for rising to
+honour, quickness of despatch is the best; for superiors many times love
+not to have those they employ too deep or too sufficient, but ready and
+diligent.
+
+_Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole_, _cum adolescente secundo
+qui consurgit pro eo_.  Here is expressed that which was noted by Sylla
+first, and after him by Tiberius.  _Plures adorant solem orientem quam
+occidentem vel meridianum_.
+
+_Si spiritus potestatem habentis ascenderit super te_, _locum tuum ne
+demiseris_; _quia curatio faciet cessare peccata maxima_.  Here caution
+is given, that upon displeasure, retiring is of all courses the
+unfittest; for a man leaveth things at worst, and depriveth himself of
+means to make them better.
+
+_Erat civitas parva_, _et pauci in ea viri_: _venit contra eam rex
+magnus_, _et vallavit eam_, _instruxitque munitones per gyrum_, _et
+perfecta est obsidio_; _inventusque est in ea vir pauper et sapiens_, _et
+liberavit eam per sapientiam suam_; _et nullus deinceps recordatus est
+huminis illius pauperis_.  Here the corruption of states is set forth,
+that esteem not virtue or merit longer than they have use of it.
+
+_Millis responsio frangit iram_.  Here is noted that silence or rough
+answer exasperateth; but an answer present and temperate pacifieth.
+
+_Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum_.  Here is lively represented how
+laborious sloth proveth in the end; for when things are deferred till the
+last instant, and nothing prepared beforehand, every step findeth a briar
+or impediment, which catcheth or stoppeth.
+
+_Melior est finis orationis quam principium_.  Here is taxed the vanity
+of formal speakers, that study more about prefaces and inducements, than
+upon the conclusions and issues of speech.
+
+_Qui cognoscit in judicio faciem_, _non bene facit_; _iste et pro
+buccella panis deseret veritatem_.  Here is noted, that a judge were
+better be a briber than a respecter of persons; for a corrupt judge
+offendeth not so lightly as a facile.
+
+_Vir pauper calumnians pauperes simils est imbri vehementi_, _in quo
+paratur fames_.  Here is expressed the extremity of necessitous
+extortions, figured in the ancient fable of the full and the hungry
+horseleech.
+
+_Fons turbatus pede_, _et vena corrupta_, _est justus cadens coram
+impio_.  Here is noted, that one judicial and exemplar iniquity in the
+face of the world doth trouble the fountains of justice more than many
+particular injuries passed over by connivance.
+
+_Qui subtrahit aliquid a patre et a matre_, _et dicit hoc non esse
+peccatum_, _particeps est homicidii_.  Here is noted that, whereas men in
+wronging their best friends use to extenuate their fault, as if they
+might presume or be bold upon them, it doth contrariwise indeed aggravate
+their fault, and turneth it from injury to impiety.
+
+_Noli esse amicus homini iracundo_, _nec ambulato cum homine furioso_.
+Here caution is given, that in the election of our friends we do
+principally avoid those which are impatient, as those that will espouse
+us to many factions and quarrels.
+
+_Qui conturbat domum suam_, _possidebit ventum_.  Here is noted, that in
+domestical separations and breaches men do promise to themselves quieting
+of their mind and contentment; but still they are deceived of their
+expectation, and it turneth to wind.
+
+_Filius sapiens lætificat patrem_: _filius vero stultus mæstitia est
+matri suæ_.  Here is distinguished, that fathers have most comfort of the
+good proof of their sons; but mothers have most discomfort of their ill
+proof, because women have little discerning of virtue, but of fortune.
+
+_Qui celat delictum_, _quærit amicitiam_; _sed qui altero sermone
+repetit_, _separat fæderatos_.  Here caution is given, that reconcilement
+is better managed by an amnesty, and passing over that which is past,
+than by apologies and excuses.
+
+_In omni opere bono erit abundantia_; _ubi autem verba sunt plurima_,
+_ibi frequenter egestas_.  Here is noted, that words and discourse
+aboundeth most where there is idleness and want.
+
+_Primus in sua causa justus_: _sed venit altera pars_, _et inquiret in
+eum_.  Here is observed, that in all causes the first tale possesseth
+much; in sort, that the prejudice thereby wrought will be hardly removed,
+except some abuse or falsity in the information be detected.
+
+_Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia_, _et ipsa perveniunt ad interiora
+ventris_.  Here is distinguished, that flattery and insinuation, which
+seemeth set and artificial, sinketh not far; but that entereth deep which
+hath show of nature, liberty, and simplicity.
+
+_Qui erudit derisorem_, _ipse sibi injuriam facit_; _et qui arguit
+impium_, _sibi maculam generat_.  Here caution is given how we tender
+reprehension to arrogant and scornful natures, whose manner is to esteem
+it for contumely, and accordingly to return it.
+
+_Da sapienti occasionem_, _et addetur ei sapientia_.  Here is
+distinguished the wisdom brought into habit, and that which is but verbal
+and swimming only in conceit; for the one upon the occasion presented is
+quickened and redoubled, the other is amazed and confused.
+
+_Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium_, _sic corda hominum
+manifesta sunt prudentibus_.  Here the mind of a wise man is compared to
+a glass, wherein the images of all diversity of natures and customs are
+represented; from which representation proceedeth that application,
+
+    “Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus erit.”
+
+(7) Thus have I stayed somewhat longer upon these sentences politic of
+Solomon than is agreeable to the proportion of an example; led with a
+desire to give authority to this part of knowledge, which I noted as
+deficient, by so excellent a precedent; and have also attended them with
+brief observations, such as to my understanding offer no violence to the
+sense, though I know they may be applied to a more divine use: but it is
+allowed, even in divinity, that some interpretations, yea, and some
+writings, have more of the eagle than others; but taking them as
+instructions for life, they might have received large discourse, if I
+would have broken them and illustrated them by deducements and examples.
+
+(8) Neither was this in use only with the Hebrews, but it is generally to
+be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times; that as men found out
+any observation that they thought was good for life, they would gather it
+and express it in parable or aphorism or fable.  But for fables, they
+were vicegerents and supplies where examples failed: now that the times
+abound with history, the aim is better when the mark is alive.  And
+therefore the form of writing which of all others is fittest for this
+variable argument of negotiation and occasions is that which Machiavel
+chose wisely and aptly for government; namely, discourse upon histories
+or examples.  For knowledge drawn freshly and in our view out of
+particulars, knoweth the way best to particulars again.  And it hath much
+greater life for practice when the discourse attendeth upon the example,
+than when the example attendeth upon the discourse.  For this is no point
+of order, as it seemeth at first, but of substance.  For when the example
+is the ground, being set down in a history at large, it is set down with
+all circumstances, which may sometimes control the discourse thereupon
+made, and sometimes supply it, as a very pattern for action; whereas the
+examples alleged for the discourse’s sake are cited succinctly, and
+without particularity, and carry a servile aspect towards the discourse
+which they are brought in to make good.
+
+(9) But this difference is not amiss to be remembered, that as history of
+times is the best ground for discourse of government, such as Machiavel
+handleth, so histories of lives is the most popular for discourse of
+business, because it is more conversant in private actions.  Nay, there
+is a ground of discourse for this purpose fitter than them both, which is
+discourse upon letters, such as are wise and weighty, as many are of
+Cicero _ad Atticum_, and others.  For letters have a great and more
+particular representation of business than either chronicles or lives.
+Thus have we spoken both of the matter and form of this part of civil
+knowledge, touching negotiation, which we note to be deficient.
+
+(10) But yet there is another part of this part, which differeth as much
+from that whereof we have spoken as _sapere_ and _sibi sapere_, the one
+moving as it were to the circumference, the other to the centre.  For
+there is a wisdom of counsel, and again there is a wisdom of pressing a
+man’s own fortune; and they do sometimes meet, and often sever.  For many
+are wise in their own ways that are weak for government or counsel; like
+ants, which is a wise creature for itself, but very hurtful for the
+garden.  This wisdom the Romans did take much knowledge of: _Nam pol
+sapiens_ (saith the comical poet) _fingit fortunam sibi_; and it grew to
+an adage, _Faber quisque fortunæ propriæ_; and Livy attributed it to Cato
+the first, _In hoc viro tanta vis animi et ingenii inerat_, _ut quocunque
+loco natus esset sibi ipse fortunam facturus videretur_.
+
+(11) This conceit or position, if it be too much declared and professed,
+hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was observed in
+Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great services to the state
+in his government, and giving an account thereof to the people as the
+manner was, did conclude every particular with this clause, “And in this
+fortune had no part.”  And it came so to pass, that he never prospered in
+anything he took in hand afterwards.  For this is too high and too
+arrogant, savouring of that which Ezekiel saith of Pharaoh, _Dicis_,
+_Fluvius est neus et ego feci memet ipsum_; or of that which another
+prophet speaketh, that men offer sacrifices to their nets and snares; and
+that which the poet expresseth,
+
+    “Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile libro,
+    Nunc adsint!”
+
+For these confidences were ever unhallowed, and unblessed; and,
+therefore, those that were great politiques indeed ever ascribed their
+successes to their felicity and not to their skill or virtue.  For so
+Sylla surnamed himself Felix, not Magnus.  So Cæsar said to the master of
+the ship, _Cæsarem portas et fortunam ejus_.
+
+(12) But yet, nevertheless, these positions, _Faber quisque fortunæ suæ_:
+_Sapiens dominabitur astris_: _Invia virtuti null est via_, and the like,
+being taken and used as spurs to industry, and not as stirrups to
+insolency, rather for resolution than for the presumption or outward
+declaration, have been ever thought sound and good; and are no question
+imprinted in the greatest minds, who are so sensible of this opinion as
+they can scarce contain it within.  As we see in Augustus Cæsar (who was
+rather diverse from his uncle than inferior in virtue), how when he died
+he desired his friends about him to give him a _plaudite_, as if he were
+conscious to himself that he had played his part well upon the stage.
+This part of knowledge we do report also as deficient; not but that it is
+practised too much, but it hath not been reduced to writing.  And,
+therefore, lest it should seem to any that it is not comprehensible by
+axiom, it is requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down some
+heads or passages of it.
+
+(13) Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument to
+teach men how to raise and make their fortune; a doctrine wherein every
+man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple, till he see the
+difficulty: for fortune layeth as heavy impositions as virtue; and it is
+as hard and severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be truly moral.
+But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly, both in honour and
+in substance.  In honour, because pragmatical men may not go away with an
+opinion that learning is like a lark, that can mount and sing, and please
+herself, and nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well of the
+hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the prey.
+In substance, because it is the perfect law of inquiry of truth, that
+nothing be in the globe of matter, which should not be likewise in the
+globe of crystal or form; that is, that there be not anything in being
+and action which should not be drawn and collected into contemplation and
+doctrine.  Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture of
+fortune otherwise than as of an inferior work, for no man’s fortune can
+be an end worthy of his being, and many times the worthiest men do
+abandon their fortune willingly for better respects: but nevertheless
+fortune as an organ of virtue and merit deserveth the consideration.
+
+(14) First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most summary
+towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that window which Momus
+did require; who seeing in the frame of man’s heart such angles and
+recesses, found fault there was not a window to look into them; that is,
+to procure good informations of particulars touching persons, their
+natures, their desires and ends, their customs and fashions, their helps
+and advantages, and whereby they chiefly stand, so again their weaknesses
+and disadvantages, and where they lie most open and obnoxious, their
+friends, factions, dependences; and again their opposites, enviers,
+competitors, their moods and times, _Sola viri molles aditus et tempora
+noras_; their principles, rules, and observations, and the like: and this
+not only of persons but of actions; what are on foot from time to time,
+and how they are conducted, favoured, opposed, and how they import, and
+the like.  For the knowledge of present actions is not only material in
+itself, but without it also the knowledge of persons is very erroneous:
+for men change with the actions; and whilst they are in pursuit they are
+one, and when they return to their nature they are another.  These
+informations of particulars, touching persons and actions, are as the
+minor propositions in every active syllogism; for no excellency of
+observations (which are as the major propositions) can suffice to ground
+a conclusion, if there be error and mistaking in the minors.
+
+(15) That this knowledge is possible, Solomon is our surety, who saith,
+_Consilium in corde viri tanquam aqua profunda_; _sed vir prudens
+exhauriet illud_.  And although the knowledge itself falleth not under
+precept because it is of individuals, yet the instructions for the
+obtaining of it may.
+
+(16) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the
+ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and
+distrust; that more trust be given to countenances and deeds than to
+words; and in words rather to sudden passages and surprised words than to
+set and purposed words.  Neither let that be feared which is said,
+_Fronti nulla fides_, which is meant of a general outward behaviour, and
+not of the private and subtle motions and labours of the countenance and
+gesture; which, as Q. Cicero elegantly saith, is _Animi janua_, “the gate
+of the mind.”  None more close than Tiberius, and yet Tacitus saith of
+Gallus, _Etenim vultu offensionem conjectaverat_.  So again, noting the
+differing character and manner of his commending Germanicus and Drusus in
+the Senate, he saith, touching his fashion wherein he carried his speech
+of Germanicus, thus: _Magis in speciem adornatis verbis_, _quam ut
+penitus sentire crederetur_; but of Drusus thus: _Paucioribus sed
+intentior_, _et fida oratione_; and in another place, speaking of his
+character of speech when he did anything that was gracious and popular,
+he saith, “That in other things he was _velut eluctantium verborum_;” but
+then again, _solutius loquebatur quando subveniret_.  So that there is no
+such artificer of dissimulation, nor no such commanded countenance
+(_vultus jussus_), that can sever from a feigned tale some of these
+fashions, either a more slight and careless fashion, or more set and
+formal, or more tedious and wandering, or coming from a man more drily
+and hardly.
+
+(17) Neither are deeds such assured pledges as that they may be trusted
+without a judicious consideration of their magnitude and nature: _Fraus
+sibi in parvis fidem præstruit ut majore emolumento fallat_; and the
+Italian thinketh himself upon the point to be bought and sold, when he is
+better used than he was wont to be without manifest cause.  For small
+favours, they do but lull men to sleep, both as to caution and as to
+industry; and are, as Demosthenes calleth them, _Alimenta socordiæ_.  So
+again we see how false the nature of some deeds are, in that particular
+which Mutianus practised upon Antonius Primus, upon that hollow and
+unfaithful reconcilement which was made between them; whereupon Mutianus
+advanced many of the friends of Antonius, _Simul amicis ejus præfecturas
+et tribunatus largitur_: wherein, under pretence to strengthen him, he
+did desolate him, and won from him his dependents.
+
+(18) As for words, though they be like waters to physicians, full of
+flattery and uncertainty, yet they are not to be despised specially with
+the advantage of passion and affection.  For so we see Tiberius, upon a
+stinging and incensing speech of Agrippina, came a step forth of his
+dissimulation when he said, “You are hurt because you do not reign;” of
+which Tacitus saith, _Audita hæc raram occulti pectoris vocem elicuere_:
+_correptamque Græco versu admonuit_, _ideo lædi quia non regnaret_.  And,
+therefore, the poet doth elegantly call passions tortures that urge men
+to confess their secrets:—
+
+    “Vino torus et ira.”
+
+And experience showeth there are few men so true to themselves and so
+settled but that, sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon bravery, sometimes
+upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind and weakness, they open
+themselves; specially if they be put to it with a counter-dissimulation,
+according to the proverb of Spain, _Di mentira_, _y sacar as verdad_:
+“Tell a lie and find a truth.”
+
+(19) As for the knowing of men which is at second hand from reports:
+men’s weaknesses and faults are best known from their enemies, their
+virtues and abilities from their friends, their customs and times from
+their servants, their conceits and opinions from their familiar friends,
+with whom they discourse most.  General fame is light, and the opinions
+conceived by superiors or equals are deceitful; for to such men are more
+masked: _Verior fama e domesticis emanat_.
+
+(20) But the soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by their
+natures and ends, wherein the weakest sort of men are best interpreted by
+their natures, and the wisest by their ends.  For it was both pleasantly
+and wisely said (though I think very untruly) by a nuncio of the Pope,
+returning from a certain nation where he served as lidger; whose opinion
+being asked touching the appointment of one to go in his place, he wished
+that in any case they did not send one that was too wise; because no very
+wise man would ever imagine what they in that country were like to do.
+And certainly it is an error frequent for men to shoot over, and to
+suppose deeper ends and more compass reaches than are: the Italian
+proverb being elegant, and for the most part true:—
+
+    “Di danari, di senno, e di fede,
+    C’è ne manco che non credi.”
+
+“There is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less good faith than men
+do account upon.”
+
+(21) But princes, upon a far other reason, are best interpreted by their
+natures, and private persons by their ends.  For princes being at the top
+of human desires, they have for the most part no particular ends whereto
+they aspire, by distance from which a man might take measure and scale of
+the rest of their actions and desires; which is one of the causes that
+maketh their hearts more inscrutable.  Neither is it sufficient to inform
+ourselves in men’s ends and natures of the variety of them only, but also
+of the predominancy, what humour reigneth most, and what end is
+principally sought.  For so we see, when Tigellinus saw himself
+outstripped by Petronius Turpilianus in Nero’s humours of pleasures,
+_metus ejus rimatur_, he wrought upon Nero’s fears, whereby he broke the
+other’s neck.
+
+(22) But to all this part of inquiry the most compendious way resteth in
+three things; the first, to have general acquaintance and inwardness with
+those which have general acquaintance and look most into the world; and
+specially according to the diversity of business, and the diversity of
+persons, to have privacy and conversation with some one friend at least
+which is perfect and well-intelligenced in every several kind.  The
+second is to keep a good mediocrity in liberty of speech and secrecy; in
+most things liberty; secrecy where it importeth; for liberty of speech
+inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to
+a man’s knowledge; and secrecy on the other side induceth trust and
+inwardness.  The last is the reducing of a man’s self to this watchful
+and serene habit, as to make account and purpose, in every conference and
+action, as well to observe as to act.  For as Epictetus would have a
+philosopher in every particular action to say to himself, _Et hoc volo_,
+_et etiam institutum servare_; so a politic man in everything should say
+to himself, _Et hoc volo_, _ac etiam aliquid addiscere_.  I have stayed
+the longer upon this precept of obtaining good information because it is
+a main part by itself, which answereth to all the rest.  But, above all
+things, caution must be taken that men have a good stay and hold of
+themselves, and that this much knowing do not draw on much meddling; for
+nothing is more unfortunate than light and rash intermeddling in many
+matters.  So that this variety of knowledge tendeth in conclusion but
+only to this, to make a better and freer choice of those actions which
+may concern us, and to conduct them with the less error and the more
+dexterity.
+
+(23) The second precept concerning this knowledge is, for men to take
+good information touching their own person, and well to understand
+themselves; knowing that, as St. James saith, though men look oft in a
+glass, yet they do suddenly forget themselves; wherein as the divine
+glass is the Word of God, so the politic glass is the state of the world,
+or times wherein we live, in the which we are to behold ourselves.
+
+(24) For men ought to take an impartial view of their own abilities and
+virtues; and again of their wants and impediments; accounting these with
+the most, and those other with the least; and from this view and
+examination to frame the considerations following.
+
+(25) First, to consider how the constitution of their nature sorteth with
+the general state of the times; which if they find agreeable and fit,
+then in all things to give themselves more scope and liberty; but if
+differing and dissonant, then in the whole course of their life to be
+more close retired, and reserved; as we see in Tiberius, who was never
+seen at a play, and came not into the senate in twelve of his last years;
+whereas Augustus Cæsar lived ever in men’s eyes, which Tacitus observeth,
+_alia Tiberio morum via_.
+
+(26) Secondly, to consider how their nature sorteth with professions and
+courses of life, and accordingly to make election, if they be free; and,
+if engaged, to make the departure at the first opportunity; as we see was
+done by Duke Valentine, that was designed by his father to a sacerdotal
+profession, but quitted it soon after in regard of his parts and
+inclination; being such, nevertheless, as a man cannot tell well whether
+they were worse for a prince or for a priest.
+
+(27) Thirdly, to consider how they sort with those whom they are like to
+have competitors and concurrents; and to take that course wherein there
+is most solitude, and themselves like to be most eminent; as Cæsar Julius
+did, who at first was an orator or pleader; but when he saw the
+excellency of Cicero, Hortensius, Catulus, and others for eloquence, and
+saw there was no man of reputation for the wars but Pompeius, upon whom
+the state was forced to rely, he forsook his course begun towards a civil
+and popular greatness, and transferred his designs to a martial
+greatness.
+
+(28) Fourthly, in the choice of their friends and dependents, to proceed
+according to the composition of their own nature; as we may see in Cæsar,
+all whose friends and followers were men active and effectual, but not
+solemn, or of reputation.
+
+(29) Fifthly, to take special heed how they guide themselves by examples,
+in thinking they can do as they see others do; whereas perhaps their
+natures and carriages are far differing.  In which error it seemeth
+Pompey was, of whom Cicero saith that he was wont often to say, _Sylla
+potuit_, _ego non potero_?  Wherein he was much abused, the natures and
+proceedings of himself and his example being the unlikest in the world;
+the one being fierce, violent, and pressing the fact; the other solemn,
+and full of majesty and circumstance, and therefore the less effectual.
+
+But this precept touching the politic knowledge of ourselves hath many
+other branches, whereupon we cannot insist.
+
+(30) Next to the well understanding and discerning of a man’s self, there
+followeth the well opening and revealing a man’s self; wherein we see
+nothing more usual than for the more able man to make the less show.  For
+there is a great advantage in the well setting forth of a man’s virtues,
+fortunes, merits; and again, in the artificial covering of a man’s
+weaknesses, defects, disgraces; staying upon the one, sliding from the
+other; cherishing the one by circumstances, gracing the other by
+exposition, and the like.  Wherein we see what Tacitus saith of Mutianus,
+who was the greatest politique of his time, _Omnium quæ dixerat
+feceratque arte quadam ostentator_, which requireth indeed some art, lest
+it turn tedious and arrogant; but yet so, as ostentation (though it be to
+the first degree of vanity) seemeth to me rather a vice in manners than
+in policy; for as it is said, _Audacter calumniare_, _semper aliquid
+hæret_; so, except it be in a ridiculous degree of deformity, _Audacter
+te vendita_, _semper aluquid hæret_.  For it will stick with the more
+ignorant and inferior sort of men, though men of wisdom and rank do smile
+at it and despise it; and yet the authority won with many doth
+countervail the disdain of a few.  But if it be carried with decency and
+government, as with a natural, pleasant, and ingenious fashion; or at
+times when it is mixed with some peril and unsafety (as in military
+persons); or at times when others are most envied; or with easy and
+careless passage to it and from it, without dwelling too long, or being
+too serious; or with an equal freedom of taxing a man’s self, as well as
+gracing himself; or by occasion of repelling or putting down others’
+injury or insolency; it doth greatly add to reputation: and surely not a
+few solid natures, that want this ventosity and cannot sail in the height
+of the winds, are not without some prejudice and disadvantage by their
+moderation.
+
+(31) But for these flourishes and enhancements of virtue, as they are not
+perchance unnecessary, so it is at least necessary that virtue be not
+disvalued and embased under the just price, which is done in three
+manners—by offering and obtruding a man’s self, wherein men think he is
+rewarded when he is accepted; by doing too much, which will not give that
+which is well done leave to settle, and in the end induceth satiety; and
+by finding too soon the fruit of a man’s virtue, in commendation,
+applause, honour, favour; wherein if a man be pleased with a little, let
+him hear what is truly said: _Cave ne insuetus rebus majoribus videaris_,
+_si hæc te res parva sicuti magna delectat_.
+
+(32) But the covering of defects is of no less importance than the
+valuing of good parts; which may be done likewise in three manners—by
+caution, by colour, and by confidence.  Caution is when men do
+ingeniously and discreetly avoid to be put into those things for which
+they are not proper; whereas contrariwise bold and unquiet spirits will
+thrust themselves into matters without difference, and so publish and
+proclaim all their wants.  Colour is when men make a way for themselves
+to have a construction made of their faults or wants, as proceeding from
+a better cause or intended for some other purpose.  For of the one it is
+well said,
+
+    “Sæpe latet vitium proximitate boni,”
+
+and therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he pretend the
+virtue that shadoweth it; as if he be dull, he must affect gravity; if a
+coward, mildness; and so the rest.  For the second, a man must frame some
+probable cause why he should not do his best, and why he should dissemble
+his abilities; and for that purpose must use to dissemble those abilities
+which are notorious in him, to give colour that his true wants are but
+industries and dissimulations.  For confidence, it is the last but the
+surest remedy—namely, to depress and seem to despise whatsoever a man
+cannot attain; observing the good principle of the merchants, who
+endeavour to raise the price of their own commodities, and to beat down
+the price of others.  But there is a confidence that passeth this other,
+which is to face out a man’s own defects, in seeming to conceive that he
+is best in those things wherein he is failing; and, to help that again,
+to seem on the other side that he hath least opinion of himself in those
+things wherein he is best: like as we shall see it commonly in poets,
+that if they show their verses, and you except to any, they will say,
+“That that line cost them more labour than any of the rest;” and
+presently will seem to disable and suspect rather some other line, which
+they know well enough to be the best in the number.  But above all, in
+this righting and helping of a man’s self in his own carriage, he must
+take heed he show not himself dismantled and exposed to scorn and injury,
+by too much dulceness, goodness, and facility of nature; but show some
+sparkles of liberty, spirit, and edge.  Which kind of fortified carriage,
+with a ready rescussing of a man’s self from scorns, is sometimes of
+necessity imposed upon men by somewhat in their person or fortune; but it
+ever succeedeth with good felicity.
+
+(33) Another precept of this knowledge is by all possible endeavour to
+frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion; for nothing
+hindereth men’s fortunes so much as this: _Idem manebat_, _neque idem
+decebat_—men are where they were, when occasions turn: and therefore to
+Cato, whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he addeth that he
+had _versatile ingenium_.  And thereof it cometh that these grave solemn
+wits, which must be like themselves and cannot make departures, have more
+dignity than felicity.  But in some it is nature to be somewhat vicious
+and enwrapped, and not easy to turn.  In some it is a conceit that is
+almost a nature, which is, that men can hardly make themselves believe
+that they ought to change their course, when they have found good by it
+in former experience.  For Machiavel noted wisely how Fabius Maximus
+would have been temporising still, according to his old bias, when the
+nature of the war was altered and required hot pursuit.  In some other it
+is want of point and penetration in their judgment, that they do not
+discern when things have a period, but come in too late after the
+occasion; as Demosthenes compareth the people of Athens to country
+fellows, when they play in a fence school, that if they have a blow, then
+they remove their weapon to that ward, and not before.  In some other it
+is a lothness to lose labours passed, and a conceit that they can bring
+about occasions to their ply; and yet in the end, when they see no other
+remedy, then they come to it with disadvantage; as Tarquinius, that gave
+for the third part of Sibylla’s books the treble price, when he might at
+first have had all three for the simple.  But from whatsoever root or
+cause this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most
+prejudicial; and nothing is more politic than to make the wheels of our
+mind concentric and voluble with the wheels of fortune.
+
+(34) Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some affinity with
+that we last spoke of, but with difference, is that which is well
+expressed, _Fatis accede deisque_, that men do not only turn with the
+occasions, but also run with the occasions, and not strain their credit
+or strength to over-hard or extreme points; but choose in their actions
+that which is most passable: for this will preserve men from foil, not
+occupy them too much about one matter, win opinion of moderation, please
+the most, and make a show of a perpetual felicity in all they undertake:
+which cannot but mightily increase reputation.
+
+(35) Another part of this knowledge seemeth to have some repugnancy with
+the former two, but not as I understand it; and it is that which
+Demosthenes uttereth in high terms: _Et quemadmodum receptum est_, _ut
+exercitum ducat imperator_, _sic et a cordatis viris res ipsæ ducendæ_;
+_ut quæipsis videntur_, _ea gerantur_, _et non ipsi eventus persequi
+cogantur_.  For if we observe we shall find two differing kinds of
+sufficiency in managing of business: some can make use of occasions aptly
+and dexterously, but plot little; some can urge and pursue their own
+plots well, but cannot accommodate nor take in; either of which is very
+imperfect without the other.
+
+(36) Another part of this knowledge is the observing a good mediocrity in
+the declaring or not declaring a man’s self: for although depth of
+secrecy, and making way (_qualis est via navis in mari_, which the French
+calleth _sourdes menées_, when men set things in work without opening
+themselves at all), be sometimes both prosperous and admirable; yet many
+times _dissimulatio errores parit_, _qui dissimulatorem ipsum
+illaqueant_.  And therefore we see the greatest politiques have in a
+natural and free manner professed their desires, rather than been
+reserved and disguised in them.  For so we see that Lucius Sylla made a
+kind of profession, “that he wished all men happy or unhappy, as they
+stood his friends or enemies.”  So Cæsar, when he went first into Gaul,
+made no scruple to profess “that he had rather be first in a village than
+second at Rome.”  So again, as soon as he had begun the war, we see what
+Cicero saith of him, _Alter_ (meaning of Cæsar) _non recusat_, _sed
+quodammodo postulat_, _ut_ (_ut est_) _sic appelletur tyrannus_.  So we
+may see in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, that Augustus Cæsar, in his
+very entrance into affairs, when he was a darling of the senate, yet in
+his harangues to the people would swear, _Ita parentis honores consequi
+liceat_ (which was no less than the tyranny), save that, to help it, he
+would stretch forth his hand towards a statue of Cæsar’s that was erected
+in the place: and men laughed and wondered, and said, “Is it possible?”
+or, “Did you ever hear the like?” and yet thought he meant no hurt; he
+did it so handsomely and ingenuously.  And all these were prosperous:
+whereas Pompey, who tended to the same ends, but in a more dark and
+dissembling manner as Tacitus saith of him, _Occultior non melior_,
+wherein Sallust concurreth, _Ore probo_, _animo inverecundo_, made it his
+design, by infinite secret engines, to cast the state into an absolute
+anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for
+necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power be put upon him, and
+he never seen in it: and when he had brought it (as he thought) to that
+point when he was chosen consul alone, as never any was, yet he could
+make no great matter of it, because men understood him not; but was fain
+in the end to go the beaten track of getting arms into his hands, by
+colour of the doubt of Cæsar’s designs: so tedious, casual, and
+unfortunate are these deep dissimulations: whereof it seemeth Tacitus
+made this judgment, that they were a cunning of an inferior form in
+regard of true policy; attributing the one to Augustus, the other to
+Tiberius; where, speaking of Livia, he saith, _Et cum artibus mariti
+simulatione filii bene compostia_: for surely the continual habit of
+dissimulation is but a weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly
+politic.
+
+(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to accustom our
+minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they conduce and
+are material to our particular ends; and that to do substantially and not
+superficially.  For we shall find the logical part (as I may term it) of
+some men’s minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous; that is, they
+can well judge of consequences, but not of proportions and comparison,
+preferring things of show and sense before things of substance and
+effect.  So some fall in love with access to princes, others with popular
+fame and applause, supposing they are things of great purchase, when in
+many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment.  So some
+measure things according to the labour and difficulty or assiduity which
+are spent about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that they must
+needs advance and proceed; as Cæsar saith in a despising manner of Cato
+the second, when he describeth how laborious and indefatigable he was to
+no great purpose, _Hæc omnia magno studio agebat_.  So in most things men
+are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest means to be best,
+when it should be the fittest.
+
+(38) As for the true marshalling of men’s pursuits towards their fortune,
+as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus.  First the
+amendment of their own minds.  For the removal of the impediments of the
+mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune
+will remove the impediments of the mind.  In the second place I set down
+wealth and means; which I know most men would have placed first, because
+of the general use which it beareth towards all variety of occasions.
+But that opinion I may condemn with like reason as Machiavel doth that
+other, that moneys were the sinews of the wars; whereas (saith he) the
+true sinews of the wars are the sinews of men’s arms, that is, a valiant,
+populous, and military nation: and he voucheth aptly the authority of
+Solon, who, when Crœsus showed him his treasury of gold, said to him,
+that if another came that had better iron, he would be master of his
+gold.  In like manner it may be truly affirmed that it is not moneys that
+are the sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men’s minds,
+wit, courage, audacity, resolution, temper, industry, and the like.  In
+the third place I set down reputation, because of the peremptory tides
+and currents it hath; which, if they be not taken in their due time, are
+seldom recovered, it being extreme hard to play an after-game of
+reputation.  And lastly I place honour, which is more easily won by any
+of the other three, much more by all, than any of them can be purchased
+by honour.  To conclude this precept, as there is order and priority in
+matter, so is there in time, the preposterous placing whereof is one of
+the commonest errors: while men fly to their ends when they should intend
+their beginnings, and do not take things in order of time as they come
+on, but marshal them according to greatness and not according to
+instance; not observing the good precept, _Quod nunc instat agamus_.
+
+(39) Another precept of this knowledge is not to embrace any matters
+which do occupy too great a quantity of time, but to have that sounding
+in a man’s ears, _Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus_: and that
+is the cause why those which take their course of rising by professions
+of burden, as lawyers, orators, painful divines, and the like, are not
+commonly so politic for their own fortune, otherwise than in their
+ordinary way, because they want time to learn particulars, to wait
+occasions, and to devise plots.
+
+(40) Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate nature, which doth
+nothing in vain; which surely a man may do if he do well interlace his
+business, and bend not his mind too much upon that which he principally
+intendeth.  For a man ought in every particular action so to carry the
+motions of his mind, and so to have one thing under another, as if he
+cannot have that he seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it in a
+second, or so in a third; and if he can have no part of that which he
+purposed, yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else; and if he cannot
+make anything of it for the present, yet to make it as a seed of somewhat
+in time to come; and if he can contrive no effect or substance from it,
+yet to win some good opinion by it, or the like.  So that he should exact
+an account of himself of every action, to reap somewhat, and not to stand
+amazed and confused if he fail of that he chiefly meant: for nothing is
+more impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one.  For he that doth
+so loseth infinite occasions which intervene, and are many times more
+proper and propitious for somewhat that he shall need afterwards, than
+for that which he urgeth for the present; and therefore men must be
+perfect in that rule, _Hæc oportet facere_, _et illa non imittere_.
+
+(41) Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a man’s self
+peremptorily in anything, though it seem not liable to accident; but ever
+to have a window to fly out at, or a way to retire: following the wisdom
+in the ancient fable of the two frogs, which consulted when their plash
+was dry whither they should go; and the one moved to go down into a pit,
+because it was not likely the water would dry there; but the other
+answered, “True, but if it do, how shall we get out again?”
+
+(42) Another precept of this knowledge is that ancient precept of Bias,
+construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but to caution and
+moderation, _Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus et odi tanquam amaturus_.
+For it utterly betrayeth all utility for men to embark themselves too far
+into unfortunate friendships, troublesome spleens, and childish and
+humorous envies or emulations.
+
+(43) But I continue this beyond the measure of an example; led, because I
+would not have such knowledges, which I note as deficient, to be thought
+things imaginative or in the air, or an observation or two much made of,
+but things of bulk and mass, whereof an end is more hardly made than a
+beginning.  It must be likewise conceived, that in these points which I
+mention and set down, they are far from complete tractates of them, but
+only as small pieces for patterns.  And lastly, no man I suppose will
+think that I mean fortunes are not obtained without all this ado; for I
+know they come tumbling into some men’s laps; and a number obtain good
+fortunes by diligence in a plain way, little intermeddling, and keeping
+themselves from gross errors.
+
+(44) But as Cicero, when he setteth down an idea of a perfect orator,
+doth not mean that every pleader should be such; and so likewise, when a
+prince or a courtier hath been described by such as have handled those
+subjects, the mould hath used to be made according to the perfection of
+the art, and not according to common practice: so I understand it, that
+it ought to be done in the description of a politic man, I mean politic
+for his own fortune.
+
+(45) But it must be remembered all this while, that the precepts which we
+have set down are of that kind which may be counted and called _Bonæ
+Artes_.  As for evil arts, if a man would set down for himself that
+principle of Machiavel, “That a man seek not to attain virtue itself, but
+the appearance only thereof; because the credit of virtue is a help, but
+the use of it is cumber:” or that other of his principles, “That he
+presuppose that men are not fitly to be wrought otherwise but by fear;
+and therefore that he seek to have every man obnoxious, low, and in
+straits,” which the Italians call _seminar spine_, to sow thorns: or that
+other principle, contained in the verse which Cicero citeth, _Cadant
+amici_, _dummodo inimici intercidant_, as the triumvirs, which sold every
+one to other the lives of their friends for the deaths of their enemies:
+or that other protestation of L. Catilina, to set on fire and trouble
+states, to the end to fish in droumy waters, and to unwrap their
+fortunes, _Ego si quid in fortunis meis excitatum sit incendium_, _id non
+aqua sed ruina restinguam_: or that other principle of Lysander, “That
+children are to be deceived with comfits, and men with oaths:” and the
+like evil and corrupt positions, whereof (as in all things) there are
+more in number than of the good: certainly with these dispensations from
+the laws of charity and integrity, the pressing of a man’s fortune may be
+more hasty and compendious.  But it is in life as it is in ways, the
+shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not
+much about.
+
+(46) But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and sustain
+themselves, and be not carried away with a whirlwind or tempest of
+ambition, ought in the pursuit of their own fortune to set before their
+eyes not only that general map of the world, “That all things are vanity
+and vexation of spirit,” but many other more particular cards and
+directions: chiefly that, that being without well-being is a curse, and
+the greater being the greater curse; and that all virtue is most rewarded
+and all wickedness most punished in itself: according as the poet saith
+excellently:
+
+    “Quæ vobis, quæ digna, viri pro laudibus istis
+    Præmia posse rear solvi? pulcherrima primum
+    Dii _moresque_ dabunt vestri.”
+
+And so of the contrary.  And secondly they ought to look up to the
+Eternal Providence and Divine Judgment, which often subverteth the wisdom
+of evil plots and imaginations, according to that scripture, “He hath
+conceived mischief, and shall bring forth a vain thing.”  And although
+men should refrain themselves from injury and evil arts, yet this
+incessant and Sabbathless pursuit of a man’s fortune leaveth not tribute
+which we owe to God of our time; who (we see) demandeth a tenth of our
+substance, and a seventh, which is more strict, of our time: and it is to
+small purpose to have an erected face towards heaven, and a perpetual
+grovelling spirit upon earth, eating dust as doth the serpent, _Atque
+affigit humo divinæ particulam auræ_.  And if any man flatter himself
+that he will employ his fortune well, though he should obtain it ill, as
+was said concerning Augustus Cæsar, and after of Septimius Severus, “That
+either they should never have been born, or else they should never have
+died,” they did so much mischief in the pursuit and ascent of their
+greatness, and so much good when they were established; yet these
+compensations and satisfactions are good to be used, but never good to be
+purposed.  And lastly, it is not amiss for men, in their race towards
+their fortune, to cool themselves a little with that conceit which is
+elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the
+king his son, “That fortune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, that
+if she he too much wooed she is the farther off.”  But this last is but a
+remedy for those whose tastes are corrupted: let men rather build upon
+that foundation which is as a corner-stone of divinity and philosophy,
+wherein they join close, namely that same _Primum quærite_.  For divinity
+saith, _Primum quærite regnum Dei_, _et ista omnia adjicientur vobis_:
+and philosophy saith, _Primum quærite bona animi_; _cætera aut aderunt_,
+_aut non oberunt_.  And although the human foundation hath somewhat of
+the sands, as we see in M. Brutus, when he broke forth into that speech,
+
+    “Te colui (Virtus) ut rem; ast tu nomen inane es;”
+
+yet the divine foundation is upon the rock.  But this may serve for a
+taste of that knowledge which I noted as deficient.
+
+(47) Concerning government, it is a part of knowledge secret and retired
+in both these respects in which things are deemed secret; for some things
+are secret because they are hard to know, and some because they are not
+fit to utter.  We see all governments are obscure and invisible:
+
+       “Totamque infusa per artus
+    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.”
+
+Such is the description of governments.  We see the government of God
+over the world is hidden, insomuch as it seemeth to participate of much
+irregularity and confusion.  The government of the soul in moving the
+body is inward and profound, and the passages thereof hardly to be
+reduced to demonstration.  Again, the wisdom of antiquity (the shadows
+whereof are in the poets) in the description of torments and pains, next
+unto the crime of rebellion, which was the giants’ offence, doth detest
+the offence of futility, as in Sisyphus and Tantalus.  But this was meant
+of particulars: nevertheless even unto the general rules and discourses
+of policy and government there is due a reverent and reserved handling.
+
+(48) But contrariwise in the governors towards the governed, all things
+ought as far as the frailty of man permitteth to be manifest and
+revealed.  For so it is expressed in the Scriptures touching the
+government of God, that this globe, which seemeth to us a dark and shady
+body, is in the view of God as crystal: _Et in conspectu sedis tanquam
+mare vitreum simile crystallo_.  So unto princes and states, and
+specially towards wise senates and councils, the natures and dispositions
+of the people, their conditions and necessities, their factions and
+combinations, their animosities and discontents, ought to be, in regard
+of the variety of their intelligences, the wisdom of their observations,
+and the height of their station where they keep sentinel, in great part
+clear and transparent.  Wherefore, considering that I write to a king
+that is a master of this science, and is so well assisted, I think it
+decent to pass over this part in silence, as willing to obtain the
+certificate which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto; who being
+silent, when others contended to make demonstration of their abilities by
+speech, desired it might be certified for his part, “That there was one
+that knew how to hold his peace.”
+
+(49) Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which is
+laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which is, that all those
+which have written of laws have written either as philosophers or as
+lawyers, and none as statesmen.  As for the philosophers, they make
+imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as
+the stars, which give little light because they are so high.  For the
+lawyers, they write according to the states where they live what is
+received law, and not what ought to be law; for the wisdom of a law-maker
+is one, and of a lawyer is another.  For there are in nature certain
+fountains of justice whence all civil laws are derived but as streams;
+and like as waters do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through
+which they run, so do civil laws vary according to the regions and
+governments where they are planted, though they proceed from the same
+fountains.  Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a
+platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into
+consideration by what means laws may be made certain, and what are the
+causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and uncertainty of law; by what
+means laws may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what are the
+impediments and remedies in the execution of laws; what influence laws
+touching private right of _meum_ and _tuum_ have into the public state,
+and how they may be made apt and agreeable; how laws are to be penned and
+delivered, whether in texts or in Acts, brief or large, with preambles or
+without; how they are to be pruned and reformed from time to time, and
+what is the best means to keep them from being too vast in volume, or too
+full of multiplicity and crossness; how they are to be expounded, when
+upon causes emergent and judicially discussed, and when upon responses
+and conferences touching general points or questions; how they are to be
+pressed, rigorously or tenderly; how they are to be mitigated by equity
+and good conscience, and whether discretion and strict law are to be
+mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several courts; again, how
+the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be censured and
+governed; and many other points touching the administration and (as I may
+term it) animation of laws.  Upon which I insist the less, because I
+purpose (if God give me leave), having begun a work of this nature in
+aphorisms, to propound it hereafter, noting it in the meantime for
+deficient.
+
+(50) And for your Majesty’s laws of England, I could say much of their
+dignity, and somewhat of their defect; but they cannot but excel the
+civil laws in fitness for the government, for the civil law was _nonhos
+quæsitum munus in usus_; it was not made for the countries which it
+governeth.  Hereof I cease to speak because I will not intermingle matter
+of action with matter of general learning.
+
+XXIV.  Thus have I concluded this portion of learning touching civil
+knowledge; and with civil knowledge have concluded human philosophy; and
+with human philosophy, philosophy in general.  And being now at some
+pause, looking back into that I have passed through, this writing seemeth
+to me (_si nunquam fallit imago_), as far as a man can judge of his own
+work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians make while
+they are in tuning their instruments, which is nothing pleasant to hear,
+but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards.  So have I been
+content to tune the instruments of the Muses, that they may play that
+have better hands.  And surely, when I set before me the condition of
+these times, in which learning hath made her third visitation or circuit
+in all the qualities thereof; as the excellency and vivacity of the wits
+of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of
+ancient writers; the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of
+all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation, which hath
+disclosed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of natural history; the
+leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so generally in
+civil business, as the states of Græcia did, in respect of their
+popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of their
+monarchy; the present disposition of these times at this instant to
+peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in controversies of
+religion, which have so much diverted men from other sciences; the
+perfection of your Majesty’s learning, which as a phœnix may call whole
+volleys of wits to follow you; and the inseparable propriety of time,
+which is ever more and more to disclose truth; I cannot but be raised to
+this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of
+the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their own strength
+and their own weakness both; and take, one from the other, light of
+invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem of the inquisition
+of truth as of an enterprise, and not as of a quality or ornament; and
+employ wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to
+things vulgar and of popular estimation.  As for my labours, if any man
+shall please himself or others in the reprehension of them, they shall
+make that ancient and patient request, _Verbera_, _sed audi_: let men
+reprehend them, so they observe and weigh them.  For the appeal is lawful
+(though it may be it shall not be needful) from the first cogitations of
+men to their second, and from the nearer times to the times further off.
+Now let us come to that learning, which both the former times were not so
+blessed as to know, sacred and inspired divinity, the Sabbath and port of
+all men’s labours and peregrinations.
+
+XXV. (1) The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as to the
+will of man: so that as we are to obey His law, though we find a
+reluctation in our will, so we are to believe His word, though we find a
+reluctation in our reason.  For if we believe only that which is
+agreeable to our sense we give consent to the matter, and not to the
+author; which is no more than we would do towards a suspected and
+discredited witness; but that faith which was accounted to Abraham for
+righteousness was of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein
+was an image of natural reason.
+
+(2) Howbeit (if we will truly consider of it) more worthy it is to
+believe than to know as we now know.  For in knowledge man’s mind
+suffereth from sense: but in belief it suffereth from spirit, such one as
+it holdeth for more authorised than itself and so suffereth from the
+worthier agent.  Otherwise it is of the state of man glorified; for then
+faith shall cease, and we shall know as we are known.
+
+(3) Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology (which in our idiom we
+call divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God, and not
+upon the light of nature: for it is written, _Cæli enarrant gloriam Dei_;
+but it is not written, _Cæli enarrant voluntatem Dei_: but of that it is
+said, _Ad legem et testimonium_: _si non fecerint secundum verbum istud_,
+&c.  This holdeth not only in those points of faith which concern the
+great mysteries of the Deity, of the creation, of the redemption, but
+likewise those which concern the law moral, truly interpreted: “Love your
+enemies: do good to them that hate you; be like to your heavenly Father,
+that suffereth His rain to fall upon the just and unjust.”  To this it
+ought to be applauded, _Nec vox hominem sonat_: it is a voice beyond the
+light of nature.  So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a
+libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moralities, as if
+they were opposite and malignant to nature: _Et quod natura remittit_,
+_invida jura negant_.  So said Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander’s
+messengers, that he had heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other of
+the wise men of Græcia, and that he held them for excellent men: but that
+they had a fault, which was that they had in too great reverence and
+veneration a thing they called law and manners.  So it must be confessed
+that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection whereunto the
+light of nature cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have,
+by the light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and
+vice, justice and wrong, good and evil?  Thus, because the light of
+nature is used in two several senses: the one, that which springeth from
+reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and
+earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an
+inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle
+of the purity of his first estate: in which latter sense only he is
+participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of the
+moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice but not to inform the
+duty.  So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral as mystical, is
+not to be attained but by inspiration and revelation from God.
+
+(4) The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, and the
+latitude thereof, is very great and general: for it is not for nothing
+that the apostle calleth religion “our reasonable service of God;”
+insomuch as the very ceremonies and figures of the old law were full of
+reason and signification, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and
+magic, that are full of non-significants and surd characters.  But most
+specially the Christian faith, as in all things so in this, deserveth to
+be highly magnified; holding and preserving the golden mediocrity in this
+point between the law of the heathen and the law of Mahomet, which have
+embraced the two extremes.  For the religion of the heathen had no
+constant belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of agent; and
+the religion of Mahomet on the other side interdicteth argument
+altogether: the one having the very face of error, and the other of
+imposture; whereas the Faith doth both admit and reject disputation with
+difference.
+
+(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the former, in
+the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us revealed;
+the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction
+thereupon.  The former extendeth to the mysteries themselves; but how? by
+way of illustration, and not by way of argument.  The latter consisteth
+indeed of probation and argument.  In the former we see God vouchsafeth
+to descend to our capacity, in the expressing of His mysteries in sort as
+may be sensible unto us; and doth graft His revelations and holy doctrine
+upon the notions of our reason, and applieth His inspirations to open our
+understanding, as the form of the key to the ward of the lock.  For the
+latter there is allowed us a use of reason and argument, secondary and
+respective, although not original and absolute.  For after the articles
+and principles of religion are placed and exempted from examination of
+reason, it is then permitted unto us to make derivations and inferences
+from and according to the analogy of them, for our better direction.  In
+nature this holdeth not; for both the principles are examinable by
+induction, though not by a medium or syllogism; and besides, those
+principles or first positions have no discordance with that reason which
+draweth down and deduceth the inferior positions.  But yet it holdeth not
+in religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and smaller
+nature, namely, wherein there are not only _posita_ but _placita_; for in
+such there can be no use of absolute reason.  We see it familiarly in
+games of wit, as chess, or the like.  The draughts and first laws of the
+game are positive, but how? merely _ad placitum_, and not examinable by
+reason; but then how to direct our play thereupon with best advantage to
+win the game is artificial and rational.  So in human laws there be many
+grounds and maxims which are _placita juris_, positive upon authority,
+and not upon reason, and therefore not to be disputed: but what is most
+just, not absolutely but relatively, and according to those maxims, that
+affordeth a long field of disputation.  Such therefore is that secondary
+reason, which hath place in divinity, which is grounded upon the
+_placets_ of God.
+
+(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath not been, to
+my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the true limits and
+use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of divine dialectic: which
+for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing usual, by pretext of
+true conceiving that which is revealed, to search and mine into that
+which is not revealed; and by pretext of enucleating inferences and
+contradictories, to examine that which is positive.  The one sort falling
+into the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have things made more sensible
+than it pleaseth God to reveal them, _Quomodo possit homo nasci cum sit
+senex_?  The other sort into the error of the disciples, which were
+scandalised at a show of contradiction, _Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis_?
+_Modicum et non videbitis me_; _et iterum_, _modicum_, _et videbitis me_,
+&c.
+
+(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great and
+blessed use thereof; for this point well laboured and defined of would in
+my judgment be an opiate to stay and bridle not only the vanity of
+curious speculations, wherewith the schools labour, but the fury of
+controversies, wherewith the Church laboureth.  For it cannot but open
+men’s eyes to see that many controversies do merely pertain to that which
+is either not revealed or positive; and that many others do grow upon
+weak and obscure inferences or derivations: which latter sort, if men
+would revive the blessed style of that great doctor of the Gentiles,
+would be carried thus, _ego_, _non dominus_; and again, _secundum
+consilium meum_, in opinions and counsels, and not in positions and
+oppositions.  But men are now over-ready to usurp the style, _non ego_,
+_sed dominus_; and not so only, but to bind it with the thunder and
+denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the terror of those which have
+not sufficiently learned out of Solomon that “The causeless curse shall
+not come.”
+
+(8) Divinity hath two principal parts: the matter informed or revealed,
+and the nature of the information or revelation; and with the latter we
+will begin, because it hath most coherence with that which we have now
+last handled.  The nature of the information consisteth of three
+branches: the limits of the information, the sufficiency of the
+information, and the acquiring or obtaining the information.  Unto the
+limits of the information belong these considerations: how far forth
+particular persons continue to be inspired; how far forth the Church is
+inspired; and how far forth reason may be used; the last point whereof I
+have noted as deficient.  Unto the sufficiency of the information belong
+two considerations: what points of religion are fundamental, and what
+perfective, being matter of further building and perfection upon one and
+the same foundation; and again, how the gradations of light according to
+the dispensation of times are material to the sufficiency of belief.
+
+(9) Here again I may rather give it in advice than note it as deficient,
+that the points fundamental, and the points of further perfection only,
+ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished; a subject tending to
+much like end as that I noted before; for as that other were likely to
+abate the number of controversies, so this is likely to abate the heat of
+many of them.  We see Moses when he saw the Israelite and the Egyptian
+fight, he did not say, “Why strive you?” but drew his sword and slew the
+Egyptian; but when he saw the two Israelites fight, he said, “You are
+brethren, why strive you?”  If the point of doctrine be an Egyptian, it
+must be slain by the sword of the Spirit, and not reconciled; but if it
+be an Israelite, though in the wrong, then, “Why strive you?”  We see of
+the fundamental points, our Saviour penneth the league thus, “He that is
+not with us is against us;” but of points not fundamental, thus, “He that
+is not against us is with us.”  So we see the coat of our Saviour was
+entire without seam, and so is the doctrine of the Scriptures in itself;
+but the garment of the Church was of divers colours and yet not divided.
+We see the chaff may and ought to be severed from the corn in the ear,
+but the tares may not be pulled up from the corn in the field.  So as it
+is a thing of great use well to define what, and of what latitude, those
+points are which do make men mere aliens and disincorporate from the
+Church of God.
+
+(10) For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the true and
+sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the fountains of the
+water of life.  The interpretations of the Scriptures are of two sorts:
+methodical, and solute or at large.  For this divine water, which
+excelleth so much that of Jacob’s well, is drawn forth much in the same
+kind as natural water useth to be out of wells and fountains; either it
+is first forced up into a cistern, and from thence fetched and derived
+for use; or else it is drawn and received in buckets and vessels
+immediately where it springeth.  The former sort whereof, though it seem
+to be the more ready, yet in my judgment is more subject to corrupt.
+This is that method which hath exhibited unto us the scholastical
+divinity; whereby divinity hath been reduced into an art, as into a
+cistern, and the streams of doctrine or positions fetched and derived
+from thence.
+
+(11) In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity, a compacted
+strength, and a complete perfection; whereof the two first they fail to
+find, and the last they ought not to seek.  For as to brevity, we see in
+all summary methods, while men purpose to abridge, they give cause to
+dilate.  For the sum or abridgment by contraction becometh obscure; the
+obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is deduced into large
+commentaries, or into commonplaces and titles, which grow to be more vast
+than the original writings, whence the sum was at first extracted.  So we
+see the volumes of the schoolmen are greater much than the first writings
+of the fathers, whence the master of the sentences made his sum or
+collection.  So in like manner the volumes of the modern doctors of the
+civil law exceed those of the ancient jurisconsults, of which Tribonian
+compiled the digest.  So as this course of sums and commentaries is that
+which doth infallibly make the body of sciences more immense in quantity,
+and more base in substance.
+
+(12) And for strength, it is true that knowledges reduced into exact
+methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth to support and
+sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory than substantial, like
+unto buildings which stand by architecture and compaction, which are more
+subject to ruin than those that are built more strong in their several
+parts, though less compacted.  But it is plain that the more you recede
+from your grounds, the weaker do you conclude; and as in nature, the more
+you remove yourself from particulars, the greater peril of error you do
+incur; so much more in divinity, the more you recede from the Scriptures
+by inferences and consequences, the more weak and dilute are your
+positions.
+
+(13) And as for perfection or completeness in divinity, it is not to be
+sought, which makes this course of artificial divinity the more suspect.
+For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art will make it round and
+uniform; but in divinity many things must be left abrupt, and concluded
+with this: _O altitudo sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei_! _quam
+incomprehensibilia sunt juducua ejus_, _et non investigabiles viæ ejus_.
+So again the apostle saith, _Ex parte scimus_: and to have the form of a
+total, where there is but matter for a part, cannot be without supplies
+by supposition and presumption.  And therefore I conclude that the true
+use of these sums and methods hath place in institutions or introductions
+preparatory unto knowledge; but in them, or by deducement from them, to
+handle the main body and substance of a knowledge is in all sciences
+prejudicial, and in divinity dangerous.
+
+(14) As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at large,
+there have been divers kinds introduced and devised; some of them rather
+curious and unsafe than sober and warranted.  Notwithstanding, thus much
+must be confessed, that the Scriptures, being given by inspiration and
+not by human reason, do differ from all other books in the Author, which
+by consequence doth draw on some difference to be used by the expositor.
+For the Inditer of them did know four things which no man attains to
+know; which are—the mysteries of the kingdom of glory, the perfection of
+the laws of nature, the secrets of the heart of man, and the future
+succession of all ages.  For as to the first it is said, “He that
+presseth into the light shall be oppressed of the glory.”  And again, “No
+man shall see My face and live.”  To the second, “When He prepared the
+heavens I was present, when by law and compass He enclosed the deep.”  To
+the third, “Neither was it needful that any should bear witness to Him of
+man, for He knew well what was in man.”  And to the last, “From the
+beginning are known to the Lord all His works.”
+
+(15) From the former two of these have been drawn certain senses and
+expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained within the bounds
+of sobriety—the one anagogical, and the other philosophical.  But as to
+the former, man is not to prevent his time: _Videmus nunc per speculum in
+ænigmate_, _tunc autem facie ad faciem_; wherein nevertheless there
+seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth as the polishing of this
+glass, or some moderate explication of this enigma.  But to press too far
+into it cannot but cause a dissolution and overthrow of the spirit of
+man.  For in the body there are three degrees of that we receive into
+it—aliment, medicine, and poison; whereof aliment is that which the
+nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome; medicine is that which is
+partly converted by nature, and partly converteth nature; and poison is
+that which worketh wholly upon nature, without that nature can in any
+part work upon it.  So in the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at
+all work upon and convert is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a
+dissolution of the mind and understanding.
+
+(16) But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late time
+by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended to find
+the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalising and
+traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane.  But there is
+no such enmity between God’s Word and His works; neither do they give
+honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embase them.  For to
+seek heaven and earth in the Word of God, whereof it is said, “Heaven and
+earth shall pass, but My word shall not pass,” is to seek temporary
+things amongst eternal: and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek
+the living amongst the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek
+the dead amongst the living: neither are the pots or lavers, whose place
+was in the outward part of the temple, to be sought in the holiest place
+of all where the ark of the testimony was seated.  And again, the scope
+or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to express matters of nature in
+the Scriptures, otherwise than in passage, and for application to man’s
+capacity and to matters moral or divine.  And it is a true rule,
+_Auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas_.  For it were a strange
+conclusion, if a man should use a similitude for ornament or illustration
+sake, borrowed from nature or history according to vulgar conceit, as of
+a basilisk, a unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, a hydra, or the like, that
+therefore he must needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof
+positively to be true.  To conclude therefore these two interpretations,
+the one by reduction or enigmatical, the other philosophical or physical,
+which have been received and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and
+cabalists, are to be confined with a _a noli akryn sapere_, _sed time_.
+
+(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to man, touching
+the secrets of the heart and the successions of time, doth make a just
+and sound difference between the manner of the exposition of the
+Scriptures and all other books.  For it is an excellent observation which
+hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the
+questions which were propounded to Him, how that they are impertinent to
+the state of the question demanded: the reason whereof is, because not
+being like man, which knows man’s thoughts by his words, but knowing
+man’s thoughts immediately, He never answered their words, but their
+thoughts.  Much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being
+written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a
+foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the
+Church, yea, and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted
+only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and
+respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were
+uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the words before or
+after, or in contemplation of the principal scope of the place; but have
+in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in
+clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the
+Church in every part.  And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were,
+the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the
+allegorical or typical, are they whereof the Church hath most use; not
+that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in
+allusions: but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the
+Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a
+profane book.
+
+(18) In this part touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can report
+no deficiency; but by way of remembrance this I will add.  In perusing
+books of divinity I find many books of controversies, and many of
+commonplaces and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as it is made an
+art: a number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix commentaries upon
+the Scriptures, with harmonies and concordances.  But that form of
+writing in divinity which in my judgment is of all others most rich and
+precious is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts of
+Scriptures in brief observations; not dilated into commonplaces, not
+chasing after controversies, not reduced into method of art; a thing
+abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in books which
+will remain, and a thing wherein this age excelleth.  For I am persuaded,
+and I may speak it with an _absit invidia verbo_, and nowise in
+derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between the vine and
+the olive, that if the choice and best of those observations upon texts
+of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons within this
+your Majesty’s Island of Brittany by the space of these forty years and
+more (leaving out the largeness of exhortations and applications
+thereupon) had been set down in a continuance, it had been the best work
+in divinity which had been written since the Apostles’ times.
+
+(19) The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds: matter of belief
+and truth of opinion, and matter of service and adoration; which is also
+judged and directed by the former—the one being as the internal soul of
+religion, and the other as the external body thereof.  And, therefore,
+the heathen religion was not only a worship of idols, but the whole
+religion was an idol in itself; for it had no soul; that is, no certainty
+of belief or confession: as a man may well think, considering the chief
+doctors of their church were the poets; and the reason was because the
+heathen gods were no jealous gods, but were glad to be admitted into
+part, as they had reason.  Neither did they respect the pureness of
+heart, so they might have external honour and rites.
+
+(20) But out of these two do result and issue four main branches of
+divinity: faith, manners, liturgy, and government.  Faith containeth the
+doctrine of the nature of God, of the attributes of God, and of the works
+of God.  The nature of God consisteth of three persons in unity of
+Godhead.  The attributes of God are either common to the Deity, or
+respective to the persons.  The works of God summary are two, that of the
+creation and that of the redemption; and both these works, as in total
+they appertain to the unity of the Godhead, so in their parts they refer
+to the three persons: that of the creation, in the mass of the matter, to
+the Father; in the disposition of the form, to the Son; and in the
+continuance and conservation of the being, to the Holy Spirit.  So that
+of the redemption, in the election and counsel, to the Father; in the
+whole act and consummation, to the Son; and in the application, to the
+Holy Spirit; for by the Holy Ghost was Christ conceived in flesh, and by
+the Holy Ghost are the elect regenerate in spirit.  This work likewise we
+consider either effectually, in the elect; or privately, in the
+reprobate; or according to appearance, in the visible Church.
+
+(21) For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the law, which
+discloseth sin.  The law itself is divided, according to the edition
+thereof, into the law of nature, the law moral, and the law positive; and
+according to the style, into negative and affirmative, prohibitions and
+commandments.  Sin, in the matter and subject thereof, is divided
+according to the commandments; in the form thereof it referreth to the
+three persons in Deity: sins of infirmity against the Father, whose more
+special attribute is power; sins of ignorance against the Son, whose
+attribute is wisdom; and sins of malice against the Holy Ghost, whose
+attribute is grace or love.  In the motions of it, it either moveth to
+the right hand or to the left; either to blind devotion or to profane and
+libertine transgression; either in imposing restraint where God granteth
+liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth restraint.  In the
+degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself into thought, word, or
+act.  And in this part I commend much the deducing of the law of God to
+cases of conscience; for that I take indeed to be a breaking, and not
+exhibiting whole of the bread of life.  But that which quickeneth both
+these doctrines of faith and manners is the elevation and consent of the
+heart; whereunto appertain books of exhortation, holy meditation,
+Christian resolution, and the like.
+
+(22) For the liturgy or service, it consisteth of the reciprocal acts
+between God and man; which, on the part of God, are the preaching of the
+word, and the sacraments, which are seals to the covenant, or as the
+visible word; and on the part of man, invocation of the name of God; and
+under the law, sacrifices; which were as visible prayers or confessions:
+but now the adoration being _in spiritu et veritate_, there remaineth
+only _vituli labiorum_; although the use of holy vows of thankfulness and
+retribution may be accounted also as sealed petitions.
+
+(23) And for the government of the Church, it consisteth of the patrimony
+of the Church, the franchises of the Church, and the offices and
+jurisdictions of the Church, and the laws of the Church directing the
+whole; all which have two considerations, the one in themselves, the
+other how they stand compatible and agreeable to the civil estate.
+
+(24) This matter of divinity is handled either in form of instruction of
+truth, or in form of confutation of falsehood.  The declinations from
+religion, besides the privative, which is atheism and the branches
+thereof, are three—heresies, idolatry, and witchcraft: heresies, when we
+serve the true God with a false worship; idolatry, when we worship false
+gods, supposing them to be true; and witchcraft, when we adore false
+gods, knowing them to be wicked and false.  For so your Majesty doth
+excellently well observe, that witchcraft is the height of idolatry.  And
+yet we see though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that they are
+all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the Word of God; for
+so he saith, _Quasi peccatum ariolandi est repugnare_, _et quasi scelus
+idololatriæ nolle acquiescere_.
+
+(25) These things I have passed over so briefly because I can report no
+deficiency concerning them: for I can find no space or ground that lieth
+vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity, so diligent have men been
+either in sowing of good seed, or in sowing of tares.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Thus have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual world, as
+truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note and description of
+those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or not well
+converted by the labour of man.  In which, if I have in any point receded
+from that which is commonly received, it hath been with a purpose of
+proceeding in _melius_, and not _in aliud_; a mind of amendment and
+proficiency, and not of change and difference.  For I could not be true
+and constant to the argument I handle if I were not willing to go beyond
+others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again:
+which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions
+naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men’s
+judgments by confutations.  For in anything which is well set down, I am
+in good hope that if the first reading move an objection, the second
+reading will make an answer.  And in those things wherein I have erred, I
+am sure I have not prejudiced the right by litigious arguments; which
+certainly have this contrary effect and operation, that they add
+authority to error, and destroy the authority of that which is well
+invented.  For question is an honour and preferment to falsehood, as on
+the other side it is a repulse to truth.  But the errors I claim and
+challenge to myself as mine own.  The good, it any be, is due _tanquam
+adeps sacrificii_, to be incensed to the honour, first of the Divine
+Majesty, and next of your Majesty, to whom on earth I am most bounden.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+
+{39}  Stoops in the rice and takes the speeding gold.  Ovid. Metam, x.
+667.
+
+
+
+
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+<title>The Advancement of Learning, by Francis Bacon</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Advancement of Learning, by Francis
+Bacon, Edited by Henry Morley
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Advancement of Learning
+
+
+Author: Francis Bacon
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: November 4, 2014  [eBook #5500]
+[This file was first posted on July 16, 2002]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING***
+</pre>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell &amp; Company edition by
+David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">CASSELL&rsquo;S NATIONAL LIBRARY.</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<h1><span class="GutSmall">THE</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Advancement</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">OF</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Learning</span>.</h1>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br
+/>
+FRANCIS BACON.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/tpb.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative graphic"
+title=
+"Decorative graphic"
+ src="images/tps.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL &amp; COMPANY, Limited:<br
+/>
+<span class="GutSmall"><i>LONDON</i></span><span
+class="GutSmall">, </span><span class="GutSmall"><i>PARIS &amp;
+MELBOURNE</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.</span><br />
+1893.</p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">The Tvvoo</span> Bookes of Francis
+Bacon.&nbsp; Of the proficience and aduancement of Learning,
+divine and humane.&nbsp; To the King.&nbsp; At London.&nbsp;
+Printed for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop at
+Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; That was
+the original title-page of the book now in the reader&rsquo;s
+hand&mdash;a living book that led the way to a new world of
+thought.&nbsp; It was the book in which Bacon, early in the reign
+of James the First, prepared the way for a full setting forth of
+his New Organon, or instrument of knowledge.</p>
+<p>The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which
+Aristotle had written the doctrine of propositions.&nbsp; Study
+of these treatises was a chief occupation of young men when they
+passed from school to college, and proceeded from Grammar to
+Logic, the second of the Seven Sciences.&nbsp; Francis Bacon as a
+youth of sixteen, at Trinity College, Cambridge, felt the
+unfruitfulness of this method of search after truth.&nbsp; He was
+the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth&rsquo;s Lord
+Keeper, and was born at York House, in the Strand, on the 22nd of
+January, 1561.&nbsp; His mother was the Lord Keeper&rsquo;s
+second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other married Sir
+William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh.&nbsp; Sir Nicholas Bacon
+had six children by his former marriage, and by his second wife
+two sons, Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years
+the elder.&nbsp; The family home was at York Place, and at
+Gorhambury, near St. Albans, from which town, in its ancient and
+its modern style, Bacon afterwards took his titles of Verulam and
+St. Albans.</p>
+<p>Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College,
+Cambridge, when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis
+twelve.&nbsp; Francis remained at Cambridge only until his
+sixteenth year; and Dr. Rawley, his chaplain in after-years,
+reports of him that &ldquo;whilst he was commorant in the
+University, about sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been
+pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell into dislike of the
+philosophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author,
+to whom he would ascribe all high attributes, but for the
+unfruitfulness of the way, being a philosophy (as his lordship
+used to say) only strong for disputatious and contentions, but
+barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of
+man; in which mind he continued to his dying day.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Bacon was sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with the ambassador
+Sir Amyas Paulet, to begin his training for the public service;
+but his father&rsquo;s death, in February, 1579, before he had
+completed the provision he was making for his youngest children,
+obliged him to return to London, and, at the age of eighteen, to
+settle down at Gray&rsquo;s Inn to the study of law as a
+profession.&nbsp; He was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582,
+and about that time, at the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of
+his conception of a New Organon that should lead man to more
+fruitful knowledge, in a little Latin tract, which he called
+&ldquo;Temporis Partus Maximus&rdquo; (&ldquo;The Greatest Birth
+of Time&rdquo;).</p>
+<p>In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons
+as member for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire.&nbsp; In October,
+1586, he sat for Taunton.&nbsp; He was member afterwards for
+Liverpool; and he was one of those who petitioned for the speedy
+execution of Mary Queen of Scots.&nbsp; In October, 1589, he
+obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk of the Council in
+the Star Chamber, which was worth &pound;1,600 or &pound;2,000 a
+year; but for the succession to this office he had to wait until
+1608.&nbsp; It had not yet fallen to him when he wrote his
+&ldquo;Two Books of the Advancement of Learning.&rdquo;&nbsp; In
+the Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as member
+for Middlesex.&nbsp; He raised difficulties of procedure in the
+way of the grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the
+joining of the Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a
+desire to extend the time allowed for payment from three years to
+six; it was, in fact, extended to four years.&nbsp; The Queen was
+offended.&nbsp; Francis Bacon and his brother Antony had attached
+themselves to the young Earl of Essex, who was their friend and
+patron.&nbsp; The office of Attorney-General became vacant.&nbsp;
+Essex asked the Queen to appoint Francis Bacon.&nbsp; The Queen
+gave the office to Sir Edward Coke, who was already
+Solicitor-General, and by nine years Bacon&rsquo;s senior.&nbsp;
+The office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and that was
+sought for Francis Bacon.&nbsp; The Queen, after delay and
+hesitation, gave it, in November, 1595, to Serjeant
+Fleming.&nbsp; The Earl of Essex consoled his friend by giving
+him &ldquo;a piece of land&rdquo;&mdash;Twickenham
+Park&mdash;which Bacon afterwards sold for
+&pound;1,800&mdash;equal, say, to &pound;12,000 in present buying
+power.&nbsp; In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament as member
+for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the rich
+widow of Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady married,
+in the next year, Sir Edward Coke.&nbsp; It was in 1597 that
+Bacon published the First Edition of his Essays.&nbsp; That was a
+little book containing only ten essays in English, with twelve
+&ldquo;Meditationes Sacr&aelig;,&rdquo; which were essays in
+Latin on religious subjects.&nbsp; From 1597 onward to the end of
+his life, Bacon&rsquo;s Essays were subject to continuous
+addition and revision.&nbsp; The author&rsquo;s Second Edition,
+in which the number of the Essays was increased from ten to
+thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December, 1612,
+seven years later than these two books on the &ldquo;Advancement
+of Learning;&rdquo; and the final edition of the Essays, in which
+their number was increased from thirty-eight to fifty-eight,
+appeared only in 1625; and Bacon died on the 9th of April,
+1626.&nbsp; The edition of the Essays published in 1597, under
+Elizabeth, marked only the beginning of a course of thought that
+afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in
+philosophy.</p>
+<p>In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex.&nbsp;
+Francis Bacon had separated himself from his patron after giving
+him advice that was disregarded.&nbsp; Bacon, now Queen&rsquo;s
+Counsel, not only appeared against his old friend, but with
+excess of zeal, by which, perhaps, he hoped to win back the
+Queen&rsquo;s favour, he twice obtruded violent attacks upon
+Essex when he was not called upon to speak.&nbsp; On the 25th of
+February, 1601, Essex was beheaded.&nbsp; The genius of Bacon was
+next employed to justify that act by &ldquo;A Declaration of the
+Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late
+Earle of Essex and his Complices.&rdquo;&nbsp; But James of
+Scotland, on whose behalf Essex had intervened, came to the
+throne by the death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March,
+1603.&nbsp; Bacon was among the crowd of men who were made
+knights by James I., and he had to justify himself under the new
+order of things by writing &ldquo;Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie
+in certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of
+Essex.&rdquo;&nbsp; He was returned to the first Parliament of
+James I. by Ipswich and St. Albans, and he was confirmed in his
+office of King&rsquo;s Counsel in August, 1604; but he was not
+appointed to the office of Solicitor-General when it became
+vacant in that year.</p>
+<p>That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he
+published this work, where in his First Book he pointed out the
+discredits of learning from human defects of the learned, and
+emptiness of many of the studies chosen, or the way of dealing
+with them.&nbsp; This came, he said, especially by the mistaking
+or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge, as if
+there were sought in it &ldquo;a couch whereupon to rest a
+searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and
+variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a
+tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort
+or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for
+profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the
+Creator and the relief of man&rsquo;s estate.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+rest of the First Book was given to an argument upon the Dignity
+of Learning; and the Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning,
+is, as Bacon himself described it, &ldquo;a general and faithful
+perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie
+fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry
+of man; to the end that such a plot made and recorded to memory
+may both minister light to any public designation and also serve
+to excite voluntary endeavours.&rdquo;&nbsp; Bacon makes, by a
+sort of exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all subjects of
+study, as an intellectual map, helping the right inquirer in his
+search for the right path.&nbsp; The right path is that by which
+he has the best chance of adding to the stock of knowledge in the
+world something worth labouring for; and the true worth is in
+labour for &ldquo;the glory of the Creator and the relief of
+man&rsquo;s estate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p>
+<h2><span class="GutSmall">THE</span><br />
+FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON;<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">OF THE PROFICIENCE AND</span><br />
+ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">DIVINE AND HUMAN.</span></h2>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>To the King</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> were under the law, excellent
+King, both daily sacrifices and freewill offerings; the one
+proceeding upon ordinary observance, the other upon a devout
+cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth to kings from their
+servants both tribute of duty and presents of affection.&nbsp; In
+the former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting,
+according to my most humble duty and the good pleasure of your
+Majesty&rsquo;s employments: for the latter, I thought it more
+respective to make choice of some oblation which might rather
+refer to the propriety and excellency of your individual person,
+than to the business of your crown and state.</p>
+<p>Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind,
+and beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to
+discover that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but
+with the observant eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the
+other parts of your virtue and fortune, I have been
+touched&mdash;yea, and possessed&mdash;with an extreme wonder at
+those your virtues and faculties, which the philosophers call
+intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of
+your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration
+of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution:
+and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I
+have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of
+Plato&rsquo;s opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and
+that the mind of man by Nature knoweth all things, and hath but
+her own native and original notions (which by the strangeness and
+darkness of this tabernacle of the body are sequestered) again
+revived and restored: such a light of Nature I have observed in
+your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and blaze from
+the least occasion presented, or the least spark of
+another&rsquo;s knowledge delivered.&nbsp; And as the Scripture
+saith of the wisest king, &ldquo;That his heart was as the sands
+of the sea;&rdquo; which, though it be one of the largest bodies,
+yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest portions; so hath
+God given your Majesty a composition of understanding admirable,
+being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters, and
+nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least; whereas it should
+seem an impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to make
+itself fit for great and small works.&nbsp; And for your gift of
+speech, I call to mind what Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus
+C&aelig;sar: <i>Augusto profluens</i>, <i>et qu&aelig; principem
+deceret</i>, <i>eloquentia fuit</i>.&nbsp; For if we note it
+well, speech that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or
+speech that savoureth of the affectation of art and precepts, or
+speech that is framed after the imitation of some pattern of
+eloquence, though never so excellent; all this hath somewhat
+servile, and holding of the subject.&nbsp; But your
+Majesty&rsquo;s manner of speech is, indeed, prince-like, flowing
+as from a fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into
+Nature&rsquo;s order, full of facility and felicity, imitating
+none, and inimitable by any.&nbsp; And as in your civil estate
+there appeareth to be an emulation and contention of your
+Majesty&rsquo;s virtue with your fortune; a virtuous disposition
+with a fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time was)
+of your greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in
+the due time; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage,
+with most blessed and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and
+most Christian desire of peace, with a fortunate inclination in
+your neighbour princes thereunto: so likewise in these
+intellectual matters there seemeth to be no less contention
+between the excellency of your Majesty&rsquo;s gifts of Nature
+and the universality and perfection of your learning.&nbsp; For I
+am well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification
+at all, but a positive and measured truth; which is, that there
+hath not been since Christ&rsquo;s time any king or temporal
+monarch which hath been so learned in all literature and
+erudition, divine and human.&nbsp; For let a man seriously and
+diligently revolve and peruse the succession of the Emperors of
+Rome, of which C&aelig;sar the Dictator (who lived some years
+before Christ) and Marcus Antoninus were the best learned, and so
+descend to the Emperors of Gr&aelig;cia, or of the West, and then
+to the lines of France, Spain, England, Scotland, and the rest,
+and he shall find this judgment is truly made.&nbsp; For it
+seemeth much in a king if, by the compendious extractions of
+other men&rsquo;s wits and labours, he can take hold of any
+superficial ornaments and shows of learning, or if he countenance
+and prefer learning and learned men; but to drink, indeed, of the
+true fountains of learning&mdash;nay, to have such a fountain of
+learning in himself, in a king, and in a king born&mdash;is
+almost a miracle.&nbsp; And the more, because there is met in
+your Majesty a rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred
+literature as of profane and human; so as your Majesty standeth
+invested of that triplicity, which in great veneration was
+ascribed to the ancient Hermes: the power and fortune of a king,
+the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the learning and
+universality of a philosopher.&nbsp; This propriety inherent and
+individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be expressed
+not only in the fame and admiration of the present time, nor in
+the history or tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in some
+solid work, fixed memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a
+character or signature both of the power of a king and the
+difference and perfection of such a king.</p>
+<p>Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make
+unto your Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending
+to that end, whereof the sum will consist of these two parts: the
+former concerning the excellency of learning and knowledge, and
+the excellency of the merit and true glory in the augmentation
+and propagation thereof; the latter, what the particular acts and
+works are which have been embraced and undertaken for the
+advancement of learning; and again, what defects and undervalues
+I find in such particular acts: to the end that though I cannot
+positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound unto
+you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely
+cogitations to visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, and
+thence to extract particulars for this purpose agreeable to your
+magnanimity and wisdom.</p>
+<p>I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these&mdash;to clear
+the way and, as it were, to make silence, to have the true
+testimonies concerning the dignity of learning to be better
+heard, without the interruption of tacit objections&mdash;I think
+good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces which it
+hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance severally
+disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of
+divines, sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of politics, and
+sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned men
+themselves.</p>
+<p>(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those
+things which are to be accepted of with great limitation and
+caution; that the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original
+temptation and sin whereupon ensued the fall of man; that
+knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and, therefore,
+where it entereth into a man it makes him swell; <i>Scientia
+inflat</i>; that Solomon gives a censure, &ldquo;That there is no
+end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the
+flesh;&rdquo; and again in another place, &ldquo;That in spacious
+knowledge there is much contristation, and that he that
+increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety;&rdquo; that Saint Paul
+gives a caveat, &ldquo;That we be not spoiled through vain
+philosophy;&rdquo; that experience demonstrates how learned men
+have been arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to
+atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes doth derogate
+from our dependence upon God, who is the first cause.</p>
+<p>(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this
+opinion, and the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may
+well appear these men do not observe or consider that it was not
+the pure knowledge of Nature and universality, a knowledge by the
+light whereof man did give names unto other creatures in Paradise
+as they were brought before him according unto their proprieties,
+which gave the occasion to the fall; but it was the proud
+knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give law
+unto himself, and to depend no more upon God&rsquo;s
+commandments, which was the form of the temptation.&nbsp; Neither
+is it any quantity of knowledge, how great soever, that can make
+the mind of man to swell; for nothing can fill, much less extend
+the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of God; and,
+therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two principal senses of
+inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never
+satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and if there be
+no fulness, then is the continent greater than the content: so of
+knowledge itself and the mind of man, whereto the senses are but
+reporters, he defineth likewise in these words, placed after that
+calendar or ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of
+times and seasons for all actions and purposes, and concludeth
+thus: &ldquo;God hath made all things beautiful, or decent, in
+the true return of their seasons.&nbsp; Also He hath placed the
+world in man&rsquo;s heart, yet cannot man find out the work
+which God worketh from the beginning to the
+end&rdquo;&mdash;declaring not obscurely that God hath framed the
+mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the image of the
+universal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof, as
+the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only delighted in
+beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but
+raised also to find out and discern the ordinances and decrees
+which throughout all those changes are infallibly observed.&nbsp;
+And although he doth insinuate that the supreme or summary law of
+Nature (which he calleth &ldquo;the work which God worketh from
+the beginning to the end&rdquo;) is not possible to be found out
+by man, yet that doth not derogate from the capacity of the mind;
+but may be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life,
+ill conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from
+hand to hand, and many other inconveniences, whereunto the
+condition of man is subject.&nbsp; For that nothing parcel of the
+world is denied to man&rsquo;s inquiry and invention, he doth in
+another place rule over, when he saith, &ldquo;The spirit of man
+is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the inwardness of
+all secrets.&rdquo;&nbsp; If, then, such be the capacity and
+receipt of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no
+danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how
+large soever, lest it should make it swell or out-compass itself;
+no, but it is merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in
+quantity more or less, if it be taken without the true corrective
+thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or malignity, and some
+effects of that venom, which is ventosity or swelling.&nbsp; This
+corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so
+sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to
+the former clause; for so he saith, &ldquo;Knowledge bloweth up,
+but charity buildeth up;&rdquo; not unlike unto that which he
+deilvereth in another place: &ldquo;If I spake,&rdquo; saith he,
+&ldquo;with the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity,
+it were but as a tinkling cymbal.&rdquo;&nbsp; Not but that it is
+an excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men and angels,
+but because, if it be severed from charity, and not referred to
+the good of men and mankind, it hath rather a sounding and
+unworthy glory than a meriting and substantial virtue.&nbsp; And
+as for that censure of Solomon concerning the excess of writing
+and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth
+from knowledge, and that admonition of St. Paul, &ldquo;That we
+be not seduced by vain philosophy,&rdquo; let those places be
+rightly understood; and they do, indeed, excellently set forth
+the true bounds and limitations whereby human knowledge is
+confined and circumscribed, and yet without any such contracting
+or coarctation, but that it may comprehend all the universal
+nature of things; for these limitations are three: the first,
+&ldquo;That we do not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we
+forget our mortality;&rdquo; the second, &ldquo;That we make
+application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and
+contentment, and not distaste or repining;&rdquo; the third,
+&ldquo;That we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to
+attain to the mysteries of God.&rdquo;&nbsp; For as touching the
+first of these, Solomon doth excellently expound himself in
+another place of the same book, where he saith: &ldquo;I saw well
+that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance as light doth from
+darkness; and that the wise man&rsquo;s eyes keep watch in his
+head, whereas this fool roundeth about in darkness: but withal I
+learned that the same mortality involveth them both.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And for the second, certain it is there is no vexation or anxiety
+of mind which resulteth from knowledge otherwise than merely by
+accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of
+knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when men
+fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it
+to their particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak
+fears or vast desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble
+of mind which is spoken of; for then knowledge is no more
+<i>Lumen siccum</i>, whereof Heraclitus the profound said,
+<i>Lumen siccum optima anima</i>; but it becometh <i>Lumen
+madidum</i>, or <i>maceratum</i>, being steeped and infused in
+the humours of the affections.&nbsp; And as for the third point,
+it deserveth to be a little stood upon, and not to be lightly
+passed over; for if any man shall think by view and inquiry into
+these sensible and material things to attain that light, whereby
+he may reveal unto himself the nature or will of God, then,
+indeed, is he spoiled by vain philosophy; for the contemplation
+of God&rsquo;s creatures and works produceth (having regard to
+the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having regard
+to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken
+knowledge.&nbsp; And, therefore, it was most aptly said by one of
+Plato&rsquo;s school, &ldquo;That the sense of man carrieth a
+resemblance with the sun, which (as we see) openeth and revealeth
+all the terrestrial globe; but then, again, it obscureth and
+concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense
+discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
+divine.&rdquo;&nbsp; And hence it is true that it hath proceeded,
+that divers great learned men have been heretical, whilst they
+have sought to fly up to the secrets of the Deity by this waxen
+wings of the senses.&nbsp; And as for the conceit that too much
+knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that the ignorance
+of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon God,
+which is the first cause; first, it is good to ask the question
+which Job asked of his friends: &ldquo;Will you lie for God, as
+one man will lie for another, to gratify him?&rdquo;&nbsp; For
+certain it is that God worketh nothing in Nature but by second
+causes; and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere
+imposture, as it were in favour towards God, and nothing else but
+to offer to the Author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a
+lie.&nbsp; But further, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion
+of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
+philosophy may incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further
+proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to
+religion.&nbsp; For in the entrance of philosophy, when the
+second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer
+themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may
+induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth
+on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of
+Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will
+easily believe that the highest link of Nature&rsquo;s chain must
+needs he tied to the foot of Jupiter&rsquo;s chair.&nbsp; To
+conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety
+or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can
+search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God&rsquo;s
+word, or in the book of God&rsquo;s works, divinity or
+philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or
+proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to
+charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and
+again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these
+learnings together.</p>
+<p>II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from
+politics, they be of this nature: that learning doth soften
+men&rsquo;s minds, and makes them more unapt for the honour and
+exercise of arms; that it doth mar and pervert men&rsquo;s
+dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making them
+too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too
+peremptory or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too
+immoderate and overweening by reason of the greatness of
+examples, or too incompatible and differing from the times by
+reason of the dissimilitude of examples; or at least, that it
+doth divert men&rsquo;s travails from action and business, and
+bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it
+doth bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every
+man is more ready to argue than to obey and execute.&nbsp; Out of
+this conceit Cato, surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men
+indeed that ever lived, when Carneades the philosopher came in
+embassage to Rome, and that the young men of Rome began to flock
+about him, being allured with the sweetness and majesty of his
+eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate that they
+should give him his despatch with all speed, lest he should
+infect and enchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at
+unawares bring in an alteration of the manners and customs of the
+state.&nbsp; Out of the same conceit or humour did Virgil,
+turning his pen to the advantage of his country and the
+disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of separation
+between policy and government, and between arts and sciences, in
+the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging the one
+to the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other to the
+Grecians: <i>Tu regere imperio popules</i>, <i>Romane</i>,
+<i>memento</i>, <i>H&aelig; tibi erunt artes</i>, &amp;c.&nbsp;
+So likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid it
+as an article of charge and accusation against him, that he did,
+with the variety and power of his discourses and disputatious,
+withdraw young men from due reverence to the laws and customs of
+their country, and that he did profess a dangerous and pernicious
+science, which was to make the worse matter seem the better, and
+to suppress truth by force of eloquence and speech.</p>
+<p>(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a
+countenance of gravity than any ground of justice: for experience
+doth warrant that, both in persons and in times, there hath been
+a meeting and concurrence in learning and arms, flourishing and
+excelling in the same men and the same ages.&nbsp; For as
+&lsquo;for men, there cannot be a better nor the hike instance as
+of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius C&aelig;sar, the
+Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle&rsquo;s scholar in
+philosophy, and the other was Cicero&rsquo;s rival in eloquence;
+or if any man had rather call for scholars that were great
+generals, than generals that were great scholars, let him take
+Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian; whereof the one
+was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the other was
+the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of
+Persia.&nbsp; And this concurrence is yet more visible in times
+than in persons, by how much an age is greater object than a
+man.&nbsp; For both in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Gr&aelig;cia, and
+Rome, the same times that are most renowned for arms are,
+likewise, most admired for learning, so that the greatest authors
+and philosophers, and the greatest captains and governors, have
+lived in the same ages.&nbsp; Neither can it otherwise he: for as
+in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much
+about an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat
+the more early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof the one
+correspondeth to the body, the other to the soul of man, have a
+concurrence or near sequence in times.</p>
+<p>(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning,
+should rather hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very
+improbable; we see it is accounted an error to commit a natural
+body to empiric physicians, which commonly have a few pleasing
+receipts whereupon they are confident and adventurous, but know
+neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions of patients,
+nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures; we see it
+is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are only
+men of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many
+times easily surprised when matter falleth out besides their
+experience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle: so by
+like reason it cannot be but a matter of doubtful consequence if
+states be managed by empiric statesmen, not well mingled with men
+grounded in learning.&nbsp; But contrariwise, it is almost
+without instance contradictory that ever any government was
+disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors.&nbsp; For
+howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and
+disable learned men by the names of <i>pedantes</i>; yet in the
+records of time it appeareth in many particulars that the
+governments of princes in minority (notwithstanding the infinite
+disadvantage of that kind of state)&mdash;have nevertheless
+excelled the government of princes of mature age, even for that
+reason which they seek to traduce, which is that by that occasion
+the state hath been in the hands of <i>pedantes</i>: for so was
+the state of Rome for the first five years, which are so much
+magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a
+<i>pedenti</i>; so it was again, for ten years&rsquo; space or
+more, during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great
+applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus, a
+<i>pedanti</i>: so was it before that, in the minority of
+Alexander Severus, in like happiness, in hands not much unlike,
+by reason of the rule of the women, who were aided by the
+teachers and preceptors.&nbsp; Nay, let a man look into the
+government of the Bishops of Rome, as by name, into the
+government of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who
+were both at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars,
+and he shall find that such Popes do greater things, and proceed
+upon truer principles of state, than those which have ascended to
+the papacy from an education and breeding in affairs of state and
+courts of princes; for although men bred in learning are perhaps
+to seek in points of convenience and accommodating for the
+present, which the Italians call <i>ragioni di stato</i>, whereof
+the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with patience,
+terming them inventions against religion and the moral virtues;
+yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are perfect in
+those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral
+virtue, which if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will
+be seldom use of those other, no more than of physic in a sound
+or well-dieted body.&nbsp; Neither can the experience of one
+man&rsquo;s life furnish examples and precedents for the event of
+one man&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; For as it happeneth sometimes that
+the grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more
+than the son; so many times occurrences of present times may sort
+better with ancient examples than with those of the later or
+immediate times; and lastly, the wit of one man can no more
+countervail learning than one man&rsquo;s means can hold way with
+a common purse.</p>
+<p>(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions
+of the mind for policy and government, which learning is
+pretended to insinuate; if it be granted that any such thing be,
+it must be remembered withal that learning ministereth in every
+of them greater strength of medicine or remedy than it offereth
+cause of indisposition or infirmity.&nbsp; For if by a secret
+operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side
+by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what ground to
+resolve; yea, and how to carry things in suspense, without
+prejudice, till they resolve.&nbsp; If it make men positive and
+regular, it teacheth them what things are in their nature
+demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and as well the use of
+distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of principles and
+rules.&nbsp; If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of
+examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors
+of comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in
+all these it doth rectify more effectually than it can
+pervert.&nbsp; And these medicines it conveyeth into men&rsquo;s
+minds much more forcibly by the quickness and penetration of
+examples.&nbsp; For let a man look into the errors of Clement
+VII., so lively described by Guicciardini, who served under him,
+or into the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in
+his Epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being
+irresolute.&nbsp; Let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he
+will beware how he be obstinate or inflexible.&nbsp; Let him but
+read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him from being vaporous
+or imaginative.&nbsp; Let him look into the errors of Cato II.,
+and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to
+the present world.</p>
+<p>(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to
+leisure and privateness, and make men slothful: it were a strange
+thing if that which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion
+and agitation should induce slothfulness, whereas, contrariwise,
+it may be truly affirmed that no kind of men love business for
+itself but those that are learned; for other persons love it for
+profit, as a hireling that loves the work for the wages; or for
+honour, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of men, and
+refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or
+because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them
+occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth
+some faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in
+good-humour and pleasing conceits towards themselves; or because
+it advanceth any other their ends.&nbsp; So that as it is said of
+untrue valours, that some men&rsquo;s valours are in the eyes of
+them that look on, so such men&rsquo;s industries are in the eyes
+of others, or, at least, in regard of their own designments; only
+learned men love business as an action according to nature, as
+agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body,
+taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase, so
+that of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards
+any business which can hold or detain their mind.</p>
+<p>(6) And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet
+idle in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of
+body or softness of spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of: <i>Quidam
+tam sunt umbratiles</i>, <i>ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in
+luce est</i>; and not of learning: well may it be that such a
+point of a man&rsquo;s nature may make him give himself to
+learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in
+his nature.</p>
+<p>(7) And that learning should take up too much time or leisure:
+I answer, the most active or busy man that hath been or can be,
+hath (no question) many vacant times of leisure while he
+expecteth the tides and returns of business (except he be either
+tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious
+to meddle in things that may be better done by others), and then
+the question is but how those spaces and times of leisure shall
+be filled and spent; whether in pleasure or in studies; as was
+well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary &AElig;schines,
+that was a man given to pleasure, and told him &ldquo;That his
+orations did smell of the lamp.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Demosthenes, &ldquo;there is a great
+difference between the things that you and I do by
+lamp-light.&rdquo;&nbsp; So as no man need doubt that learning
+will expel business, but rather it will keep and defend the
+possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which
+otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice of both.</p>
+<p>(8) Again, for that other conceit that learning should
+undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a
+mere depravation and calumny, without all shadow of truth.&nbsp;
+For to say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer
+obligation than duty taught and understood, it is to affirm that
+a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a
+light.&nbsp; And it is without all controversy that learning doth
+make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, and pliant to
+government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and
+mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion,
+considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times
+have been most subject to tumults, seditious, and changes.</p>
+<p>(9) And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well
+punished for his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind
+wherein he offended; for when he was past threescore years old,
+he was taken with an extreme desire to go to school again, and to
+learn the Greek tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek authors;
+which doth well demonstrate that his former censure of the
+Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity, than according
+to the inward sense of his own opinion.&nbsp; And as for
+Virgil&rsquo;s verses, though it pleased him to brave the world
+in taking to the Romans the art of empire, and leaving to others
+the arts of subjects, yet so much is manifest&mdash;that the
+Romans never ascended to that height of empire till the time they
+had ascended to the height of other arts.&nbsp; For in the time
+of the two first C&aelig;sars, which had the art of government in
+greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro;
+the best historiographer, Titus Livius; the best antiquary,
+Marcus Varro; and the best or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that
+to the memory of man are known.&nbsp; As for the accusation of
+Socrates, the time must be remembered when it was prosecuted;
+which was under the Thirty Tyrants, the most base, bloody, and
+envious persons that have governed; which revolution of state was
+no sooner over but Socrates, whom they had made a person
+criminal, was made a person heroical, and his memory accumulate
+with honours divine and human; and those discourses of his which
+were then termed corrupting of manners, were after acknowledged
+for sovereign medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been
+received ever since till this day.&nbsp; Let this, therefore,
+serve for answer to politiques, which in their humorous severity,
+or in their feigned gravity, have presumed to throw imputations
+upon learning; which redargution nevertheless (save that we know
+not whether our labours may extend to other ages) were not
+needful for the present, in regard of the love and reverence
+towards learning which the example and countenance of two so
+learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as
+Castor and Pollux, <i>lucida sidera</i>, stars of excellent light
+and most benign influence, hath wrought in all men of place and
+authority in our nation.</p>
+<p>III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit
+or diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned
+men themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either
+from their fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of
+their studies.&nbsp; For the first, it is not in their power; and
+the second is accidental; the third only is proper to be handled:
+but because we are not in hand with true measure, but with
+popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat
+of the two former.&nbsp; The derogations therefore which grow to
+learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either
+in respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of
+life and meanness of employments.</p>
+<p>(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men
+usually to begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as
+other men, by reason they convert not their labours chiefly to
+lucre and increase, it were good to leave the commonplace in
+commendation of povery to some friar to handle, to whom much was
+attributed by Machiavel in this point when he said, &ldquo;That
+the kingdom of the clergy had been long before at an end, if the
+reputation and reverence towards the poverty of friars had not
+borne out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of
+bishops and prelates.&rdquo;&nbsp; So a man might say that the
+felicity and delicacy of princes and great persons had long since
+turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had
+not kept up civility and honour of life; but without any such
+advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverent and
+honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in the Roman
+state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes.&nbsp;
+For we see what Titus Livius saith in his introduction:
+<i>C&aelig;terum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla
+unquam respublica nec major</i>, <i>nec sanctior</i>, <i>nec
+bonis exemplis ditior fuit</i>; <i>nec in quam tam sero avaritia
+luxuriaque immigraverint</i>; <i>nec ubi tantus ac tam diu
+paupertati ac parsimoni&aelig; honos fuerit</i>.&nbsp; We see
+likewise, after that the state of Rome was not itself, but did
+degenerate, how that person that took upon him to be counsellor
+to Julius C&aelig;sar after his victory where to begin his
+restoration of the state, maketh it of all points the most
+summary to take away the estimation of wealth: <i>Verum h&aelig;c
+et omnia mala pariter cum honore pecuni&aelig; desinent</i>;
+<i>si neque magistratus</i>, <i>neque alia vulgo cupienda</i>,
+<i>venalia erunt</i>.&nbsp; To conclude this point: as it was
+truly said that <i>Paupertas est virtutis fortuna</i>, though
+sometimes it come from vice, so it may be fitly said that, though
+some times it may proceed from misgovernment and accident.&nbsp;
+Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure, <i>Qui
+festinat ad divitias non erit insons</i>; and in precept,
+&ldquo;Buy the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and
+knowledge;&rdquo; judging that means were to be spent upon
+learning, and not learning to be applied to means.&nbsp; And as
+for the privateness or obscureness (as it may be in vulgar
+estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men, it is a theme
+so common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and
+sloth, in comparison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for
+safety, liberty, pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from
+indignity, as no man handleth it but handleth it well; such a
+consonancy it hath to men&rsquo;s conceits in the expressing, and
+to men&rsquo;s consents in the allowing.&nbsp; This only I will
+add, that learned men forgotten in states and not living in the
+eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the
+funeral of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others
+were, Tacitus saith, <i>Eo ipso pr&aelig;fulgebant quod non
+visebantur</i>.</p>
+<p>(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most
+traduced to contempt is that the government of youth is commonly
+allotted to them; which age, because it is the age of least
+authority, it is transferred to the disesteeming of those
+employments wherein youth is conversant, and which are conversant
+about youth.&nbsp; But how unjust this traducement is (if you
+will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure of
+reason) may appear in that we see men are more curious what they
+put into a new vessel than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould
+they lay about a young plant than about a plant corroborate; so
+as this weakest terms and times of all things use to have the
+best applications and helps.&nbsp; And will you hearken to the
+Hebrew rabbins?&nbsp; &ldquo;Your young men shall see visions,
+and your old men shall dream dreams:&rdquo; say they, youth is
+the worthier age, for that visions are nearer apparitions of God
+than dreams?&nbsp; And let it be noted that howsoever the
+condition of life of <i>pedantes</i> hath been scorned upon
+theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern looseness or
+negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of
+schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best
+times did always make a just complaint, that states were too busy
+with their laws and too negligent in point of education: which
+excellent part of ancient discipline hath been in some sort
+revived of late times by the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom,
+although in regard of their superstition I may say, <i>Quo
+meliores</i>, <i>eo deteriores</i>; yet in regard of this, and
+some other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I
+may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus, <i>Talis
+quum sis</i>, <i>utunam noster esses</i>.&nbsp; And that much
+touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of learned
+men.</p>
+<p>(4) As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing
+personal and individual: and no doubt there be amongst them, as
+in other professions, of all temperatures: but yet so as it is
+not without truth which is said, that <i>Abeunt studua in
+mores</i>, studies have an influence and operation upon the
+manners of those that are conversant in them.</p>
+<p>(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my
+part cannot find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the
+manners of learned men; not inherent to them as they are learned;
+except it be a fault (which was the supposed fault of
+Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato II., Seneca, and many more) that
+because the times they read of are commonly better than the times
+they live in, and the duties taught better than the duties
+practised, they contend sometimes too far to bring things to
+perfection, and to reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of
+precepts or examples of too great height.&nbsp; And yet hereof
+they have caveats enough in their own walks.&nbsp; For Solon,
+when he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best
+laws, answered wisely, &ldquo;Yea, of such as they would
+receive:&rdquo; and Plato, finding that his own heart could not
+agree with the corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear
+place or office, saying, &ldquo;That a man&rsquo;s country was to
+be used as his parents were, that is, with humble persuasions,
+and not with contestations.&rdquo;&nbsp; And C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s
+counsellor put in the same caveat, <i>Non ad vetera instituta
+revocans qu&aelig; jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt</i>;
+and Cicero noteth this error directly in Cato II. when he writes
+to his friend Atticus, <i>Cato optime sentit</i>, <i>sed nocet
+interdum reipublic&aelig;</i>; <i>loquitur enim tanquam in
+republic&acirc; Platonis</i>, <i>non tanquam in f&aelig;ce
+Romuli</i>.&nbsp; And the same Cicero doth excuse and expound the
+philosophers for going too far and being too exact in their
+prescripts when he saith, <i>Isti ipse pr&aelig;ceptores virtutis
+et magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura
+vellet protulisse</i>, <i>ut cum ad ultimum animo
+contendissemus</i>, <i>ibi tamen</i>, <i>ubi oportet</i>,
+<i>consisteremus</i>: and yet himself might have said, <i>Monitis
+sum minor ipse meis</i>; for it was his own fault, though not in
+so extreme a degree.</p>
+<p>(6) Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been
+incident to learned men, which is, that they have esteemed the
+preservation, good, and honour of their countries or masters
+before their own fortunes or safeties.&nbsp; For so saith
+Demosthenes unto the Athenians: &ldquo;If it please you to note
+it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should grow great
+amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians; but they
+be of that nature as they are sometimes not good for me to give,
+but are always good for you to follow.&rdquo;&nbsp; And so
+Seneca, after he had consecrated that <i>Quinquennium Neronis</i>
+to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on his honest and
+loyal course of good and free counsel after his master grew
+extremely corrupt in his government.&nbsp; Neither can this point
+otherwise be, for learning endueth men&rsquo;s minds with a true
+sense of the frailty of their persons, the casualty of their
+fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and vocation, so that it
+is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness of their own
+fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being and
+ordainment, and therefore are desirous to give their account to
+God, and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings and the
+states that they serve) in those words, <i>Ecce tibi
+lucrefeci</i>, and not <i>Ecce mihi lucrefeci</i>; whereas the
+corrupter sort of mere politiques, that have not their thoughts
+established by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor
+never look abroad into universality, do refer all things to
+themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world,
+as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes, never
+caring in all tempests what becomes of the ship of state, so they
+may save themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune; whereas
+men that feel the weight of duty and know the limits of self-love
+use to make good their places and duties, though with peril; and
+if they stand in seditious and violent alterations, it is rather
+the reverence which many times both adverse parts do give to
+honesty, than any versatile advantage of their own
+carriage.&nbsp; But for this point of tender sense and fast
+obligation of duty which learning doth endue the mind withal,
+howsoever fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their
+corrupt principles may despise it, yet it will receive an open
+allowance, and therefore needs the less disproof or excuse.</p>
+<p>(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may
+be more properly defended than truly denied, is that they fail
+sometimes in applying themselves to particular persons, which
+want of exact application ariseth from two causes&mdash;the one,
+because the largeness of their mind can hardly confine itself to
+dwell in the exquisite observation or examination of the nature
+and customs of one person, for it is a speech for a lover, and
+not for a wise man, <i>Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum
+sumus</i>.&nbsp; Nevertheless I shall yield that he that cannot
+contract the sight of his mind as well as disperse and dilate it,
+wanteth a great faculty.&nbsp; But there is a second cause, which
+is no inability, but a rejection upon choice and judgment.&nbsp;
+For the honest and just bounds of observation by one person upon
+another extend no further but to understand him sufficiently,
+whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give
+him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard
+and caution in respect of a man&rsquo;s self.&nbsp; But to be
+speculative into another man to the end to know how to work him,
+or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is
+double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous; which as in
+friendship it is want of integrity, so towards princes or
+superiors is want of duty.&nbsp; For the custom of the Levant,
+which is that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix their eyes upon
+princes, is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but the moral is
+good; for men ought not, by cunning and bent observations, to
+pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings, which the
+Scripture hath declared to be inscrutable.</p>
+<p>(8) There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude
+this part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do many
+times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour
+and carriage, and commit errors in small and ordinary points of
+action, so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of
+them in greater matters by that which they find wanting in them
+in smaller.&nbsp; But this consequence doth oft deceive men, for
+which I do refer them over to that which was said by
+Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself
+out of his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of
+this question, pertinently and justly, when, being invited to
+touch a lute, he said, &ldquo;He could not fiddle, but he could
+make a small town a great state.&rdquo;&nbsp; So no doubt many
+may be well seen in the passages of government and policy which
+are to seek in little and punctual occasions.&nbsp; I refer them
+also to that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he
+compared to the gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside
+had apes and owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign
+and precious liquors and confections; acknowledging that, to an
+external report, he was not without superficial levities and
+deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues
+and powers.&nbsp; And so much touching the point of manners of
+learned men.</p>
+<p>(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to
+some conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers
+professors of learning have wronged themselves and gone too far;
+such as were those trencher philosophers which in the later age
+of the Roman state were usually in the houses of great persons,
+being little better than solemn parasites, of which kind, Lucian
+maketh a merry description of the philosopher that the great lady
+took to ride with her in her coach, and would needs have him
+carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and yet
+uncomely, the page scoffed and said, &ldquo;That he doubted the
+philosopher of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But, above all the rest, this gross and palpable flattery
+whereunto many not unlearned have abased and abused their wits
+and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into Helena, and
+Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and
+estimation of learning.&nbsp; Neither is the modern dedication of
+books and writings, as to patrons, to be commended, for that
+books (such as are worthy the name of books) ought to have no
+patrons but truth and reason.&nbsp; And the ancient custom was to
+dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or to entitle
+the books with their names; or if to kings and great persons, it
+was to some such as the argument of the book was fit and proper
+for; but these and the like courses may deserve rather
+reprehension than defence.</p>
+<p>(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or
+application of learned men to men in fortune.&nbsp; For the
+answer was good that Diogenes made to one that asked him in
+mockery, &ldquo;How it came to pass that philosophers were the
+followers of rich men, and not rich men of
+philosophers?&rdquo;&nbsp; He answered soberly, and yet sharply,
+&ldquo;Because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the
+other did not.&rdquo;&nbsp; And of the like nature was the answer
+which Aristippus made, when having a petition to Dionysius, and
+no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon
+Dionysius stayed and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and
+afterwards some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy,
+reproved Aristippus that he would offer the profession of
+philosophy such an indignity as for a private suit to fall at a
+tyrant&rsquo;s feet; but he answered, &ldquo;It was not his
+fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in
+his feet.&rdquo;&nbsp; Neither was it accounted weakness, but
+discretion, in him that would not dispute his best with Adrianus
+C&aelig;sar, excusing himself, &ldquo;That it was reason to yield
+to him that commanded thirty legions.&rdquo;&nbsp; These and the
+like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and
+convenience, cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some
+outward baseness, yet in a judgment truly made they are to be
+accounted submissions to the occasion and not to the person.</p>
+<p>IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have
+intervened amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which
+is that which is principal and proper to the present argument;
+wherein my purpose is not to make a justification of the errors,
+but by a censure and separation of the errors to make a
+justification of that which is good and sound, and to deliver
+that from the aspersion of the other.&nbsp; For we see that it is
+the manner of men to scandalise and deprave that which retaineth
+the state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is
+corrupt and degenerate, as the heathens in the primitive Church
+used to blemish and taint the Christians with the faults and
+corruptions of heretics.&nbsp; But nevertheless I have no meaning
+at this time to make any exact animadversion of the errors and
+impediments in matters of learning, which are more secret and
+remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto such as do
+fall under or near unto a popular observation.</p>
+<p>(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies,
+whereby learning hath been most traduced.&nbsp; For those things
+we do esteem vain which are either false or frivolous, those
+which either have no truth or no use; and those persons we esteem
+vain which are either credulous or curious; and curiosity is
+either in matter or words: so that in reason as well as in
+experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I may
+term them) of learning&mdash;the first, fantastical learning; the
+second, contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning;
+vain imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations; and
+with the last I will begin.&nbsp; Martin Luther, conducted, no
+doubt, by a higher Providence, but in discourse of reason,
+finding what a province he had undertaken against the Bishop of
+Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and finding his
+own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his own
+time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former
+times to his succours to make a party against the present
+time.&nbsp; So that the ancient authors, both in divinity and in
+humanity, which had long time slept in libraries, began generally
+to be read and revolved.&nbsp; This, by consequence, did draw on
+a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the languages
+original, wherein those authors did write, for the better
+understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of
+pressing and applying their words.&nbsp; And thereof grew, again,
+a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an admiration
+of that kind of writing, which was much furthered and
+precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of
+those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the
+schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose
+writings were altogether in a differing style and form; taking
+liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own
+sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the
+pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of the
+phrase or word.&nbsp; And again, because the great labour then
+was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say,
+<i>Execrabilis ista turba</i>, <i>qu&aelig; non novit legem</i>),
+for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity
+in chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as
+the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar
+sort; so that these four causes concurring&mdash;the admiration
+of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of
+languages, and the efficacy of preaching&mdash;did bring in an
+affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then
+began to flourish.&nbsp; This grew speedily to an excess; for men
+began to hunt more after words than matter&mdash;more after the
+choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of
+the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the
+varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures,
+than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of
+argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment.&nbsp; Then
+grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop,
+to be in price.&nbsp; Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and
+curious pains upon Cicero the Orator and Hermogenes the
+Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and Imitation, and
+the like.&nbsp; Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their
+lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and
+allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and
+polished kind of learning.&nbsp; Then did Erasmus take occasion
+to make the scoffing echo, <i>Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo
+Cicerone</i>; and the echo answered in Greek, <i>One</i>,
+<i>Asine</i>.&nbsp; Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be
+utterly despised as barbarous.&nbsp; In sum, the whole
+inclination and bent of those times was rather towards copy than
+weight.</p>
+<p>(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when
+men study words and not matter; whereof, though I have
+represented an example of late times, yet it hath been and will
+be <i>secundum majus et minus</i> in all time.&nbsp; And how is
+it possible but this should have an operation to discredit
+learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
+men&rsquo;s works like the first letter of a patent or limited
+book, which though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a
+letter?&nbsp; It seems to me that Pygmalion&rsquo;s frenzy is a
+good emblem or portraiture of this vanity; for words are but the
+images of matter, and except they have life of reason and
+invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in
+love with a picture.</p>
+<p>(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be
+condemned, to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy
+itself with sensible and plausible elocution.&nbsp; For hereof we
+have great examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of
+Plato also in some degree; and hereof likewise there is great
+use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of truth and the deep
+progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because it is too
+early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire
+of further search before we come to a just period.&nbsp; But then
+if a man be to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions,
+of conference, counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then
+shall he find it prepared to his hands in those authors which
+write in that manner.&nbsp; But the excess of this is so justly
+contemptible, that as Hercules, when he saw the image of Adonis,
+Venus&rsquo; minion, in a temple, said in disdain, <i>Nil sacri
+es</i>; so there is none of Hercules&rsquo; followers in
+learning&mdash;that is, the more severe and laborious sort of
+inquirers into truth&mdash;but will despise those delicacies and
+affectations, as indeed capable of no divineness.&nbsp; And thus
+much of the first disease or distemper of learning.</p>
+<p>(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the
+former: for as substance of matter is better than beauty of
+words, so contrariwise vain matter is worse than vain words:
+wherein it seemeth the reprehension of St. Paul was not only
+proper for those times, but prophetical for the times following;
+and not only respective to divinity, but extensive to all
+knowledge: <i>Devita profanas vocum novitates</i>, <i>et
+oppositiones falsi nominis scienti&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; For he
+assigneth two marks and badges of suspected and falsified
+science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the
+other, the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth
+induce oppositions, and so questions and altercations.&nbsp;
+Surely, like as many substances in nature which are solid do
+putrefy and corrupt into worms;&mdash;so it is the property of
+good and sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a number of
+subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term them) vermiculate
+questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of
+spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality.&nbsp;
+This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the
+schoolmen, who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of
+leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut
+up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their
+dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of
+monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of
+nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and
+infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs
+of learning which are extant in their books.&nbsp; For the wit
+and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the
+contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the
+stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the
+spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth
+indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread
+and work, but of no substance or profit.</p>
+<p>(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two
+sorts: either in the subject itself that they handle, when it is
+a fruitless speculation or controversy (whereof there are no
+small number both in divinity and philosophy), or in the manner
+or method of handling of a knowledge, which amongst them was
+this&mdash;upon every particular position or assertion to frame
+objections, and to those objections, solutions; which solutions
+were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions:
+whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength
+of the old man&rsquo;s faggot, in the bond.&nbsp; For the harmony
+of a science, supporting each part the other, is and ought to be
+the true and brief confutation and suppression of all the smaller
+sort of objections.&nbsp; But, on the other side, if you take out
+every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by one, you may
+quarrel with them and bend them and break them at your pleasure:
+so that, as was said of Seneca, <i>Verborum minutiis rerum
+frangit pondera</i>, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen,
+<i>Qu&aelig;stionum minutiis scientiarum frangunt
+soliditatem</i>.&nbsp; For were it not better for a man in fair
+room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of
+lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle into every
+corner?&nbsp; And such is their method, that rests not so much
+upon evidence of truth proved by arguments, authorities,
+similitudes, examples, as upon particular confutations and
+solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and objection; breeding
+for the most part one question as fast as it solveth another;
+even as in the former resemblance, when you carry the light into
+one corner, you darken the rest; so that the fable and fiction of
+Scylla seemeth to be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or
+knowledge; which was transformed into a comely virgin for the
+upper parts; but then <i>Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina
+monstris</i>: so the generalities of the schoolmen are for a
+while good and proportionable; but then when you descend into
+their distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb for
+the use and benefit of man&rsquo;s life, they end in monstrous
+altercations and barking questions.&nbsp; So as it is not
+possible but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular
+contempt, the people being apt to contemn truths upon occasion of
+controversies and altercations, and to think they are all out of
+their way which never meet; and when they see such digladiation
+about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they easily
+fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, <i>Verba ista
+sunt senum otiosorum</i>.</p>
+<p>(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to
+their great thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had
+joined variety and universality of reading and contemplation,
+they had proved excellent lights, to the great advancement of all
+learning and knowledge; but as they are, they are great
+undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark keeping.&nbsp; But as in
+the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined to leave
+the oracle of God&rsquo;s word, and to vanish in the mixture of
+their own inventions; so in the inquisition of nature, they ever
+left the oracle of God&rsquo;s works, and adored the deceiving
+and deformed images which the unequal mirror of their own minds,
+or a few received authors or principles, did represent unto
+them.&nbsp; And thus much for the second disease of learning.</p>
+<p>(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which
+concerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest;
+as that which doth destroy the essential form of knowledge, which
+is nothing but a representation of truth: for the truth of being
+and the truth of knowing are one, differing no more than the
+direct beam and the beam reflected.&nbsp; This vice therefore
+brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving and aptness
+to be deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they
+appear to be of a diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of
+cunning and the other of simplicity, yet certainly they do for
+the most part concur: for, as the verse noteth&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem
+est,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a
+credulous man is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that
+will easily believe rumours will as easily augment rumours and
+add somewhat to them of his own; which Tacitus wisely noteth,
+when he saith, <i>Fingunt simul creduntque</i>: so great an
+affinity hath fiction and belief.</p>
+<p>(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things
+weakly authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the
+subject: for it is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers
+speak, matter of fact; or else of matter of art and
+opinion.&nbsp; As to the former, we see the experience and
+inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history; which hath
+too easily received and registered reports and narrations of
+miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and
+other holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels and images:
+which though they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of
+the people, the superstitious simplicity of some and the politic
+toleration of others holding them but as divine poesies, yet
+after a period of time, when the mist began to clear up, they
+grew to be esteemed but as old wives&rsquo; fables, impostures of
+the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of Antichrist, to
+the great scandal and detriment of religion.</p>
+<p>(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that
+choice and judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in
+the writings of Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the
+Arabians, being fraught with much fabulous matter, a great part
+not only untried, but notoriously untrue, to the great derogation
+of the credit of natural philosophy with the grave and sober kind
+of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity of Aristotle is worthy
+to be observed, that, having made so diligent and exquisite a
+history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with any
+vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all
+prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording,
+into one book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest
+truth, such whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was
+not to be mingled or weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and
+yet again, that rarities and reports that seem uncredible are not
+to be suppressed or denied to the memory of men.</p>
+<p>(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to
+arts and opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too
+much belief is attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain
+authors in any art.&nbsp; The sciences themselves, which have had
+better intelligence and confederacy with the imagination of man
+than with his reason, are three in number: astrology, natural
+magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless, the ends or
+pretences are noble.&nbsp; For astrology pretendeth to discover
+that correspondence or concatenation which is between the
+superior globe and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call
+and reduce natural philosophy from variety of speculations to the
+magnitude of works; and alchemy pretendeth to make separation of
+all the unlike parts of bodies which in mixtures of natures are
+incorporate.&nbsp; But the derivations and prosecutions to these
+ends, both in the theories and in the practices, are full of
+error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have
+sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and
+referring themselves to auricular traditions and such other
+devices, to save the credit of impostures.&nbsp; And yet surely
+to alchemy this right is due, that it may be compared to the
+husbandman whereof &AElig;sop makes the fable; that, when he
+died, told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried
+underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground,
+and gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and
+digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a
+great vintage the year following: so assuredly the search and
+stir to make gold hath brought to light a great number of good
+and fruitful inventions and experiments, as well for the
+disclosing of nature as for the use of man&rsquo;s life.</p>
+<p>(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto
+authors in sciences, in making them dictators, that their words
+should stand, and not consuls, to give advice; the damage is
+infinite that sciences have received thereby, as the principal
+cause that hath kept them low at a stay without growth or
+advancement.&nbsp; For hence it hath come, that in arts
+mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth and
+perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and
+time leeseth and corrupteth.&nbsp; So we see artillery, sailing,
+printing, and the like, were grossly managed at the first, and by
+time accommodated and refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies
+and sciences of Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates,
+Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at the first, and by time
+degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason is no other, but that
+in the former many wits and industries have contributed in one;
+and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about
+the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved
+than illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the
+level of the first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so
+knowledge derived from Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of
+examination, will not rise again higher than the knowledge of
+Aristotle.&nbsp; And, therefore, although the position be good,
+<i>Oportet discentem credere</i>, yet it must be coupled with
+this, <i>Oportet edoctum judicare</i>; for disciples do owe unto
+masters only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own
+judgment till they be fully instructed, and not an absolute
+resignation or perpetual captivity; and therefore, to conclude
+this point, I will say no more, but so let great authors have
+their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not
+deprived of his due&mdash;which is, further and further to
+discover truth.&nbsp; Thus have I gone over these three diseases
+of learning; besides the which there are some other rather
+peccant humours than formed diseases, which, nevertheless, are
+not so secret and intrinsic, but that they fall under a popular
+observation and traducement, and, therefore, are not to be passed
+over.</p>
+<p>V. (1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two
+extremities: the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it
+seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice
+of the father.&nbsp; For as he devoureth his children, so one of
+them seeketh to devour and suppress the other; while antiquity
+envieth there should be new additions, and novelty cannot be
+content to add but it must deface; surely the advice of the
+prophet is the true direction in this matter, <i>State super vias
+antiquas</i>, <i>et videte qu&aelig;nam sit via recta et bona et
+ambulate in ea</i>.&nbsp; Antiquity deserveth that reverence,
+that men should make a stand thereupon and discover what is the
+best way; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make
+progression.&nbsp; And to speak truly, <i>Antiquitas s&aelig;culi
+juventus mundi</i>.&nbsp; These times are the ancient times, when
+the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient
+<i>ordine retrogrado</i>, by a computation backward from
+ourselves.</p>
+<p>(2) Another error induced by the former is a distrust that
+anything should be now to be found out, which the world should
+have missed and passed over so long time: as if the same
+objection were to be made to time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter
+and other the heathen gods; of which he wondereth that they begot
+so many children in old time, and begot none in his time; and
+asketh whether they were become septuagenary, or whether the law
+<i>Papia</i>, made against old men&rsquo;s marriages, had
+restrained them.&nbsp; So it seemeth men doubt lest time is
+become past children and generation; wherein contrariwise we see
+commonly the levity and unconstancy of men&rsquo;s judgments,
+which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and as
+soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as
+we see in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first
+was prejudged as a vast and impossible enterprise; and yet
+afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more of it than this,
+<i>Nil aliud qu&agrave;m bene ausus vana contemnere</i>.&nbsp;
+And the same happened to Columbus in the western
+navigation.&nbsp; But in intellectual matters it is much more
+common, as may be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid;
+which till they be demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent;
+but being demonstrate, our mind accepteth of them by a kind of
+relation (as the lawyers speak), as if we had known them
+before.</p>
+<p>(3) Another error, that hath also some affinity with the
+former, is a conceit that of former opinions or sects after
+variety and examination the best hath still prevailed and
+suppressed the rest; so as if a man should begin the labour of a
+new search, he were but like to light upon somewhat formerly
+rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion; as if the
+multitude, or the wisest for the multitude&rsquo;s sake, were not
+ready to give passage rather to that which is popular and
+superficial than to that which is substantial and profound for
+the truth is, that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or
+stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown
+up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid.</p>
+<p>(4) Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is
+the over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts
+and methods; from which time commonly sciences receive small or
+no augmentation.&nbsp; But as young men, when they knit and shape
+perfectly, do seldom grow to a further stature, so knowledge,
+while it is in aphorisms and observations, it is in growth; but
+when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it may, perchance,
+be further polished, and illustrate and accommodated for use and
+practice, but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.</p>
+<p>(5) Another error which doth succeed that which we last
+mentioned is, that after the distribution of particular arts and
+sciences, men have abandoned universality, or <i>philosophia
+prima</i>, which cannot but cease and stop all progression.&nbsp;
+For no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level;
+neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper
+parts of any science if you stand but upon the level of the same
+science, and ascend not to a higher science.</p>
+<p>(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence,
+and a kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by
+means whereof, men have withdrawn themselves too much from the
+contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and
+have tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits.&nbsp;
+Upon these intellectualists, which are notwithstanding commonly
+taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus
+gave a just censure, saying:&mdash;&ldquo;Men sought truth in
+their own little worlds, and not in the great and common
+world;&rdquo; for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to
+read in the volume of God&rsquo;s works; and contrariwise by
+continual meditation and agitation of wit do urge and, as it
+were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles unto
+them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.</p>
+<p>(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter
+is, that men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and
+doctrines with some conceits which they have most admired, or
+some sciences which they have most applied, and given all things
+else a tincture according to them, utterly untrue and
+improper.&nbsp; So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy with
+theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of
+Plato, Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were
+the arts which had a kind of primogeniture with them
+severally.&nbsp; So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of
+a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus our countryman
+hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a
+loadstone.&nbsp; So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of
+the nature of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul
+was but a harmony, saith pleasantly, <i>Hic ab arte sua non
+recessit</i>, <i>&amp;c.</i>&nbsp; But of these conceits
+Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, <i>Qui
+respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant</i>.</p>
+<p>(8) Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to
+assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment.&nbsp;
+For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of
+action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and
+smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other
+rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and
+even.&nbsp; So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with
+certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to
+begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.</p>
+<p>(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and
+delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and
+peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be
+soonest believed, and not easiest examined.&nbsp; It is true,
+that in compendious treatises for practice that form is not to be
+disallowed; but in the true handling of knowledge men ought not
+to fall either on the one side into the vein of Velleius the
+Epicurean, <i>Nil tam metuens quam ne dubitare aliqua de
+revideretur</i>: nor, on the other side, into Socrates, his
+ironical doubting of all things; but to propound things sincerely
+with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a man&rsquo;s
+own judgment proved more or less.</p>
+<p>(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to
+themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas
+the more constant and devote kind of professors of any science
+ought to propound to themselves to make some additions to their
+science, they convert their labours to aspire to certain second
+prizes: as to be a profound interpreter or commentor, to be a
+sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical compounder or
+abridger, and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be
+sometimes improved, but seldom augmented.</p>
+<p>(11) But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking
+or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge.&nbsp; For
+men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge,
+sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite;
+sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight;
+sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable
+them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for
+lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account
+of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if
+there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a
+searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and
+variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a
+tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort
+or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for
+profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the
+Creator and the relief of man&rsquo;s estate.&nbsp; But this is
+that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if
+contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly
+conjoined and united together than they have been: a conjunction
+like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of
+rest and contemplation; and Jupiter, the planet of civil society
+and action, howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and
+action, that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to
+lucre and profession; for I am not ignorant how much that
+diverteth and interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of
+knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta,
+which, while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the race is
+hindered,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile
+tollit.&rdquo; <a name="citation39"></a><a href="#footnote39"
+class="citation">[39]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call
+philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth&mdash;that
+is, to leave natural philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge
+only to manners and policy.&nbsp; But as both heaven and earth do
+conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man, so the end
+ought to be, from both philosophies to separate and reject vain
+speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve
+and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that knowledge may
+not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a
+bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master&rsquo;s use; but as
+a spouse, for generation, fruit, and comfort.</p>
+<p>(12) Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of
+dissection, those peccant humours (the principal of them) which
+have not only given impediment to the proficience of learning,
+but have given also occasion to the traducement thereof: wherein,
+if I have been too plain, it must be remembered, <i>fidelia
+vulnera amantis</i>, <i>sed dolosa oscula malignantis</i>.&nbsp;
+This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better
+believed in that which I shall say pertaining to commendation;
+because I have proceeded so freely in that which concerneth
+censure.&nbsp; And yet I have no purpose to enter into a
+laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the Muses (though I
+am of opinion that it is long since their rites were duly
+celebrated), but my intent is, without varnish or amplification
+justly to weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with
+other things, and to take the true value thereof by testimonies
+and arguments, divine and human.</p>
+<p>VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge
+in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes
+and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be
+observed with sobriety; wherein we may not seek it by the name of
+learning, for all learning is knowledge acquired, and all
+knowledge in God is original, and therefore we must look for it
+by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures
+call it.</p>
+<p>(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a
+double emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more
+properly to power, the other to wisdom; the one expressed in
+making the subsistence of the matter, and the other in disposing
+the beauty of the form.&nbsp; This being supposed, it is to be
+observed that for anything which appeareth in the history of the
+creation, the confused mass and matter of heaven and earth was
+made in a moment, and the order and disposition of that chaos or
+mass was the work of six days; such a note of difference it
+pleased God to put upon the works of power, and the works of
+wisdom; wherewith concurreth, that in the former it is not set
+down that God said, &ldquo;Let there be heaven and earth,&rdquo;
+as it is set down of the works following; but actually, that God
+made heaven and earth: the one carrying the style of a
+manufacture, and the other of a law, decree, or counsel.</p>
+<p>(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to
+spirits: we find, as far as credit is to be given to the
+celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of
+Athens, the first place or degree is given to the angels of love,
+which are termed seraphim; the second to the angels of light,
+which are termed cherubim; and the third, and so following
+places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all
+angels of power and ministry; so as this angels of knowledge and
+illumination are placed before the angels of office and
+domination.</p>
+<p>(4) To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible
+and material forms, we read the first form that was created was
+light, which hath a relation and correspondence in nature and
+corporal things to knowledge in spirits and incorporal
+things.</p>
+<p>(5) So in the distribution of days we see the day wherein God
+did rest and contemplate His own works was blessed above all the
+days wherein He did effect and accomplish them.</p>
+<p>(6) After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us
+that man was placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so
+appointed to him, could be no other than work of contemplation;
+that is, when the end of work is but for exercise and experiment,
+not for necessity; for there being then no reluctation of the
+creature, nor sweat of the brow, man&rsquo;s employment must of
+consequence have been matter of delight in the experiment, and
+not matter of labour for the use.&nbsp; Again, the first acts
+which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary
+parts of knowledge; the view of creatures, and the imposition of
+names.&nbsp; As for the knowledge which induced the fall, it was,
+as was touched before, not the natural knowledge of creatures,
+but the moral knowledge of good and evil; wherein the supposition
+was, that God&rsquo;s commandments or prohibitions were not the
+originals of good and evil, but that they had other beginnings,
+which man aspired to know, to the end to make a total defection
+from God and to depend wholly upon himself.</p>
+<p>(7) To pass on: in the first event or occurrence after the
+fall of man, we see (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries,
+not violating at all the truth of this story or letter) an image
+of the two estates, the contemplative state and the active state,
+figured in the two persons of Abel and Cain, and in the two
+simplest and most primitive trades of life; that of the shepherd
+(who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and lying in
+view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life), and
+that of the husbandman, where we see again the favour and
+election of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of
+the ground.</p>
+<p>(8) So in the age before the flood, the holy records within
+those few memorials which are there entered and registered have
+vouchsafed to mention and honour the name of the inventors and
+authors of music and works in metal.&nbsp; In the age after the
+flood, the first great judgment of God upon the ambition of man
+was the confusion of tongues; whereby the open trade and
+intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly imbarred.</p>
+<p>(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God&rsquo;s first
+pen: he is adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and
+commendation, &ldquo;That he was seen in all the learning of the
+Egyptians,&rdquo; which nation we know was one of the most
+ancient schools of the world: for so Plato brings in the Egyptian
+priest saying unto Solon, &ldquo;You Grecians are ever children;
+you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of
+knowledge.&rdquo;&nbsp; Take a view of the ceremonial law of
+Moses; you shall find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the
+badge or difference of the people of God, the exercise and
+impression of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits
+thereof, that some of the most learned Rabbins have travailed
+profitably and profoundly to observe, some of them a natural,
+some of them a moral sense, or reduction of many of the
+ceremonies and ordinances.&nbsp; As in the law of the leprosy,
+where it is said, &ldquo;If the whiteness have overspread the
+flesh, the patient may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any
+whole flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean;&rdquo;
+one of them noteth a principle of nature, that putrefaction is
+more contagious before maturity than after; and another noteth a
+position of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not
+so much corrupt manners, as those that are half good and half
+evil.&nbsp; So in this and very many other places in that law,
+there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much
+aspersion of philosophy.</p>
+<p>(10)&nbsp; So likewise in that excellent hook of Job, if it be
+revolved with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling
+with natural philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the
+roundness of the world, <i>Qui extendit aquilonem super
+vacuum</i>, <i>et appendit terram super nihilum</i>; wherein the
+pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north, and the
+finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched.&nbsp;
+So again, matter of astronomy: <i>Spiritus ejus ornavit
+c&aelig;los</i>, <i>et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est
+Coluber tortuoses</i>.&nbsp; And in another place, <i>Nunquid
+conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas</i>, <i>aut gyrum
+Arcturi poteris dissipare</i>?&nbsp; Where the fixing of the
+stars, ever standing at equal distance, is with great elegancy
+noted.&nbsp; And in another place, <i>Qui facit Arcturum</i>,
+<i>et Oriona</i>, <i>et Hyadas</i>, <i>et interiora Austri</i>;
+where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern
+pole, calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern
+stars were in that climate unseen.&nbsp; Matter of generation:
+<i>Annon sicut lac mulsisti me</i>, <i>et sicut caseum coagulasti
+me</i>? &amp;c.&nbsp; Matter of minerals: <i>Habet argentum
+venarum suarum principia</i>; <i>et auro locus est in quo
+conflatur</i>, <i>ferrum de terra tollitur</i>, <i>et lapis
+solutus calore in &aelig;s vertitur</i>; and so forwards in that
+chapter.</p>
+<p>(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the
+gift or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon&rsquo;s
+petition and in God&rsquo;s assent thereunto, preferred before
+all other terrene and temporal felicity.&nbsp; By virtue of which
+grant or donative of God Solomon became enabled not only to write
+those excellent parables or aphorisms concerning divine and moral
+philosophy, but also to compile a natural history of all verdure,
+from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon the wall (which
+is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb), and also of
+all things that breathe or move.&nbsp; Nay, the same Solomon the
+king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and
+magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and
+attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no
+claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of
+inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, &ldquo;The glory
+of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to
+find it out;&rdquo; as if, according to the innocent play of
+children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to
+the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain
+a greater honour than to be God&rsquo;s playfellows in that game;
+considering the great commandment of wits and means, whereby
+nothing needeth to be hidden from them.</p>
+<p>(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times
+after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself
+did first show His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference
+with the priests and doctors of the law, before He showed His
+power to subdue nature by His miracles.&nbsp; And the coming of
+this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the
+similitude and gift of tongues, which are but <i>vehicula
+scienti&aelig;</i>.</p>
+<p>(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased
+God to use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that
+at the first He did employ persons altogether unlearned,
+otherwise than by inspiration, more evidently to declare His
+immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom or knowledge;
+yet nevertheless that counsel of His was no sooner performed, but
+in the next vicissitude and succession He did send His divine
+truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with
+servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was only
+learned amongst the Apostles, had his pen most used in the
+Scriptures of the New Testament.</p>
+<p>(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and
+fathers of the Church were excellently read and studied in all
+the learning of this heathen; insomuch that the edict of the
+Emperor Julianus (whereby it was interdicted unto Christians to
+be admitted into schools, lectures, or exercises of learning) was
+esteemed and accounted a more pernicious engine and machination
+against the Christian Faith than were all the sanguinary
+prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation and
+jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever
+obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise
+received the censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity,
+even amongst holy men; in that he designed to obliterate and
+extinguish the memory of heathen antiquity and authors.&nbsp; But
+contrariwise it was the Christian Church, which, amidst the
+inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the north-west,
+and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred lap
+and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning,
+which otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had
+ever been.</p>
+<p>(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves
+and our fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome
+to account for their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and
+sundry doctrines obnoxious and framed to uphold the same abuses;
+at one and the same time it was ordained by the Divine Providence
+that there should attend withal a renovation and new spring of
+all other knowledges.&nbsp; And on the other side we see the
+Jesuits, who partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation
+and provocation of their example, have much quickened and
+strengthened the state of learning; we see (I say) what notable
+service and reparation they have done to the Roman see.</p>
+<p>(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed,
+that there be two principal duties and services, besides ornament
+and illustration, which philosophy and human learning do perform
+to faith and religion.&nbsp; The one, because they are an
+effectual inducement to the exaltation of the glory of God.&nbsp;
+For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite us to
+consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if
+we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them
+as they first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like
+injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe
+of the store of some excellent jeweller by that only which is set
+out toward the street in his shop.&nbsp; The other, because they
+minister a singular help and preservative against unbelief and
+error.&nbsp; For our Saviour saith, &ldquo;You err, not knowing
+the Scriptures, nor the power of God;&rdquo; laying before us two
+books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error:
+first the Scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then the
+creatures expressing His power; whereof the latter is a key unto
+the former: not only opening our understanding to conceive the
+true sense of the Scriptures by the general notions of reason and
+rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us
+into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly
+signed and engraven upon His works.&nbsp; Thus much therefore for
+divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and
+value of learning.</p>
+<p>VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a
+discourse of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use
+choice of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace
+the variety of them.&nbsp; First, therefore, in the degrees of
+human honour amongst the heathen, it was the highest to obtain to
+a veneration and adoration as a God.&nbsp; This unto the
+Christians is as the forbidden fruit.&nbsp; But we speak now
+separately of human testimony, according to which&mdash;that
+which the Grecians call <i>apotheosis</i>, and the Latins
+<i>relatio inter divos</i>&mdash;was the supreme honour which man
+could attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a
+formal decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman
+Emperors), but by an inward assent and belief.&nbsp; Which
+honour, being so high, had also a degree or middle term; for
+there were reckoned above human honours, honours heroical and
+divine: in the attribution and distribution of which honours we
+see antiquity made this difference; that whereas founders and
+uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants,
+fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit,
+were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods, such
+as were Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the like; on the
+other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts,
+endowments, and commodities towards man&rsquo;s life, were ever
+consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as was Ceres, Bacchus,
+Mercurius, Apollo, and others.&nbsp; And justly; for the merit of
+the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
+and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and
+good, yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground
+where they fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of
+heaven, which are permanent and universal.&nbsp; The former again
+is mixed with strife and perturbation, but the latter hath the
+true character of Divine Presence, coming in <i>aura leni</i>,
+without noise or agitation.</p>
+<p>(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in
+repressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much
+inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities which arise
+from nature, which merit was lively set forth by the ancients in
+that feigned relation of Orpheus&rsquo; theatre, where all beasts
+and birds assembled, and, forgetting their several
+appetites&mdash;some of prey, some of game, some of
+quarrel&mdash;stood all sociably together listening unto the airs
+and accords of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or
+was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his
+own nature; wherein is aptly described the nature and condition
+of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, of
+profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to
+precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence
+and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is
+society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent,
+or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things
+dissolve into anarchy and confusion.</p>
+<p>(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves,
+or persons of authority under them, or other governors in
+commonwealths and popular estates, are endued with
+learning.&nbsp; For although he might be thought partial to his
+own profession that said &ldquo;Then should people and estates be
+happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers
+kings;&rdquo; yet so much is verified by experience, that under
+learned princes and governors there have been ever the best
+times: for howsoever kings may have their imperfections in their
+passions and customs, yet, if they be illuminate by learning,
+they have those notions of religion, policy, and morality, which
+do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and peremptory
+errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when
+counsellors and servants stand mute and silent.&nbsp; And
+senators or counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed
+upon more safe and substantial principles, than counsellors which
+are only men of experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar
+off, whereas the other discover them not till they come near
+hand, and then trust to the agility of their wit to ward or avoid
+them.</p>
+<p>(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep
+still the law of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected
+examples) doth best appear in the age which passed from the death
+of Domitianus the emperor until the reign of Commodus;
+comprehending a succession of six princes, all learned, or
+singular favourers and advancers of learning, which age for
+temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever
+the Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world)
+enjoyed&mdash;a matter revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a
+dream the night before he was slain: for he thought there was
+grown behind upon his shoulders a neck and a head of gold, which
+came accordingly to pass in those golden times which succeeded;
+of which princes we will make some commemoration; wherein,
+although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter for
+a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is,
+yet, because it is pertinent to the point in hand&mdash;<i>Neque
+semper arcum tendit Apollo</i>&mdash;and to name them only were
+too naked and cursory, I will not omit it altogether.&nbsp; The
+first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose government is by a
+glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life: <i>Postquam
+divus Nerva res oluim insociabiles miscuisset</i>, <i>imperium et
+libertatem</i>.&nbsp; And in token of his learning, the last act
+of his short reign left to memory was a missive to his adopted
+son, Trajan, proceeding upon some inward discontent at the
+ingratitude of the times, comprehended in a verse of
+Homer&rsquo;s&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Telis, Ph&oelig;be, tuis, lacrymas
+ulciscere nostras.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but
+if we will hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith,
+&ldquo;He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall
+have a prophet&rsquo;s reward,&rdquo; he deserveth to be placed
+amongst the most learned princes; for there was not a greater
+admirer of learning or benefactor of learning, a founder of
+famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned men to office,
+and familiar converser with learned professors and preceptors who
+were noted to have then most credit in court.&nbsp; On the other
+side how much Trajan&rsquo;s virtue and government was admired
+and renowned, surely no testimony of grave and faithful history
+doth more lively set forth than that legend tale of Gregorius
+Magnum, Bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme envy he
+bare towards all heathen excellency; and yet he is reported, out
+of the love and estimation of Trajan&rsquo;s moral virtues, to
+have made unto God passionate and fervent prayers for the
+delivery of his soul out of hell, and to have obtained it, with a
+caveat that he should make no more such petitions.&nbsp; In this
+prince&rsquo;s time also the persecutions against the Christians
+received intermission upon the certificate of Plinius Secundus, a
+man of excellent learning and by Trajan advanced.</p>
+<p>(6) Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that
+lived, and the most universal inquirer: insomuch as it was noted
+for an error in his mind that he desired to comprehend all
+things, and not to reserve himself for the worthiest things,
+falling into the like humour that was long before noted in Philip
+of Macedon, who, when he would needs overrule and put down an
+excellent musician in an argument touching music, was well
+answered by him again&mdash;&ldquo;God forbid, sir,&rdquo; saith
+he, &ldquo;that your fortune should be so bad as to know these
+things better than I.&rdquo;&nbsp; It pleased God likewise to use
+the curiosity of this emperor as an inducement to the peace of
+His Church in those days; for having Christ in veneration, not as
+a God or Saviour, but as a wonder or novelty, and having his
+picture in his gallery matched with Apollonius (with whom in his
+vain imagination he thought its had some conformity), yet it
+served the turn to allay the bitter hatred of those times against
+the Christian name, so as the Church had peace during his
+time.&nbsp; And for his government civil, although he did not
+attain to that of Trajan&rsquo;s in glory of arms or perfection
+of justice, yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he did
+exceed him.&nbsp; For Trajan erected many famous monuments and
+buildings, insomuch as Constantine the Great in emulation was
+wont to call him <i>Parietaria</i>, &ldquo;wall-flower,&rdquo;
+because his name was upon so many walls; but his buildings and
+works were more of glory and triumph than use and
+necessity.&nbsp; But Adrian spent his whole reign, which was
+peaceable, in a perambulation or survey of the Roman Empire,
+giving order and making assignation where he went for re-edifying
+of cities, towns, and forts decayed, and for cutting of rivers
+and streams, and for making bridges and passages, and for
+policing of cities and commonalties with new ordinances and
+constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so
+that his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and
+decays of former times.</p>
+<p>(7) Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince
+excellently learned, and had the patient and subtle wit of a
+schoolman, insomuch as in common speech (which leaves no virtue
+untaxed) he was called <i>Cymini Sector</i>, a carver or a
+divider of cummin seed, which is one of the least seeds.&nbsp;
+Such a patience he had and settled spirit to enter into the least
+and most exact differences of causes, a fruit no doubt of the
+exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which being no
+ways charged or encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or
+scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodness,
+without all fiction or affectation, that hath reigned or lived,
+made his mind continually present and entire.&nbsp; He likewise
+approached a degree nearer unto Christianity, and became, as
+Agrippa said unto St. Paul, &ldquo;half a Christian,&rdquo;
+holding their religion and law in good opinion, and not only
+ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of
+Christians.</p>
+<p>(5) There succeeded him the first <i>Divi fratres</i>, the two
+adoptive brethren&mdash;Lucius Commodus Verus, son to &AElig;lius
+Verus, who delighted much in the softer kind of learning, and was
+wont to call the poet Martial his Virgil; and Marcus Aurelius
+Antoninus: whereof the latter, who obscured his colleague and
+survived him long, was named the &ldquo;Philosopher,&rdquo; who,
+as he excelled all the rest in learning, so he excelled them
+likewise in perfection of all royal virtues; insomuch as Julianus
+the emperor, in his book entitled <i>C&aelig;rsares</i>, being as
+a pasquil or satire to deride all his predecessors, feigned that
+they were all invited to a banquet of the gods, and Silenus the
+jester sat at the nether end of the table and bestowed a scoff on
+everyone as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus came in,
+Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance, not knowing where
+to carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance at his patience
+towards his wife.&nbsp; And the virtue of this prince, continued
+with that of his predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so
+sacred in the world, that though it were extremely dishonoured in
+Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, who all bare the name,
+yet, when Alexander Severus refused the name because he was a
+stranger to the family, the Senate with one acclamation said,
+<i>Quomodo Augustus</i>, <i>sic et Antoninus</i>.&nbsp; In such
+renown and veneration was the name of these two princes in those
+days, that they would have had it as a perpetual addition in all
+the emperors&rsquo; style.&nbsp; In this emperor&rsquo;s time
+also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as in this
+sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning
+in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the
+world.</p>
+<p>(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not
+presuming to speak of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment
+the most excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate
+predecessor in this part of Britain; a prince that, if Plutarch
+were now alive to write lives by parallels, would trouble him, I
+think, to find for her a parallel amongst women.&nbsp; This lady
+was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even
+amongst masculine princes&mdash;whether we speak of learning, of
+language, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or
+humanity&mdash;and unto the very last year of her life she
+accustomed to appoint set hours for reading, scarcely any young
+student in a university more daily or more duly.&nbsp; As for her
+government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm)
+that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better
+tines, and yet not through the calmness of the season, but
+through the wisdom of her regiment.&nbsp; For if there be
+considered, of the one side, the truth of religion established,
+the constant peace and security, the good administration of
+justice, the temperate use of the prerogative, not slackened, nor
+much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so
+excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means,
+both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the
+moderation of discontents; and there be considered, on the other
+side, the differences of religion, the troubles of neighbour
+countries, the ambition of Spain, and opposition of Rome, and
+then that she was solitary and of herself; these things, I say,
+considered, as I could not have chosen an instance so recent and
+so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more
+remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is
+concerning the conjunction of learning in the prince with
+felicity in the people.</p>
+<p>(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only
+upon civil merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of
+peace and peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less
+power and efficacy in enablement towards martial and military
+virtue and prowess, as may be notably represented in the examples
+of Alexander the Great and C&aelig;sar the Dictator (mentioned
+before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose virtues and
+acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the
+wonders of time in that kind; but of their affections towards
+learning and perfections in learning it is pertinent to say
+somewhat.</p>
+<p>(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great
+philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto
+him; he was attended with Callisthenes and divers other learned
+persons, that followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and
+conquests.&nbsp; What price and estimation he had learning in
+doth notably appear in these three particulars: first, in the
+envy he used to express that he bare towards Achilles, in this,
+that he had so good a trumpet of his praises as Homer&rsquo;s
+verses; secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave touching
+that precious cabinet of Darius, which was found among his jewels
+(whereof question was made what thing was worthy to be put into
+it, and he gave his opinion for Homer&rsquo;s works); thirdly, in
+his letter to Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of
+nature, wherein he expostulateth with him for publishing the
+secrets or mysteries of philosophy; and gave him to understand
+that himself esteemed it more to excel other men in learning and
+knowledge than in power and empire.&nbsp; And what use he had of
+learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches and
+answers, being full of science and use of science, and that in
+all variety.</p>
+<p>(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and
+somewhat idle to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet,
+since the argument I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that
+men shall perceive I am as willing to flatter (if they will so
+call it) an Alexander, or a C&aelig;sar, or an Antoninus, that
+are dead many hundred years since, as any that now liveth; for it
+is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty that I
+propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming in any
+man&rsquo;s praises.&nbsp; Observe, then, the speech he used of
+Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state of one of the
+greatest questions of moral philosophy: whether the enjoying of
+outward things, or the contemning of them, be the greatest
+happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly contented with
+so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition,
+&ldquo;were I not Alexander, I would wish to be
+Diogenes.&rdquo;&nbsp; But Seneca inverteth it, and saith,
+&ldquo;<i>Plus erat</i>, <i>quod hic nollet accipere</i>,
+<i>qu&agrave;m quod ille posset dare</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; There were
+more things which Diogenes would have refused than those were
+which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.</p>
+<p>(13) Observe, again, that speech which was usual with
+him,&mdash;&ldquo;That he felt his mortality chiefly in two
+things, sleep and lust;&rdquo; and see if it were not a speech
+extracted out of the depth of natural philosophy, and liker to
+have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus than from
+Alexander.</p>
+<p>(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon
+the bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his
+flatterers, that was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and
+said, &ldquo;Look, this is very blood; this is not such a liquor
+as Homer speaketh of, which ran from Venus&rsquo; hand when it
+was pierced by Diomedes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in
+the speech he used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made
+against his father Antipater; for when Alexander happened to say,
+&ldquo;Do you think these men would have come from so far to
+complain except they had just cause of grief?&rdquo; and
+Cassander answered, &ldquo;Yea, that was the matter, because they
+thought they should not be disproved;&rdquo; said Alexander,
+laughing, &ldquo;See the subtleties of Aristotle, to take a
+matter both ways, <i>pro et contra</i>, &amp;c.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art which
+he reprehended to serve his own humour: when bearing a secret
+grudge to Callisthenes, because he was against the new ceremony
+of his adoration, feasting one night where the same Callisthenes
+was at the table, it was moved by some after supper, for
+entertainment sake, that Callisthenes, who was an eloquent man,
+might speak of some theme or purpose at his own choice; which
+Callisthenes did, choosing the praise of the Macedonian nation
+for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner as
+the hearers were much ravished; whereupon Alexander, nothing
+pleased, said, &ldquo;It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a
+subject; but,&rdquo; saith he, &ldquo;turn your style, and let us
+hear what you can say against us;&rdquo; which Callisthenes
+presently undertook, and did with that sting and life that
+Alexander interrupted him, and said, &ldquo;The goodness of the
+cause made him eloquent before, and despite made him eloquent
+then again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(17) Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent
+use of a metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxeth Antipater,
+who was an imperious and tyrannous governor; for when one of
+Antipater&rsquo;s friends commended him to Alexander for his
+moderation, that he did not degenerate as his other lieutenants
+did into the Persian pride, in uses of purple, but kept the
+ancient habit of Macedon, of black.&nbsp; &ldquo;True,&rdquo;
+saith Alexander; &ldquo;but Antipater is all purple
+within.&rdquo;&nbsp; Or that other, when Parmenio came to him in
+the plain of Arbela and showed him the innumerable multitude of
+his enemies, specially as they appeared by the infinite number of
+lights as it had been a new firmament of stars, and thereupon
+advised him to assail them by night; whereupon he answered,
+&ldquo;That he would not steal the victory.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(18) For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction,
+so much in all ages embraced, that he made between his two
+friends Heph&aelig;stion and Craterus, when he said, &ldquo;That
+the one loved Alexander, and the other loved the king:&rdquo;
+describing the principal difference of princes&rsquo; best
+servants, that some in affection love their person, and other in
+duty love their crown.</p>
+<p>(19) Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary
+with counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters
+according to the model of their own mind and fortune, and not of
+their masters.&nbsp; When upon Darius&rsquo; great offers
+Parmenio had said, &ldquo;Surely I would accept these offers were
+I as Alexander;&rdquo; saith Alexander, &ldquo;So would I were I
+as Parmenio.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made
+when he gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was
+asked what he did reserve for himself, and he answered,
+&ldquo;Hope.&rdquo;&nbsp; Weigh, I say, whether he had not cast
+up his account aright, because <i>hope</i> must be the portion of
+all that resolve upon great enterprises; for this was
+C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s portion when he went first into Gaul, his
+estate being then utterly overthrown with largesses.&nbsp; And
+this was likewise the portion of that noble prince, howsoever
+transported with ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was
+usually said that he was the greatest usurer in France, because
+he had turned all his estate into obligations.</p>
+<p>(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to
+say hyperbolically, &ldquo;That if all sciences were lost they
+might be found in Virgil,&rdquo; so certainly this may be said
+truly, there are the prints and footsteps of learning in those
+few speeches which are reported of this prince, the admiration of
+whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the Great, but as
+Aristotle&rsquo;s scholar, hath carried me too far.</p>
+<p>(22) As for Julius C&aelig;sar, the excellency of his learning
+needeth not to be argued from his education, or his company, or
+his speeches; but in a further degree doth declare itself in his
+writings and works: whereof some are extant and permanent, and
+some unfortunately perished.&nbsp; For first, we see there is
+left unto us that excellent history of his own wars, which he
+entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times have
+admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and
+lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest
+propriety of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was;
+which that it was not the effect of a natural gift, but of
+learning and precept, is well witnessed by that work of his
+entitled <i>De Analogia</i>, being a grammatical philosophy,
+wherein he did labour to make this same <i>Vox ad placitum</i> to
+become <i>Vox ad licitum</i>, and to reduce custom of speech to
+congruity of speech; and took as it were the pictures of words
+from the life of reason.</p>
+<p>(23) So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power
+and learning, the then reformed computation of the year; well
+expressing that he took it to be as great a glory to himself to
+observe and know the law of the heavens, as to give law to men
+upon the earth.</p>
+<p>(24) So likewise in that book of his, <i>Anti-Cato</i>, it may
+easily appear that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as
+victory of war: undertaking therein a conflict against the
+greatest champion with the pen that then lived, Cicero the
+orator.</p>
+<p>(25) So, again, in his book of Apophthegms, which he
+collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself
+but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others,
+than to have every word of his own to be made an apophthegm or an
+oracle, as vain princes, by custom of flattery, pretend to
+do.&nbsp; And yet if I should enumerate divers of his speeches,
+as I did those of Alexander, they are truly such as Solomon
+noteth, when he saith, <i>Verba sapientum tanquam aculei</i>,
+<i>et tanquam clavi in altum defixi</i>: whereof I will only
+recite three, not so delectable for elegancy, but admirable for
+vigour and efficacy.</p>
+<p>(26) As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words,
+that could with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was
+thus: The Romans, when their generals did speak to their army,
+did use the word <i>Milites</i>, but when the magistrates spake
+to the people they did use the word <i>Quirites</i>.&nbsp; The
+soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to be cashiered;
+not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to draw
+C&aelig;sar to other conditions; wherein he being resolute not to
+give way, after some silence, he began his speech, <i>Ego
+Quirites</i>, which did admit them already
+cashiered&mdash;wherewith they were so surprised, crossed, and
+confused, as they would not suffer him to go on in his speech,
+but relinquished their demands, and made it their suit to be
+again called by the name of <i>Milites</i>.</p>
+<p>(27) The second speech was thus: C&aelig;sar did extremely
+affect the name of king; and some were set on as he passed by in
+popular acclamation to salute him king.&nbsp; Whereupon, finding
+the cry weak and poor, he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as
+if they had mistaken his surname: <i>Non Rex sum</i>, <i>sed
+C&aelig;sar</i>; a speech that, if it be searched, the life and
+fulness of it can scarce be expressed.&nbsp; For, first, it was a
+refusal of the name, but yet not serious; again, it did signify
+an infinite confidence and magnanimity, as if he presumed
+C&aelig;sar was the greater title, as by his worthiness it is
+come to pass till this day.&nbsp; But chiefly it was a speech of
+great allurement toward his own purpose, as if the state did
+strive with him but for a name, whereof mean families were
+vested; for <i>Rex</i> was a surname with the Romans, as well as
+<i>King</i> is with us.</p>
+<p>(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to
+Metellus, when C&aelig;sar, after war declared, did possess
+himself of this city of Rome; at which time, entering into the
+inner treasury to take the money there accumulate, Metellus,
+being tribune, forbade him.&nbsp; Whereto C&aelig;sar said,
+&ldquo;That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the
+place.&rdquo;&nbsp; And presently taking himself up, he added,
+&ldquo;Young man, it is harder for me to speak it than to do
+it&mdash;<i>Adolescens</i>, <i>durius est mihi hoc dicere
+qu&agrave;m facere</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; A speech compounded of the
+greatest terror and greatest clemency that could proceed out of
+the mouth of man.</p>
+<p>(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident
+himself knew well his own perfection in learning, and took it
+upon him, as appeared when upon occasion that some spake what a
+strange resolution it was in Lucius Sylla to resign his
+dictators, he, scoffing at him to his own advantage, answered,
+&ldquo;That Sylla could not skill of letters, and therefore knew
+not how to dictate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the
+concurrence of military virtue and learning (for what example
+should come with any grace after those two of Alexander and
+C&aelig;sar?), were it not in regard of the rareness of
+circumstance, that I find in one other particular, as that which
+did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme wonder: and it
+is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from Socrates&rsquo;
+school into Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against
+King Artaxerxes.&nbsp; This Xenophon at that time was very young,
+and never had seen the wars before, neither had any command in
+the army, but only followed the war as a voluntary, for the love
+and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.&nbsp; He was present
+when Falinus came in message from the great king to the Grecians,
+after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of
+men, left to themselves in the midst of the king&rsquo;s
+territories, cut off from their country by many navigable rivers
+and many hundred miles.&nbsp; The message imported that they
+should deliver up their arms and submit themselves to the
+king&rsquo;s mercy.&nbsp; To which message, before answer was
+made, divers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus; and
+amongst the rest Xenophon happened to say, &ldquo;Why, Falinus,
+we have now but these two things left, our arms and our virtue;
+and if we yield up our arms, how shall we make use of our
+virtue?&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereto Falinus, smiling on him, said,
+&ldquo;If I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an
+Athenian, and I believe you study philosophy, and it is pretty
+that you say; but you are much abused if you think your virtue
+can withstand the king&rsquo;s power.&rdquo;&nbsp; Here was the
+scorn; the wonder followed: which was that this young scholar or
+philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by
+treason, conducted those ten thousand foot, through the heart of
+all the king&rsquo;s high countries, from Babylon to Gr&aelig;cia
+in safety, in despite of all the king&rsquo;s forces, to the
+astonishment of the world, and the encouragement of the Grecians
+in times succeeding to make invasion upon the kings of Persia, as
+was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian, attempted by
+Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the Macedonian,
+all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.</p>
+<p>VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to
+moral and private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is
+contained in the verses:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter
+artes<br />
+Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of
+men&rsquo;s minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon
+<i>fideliter</i>; for a little superficial learning doth rather
+work a contrary effect.&nbsp; It taketh away all levity,
+temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and
+difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both
+sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the
+mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried.&nbsp; It
+taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all
+weakness.&nbsp; For all things are admired, either because they
+are new, or because they are great.&nbsp; For novelty, no man
+that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly but will find
+that printed in his heart, <i>Nil novi super terram</i>.&nbsp;
+Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth
+behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion.&nbsp; And
+for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to
+great armies, and the great conquests of the spacious provinces
+in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights
+and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a fort,
+or some walled town at the most, he said:&mdash;&ldquo;It seemed
+to him that he was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the
+mice, that the old tales went of.&rdquo;&nbsp; So certainly, if a
+man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth
+with men upon it (the divineness of souls except) will not seem
+much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, and
+some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a
+little heap of dust.&nbsp; It taketh away or mitigateth fear of
+death or adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest
+impediments of virtue and imperfections of manners.&nbsp; For if
+a man&rsquo;s mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of
+the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily
+concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman
+weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth
+the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead,
+and thereupon said, &ldquo;<i>Heri vidi fragilem frangi</i>,
+<i>hodie vidi mortalem mori</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; And, therefore,
+Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of
+causes and the conquest of all fears together, as
+<i>concomitantia</i>.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere
+causas,<br />
+Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum<br />
+Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which
+learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes
+purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions,
+sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increasing appetite,
+sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the
+like; and, therefore, I will conclude with that which hath
+<i>rationem totius</i>&mdash;which is, that it disposeth the
+constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the
+defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of
+growth and reformation.&nbsp; For the unlearned man knows not
+what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to
+account, nor the pleasure of that <i>suavissima vita</i>,
+<i>indies sentire se fieri meliorem</i>.&nbsp; The good parts he
+hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously,
+but not much to increase them.&nbsp; The faults he hath he will
+learn how to hide and colour them, but not much to amend them;
+like an ill mower, that mows on still, and never whets his
+scythe.&nbsp; Whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise,
+that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his
+mind with the use and employment thereof.&nbsp; Nay, further, in
+general and in sum, certain it is that <i>Veritas</i> and
+<i>Bonitas</i> differ but as the seal and the print; for truth
+prints goodness, and they be the clouds of error which descend in
+the storms of passions and perturbations.</p>
+<p>(3) From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and
+commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be any
+comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth
+man&rsquo;s nature.&nbsp; We see the dignity of the commandment
+is according to the dignity of the commanded; to have commandment
+over beasts as herdmen have, is a thing contemptible; to have
+commandment over children as schoolmasters have, is a matter of
+small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves is a
+disparagement rather than an honour.&nbsp; Neither is the
+commandment of tyrants much better, over people which have put
+off the generosity of their minds; and, therefore, it was ever
+holden that honours in free monarchies and commonwealths had a
+sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the commandment
+extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over their
+deeds and services.&nbsp; And therefore, when Virgil putteth
+himself forth to attribute to Augustus C&aelig;sar the best of
+human honours, he doth it in these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Victorque
+volentes<br />
+Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the
+commandment over the will; for it is a commandment over the
+reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest
+part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself.&nbsp; For
+there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of
+estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations,
+imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and
+learning.&nbsp; And therefore we see the detestable and extreme
+pleasure that arch-heretics, and false prophets, and impostors
+are transported with, when they once find in themselves that they
+have a superiority in the faith and conscience of men; so great
+as if they have once tasted of it, it is seldom seen that any
+torture or persecution can make them relinquish or abandon
+it.&nbsp; But as this is that which the author of the Revelation
+calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so by argument of
+contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men&rsquo;s
+understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that
+which approacheth nearest to the similitude of the divine
+rule.</p>
+<p>(4) As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of
+learning is not so confined to give fortune only to states and
+commonwealths, as it doth not likewise give fortune to particular
+persons.&nbsp; For it was well noted long ago, that Homer hath
+given more men their livings, than either Sylla, or C&aelig;sar,
+or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding their great largesses and
+donatives, and distributions of lands to so many legions.&nbsp;
+And no doubt it is hard to say whether arms or learning have
+advanced greater numbers.&nbsp; And in case of sovereignty we
+see, that if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet
+learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in
+some competition with empire.</p>
+<p>(5) Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and
+learning, it far surpasseth all other in nature.&nbsp; For, shall
+the pleasures of the affections so exceed the pleasure of the
+sense, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a
+song or a dinner? and must not of consequence the pleasures of
+the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the
+affections?&nbsp; We see in all other pleasures there is satiety,
+and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth
+well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that
+it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitions
+princes turn melancholy.&nbsp; But of knowledge there is no
+satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually
+interchangeable; and, therefore, appeareth to be good in itself
+simply, without fallacy or accident.&nbsp; Neither is that
+pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man,
+which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Suave mari magno, turbantibus &aelig;quora
+ventis, &amp;c.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;It is a view of delight,&rdquo; saith he, &ldquo;to
+stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with
+tempest upon the sea; or to be in a fortified tower, and to see
+two battles join upon a plain.&nbsp; But it is a pleasure
+incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and
+fortified in the certainty of truth; and from thence to descry
+and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up
+and down of other men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(6) Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man
+excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by
+learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in
+body he cannot come; and the like: let us conclude with the
+dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that
+whereunto man&rsquo;s nature doth most aspire, which is
+immortality, or continuance; for to this tendeth generation, and
+raising of houses and families; to this tend buildings,
+foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory,
+fame, and celebration; and in effect the strength of all other
+human desires.&nbsp; We see then how far the monuments of wit and
+learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the
+hands.&nbsp; For have not the verses of Homer continued
+twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a
+syllable or letter; during which the infinite palaces, temples,
+castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished?&nbsp; It is
+not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus,
+Alexander, C&aelig;sar, no nor of the kings or great personages
+of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the
+copies cannot but leese of the life and truth.&nbsp; But the
+images of men&rsquo;s wits and knowledges remain in books,
+exempted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual
+renovation.&nbsp; Neither are they fitly to be called images,
+because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of
+others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in
+succeeding ages.&nbsp; So that if the invention of the ship was
+thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from
+place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in
+participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be
+magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and
+make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations,
+and inventions, the one of the other?&nbsp; Nay, further, we see
+some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most
+immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of
+the soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the
+spirit of man could act and perform without the organs of the
+body, they thought might remain after death, which were only
+those of the understanding and not of the affection; so immortal
+and incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to
+be.&nbsp; But we, that know by divine revelation that not only
+the understanding but the affections purified, not only the
+spirit but the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, do
+disclaim in these rudiments of the senses.&nbsp; But it must be
+remembered, both in this last point, and so it may likewise be
+needful in other places, that in probation of the dignity of
+knowledge or learning, I did in the beginning separate divine
+testimony from human, which method I have pursued, and so handled
+them both apart.</p>
+<p>(7) Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be
+impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the
+judgment, either of &AElig;sop&rsquo;s cock, that preferred the
+barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that being chosen judge
+between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god of the
+flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty
+and love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, <i>occidat
+matrem</i>, <i>modo imperet</i>, that preferred empire with any
+condition never so detestable; or of Ulysses, <i>qui vetulam
+pr&aelig;tulit immortalitati</i>, being a figure of those which
+prefer custom and habit before all excellency, or of a number of
+the like popular judgments.&nbsp; For these things must continue
+as they have been; but so will that also continue whereupon
+learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not: <i>Justificata
+est sapientia a filiis suis</i>.</p>
+<h2>THE SECOND BOOK.</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>To the King</i>.</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; <span class="smcap">It</span> might seem to have more
+convenience, though it come often otherwise to pass (excellent
+King), that those which are fruitful in their generations, and
+have in themselves the foresight of immortality in their
+descendants, should likewise be more careful of the good estate
+of future times, unto which they know they must transmit and
+commend over their dearest pledges.&nbsp; Queen Elizabeth was a
+sojourner in the world in respect of her unmarried life, and was
+a blessing to her own times; and yet so as the impression of her
+good government, besides her happy memory, is not without some
+effect which doth survive her.&nbsp; But to your Majesty, whom
+God hath already blessed with so much royal issue, worthy to
+continue and represent you for ever, and whose youthful and
+fruitful bed doth yet promise many the like renovations, it is
+proper and agreeable to be conversant not only in the transitory
+parts of good government, but in those acts also which are in
+their nature permanent and perpetual.&nbsp; Amongst the which (if
+affection do not transport me) there is not any more worthy than
+the further endowment of the world with sound and fruitful
+knowledge.&nbsp; For why should a few received authors stand up
+like Hercules&rsquo; columns, beyond which there should be no
+sailing or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a star
+as your Majesty to conduct and prosper us?&nbsp; To return
+therefore where we left, it remaineth to consider of what kind
+those acts are which have been undertaken and performed by kings
+and others for the increase and advancement of learning, wherein
+I purpose to speak actively, without digressing or dilating.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Let this ground therefore be laid, that all works are
+over common by amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction,
+and by the conjunction of labours.&nbsp; The first multiplieth
+endeavour, the second preventeth error, and the third supplieth
+the frailty of man.&nbsp; But the principal of these is
+direction, for <i>claudus in via antevertit cursorem extra
+viam</i>; and Solomon excellently setteth it down, &ldquo;If the
+iron be not sharp, it requireth more strength, but wisdom is that
+which prevaileth,&rdquo; signifying that the invention or
+election of the mean is more effectual than any enforcement or
+accumulation of endeavours.&nbsp; This I am induced to speak, for
+that (not derogating from the noble intention of any that have
+been deservers towards the state of learning), I do observe
+nevertheless that their works and acts are rather matters of
+magnificence and memory than of progression and proficience, and
+tend rather to augment the mass of learning in the multitude of
+learned men than to rectify or raise the sciences themselves.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; The works or acts of merit towards learning are
+conversant about three objects&mdash;the places of learning, the
+books of learning, and the persons of the learned.&nbsp; For as
+water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of the
+earth, doth scatter and leese itself in the ground, except it be
+collected into some receptacle where it may by union comfort and
+sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man hath made
+and framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men
+have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with
+accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and
+necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it
+descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense,
+would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not
+preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places
+appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the
+receipt and comforting of the same.</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; The works which concern the seats and places of
+learning are four&mdash;foundations and buildings, endowments
+with revenues, endowments with franchises and privileges,
+institutions and ordinances for government&mdash;all tending to
+quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and
+troubles; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth for the
+hiving of bees:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Principio sedes apibus statioque
+petenda,<br />
+Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &amp;c.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>5.&nbsp; The works touching books are two&mdash;first,
+libraries, which are as the shrines where all the relics of the
+ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or
+imposture, are preserved and reposed; secondly, new editions of
+authors, with more correct impressions, more faithful
+translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annotations,
+and the like.</p>
+<p>6.&nbsp; The works pertaining to the persons of learned men
+(besides the advancement and countenancing of them in general)
+are two&mdash;the reward and designation of readers in sciences
+already extant and invented; and the reward and designation of
+writers and inquirers concerning any parts of learning not
+sufficiently laboured and prosecuted.</p>
+<p>7.&nbsp; These are summarily the works and acts wherein the
+merits of many excellent princes and other worthy personages,
+have been conversant.&nbsp; As for any particular commemorations,
+I call to mind what Cicero said when he gave general thanks,
+<i>Difficile non aliquem</i>, <i>ingratum quenquam
+pr&aelig;terire</i>.&nbsp; Let us rather, according to the
+Scriptures, look unto that part of the race which is before us,
+than look back to that which is already attained.</p>
+<p>8.&nbsp; First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations
+of colleges in Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated
+to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at
+large.&nbsp; For if men judge that learning should be referred to
+action, they judge well; but in this they fall into the error
+described in the ancient fable, in which the other parts of the
+body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it neither
+performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as
+the head doth; but yet notwithstanding it is the stomach that
+digesteth and distributeth to all the rest.&nbsp; So if any man
+think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not
+consider that all professions are from thence served and
+supplied.&nbsp; And this I take to be a great cause that hath
+hindered the progression of learning, because these fundamental
+knowledges have been studied but in passage.&nbsp; For if you
+will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is
+not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of
+the earth and putting new mould about thee roots that must work
+it.&nbsp; Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of
+foundations and dotations to professory learning hath not only
+had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences,
+but hath also been prejudicial to states, and governments.&nbsp;
+For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in regard of
+able men to serve them in causes of estate, because there is no
+education collegiate which is free, where such as were so
+disposed might give themselves in histories, modern languages,
+books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like
+enablements unto service of estate.</p>
+<p>9.&nbsp; And because founders of colleges do plant, and
+founders of lectures do water, it followeth well in order to
+speak of the defect which is in public lectures; namely, in the
+smallness, and meanness of the salary or reward which in most
+places is assigned unto them, whether they be lectures of arts,
+or of professions.&nbsp; For it is necessary to the progression
+of sciences that readers be of the most able and sufficient men;
+as those which are ordained for generating and propagating of
+sciences, and not for transitory use.&nbsp; This cannot be,
+except their condition and endowment be such as may content the
+ablest man to appropriate his whole labour and continue his whole
+age in that function and attendance; and therefore must have a
+proportion answerable to that mediocrity or competency of
+advancement, which may be expected from a profession or the
+practice of a profession.&nbsp; So as, if you will have sciences
+flourish, you must observe David&rsquo;s military law, which was,
+&ldquo;That those which stayed with the carriage should have
+equal part with those which were in the action;&rdquo; else will
+the carriages be ill attended.&nbsp; So readers in sciences are
+indeed the guardians of the stores and provisions of sciences,
+whence men in active courses are furnished, and therefore ought
+to have equal entertainment with them; otherwise if the fathers
+in sciences be of the weakest sort or be ill maintained,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Et patrum invalidi referent jejunia
+nati.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>10.&nbsp; Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some
+alchemist to help me, who call upon men to sell their books, and
+to build furnaces; quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses
+as barren virgins, and relying upon Vulcan.&nbsp; But certain it
+is, that unto the deep, fruitful, and operative study of many
+sciences, specialty natural philosophy and physic, books be not
+only the instrumentals; wherein also the beneficence of men hath
+not been altogether wanting.&nbsp; For we see spheres, globes,
+astrolabes, maps, and the like, have been provided as
+appurtenances to astronomy and cosmography, as well as
+books.&nbsp; We see likewise that some places instituted for
+physic have annexed the commodity of gardens for simples of all
+sorts, and do likewise command the use of dead bodies for
+anatomies.&nbsp; But these do respect but a few things.&nbsp; In
+general, there will hardly be any main proficience in the
+disclosing of nature, except there be some allowance for expenses
+about experiments; whether they be experiments appertaining to
+Vulcanus or D&aelig;dalus, furnace or engine, or any other
+kind.&nbsp; And therefore as secretaries and spials of princes
+and states bring in bills for intelligence, so you must allow the
+spials and intelligencers of nature to bring in their bills; or
+else you shall be ill advertised.</p>
+<p>11.&nbsp; And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to
+Aristotle of treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers,
+fishers, and the like, that he might compile a history of nature,
+much better do they deserve it that travail in arts of
+nature.</p>
+<p>12.&nbsp; Another defect which I note is an intermission or
+neglect in those which are governors in universities, of
+consultation, and in princes or superior persons, of visitation:
+to enter into account and consideration, whether the readings,
+exercises, and other customs appertaining unto learning,
+anciently begun and since continued, be well instituted or no;
+and thereupon to ground an amendment or reformation in that which
+shall be found inconvenient.&nbsp; For it is one of your
+Majesty&rsquo;s own most wise and princely maxims, &ldquo;That in
+all usages and precedents, the times be considered wherein they
+first began; which if they were weak or ignorant, it derogateth
+from the authority of the usage, and leaveth it for
+suspect.&rdquo;&nbsp; And therefore inasmuch as most of the
+usages and orders of the universities were derived from more
+obscure times, it is the more requisite they be
+re-examined.&nbsp; In this kind I will give an instance or two,
+for example sake, of things that are the most obvious and
+familiar.&nbsp; The one is a matter, which though it be ancient
+and general, yet I hold to be an error; which is, that scholars
+in universities come too soon and too unripe to logic and
+rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than children and
+novices.&nbsp; For these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of
+sciences, being the arts of arts; the one for judgment, the other
+for ornament.&nbsp; And they be the rules and directions how to
+set forth and dispose matter: and therefore for minds empty and
+unfraught with matter, and which have not gathered that which
+Cicero calleth <i>sylva</i> and <i>supellex</i>, stuff and
+variety, to begin with those arts (as if one should learn to
+weigh, or to measure, or to paint the wind) doth work but this
+effect, that the wisdom of those arts, which is great and
+universal, is almost made contemptible, and is degenerate into
+childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation.&nbsp; And further,
+the untimely learning of them hath drawn on by consequence the
+superficial and unprofitable teaching and writing of them, as
+fitteth indeed to the capacity of children.&nbsp; Another is a
+lack I find in the exercises used in the universities, which do
+snake too great a divorce between invention and memory.&nbsp; For
+their speeches are either premeditate, in <i>verbis
+conceptis</i>, where nothing is left to invention, or merely
+extemporal, where little is left to memory.&nbsp; Whereas in life
+and action there is least use of either of these, but rather of
+intermixtures of premeditation and invention, notes and
+memory.&nbsp; So as the exercise fitteth not the practice, nor
+the image the life; and it is ever a true rule in exercises, that
+they be framed as near as may be to the life of practice; for
+otherwise they do pervert the motions and faculties of the mind,
+and not prepare them.&nbsp; The truth whereof is not obscure,
+when scholars come to the practices of professions, or other
+actions of civil life; which when they set into, this want is
+soon found by themselves, and sooner by others.&nbsp; But this
+part, touching the amendment of the institutions and orders of
+universities, I will conclude with the clause of
+C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s letter to Oppius and Balbes, <i>Hoc
+quemadmodum fieri possit</i>, <i>nonnulla mihi in mentem
+veniunt</i>, <i>et multa reperiri possunt</i>: <i>de iis rebus
+rgo vos ut cogitationem suscipiatis</i>.</p>
+<p>13.&nbsp; Another defect which I note ascendeth a little
+higher than the precedent.&nbsp; For as the proficience of
+learning consisteth much in the orders and institutions of
+universities in the same states and kingdoms, so it would be yet
+more advanced, if there were more intelligence mutual between the
+universities of Europe than now there is.&nbsp; We see there be
+many orders and foundations, which though they be divided under
+several sovereignties and territories, yet they take themselves
+to have a kind of contract, fraternity, and correspondence one
+with the other, insomuch as they have provincials and
+generals.&nbsp; And surely as nature createth brotherhood in
+families, and arts mechanical contract brotherhoods in
+communalties, and the anointment of God superinduceth a
+brotherhood in kings and bishops, so in like manner there cannot
+but be a fraternity in learning and illumination, relating to
+that paternity which is attributed to God, who is called the
+Father of illuminations or lights.</p>
+<p>14.&nbsp; The last defect which I will note is, that there
+hath not been, or very rarely been, any public designation of
+writers or inquirers concerning such parts of knowledge as may
+appear not to have been already sufficiently laboured or
+undertaken; unto which point it is an inducement to enter into a
+view and examination what parts of learning have been prosecuted,
+and what omitted.&nbsp; For the opinion of plenty is amongst the
+causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show
+rather of superfluity than lack; which surcharge nevertheless is
+not to be remedied by making no more books, but by making more
+good books, which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour the
+serpents of the enchanters.</p>
+<p>15.&nbsp; The removing of all the defects formerly enumerate,
+except the last, and of the active part also of the last (which
+is the designation of writers), are <i>opera basilica</i>;
+towards which the endeavours of a private man may be but as an
+image in a crossway, that may point at the way, but cannot go
+it.&nbsp; But the inducing part of the latter (which is the
+survey of learning) may be set forward by private travail.&nbsp;
+Wherefore I will now attempt to make a general and faithful
+perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie
+fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry
+of man, to the end that such a plot made and recorded to memory
+may both minister light to any public designation, and, also
+serve to excite voluntary endeavours.&nbsp; Wherein,
+nevertheless, my purpose is at this time to note only omissions
+and deficiences, and not to make any redargution of errors or
+incomplete prosecutions.&nbsp; For it is one thing to set forth
+what ground lieth unmanured, and another thing to correct ill
+husbandry in that which is manured.</p>
+<p>In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not
+ignorant what it is that I do now move and attempt, nor
+insensible of mine own weakness to sustain my purpose.&nbsp; But
+my hope is, that if my extreme love to learning carry me too far,
+I may obtain the excuse of affection; for that &ldquo;It is not
+granted to man to love and to be wise.&rdquo;&nbsp; But I know
+well I can use no other liberty of judgment than I must leave to
+others; and I for my part shall be indifferently glad either to
+perform myself, or accept from another, that duty of
+humanity&mdash;<i>Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam</i>,
+&amp;c.&nbsp; I do foresee likewise that of those things which I
+shall enter and register as deficiences and omissions, many will
+conceive and censure that some of them are already done and
+extant; others to be but curiosities, and things of no great use;
+and others to be of too great difficulty, and almost
+impossibility to be compassed and effected.&nbsp; But for the two
+first, I refer myself to the particulars.&nbsp; For the last,
+touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held
+possible which may be done by some person, though not by every
+one; and which may be done by many, though not by any one; and
+which may be done in the succession of ages, though not within
+the hourglass of one man&rsquo;s life; and which may be done by
+public designation, though not by private endeavour.&nbsp; But,
+notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather that of
+Solomon, &ldquo;<i>Dicit piger</i>, <i>Leo est in via</i>,&rdquo;
+than that of Virgil, &ldquo;<i>Possunt quia posse
+videntur</i>,&rdquo; I shall be content that my labours be
+esteemed but as the better sort of wishes; for as it asketh some
+knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth
+some sense to make a wish not absurd.</p>
+<p>I. (1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three
+parts of man&rsquo;s understanding, which is the seat of
+learning: history to his memory, poesy to his imagination, and
+philosophy to his reason.&nbsp; Divine learning receiveth the
+same distribution; for, the spirit of man is the same, though the
+revelation of oracle and sense be diverse.&nbsp; So as theology
+consisteth also of history of the Church; of parables, which is
+divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept.&nbsp; For as for
+that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is
+but divine history, which hath that prerogative over human, as
+the narration may be before the fact as well as after.</p>
+<p>(2) History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary;
+whereof the first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as
+deficient.&nbsp; For no man hath propounded to himself the
+general state of learning to be described and represented from
+age to age, as many have done the works of Nature, and the state,
+civil and ecclesiastical; without which the history of the world
+seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus with his eye out,
+that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit and life
+of the person.&nbsp; And yet I am not ignorant that in divers
+particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians,
+the rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small
+memorials of the schools, authors, and books; and so likewise
+some barren relations touching the invention of arts or
+usages.&nbsp; But a just story of learning, containing the
+antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their
+inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations and
+managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays,
+depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of
+them, and all other events concerning learning, throughout the
+ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting; the use and
+end of which work I do not so much design for curiosity or
+satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning, but
+chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in
+few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and
+administration of learning.&nbsp; For it is not Saint
+Augustine&rsquo;s nor Saint Ambrose&rsquo;s works that will make
+so wise a divine as ecclesiastical history thoroughly read and
+observed, and the same reason is of learning.</p>
+<p>(3) History of Nature is of three sorts; of Nature in course,
+of Nature erring or varying, and of Nature altered or wrought;
+that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of
+arts.&nbsp; The first of these no doubt is extant, and that in
+good perfection; the two latter are bandied so weakly and
+unprofitably as I am moved to note them as deficient.&nbsp; For I
+find no sufficient or competent collection of the works of Nature
+which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary course of
+generations, productions, and motions; whether they be
+singularities of place and region, or the strange events of time
+and chance, or the effects of yet unknown properties, or the
+instances of exception to general kinds.&nbsp; It is true I find
+a number of books of fabulous experiments and secrets, and
+frivolous impostures for pleasure and strangeness; but a
+substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites or
+irregulars of Nature, well examined and described, I find not,
+specially not with due rejection of fables and popular
+errors.&nbsp; For as things now are, if an untruth in Nature be
+once on foot, what by reason of the neglect of examination, and
+countenance of antiquity, and what by reason of the use of the
+opinion in similitudes and ornaments of speech, it is never
+called down.</p>
+<p>(4) The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in
+Aristotle, is nothing less than to give contentment to the
+appetite of curious and vain wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries
+is to do; but for two reasons, both of great weight: the one to
+correct the partiality of axioms and opinions, which are commonly
+framed only upon common and familiar examples; the other because
+from the wonders of Nature is the nearest intelligence and
+passage towards the wonders of art, for it is no more but by
+following and, as it were, hounding Nature in her wanderings, to
+be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.&nbsp;
+Neither am I of opinion, in this history of marvels, that
+superstitious narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams,
+divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear
+evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded.&nbsp; For it is not
+yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to
+superstition do participate of natural causes; and, therefore,
+howsoever the practice of such things is to be condemned, yet
+from the speculation and consideration of them light may be
+taken, not only for the discerning of the offences, but for the
+further disclosing of Nature.&nbsp; Neither ought a man to make
+scruple of entering into these things for inquisition of truth,
+as your Majesty hath showed in your own example, who, with the
+two clear eyes of religion and natural philosophy, have looked
+deeply and wisely into these shadows, and yet proved yourself to
+be of the nature of the sun, which passeth through pollutions and
+itself remains as pure as before.&nbsp; But this I hold fit, that
+these narrations, which have mixture with superstition, be sorted
+by themselves, and not to be mingled with the narrations which
+are merely and sincerely natural.&nbsp; But as for the narrations
+touching the prodigies and miracles of religions, they are either
+not true or not natural; and, therefore, impertinent for the
+story of Nature.</p>
+<p>(5) For history of Nature, wrought or mechanical, I find some
+collections made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts; but
+commonly with a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar; for
+it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to
+inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be
+such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtleties;
+which humour of vain and supercilious arrogancy is justly derided
+in Plato, where he brings in Hippias, a vaunting sophist,
+disputing with Socrates, a true and unfeigned inquisitor of
+truth; where, the subject being touching beauty, Socrates, after
+his wandering manner of inductions, put first an example of a
+fair virgin, and then of a fair horse, and then of a fair pot
+well glazed, whereat Hippias was offended, and said, &ldquo;More
+than for courtesy&rsquo;s sake, he did think much to dispute with
+any that did allege such base and sordid instances.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Whereunto Socrates answereth, &ldquo;You have reason, and it
+becomes you well, being a man so trim in your vestments,&rdquo;
+&amp;c., and so goeth on in an irony.&nbsp; But the truth is,
+they be not the highest instances that give the securest
+information, as may be well expressed in the tale so common of
+the philosopher that, while he gazed upwards to the stars, fell
+into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the
+stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water
+in the stars.&nbsp; So it cometh often to pass that mean and
+small things discover great, better than great can discover the
+small; and therefore Aristotle noteth well, &ldquo;That the
+nature of everything is best seen in his smallest
+portions.&rdquo;&nbsp; And for that cause he inquireth the nature
+of a commonwealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations
+of man and wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are
+in every cottage.&nbsp; Even so likewise the nature of this great
+city of the world, and the policy thereof, must be first sought
+in mean concordances and small portions.&nbsp; So we see how that
+secret of Nature, of the turning of iron touched with the
+loadstone towards the north, was found out in needles of iron,
+not in bars of iron.</p>
+<p>(6) But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of history
+mechanical is of all others the most radical and fundamental
+towards natural philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not
+vanish in the fume of subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation,
+but such as shall be operative to the endowment and benefit of
+man&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; For it will not only minister and suggest
+for the present many ingenious practices in all trades, by a
+connection and transferring of the observations of one art to the
+use of another, when the experiences of several mysteries shall
+fall under the consideration of one man&rsquo;s mind; but
+further, it will give a more true and real illumination
+concerning causes and axioms than is hitherto attained.&nbsp; For
+like as a man&rsquo;s disposition is never well known till he be
+crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened
+and held fast; so the passages and variations of nature cannot
+appear so fully in the liberty of nature as in the trials and
+vexations of art.</p>
+<p>II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly
+to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images.&nbsp;
+For of pictures or images we see some are unfinished, some are
+perfect, and some are defaced.&nbsp; So of histories we may find
+three kinds: memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for
+memorials are history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of
+history; and antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of
+history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.</p>
+<p>(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts;
+whereof the one may be termed commentaries, and the other
+registers.&nbsp; Commentaries are they which set down a
+continuance of the naked events and actions, without the motives
+or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts, the
+occasions, and other passages of action.&nbsp; For this is the
+true nature of a commentary (though C&aelig;sar, in modesty mixed
+with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name of a
+commentary to the best history of the world).&nbsp; Registers are
+collections of public acts, as decrees of council, judicial
+proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and
+the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the
+thread of the narration.</p>
+<p>(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said,
+<i>tanquam tabula naufragii</i>: when industrious persons, by an
+exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments,
+names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and
+evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern
+not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the
+deluge of time.</p>
+<p>(4) In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign no
+deficience, for they are <i>tanquam imperfecte mista</i>; and
+therefore any deficience in them is but their nature.&nbsp; As
+for the corruptions and moths of history, which are epitomes, the
+use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of sound
+judgment have confessed, as those that have fretted and corroded
+the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them
+into base and unprofitable dregs.</p>
+<p>(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is
+of three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or
+pretendeth to represent: for it either representeth a time, or a
+person, or an action.&nbsp; The first we call chronicles, the
+second lives, and the third narrations or relations.&nbsp; Of
+these, although the first be the most complete and absolute kind
+of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the second
+excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and
+sincerity.&nbsp; For history of times representeth the magnitude
+of actions, and the public faces and deportments of persons, and
+passeth over in silence the smaller passages and motions of men
+and matters.&nbsp; But such being the workmanship of God, as He
+doth hang the greatest weight upon the smallest wires, <i>maxima
+&egrave; minimis</i>, <i>suspendens</i>, it comes therefore to
+pass, that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of
+business than the true and inward resorts thereof.&nbsp; But
+lives, if they be well written, propounding to themselves a
+person to represent, in whom actions, both greater and smaller,
+public and private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain
+a more true, native, and lively representation.&nbsp; So again
+narrations and relations of actions, as the war of Peloponnesus,
+the expedition of Cyrus Minor, the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot
+but be more purely and exactly true than histories of times,
+because they may choose an argument comprehensible within the
+notice and instructions of the writer: whereas he that
+undertaketh the story of a time, specially of any length, cannot
+but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must be forced to
+fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.</p>
+<p>(6) For the history of times, I mean of civil history, the
+providence of God hath made the distribution.&nbsp; For it hath
+pleased God to ordain and illustrate two exemplar states of the
+world for arms, learning, moral virtue, policy, and laws; the
+state of Gr&aelig;cia and the state of Rome; the histories
+whereof occupying the middle part of time, have more ancient to
+them histories which may by one common name be termed the
+antiquities of the world; and after them, histories which may be
+likewise called by the name of modern history.</p>
+<p>(7) Now to speak of the deficiences.&nbsp; As to the heathen
+antiquities of the world it is in vain to note them for
+deficient.&nbsp; Deficient they are no doubt, consisting most of
+fables and fragments; but the deficience cannot be holpen; for
+antiquity is like fame, <i>caput inter nubila condit</i>, her
+head is muffled from our sight.&nbsp; For the history of the
+exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection.&nbsp; Not but I
+could wish there were a perfect course of history for
+Gr&aelig;cia, from Theseus to Philop&oelig;men (what time the
+affairs of Gr&aelig;cia drowned and extinguished in the affairs
+of Rome), and for Rome from Romulus to Justinianus, who may be
+truly said to be <i>ultimus Romanorum</i>.&nbsp; In which
+sequences of story the text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the
+one, and the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, C&aelig;sar,
+Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other, to be kept entire,
+without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied and
+continued.&nbsp; But this is a matter of magnificence, rather to
+be commended than required; and we speak now of parts of learning
+supplemental, and not of supererogation.</p>
+<p>(8) But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very
+worthy, but the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care
+of foreign stories to foreign states, because I will not be
+<i>curiosus in aliena republica</i>, I cannot fail to represent
+to your Majesty the unworthiness of the history of England in the
+main continuance thereof, and the partiality and obliquity of
+that of Scotland in the latest and largest author that I have
+seen: supposing that it would be honour for your Majesty, and a
+work very memorable, if this island of Great Britain, as it is
+now joined in monarchy for the ages to come, so were joined in
+one history for the times passed, after the manner of the sacred
+history, which draweth down the story of the ten tribes and of
+the two tribes as twins together.&nbsp; And if it shall seem that
+the greatness of this work may make it less exactly performed,
+there is an excellent period of a much smaller compass of time,
+as to the story of England; that is to say, from the uniting of
+the Roses to the uniting of the kingdoms; a portion of time
+wherein, to my understanding, there hath been the rarest
+varieties that in like number of successions of any hereditary
+monarchy hath been known.&nbsp; For it beginneth with the mixed
+adoption of a crown by arms and title; an entry by battle, an
+establishment by marriage; and therefore times answerable, like
+waters after a tempest, full of working and swelling, though
+without extremity of storm; but well passed through by the wisdom
+of the pilot, being one of the most sufficient kings of all the
+number.&nbsp; Then followeth the reign of a king, whose actions,
+howsoever conducted, had much intermixture with the affairs of
+Europe, balancing and inclining them variably; in whose time also
+began that great alteration in the state ecclesiastical, an
+action which seldom cometh upon the stage.&nbsp; Then the reign
+of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it was but as
+<i>febris ephemera</i>).&nbsp; Then the reign of a queen matched
+with a foreigner; then of a queen that lived solitary and
+unmarried, and yet her government so masculine, as it had greater
+impression and operation upon the states abroad than it any ways
+received from thence.&nbsp; And now last, this most happy and
+glorious event, that this island of Britain, divided from all the
+world, should be united in itself, and that oracle of rest given
+to &AElig;Neas, <i>antiquam exquirite matrem</i>, should now be
+performed and fulfilled upon the nations of England and Scotland,
+being now reunited in the ancient mother name of Britain, as a
+full period of all instability and peregrinations.&nbsp; So that
+as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that they have certain
+trepidations and waverings before they fix and settle, so it
+seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it
+was to settle in your majesty and your generations (in which I
+hope it is now established for ever), it had these prelusive
+changes and varieties.</p>
+<p>(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so
+little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writings of
+lives should be no more frequent.&nbsp; For although there be not
+many sovereign princes or absolute commanders, and that states
+are most collected into monarchies, yet are there many worthy
+personages that deserve better than dispersed report or barren
+eulogies.&nbsp; For herein the invention of one of the late poets
+is proper, and doth well enrich the ancient fiction.&nbsp; For he
+feigneth that at the end of the thread or web of every
+man&rsquo;s life there was a little medal containing the
+person&rsquo;s name, and that Time waited upon the shears, and as
+soon as the thread was cut caught the medals, and carried them to
+the river of Lathe; and about the bank there were many birds
+flying up and down, that would get the medals and carry them in
+their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the
+river.&nbsp; Only there were a few swans, which if they got a
+name would carry it to a temple where it was consecrate.&nbsp;
+And although many men, more mortal in their affections than in
+their bodies, do esteem desire of name and memory but as a vanity
+and ventosity,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Animi nil magn&aelig; laudis
+egentes;&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>which opinion cometh from that root, <i>Non prius laudes
+contempsimus</i>, <i>quam laudanda facere desivimus</i>: yet that
+will not alter Solomon&rsquo;s judgment, <i>Memoria justi cum
+laudibus</i>, <i>at impiorum nomen putrescet</i>: the one
+flourisheth, the other either consumeth to present oblivion, or
+turneth to an ill odour.&nbsp; And therefore in that style or
+addition, which is and hath been long well received and brought
+in use, <i>felicis memori&aelig;</i>, <i>pi&aelig;
+memori&aelig;</i>, <i>bon&aelig; memori&aelig;</i>, we do
+acknowledge that which Cicero saith, borrowing it from
+Demosthenes, that <i>bona fama propria possessio defunctorum</i>;
+which possession I cannot but note that in our times it lieth
+much waste, and that therein there is a deficience.</p>
+<p>(10) For narrations and relations of particular actions, there
+were also to be wished a greater diligence therein; for there is
+no great action but hath some good pen which attends it.&nbsp;
+And because it is an ability not common to write a good history,
+as may well appear by the small number of them; yet if
+particularity of actions memorable were but tolerably reported as
+they pass, the compiling of a complete history of times might be
+the better expected, when a writer should arise that were fit for
+it: for the collection of such relations might be as a nursery
+garden, whereby to plant a fair and stately garden when time
+should serve.</p>
+<p>(11) There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius
+Tacitus maketh, which is not to be forgotten, specially with that
+application which he accoupleth it withal, annals and journals:
+appropriating to the former matters of estate, and to the latter
+acts and accidents of a meaner nature.&nbsp; For giving but a
+touch of certain magnificent buildings, he addeth, <i>Cum ex
+dignitate populi Romani repertum sit</i>, <i>res illustres
+annalibus</i>, <i>talia diurnis urbis actis mandare</i>.&nbsp; So
+as there is a kind of contemplative heraldry, as well as
+civil.&nbsp; And as nothing doth derogate from the dignity of a
+state more than confusion of degrees, so it doth not a little
+imbase the authority of a history to intermingle matters of
+triumph, or matters of ceremony, or matters of novelty, with
+matters of state.&nbsp; But the use of a journal hath not only
+been in the history of time, but likewise in the history of
+persons, and chiefly of actions; for princes in ancient time had,
+upon point of honour and policy both, journals kept, what passed
+day by day.&nbsp; For we see the chronicle which was read before
+Ahasuerus, when he could not take rest, contained matter of
+affairs, indeed, but such as had passed in his own time and very
+lately before.&nbsp; But the journal of Alexander&rsquo;s house
+expressed every small particularity, even concerning his person
+and court; and it is yet a use well received in enterprises
+memorable, as expeditions of war, navigations, and the like, to
+keep diaries of that which passeth continually.</p>
+<p>(12) I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing which
+some grave and wise men have used, containing a scattered history
+of those actions which they have thought worthy of memory, with
+politic discourse and observation thereupon: not incorporate into
+the history, but separately, and as the more principal in their
+intention; which kind of ruminated history I think more fit to
+place amongst books of policy, whereof we shall hereafter speak,
+than amongst books of history.&nbsp; For it is the true office of
+history to represent the events themselves together with the
+counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon
+to the liberty and faculty of every man&rsquo;s judgment.&nbsp;
+But mixtures are things irregular, whereof no man can define.</p>
+<p>(13) So also is there another kind of history manifoldly
+mixed, and that is history of cosmography: being compounded of
+natural history, in respect of the regions themselves; of history
+civil, in respect of the habitations, regiments, and manners of
+the people; and the mathematics, in respect of the climates and
+configurations towards the heavens: which part of learning of all
+others in this latter time hath obtained most proficience.&nbsp;
+For it may be truly affirmed to the honour of these times, and in
+a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of
+the world had never through-lights made in it, till the age of us
+and our fathers.&nbsp; For although they had knowledge of the
+antipodes,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit
+anhelis,<br />
+Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>yet that might be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by
+travel, it requireth the voyage but of half the globe.&nbsp; But
+to circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor
+enterprised till these later times: and therefore these times may
+justly bear in their word, not only <i>plus ultra</i>, in
+precedence of the ancient <i>non ultra</i>, and <i>imitabile
+fulmen</i>, in precedence of the ancient <i>non imitabile
+fulmen</i>,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Demens qui nimbos et non imitabile
+fulmen,&rdquo; &amp;c.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>but likewise <i>imitabile c&aelig;lum</i>; in respect of the
+many memorable voyages after the manner of heaven about the globe
+of the earth.</p>
+<p>(14) And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may
+plant also an expectation of the further proficience and
+augmentation of all sciences; because it may seem they are
+ordained by God to be coevals, that is, to meet in one age.&nbsp;
+For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times
+foretelleth, <i>Plurimi pertransibunt</i>, <i>et multiplex erit
+scientia</i>: as if the openness and through-passage of the world
+and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the same
+ages; as we see it is already performed in great part: the
+learning of these later times not much giving place to the former
+two periods or returns of learning, the one of the Grecians, the
+other of the Romans.</p>
+<p>III. (1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions
+with history civil: but further in the propriety thereof may be
+divided into the history of the Church, by a general name;
+history of prophecy; and history of providence.&nbsp; The first
+describeth the times of the militant Church, whether it be
+fluctuant, as the ark of Noah, or movable, as the ark in the
+wilderness, or at rest, as the ark in the Temple: that is, the
+state of the Church in persecution, in remove, and in
+peace.&nbsp; This part I ought in no sort to note as deficient;
+only I would that the virtue and sincerity of it were according
+to the mass and quantity.&nbsp; But I am not now in hand with
+censures, but with omissions.</p>
+<p>(2) The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of
+two relatives&mdash;the prophecy and the accomplishment; and,
+therefore, the nature of such a work ought to be, that every
+prophecy of the Scripture be sorted with the event fulfilling the
+same throughout the ages of the world, both for the better
+confirmation of faith and for the better illumination of the
+Church touching those parts of prophecies which are yet
+unfulfilled: allowing, nevertheless, that latitude which is
+agreeable and familiar unto divine prophecies, being of the
+nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one
+day, and therefore are not fulfilled punctually at once, but have
+springing and germinant accomplishment throughout many ages,
+though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one
+age.&nbsp; This is a work which I find deficient, but is to be
+done with wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.</p>
+<p>(3) The third, which is history of Providence, containeth that
+excellent correspondence which is between God&rsquo;s revealed
+will and His secret will; which though it be so obscure, as for
+the most part it is not legible to the natural man&mdash;no, nor
+many times to those that behold it from the tabernacle&mdash;yet,
+at some times it pleaseth God, for our better establishment and
+the confuting of those which are as without God in the world, to
+write it in such text and capital letters, that, as the prophet
+saith, &ldquo;He that runneth by may read it&rdquo;&mdash;that
+is, mere sensual persons, which hasten by God&rsquo;s judgments,
+and never bend or fix their cogitations upon them, are
+nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern it.&nbsp;
+Such are the notable events and examples of God&rsquo;s
+judgments, chastisements, deliverances, and blessings; and this
+is a work which has passed through the labour of many, and
+therefore I cannot present as omitted.</p>
+<p>(4) There are also other parts of learning which are
+appendices to history.&nbsp; For all the exterior proceedings of
+man consist of words and deeds, whereof history doth properly
+receive and retain in memory the deeds; and if words, yet but as
+inducements and passages to deeds; so are there other books and
+writings which are appropriate to the custody and receipt of
+words only, which likewise are of three sorts&mdash;orations,
+letters, and brief speeches or sayings.&nbsp; Orations are
+pleadings, speeches of counsel, laudatives, invectives,
+apologies, reprehensions, orations of formality or ceremony, and
+the like.&nbsp; Letters are according to all the variety of
+occasions, advertisements, advises, directions, propositions,
+petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of
+compliment, of pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of
+action.&nbsp; And such as are written from wise men, are of all
+the words of man, in my judgment, the best; for they are more
+natural than orations and public speeches, and more advised than
+conferences or present speeches.&nbsp; So again letters of
+affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them, are of
+all others the best instructions for history, and to a diligent
+reader the best histories in themselves.&nbsp; For apophthegms,
+it is a great loss of that book of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s; for as
+his history, and those few letters of his which we have, and
+those apophthegms which were of his own, excel all men&rsquo;s
+else, so I suppose would his collection of apophthegms have done;
+for as for those which are collected by others, either I have no
+taste in such matters or else their choice hath not been
+happy.&nbsp; But upon these three kinds of writings I do not
+insist, because I have no deficiences to propound concerning
+them.</p>
+<p>(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that part
+of learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or
+offices of the mind of man, which is that of the memory.</p>
+<p>IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for
+the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely
+licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination; which, being
+not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which
+nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined, and
+so make unlawful matches and divorces of
+things&mdash;<i>Pictoribus atque poetis</i>, &amp;c.&nbsp; It is
+taken in two senses in respect of words or matter.&nbsp; In the
+first sense, it is but a character of style, and belongeth to
+arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the present.&nbsp; In
+the latter, it is&mdash;as hath been said&mdash;one of the
+principal portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned
+history, which may be styled as well in prose as in verse.</p>
+<p>(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some
+shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein
+the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion
+inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to
+the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness,
+and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of
+things.&nbsp; Therefore, because the acts or events of true
+history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man,
+poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.&nbsp;
+Because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of
+actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice,
+therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more
+according to revealed Providence.&nbsp; Because true history
+representeth actions and events more ordinary and less
+interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and
+more unexpected and alternative variations.&nbsp; So as it
+appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity,
+morality and to delectation.&nbsp; And therefore, it was ever
+thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth
+raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to
+the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the
+mind unto the nature of things.&nbsp; And we see that by these
+insinuations and congruities with man&rsquo;s nature and
+pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it hath with
+music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times and
+barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded.</p>
+<p>(3) The division of poesy which is aptest in the propriety
+thereof (besides those divisions which are common unto it with
+history, as feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices
+of history, as feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest)
+is into poesy narrative, representative, and allusive.&nbsp; The
+narrative is a mere imitation of history, with the excesses
+before remembered, choosing for subjects commonly wars and love,
+rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or mirth.&nbsp;
+Representative is as a visible history, and is an image of
+actions as if they were present, as history is of actions in
+nature as they are (that is) past.&nbsp; Allusive, or
+parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some special
+purpose or conceit; which latter kind of parabolical wisdom was
+much more in use in the ancient times, as by the fables of
+&AElig;sop, and the brief sentences of the seven, and the use of
+hieroglyphics may appear.&nbsp; And the cause was (for that it
+was then of necessity to express any point of reason which was
+more sharp or subtle than the vulgar in that manner) because men
+in those times wanted both variety of examples and subtlety of
+conceit.&nbsp; And as hieroglyphics were before letters, so
+parables were before arguments; and nevertheless now and at all
+times they do retain much life and rigour, because reason cannot
+be so sensible nor examples so fit.</p>
+<p>(4) But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical,
+opposite to that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to
+demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and
+this other to retire and obscure it&mdash;that is, when the
+secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, or philosophy, are
+involved in fables or parables.&nbsp; Of this in divine poesy we
+see the use is authorised.&nbsp; In heathen poesy we see the
+exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity:
+as in the fable that the giants being overthrown in their war
+against the gods, the earth their mother in revenge thereof
+brought forth Fame:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Illam terra parens, ira irritat Deorum,<br
+/>
+Extremam, ut perhibent, C&oelig;o Enceladoque soroem,<br />
+Progenuit.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed
+actual and open rebels, then the malignity of people (which is
+the mother of rebellion) doth bring forth libels and slanders,
+and taxations of the states, which is of the same kind with
+rebellion but more feminine.&nbsp; So in the fable that the rest
+of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called
+Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid: expounded that
+monarchies need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by
+mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the
+people, who will be sure to come in on their side.&nbsp; So in
+the fable that Achilles was brought up under Chiron, the centaur,
+who was part a man and part a beast, expounded ingeniously but
+corruptly by Machiavel, that it belongeth to the education and
+discipline of princes to know as well how to play the part of a
+lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue
+and justice.&nbsp; Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I
+do rather think that the fable was first, and the exposition
+devised, than that the moral was first, and thereupon the fable
+framed; for I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that
+troubled himself with great contention to fasten the assertions
+of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets; but yet
+that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure
+and not figure, I interpose no opinion.&nbsp; Surely of these
+poets which are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding
+he was made a kind of scripture by the later schools of the
+Grecians), yet I should without any difficulty pronounce that his
+fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning.&nbsp; But what
+they might have upon a more original tradition is not easy to
+affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of them.</p>
+<p>(5) In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can
+report no deficience; for being as a plant that cometh of the
+lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and
+spread abroad more than any other kind.&nbsp; But to ascribe unto
+it that which is due, for the expressing of affections, passions,
+corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to poets more than to
+the philosophers&rsquo; works; and for wit and eloquence, not
+much less than to orators&rsquo; harangues.&nbsp; But it is not
+good to stay too long in the theatre.&nbsp; Let us now pass on to
+the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to
+approach and view with more reverence and attention.</p>
+<p>V. (1) The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending
+from above, and some springing from beneath: the one informed by
+the light of nature, the other inspired by divine
+revelation.&nbsp; The light of nature consisteth in the notions
+of the mind and the reports of the senses; for as for knowledge
+which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not
+original, as in a water that besides his own spring-head is fed
+with other springs and streams.&nbsp; So then, according to these
+two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of
+all divided into divinity and philosophy.</p>
+<p>(2) In philosophy the contemplations of man do either
+penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to nature, or are
+reflected or reverted upon himself.&nbsp; Out of which several
+inquiries there do arise three knowledges&mdash;divine
+philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy or
+humanity.&nbsp; For all things are marked and stamped with this
+triple character&mdash;the power of God, the difference of nature
+and the use of man.&nbsp; But because the distributions and
+partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in
+one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of
+a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity
+of entireness and continuance before it come to discontinue and
+break itself into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, before
+we enter into the former distribution, to erect and constitute
+one universal science, by the name of <i>philosophia prima</i>,
+primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way,
+before we come where the ways part and divide themselves; which
+science whether I should report as deficient or no, I stand
+doubtful.&nbsp; For I find a certain rhapsody of natural
+theology, and of divers parts of logic; and of that part of
+natural philosophy which concerneth the principles, and of that
+other part of natural philosophy which concerneth the soul or
+spirit&mdash;all these strangely commixed and confused; but being
+examined, it seemeth to me rather a depredation of other
+sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms, than
+anything solid or substantive of itself.&nbsp; Nevertheless I
+cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is current, that the
+same things are handled but in several respects.&nbsp; As for
+example, that logic considereth of many things as they are in
+notion, and this philosophy as they are in nature&mdash;the one
+in appearance, the other in existence; but I find this difference
+better made than pursued.&nbsp; For if they had considered
+quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest of those extern
+characters of things, as philosophers, and in nature, their
+inquiries must of force have been of a far other kind than they
+are.&nbsp; For doth any of them, in handling quantity, speak of
+the force of union, how and how far it multiplieth virtue?&nbsp;
+Doth any give the reason why some things in nature are so common,
+and in so great mass, and others so rare, and in so small
+quantity?&nbsp; Doth any, in handling similitude and diversity,
+assign the cause why iron should not move to iron, which is more
+like, but move to the loadstone, which is less like?&nbsp; Why in
+all diversities of things there should be certain participles in
+nature which are almost ambiguous to which kind they should be
+referred?&nbsp; But there is a mere and deep silence touching the
+nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in
+nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of
+them in speech or argument.&nbsp; Therefore, because in a writing
+of this nature I avoid all subtlety, my meaning touching this
+original or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross
+description by negative: &ldquo;That it be a receptacle for all
+such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the
+compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences,
+but are more common and of a higher stage.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(3) Now that there are many of that kind need not be
+doubted.&nbsp; For example: Is not the rule, <i>Si
+in&oelig;qualibus &aelig;qualia addas</i>, <i>omnia erunt
+in&aelig;qualia</i>, an axiom as well of justice as of the
+mathematics? and is there not a true coincidence between
+commutative and distributive justice, and arithmetical and
+geometrical proportion?&nbsp; Is not that other rule,
+<i>Qu&aelig; in eodem tertio conveniunt</i>, <i>et inter se
+conveniunt</i>, a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent
+in logic as all syllogisms are built upon it?&nbsp; Is not the
+observation, <i>Omnia mutantur</i>, <i>nil interit</i>, a
+contemplation in philosophy thus, that the <i>quantum</i> of
+nature is eternal? in natural theology thus, that it requireth
+the same omnipotency to make somewhat nothing, which at the first
+made nothing somewhat? according to the Scripture, <i>Didici quod
+omnia opera</i>, <i>qu&oelig; fecit Deus</i>, <i>perseverent in
+perpetuum</i>; <i>non possumus eis quicquam addere nec
+auferre</i>.&nbsp; Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and
+largely discourseth concerning governments, that the way to
+establish and preserve them is to reduce them <i>ad
+principia</i>&mdash;a rule in religion and nature, as well as in
+civil administration?&nbsp; Was not the Persian magic a reduction
+or correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature
+to the rules and policy of governments?&nbsp; Is not the precept
+of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a
+concord or sweet accord, alike true in affection?&nbsp; Is not
+the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence,
+common with the trope of rhetoric of deceiving expectation?&nbsp;
+Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same
+with the playing of light upon the water?</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Splendet tremulo sub lumine
+pontus.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs
+of reflection, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or
+strait, determined and bounded?&nbsp; Neither are these only
+similitudes, as men of narrow observation may conceive them to
+be, but the same footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon
+several subjects or matters.&nbsp; This science therefore (as I
+understand it) I may justly report as deficient; for I see
+sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling some
+particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water out
+of this well for their present use; but the spring-head thereof
+seemeth to me not to have been visited, being of so excellent use
+both for the disclosing of nature and the abridgment of art.</p>
+<p>VI. (1) This science being therefore first placed as a common
+parent like unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue,
+<i>omnes c&oelig;licolas</i>, <i>omnes supera alta tenetes</i>;
+we may return to the former distribution of the three
+philosophies&mdash;divine, natural, and human.&nbsp; And as
+concerning divine philosophy or natural theology, it is that
+knowledge or rudiment of knowledge concerning God which may be
+obtained by the contemplation of His creatures; which knowledge
+may be truly termed divine in respect of the object, and natural
+in respect of the light.&nbsp; The bounds of this knowledge are,
+that it sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform
+religion; and therefore there was never miracle wrought by God to
+convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led
+him to confess a God; but miracles have been wrought to convert
+idolaters and the superstitious, because no light of nature
+extendeth to declare the will and true worship of God.&nbsp; For
+as all works do show forth the power and skill of the workman,
+and not his image, so it is of the works of God, which do show
+the omnipotency and wisdom of the Maker, but not His image.&nbsp;
+And therefore therein the heathen opinion differeth from the
+sacred truth: for they supposed the world to be the image of God,
+and man to be an extract or compendious image of the world; but
+the Scriptures never vouchsafe to attribute to the world that
+honour, as to be the image of God, but only <i>the work of His
+hands</i>; neither do they speak of any other image of God but
+man.&nbsp; Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to induce and
+enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to demonstrate His power,
+providence, and goodness, is an excellent argument, and hath been
+excellently handled by divers, but on the other side, out of the
+contemplation of nature, or ground of human knowledges, to induce
+any verity or persuasion concerning the points of faith, is in my
+judgment not safe; <i>Da fidei qu&aelig; fidei sunt</i>.&nbsp;
+For the heathen themselves conclude as much in that excellent and
+divine fable of the golden chain, &ldquo;That men and gods were
+not able to draw Jupiter down to the earth; but, contrariwise,
+Jupiter was able to draw them up to heaven.&rdquo;&nbsp; So as we
+ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God
+to our reason, but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason
+to the divine truth.&nbsp; So as in this part of knowledge,
+touching divine philosophy, I am so far from noting any
+deficience, as I rather note an excess; whereunto I have
+digressed because of the extreme prejudice which both religion
+and philosophy hath received and may receive by being commixed
+together; as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical
+religion, and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy.</p>
+<p>(2) Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, which
+is an appendix of theology, both divine and natural, and is
+neither inscrutable nor interdicted.&nbsp; For although the
+Scripture saith, &ldquo;Let no man deceive you in sublime
+discourse touching the worship of angels, pressing into that he
+knoweth not,&rdquo; &amp;c., yet notwithstanding if you observe
+well that precept, it may appear thereby that there be two things
+only forbidden&mdash;adoration of them, and opinion fantastical
+of them, either to extol them further than appertaineth to the
+degree of a creature, or to extol a man&rsquo;s knowledge of them
+further than he hath ground.&nbsp; But the sober and grounded
+inquiry, which may arise out of the passages of Holy Scriptures,
+or out of the gradations of nature, is not restrained.&nbsp; So
+of degenerate and revolted spirits, the conversing with them or
+the employment of them is prohibited, much more any veneration
+towards them; but the contemplation or science of their nature,
+their power, their illusions, either by Scripture or reason, is a
+part of spiritual wisdom.&nbsp; For so the apostle saith,
+&ldquo;We are not ignorant of his stratagems.&rdquo;&nbsp; And it
+is no more unlawful to inquire the nature of evil spirits, than
+to inquire the force of poisons in nature, or the nature of sin
+and vice in morality.&nbsp; But this part touching angels and
+spirits I cannot note as deficient, for many have occupied
+themselves in it; I may rather challenge it, in many of the
+writers thereof, as fabulous and fantastical.</p>
+<p>VII. (1) Leaving therefore divine philosophy or natural
+theology (not divinity or inspired theology, which we reserve for
+the last of all as the haven and sabbath of all man&rsquo;s
+contemplations) we will now proceed to natural philosophy.&nbsp;
+If then it be true that Democritus said, &ldquo;That the truth of
+nature lieth hid in certain deep mines and caves;&rdquo; and if
+it be true likewise that the alchemists do so much inculcate,
+that Vulcan is a second nature, and imitateth that dexterously
+and compendiously, which nature worketh by ambages and length of
+time, it were good to divide natural philosophy into the mine and
+the furnace, and to make two professions or occupations of
+natural philosophers&mdash;some to be pioneers and some smiths;
+some to dig, and some to refine and hammer.&nbsp; And surely I do
+best allow of a division of that kind, though in more familiar
+and scholastical terms: namely, that these be the two parts of
+natural philosophy&mdash;the inquisition of causes, and the
+production of effects; speculative and operative; natural
+science, and natural prudence.&nbsp; For as in civil matters
+there is a wisdom of discourse, and a wisdom of direction; so is
+it in natural.&nbsp; And here I will make a request, that for the
+latter (or at least for a part thereof) I may revive and
+reintegrate the misapplied and abused name of natural magic,
+which in the true sense is but natural wisdom, or natural
+prudence; taken according to the ancient acception, purged from
+vanity and superstition.&nbsp; Now although it be true, and I
+know it well, that there is an intercourse between causes and
+effects, so as both these knowledges, speculative and operative,
+have a great connection between themselves; yet because all true
+and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder,
+ascendent and descendent, ascending from experiments to the
+invention of causes, and descending from causes to the invention
+of new experiments; therefore I judge it most requisite that
+these two parts be severally considered and handled.</p>
+<p>(2) Natural science or theory is divided into physic and
+metaphysic; wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the
+word metaphysic in a differing sense from that that is
+received.&nbsp; And in like manner, I doubt not but it will
+easily appear to men of judgment, that in this and other
+particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from
+the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms.&nbsp;
+For hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by the order
+and perspicuous expressing of that I do propound, I am otherwise
+zealous and affectionate to recede as little from antiquity,
+either in terms or opinions, as may stand with truth and the
+proficience of knowledge.&nbsp; And herein I cannot a little
+marvel at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed in such a
+spirit of difference and contradiction towards all antiquity;
+undertaking not only to frame new words of science at pleasure,
+but to confound and extinguish all ancient wisdom; insomuch as he
+never nameth or mentioneth an ancient author or opinion, but to
+confute and reprove; wherein for glory, and drawing followers and
+disciples, he took the right course.&nbsp; For certainly there
+cometh to pass, and hath place in human truth, that which was
+noted and pronounced in the highest truth:&mdash;<i>Veni in
+nomine partis</i>, <i>nec recipits me</i>; <i>si quis venerit in
+nomine suo eum recipietis</i>.&nbsp; But in this divine aphorism
+(considering to whom it was applied, namely, to antichrist, the
+highest deceiver), we may discern well that the coming in a
+man&rsquo;s own name, without regard of antiquity or paternity,
+is no good sign of truth, although it be joined with the fortune
+and success of an <i>eum recipietis</i>.&nbsp; But for this
+excellent person Aristotle, I will think of him that he learned
+that humour of his scholar, with whom it seemeth he did emulate;
+the one to conquer all opinions, as the other to conquer all
+nations.&nbsp; Wherein, nevertheless, it may be, he may at some
+men&rsquo;s hands, that are of a bitter disposition, get a like
+title as his scholar did:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Felix terrarum pr&aelig;do, non utile
+mundo<br />
+Editus exemplum, &amp;c.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Felix doctrin&aelig;
+pr&aelig;do.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth
+in my pen to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and
+proficience, it seemeth best to keep way with antiquity <i>usque
+ad aras</i>; and, therefore, to retain the ancient terms, though
+I sometimes alter the uses and definitions, according to the
+moderate proceeding in civil government; where, although there be
+some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus wisely noteth,
+<i>eadem magistratuum vocabula</i>.</p>
+<p>(3) To return, therefore, to the use and acception of the term
+metaphysic as I do now understand the word; it appeareth, by that
+which hath been already said, that I intend <i>philosophia
+prima</i>, summary philosophy and metaphysic, which heretofore
+have been confounded as one, to be two distinct things.&nbsp; For
+the one I have made as a parent or common ancestor to all
+knowledge; and the other I have now brought in as a branch or
+descendant of natural science.&nbsp; It appeareth likewise that I
+have assigned to summary philosophy the common principles and
+axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent to several sciences;
+I have assigned unto it likewise the inquiry touching the
+operation or the relative and adventive characters of essences,
+as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility, and the rest,
+with this distinction and provision; that they be handled as they
+have efficacy in nature, and not logically.&nbsp; It appeareth
+likewise that natural theology, which heretofore hath been
+handled confusedly with metaphysic, I have enclosed and bounded
+by itself.&nbsp; It is therefore now a question what is left
+remaining for metaphysic; wherein I may without prejudice
+preserve thus much of the conceit of antiquity, that physic
+should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and
+therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and
+fixed.&nbsp; And again, that physic should handle that which
+supposeth in nature only a being and moving; and metaphysic
+should handle that which supposeth further in nature a reason,
+understanding, and platform.&nbsp; But the difference,
+perspicuously expressed, is most familiar and sensible.&nbsp; For
+as we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of
+causes and productions of effects, so that part which concerneth
+the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received
+and sound division of causes.&nbsp; The one part, which is
+physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes;
+and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final
+causes.</p>
+<p>(4) Physic (taking it according to the derivation, and not
+according to our idiom for medicine) is situate in a middle term
+or distance between natural history and metaphysic.&nbsp; For
+natural history describeth the variety of things; physic the
+causes, but variable or respective causes; and metaphysic the
+fixed and constant causes.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Limus ut hic durescit, et h&aelig;c ut cera
+liquescit,<br />
+Uno eodemque igni.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire
+is the cause of colliquation, but respective to wax.&nbsp; But
+fire is no constant cause either of induration or colliquation;
+so then the physical causes are but the efficient and the
+matter.&nbsp; Physic hath three parts, whereof two respect nature
+united or collected, the third contemplateth nature diffused or
+distributed.&nbsp; Nature is collected either into one entire
+total, or else into the same principles or seeds.&nbsp; So as the
+first doctrine is touching the contexture or configuration of
+things, as <i>de mundo</i>, <i>de universitate rerum</i>.&nbsp;
+The second is the doctrine concerning the principles or originals
+of things.&nbsp; The third is the doctrine concerning all variety
+and particularity of things; whether it be of the differing
+substances, or their differing qualities and natures; whereof
+there needeth no enumeration, this part being but as a gloss or
+paraphrase that attendeth upon the text of natural history.&nbsp;
+Of these three I cannot report any as deficient.&nbsp; In what
+truth or perfection they are handled, I make not now any
+judgment; but they are parts of knowledge not deserted by the
+labour of man.</p>
+<p>(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of
+formal and final causes; which assignation, as to the former of
+them, may seem to be nugatory and void, because of the received
+and inveterate opinion, that the inquisition of man is not
+competent to find out essential forms or true differences; of
+which opinion we will take this hold, that the invention of forms
+is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if
+it be possible to be found.&nbsp; As for the possibility, they
+are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can
+see nothing but sea.&nbsp; But it is manifest that Plato, in his
+opinion of ideas, as one that had a wit of elevation situate as
+upon a cliff, did descry that forms were the true object of
+knowledge; but lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering
+of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined
+and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion upon
+theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected.&nbsp;
+But if any man shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye
+upon action, operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise
+and take notice what are the forms, the disclosures whereof are
+fruitful and important to the state of man.&nbsp; For as to the
+forms of substances (man only except, of whom it is said,
+<i>Formavit hominem de limo terr&aelig;</i>, <i>et spiravit in
+faciem ejus spiraculum vit&aelig;</i>, and not as of all other
+creatures, <i>Producant aqu&aelig;</i>, <i>producat terra</i>),
+the forms of substances I say (as they are now by compounding and
+transplanting multiplied) are so perplexed, as they are not to be
+inquired; no more than it were either possible or to purpose to
+seek in gross the forms of those sounds which make words, which
+by composition and transposition of letters are infinite.&nbsp;
+But, on the other side, to inquire the form of those sounds or
+voices which make simple letters is easily comprehensible; and
+being known induceth and manifesteth the forms of all words,
+which consist and are compounded of them.&nbsp; In the same
+manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of gold; nay, of
+water, of air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the forms of
+sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity
+and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all
+other natures and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not
+many, and of which the essences (upheld by matter) of all
+creatures do consist; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these,
+is that part of metaphysic which we now define of.&nbsp; Not but
+that physic doth make inquiry and take consideration of the same
+natures; but how?&nbsp; Only as to the material and efficient
+causes of them, and not as to the forms.&nbsp; For example, if
+the cause of whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it be
+rendered thus, that the subtle intermixture of air and water is
+the cause, it is well rendered; but, nevertheless, is this the
+form of whiteness?&nbsp; No; but it is the efficient, which is
+ever but <i>vehiculum form&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; This part of
+metaphysic I do not find laboured and performed; whereat I marvel
+not; because I hold it not possible to be invented by that course
+of invention which hath been used; in regard that men (which is
+the root of all error) have made too untimely a departure, and
+too remote a recess from particulars.</p>
+<p>(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as
+deficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects: the
+one, because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to
+abridge the infinity of individual experience, as much as the
+conception of truth will permit, and to remedy the complaint of
+<i>vita brevis</i>, <i>ars longa</i>; which is performed by
+uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences.&nbsp; For
+knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis.&nbsp;
+So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage
+next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is
+metaphysic.&nbsp; As for the vertical point, <i>opus quod
+operatur Deus &agrave; principio usque ad finem</i>, the summary
+law of nature, we know not whether man&rsquo;s inquiry can attain
+unto it.&nbsp; But these three be the true stages of knowledge,
+and are to them that are depraved no better than the
+giants&rsquo; hills:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,<br />
+Scilicet atque Oss&aelig; frondsum involvere Olympum.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they
+are as the three acclamations, <i>Sante</i>, <i>sancte</i>,
+<i>sancte</i>! holy in the description or dilatation of His
+works; holy in the connection or concatenation of them; and holy
+in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato,
+although but a speculation in them, that all things by scale did
+ascend to unity.&nbsp; So then always that knowledge is worthiest
+which is charged with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be
+metaphysic; as that which considereth the simple forms or
+differences of things, which are few in number, and the degrees
+and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety.&nbsp; The
+second respect, which valueth and commendeth this part of
+metaphysic, is that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the
+greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects.&nbsp; For
+physic carrieth men in narrow and restrained ways, subject to
+many accidents and impediments, imitating the ordinary flexuous
+courses of nature.&nbsp; But <i>lat&aelig; undique sunt
+sapientibus vi&aelig;</i>; to sapience (which was anciently
+defined to be <i>rerum divinarum et humanarum scientia</i>) there
+is ever a choice of means.&nbsp; For physical causes give light
+to new invention in <i>simili materia</i>.&nbsp; But whosoever
+knoweth any form, knoweth the utmost possibility of superinducing
+that nature upon any variety of matter; and so is less restrained
+in operation, either to the basis of the matter, or the condition
+of the efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise,
+though in a more divine sense, elegantly describeth: <i>non
+arctabuntur gressus tui</i>, <i>et currens non habebis
+offendiculum</i>.&nbsp; The ways of sapience are not much liable
+either to particularity or chance.</p>
+<p>(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final
+causes, which I am moved to report not as omitted, but as
+misplaced.&nbsp; And yet if it were but a fault in order, I would
+not speak of it; for order is matter of illustration, but
+pertaineth not to the substance of sciences.&nbsp; But this
+misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great
+improficience in the sciences themselves.&nbsp; For the handling
+of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath
+intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and
+physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these
+satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and
+prejudice of further discovery.&nbsp; For this I find done not
+only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by
+Aristotle, Galen, and others which do usually likewise fall upon
+these flats of discoursing causes.&nbsp; For to say that
+&ldquo;the hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence
+about the sight;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the firmness of the skins
+and hides of living creatures is to defend them from the
+extremities of heat or cold;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the bones are
+for the columns or beams, whereupon the frames of the bodies of
+living creatures are built;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the leaves of
+trees are for protecting of the fruit;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the
+clouds are for watering of the earth;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the
+solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living
+creatures;&rdquo; and the like, is well inquired and collected in
+metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent.&nbsp; Nay, they
+are, indeed, but <i>remoras</i> and hindrances to stay and slug
+the ship from further sailing; and have brought this to pass,
+that the search of the physical causes hath been neglected and
+passed in silence.&nbsp; And, therefore, the natural philosophy
+of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind or
+reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof
+able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of Nature,
+which they term fortune, seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by
+the recital and fragments which remain unto us) in
+particularities of physical causes more real and better inquired
+than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled final
+causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part of
+logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both
+those persons; not because those final causes are not true and
+worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province, but
+because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath
+bred a vastness and solitude in that tract.&nbsp; For otherwise,
+keeping their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived
+if they think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between
+them.&nbsp; For the cause rendered, that &ldquo;the hairs about
+the eyelids are for the safeguard of the sight,&rdquo; doth not
+impugn the cause rendered, that &ldquo;pilosity is incident to
+orifices of moisture&mdash;<i>muscosi fontes</i>,
+&amp;c.&rdquo;&nbsp; Nor the cause rendered, that &ldquo;the
+firmness of hides is for the armour of the body against
+extremities of heat or cold,&rdquo; doth not impugn the cause
+rendered, that &ldquo;contraction of pores is incident to the
+outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or
+unlike bodies;&rdquo; and so of the rest, both causes being true
+and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a
+consequence only.&nbsp; Neither doth this call in question or
+derogate from Divine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt
+it.&nbsp; For as in civil actions he is the greater and deeper
+politique that can make other men the instruments of his will and
+ends, and yet never acquaint them with his purpose, so as they
+shall do it and yet not know what they do, than he that imparteth
+his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of God more
+admirable, when Nature intendeth one thing and Providence draweth
+forth another, than if He had communicated to particular
+creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His
+Providence.&nbsp; And thus much for metaphysic; the latter part
+whereof I allow as extant, but wish it confined to his proper
+place.</p>
+<p>VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of
+natural philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and
+holdeth rank with physic special and metaphysic, which is
+mathematic; but I think it more agreeable to the nature of
+things, and to the light of order, to place it as a branch of
+metaphysic.&nbsp; For the subject of it being quantity, not
+quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth to
+<i>philosophia prima</i> (as hath been said), but quantity
+determined or proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the
+essential forms of things, as that that is causative in Nature of
+a number of effects; insomuch as we see in the schools both of
+Democritus and of Pythagoras that the one did ascribe figure to
+the first seeds of things, and the other did suppose numbers to
+be the principles and originals of things.&nbsp; And it is true
+also that of all other forms (as we understand forms) it is the
+most abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore most
+proper to metaphysic; which hath likewise been the cause why it
+hath been better laboured and inquired than any of the other
+forms, which are more immersed in matter.&nbsp; For it being the
+nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge)
+to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a
+champaign region, and not in the inclosures of particularity, the
+mathematics of all other knowledge were the goodliest fields to
+satisfy that appetite.&nbsp; But for the placing of this science,
+it is not much material: only we have endeavoured in these our
+partitions to observe a kind of perspective, that one part may
+cast light upon another.</p>
+<p>(2) The mathematics are either pure or mixed.&nbsp; To the
+pure mathematics are those sciences belonging which handle
+quantity determinate, merely severed from any axioms of natural
+philosophy; and these are two, geometry and arithmetic, the one
+handling quantity continued, and the other dissevered.&nbsp;
+Mixed hath for subject some axioms or parts of natural
+philosophy, and considereth quantity determined, as it is
+auxiliary and incident unto them.&nbsp; For many parts of Nature
+can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor
+demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto
+use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of
+the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy,
+cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.&nbsp; In
+the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men
+do not sufficiently understand this excellent use of the pure
+mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the
+wit and faculties intellectual.&nbsp; For if the wit be too dull,
+they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent
+in the sense, they abstract it.&nbsp; So that as tennis is a game
+of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a
+quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all postures, so in
+the mathematics that use which is collateral and intervenient is
+no less worthy than that which is principal and intended.&nbsp;
+And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only make this
+prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them as
+Nature grows further disclosed.&nbsp; Thus much of natural
+science, or the part of Nature speculative.</p>
+<p>(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural
+philosophy, we will divide it into three
+parts&mdash;experimental, philosophical, and magical; which three
+parts active have a correspondence and analogy with the three
+parts speculative, natural history, physic, and metaphysic.&nbsp;
+For many operations have been invented, sometimes by a casual
+incidence and occurrence, sometimes by a purposed experiment; and
+of those which have been found by an intentional experiment, some
+have been found out by varying or extending the same experiment,
+some by transferring and compounding divers experiments the one
+into the other, which kind of invention an empiric may
+manage.&nbsp; Again, by the knowledge of physical causes there
+cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of new
+particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon
+use and practice.&nbsp; But these are but coastings along the
+shore, <i>premendo littus iniquum</i>; for it seemeth to me there
+can hardly be discovered any radical or fundamental alterations
+and innovations in Nature, either by the fortune and essays of
+experiments, or by the light and direction of physical
+causes.&nbsp; If, therefore, we have reported metaphysic
+deficient, it must follow that we do the like of natural magic,
+which hath relation thereunto.&nbsp; For as for the natural magic
+whereof now there is mention in books, containing certain
+credulous and superstitious conceits and observations of
+sympathies and antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and some
+frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement than in
+themselves, it is as far differing in truth of Nature from such a
+knowledge as we require as the story of King Arthur of Britain,
+or Hugh of Bourdeaux, differs from C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s
+Commentaries in truth of story; for it is manifest that
+C&aelig;sar did greater things <i>de vero</i> than those
+imaginary heroes were feigned to do.&nbsp; But he did them not in
+that fabulous manner.&nbsp; Of this kind of learning the fable of
+Ixion was a figure, who designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess of
+power, and instead of her had copulation with a cloud, of which
+mixture were begotten centaurs and chimeras.&nbsp; So whosoever
+shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a
+laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and
+beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+we may note in these sciences which hold so much of imagination
+and belief, as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy, astrology,
+and the like, that in their propositions the description of the
+means is ever more monstrous than the pretence or end.&nbsp; For
+it is a thing more probable that he that knoweth well the natures
+of weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect of the
+hammer, of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the
+rest, may superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold
+by such mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures
+afore rehearsed, than that some grains of the medicine projected
+should in a few moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver or
+other material into gold.&nbsp; So it is more probable that he
+that knoweth the nature of arefaction, the nature of assimilation
+of nourishment to the thing nourished, the manner of increase and
+clearing of spirits, the manner of the depredations which spirits
+make upon the humours and solid parts, shall by ambages of diets,
+bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, and the like, prolong
+life, or restore some degree of youth or vivacity, than that it
+can be done with the use of a few drops or scruples of a liquor
+or receipt.&nbsp; To conclude, therefore, the true natural magic,
+which is that great liberty and latitude of operation which
+dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I may report deficient, as
+the relative thereof is.&nbsp; To which part, if we be serious
+and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the
+deriving and deducing the operations themselves from metaphysic,
+there are pertinent two points of much purpose, the one by way of
+preparation, the other by way of caution.&nbsp; The first is,
+that there be made a calendar, resembling an inventory of the
+estate of man, containing all the inventions (being the works or
+fruits of Nature or art) which are now extant, and whereof man is
+already possessed; out of which doth naturally result a note what
+things are yet held impossible, or not invented, which calendar
+will be the more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed
+impossibility you add what thing is extant which cometh the
+nearest in degree to that impossibility; to the end that by these
+optatives and potentials man&rsquo;s inquiry may be the more
+awake in deducing direction of works from the speculation of
+causes.&nbsp; And secondly, that these experiments be not only
+esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those
+principally which are of most universal consequence for invention
+of other experiments, and those which give most light to the
+invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner&rsquo;s
+needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for
+navigation than the invention of the sails which give the
+motion.</p>
+<p>(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the
+deficiences thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient
+and received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for
+my part, as I affect not to dissent, so I purpose not to
+contend.&nbsp; If it be truth,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia
+sylv&aelig;,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do
+or no.&nbsp; And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the
+expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in
+their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to
+fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh
+peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to
+lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and
+contention.</p>
+<p>(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy
+according to the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning
+the matter or subject: and that is positive and considerative,
+when the inquiry reporteth either an assertion or a doubt.&nbsp;
+These doubts or <i>non liquets</i> are of two sorts, particular
+and total.&nbsp; For the first, we see a good example thereof in
+Aristotle&rsquo;s Problems which deserved to have had a better
+continuance; but so nevertheless as there is one point whereof
+warning is to be given and taken.&nbsp; The registering of doubts
+hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy from
+errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing is
+not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but
+reserved in doubt; the other, that the entry of doubts are as so
+many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as
+that which if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have
+advised, but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and
+solicitation of doubts is made to be attended and applied.&nbsp;
+But both these commodities do scarcely countervail and
+inconvenience, which will intrude itself if it be not debarred;
+which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labour rather
+how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it, and
+accordingly bend their wits.&nbsp; Of this we see the familiar
+example in lawyers and scholars, both which, if they have once
+admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for a
+doubt.&nbsp; But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed,
+which laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those
+which labour to make certain things doubtful.&nbsp; Therefore
+these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent things; so that
+there he this caution used, that when they be thoroughly sifted
+and brought to resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted,
+discarded, and not continued to cherish and encourage men in
+doubting.&nbsp; To which calendar of doubts or problems I advise
+be annexed another calendar, as much or more material which is a
+calendar of popular errors: I mean chiefly in natural history,
+such as pass in speech and conceit, and are nevertheless
+apparently detected and convicted of untruth, that man&rsquo;s
+knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and
+vanity.&nbsp; As for the doubts or <i>non liquets</i> general or
+in total, I understand those differences of opinions touching the
+principles of nature, and the fundamental points of the same,
+which have caused the diversity of sects, schools, and
+philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus,
+Parmenides, and the rest.&nbsp; For although Aristotle, as though
+he had been of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not
+reign except the first thing he did he killed all his brethren;
+yet to those that seek truth and not magistrality, it cannot but
+seem a matter of great profit, to see before them the several
+opinions touching the foundations of nature.&nbsp; Not for any
+exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for as the
+same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received
+astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the
+planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the
+theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move, and the
+calculations are indifferently agreeable to both, so the ordinary
+face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several
+theories and philosophies; whereas to find the real truth
+requireth another manner of severity and attention.&nbsp; For as
+Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call every woman
+mother, but afterward they come to distinguish according to
+truth, so experience, if it be in childhood, will call every
+philosophy mother, but when it cometh to ripeness it will discern
+the true mother.&nbsp; So as in the meantime it is good to see
+the several glosses and opinions upon Nature, whereof it may be
+everyone in some one point hath seen clearer than his fellows,
+therefore I wish some collection to be made painfully and
+understandingly <i>de antiquis philosophiis</i>, out of all the
+possible light which remaineth to us of them: which kind of work
+I find deficient.&nbsp; But here I must give warning, that it be
+done distinctly and severedly; the philosophies of everyone
+throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed and faggoted
+up together, as hath been done by Plutarch.&nbsp; For it is the
+harmony of a philosophy in itself, which giveth it light and
+credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more
+foreign and dissonant.&nbsp; For as when I read in Tacitus the
+actions of Nero or Claudius, with circumstances of times,
+inducements, and occasions, I find them not so strange; but when
+I read them in Suetonius Tranquillus, gathered into titles and
+bundles and not in order of time, they seem more monstrous and
+incredible: so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and
+dismembered by articles.&nbsp; Neither do I exclude opinions of
+latter times to be likewise represented in this calendar of sects
+of philosophy, as that of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently
+reduced into an harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane; and
+that of Tilesius, and his scholar Donius, being as a pastoral
+philosophy, full of sense, but of no great depth; and that of
+Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not to make any new
+philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own sense upon
+the old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who revived, with
+some alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes;
+and any other worthy to be admitted.</p>
+<p>(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of
+man&rsquo;s knowledge; that is <i>radius directus</i>, which is
+referred to nature, <i>radius refractus</i>, which is referred to
+God, and cannot report truly because of the inequality of the
+medium.&nbsp; There resteth <i>radius reflexus</i>, whereby man
+beholdeth and contemplateth himself.</p>
+<p>IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the
+ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves;
+which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it
+toucheth us more nearly.&nbsp; This knowledge, as it is the end
+and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so
+notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the
+continent of Nature.&nbsp; And generally let this be a rule, that
+all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and
+veins than for sections and separations; and that the continuance
+and entireness of knowledge be preserved.&nbsp; For the contrary
+hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow,
+and erroneous, while they have not been nourished and maintained
+from the common fountain.&nbsp; So we see Cicero, the orator,
+complained of Socrates and his school, that he was the first that
+separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an
+empty and verbal art.&nbsp; So we may see that the opinion of
+Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy
+itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the
+<i>phenomena</i>, yet natural philosophy may correct.&nbsp; So we
+see also that the science of medicine if it be destituted and
+forsaken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an
+empirical practice.&nbsp; With this reservation, therefore, we
+proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two parts:
+the one considereth man segregate or distributively, the other
+congregate or in society; so as human philosophy is either simple
+and particular, or conjugate and civil.&nbsp; Humanity particular
+consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth: that is, of
+knowledges which respect the body, and of knowledges that respect
+the mind.&nbsp; But before we distribute so far, it is good to
+constitute.&nbsp; For I do take the consideration in general, and
+at large, of human nature to be fit to be emancipate and made a
+knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those delightful
+and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of
+man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like
+adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in
+regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and
+concordances between the mind and body, which being mixed cannot
+be properly assigned to the sciences of either.</p>
+<p>(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and
+amities consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so
+this league of mind and body hath these two parts: how the one
+discloseth the other, and how the one worketh upon the other;
+discovery and impression.&nbsp; The former of these hath begotten
+two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof the one is
+honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of
+Hippocrates.&nbsp; And although they have of later time been used
+to be coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being
+purged and restored to their true state, they have both of them a
+solid ground in Nature, and a profitable use in life.&nbsp; The
+first is physiognomy, which discovereth the disposition of the
+mind by the lineaments of the body.&nbsp; The second is the
+exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the state of the
+body by the imaginations of the mind.&nbsp; In the former of
+these I note a deficience.&nbsp; For Aristotle hath very
+ingeniously and diligently handled the factures of the body, but
+not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by
+art, and of greater use and advantage.&nbsp; For the lineaments
+of the body do disclose the disposition and inclination of the
+mind in general; but the motions of the countenance and parts do
+not only so, but do further disclose the present humour and state
+of the mind and will.&nbsp; For as your majesty saith most aptly
+and elegantly, &ldquo;As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the
+gesture speaketh to the eye.&rdquo;&nbsp; And, therefore, a
+number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the faces and
+fashions of men, do well know the advantage of this observation,
+as being most part of their ability; neither can it be denied,
+but that it is a great discovery of dissimulations, and a great
+direction in business.</p>
+<p>(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been
+collected into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it
+hath the same relation or <i>antistrophe</i> that the former
+hath.&nbsp; For the consideration is double&mdash;either how and
+how far the humours and affects of the body do alter or work upon
+the mind, or, again, how and how far the passions or
+apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body.&nbsp;
+The former of these hath been inquired and considered as a part
+and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or
+superstition.&nbsp; For the physician prescribeth cures of the
+mind in frenzies and melancholy passions, and pretendeth also to
+exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to control the courage,
+to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like; but
+the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regiment of the
+body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the
+Manichees, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed.&nbsp; So
+likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the
+eating of the blood and the fat, distinguishing between beasts
+clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict; nay, the faith
+itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet
+retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences, and other
+macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and not
+figurative.&nbsp; The root and life of all which prescripts is
+(besides the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which
+the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and
+disposition of the body.&nbsp; And if any man of weak judgment do
+conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth
+either question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty
+of the soul, he may be taught, in easy instances, that the infant
+in the mother&rsquo;s womb is compatible with the mother, and yet
+separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his
+servants, and yet without subjection.&nbsp; As for the reciprocal
+knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits and passions of
+the mind upon the body, we see all wise physicians, in the
+prescriptions of their regiments to their patients, do ever
+consider <i>accidentia animi</i>, as of great force to further or
+hinder remedies or recoveries: and more specially it is an
+inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and
+how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for
+although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it
+hath the same degree of power to help.&nbsp; No more than a man
+can conclude, that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly
+to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign
+airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness.&nbsp; But the
+inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as
+Socrates said, &ldquo;a Delian diver,&rdquo; being difficult and
+profound.&nbsp; But unto all this knowledge <i>de communi
+vinculo</i>, of the concordances between the mind and the body,
+that part of inquiry is most necessary which considereth of the
+seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do
+take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath
+been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much
+better inquired.&nbsp; For the opinion of Plato, who placed the
+understanding in the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call
+anger, having a greater mixture with pride) in the heart, and
+concupiscence or sensuality in the liver, deserveth not to be
+despised, but much less to be allowed.&nbsp; So, then, we have
+constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry touching
+human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be handled
+apart.</p>
+<p>X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man&rsquo;s body is
+divided as the good of man&rsquo;s body is divided, unto which it
+referreth.&nbsp; The good of man&rsquo;s body is of four
+kinds&mdash;health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the
+knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which
+is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic;
+and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth <i>eruditus
+luxus</i>.&nbsp; This subject of man&rsquo;s body is, of all
+other things in nature, most susceptible of remedy; but then that
+remedy is most susceptible of error; for the same subtlety of the
+subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing, and
+therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.</p>
+<p>(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we
+have said, ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that
+man was <i>microcosmus</i>&mdash;an abstract or model of the
+world&mdash;hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and
+the alchemists, as if there were to be found in man&rsquo;s body
+certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect
+to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which
+are extant in the great world.&nbsp; But thus much is evidently
+true, that of all substances which nature hath produced,
+man&rsquo;s body is the most extremely compounded.&nbsp; For we
+see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for
+the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts,
+birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
+alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies
+before they come to be his food and aliment.&nbsp; Add hereunto
+that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of
+affections to work upon their bodies, whereas man in his mansion,
+sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations: and it
+cannot be denied but that the body of man of all other things is
+of the most compounded mass.&nbsp; The soul, on the other side,
+is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Purumque
+reliquit<br />
+&AElig;thereum sensum atque aura&iuml; simplicis
+ignem.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no
+rest, if that principle be true, that <i>Motus rerum est rapidus
+extra locum</i>, <i>placidus in loco</i>.&nbsp; But to the
+purpose.&nbsp; This variable composition of man&rsquo;s body hath
+made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and, therefore, the
+poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because
+the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of
+man&rsquo;s body and to reduce it to harmony.&nbsp; So, then, the
+subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent more
+conjectural; and the art being conjectural hath made so much the
+more place to be left for imposture.&nbsp; For almost all other
+arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may
+term them, and not by the successes and events.&nbsp; The lawyer
+is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of
+the cause; this master in this ship is judged by the directing
+his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage; but the
+physician, and perhaps this politique, hath no particular acts
+demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event,
+which is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient
+die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it
+be art or accident?&nbsp; And therefore many times the impostor
+is prized, and the man of virtue taxed.&nbsp; Nay, we see [the]
+weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a
+mountebank or witch before a learned physician.&nbsp; And
+therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme
+folly when they made &AElig;sculapius and Circe, brother and
+sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Ipse repertorem medicin&aelig; talis et
+artis<br />
+Fulmine Ph&oelig;bigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And again&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia
+lucos,&rdquo; &amp;c.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and
+old women and impostors, have had a competition with
+physicians.&nbsp; And what followeth?&nbsp; Even this, that
+physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon a
+higher occasion, &ldquo;If it befall to me as befalleth to the
+fools, why should I labour to be more wise?&rdquo;&nbsp; And
+therefore I cannot much blame physicians that they use commonly
+to intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than
+their profession; for you shall have of them antiquaries, poets,
+humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these
+better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon this
+ground that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art
+maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their
+fortune: for the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and
+nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all their
+defects.&nbsp; But, nevertheless, these things which we have
+spoken of are courses begotten between a little occasion and a
+great deal of sloth and default; for if we will excite and awake
+our observation, we shall see in familiar instances what a
+predominant faculty the subtlety of spirit hath over the variety
+of matter or form.&nbsp; Nothing more variable than faces and
+countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite
+distinctions of them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of
+colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his
+imagination, can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or
+may be, if they were brought before him.&nbsp; Nothing more
+variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them
+personally: nay, you shall have a <i>buffon</i> or
+<i>pantomimus</i> will express as many as he pleaseth.&nbsp;
+Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words; yet men
+have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters.&nbsp;
+So that it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man&rsquo;s
+mind, but it is the remote standing or placing thereof that
+breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions; for as the sense afar
+off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so is it of the
+understanding, the remedy whereof is, not to quicken or
+strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and
+therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and
+use the true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as
+much as the poet saith:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus
+artes;<br />
+Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth
+deserve: well shadowed by the poets, in that they made
+&AElig;sculapius to be the son of [the] sun, the one being the
+fountain of life, the other as the second-stream; but infinitely
+more honoured by the example of our Saviour, who made the body of
+man the object of His miracles, as the soul was the object of His
+doctrine.&nbsp; For we read not that ever He vouchsafed to do any
+miracle about honour or money (except that one for giving tribute
+to C&aelig;sar), but only about the preserving, sustaining, and
+healing the body of man.</p>
+<p>(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said)
+more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than
+advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in
+circle than in progression.&nbsp; For I find much iteration, but
+small addition.&nbsp; It considereth causes of diseases, with the
+occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the
+accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.&nbsp; The
+deficiences which I think good to note, being a few of many, and
+those such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will
+enumerate and not place.</p>
+<p>(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious
+diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of
+the special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and
+how they were judged by recovery or death.&nbsp; Therefore having
+an example proper in the father of the art, I shall not need to
+allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of the lawyers, who are
+careful to report new cases and decisions, for the direction of
+future judgments.&nbsp; This continuance of medicinal history I
+find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as
+to extend to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none
+but wonders: for many things are new in this manner, which are
+not new in the kind; and if men will intend to observe, they
+shall find much worthy to observe.</p>
+<p>(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much
+deficience: for they inquire of the parts, and their substances,
+figures, and collocations; but they inquire not of the
+diversities of the parts, the secrecies of the passages, and the
+seats or nestling of the humours, nor much of the footsteps and
+impressions of diseases.&nbsp; The reason of which omission I
+suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in the
+view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative
+and casual, must arise from the view of many.&nbsp; And as to the
+diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing
+of the inward parts is as full of difference as the outward, and
+in that is the cause continent of many diseases; which not being
+observed, they quarrel many times with the humours, which are not
+in fault; the fault being in the very frame and mechanic of the
+part, which cannot be removed by medicine alterative, but must be
+accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines familiar.&nbsp;
+And for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently
+noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies,
+because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be
+open and manifest in life: which being supposed, though the
+inhumanity of <i>anatomia vivorum</i> was by Celsus justly
+reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this observation, the
+inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished
+altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but
+might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts
+alive, which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may
+sufficiently satisfy this inquiry.&nbsp; And for the humours,
+they are commonly passed over in anatomies as purgaments; whereas
+it is most necessary to observe, what cavities, nests, and
+receptacles the humours do find in the parts, with the differing
+kind of the humour so lodged and received.&nbsp; And as for the
+footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of the inward
+parts, impostumations, exulcerations, discontinuations,
+putrefactions, consumptions, contractions, extensions,
+convulsions, dislocations, obstructions, repletions, together
+with all preternatural substances, as stones, carnosities,
+excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to have been
+exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the contribution
+of men&rsquo;s several experiences, and carefully set down both
+historically according to the appearances, and artificially with
+a reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from
+them, in case where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas
+now upon opening of bodies they are passed over slightly and in
+silence.</p>
+<p>(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of
+many, some as in their nature incurable, and others as past the
+period of cure; so that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed
+so many men to die, as they do by their ignorant edicts: whereof
+numbers do escape with less difficulty than they did in the Roman
+prescriptions.&nbsp; Therefore I will not doubt to note as a
+deficience, that they inquire not the perfect cures of many
+diseases, or extremities of diseases; but pronouncing them
+incurable do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from
+discredit.</p>
+<p>(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not
+only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not
+only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it
+may serve to make a fair and easy passage.&nbsp; For it is no
+small felicity which Augustus C&aelig;sar was wont to wish to
+himself, that same <i>Euthanasia</i>; and which was specially
+noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the
+fashion, and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sheep.&nbsp; So
+it is written of Epicurus, that after his disease was judged
+desperate, he drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught
+and ingurgitation of wine; whereupon the epigram was made,
+<i>Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas</i>; he was not sober enough
+to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water.&nbsp; But the
+physicians contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to
+stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas in
+my judgment they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the
+attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and
+agonies of death.</p>
+<p>(5) In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a
+deficience in the receipts of propriety, respecting the
+particular cures of diseases: for the physicians have frustrated
+the fruit of tradition and experience by their magistralities, in
+adding and taking out and changing <i>quid pro qua</i> in their
+receipts, at their pleasures; commanding so over the medicine, as
+the medicine cannot command over the disease.&nbsp; For except it
+be treacle and <i>mithridatum</i>, and of late
+<i>diascordium</i>, and a few more, they tie themselves to no
+receipts severely and religiously.&nbsp; For as to the
+confections of sale which are in the shops, they are for
+readiness and not for propriety.&nbsp; For they are upon general
+intentions of purging, opening, comforting, altering, and not
+much appropriate to particular diseases.&nbsp; And this is the
+cause why empirics and old women are more happy many times in
+their cures than learned physicians, because they are more
+religious in holding their medicines.&nbsp; Therefore here is the
+deficience which I find, that physicians have not, partly out of
+their own practice, partly out of the constant probations
+reported in books, and partly out of the traditions of empirics,
+set down and delivered over certain experimental medicines for
+the cure of particular diseases, besides their own conjectural
+and magistral descriptions.&nbsp; For as they were the men of the
+best composition in the state of Rome, which either being consuls
+inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to the senate;
+so in the matter we now handle, they be the best physicians,
+which being learned incline to the traditions of experience, or
+being empirics incline to the methods of learning.</p>
+<p>(9) In preparation of medicines I do find strange, specially
+considering how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that
+they are safer for the outward than inward parts, that no man
+hath sought to make an imitation by art of natural baths and
+medicinable fountains: which nevertheless are confessed to
+receive their virtues from minerals; and not so only, but
+discerned and distinguished from what particular mineral they
+receive tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which
+nature, if it may be reduced to compositions of art, both the
+variety of them will be increased, and the temper of them will be
+more commanded.</p>
+<p>(10) But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable
+either to my intention or to proportion, I will conclude this
+part with the note of one deficience more, which seemeth to me of
+greatest consequence: which is, that the prescripts in use are
+too compendious to attain their end; for, to my understanding, it
+is a vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so
+sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt or miss of it can work
+any great effect upon the body of man.&nbsp; It were a strange
+speech which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a
+vice to which he were by nature subject.&nbsp; It is order,
+pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, which is
+mighty in nature; which although it require more exact knowledge
+in prescribing, and more precise obedience in observing, yet is
+recompensed with the magnitude of effects.&nbsp; And although a
+man would think, by the daily visitations of the physicians, that
+there were a pursuance in the cure, yet let a man look into their
+prescripts and ministrations, and he shall find them but
+inconstancies and every day&rsquo;s devices, without any settled
+providence or project.&nbsp; Not that every scrupulous or
+superstitious prescript is effectual, no more than every straight
+way is the way to heaven; but the truth of the direction must
+precede severity of observance.</p>
+<p>(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate:
+for cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due
+reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.&nbsp; As for
+artificial decoration, it is well worthy of the deficiences which
+it hath; being neither fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to
+use, nor wholesome to please.</p>
+<p>(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is
+to say, for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be
+brought, whether it be of activity, or of patience; whereof
+activity hath two parts, strength and swiftness; and patience
+likewise hath two parts, hardness against wants and extremities,
+and endurance of pain or torment; whereof we see the practices in
+tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer punishment.&nbsp;
+Nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not within any of
+the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain a
+strange power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it
+to this part.&nbsp; Of these things the practices are known, but
+the philosophy that concerneth them is not much inquired; the
+rather, I think, because they are supposed to be obtained, either
+by an aptness of nature, which cannot be taught, or only by
+continual custom, which is soon prescribed which though it be not
+true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the Olympian
+games are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is
+for use; as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most
+part but for mercenary ostentation.</p>
+<p>(13) For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in
+them is of laws to repress them.&nbsp; For as it hath been well
+observed, that the arts which flourish in times while virtue is
+in growth, are military; and while virtue is in state, are
+liberal; and while virtue is in declination, are voluptuary: so I
+doubt that this age of the world is somewhat upon the descent of
+the wheel.&nbsp; With arts voluptuary I couple practices
+joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures
+of the senses.&nbsp; As for games of recreation, I hold them to
+belong to civil life and education.&nbsp; And thus much of that
+particular human philosophy which concerns the body, which is but
+the tabernacle of the mind.</p>
+<p>XI. (1) For human knowledge which concerns the mind, it hath
+two parts; the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of
+the soul or mind, the other that inquireth of the faculties or
+functions thereof.&nbsp;&nbsp; Unto the first of these, the
+considerations of the original of the soul, whether it be native
+or adventive, and how far it is exempted from laws of matter, and
+of the immortality thereof, and many other points, do appertain:
+which have been not more laboriously inquired than variously
+reported; so as the travail therein taken seemeth to have been
+rather in a maze than in a way.&nbsp; But although I am of
+opinion that this knowledge may be more really and soundly
+inquired, even in nature, than it hath been, yet I hold that in
+the end it must be hounded by religion, or else it will be
+subject to deceit and delusion.&nbsp; For as the substance of the
+soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven
+and earth by the benediction of a <i>producat</i>, but was
+immediately inspired from God, so it is not possible that it
+should be (otherwise than by accident) subject to the laws of
+heaven and earth, which are the subject of philosophy; and
+therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state of the soul
+must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance.&nbsp;
+Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul there be two
+appendices; which, as they have been handled, have rather
+vapoured forth fables than kindled truth: divination and
+fascination.</p>
+<p>(2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into
+artificial and natural: whereof artificial is, when the mind
+maketh a prediction by argument, concluding upon signs and
+tokens; natural is, when the mind hath a presention by an
+internal power, without the inducement of a sign.&nbsp;
+Artificial is of two sorts: either when the argument is coupled
+with a derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it is
+only grounded upon a coincidence of the effect, which is
+experimental: whereof the latter for the most part is
+superstitious, such as were the heathen observations upon the
+inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the swarming of
+bees; and such as was the Chaldean astrology, and the like.&nbsp;
+For artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are
+distributed amongst particular knowledges.&nbsp; The astronomer
+hath his predictions, as of conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and
+the like.&nbsp; The physician hath his predictions, of death, of
+recovery, of the accidents and issues of diseases.&nbsp; The
+politique hath his predictions; <i>O urbem venalem</i>, <i>et
+cito perituram</i>, <i>si emptorem invenerit</i>! which stayed
+not long to be performed, in Sylla first, and after in
+C&aelig;sar: so as these predictions are now impertinent, and to
+be referred over.&nbsp; But the divination which springeth from
+the internal nature of the soul is that which we now speak of;
+which hath been made to be of two sorts, primitive and by
+influxion.&nbsp; Primitive is grounded upon the supposition that
+the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected into itself, and not
+diffused into the organs of the body, hath some extent and
+latitude of prenotion; which therefore appeareth most in sleep,
+in ecstasies, and near death, and more rarely in waking
+apprehensions; and is induced and furthered by those abstinences
+and observances which make the mind most to consist in
+itself.&nbsp; By influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the
+mind, as a mirror or glass, should take illumination from the
+foreknowledge of God and spirits: unto which the same regiment
+doth likewise conduce.&nbsp; For the retiring of the mind within
+itself is the state which is most susceptible of divine
+influxions; save that it is accompanied in this case with a
+fervency and elevation (which the ancients noted by fury), and
+not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other.</p>
+<p>(3) Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive
+upon other bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of that we
+spake in the proper place.&nbsp; Wherein the school of
+Paracelsus, and the disciples of pretended natural magic, have
+been so intemperate, as they have exalted the power of the
+imagination to be much one with the power of miracle-working
+faith.&nbsp; Others, that draw nearer to probability, calling to
+their view the secret passages of things, and specially of the
+contagion that passeth from body to body, do conceive it should
+likewise be agreeable to nature that there should be some
+transmissions and operations from spirit to spirit without the
+mediation of the senses; whence the conceits have grown (now
+almost made civil) of the mastering spirit, and the force of
+confidence, and the like.&nbsp; Incident unto this is the inquiry
+how to raise and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination
+fortified have power, then it is material to know how to fortify
+and exalt it.&nbsp; And herein comes in crookedly and dangerously
+a palliation of a great part of ceremonial magic.&nbsp; For it
+may be pretended that ceremonies, characters, and charms do work,
+not by any tacit or sacramental contract with evil spirits, but
+serve only to strengthen the imagination of him that useth it; as
+images are said by the Roman Church to fix the cogitations and
+raise the devotions of them that pray before them.&nbsp; But for
+mine own judgment, if it be admitted that imagination hath power,
+and that ceremonies fortify imagination, and that they be used
+sincerely and intentionally for that purpose; yet I should hold
+them unlawful, as opposing to that first edict which God gave
+unto man, <i>In sudore vultus comedes panem tuum</i>.&nbsp; For
+they propound those noble effects, which God hath set forth unto
+man to be bought at the price of labour, to be attained by a few
+easy and slothful observances.&nbsp; Deficiences in these
+knowledges I will report none, other than the general deficience,
+that it is not known how much of them is verity, and how much
+vanity.</p>
+<p>XII. (1) The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the
+mind of man is of two kinds&mdash;the one respecting his
+understanding and reason, and the other his will, appetite, and
+affection; whereof the former produceth position or decree, the
+latter action or execution.&nbsp; It is true that the imagination
+is an agent or <i>nuncius</i> in both provinces, both the
+judicial and the ministerial.&nbsp; For sense sendeth over to
+imagination before reason have judged, and reason sendeth over to
+imagination before the decree can be acted.&nbsp; For imagination
+ever precedeth voluntary motion.&nbsp; Saving that this Janus of
+imagination hath differing faces: for the face towards reason
+hath the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the
+print of good; which nevertheless are faces,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Quales decet esse sororum.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger; but is
+invested with, or at least wise usurpeth no small authority in
+itself, besides the duty of the message.&nbsp; For it was well
+said by Aristotle, &ldquo;That the mind hath over the body that
+commandment, which the lord hath over a bondman; but that reason
+hath over the imagination that commandment which a magistrate
+hath over a free citizen,&rdquo; who may come also to rule in his
+turn.&nbsp; For we see that, in matters of faith and religion, we
+raise our imagination above our reason, which is the cause why
+religion sought ever access to the mind by similitudes, types,
+parables, visions, dreams.&nbsp; And again, in all persuasions
+that are wrought by eloquence, and other impressions of like
+nature, which do paint and disguise the true appearance of
+things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the
+imagination.&nbsp; Nevertheless, because I find not any science
+that doth properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no
+cause to alter the former division.&nbsp; For as for poesy, it is
+rather a pleasure or play of imagination than a work or duty
+thereof.&nbsp; And if it be a work, we speak not now of such
+parts of learning as the imagination produceth, but of such
+sciences as handle and consider of the imagination.&nbsp; No more
+than we shall speak now of such knowledges as reason produceth
+(for that extendeth to all philosophy), but of such knowledges as
+do handle and inquire of the faculty of reason: so as poesy had
+his true place.&nbsp; As for the power of the imagination in
+nature, and the manner of fortifying the same, we have mentioned
+it in the doctrine <i>De Anima</i>, whereunto most fitly it
+belongeth.&nbsp; And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative
+reason, which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to
+refer it to the arts of reason.&nbsp; So therefore we content
+ourselves with the former division, that human philosophy, which
+respecteth the faculties of the mind of man, hath two parts,
+rational and moral.</p>
+<p>(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all
+knowledges, to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth
+but a net of subtlety and spinosity.&nbsp; For as it was truly
+said, that knowledge is <i>pabulum animi</i>; so in the nature of
+men&rsquo;s appetite to this food most men are of the taste and
+stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain have
+returned <i>ad ollas carnium</i>, and were weary of manna; which,
+though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and
+comfortable.&nbsp; So generally men taste well knowledges that
+are drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy,
+about the which men&rsquo;s affections, praises, fortunes do turn
+and are conversant.&nbsp; But this same <i>lumen siccum</i> doth
+parch and offend most men&rsquo;s watery and soft natures.&nbsp;
+But to speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational
+knowledges are the keys of all other arts, for as Aristotle saith
+aptly and elegantly, &ldquo;That the hand is the instrument of
+instruments, and the mind is the form of forms;&rdquo; so these
+be truly said to be the art of arts.&nbsp; Neither do they only
+direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of
+shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also
+to draw a stronger bow.</p>
+<p>(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided
+according to the ends whereunto they are referred&mdash;for
+man&rsquo;s labour is to invent that which is sought or
+propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain that
+which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained.&nbsp;
+So as the arts must be four&mdash;art of inquiry or invention;
+art of examination or judgment; art of custody or memory; and art
+of elocution or tradition.</p>
+<p>XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing&mdash;the
+one of arts and sciences, and the other of speech and
+arguments.&nbsp; The former of these I do report deficient; which
+seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if, in the making of an
+inventory touching the state of a defunct, it should be set down
+that there is no ready money.&nbsp; For as money will fetch all
+other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should
+purchase all the rest.&nbsp; And like as the West Indies had
+never been discovered if the use of the mariner&rsquo;s needle
+had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions,
+and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found strange if
+sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of invention
+and discovery hath been passed over.</p>
+<p>(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment
+standeth plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to
+invent sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over
+with a <i>cuique in sua arte credendum</i>.&nbsp; And Celsus
+acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the empirical and
+dogmatical sects of physicians, &ldquo;That medicines and cures
+were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were
+discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from
+them the medicines and cures discovered.&rdquo;&nbsp; And Plato
+in his &ldquo;The&aelig;tetus&rdquo; noteth well, &ldquo;That
+particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no
+sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which
+maketh the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle
+propositions, which in every particular knowledge are taken from
+tradition and experience.&rdquo;&nbsp; And therefore we see, that
+they which discourse of the inventions and originals of things
+refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather to beasts,
+birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Dictamnum genetrix Cret&aelig;a carpit ab
+Ida,<br />
+Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem<br />
+Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris<br />
+Gramina, cum tergo volucres h&aelig;sere
+sagitt&aelig;.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to
+consecrate inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols
+in their temples, but almost all brute:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator
+Anubis,<br />
+Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam,
+&amp;c.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and
+ascribe the first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe
+that Prometheus first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the
+spark, than that when he first stroke the flints he expected the
+spark; and therefore we see the West Indian Prometheus had no
+intelligence with the European, because of the rareness with them
+of flint, that gave the first occasion.&nbsp; So as it should
+seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for
+surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some
+part of physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery,
+or generally to chance or anything else than to logic for the
+invention of arts and sciences.&nbsp; Neither is the form of
+invention which Virgil describeth much other:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Ut varias usus meditande extunderet
+artes<br />
+Paulatim.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than
+that which brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which
+is a perpetual intending or practising some one thing, urged and
+imposed by an absolute necessity of conservation of being.&nbsp;
+For so Cicero saith very truly, <i>Usus uni rei deditus et
+naturam et artem s&aelig;pe vincit</i>.&nbsp; And therefore if it
+be said of men,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Labor
+omnia vincit<br />
+Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>it is likewise said of beasts, <i>Quis psittaco docuit suum
+&chi;&alpha;&iota;&rho;&epsilon;</i>?&nbsp; Who taught the raven
+in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where she spied
+water, that the water might rise so as she might come to
+it?&nbsp; Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or
+air, and to find the way from a field in a flower a great way off
+to her hive?&nbsp; Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn
+that she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and
+grow?&nbsp; Add then the word <i>extundere</i>, which importeth
+the extreme difficulty, and the word <i>paulatim</i>, which
+importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even
+amongst the Egyptians&rsquo; gods; there being little left to the
+faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty or art, for matter of
+invention.</p>
+<p>(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and
+which seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of
+sciences may be pretended to be invented, and so the middle
+propositions by derivation from the principles; their form of
+induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incompetent; wherein
+their error is the fouler, because it is the duty of art to
+perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have wronged,
+abused, and traduced nature.&nbsp; For he that shall attentively
+observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge,
+like unto that which the poet speaketh of, <i>A&euml;rei mellis
+c&aelig;lestia dona</i>, distilling and contriving it out of
+particulars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the field
+and garden, shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth
+manage and act an induction much better than they describe
+it.&nbsp; For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars,
+without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a
+conjecture; for who can assure (in many subjects) upon those
+particulars which appear of a side, that there are not other on
+the contrary side which appear not?&nbsp; As if Samuel should
+have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought before
+him, and failed of David which was in the field.&nbsp; And this
+form (to say truth), is so gross, as it had not been possible for
+wits so subtle as have managed these things to have offered it to
+the world, but that they hasted to their theories and
+dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful toward particulars;
+which their manner was to use but as <i>lictores</i> and
+<i>viatores</i>, for sergeants and whifflers, <i>ad summovendam
+turbam</i>, to make way and make room for their opinions, rather
+than in their true use and service.&nbsp; Certainly it is a thing
+may touch a man with a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps
+of seducement are the very same in divine and human truth; for,
+as in divine truth man cannot endure to become as a child, so in
+human, they reputed the attending the inductions (whereof we
+speak), as if it were a second infancy or childhood.</p>
+<p>(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly
+induced, yet, nevertheless, certain it is that middle
+propositions cannot be deduced from them in subject of nature by
+syllogism&mdash;that is, by touch and reduction of them to
+principles in a middle term.&nbsp; It is true that in sciences
+popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity
+(because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the
+simplest), that form may have use; and in natural philosophy
+likewise, by way of argument or satisfactory reason, <i>Qu&aelig;
+assensum parit operis eff&aelig;ta est</i>; but the subtlety of
+nature and operations will not be enchained in those bonds.&nbsp;
+For arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of words,
+and words are but the current tokens or marks of popular notions
+of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably
+collected out of particulars, it is not the laborious examination
+either of consequences of arguments, or of the truth of
+propositions, that can ever correct that error, being (as the
+physicians speak) in the first digestion.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+it was not without cause, that so many excellent philosophers
+became sceptics and academics, and denied any certainty of
+knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion that the knowledge
+of man extended only to appearances and probabilities.&nbsp; It
+is true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a form of
+irony, <i>Scientiam dissimulando simulavit</i>; for he used to
+disable his knowledge, to the end to enhance his knowledge; like
+the humour of Tiberius in his beginnings, that would reign, but
+would not acknowledge so much.&nbsp; And in the later academy,
+which Cicero embraced, this opinion also of <i>acatalepsia</i> (I
+doubt) was not held sincerely; for that all those which excelled
+in copy of speech seem to have chosen that sect, as that which
+was fittest to give glory to their eloquence and variable
+discourses; being rather like progresses of pleasure than
+journeys to an end.&nbsp; But assuredly many scattered in both
+academies did hold it in subtlety and integrity.&nbsp; But here
+was their chief error: they charged the deceit upon the senses;
+which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their cavillations) are
+very sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always
+immediately, yet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by
+producing and urging such things as are too subtle for the sense
+to some effect comprehensible by the sense, and other like
+assistance.&nbsp; But they ought to have charged the deceit upon
+the weakness of the intellectual powers, and upon the manner of
+collecting and concluding upon the reports of the senses.&nbsp;
+This I speak, not to disable the mind of man, but to stir it up
+to seek help; for no man, be he never so cunning or practised,
+can make a straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand,
+which may be easily done by help of a ruler or compass.</p>
+<p>(5) This part of invention, concerning the invention of
+sciences, I purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound,
+having digested it into two parts: whereof the one I term
+<i>experientia literata</i>, and the other <i>interpretatio
+natur&aelig;</i>; the former being but a degree and rudiment of
+the latter.&nbsp; But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too
+great upon a promise.</p>
+<p>(6) The invention of speech or argument is not properly an
+invention; for to invent is to discover that we know not, and not
+to recover or resummon that which we already know; and the use of
+this invention is no other but, out of the knowledge whereof our
+mind is already possessed to draw forth or call before us that
+which may be pertinent to the purpose which we take into our
+consideration.&nbsp; So as to speak truly, it is no invention,
+but a remembrance or suggestion, with an application; which is
+the cause why the schools do place it after judgment, as
+subsequent and not precedent.&nbsp; Nevertheless, because we do
+account it a chase as well of deer in an enclosed park as in a
+forest at large, and that it hath already obtained the name, let
+it be called invention; so as it be perceived and discerned, that
+the scope and end of this invention is readiness and present use
+of our knowledge, and not addition or amplification thereof.</p>
+<p>(7) To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two
+courses, preparation and suggestion.&nbsp; The former of these
+seemeth scarcely a part of knowledge, consisting rather of
+diligence than of any artificial erudition.&nbsp; And herein
+Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully, doth deride the sophists near
+his time, saying, &ldquo;They did as if one that professed the
+art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up a shoe, but
+only exhibit in a readiness a number of shoes of all fashions and
+sizes.&rdquo;&nbsp; But yet a man might reply, that if a
+shoemaker should have no shoes in his shop, but only work as he
+is bespoken, he should be weakly customed.&nbsp; But our Saviour,
+speaking of divine knowledge, saith, &ldquo;That the kingdom of
+heaven is like a good householder, that bringeth forth both new
+and old store;&rdquo; and we see the ancient writers of rhetoric
+do give it in precept, that pleaders should have the places,
+whereof they have most continual use, ready handled in all the
+variety that may be; as that, to speak for the literal
+interpretation of the law against equity, and contrary; and to
+speak for presumptions and inferences against testimony, and
+contrary.&nbsp; And Cicero himself, being broken unto it by great
+experience, delivereth it plainly, that whatsoever a man shall
+have occasion to speak of (if he will take the pains), he may
+have it in effect premeditate and handled <i>in thesi</i>.&nbsp;
+So that when he cometh to a particular he shall have nothing to
+do, but to put to names, and times, and places, and such other
+circumstances of individuals.&nbsp; We see likewise the exact
+diligence of Demosthenes; who, in regard of the great force that
+the entrance and access into causes hath to make a good
+impression, had ready framed a number of prefaces for orations
+and speeches.&nbsp; All which authorities and precedents may
+overweigh Aristotle&rsquo;s opinion, that would have us change a
+rich wardrobe for a pair of shears.</p>
+<p>(8) But the nature of the collection of this provision or
+preparatory store, though it be common both to logic and
+rhetoric, yet having made an entry of it here, where it came
+first to be spoken of, I think fit to refer over the further
+handling of it to rhetoric.</p>
+<p>(9) The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, doth
+assign and direct us to certain marks, or places, which may
+excite our mind to return and produce such knowledge as it hath
+formerly collected, to the end we may make use thereof.&nbsp;
+Neither is this use (truly taken) only to furnish argument to
+dispute, probably with others, but likewise to minister unto our
+judgment to conclude aright within ourselves.&nbsp; Neither may
+these places serve only to apprompt our invention, but also to
+direct our inquiry.&nbsp; For a faculty of wise interrogating is
+half a knowledge.&nbsp; For as Plato saith, &ldquo;Whosoever
+seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for in a general notion;
+else how shall he know it when he hath found it?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And, therefore, the larger your anticipation is, the more direct
+and compendious is your search.&nbsp; But the same places which
+will help us what to produce of that which we know already, will
+also help us, if a man of experience were before us, what
+questions to ask; or, if we have books and authors to instruct
+us, what points to search and revolve; so as I cannot report that
+this part of invention, which is that which the schools call
+topics, is deficient.</p>
+<p>(10) Nevertheless, topics are of two sorts, general and
+special.&nbsp; The general we have spoken to; but the particular
+hath been touched by some, but rejected generally as inartificial
+and variable.&nbsp; But leaving the humour which hath reigned too
+much in the schools (which is, to be vainly subtle in a few
+things which are within their command, and to reject the rest), I
+do receive particular topics; that is, places or directions of
+invention and inquiry in every particular knowledge, as things of
+great use, being mixtures of logic with the matter of
+sciences.&nbsp; For in these it holdeth <i>ars inveniendi
+adolescit cum inventis</i>; for as in going of a way, we do not
+only gain that part of the way which is passed, but we gain the
+better sight of that part of the way which remaineth, so every
+degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light to that which
+followeth; which light, if we strengthen by drawing it forth into
+questions or places of inquiry, we do greatly advance our
+pursuit.</p>
+<p>XIV. (1) Now we pass unto the arts of judgment, which handle
+the natures of proofs and demonstrations, which as to induction
+hath a coincidence with invention; for all inductions, whether in
+good or vicious form, the same action of the mind which
+inventeth, judgeth&mdash;all one as in the sense.&nbsp; But
+otherwise it is in proof by syllogism, for the proof being not
+immediate, but by mean, the invention of the mean is one thing,
+and the judgment of the consequence is another; the one exciting
+only, the other examining.&nbsp; Therefore, for the real and
+exact form of judgment, we refer ourselves to that which we have
+spoken of interpretation of Nature.</p>
+<p>(2) For the other judgment by syllogism, as it is a thing most
+agreeable to the mind of man, so it hath been vehemently end
+excellently laboured.&nbsp; For the nature of man doth extremely
+covet to have somewhat in his understanding fixed and unmovable,
+and as a rest and support of the mind.&nbsp; And, therefore, as
+Aristotle endeavoureth to prove, that in all motion there is some
+point quiescent; and as he elegantly expoundeth the ancient fable
+of Atlas (that stood fixed, and bare up the heaven from falling)
+to be meant of the poles or axle-tree of heaven, whereupon the
+conversion is accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to
+have an Atlas or axle-tree within to keep them from fluctuation,
+which is like to a perpetual peril of falling.&nbsp; Therefore
+men did hasten to set down some principles about which the
+variety of their disputatious might turn.</p>
+<p>(3) So, then, this art of judgment is but the reduction of
+propositions to principles in a middle term.&nbsp; The principles
+to be agreed by all and exempted from argument; the middle term
+to be elected at the liberty of every man&rsquo;s invention; the
+reduction to be of two kinds, direct and inverted: the one when
+the proposition is reduced to the principle, which they term a
+probation ostensive; the other, when the contradictory of the
+proposition is reduced to the contradictory of the principle,
+which is that which they call <i>per incommodum</i>, or pressing
+an absurdity; the number of middle terms to be as the proposition
+standeth degrees more or less removed from the principle.</p>
+<p>(4) But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one
+by way of direction, the other by way of caution: the former
+frameth and setteth down a true form of consequence, by the
+variations and deflections from which errors and inconsequences
+may be exactly judged.&nbsp; Toward the composition and structure
+of which form it is incident to handle the parts thereof, which
+are propositions, and the parts of propositions, which are simple
+words.&nbsp; And this is that part of logic which is comprehended
+in the Analytics.</p>
+<p>(5) The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite
+use and assurance sake, discovering the more subtle forms of
+sophisms and illaqueations with their redargutions, which is that
+which is termed <i>elenches</i>.&nbsp; For although in the more
+gross sorts of fallacies it happeneth (as Seneca maketh the
+comparison well) as in juggling feats, which, though we know not
+how they are done, yet we know well it is not as it seemeth to
+be; yet the more subtle sort of them doth not only put a man
+besides his answer, but doth many times abuse his judgment.</p>
+<p>(6) This part concerning <i>elenches</i> is excellently
+handled by Aristotle in precept, but more excellently by Plato in
+example; not only in the persons of the sophists, but even in
+Socrates himself, who, professing to affirm nothing, but to
+infirm that which was affirmed by another, hath exactly expressed
+all the forms of objection, fallace, and redargution.&nbsp; And
+although we have said that the use of this doctrine is for
+redargution, yet it is manifest the degenerate and corrupt use is
+for caption and contradiction, which passeth for a great faculty,
+and no doubt is of very great advantage, though the difference be
+good which was made between orators and sophisters, that the one
+is as the greyhound, which hath his advantage in the race, and
+the other as the hare, which hath her advantage in the turn, so
+as it is the advantage of the weaker creature.</p>
+<p>(7) But yet further, this doctrine of elenches hath a more
+ample latitude and extent than is perceived; namely, unto divers
+parts of knowledge, whereof some are laboured and other
+omitted.&nbsp; For first, I conceive (though it may seem at first
+somewhat strange) that that part which is variably referred,
+sometimes to logic, sometimes to metaphysic, touching the common
+adjuncts of essences, is but an <i>elenche</i>; for the great
+sophism of all sophisms being equivocation or ambiguity of words
+and phrase, specially of such words as are most general and
+intervene in every inquiry, it seemeth to me that the true and
+fruitful use (leaving vain subtleties and speculations) of the
+inquiry of majority, minority, priority, posteriority, identity,
+diversity, possibility, act, totality, parts, existence,
+privation, and the like, are but wise cautions against
+ambiguities of speech.&nbsp; So, again, the distribution of
+things into certain tribes, which we call categories or
+predicaments, are but cautions against the confusion of
+definitions and divisions.</p>
+<p>(8) Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by the
+strength of the impression, and not by the subtlety of the
+illaqueation&mdash;not so much perplexing the reason, as
+overruling it by power of the imagination.&nbsp; But this part I
+think more proper to handle when I shall speak of rhetoric.</p>
+<p>(9) But lastly, there is yet a much more important and
+profound kind of fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not
+observed or inquired at all, and think good to place here, as
+that which of all others appertaineth most to rectify judgment,
+the force whereof is such as it doth not dazzle or snare the
+understanding in some particulars, but doth more generally and
+inwardly infect and corrupt the state thereof.&nbsp; For the mind
+of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein
+the beams of things should reflect according to their true
+incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of
+superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and
+reduced.&nbsp; For this purpose, let us consider the false
+appearances that are imposed upon us by the general nature of the
+mind, beholding them in an example or two; as first, in that
+instance which is the root of all superstition, namely, that to
+the nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the
+affirmative or active to affect more than the negative or
+privative.&nbsp; So that a few times hitting or presence
+countervails ofttimes failing or absence, as was well answered by
+Diagoras to him that showed him in Neptune&rsquo;s temple the
+great number of pictures of such as had escaped shipwreck, and
+had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, &ldquo;Advise now, you
+that think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Yea, but,&rdquo; saith Diagoras, &ldquo;where are they
+painted that are drowned?&rdquo;&nbsp; Let us behold it in
+another instance, namely, that the spirit of man, being of an
+equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in
+nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in truth.&nbsp;
+Hence it cometh that the mathematicians cannot satisfy themselves
+except they reduce the motions of the celestial bodies to perfect
+circles, rejecting spiral lines, and labouring to be discharged
+of eccentrics.&nbsp; Hence it cometh that whereas there are many
+things in Nature as it were <i>monodica</i>, <i>sui juris</i>,
+yet the cogitations of man do feign unto them relatives,
+parallels, and conjugates, whereas no such thing is; as they have
+feigned an element of fire to keep square with earth, water, and
+air, and the like.&nbsp; Nay, it is not credible, till it be
+opened, what a number of fictions and fantasies the similitude of
+human actions and arts, together with the making of man
+<i>communis mensura</i>, have brought into natural philosophy;
+not much better than the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, bred in
+the cells of gross and solitary monks, and the opinion of
+Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism, who supposed the
+gods to be of human shape.&nbsp; And, therefore, Velleius the
+Epicurean needed not to have asked why God should have adorned
+the heavens with stars, as if He had been an <i>&aelig;dilis</i>,
+one that should have set forth some magnificent shows or
+plays.&nbsp; For if that great Work-master had been of a human
+disposition, He would have cast the stars into some pleasant and
+beautiful works and orders like the frets in the roofs of houses;
+whereas one can scarce find a posture in square, or triangle, or
+straight line, amongst such an infinite number, so differing a
+harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit of
+Nature.</p>
+<p>(10) Let us consider again the false appearances imposed upon
+us by every man&rsquo;s own individual nature and custom in that
+feigned supposition that Plato maketh of the cave; for certainly
+if a child were continued in a grot or cave under the earth until
+maturity of age, and came suddenly abroad, he would have strange
+and absurd imaginations.&nbsp; So, in like manner, although our
+persons live in the view of heaven, yet our spirits are included
+in the caves of our own complexions and customs, which minister
+unto us infinite errors and vain opinions if they be not recalled
+to examination.&nbsp; But hereof we have given many examples in
+one of the errors, or peccant humours, which we ran briefly over
+in our first book.</p>
+<p>(11) And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that
+are imposed upon us by words, which are framed and applied
+according to the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort; and
+although we think we govern our words, and prescribe it well
+<i>loquendum ut vulgus sentiendum ut sapientes</i>, yet certain
+it is that words, as a Tartar&rsquo;s bow, do shoot back upon the
+understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert
+the judgment.&nbsp; So as it is almost necessary in all
+controversies and disputations to imitate the wisdom of the
+mathematicians, in setting down in the very beginning the
+definitions of our words and terms, that others may know how we
+accept and understand them, and whether they concur with us or
+no.&nbsp; For it cometh to pass, for want of this, that we are
+sure to end there where we ought to have begun, which is, in
+questions and differences about words.&nbsp; To conclude,
+therefore, it must be confessed that it is not possible to
+divorce ourselves from these fallacies and false appearances
+because they are inseparable from our nature and condition of
+life; so yet, nevertheless, the caution of them (for all
+elenches, as was said, are but cautions) doth extremely import
+the true conduct of human judgment.&nbsp; The particular elenches
+or cautions against these three false appearances I find
+altogether deficient.</p>
+<p>(12) There remaineth one part of judgment of great excellency
+which to mine understanding is so slightly touched, as I may
+report that also deficient; which is the application of the
+differing kinds of proofs to the differing kinds of
+subjects.&nbsp; For there being but four kinds of demonstrations,
+that is, by the immediate consent of the mind or sense, by
+induction, by syllogism, and by congruity, which is that which
+Aristotle calleth demonstration in orb or circle, and not <i>a
+notioribus</i>, every of these hath certain subjects in the
+matter of sciences, in which respectively they have chiefest use;
+and certain others, from which respectively they ought to be
+excluded; and the rigour and curiosity in requiring the more
+severe proofs in some things, and chiefly the facility in
+contenting ourselves with the more remiss proofs in others, hath
+been amongst the greatest causes of detriment and hindrance to
+knowledge.&nbsp; The distributions and assignations of
+demonstrations according to the analogy of sciences I note as
+deficient.</p>
+<p>XV. (1) The custody or retaining of knowledge is either in
+writing or memory; whereof writing hath two parts, the nature of
+the character and the order of the entry.&nbsp; For the art of
+characters, or other visible notes of words or things, it hath
+nearest conjugation with grammar, and, therefore, I refer it to
+the due place; for the disposition and collocation of that
+knowledge which we preserve in writing, it consisteth in a good
+digest of common-places, wherein I am not ignorant of the
+prejudice imputed to the use of common-place books, as causing a
+retardation of reading, and some sloth or relaxation of
+memory.&nbsp; But because it is but a counterfeit thing in
+knowledges to be forward and pregnant, except a man be deep and
+full, I hold the entry of common-places to be a matter of great
+use and essence in studying, as that which assureth copy of
+invention, and contracteth judgment to a strength.&nbsp; But this
+is true, that of the methods of common-places that I have seen,
+there is none of any sufficient worth, all of them carrying
+merely the face of a school and not of a world; and referring to
+vulgar matters and pedantical divisions, without all life or
+respect to action.</p>
+<p>(2) For the other principal part of the custody of knowledge,
+which is memory, I find that faculty in my judgment weakly
+inquired of.&nbsp; An art there is extant of it; but it seemeth
+to me that there are better precepts than that art, and better
+practices of that art than those received.&nbsp; It is certain
+the art (as it is) may be raised to points of ostentation
+prodigious; but in use (as is now managed) it is barren, not
+burdensome, nor dangerous to natural memory, as is imagined, but
+barren, that is, not dexterous to be applied to the serious use
+of business and occasions.&nbsp; And, therefore, I make no more
+estimation of repeating a great number of names or words upon
+once hearing, or the pouring forth of a number of verses or
+rhymes <i>extempore</i>, or the making of a satirical simile of
+everything, or the turning of everything to a jest, or the
+falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like
+(whereof in the faculties of the mind there is great copy, and
+such as by device and practice may be exalted to an extreme
+degree of wonder), than I do of the tricks of tumblers,
+funambuloes, baladines; the one being the same in the mind that
+the other is in the body, matters of strangeness without
+worthiness.</p>
+<p>(3) This art of memory is but built upon two intentions; the
+one prenotion, the other emblem.&nbsp; Prenotion dischargeth the
+indefinite seeking of that we would remember, and directeth us to
+seek in a narrow compass, that is, somewhat that hath congruity
+with our place of memory.&nbsp; Emblem reduceth conceits
+intellectual to images sensible, which strike the memory more;
+out of which axioms may be drawn much better practice than that
+in use; and besides which axioms, there are divers more touching
+help of memory not inferior to them.&nbsp; But I did in the
+beginning distinguish, not to report those things deficient,
+which are but only ill managed.</p>
+<p>XVI. (1) There remaineth the fourth kind of rational
+knowledge, which is transitive, concerning the expressing or
+transferring our knowledge to others, which I will term by the
+general name of tradition or delivery.&nbsp; Tradition hath three
+parts: the first concerning the organ of tradition; the second
+concerning the method of tradition; and the third concerning the
+illustration of tradition.</p>
+<p>(2) For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or
+writing; for Aristotle saith well, &ldquo;Words are the images of
+cogitations, and letters are the images of words.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But yet it is not of necessity that cogitations be expressed by
+the medium of words.&nbsp; For whatsoever is capable of
+sufficient differences, and those perceptible by the sense, is in
+nature competent to express cogitations.&nbsp; And, therefore, we
+see in the commerce of barbarous people that understand not one
+another&rsquo;s language, and in the practice of divers that are
+dumb and deaf, that men&rsquo;s minds are expressed in gestures,
+though not exactly, yet to serve the turn.&nbsp; And we
+understand further, that it is the use of China and the kingdoms
+of the High Levant to write in characters real, which express
+neither letters nor words in gross, but things or notions;
+insomuch as countries and provinces which understand not one
+another&rsquo;s language can nevertheless read one
+another&rsquo;s writings, because the characters are accepted
+more generally than the languages do extend; and, therefore, they
+have a vast multitude of characters, as many, I suppose, as
+radical words.</p>
+<p>(3) These notes of cogitations are of two sorts: the one when
+the note hath some similitude or congruity with the notion; the
+other <i>ad placitum</i>, having force only by contract or
+acceptation.&nbsp; Of the former sort are hieroglyphics and
+gestures.&nbsp; For as to hieroglyphics (things of ancient use
+and embraced chiefly by the Egyptians, one of the most ancient
+nations), they are but as continued impresses and emblems.&nbsp;
+And as for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics, and
+are to hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in
+that they abide not; but they have evermore, as well as the
+other, an affinity with the things signified.&nbsp; As Periander,
+being consulted with how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid
+the messenger attend and report what he saw him do; and went into
+his garden and topped all the highest flowers, signifying that it
+consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the nobility and
+grandees.&nbsp; <i>Ad placitum</i>, are the characters real
+before mentioned, and words: although some have been willing by
+curious inquiry, or rather by apt feigning, to have derived
+imposition of names from reason and intendment; a speculation
+elegant, and, by reason it searcheth into antiquity, reverent,
+but sparingly mixed with truth, and of small fruit.&nbsp; This
+portion of knowledge touching the notes of things and cogitations
+in general, I find not inquired, but deficient.&nbsp; And
+although it may seem of no great use, considering that words and
+writings by letters do far excel all the other ways; yet because
+this part concerneth, as it were, the mint of knowledge (for
+words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits, as moneys
+are for values, and that it is fit men be not ignorant that
+moneys may be of another kind than gold and silver), I thought
+good to propound it to better inquiry.</p>
+<p>(4) Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them
+hath produced the science of grammar.&nbsp; For man still
+striveth to reintegrate himself in those benedictions, from which
+by his fault he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven
+against the first general curse by the invention of all other
+arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse
+(which was the confusion of tongues) by the art of grammar;
+whereof the use in a mother tongue is small, in a foreign tongue
+more; but most in such foreign tongues as have ceased to be
+vulgar tongues, and are turned only to learned tongues.&nbsp; The
+duty of it is of two natures: the one popular, which is for the
+speedy and perfect attaining languages, as well for intercourse
+of speech as for understanding of authors; the other
+philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as they
+are the footsteps and prints of reason: which kind of analogy
+between words and reason is handled <i>sparsim</i>, brokenly
+though not entirely; and, therefore, I cannot report it
+deficient, though I think it very worthy to be reduced into a
+science by itself.</p>
+<p>(5) Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the
+consideration of the accidents of words; which are measure,
+sound, and elevation or accent, and the sweetness and harshness
+of them: whence hath issued some curious observations in
+rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as we consider it, in respect of the
+verse and not of the argument.&nbsp; Wherein though men in
+learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet in
+modern languages it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of
+verses as of dances; for a dance is a measured pace, as a verse
+is a measured speech.&nbsp; In these things this sense is better
+judge than the art:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;C&oelig;n&aelig; fercula
+nostr&aelig;<br />
+Mallem convivis quam placuisse cocis.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an
+unfit subject, it is well said, &ldquo;<i>Quod tempore antiquum
+videtur</i>, <i>id incongruitate est maxime novum</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(6) For ciphers, they are commonly in letters or alphabets,
+but may be in words.&nbsp; The kinds of ciphers (besides the
+simple ciphers, with changes, and intermixtures of nulls and
+non-significants) are many, according to the nature or rule of
+the infolding, wheel-ciphers, key-ciphers, doubles, &amp;c.&nbsp;
+But the virtues of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are
+three; that they be not laborious to write and read; that they be
+impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that they be without
+suspicion.&nbsp; The highest degree whereof is to write <i>omnia
+per omnia</i>; which is undoubtedly possible, with a proportion
+quintuple at most of the writing infolding to the writing
+infolded, and no other restraint whatsoever.&nbsp; This art of
+ciphering hath for relative an art of deciphering, by supposition
+unprofitable, but, as things are, of great use.&nbsp; For suppose
+that ciphers were well managed, there be multitudes of them which
+exclude the decipherer.&nbsp; But in regard of the rawness and
+unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass, the greatest
+matters are many times carried in the weakest ciphers.</p>
+<p>(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it
+may be thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences,
+naming them for show and ostentation, and to little other
+purpose.&nbsp; But let those, which are skilful in them, judge
+whether I bring them in only for appearance, or whether in that
+which I speak of them (though in few words) there be not some
+seed of proficience.&nbsp; And this must be remembered, that as
+there be many of great account in their countries and provinces,
+which, when they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of
+mean rank and scarcely regarded; so these arts, being here placed
+with the principal and supreme sciences, seem petty things: yet
+to such as have chosen them to spend their labours and studies in
+them, they seem great matters.</p>
+<p>XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a
+controversy in our time.&nbsp; But as in civil business, if there
+be a meeting, and men fall at words, there is commonly an end of
+the matter for that time, and no proceeding at all; so in
+learning, where there is much controversy, there is many times
+little inquiry.&nbsp; For this part of knowledge of method
+seemeth to me so weakly inquired as I shall report it
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as
+a part of judgment.&nbsp; For as the doctrine of syllogisms
+comprehendeth the rules of judgment upon that which is invented,
+so the doctrine of method containeth the rules of judgment upon
+that which is to be delivered; for judgment precedeth delivery,
+as it followeth invention.&nbsp; Neither is the method or the
+nature of the tradition material only to the use of knowledge,
+but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since the
+labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of
+knowledge, the wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth
+the felicity of continuance and proceeding.&nbsp; And therefore
+the most real diversity of method is of method referred to use,
+and method referred to progression: whereof the one may be termed
+magistral, and the other of probation.</p>
+<p>(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be <i>via deserta et
+interclusa</i>.&nbsp; For as knowledges are now delivered, there
+is a kind of contract of error between the deliverer and the
+receiver.&nbsp; For he that delivereth knowledge desireth to
+deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as may
+be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather
+present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to
+doubt, than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open
+his weakness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his
+strength.</p>
+<p>(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on
+ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the
+same method wherein it was invented: and so is it possible of
+knowledge induced.&nbsp; But in this same anticipated and
+prevented knowledge, no man knoweth how he came to the knowledge
+which he hath obtained.&nbsp; But yet, nevertheless, <i>secundum
+majus et minus</i>, a man may revisit and descend unto the
+foundations of his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it
+into another, as it grew in his own mind.&nbsp; For it is in
+knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean to use the plant, it
+is no matter for the roots&mdash;but if you mean to remove it to
+grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so
+the delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair
+bodies of trees without the roots; good for the carpenter, but
+not for the planter.&nbsp; But if you will have sciences grow, it
+is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look
+well to the taking up of the roots.&nbsp; Of which kind of
+delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath
+some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in
+inquisition, and therefore note it for deficient.</p>
+<p>(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some
+affinity with the former, used in some cases by the discretion of
+the ancients, but disgraced since by the impostures of many vain
+persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit
+merchandises; and that is enigmatical and disclosed.&nbsp; The
+pretence whereof is, to remove the vulgar capacities from being
+admitted to the secrets of knowledges, and to reserve them to
+selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can pierce the
+veil.</p>
+<p>(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is
+great, is the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods;
+wherein we may observe that it hath been too much taken into
+custom, out of a few axioms or observations upon any subject, to
+make a solemn and formal art, filling it with some discourses,
+and illustrating it with examples, and digesting it into a
+sensible method.&nbsp; But the writing in aphorisms hath many
+excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not
+approach.</p>
+<p>(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial
+or solid: for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot
+be made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of
+illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off;
+discourse of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of
+practice are cut off.&nbsp; So there remaineth nothing to fill
+the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and
+therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to
+write aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded.&nbsp; But in
+methods,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Tantum series juncturaque
+pollet,<br />
+Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were
+disjointed, would come to little.&nbsp; Secondly, methods are
+more fit to win consent or belief, but less fit to point to
+action; for they carry a kind of demonstration in orb or circle,
+one part illuminating another, and therefore satisfy.&nbsp; But
+particulars being dispersed do best agree with dispersed
+directions.&nbsp; And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge
+broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods,
+carrying the show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at
+furthest.</p>
+<p>(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great
+weight, is the handling of knowledge by assertions and their
+proofs, or by questions and their determinations.&nbsp; The
+latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately followed, is as
+prejudicial to the proceeding of learning as it is to the
+proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or
+hold.&nbsp; For if the field be kept, and the sum of the
+enterprise pursued, those smaller things will come in of
+themselves: indeed a man would not leave some important piece
+enemy at his back.&nbsp; In like manner, the use of confutation
+in the delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to
+serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not
+to minister and excite disputatious and doubts.</p>
+<p>(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject
+or matter which is handled.&nbsp; For there is a great difference
+in delivery of the mathematics, which are the most abstracted of
+knowledges, and policy, which is the most immersed.&nbsp; And
+howsoever contention hath been moved, touching a uniformity of
+method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how that opinion,
+besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards
+learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to
+certain empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks
+and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and
+expulsed with the torture and press of the method.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, as I did allow well of particular topics for
+invention, so I do allow likewise of particular methods of
+tradition.</p>
+<p>(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and
+teaching of knowledge is, according unto the light and
+presuppositions of that which is delivered.&nbsp; For that
+knowledge which is new, and foreign from opinions received, is to
+be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable and
+familiar; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax
+Democritus, doth in truth commend him, where he saith &ldquo;If
+we shall indeed dispute, and not follow after similitudes,&rdquo;
+&amp;c.&nbsp; For those whose conceits are seated in popular
+opinions need only but to prove or dispute; but those whose
+conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the
+one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and
+demonstrate.&nbsp; So that it is of necessity with them to have
+recourse to similitudes and translations to express
+themselves.&nbsp; And therefore in the infancy of learning, and
+in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial were then
+new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
+would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected
+for paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood
+or judged.&nbsp; So in divine learning, we see how frequent
+parables and tropes are, for it is a rule, that whatsoever
+science is not consonant to presuppositions must pray in aid of
+similitudes.</p>
+<p>(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and
+received: as that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or
+systasis, of concealment or cryptic, &amp;c., which I do allow
+well of, though I have stood upon those which are least handled
+and observed.&nbsp; All which I have remembered to this purpose,
+because I would erect and constitute one general inquiry (which
+seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of tradition.</p>
+<p>(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth
+further belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a
+work, but also the several beams and columns thereof; not as to
+their stuff, but as to their quantity and figure.&nbsp; And
+therefore method considereth not only the disposition of the
+argument or subject, but likewise the propositions: not as to
+their truth or matter, but as to their limitation and
+manner.&nbsp; For herein Ramus merited better a great deal in
+reviving the good rules of
+propositions&mdash;&Kappa;&alpha;&theta;&omicron;&lambda;&omicron;&nu;
+&pi;&rho;&omega;&tau;&omicron;&nu;, &kappa;&upsilon;&tau;&alpha;
+&pi;&alpha;&nu;&tau;&omicron;&sigmaf; &amp;c.&mdash;than he did
+in introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet (as it is the
+condition of human things that, according to the ancient fables,
+&ldquo;the most precious things have the most pernicious
+keepers&rdquo;) it was so, that the attempt of the one made him
+fall upon the other.&nbsp; For he had need be well conducted that
+should design to make axioms convertible, if he make them not
+withal circular, and non-promovent, or incurring into themselves;
+but yet the intention was excellent.</p>
+<p>(13) The other considerations of method, concerning
+propositions, are chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which
+limit the dimensions of sciences: for every knowledge may be
+fitly said, besides the profundity (which is the truth and
+substance of it, that makes it solid), to have a longitude and a
+latitude; accounting the latitude towards other sciences, and the
+longitude towards action; that is, from the greatest generality
+to the most particular precept.&nbsp; The one giveth rule how far
+one knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of
+another, which is the rule they call
+&Kappa;&alpha;&theta;&alpha;&upsilon;&tau;&omicron;; the other
+giveth rule unto what degree of particularity a knowledge should
+descend: which latter I find passed over in silence, being in my
+judgment the more material.&nbsp; For certainty there must be
+somewhat left to practice; but how much is worthy the
+inquiry?&nbsp; We see remote and superficial generalities do but
+offer knowledge to scorn of practical men; and are no more aiding
+to practice than an Ortelius&rsquo; universal map is to direct
+the way between London and York.&nbsp; The better sort of rules
+have been not unfitly compared to glasses of steel unpolished,
+where you may see the images of things, but first they must be
+filed: so the rules will help if they be laboured and polished by
+practice.&nbsp; But how crystalline they may be made at the
+first, and how far forth they may be polished aforehand, is the
+question, the inquiry whereof seemeth to me deficient.</p>
+<p>(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a
+method, which is not a lawful method, but a method of imposture:
+which is, to deliver knowledges in such manner as men may
+speedily come to make a show of learning, who have it not.&nbsp;
+Such was the travail of Raymundus Lullius in making that art
+which bears his name; not unlike to some books of typocosmy,
+which have been made since; being nothing but a mass of words of
+all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms
+might be thought to understand the art; which collections are
+much like a fripper&rsquo;s or broker&rsquo;s shop, that hath
+ends of everything, but nothing of worth.</p>
+<p>XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the
+illustration of tradition, comprehended in that science which we
+call rhetoric, or art of eloquence, a science excellent, and
+excellently well laboured.&nbsp; For although in true value it is
+inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to Moses, when he
+disabled himself for want of this faculty, &ldquo;Aaron shall be
+thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God&rdquo;), yet with
+people it is the more mighty; for so Solomon saith, <i>Sapiens
+corde appellabitur prudens</i>, <i>sed dulcis eloquio majora
+reperiet</i>, signifying that profoundness of wisdom will help a
+man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence that
+prevaileth in an active life.&nbsp; And as to the labouring of
+it, the emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time,
+and the experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of
+rhetoric exceed themselves.&nbsp; Again, the excellency of
+examples of eloquence in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero,
+added to the perfection of the precepts of eloquence, hath
+doubled the progression in this art; and therefore the
+deficiences which I shall note will rather be in some
+collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the
+rules or use of the art itself.</p>
+<p>(2)&nbsp; Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about
+the roots of this science, as we have done of the rest, the duty
+and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the
+better moving of the will.&nbsp; For we see reason is disturbed
+in the administration thereof by three means&mdash;by
+illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination
+or impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or
+affection, which pertains to morality.&nbsp; And as in
+negotiation with others, men are wrought by cunning, by
+importunity, and by vehemency; so in this negotiation within
+ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences, solicited and
+importuned by impressions or observations, and transported by
+passions.&nbsp; Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately
+built, as that those powers and arts should have force to disturb
+reason, and not to establish and advance it.&nbsp; For the end of
+logic is to teach a form of argument to secure reason, and not to
+entrap it; the end of morality is to procure the affections to
+obey reason, and not to invade it; the end of rhetoric is to fill
+the imagination to second reason, and not to oppress it; for
+these abuses of arts come in but <i>ex oblique</i>, for
+caution.</p>
+<p>(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though
+springing out of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time,
+to esteem of rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to
+cookery, that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome by
+variety of sauces to the pleasure of the taste.&nbsp; For we see
+that speech is much more conversant in adorning that which is
+good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is no man
+but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think; and it was
+excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that because he used
+to hold on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was
+ever inveighing against eloquence and good speech, knowing that
+no man can speak fair of courses sordid and base.&nbsp; And
+therefore, as Plato said elegantly, &ldquo;That virtue, if she
+could be seen, would move great love and affection;&rdquo; so
+seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape,
+the next degree is to show her to the imagination in lively
+representation; for to show her to reason only in subtlety of
+argument was a thing ever derided in Chrysippus and many of the
+Stoics, who thought to thrust virtue upon men by sharp
+disputations and conclusions, which have no sympathy with the
+will of man.</p>
+<p>(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and
+obedient to reason, it were true there should be no great use of
+persuasions and insinuations to the will, more than of naked
+proposition and proofs; but in regard of the continual mutinies
+and seditious of the affections&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Video meliora,
+proboque,<br />
+Deteriora sequor,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of
+persuasions did not practise and win the imagination from the
+affections&rsquo; part, and contract a confederacy between the
+reason and imagination against the affections; for the affections
+themselves carry ever an appetite to good, as reason doth.&nbsp;
+The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the
+present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, the present filling the imagination more, reason is
+commonly vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and
+persuasion hath made things future and remote appear as present,
+then upon the revolt of the imagination reason prevaileth.</p>
+<p>(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more
+charged with the colouring of the worst part, than logic with
+sophistry, or morality with vice; for we know the doctrines of
+contraries are the same, though the use be opposite.&nbsp; It
+appeareth also that logic differeth from rhetoric, not only as
+the fist from the palm&mdash;the one close, the other at
+large&mdash;but much more in this, that logic handleth reason
+exact and in truth, and rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in
+popular opinions and manners.&nbsp; And therefore Aristotle doth
+wisely place rhetoric as between logic on the one side, and moral
+or civil knowledge on the other, as participating of both; for
+the proofs and demonstrations of logic are toward all men
+indifferent and the same, but the proofs and persuasions of
+rhetoric ought to differ according to the auditors:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas
+Arion.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far
+that if a man should speak of the same thing to several persons,
+he should speak to them all respectively and several ways; though
+this politic part of eloquence in private speech it is easy for
+the greatest orators to want: whilst, by the observing their
+well-graced forms of speech, they leese the volubility of
+application; and therefore it shall not be amiss to recommend
+this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it
+here or in that part which concerneth policy.</p>
+<p>(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as
+I said, are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom
+and diligence of Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a
+collection of the popular signs and colours of good and evil,
+both simple and comparative, which are as the sophisms of
+rhetoric (as I touched before).&nbsp; For example&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Sophisma.</p>
+<p>Quod laudatur, bonum: quod vituperatur, malum.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Redargutio.</p>
+<p>Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Malum est</i>, <i>malum est</i> (<i>inquit emptor</i>):
+<i>sed cum recesserit</i>, <i>tum gloriabitur</i>!&nbsp; The
+defects in the labour of Aristotle are three&mdash;one, that
+there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are not
+annexed; and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use
+of them: for their use is not only in probation, but much more in
+impression.&nbsp; For many forms are equal in signification which
+are differing in impression, as the difference is great in the
+piercing of that which is sharp and that which is flat, though
+the strength of the percussion be the same.&nbsp; For there is no
+man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said,
+&ldquo;Your enemies will be glad of this&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur
+Atrid&aelig;.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>than by hearing it said only, &ldquo;This is evil for
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before,
+touching provision or preparatory store for the furniture of
+speech and readiness of invention, which appeareth to be of two
+sorts: the one in resemblance to a shop of pieces unmade up, the
+other to a shop of things ready made up; both to be applied to
+that which is frequent and most in request.&nbsp; The former of
+these I will call <i>antitheta</i>, and the latter
+<i>formul&aelig;</i>.</p>
+<p>(8) <i>Antitheta</i> are theses argued <i>pro et contra</i>,
+wherein men may be more large and laborious; but (in such as are
+able to do it) to avoid prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of
+the several arguments to be cast up into some brief and acute
+sentences, not to be cited, but to be as skeins or bottoms of
+thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be used;
+supplying authorities and examples by reference.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;<i>Pro verbis
+legis</i>.<br />
+Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, qu&aelig; recedit a
+litera:<br />
+Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Pro sententia legis</i>.<br />
+Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur
+singula.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(9) <i>Formul&aelig;</i> are but decent and apt passages or
+conveyances of speech, which may serve indifferently for
+differing subjects; as of preface, conclusion, digression,
+transition, excusation, &amp;c.&nbsp; For as in buildings there
+is great pleasure and use in the well casting of the staircases,
+entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech, the
+conveyances and passages are of special ornament and effect.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>A conclusion in a deliberative</i>.<br
+/>
+So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the
+inconveniences future.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of
+knowledge, the one critical, the other pedantical.&nbsp; For all
+knowledge is either delivered by teachers, or attained by
+men&rsquo;s proper endeavours: and therefore as the principal
+part of tradition of knowledge concerneth chiefly writing of
+books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading of books;
+whereunto appertain incidently these considerations.&nbsp; The
+first is concerning the true correction and edition of authors;
+wherein nevertheless rash diligence hath done great
+prejudice.&nbsp; For these critics have often presumed that that
+which they understand not is false set down: as the priest that,
+where he found it written of St. Paul <i>Demissus est per
+sportam</i>, mended his book, and made it <i>Demissus est per
+portam</i>; because <i>sporta</i> was a hard word, and out of his
+reading: and surely their errors, though they be not so palpable
+and ridiculous, yet are of the same kind.&nbsp; And therefore, as
+it hath been wisely noted, the most corrected copies are commonly
+the least correct.</p>
+<p>The second is concerning the exposition and explication of
+authors, which resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein
+it is over usual to blanch the obscure places and discourse upon
+the plain.</p>
+<p>The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give
+great light to true interpretations.</p>
+<p>The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of
+the authors; that men thereby may make some election unto
+themselves what books to read.</p>
+<p>And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of
+studies; that men may know in what order or pursuit to read.</p>
+<p>(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of
+tradition which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers
+considerations of great fruit.</p>
+<p>As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what
+to initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.</p>
+<p>Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest,
+and so proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to
+press the more difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy;
+for it is one method to practise swimming with bladders, and
+another to practise dancing with heavy shoes.</p>
+<p>A third is the application of learning according unto the
+propriety of the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties
+intellectual, but seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some
+studies: as, for example, if a child be bird-witted, that is,
+hath not the faculty of attention, the mathematics giveth a
+remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be caught away but a
+moment, one is new to begin.&nbsp; And as sciences have a
+propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or
+powers have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy
+profiting: and therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what
+kinds of wits and natures are most apt and proper for what
+sciences.</p>
+<p>Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great
+consequence to hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero,
+men in exercising their faculties, if they be not well advised,
+do exercise their faults and get ill habits as well as good; so
+as there is a great judgment to be had in the continuance and
+intermission of exercises.&nbsp; It were too long to
+particularise a number of other considerations of this nature,
+things but of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy.&nbsp;
+For as the wronging or cherishing of seeds or young plants is
+that that is most important to their thriving, and as it was
+noted that the first six kings being in truth as tutors of the
+state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the principal cause of
+the immense greatness of that state which followed, so the
+culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible
+(though unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time or
+contention of labour can countervail it afterwards.&nbsp; And it
+is not amiss to observe also how small and mean faculties gotten
+by education, yet when they fall into great men or great matters,
+do work great and important effects: whereof we see a notable
+example in Tacitus of two stage players, Percennius and
+Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian
+armies into an extreme tumult and combustion.&nbsp; For there
+arising a mutiny amongst them upon the death of Augustus
+C&aelig;sar, Bl&aelig;sus the lieutenant had committed some of
+the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon Vibulenus
+got to be heard speak, which he did in this
+manner:&mdash;&ldquo;These poor innocent wretches appointed to
+cruel death, you have restored to behold the light; but who shall
+restore my brother to me, or life unto my brother, that was sent
+hither in message from the legions of Germany, to treat of the
+common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by some of
+his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
+executioners upon soldiers.&nbsp; Answer, Bl&aelig;sus, what is
+done with his body?&nbsp; The mortalest enemies do not deny
+burial.&nbsp; When I have performed my last duties to the corpse
+with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain besides him; so
+that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true hearts
+to the legions, may have leave to bury us.&rdquo;&nbsp; With
+which speech he put the army into an infinite fury and uproar:
+whereas truth was he had no brother, neither was there any such
+matter; but he played it merely as if he had been upon the
+stage.</p>
+<p>(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational
+knowledges; wherein if I have made the divisions other than those
+that are received, yet would I not be thought to disallow all
+those divisions which I do not use.&nbsp; For there is a double
+necessity imposed upon me of altering the divisions.&nbsp; The
+one, because it differeth in end and purpose, to sort together
+those things which are next in nature, and those things which are
+next in use.&nbsp; For if a secretary of estate should sort his
+papers, it is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort
+together things of a nature, as treaties, instructions,
+&amp;c.&nbsp; But in his boxes or particular cabinet he would
+sort together those that he were like to use together, though of
+several natures.&nbsp; So in this general cabinet of knowledge it
+was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the nature of
+things; whereas if myself had been to handle any particular
+knowledge, I would have respected the divisions fittest for
+use.&nbsp; The other, because the bringing in of the deficiences
+did by consequence alter the partitions of the rest.&nbsp; For
+let the knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be
+fifteen.&nbsp; Let the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty;
+the parts of fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts
+of fifteen are three and five; the parts of twenty are two, four,
+five, and ten.&nbsp; So as these things are without
+contradiction, and could not otherwise be.</p>
+<p>XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of
+the appetite and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, <i>Ante
+omnia</i>, <i>fili</i>, <i>custodi cor tuum</i>: <i>nam inde
+procedunt actiones vit&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; In the handling of this
+science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a
+man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair
+copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giving any
+precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand and framing
+of the letters.&nbsp; So have they made good and fair exemplars
+and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good,
+virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well described as the
+true objects and scopes of man&rsquo;s will and desires.&nbsp;
+But how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and
+subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these
+pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and
+unprofitably.&nbsp; For it is not the disputing that moral
+virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by nature, or the
+distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines and
+persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and
+the like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the
+absence of this part.</p>
+<p>(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden
+rock whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have
+been cast away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant
+in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof
+nevertheless is the wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in
+novelties nor subtleties), but contrariwise they have compounded
+sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of
+matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of
+disputatious, or to the eloquence of discourses.&nbsp; But Seneca
+giveth an excellent check to eloquence, <i>Nocet illis
+eloquentia</i>, <i>quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit</i>, <i>sed
+sui</i>.&nbsp; Doctrine should be such as should make men in love
+with the lesson, and not with the teacher; being directed to the
+auditor&rsquo;s benefit, and not to the author&rsquo;s
+commendation.&nbsp; And therefore those are of the right kind
+which may be concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel,
+<i>Qu&aelig; si feceritis</i>, <i>non oratorem dumtaxat in
+pr&aelig;sentia laudabitis</i>, <i>sed vosmetipsos etiam non ita
+multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore</i>.</p>
+<p>(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired
+of a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed
+obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning
+in the expressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the
+heroical acts of &AElig;neas:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere
+magnum<br />
+Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at
+leisure that which men may read at leisure, but really to
+instruct and suborn action and active life, these Georgics of the
+mind, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less
+worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and
+felicity.&nbsp; Wherefore the main and primitive division of
+moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or platform of
+good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one describing
+the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue,
+apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.</p>
+<p>(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good
+considereth it either simple or compared; either the kinds of
+good, or the degrees of good; in the latter whereof those
+infinite disputatious which were touching the supreme degree
+thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude, or the highest
+good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen
+divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged.&nbsp; And as
+Aristotle saith, &ldquo;That young men may be happy, but not
+otherwise but by hope;&rdquo; so we must all acknowledge our
+minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope of the future
+world.</p>
+<p>(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the
+philosopher&rsquo;s heaven, whereby they feigned a higher
+elevation of man&rsquo;s nature than was (for we see in what
+height of style Seneca writeth, <i>Vere magnum</i>, <i>habere
+fragilitatem hominis</i>, <i>securitatem Dei</i>), we may with
+more sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and
+labours.&nbsp; Wherein for the nature of good positive or simple,
+they have set it down excellently in describing the forms of
+virtue and duty, with their situations and postures; in
+distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions,
+and administrations, and the like: nay further, they have
+commended them to man&rsquo;s nature and spirit with great
+quickness of argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and
+fortified and entrenched them (as much as discourse can do)
+against corrupt and popular opinions.&nbsp; Again, for the
+degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also
+excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the
+comparisons between a contemplative and an active life, in the
+distinction between virtue with reluctation and virtue secured,
+in their encounters between honesty and profit, in their
+balancing of virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part
+deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.</p>
+<p>(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular
+and received notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and
+the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry
+concerning the roots of good and evil, and the strings of those
+roots, they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that which
+followed; and specially if they had consulted with nature, they
+had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound: which
+being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much
+confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear
+manner.</p>
+<p>(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of
+good&mdash;the one, as everything is a total or substantive in
+itself; the other, as it is a part or member of a greater body;
+whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier,
+because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general
+form.&nbsp; Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy
+moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity,
+it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good
+patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region and country of
+massy bodies; so may we go forward, and see that water and massy
+bodies move to the centre of the earth; but rather than to suffer
+a divulsion in the continuance of nature, they will move upwards
+from the centre of the earth, forsaking their duty to the earth
+in regard of their duty to the world.&nbsp; This double nature of
+good, and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven upon
+man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to
+the public ought to be much more precious than the conservation
+of life and being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius
+Magnus, when being in commission of purveyance for a famine at
+Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by
+his friends about him, that he should not hazard himself to sea
+in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, <i>Necesse est
+ut eam</i>, <i>non ut vivam</i>.&nbsp; But it may be truly
+affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other
+discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which
+is communicative, and depress the good which is private and
+particular, as the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the
+same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws
+of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before; for we
+read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves
+anathematised and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of
+charity and infinite feeling of communion.</p>
+<p>(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and
+determine most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is
+conversant.&nbsp; For first, it decideth the question touching
+the preferment of the contemplative or active life, and decideth
+it against Aristotle.&nbsp; For all the reasons which he bringeth
+for the contemplative are private, and respecting the pleasure
+and dignity of a man&rsquo;s self (in which respects no question
+the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike to
+that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and
+magnifying of philosophy and contemplation, who being asked what
+he was, answered, &ldquo;That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian
+games, he knew the manner, that some came to try their fortune
+for the prizes, and some came as merchants to utter their
+commodities, and some came to make good cheer and meet their
+friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of them
+that came to look on.&rdquo;&nbsp; But men must know, that in
+this theatre of man&rsquo;s life it is reserved only for God and
+angels to be lookers on.&nbsp; Neither could the like question
+ever have been received in the Church, notwithstanding their
+<i>Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus</i>, by which
+place they would exalt their civil death and regular professions,
+but upon this defence, that the monastical life is not simple
+contemplative, but performeth the duty either of incessant
+prayers and supplications, which hath been truly esteemed as an
+office in the Church, or else of writing or taking instructions
+for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses did when he abode
+so long in the mount.&nbsp; And so we see Enoch, the seventh from
+Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with God, yet
+did also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude
+citeth.&nbsp; But for contemplation which should be finished in
+itself, without casting beams upon society, assuredly divinity
+knoweth it not.</p>
+<p>(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and
+Socrates, and their schools and successions, on the one side, who
+placed felicity in virtue simply or attended, the actions and
+exercises whereof do chiefly embrace and concern society; and on
+the other side, the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed it in
+pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in some comedies of
+errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits) to be
+but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served and
+attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed
+it in serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation; as if they
+would have deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and the
+first age, when there was no summer nor winter, spring nor
+autumn, but all after one air and season; and Herillus, which
+placed felicity in extinguishment of the disputes of the mind,
+making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming things
+according to the clearness of the desires, or the reluctation;
+which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists,
+measuring things according to the motions of the spirit, and the
+constancy or wavering of belief; all which are manifest to tend
+to private repose and contentment, and not to point of
+society.</p>
+<p>(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which
+presupposeth that felicity must be placed in those things which
+are in our power, lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance;
+as if it were not a thing much more happy to fail in good and
+virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain all that we can wish
+to ourselves in our proper fortune: as Consalvo said to his
+soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he had rather die
+one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for long by one
+foot of retreat.&nbsp; Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly
+leader hath signed, who hath affirmed that &ldquo;a good
+conscience is a continual feast;&rdquo; showing plainly that the
+conscience of good intentions, howsoever succeeding, is a more
+continual joy to nature than all the provision which can be made
+for security and repose.</p>
+<p>(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew
+general about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an
+occupation or profession; as if the purpose had been, not to
+resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly and avoid the
+causes of them, and to shape a particular kind and course of life
+to that end; introducing such a health of mind, as was that
+health of body of which Aristotle speaketh of Herodicus, who did
+nothing all his life long but intend his health; whereas if men
+refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of body is
+best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities,
+so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go
+through the greatest temptations and perturbations.&nbsp; So as
+Diogenes&rsquo; opinion is to be accepted, who commended not them
+which abstained, but them which sustained, and could refrain
+their mind <i>in pr&aelig;cipitio</i>, and could give unto the
+mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn.</p>
+<p>(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of
+application in some of the most ancient and reverend philosophers
+and philosophical men, that did retire too easily from civil
+business, for avoiding of indignities and perturbations; whereas
+the resolution of men truly moral ought to be such as the same
+Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, <i>e tel&acirc;
+crassiore</i>, and not so fine as that everything should catch in
+it and endanger it.</p>
+<p>XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into
+the division of good active and passive; for this difference of
+good (not unlike to that which amongst the Romans was expressed
+in the familiar or household terms of <i>promus</i> and
+<i>condus</i>) is formed also in all things, and is best
+disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the one to
+preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or
+multiply themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the
+worthier; for in nature the heavens, which are the more worthy,
+are the agent, and the earth, which is the less worthy, is the
+patient.&nbsp; In the pleasures of living creatures, that of
+generation is greater than that of food.&nbsp; In divine
+doctrine, <i>beatius est dare quam accipere</i>.&nbsp; And in
+life, there is no man&rsquo;s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the
+effecting of somewhat that he hath fixed in his desire, more than
+sensuality, which priority of the active good is much upheld by
+the consideration of our estate to be mortal and exposed to
+fortune.&nbsp; For if we might have a perpetuity and certainty in
+our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price.&nbsp;
+But when we see it is but <i>magni &aelig;stimamus mori
+tardius</i>, and <i>ne glorieris de crastino</i>, <i>nescis
+partum diei</i>, it maketh us to desire to have somewhat secured
+and exempted from time, which are only our deeds and works; as it
+is said, <i>Opera eorum sequuntur eos</i>.&nbsp; The pre-eminence
+likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection which is
+natural in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the
+pleasures of the sense, which is the principal part of passive
+good, can have no great latitude.&nbsp; <i>Cogita quamdiu eadem
+feceris</i>; <i>cibus</i>, <i>somnus</i>, <i>ludus per hunc
+circulum curritur</i>; <i>mori velle non tantum fortis</i>,
+<i>aut miser</i>, <i>aut prudens</i>, <i>sed etiam fastidiosus
+potest</i>.&nbsp; But in enterprises, pursuits, and purposes of
+life, there is much variety; whereof men are sensible with
+pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils,
+reintegrations, approaches and attainings to their ends.&nbsp; So
+as it was well said, <i>Vita sine proposito languida et vaga
+est</i>.&nbsp; Neither hath this active good an identity with the
+good of society, though in some cases it hath an incidence into
+it.&nbsp; For although it do many times bring forth acts of
+beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to a man&rsquo;s
+own power, glory, amplification, continuance; as appeareth
+plainly, when it findeth a contrary subject.&nbsp; For that
+gigantine state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the
+world, such as was Lucius Sylla and infinite other in smaller
+model, who would have all men happy or unhappy as they were their
+friends or enemies, and would give form to the world, according
+to their own humours (which is the true theomachy), pretendeth
+and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth furthest from
+good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.</p>
+<p>(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of
+conservative and effective.&nbsp; For let us take a brief review
+of that which we have said: we have spoken first of the good of
+society, the intention whereof embraceth the form of human
+nature, whereof we are members and portions, and not our own
+proper and individual form; we have spoken of active good, and
+supposed it as a part of private and particular good.&nbsp; And
+rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple desire
+or appetite proceeding from love to themselves: one of preserving
+and continuing their form; another of advancing and perfecting
+their form; and a third of multiplying and extending their form
+upon other things: whereof the multiplying, or signature of it
+upon other things, is that which we handled by the name of active
+good.&nbsp; So as there remaineth the conserving of it, and
+perfecting or raising of it, which latter is the highest degree
+of passive good.&nbsp; For to preserve in state is the less, to
+preserve with advancement is the greater.&nbsp; So in man,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Igneus est ollis vigor, et c&aelig;lestis
+origo.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is
+the perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which
+good is that which is the tempest of human life; while man, upon
+the instinct of an advancement, formal and essential, is carried
+to seek an advancement local.&nbsp; For as those which are sick,
+and find no remedy, do tumble up and down and change place, as if
+by a remove local they could obtain a remove internal, so is it
+with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to exalt their
+nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their
+place.&nbsp; So then passive good is, as was said, either
+conservative or perfective.</p>
+<p>(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which
+consisteth in the fruition of that which is agreeable to our
+natures; it seemeth to be most pure and natural of pleasures, but
+yet the softest and lowest.&nbsp; And this also receiveth a
+difference, which hath neither been well judged of, nor well
+inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
+either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness
+and vigour of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by
+vicissitude; the one having less mixture of evil, the other more
+impression of good.&nbsp; Whether of these is the greater good is
+a question controverted; but whether man&rsquo;s nature may not
+be capable of both is a question not inquired.</p>
+<p>(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a
+sophist, Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace
+of mind, and the sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they
+fell from argument to ill words: the sophist saying that
+Socrates&rsquo; felicity was the felicity of a block or stone;
+and Socrates saying that the sophist&rsquo;s felicity was the
+felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but itch and
+scratch.&nbsp; And both these opinions do not want their
+supports.&nbsp; For the opinion of Socrates is much upheld by the
+general consent even of the epicures themselves, that virtue
+beareth a great part in felicity; and if so, certain it is, that
+virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then in compassing
+desires.&nbsp; The sophist&rsquo;s opinion is much favoured by
+the assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is
+greater than good of simple preservation; because every obtaining
+a desire hath a show of advancement, as motion though in a circle
+hath a show of progression.</p>
+<p>(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the
+former superfluous.&nbsp; For can it be doubted, but that there
+are some who take more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some
+other, and yet, nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or
+leaving of them?&nbsp; So as this same, <i>Non uti ut non
+appetas</i>, <i>non appetere ut non metuas</i>, <i>sunt animi
+pusilli et diffidentis</i>.&nbsp; And it seemeth to me that most
+of the doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and
+cautious than the nature of things requireth.&nbsp; So have they
+increased the fear of death in offering to cure it.&nbsp; For
+when they would have a man&rsquo;s whole life to be but a
+discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men think
+that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no end of
+preparing.&nbsp; Better saith the poet:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Qui finem vit&aelig; extremum inter munera
+ponat<br />
+Natur&aelig;.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So have they sought to make men&rsquo;s minds too uniform and
+harmonical, by not breaking them sufficiently to contrary
+motions; the reasons whereof I suppose to be, because they
+themselves were men dedicated to a private, free, and unapplied
+course of life.&nbsp; For as we see, upon the lute or like
+instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many
+changes, yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops
+and passages, as a set song or voluntary; much after the same
+manner was the diversity between a philosophical and civil
+life.&nbsp; And, therefore, men are to imitate the wisdom of
+jewellers: who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or an ice which
+may be ground forth without taking too much of the stone, they
+help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone too much,
+they will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity
+as they destroy not magnanimity.</p>
+<p>(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private
+and particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that
+good of man which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may
+term duty; because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well
+framed and disposed towards others, as the term of virtue is
+applied to a mind well formed and composed in itself; though
+neither can a man understand virtue without some relation to
+society, nor duty without an inward disposition.&nbsp; This part
+may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic; but
+not if it be well observed.&nbsp; For it concerneth the regiment
+and government of every man over himself, and not over
+others.&nbsp; And as in architecture the direction of framing the
+posts, beams, and other parts of building, is not the same with
+the manner of joining them and erecting the building; and in
+mechanicals, the direction how to frame an instrument or engine
+is not the same with the manner of setting it on work and
+employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one you
+incidently express the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine
+of conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their
+conformity thereunto.</p>
+<p>(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common
+duty of every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the
+respective or special duty of every man in his profession,
+vocation, and place.&nbsp; The first of these is extant and well
+laboured, as hath been said.&nbsp; The second likewise I may
+report rather dispersed than deficient; which manner of dispersed
+writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge to be best.&nbsp;
+For who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue,
+challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and
+place?&nbsp; For although sometimes a looker on may see more than
+a gamester, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound,
+&ldquo;That the vale best discovereth the hill;&rdquo; yet there
+is small doubt but that men can write best and most really and
+materially in their own professions; and that the writing of
+speculative men of active matter for the most part doth seem to
+men of experience, as Phormio&rsquo;s argument of the wars seemed
+to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage.&nbsp; Only there is one
+vice which accompanieth them that write in their own professions,
+that they magnify them in excess.&nbsp; But generally it were to
+be wished (as that which would make learning indeed solid and
+fruitful) that active men would or could become writers.</p>
+<p>(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, <i>honoris causa</i>,
+your Majesty&rsquo;s excellent book touching the duty of a king;
+a work richly compounded of divinity, morality, and policy, with
+great aspersion of all other arts; and being in some opinion one
+of the most sound and healthful writings that I have read: not
+distempered in the heat of invention, nor in the coldness of
+negligence; not sick of dizziness, as those are who leese
+themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which
+cramp in matters impertinent; not savouring of perfumes and
+paintings, as those do who seek to please the reader more than
+nature beareth; and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof,
+being agreeable to truth and apt for action; and far removed from
+that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted those that write in
+their own professions to be subject&mdash;which is, that they
+exalt it above measure.&nbsp; For your Majesty hath truly
+described, not a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory,
+but a Moses or a David, pastors of their people.&nbsp; Neither
+can I ever leese out of my remembrance what I heard your Majesty
+in the same sacred spirit of government deliver in a great cause
+of judicature, which was, &ldquo;That kings ruled by their laws,
+as God did by the laws of nature; and ought as rarely to put in
+use their supreme prerogative as God doth His power of working
+miracles.&rdquo;&nbsp; And yet notwithstanding in your book of a
+free monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know
+the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as well as the
+circle of his office and duty.&nbsp; Thus have I presumed to
+allege this excellent writing of your Majesty, as a prime or
+eminent example of tractates concerning special and respective
+duties; wherein I should have said as much, if it had been
+written a thousand years since.&nbsp; Neither am I moved with
+certain courtly decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in
+presence.&nbsp; No, it is flattery to praise in
+absence&mdash;that is, when either the virtue is absent, or the
+occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural, but forced,
+either in truth or in time.&nbsp; But let Cicero be read in his
+oration <i>pro Marcello</i>, which is nothing but an excellent
+table of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s virtue, and made to his face;
+besides the example of many other excellent persons, wiser a
+great deal than such observers; and we will never doubt, upon a
+full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.</p>
+<p>(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of
+this part, touching the duties of professions and vocations, a
+relative or opposite, touching the frauds, cautels, impostures,
+and vices of every profession, which hath been likewise handled;
+but how? rather in a satire and cynically, than seriously and
+wisely; for men have rather sought by wit to deride and traduce
+much of that which is good in professions, than with judgment to
+discover and sever that which is corrupt.&nbsp; For, as Solomon
+saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to
+scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humour,
+but no matter for his instruction: <i>Qu&aelig;renti derisori
+scientiam ipsa se abscondit</i>; <i>sed studioso fit
+obviam</i>.&nbsp; But the managing of this argument with
+integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to
+be one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can
+be planted.&nbsp; For, as the fable goeth of the
+basilisk&mdash;that if he see you first, you die for it; but if
+you see him first, he dieth&mdash;so is it with deceits and evil
+arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their life; but
+if they prevent, they endanger.&nbsp; So that we are much
+beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not
+what they ought to do.&nbsp; For it is not possible to join
+serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know
+exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going
+upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting,
+and the rest&mdash;that is, all forms and natures of evil.&nbsp;
+For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.&nbsp; Nay, an
+honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim
+them, without the help of the knowledge of evil.&nbsp; For men of
+corrupted minds presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity
+of manners, and believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and
+men&rsquo;s exterior language.&nbsp; So as, except you can make
+them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of their own
+corrupt opinions, they despise all morality.&nbsp; <i>Non recipit
+stultus verba prudenti&aelig;</i>, <i>nisi ea dixeris
+qu&aelig;</i>, <i>versantur in corde ejus</i>.</p>
+<p>(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also
+appertain the duties between husband and wife, parent and child,
+master and servant.&nbsp; So likewise the laws of friendship and
+gratitude, the civil bond of companies, colleges, and politic
+bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other proportionate duties; not
+as they are parts of government and society, but as to the
+framing of the mind of particular persons.</p>
+<p>(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth
+handle it also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto
+belongeth the weighing of duties between person and person, case
+and case, particular and public.&nbsp; As we see in the
+proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own sons, which was so
+much extolled, yet what was said?</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata
+minores.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides.&nbsp;
+Again, we see when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper
+certain whose opinions they meant to feel, whether they were fit
+to be made their associates, and cast forth the question touching
+the killing of a tyrant being a usurper, they were divided in
+opinion; some holding that servitude was the extreme of evils,
+and others that tyranny was better than a civil war: and a number
+of the like cases there are of comparative duty.&nbsp; Amongst
+which that of all others is the most frequent, where the question
+is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice.&nbsp;
+Which Jason of Thessalia determined against the truth: <i>Aliqua
+sunt injuste facienda</i>, <i>ut multa juste fieri
+possint</i>.&nbsp; But the reply is good: <i>Auctorem
+pr&aelig;sentis justiti&aelig; habes</i>, <i>sponsorem
+futur&aelig; non habes</i>.&nbsp; Men must pursue things which
+are just in present, and leave the future to the Divine
+Providence.&nbsp; So then we pass on from this general part
+touching the exemplar and description of good.</p>
+<p>XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of
+life, it remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth
+thereunto, without which part the former seemeth to be no better
+than a fair image or statue, which is beautiful to contemplate,
+but is without life and motion; whereunto Aristotle himself
+subscribeth in these words: <i>Necesse est scilicet de virtute
+dicere</i>, <i>et quid sit</i>, <i>et ex quibus
+gignatur</i>.&nbsp; <i>Inutile enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem
+nosse</i>, <i>acquirend&aelig; autem ejus modos et vias
+ignorare</i>.&nbsp; <i>Non enum de virtute tantum</i>, <i>qua
+specie sit</i>, <i>qu&aelig;rendum est</i>, <i>sed et quomodo sui
+copiam faciat</i>: <i>utrumque enum volumeus</i>, <i>et rem ipsam
+nosse</i>, <i>et ejus compotes fieri</i>: <i>hoc autem ex voto
+non succedet</i>, <i>nisi sciamus et ex quibus et
+quomodo</i>.&nbsp; In such full words and with such iteration
+doth he inculcate this part.&nbsp; So saith Cicero in great
+commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied himself to
+philosophy, <i>Non ita disputandi causa</i>, <i>sed ita
+vivendi</i>.&nbsp; And although the neglect of our times, wherein
+few men do hold any consultations touching the reformation of
+their life (as Seneca excellently saith, <i>De partibus
+vit&aelig; quisque deliberat</i>, <i>de summa nemo</i>), may make
+this part seem superfluous; yet I must conclude with that
+aphorism of Hippocrates, <i>Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non
+sentiunt</i>, <i>iis mens &aelig;grotat</i>.&nbsp; They need
+medicine, not only to assuage the disease, but to awake the
+sense.&nbsp; And if it be said that the cure of men&rsquo;s minds
+belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral
+philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble
+handmaid.&nbsp; For as the Psalm saith, &ldquo;That the eyes of
+the handmaid look perpetually towards the mistress,&rdquo; and
+yet no doubt many things are left to the discretion of the
+handmaid to discern of the mistress&rsquo; will; so ought moral
+philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of
+divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself (within due
+limits) many sound and profitable directions.</p>
+<p>(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I
+cannot but find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to
+written inquiry; the rather, because it consisteth of much
+matter, wherein both speech and action is often conversant; and
+such wherein the common talk of men (which is rare, but yet
+cometh sometimes to pass) is wiser than their books.&nbsp; It is
+reasonable, therefore, that we propound it in the more
+particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit
+ourselves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost
+incredible, and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those
+themselves that have written.&nbsp; We will, therefore, enumerate
+some heads or points thereof, that it may appear the better what
+it is, and whether it be extant.</p>
+<p>(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are
+practical we ought to cast up our account, what is in our power,
+and what not; for the one may be dealt with by way of alteration,
+but the other by way of application only.&nbsp; The husbandman
+cannot command neither the nature of the earth nor the seasons of
+the weather; no more can the physician the constitution of the
+patient nor the variety of accidents.&nbsp; So in the culture and
+cure of the mind of man, two things are without our command:
+points of Nature, and points of fortune.&nbsp; For to the basis
+of the one, and the conditions of the other, our work is limited
+and tied.&nbsp; In these things, therefore, it is left unto us to
+proceed by application:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Vincenda est omnis fertuna
+ferendo:&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and so likewise,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Vincenda est omnis Natura
+ferendo.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull
+and neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering,
+which draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which
+seemeth adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we
+call accommodating or applying.&nbsp; Now the wisdom of
+application resteth principally in the exact and distinct
+knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which we do
+apply; for we cannot fit a garment except we first take measure
+of the body.</p>
+<p>(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set
+down sound and true distributions and descriptions of the several
+characters and tempers of men&rsquo;s natures and dispositions,
+specially having regard to those differences which are most
+radical in being the fountains and causes of the rest, or most
+frequent in concurrence or commixture; wherein it is not the
+handling of a few of them in passage, the better to describe the
+mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention.&nbsp;
+For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which
+are proportioned to great matters, and others to small (which
+Aristotle handleth, or ought to have bandied, by the name of
+magnanimity), doth it not deserve as well to be considered that
+there are minds proportioned to intend many matters, and others
+to few?&nbsp; So that some can divide themselves: others can
+perchance do exactly well, but it must be but in few things at
+once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as well as
+a pusillanimity.&nbsp; And again, that some minds are
+proportioned to that which may be dispatched at once, or within a
+short return of time; others to that which begins afar off, and
+is to be won with length of pursuit:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Jam tum tenditqus fovetque.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is
+commonly also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.&nbsp; So further
+deserved it to be considered by Aristotle, &ldquo;That there is a
+disposition in conversation (supposing it in things which do in
+no sort touch or concern a man&rsquo;s self) to soothe and
+please, and a disposition contrary to contradict and
+cross;&rdquo; and deserveth it not much better to be
+considered.&nbsp; &ldquo;That there is a disposition, not in
+conversation or talk, but in matter of more serious nature (and
+supposing it still in things merely indifferent), to take
+pleasure in the good of another; and a disposition contrariwise,
+to take distaste at the good of another?&rdquo; which is that
+properly which we call good nature or ill nature, benignity or
+malignity; and, therefore, I cannot sufficiently marvel that this
+part of knowledge, touching the several characters of natures and
+dispositions, should be omitted both in morality and policy,
+considering it is of so great ministry and suppeditation to them
+both.&nbsp; A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some
+pretty and apt divisions of men&rsquo;s natures, according to the
+predominances of the planets: lovers of quiet, lovers of action,
+lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers
+of arts, lovers of change, and so forth.&nbsp; A man shall find
+in the wisest sort of these relations which the Italians make
+touching conclaves, the natures of the several cardinals
+handsomely and lively painted forth.&nbsp; A man shall meet with
+in every day&rsquo;s conference the denominations of sensitive,
+dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, <i>huomo di prima
+impressione</i>, <i>huomo di ultima impressione</i>, and the
+like; and yet, nevertheless, this kind of observations wandereth
+in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.&nbsp; For the distinctions
+are found (many of them), but we conclude no precepts upon them:
+wherein our fault is the greater, because both history, poesy,
+and daily experience are as goodly fields where these
+observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our
+hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary that
+receipts might be made of them for use of life.</p>
+<p>(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which
+are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region,
+by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like,
+which are inherent and not extern; and again, those which are
+caused by extern fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, obscure
+birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity,
+adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune, rising <i>per
+saltum</i>, <i>per gradus</i>, and the like.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, we see that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old
+man beneficent, <i>benignitas hujis ut adolescentuli
+est</i>.&nbsp; Saint Paul concludeth that severity of discipline
+was to be used to the Cretans, <i>increpa eos dure</i>, upon the
+disposition of their country, <i>Cretensus semper mendaces</i>,
+<i>mal&aelig; besti&aelig;</i>, <i>ventres</i>.&nbsp; Sallust
+noteth that it is usual with kings to desire contradictories:
+<i>Sed plerumque regi&aelig; voluntates</i>, <i>ut vehementes
+sunt</i>, <i>sic mobiles</i>, <i>s&aelig;peque ips&aelig; sibi
+advers</i>.&nbsp; Tacitus observeth how rarely raising of the
+fortune mendeth the disposition: <i>solus Vespasianus mutatus in
+melius</i>.&nbsp; Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and
+sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men <i>qui magnam
+felicitatem concoquere non possunt</i>.&nbsp; So the Psalm
+showeth it is more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying of
+fortune, than in the increase of fortune; <i>Diviti&aelig; si
+affluant</i>, <i>nolite cor apponere</i>.&nbsp; These
+observations and the like I deny not but are touched a little by
+Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some
+scattered discourses; but they were never incorporate into moral
+philosophy, to which they do essentially appertain; as the
+knowledge of this diversity of grounds and moulds doth to
+agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of complexions
+and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to follow
+the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines
+to all patients.</p>
+<p>(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching
+the affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order
+first to know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly,
+the diseases; and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the
+mind, after knowledge of the divers characters of men&rsquo;s
+natures, it followeth in order to know the diseases and
+infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the
+perturbations and distempars of the affections.&nbsp; For as the
+ancient politiques in popular estates were wont to compare the
+people to the sea, and the orators to the winds; because as the
+sea would of itself be calm and quiet, if the winds did not move
+and trouble it; so the people would be peaceable and tractable if
+the seditious orators did not set them in working and agitation:
+so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the nature thereof
+would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as winds, did
+not put it into tumult and perturbation.&nbsp; And here again I
+find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written
+divers volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which
+is the principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where
+they are considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as
+they may be moved by speech), he findeth place for them, and
+handleth them well for the quantity; but where their true place
+is he pretermitteth them.&nbsp; For it is not his disputations
+about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this inquiry, no more
+than he that should generally handle the nature of light can be
+said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are
+to the particular affections as light is to particular
+colours.&nbsp; Better travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken
+in this argument, as far as I can gather by that which we have at
+second hand.&nbsp; But yet it is like it was after their manner,
+rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a subject of this
+nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
+descriptions and observations.&nbsp; So likewise I find some
+particular writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the
+affections: as of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of
+tenderness of countenance, and other.&nbsp; But the poets and
+writers of histories are the best doctors of this knowledge;
+where we may find painted forth, with great life, how affections
+are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how
+again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
+themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and
+fortify: how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they
+do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like
+particularities.&nbsp; Amongst the which this last is of special
+use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection
+against affection, and to master one by another; even as we used
+to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise
+percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation is
+erected that excellent use of <i>pr&aelig;mium</i> and
+<i>p&aelig;na</i>, whereby civil states consist: employing the
+predominant affections of fear and hope, for the suppressing and
+bridling the rest.&nbsp; For as in the government of states it is
+sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so it is
+in the government within.</p>
+<p>(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own
+command, and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect
+the will and appetite, and to alter manners: wherein they ought
+to have handled custom, exercise, habit, education, example,
+imitation, emulation, company, friends, praise, reproof,
+exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these as they have
+determinate use in moralities, from these the mind suffereth, and
+of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and
+described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and
+good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine:
+of which number we will insist upon some one or two, as an
+example of the rest, because it were too long to prosecute all;
+and therefore we do resume custom and habit to speak of.</p>
+<p>(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent
+opinion, that of those things which consist by Nature, nothing
+can be changed by custom; using for example, that if a stone be
+thrown ten thousand times up it will not learn to ascend; and
+that by often seeing or hearing we do not learn to see or hear
+the better.&nbsp; For though this principle be true in things
+wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we cannot now
+stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein Nature
+admitteth a latitude.&nbsp; For he might see that a strait glove
+will come more easily on with use; and that a wand will by use
+bend otherwise than it grew; and that by use of the voice we
+speak louder and stronger; and that by use of enduring heat or
+cold we endure it the better, and the like: which latter sort
+have a nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he
+handleth, than those instances which he allegeth.&nbsp; But
+allowing his conclusion, that virtues and vices consist in habit,
+he ought so much the more to have taught the manner of
+superinducing that habit: for there be many precepts of the wise
+ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of ordering the
+exercises of the body, whereof we will recite a few.</p>
+<p>(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the
+first either too high a strain or too weak: for if too high, in a
+diffident nature you discourage, in a confident nature you breed
+an opinion of facility, and so a sloth; and in all natures you
+breed a further expectation than can hold out, and so an
+insatisfaction in the end: if too weak, of the other side, you
+may not look to perform and overcome any great task.</p>
+<p>(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two
+several times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other
+when it is worst disposed; that by the one you may gain a great
+step, by the other you may work out the knots and stonds of the
+mind, and make the middle times the more easy and pleasant.</p>
+<p>(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the
+way, which is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that
+whereunto we are by nature inclined; like unto the rowing against
+the stream, or making a wand straight by bending him contrary to
+his natural crookedness.</p>
+<p>(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything
+better, and with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto
+you pretend be not first in the intention, but <i>tanquam aliud
+agendo</i>, because of the natural hatred of the mind against
+necessity and constraint.&nbsp; Many other axioms there are
+touching the managing of exercise and custom, which being so
+conducted doth prove indeed another nature; but, being governed
+by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of Nature, and bringeth
+forth that which is lame and counterfeit.</p>
+<p>(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what
+influence and operation they have upon manners, are there not
+divers precepts of great caution and direction appertaining
+thereunto?&nbsp; Did not one of the fathers in great indignation
+call poesy <i>vinum d&aelig;monum</i>, because it increaseth
+temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions?&nbsp; Is not the
+opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith,
+&ldquo;That young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy,
+because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their
+affections, nor attempered with time and experience&rdquo;?&nbsp;
+And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and
+discourses of the ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded
+unto virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and
+majesty, and popular opinions against virtue in their
+parasites&rsquo; coats fit to be scorned and derided), are of so
+little effect towards honesty of life, because they are not read
+and revolved by men in their mature and settled years, but
+confined almost to boys and beginners?&nbsp; But is it not true
+also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of
+policy, till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and
+morality; lest their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to
+think that there are no true differences of things, but according
+to utility and fortune, as the verse describes it, <i>Prosperum
+et felix scelus virtus vocatur</i>; and again, <i>Ille crucem
+pretium sceleris tulit</i>, <i>hic diadema</i>: which the poets
+do speak satirically and in indignation on virtue&rsquo;s behalf;
+but books of policy do speak it seriously and positively; for so
+it pleaseth Machiavel to say, &ldquo;That if C&aelig;sar had been
+overthrown, he would have been more odious than ever was
+Catiline;&rdquo; as if there had been no difference, but in
+fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
+excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world?&nbsp;
+Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the
+doctrines of moralities themselves (some kinds of them), lest
+they make men too precise, arrogant, incompatible; as Cicero
+saith of Cato, <i>In Marco Catone h&aelig;c bona qu&aelig;
+videmus divina et egregia</i>, <i>ipsius scitote esse
+propria</i>; <i>qu&aelig; nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non
+a natura</i>, <i>sed a magistro</i>?&nbsp; Many other axioms and
+advices there are touching those proprieties and effects, which
+studies do infuse and instil into manners.&nbsp; And so,
+likewise, is there touching the use of all those other points, of
+company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the
+beginning in the doctrine of morality.</p>
+<p>(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth
+yet more accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon
+this ground; that the minds of all men are at some times in a
+state more perfect, and at other times in a state more
+depraved.&nbsp; The purpose, therefore, of this practice is to
+fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and
+take forth the evil.&nbsp; The fixing of the good hath been
+practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and
+observances or exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in
+themselves, as because they keep the mind in continual
+obedience.&nbsp; The obliteration of the evil hath been practised
+by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of that which
+is past, and an inception or account <i>de novo</i> for the time
+to come.&nbsp; But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and
+justly; for all good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a
+handmaid to religion.</p>
+<p>(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is
+of all other means the most compendious and summary, and again,
+the most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto
+virtue and good estate; which is, the electing and propounding
+unto a man&rsquo;s self good and virtuous ends of his life, such
+as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to
+attain.&nbsp; For if these two things be supposed, that a man set
+before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute,
+constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould
+himself into all virtue at once.&nbsp; And this indeed is like
+the work of nature; whereas the other course is like the work of
+the hand.&nbsp; For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes
+only that part whereupon he worketh; as if he be upon the face,
+that part which shall be the body is but a rude stone still, till
+such times as he comes to it.&nbsp; But contrariwise when nature
+makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all
+the parts at one time.&nbsp; So in obtaining virtue by habit,
+while a man practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to
+fortitude, nor the like but when he dedicateth and applieth
+himself to good ends, look, what virtue soever the pursuit and
+passage towards those ends doth commend unto him, he is invested
+of a precedent disposition to conform himself thereunto.&nbsp;
+Which state of mind Aristotle doth excellently express himself,
+that it ought not to be called virtuous, but divine.&nbsp; His
+words are these: <i>Immanitati autem consentaneum est opponere
+eam</i>, <i>qu&aelig; supra humanitatem est</i>, <i>heroicam sive
+divinam virtutem</i>; and a little after, <i>Nam ut fer&aelig;
+neque vitium neque virtus est</i>, <i>swic neque Dei</i>: <i>sed
+hic quidem status altius quiddam virtute est</i>, <i>ille aluid
+quiddam a vitio</i>.&nbsp; And therefore we may see what
+celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus attributeth to Trajan in his
+funeral oration, where he said, &ldquo;That men needed to make no
+other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue as good
+lords to them as Trajan had been;&rdquo; as if he had not been
+only an imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it.&nbsp;
+But these be heathen and profane passages, having but a shadow of
+that divine state of mind, which religion and the holy faith doth
+conduct men unto, by imprinting upon their souls charity, which
+is excellently called the bond of perfection, because it
+comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together.&nbsp; And as it
+is elegantly said by Menander of vain love, which is but a false
+imitation of divine love, <i>Amor melior Sophista l&oelig;vo ad
+humanam vitam</i>&mdash;that love teacheth a man to carry himself
+better than the sophist or preceptor; which he calleth
+left-handed, because, with all his rules and preceptions, he
+cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that facility to prize
+himself and govern himself, as love can do: so certainly, if a
+man&rsquo;s mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth work him
+suddenly into greater perfection than all the doctrine of
+morality can do, which is but a sophist in comparison of the
+other.&nbsp; Nay, further, as Xenophon observed truly, that all
+other affections, though they raise the mind, yet they do it by
+distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or excesses; but only
+love doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same instant
+doth settle and compose it: so in all other excellences, though
+they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess.&nbsp; Only
+charity admitteth no excess.&nbsp; For so we see, aspiring to be
+like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell;
+<i>Ascendam</i>, <i>et ero similis altissimo</i>: by aspiring to
+be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; <i>Eritis
+sicut Dii</i>, <i>scientes bonum et malum</i>: but by aspiring to
+a similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel
+ever transgressed, or shall transgress.&nbsp; For unto that
+imitation we are called: <i>Diligite inimicos vestros</i>,
+<i>benefacite eis qui oderunt vos</i>, <i>et orate pro
+persequentibus et calumniantibus vos</i>, <i>ut sitis filii
+Patris vestri qui in c&oelig;lis est</i>, <i>qui solem suum oriri
+facit super bonos et malos</i>, <i>et pluit super justos et
+injustos</i>.&nbsp; So in the first platform of the divine nature
+itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, <i>Optimus
+Maximus</i>: and the sacred Scriptures thus, <i>Miscericordia
+ejus super omnia opera ejus</i>.</p>
+<p>(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge,
+concerning the culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any
+man, considering the arts thereof which I have enumerated, do
+judge that my labour is but to collect into an art or science
+that which hath been pretermitted by others, as matter of common
+sense and experience, he judgeth well.&nbsp; But as Philocrates
+sported with Demosthenes, &ldquo;You may not marvel (Athenians)
+that Demosthenes and I do differ; for he drinketh water, and I
+drink wine;&rdquo; and like as we read of an ancient parable of
+the two gates of sleep&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Sunt gemin&aelig; somni port&aelig;: quarum
+altera fertur<br />
+Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:<br />
+Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,<br />
+Sed falsa ad c&oelig;lum mittunt insomnia manes:&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a
+sure maxim in knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor (&ldquo;of
+wine&rdquo;) is the more vaporous, and the braver gate (&ldquo;of
+ivory&rdquo;) sendeth forth the falser dreams.</p>
+<p>(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human
+philosophy, which contemplateth man segregate, and as he
+consisteth of body and spirit.&nbsp; Wherein we may further note,
+that there seemeth to be a relation or conformity between the
+good of the mind and the good of the body.&nbsp; For as we
+divided the good of the body into health, beauty, strength, and
+pleasure, so the good of the mind, inquired in rational and moral
+knowledges, tendeth to this, to make the mind sound, and without
+perturbation; beautiful, and graced with decency; and strong and
+agile for all duties of life.&nbsp; These three, as in the body,
+so in the mind, seldom meet, and commonly sever.&nbsp; For it is
+easy to observe, that many have strength of wit and courage, but
+have neither health from perturbations, nor any beauty or decency
+in their doings; some again have an elegancy and fineness of
+carriage which have neither soundness of honesty nor substance of
+sufficiency; and some again have honest and reformed minds, that
+can neither become themselves nor manage business; and sometimes
+two of them meet, and rarely all three.&nbsp; As for pleasure, we
+have likewise determined that the mind ought not to be reduced to
+stupid, but to retain pleasure; confined rather in the subject of
+it, than in the strength and vigour of it.</p>
+<p>XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which
+of all others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced
+to axiom.&nbsp; Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said,
+&ldquo;That the Romans were like sheep, for that a man were
+better drive a flock of them, than one of them; for in a flock,
+if you could get but some few go right, the rest would
+follow:&rdquo; so in that respect moral philosophy is more
+difficile than policy.&nbsp; Again, moral philosophy propoundeth
+to itself the framing of internal goodness; but civil knowledge
+requireth only an external goodness; for that as to society
+sufficeth.&nbsp; And therefore it cometh oft to pass that there
+be evil times in good governments: for so we find in the Holy
+story, when the kings were good, yet it is added, <i>Sed adhuc
+poulus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum
+suorum</i>.&nbsp; Again, states, as great engines, move slowly,
+and are not so soon put out of frame: for as in Egypt the seven
+good years sustained the seven bad, so governments for a time
+well grounded do bear out errors following; but the resolution of
+particular persons is more suddenly subverted.&nbsp; These
+respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil
+knowledge.</p>
+<p>(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three
+summary actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation,
+and government.&nbsp; For man seeketh in society comfort, use,
+and protection; and they be three wisdoms of divers natures which
+do often sever&mdash;wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business,
+and wisdom of state.</p>
+<p>(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much
+affected, but much less despised; for it hath not only an honour
+in itself, but an influence also into business and
+government.&nbsp; The poet saith, <i>Nec vultu destrue verba
+tuo</i>: a man may destroy the force of his words with his
+countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero, recommending
+to his brother affability and easy access; <i>Nil interest habere
+ostium apertum</i>, <i>vultum clausum</i>: it is nothing won to
+admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and
+reserved countenance.&nbsp; So we see Atticus, before the first
+interview between C&aelig;sar and Cicero, the war depending, did
+seriously advise Cicero touching the composing and ordering of
+his countenance and gesture.&nbsp; And if the government of the
+countenance be of such effect, much more is that of the speech,
+and other carriage appertaining to conversation; the true model
+whereof seemeth to me well expressed by Livy, though not meant
+for this purpose: <i>Ne aut arrogans videar</i>, <i>aut
+obnoxius</i>; <i>quorum alterum est &agrave;lien&aelig;
+libertatis obliti</i>, <i>alterum su&aelig;</i>: the sum of
+behaviour is to retain a man&rsquo;s own dignity, without
+intruding upon the liberty of others.&nbsp; On the other side, if
+behaviour and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may
+pass into affectation, and then <i>Quid deformius quam scenam in
+vitam transferre</i>&mdash;to act a man&rsquo;s life?&nbsp; But
+although it proceed not to that extreme, yet it consumeth time,
+and employeth the mind too much.&nbsp; And therefore as we use to
+advise young students from company keeping, by saying, <i>Amici
+fures temporis</i>: so certainly the intending of the discretion
+of behaviour is a great thief of meditation.&nbsp; Again, such as
+are accomplished in that form of urbanity please themselves in
+it, and seldom aspire to higher virtue; whereas those that have
+defect in it do seek comeliness by reputation; for where
+reputation is, almost everything becometh; but where that is not,
+it must be supplied by <i>puntos</i> and compliments.&nbsp;
+Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an
+over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of decency,
+which is time and season.&nbsp; For as Solomon saith, <i>Qui
+respicit ad ventos</i>, <i>non seminat</i>; <i>et qui respicit ad
+nubes</i>, <i>non metet</i>: a man must make his opportunity, as
+oft as find it.&nbsp; To conclude, behaviour seemeth to me as a
+garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a
+garment.&nbsp; For it ought to be made in fashion; it ought not
+to be too curious; it ought to be shaped so as to set forth any
+good making of the mind and hide any deformity; and above all, it
+ought not to be too strait or restrained for exercise or
+motion.&nbsp; But this part of civil knowledge hath been
+elegantly handled, and therefore I cannot report it for
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been
+hitherto collected into writing, to the great derogation of
+learning and the professors of learning.&nbsp; For from this root
+springeth chiefly that note or opinion, which by us is expressed
+in adage to this effect, that there is no great concurrence
+between learning and wisdom.&nbsp; For of the three wisdoms which
+we have set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom of
+behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised, as an
+inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; for wisdom of
+government, they acquit themselves well when they are called to
+it, but that happeneth to few; but for the wisdom of business,
+wherein man&rsquo;s life is most conversant, there be no books of
+it, except some few scattered advertisements, that have no
+proportion to the magnitude of this subject.&nbsp; For if books
+were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned men
+with mean experience would far excel men of long experience
+without learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.</p>
+<p>(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this
+knowledge should be so variable as it falleth not under precept;
+for it is much less infinite than science of government, which we
+see is laboured and in some part reduced.&nbsp; Of this wisdom it
+seemeth some of the ancient Romans in the saddest and wisest
+times were professors; for Cicero reporteth, that it was then in
+use for senators that had name and opinion for general wise men,
+as Coruncanius, Curius, L&aelig;lius, and many others, to walk at
+certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that
+would use their advice; and that the particular citizens would
+resort unto them, and consult with them of the marriage of a
+daughter, or of the employing of a son, or of a purchase or
+bargain, or of an accusation, and every other occasion incident
+to man&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; So as there is a wisdom of counsel and
+advice even in private causes, arising out of a universal insight
+into the affairs of the world; which is used indeed upon
+particular causes propounded, but is gathered by general
+observation of causes of like nature.&nbsp; For so we see in the
+book which Q. Cicero writeth to his brother, <i>De petitione
+consulatus</i> (being the only book of business that I know
+written by the ancients), although it concerned a particular
+action then on foot, yet the substance thereof consisteth of many
+wise and politic axioms, which contain not a temporary, but a
+perpetual direction in the case of popular elections.&nbsp; But
+chiefly we may see in those aphorisms which have place amongst
+divine writings, composed by Solomon the king, of whom the
+Scriptures testify that his heart was as the sands of the sea,
+encompassing the world and all worldly matters, we see, I say,
+not a few profound and excellent cautions, precepts, positions,
+extending to much variety of occasions; whereupon we will stay a
+while, offering to consideration some number of examples.</p>
+<p>(6) <i>Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes
+aurem tuam</i>, <i>ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem
+tibi</i>.&nbsp; Here is commended the provident stay of inquiry
+of that which we would be loth to find: as it was judged great
+wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he burned Sertorius&rsquo; papers
+unperused.</p>
+<p><i>Vir sapiens</i>, <i>si cum stulto contenderit</i>, <i>sive
+irascatur</i>, <i>sive rideat</i>, <i>non inveniet
+requiem</i>.&nbsp; Here is described the great disadvantage which
+a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than himself;
+which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to
+jest, or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no
+ways quit himself well of it.</p>
+<p><i>Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum</i>, <i>postea
+sentiet eum contumacem</i>.&nbsp; Here is signified, that if a
+man begin too high a pitch in his favours, it doth commonly end
+in unkindness and unthankfulness.</p>
+<p><i>Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo</i>? <i>coram regibus
+stabit</i>, <i>nec erit inter ignobiles</i>.&nbsp; Here is
+observed, that of all virtues for rising to honour, quickness of
+despatch is the best; for superiors many times love not to have
+those they employ too deep or too sufficient, but ready and
+diligent.</p>
+<p><i>Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole</i>, <i>cum
+adolescente secundo qui consurgit pro eo</i>.&nbsp; Here is
+expressed that which was noted by Sylla first, and after him by
+Tiberius.&nbsp; <i>Plures adorant solem orientem quam occidentem
+vel meridianum</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Si spiritus potestatem habentis ascenderit super te</i>,
+<i>locum tuum ne demiseris</i>; <i>quia curatio faciet cessare
+peccata maxima</i>.&nbsp; Here caution is given, that upon
+displeasure, retiring is of all courses the unfittest; for a man
+leaveth things at worst, and depriveth himself of means to make
+them better.</p>
+<p><i>Erat civitas parva</i>, <i>et pauci in ea viri</i>:
+<i>venit contra eam rex magnus</i>, <i>et vallavit eam</i>,
+<i>instruxitque munitones per gyrum</i>, <i>et perfecta est
+obsidio</i>; <i>inventusque est in ea vir pauper et sapiens</i>,
+<i>et liberavit eam per sapientiam suam</i>; <i>et nullus
+deinceps recordatus est huminis illius pauperis</i>.&nbsp; Here
+the corruption of states is set forth, that esteem not virtue or
+merit longer than they have use of it.</p>
+<p><i>Millis responsio frangit iram</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted that
+silence or rough answer exasperateth; but an answer present and
+temperate pacifieth.</p>
+<p><i>Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum</i>.&nbsp; Here is
+lively represented how laborious sloth proveth in the end; for
+when things are deferred till the last instant, and nothing
+prepared beforehand, every step findeth a briar or impediment,
+which catcheth or stoppeth.</p>
+<p><i>Melior est finis orationis quam principium</i>.&nbsp; Here
+is taxed the vanity of formal speakers, that study more about
+prefaces and inducements, than upon the conclusions and issues of
+speech.</p>
+<p><i>Qui cognoscit in judicio faciem</i>, <i>non bene facit</i>;
+<i>iste et pro buccella panis deseret veritatem</i>.&nbsp; Here
+is noted, that a judge were better be a briber than a respecter
+of persons; for a corrupt judge offendeth not so lightly as a
+facile.</p>
+<p><i>Vir pauper calumnians pauperes simils est imbri
+vehementi</i>, <i>in quo paratur fames</i>.&nbsp; Here is
+expressed the extremity of necessitous extortions, figured in the
+ancient fable of the full and the hungry horseleech.</p>
+<p><i>Fons turbatus pede</i>, <i>et vena corrupta</i>, <i>est
+justus cadens coram impio</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted, that one
+judicial and exemplar iniquity in the face of the world doth
+trouble the fountains of justice more than many particular
+injuries passed over by connivance.</p>
+<p><i>Qui subtrahit aliquid a patre et a matre</i>, <i>et dicit
+hoc non esse peccatum</i>, <i>particeps est homicidii</i>.&nbsp;
+Here is noted that, whereas men in wronging their best friends
+use to extenuate their fault, as if they might presume or be bold
+upon them, it doth contrariwise indeed aggravate their fault, and
+turneth it from injury to impiety.</p>
+<p><i>Noli esse amicus homini iracundo</i>, <i>nec ambulato cum
+homine furioso</i>.&nbsp; Here caution is given, that in the
+election of our friends we do principally avoid those which are
+impatient, as those that will espouse us to many factions and
+quarrels.</p>
+<p><i>Qui conturbat domum suam</i>, <i>possidebit
+ventum</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted, that in domestical separations
+and breaches men do promise to themselves quieting of their mind
+and contentment; but still they are deceived of their
+expectation, and it turneth to wind.</p>
+<p><i>Filius sapiens l&aelig;tificat patrem</i>: <i>filius vero
+stultus m&aelig;stitia est matri su&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; Here is
+distinguished, that fathers have most comfort of the good proof
+of their sons; but mothers have most discomfort of their ill
+proof, because women have little discerning of virtue, but of
+fortune.</p>
+<p><i>Qui celat delictum</i>, <i>qu&aelig;rit amicitiam</i>;
+<i>sed qui altero sermone repetit</i>, <i>separat
+f&aelig;deratos</i>.&nbsp; Here caution is given, that
+reconcilement is better managed by an amnesty, and passing over
+that which is past, than by apologies and excuses.</p>
+<p><i>In omni opere bono erit abundantia</i>; <i>ubi autem verba
+sunt plurima</i>, <i>ibi frequenter egestas</i>.&nbsp; Here is
+noted, that words and discourse aboundeth most where there is
+idleness and want.</p>
+<p><i>Primus in sua causa justus</i>: <i>sed venit altera
+pars</i>, <i>et inquiret in eum</i>.&nbsp; Here is observed, that
+in all causes the first tale possesseth much; in sort, that the
+prejudice thereby wrought will be hardly removed, except some
+abuse or falsity in the information be detected.</p>
+<p><i>Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia</i>, <i>et ipsa perveniunt
+ad interiora ventris</i>.&nbsp; Here is distinguished, that
+flattery and insinuation, which seemeth set and artificial,
+sinketh not far; but that entereth deep which hath show of
+nature, liberty, and simplicity.</p>
+<p><i>Qui erudit derisorem</i>, <i>ipse sibi injuriam facit</i>;
+<i>et qui arguit impium</i>, <i>sibi maculam generat</i>.&nbsp;
+Here caution is given how we tender reprehension to arrogant and
+scornful natures, whose manner is to esteem it for contumely, and
+accordingly to return it.</p>
+<p><i>Da sapienti occasionem</i>, <i>et addetur ei
+sapientia</i>.&nbsp; Here is distinguished the wisdom brought
+into habit, and that which is but verbal and swimming only in
+conceit; for the one upon the occasion presented is quickened and
+redoubled, the other is amazed and confused.</p>
+<p><i>Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium</i>,
+<i>sic corda hominum manifesta sunt prudentibus</i>.&nbsp; Here
+the mind of a wise man is compared to a glass, wherein the images
+of all diversity of natures and customs are represented; from
+which representation proceedeth that application,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus
+erit.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(7) Thus have I stayed somewhat longer upon these sentences
+politic of Solomon than is agreeable to the proportion of an
+example; led with a desire to give authority to this part of
+knowledge, which I noted as deficient, by so excellent a
+precedent; and have also attended them with brief observations,
+such as to my understanding offer no violence to the sense,
+though I know they may be applied to a more divine use: but it is
+allowed, even in divinity, that some interpretations, yea, and
+some writings, have more of the eagle than others; but taking
+them as instructions for life, they might have received large
+discourse, if I would have broken them and illustrated them by
+deducements and examples.</p>
+<p>(8) Neither was this in use only with the Hebrews, but it is
+generally to be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times;
+that as men found out any observation that they thought was good
+for life, they would gather it and express it in parable or
+aphorism or fable.&nbsp; But for fables, they were vicegerents
+and supplies where examples failed: now that the times abound
+with history, the aim is better when the mark is alive.&nbsp; And
+therefore the form of writing which of all others is fittest for
+this variable argument of negotiation and occasions is that which
+Machiavel chose wisely and aptly for government; namely,
+discourse upon histories or examples.&nbsp; For knowledge drawn
+freshly and in our view out of particulars, knoweth the way best
+to particulars again.&nbsp; And it hath much greater life for
+practice when the discourse attendeth upon the example, than when
+the example attendeth upon the discourse.&nbsp; For this is no
+point of order, as it seemeth at first, but of substance.&nbsp;
+For when the example is the ground, being set down in a history
+at large, it is set down with all circumstances, which may
+sometimes control the discourse thereupon made, and sometimes
+supply it, as a very pattern for action; whereas the examples
+alleged for the discourse&rsquo;s sake are cited succinctly, and
+without particularity, and carry a servile aspect towards the
+discourse which they are brought in to make good.</p>
+<p>(9) But this difference is not amiss to be remembered, that as
+history of times is the best ground for discourse of government,
+such as Machiavel handleth, so histories of lives is the most
+popular for discourse of business, because it is more conversant
+in private actions.&nbsp; Nay, there is a ground of discourse for
+this purpose fitter than them both, which is discourse upon
+letters, such as are wise and weighty, as many are of Cicero
+<i>ad Atticum</i>, and others.&nbsp; For letters have a great and
+more particular representation of business than either chronicles
+or lives.&nbsp; Thus have we spoken both of the matter and form
+of this part of civil knowledge, touching negotiation, which we
+note to be deficient.</p>
+<p>(10) But yet there is another part of this part, which
+differeth as much from that whereof we have spoken as
+<i>sapere</i> and <i>sibi sapere</i>, the one moving as it were
+to the circumference, the other to the centre.&nbsp; For there is
+a wisdom of counsel, and again there is a wisdom of pressing a
+man&rsquo;s own fortune; and they do sometimes meet, and often
+sever.&nbsp; For many are wise in their own ways that are weak
+for government or counsel; like ants, which is a wise creature
+for itself, but very hurtful for the garden.&nbsp; This wisdom
+the Romans did take much knowledge of: <i>Nam pol sapiens</i>
+(saith the comical poet) <i>fingit fortunam sibi</i>; and it grew
+to an adage, <i>Faber quisque fortun&aelig; propri&aelig;</i>;
+and Livy attributed it to Cato the first, <i>In hoc viro tanta
+vis animi et ingenii inerat</i>, <i>ut quocunque loco natus esset
+sibi ipse fortunam facturus videretur</i>.</p>
+<p>(11) This conceit or position, if it be too much declared and
+professed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as
+was observed in Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many
+great services to the state in his government, and giving an
+account thereof to the people as the manner was, did conclude
+every particular with this clause, &ldquo;And in this fortune had
+no part.&rdquo;&nbsp; And it came so to pass, that he never
+prospered in anything he took in hand afterwards.&nbsp; For this
+is too high and too arrogant, savouring of that which Ezekiel
+saith of Pharaoh, <i>Dicis</i>, <i>Fluvius est neus et ego feci
+memet ipsum</i>; or of that which another prophet speaketh, that
+men offer sacrifices to their nets and snares; and that which the
+poet expresseth,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile
+libro,<br />
+Nunc adsint!&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For these confidences were ever unhallowed, and unblessed;
+and, therefore, those that were great politiques indeed ever
+ascribed their successes to their felicity and not to their skill
+or virtue.&nbsp; For so Sylla surnamed himself Felix, not
+Magnus.&nbsp; So C&aelig;sar said to the master of the ship,
+<i>C&aelig;sarem portas et fortunam ejus</i>.</p>
+<p>(12) But yet, nevertheless, these positions, <i>Faber quisque
+fortun&aelig; su&aelig;</i>: <i>Sapiens dominabitur astris</i>:
+<i>Invia virtuti null est via</i>, and the like, being taken and
+used as spurs to industry, and not as stirrups to insolency,
+rather for resolution than for the presumption or outward
+declaration, have been ever thought sound and good; and are no
+question imprinted in the greatest minds, who are so sensible of
+this opinion as they can scarce contain it within.&nbsp; As we
+see in Augustus C&aelig;sar (who was rather diverse from his
+uncle than inferior in virtue), how when he died he desired his
+friends about him to give him a <i>plaudite</i>, as if he were
+conscious to himself that he had played his part well upon the
+stage.&nbsp; This part of knowledge we do report also as
+deficient; not but that it is practised too much, but it hath not
+been reduced to writing.&nbsp; And, therefore, lest it should
+seem to any that it is not comprehensible by axiom, it is
+requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down some heads
+or passages of it.</p>
+<p>(13) Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted
+argument to teach men how to raise and make their fortune; a
+doctrine wherein every man perchance will be ready to yield
+himself a disciple, till he see the difficulty: for fortune
+layeth as heavy impositions as virtue; and it is as hard and
+severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be truly
+moral.&nbsp; But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly,
+both in honour and in substance.&nbsp; In honour, because
+pragmatical men may not go away with an opinion that learning is
+like a lark, that can mount and sing, and please herself, and
+nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well of the hawk,
+that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the
+prey.&nbsp; In substance, because it is the perfect law of
+inquiry of truth, that nothing be in the globe of matter, which
+should not be likewise in the globe of crystal or form; that is,
+that there be not anything in being and action which should not
+be drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine.&nbsp;
+Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture of
+fortune otherwise than as of an inferior work, for no man&rsquo;s
+fortune can be an end worthy of his being, and many times the
+worthiest men do abandon their fortune willingly for better
+respects: but nevertheless fortune as an organ of virtue and
+merit deserveth the consideration.</p>
+<p>(14) First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most
+summary towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that
+window which Momus did require; who seeing in the frame of
+man&rsquo;s heart such angles and recesses, found fault there was
+not a window to look into them; that is, to procure good
+informations of particulars touching persons, their natures,
+their desires and ends, their customs and fashions, their helps
+and advantages, and whereby they chiefly stand, so again their
+weaknesses and disadvantages, and where they lie most open and
+obnoxious, their friends, factions, dependences; and again their
+opposites, enviers, competitors, their moods and times, <i>Sola
+viri molles aditus et tempora noras</i>; their principles, rules,
+and observations, and the like: and this not only of persons but
+of actions; what are on foot from time to time, and how they are
+conducted, favoured, opposed, and how they import, and the
+like.&nbsp; For the knowledge of present actions is not only
+material in itself, but without it also the knowledge of persons
+is very erroneous: for men change with the actions; and whilst
+they are in pursuit they are one, and when they return to their
+nature they are another.&nbsp; These informations of particulars,
+touching persons and actions, are as the minor propositions in
+every active syllogism; for no excellency of observations (which
+are as the major propositions) can suffice to ground a
+conclusion, if there be error and mistaking in the minors.</p>
+<p>(15) That this knowledge is possible, Solomon is our surety,
+who saith, <i>Consilium in corde viri tanquam aqua profunda</i>;
+<i>sed vir prudens exhauriet illud</i>.&nbsp; And although the
+knowledge itself falleth not under precept because it is of
+individuals, yet the instructions for the obtaining of it
+may.</p>
+<p>(16) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to
+the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of
+belief and distrust; that more trust be given to countenances and
+deeds than to words; and in words rather to sudden passages and
+surprised words than to set and purposed words.&nbsp; Neither let
+that be feared which is said, <i>Fronti nulla fides</i>, which is
+meant of a general outward behaviour, and not of the private and
+subtle motions and labours of the countenance and gesture; which,
+as Q. Cicero elegantly saith, is <i>Animi janua</i>, &ldquo;the
+gate of the mind.&rdquo;&nbsp; None more close than Tiberius, and
+yet Tacitus saith of Gallus, <i>Etenim vultu offensionem
+conjectaverat</i>.&nbsp; So again, noting the differing character
+and manner of his commending Germanicus and Drusus in the Senate,
+he saith, touching his fashion wherein he carried his speech of
+Germanicus, thus: <i>Magis in speciem adornatis verbis</i>,
+<i>quam ut penitus sentire crederetur</i>; but of Drusus thus:
+<i>Paucioribus sed intentior</i>, <i>et fida oratione</i>; and in
+another place, speaking of his character of speech when he did
+anything that was gracious and popular, he saith, &ldquo;That in
+other things he was <i>velut eluctantium verborum</i>;&rdquo; but
+then again, <i>solutius loquebatur quando subveniret</i>.&nbsp;
+So that there is no such artificer of dissimulation, nor no such
+commanded countenance (<i>vultus jussus</i>), that can sever from
+a feigned tale some of these fashions, either a more slight and
+careless fashion, or more set and formal, or more tedious and
+wandering, or coming from a man more drily and hardly.</p>
+<p>(17) Neither are deeds such assured pledges as that they may
+be trusted without a judicious consideration of their magnitude
+and nature: <i>Fraus sibi in parvis fidem pr&aelig;struit ut
+majore emolumento fallat</i>; and the Italian thinketh himself
+upon the point to be bought and sold, when he is better used than
+he was wont to be without manifest cause.&nbsp; For small
+favours, they do but lull men to sleep, both as to caution and as
+to industry; and are, as Demosthenes calleth them, <i>Alimenta
+socordi&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; So again we see how false the nature of
+some deeds are, in that particular which Mutianus practised upon
+Antonius Primus, upon that hollow and unfaithful reconcilement
+which was made between them; whereupon Mutianus advanced many of
+the friends of Antonius, <i>Simul amicis ejus pr&aelig;fecturas
+et tribunatus largitur</i>: wherein, under pretence to strengthen
+him, he did desolate him, and won from him his dependents.</p>
+<p>(18) As for words, though they be like waters to physicians,
+full of flattery and uncertainty, yet they are not to be despised
+specially with the advantage of passion and affection.&nbsp; For
+so we see Tiberius, upon a stinging and incensing speech of
+Agrippina, came a step forth of his dissimulation when he said,
+&ldquo;You are hurt because you do not reign;&rdquo; of which
+Tacitus saith, <i>Audita h&aelig;c raram occulti pectoris vocem
+elicuere</i>: <i>correptamque Gr&aelig;co versu admonuit</i>,
+<i>ideo l&aelig;di quia non regnaret</i>.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+the poet doth elegantly call passions tortures that urge men to
+confess their secrets:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Vino torus et ira.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And experience showeth there are few men so true to themselves
+and so settled but that, sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon
+bravery, sometimes upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind
+and weakness, they open themselves; specially if they be put to
+it with a counter-dissimulation, according to the proverb of
+Spain, <i>Di mentira</i>, <i>y sacar as verdad</i>: &ldquo;Tell a
+lie and find a truth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(19) As for the knowing of men which is at second hand from
+reports: men&rsquo;s weaknesses and faults are best known from
+their enemies, their virtues and abilities from their friends,
+their customs and times from their servants, their conceits and
+opinions from their familiar friends, with whom they discourse
+most.&nbsp; General fame is light, and the opinions conceived by
+superiors or equals are deceitful; for to such men are more
+masked: <i>Verior fama e domesticis emanat</i>.</p>
+<p>(20) But the soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by
+their natures and ends, wherein the weakest sort of men are best
+interpreted by their natures, and the wisest by their ends.&nbsp;
+For it was both pleasantly and wisely said (though I think very
+untruly) by a nuncio of the Pope, returning from a certain nation
+where he served as lidger; whose opinion being asked touching the
+appointment of one to go in his place, he wished that in any case
+they did not send one that was too wise; because no very wise man
+would ever imagine what they in that country were like to
+do.&nbsp; And certainly it is an error frequent for men to shoot
+over, and to suppose deeper ends and more compass reaches than
+are: the Italian proverb being elegant, and for the most part
+true:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Di danari, di senno, e di fede,<br />
+C&rsquo;&egrave; ne manco che non credi.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;There is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less
+good faith than men do account upon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(21) But princes, upon a far other reason, are best
+interpreted by their natures, and private persons by their
+ends.&nbsp; For princes being at the top of human desires, they
+have for the most part no particular ends whereto they aspire, by
+distance from which a man might take measure and scale of the
+rest of their actions and desires; which is one of the causes
+that maketh their hearts more inscrutable.&nbsp; Neither is it
+sufficient to inform ourselves in men&rsquo;s ends and natures of
+the variety of them only, but also of the predominancy, what
+humour reigneth most, and what end is principally sought.&nbsp;
+For so we see, when Tigellinus saw himself outstripped by
+Petronius Turpilianus in Nero&rsquo;s humours of pleasures,
+<i>metus ejus rimatur</i>, he wrought upon Nero&rsquo;s fears,
+whereby he broke the other&rsquo;s neck.</p>
+<p>(22) But to all this part of inquiry the most compendious way
+resteth in three things; the first, to have general acquaintance
+and inwardness with those which have general acquaintance and
+look most into the world; and specially according to the
+diversity of business, and the diversity of persons, to have
+privacy and conversation with some one friend at least which is
+perfect and well-intelligenced in every several kind.&nbsp; The
+second is to keep a good mediocrity in liberty of speech and
+secrecy; in most things liberty; secrecy where it importeth; for
+liberty of speech inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used
+again, and so bringeth much to a man&rsquo;s knowledge; and
+secrecy on the other side induceth trust and inwardness.&nbsp;
+The last is the reducing of a man&rsquo;s self to this watchful
+and serene habit, as to make account and purpose, in every
+conference and action, as well to observe as to act.&nbsp; For as
+Epictetus would have a philosopher in every particular action to
+say to himself, <i>Et hoc volo</i>, <i>et etiam institutum
+servare</i>; so a politic man in everything should say to
+himself, <i>Et hoc volo</i>, <i>ac etiam aliquid
+addiscere</i>.&nbsp; I have stayed the longer upon this precept
+of obtaining good information because it is a main part by
+itself, which answereth to all the rest.&nbsp; But, above all
+things, caution must be taken that men have a good stay and hold
+of themselves, and that this much knowing do not draw on much
+meddling; for nothing is more unfortunate than light and rash
+intermeddling in many matters.&nbsp; So that this variety of
+knowledge tendeth in conclusion but only to this, to make a
+better and freer choice of those actions which may concern us,
+and to conduct them with the less error and the more
+dexterity.</p>
+<p>(23) The second precept concerning this knowledge is, for men
+to take good information touching their own person, and well to
+understand themselves; knowing that, as St. James saith, though
+men look oft in a glass, yet they do suddenly forget themselves;
+wherein as the divine glass is the Word of God, so the politic
+glass is the state of the world, or times wherein we live, in the
+which we are to behold ourselves.</p>
+<p>(24) For men ought to take an impartial view of their own
+abilities and virtues; and again of their wants and impediments;
+accounting these with the most, and those other with the least;
+and from this view and examination to frame the considerations
+following.</p>
+<p>(25) First, to consider how the constitution of their nature
+sorteth with the general state of the times; which if they find
+agreeable and fit, then in all things to give themselves more
+scope and liberty; but if differing and dissonant, then in the
+whole course of their life to be more close retired, and
+reserved; as we see in Tiberius, who was never seen at a play,
+and came not into the senate in twelve of his last years; whereas
+Augustus C&aelig;sar lived ever in men&rsquo;s eyes, which
+Tacitus observeth, <i>alia Tiberio morum via</i>.</p>
+<p>(26) Secondly, to consider how their nature sorteth with
+professions and courses of life, and accordingly to make
+election, if they be free; and, if engaged, to make the departure
+at the first opportunity; as we see was done by Duke Valentine,
+that was designed by his father to a sacerdotal profession, but
+quitted it soon after in regard of his parts and inclination;
+being such, nevertheless, as a man cannot tell well whether they
+were worse for a prince or for a priest.</p>
+<p>(27) Thirdly, to consider how they sort with those whom they
+are like to have competitors and concurrents; and to take that
+course wherein there is most solitude, and themselves like to be
+most eminent; as C&aelig;sar Julius did, who at first was an
+orator or pleader; but when he saw the excellency of Cicero,
+Hortensius, Catulus, and others for eloquence, and saw there was
+no man of reputation for the wars but Pompeius, upon whom the
+state was forced to rely, he forsook his course begun towards a
+civil and popular greatness, and transferred his designs to a
+martial greatness.</p>
+<p>(28) Fourthly, in the choice of their friends and dependents,
+to proceed according to the composition of their own nature; as
+we may see in C&aelig;sar, all whose friends and followers were
+men active and effectual, but not solemn, or of reputation.</p>
+<p>(29) Fifthly, to take special heed how they guide themselves
+by examples, in thinking they can do as they see others do;
+whereas perhaps their natures and carriages are far
+differing.&nbsp; In which error it seemeth Pompey was, of whom
+Cicero saith that he was wont often to say, <i>Sylla potuit</i>,
+<i>ego non potero</i>?&nbsp; Wherein he was much abused, the
+natures and proceedings of himself and his example being the
+unlikest in the world; the one being fierce, violent, and
+pressing the fact; the other solemn, and full of majesty and
+circumstance, and therefore the less effectual.</p>
+<p>But this precept touching the politic knowledge of ourselves
+hath many other branches, whereupon we cannot insist.</p>
+<p>(30) Next to the well understanding and discerning of a
+man&rsquo;s self, there followeth the well opening and revealing
+a man&rsquo;s self; wherein we see nothing more usual than for
+the more able man to make the less show.&nbsp; For there is a
+great advantage in the well setting forth of a man&rsquo;s
+virtues, fortunes, merits; and again, in the artificial covering
+of a man&rsquo;s weaknesses, defects, disgraces; staying upon the
+one, sliding from the other; cherishing the one by circumstances,
+gracing the other by exposition, and the like.&nbsp; Wherein we
+see what Tacitus saith of Mutianus, who was the greatest
+politique of his time, <i>Omnium qu&aelig; dixerat feceratque
+arte quadam ostentator</i>, which requireth indeed some art, lest
+it turn tedious and arrogant; but yet so, as ostentation (though
+it be to the first degree of vanity) seemeth to me rather a vice
+in manners than in policy; for as it is said, <i>Audacter
+calumniare</i>, <i>semper aliquid h&aelig;ret</i>; so, except it
+be in a ridiculous degree of deformity, <i>Audacter te
+vendita</i>, <i>semper aluquid h&aelig;ret</i>.&nbsp; For it will
+stick with the more ignorant and inferior sort of men, though men
+of wisdom and rank do smile at it and despise it; and yet the
+authority won with many doth countervail the disdain of a
+few.&nbsp; But if it be carried with decency and government, as
+with a natural, pleasant, and ingenious fashion; or at times when
+it is mixed with some peril and unsafety (as in military
+persons); or at times when others are most envied; or with easy
+and careless passage to it and from it, without dwelling too
+long, or being too serious; or with an equal freedom of taxing a
+man&rsquo;s self, as well as gracing himself; or by occasion of
+repelling or putting down others&rsquo; injury or insolency; it
+doth greatly add to reputation: and surely not a few solid
+natures, that want this ventosity and cannot sail in the height
+of the winds, are not without some prejudice and disadvantage by
+their moderation.</p>
+<p>(31) But for these flourishes and enhancements of virtue, as
+they are not perchance unnecessary, so it is at least necessary
+that virtue be not disvalued and embased under the just price,
+which is done in three manners&mdash;by offering and obtruding a
+man&rsquo;s self, wherein men think he is rewarded when he is
+accepted; by doing too much, which will not give that which is
+well done leave to settle, and in the end induceth satiety; and
+by finding too soon the fruit of a man&rsquo;s virtue, in
+commendation, applause, honour, favour; wherein if a man be
+pleased with a little, let him hear what is truly said: <i>Cave
+ne insuetus rebus majoribus videaris</i>, <i>si h&aelig;c te res
+parva sicuti magna delectat</i>.</p>
+<p>(32) But the covering of defects is of no less importance than
+the valuing of good parts; which may be done likewise in three
+manners&mdash;by caution, by colour, and by confidence.&nbsp;
+Caution is when men do ingeniously and discreetly avoid to be put
+into those things for which they are not proper; whereas
+contrariwise bold and unquiet spirits will thrust themselves into
+matters without difference, and so publish and proclaim all their
+wants.&nbsp; Colour is when men make a way for themselves to have
+a construction made of their faults or wants, as proceeding from
+a better cause or intended for some other purpose.&nbsp; For of
+the one it is well said,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;S&aelig;pe latet vitium proximitate
+boni,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he
+pretend the virtue that shadoweth it; as if he be dull, he must
+affect gravity; if a coward, mildness; and so the rest.&nbsp; For
+the second, a man must frame some probable cause why he should
+not do his best, and why he should dissemble his abilities; and
+for that purpose must use to dissemble those abilities which are
+notorious in him, to give colour that his true wants are but
+industries and dissimulations.&nbsp; For confidence, it is the
+last but the surest remedy&mdash;namely, to depress and seem to
+despise whatsoever a man cannot attain; observing the good
+principle of the merchants, who endeavour to raise the price of
+their own commodities, and to beat down the price of
+others.&nbsp; But there is a confidence that passeth this other,
+which is to face out a man&rsquo;s own defects, in seeming to
+conceive that he is best in those things wherein he is failing;
+and, to help that again, to seem on the other side that he hath
+least opinion of himself in those things wherein he is best: like
+as we shall see it commonly in poets, that if they show their
+verses, and you except to any, they will say, &ldquo;That that
+line cost them more labour than any of the rest;&rdquo; and
+presently will seem to disable and suspect rather some other
+line, which they know well enough to be the best in the
+number.&nbsp; But above all, in this righting and helping of a
+man&rsquo;s self in his own carriage, he must take heed he show
+not himself dismantled and exposed to scorn and injury, by too
+much dulceness, goodness, and facility of nature; but show some
+sparkles of liberty, spirit, and edge.&nbsp; Which kind of
+fortified carriage, with a ready rescussing of a man&rsquo;s self
+from scorns, is sometimes of necessity imposed upon men by
+somewhat in their person or fortune; but it ever succeedeth with
+good felicity.</p>
+<p>(33) Another precept of this knowledge is by all possible
+endeavour to frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to
+occasion; for nothing hindereth men&rsquo;s fortunes so much as
+this: <i>Idem manebat</i>, <i>neque idem decebat</i>&mdash;men
+are where they were, when occasions turn: and therefore to Cato,
+whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he addeth that he
+had <i>versatile ingenium</i>.&nbsp; And thereof it cometh that
+these grave solemn wits, which must be like themselves and cannot
+make departures, have more dignity than felicity.&nbsp; But in
+some it is nature to be somewhat vicious and enwrapped, and not
+easy to turn.&nbsp; In some it is a conceit that is almost a
+nature, which is, that men can hardly make themselves believe
+that they ought to change their course, when they have found good
+by it in former experience.&nbsp; For Machiavel noted wisely how
+Fabius Maximus would have been temporising still, according to
+his old bias, when the nature of the war was altered and required
+hot pursuit.&nbsp; In some other it is want of point and
+penetration in their judgment, that they do not discern when
+things have a period, but come in too late after the occasion; as
+Demosthenes compareth the people of Athens to country fellows,
+when they play in a fence school, that if they have a blow, then
+they remove their weapon to that ward, and not before.&nbsp; In
+some other it is a lothness to lose labours passed, and a conceit
+that they can bring about occasions to their ply; and yet in the
+end, when they see no other remedy, then they come to it with
+disadvantage; as Tarquinius, that gave for the third part of
+Sibylla&rsquo;s books the treble price, when he might at first
+have had all three for the simple.&nbsp; But from whatsoever root
+or cause this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most
+prejudicial; and nothing is more politic than to make the wheels
+of our mind concentric and voluble with the wheels of
+fortune.</p>
+<p>(34) Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some
+affinity with that we last spoke of, but with difference, is that
+which is well expressed, <i>Fatis accede deisque</i>, that men do
+not only turn with the occasions, but also run with the
+occasions, and not strain their credit or strength to over-hard
+or extreme points; but choose in their actions that which is most
+passable: for this will preserve men from foil, not occupy them
+too much about one matter, win opinion of moderation, please the
+most, and make a show of a perpetual felicity in all they
+undertake: which cannot but mightily increase reputation.</p>
+<p>(35) Another part of this knowledge seemeth to have some
+repugnancy with the former two, but not as I understand it; and
+it is that which Demosthenes uttereth in high terms: <i>Et
+quemadmodum receptum est</i>, <i>ut exercitum ducat
+imperator</i>, <i>sic et a cordatis viris res ips&aelig;
+ducend&aelig;</i>; <i>ut qu&aelig;ipsis videntur</i>, <i>ea
+gerantur</i>, <i>et non ipsi eventus persequi cogantur</i>.&nbsp;
+For if we observe we shall find two differing kinds of
+sufficiency in managing of business: some can make use of
+occasions aptly and dexterously, but plot little; some can urge
+and pursue their own plots well, but cannot accommodate nor take
+in; either of which is very imperfect without the other.</p>
+<p>(36) Another part of this knowledge is the observing a good
+mediocrity in the declaring or not declaring a man&rsquo;s self:
+for although depth of secrecy, and making way (<i>qualis est via
+navis in mari</i>, which the French calleth <i>sourdes
+men&eacute;es</i>, when men set things in work without opening
+themselves at all), be sometimes both prosperous and admirable;
+yet many times <i>dissimulatio errores parit</i>, <i>qui
+dissimulatorem ipsum illaqueant</i>.&nbsp; And therefore we see
+the greatest politiques have in a natural and free manner
+professed their desires, rather than been reserved and disguised
+in them.&nbsp; For so we see that Lucius Sylla made a kind of
+profession, &ldquo;that he wished all men happy or unhappy, as
+they stood his friends or enemies.&rdquo;&nbsp; So C&aelig;sar,
+when he went first into Gaul, made no scruple to profess
+&ldquo;that he had rather be first in a village than second at
+Rome.&rdquo;&nbsp; So again, as soon as he had begun the war, we
+see what Cicero saith of him, <i>Alter</i> (meaning of
+C&aelig;sar) <i>non recusat</i>, <i>sed quodammodo postulat</i>,
+<i>ut</i> (<i>ut est</i>) <i>sic appelletur tyrannus</i>.&nbsp;
+So we may see in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, that Augustus
+C&aelig;sar, in his very entrance into affairs, when he was a
+darling of the senate, yet in his harangues to the people would
+swear, <i>Ita parentis honores consequi liceat</i> (which was no
+less than the tyranny), save that, to help it, he would stretch
+forth his hand towards a statue of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s that was
+erected in the place: and men laughed and wondered, and said,
+&ldquo;Is it possible?&rdquo; or, &ldquo;Did you ever hear the
+like?&rdquo; and yet thought he meant no hurt; he did it so
+handsomely and ingenuously.&nbsp; And all these were prosperous:
+whereas Pompey, who tended to the same ends, but in a more dark
+and dissembling manner as Tacitus saith of him, <i>Occultior non
+melior</i>, wherein Sallust concurreth, <i>Ore probo</i>,
+<i>animo inverecundo</i>, made it his design, by infinite secret
+engines, to cast the state into an absolute anarchy and
+confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for
+necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power be put upon
+him, and he never seen in it: and when he had brought it (as he
+thought) to that point when he was chosen consul alone, as never
+any was, yet he could make no great matter of it, because men
+understood him not; but was fain in the end to go the beaten
+track of getting arms into his hands, by colour of the doubt of
+C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s designs: so tedious, casual, and unfortunate
+are these deep dissimulations: whereof it seemeth Tacitus made
+this judgment, that they were a cunning of an inferior form in
+regard of true policy; attributing the one to Augustus, the other
+to Tiberius; where, speaking of Livia, he saith, <i>Et cum
+artibus mariti simulatione filii bene compostia</i>: for surely
+the continual habit of dissimulation is but a weak and sluggish
+cunning, and not greatly politic.</p>
+<p>(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to
+accustom our minds to judge of the proportion or value of things,
+as they conduce and are material to our particular ends; and that
+to do substantially and not superficially.&nbsp; For we shall
+find the logical part (as I may term it) of some men&rsquo;s
+minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous; that is, they
+can well judge of consequences, but not of proportions and
+comparison, preferring things of show and sense before things of
+substance and effect.&nbsp; So some fall in love with access to
+princes, others with popular fame and applause, supposing they
+are things of great purchase, when in many cases they are but
+matters of envy, peril, and impediment.&nbsp; So some measure
+things according to the labour and difficulty or assiduity which
+are spent about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that
+they must needs advance and proceed; as C&aelig;sar saith in a
+despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth how
+laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose,
+<i>H&aelig;c omnia magno studio agebat</i>.&nbsp; So in most
+things men are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest
+means to be best, when it should be the fittest.</p>
+<p>(38) As for the true marshalling of men&rsquo;s pursuits
+towards their fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold
+them to stand thus.&nbsp; First the amendment of their own
+minds.&nbsp; For the removal of the impediments of the mind will
+sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune
+will remove the impediments of the mind.&nbsp; In the second
+place I set down wealth and means; which I know most men would
+have placed first, because of the general use which it beareth
+towards all variety of occasions.&nbsp; But that opinion I may
+condemn with like reason as Machiavel doth that other, that
+moneys were the sinews of the wars; whereas (saith he) the true
+sinews of the wars are the sinews of men&rsquo;s arms, that is, a
+valiant, populous, and military nation: and he voucheth aptly the
+authority of Solon, who, when Cr&oelig;sus showed him his
+treasury of gold, said to him, that if another came that had
+better iron, he would be master of his gold.&nbsp; In like manner
+it may be truly affirmed that it is not moneys that are the
+sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men&rsquo;s
+minds, wit, courage, audacity, resolution, temper, industry, and
+the like.&nbsp; In the third place I set down reputation, because
+of the peremptory tides and currents it hath; which, if they be
+not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered, it being
+extreme hard to play an after-game of reputation.&nbsp; And
+lastly I place honour, which is more easily won by any of the
+other three, much more by all, than any of them can be purchased
+by honour.&nbsp; To conclude this precept, as there is order and
+priority in matter, so is there in time, the preposterous placing
+whereof is one of the commonest errors: while men fly to their
+ends when they should intend their beginnings, and do not take
+things in order of time as they come on, but marshal them
+according to greatness and not according to instance; not
+observing the good precept, <i>Quod nunc instat agamus</i>.</p>
+<p>(39) Another precept of this knowledge is not to embrace any
+matters which do occupy too great a quantity of time, but to have
+that sounding in a man&rsquo;s ears, <i>Sed fugit interea fugit
+irreparabile tempus</i>: and that is the cause why those which
+take their course of rising by professions of burden, as lawyers,
+orators, painful divines, and the like, are not commonly so
+politic for their own fortune, otherwise than in their ordinary
+way, because they want time to learn particulars, to wait
+occasions, and to devise plots.</p>
+<p>(40) Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate nature,
+which doth nothing in vain; which surely a man may do if he do
+well interlace his business, and bend not his mind too much upon
+that which he principally intendeth.&nbsp; For a man ought in
+every particular action so to carry the motions of his mind, and
+so to have one thing under another, as if he cannot have that he
+seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it in a second, or so in
+a third; and if he can have no part of that which he purposed,
+yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else; and if he cannot make
+anything of it for the present, yet to make it as a seed of
+somewhat in time to come; and if he can contrive no effect or
+substance from it, yet to win some good opinion by it, or the
+like.&nbsp; So that he should exact an account of himself of
+every action, to reap somewhat, and not to stand amazed and
+confused if he fail of that he chiefly meant: for nothing is more
+impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one.&nbsp; For he
+that doth so loseth infinite occasions which intervene, and are
+many times more proper and propitious for somewhat that he shall
+need afterwards, than for that which he urgeth for the present;
+and therefore men must be perfect in that rule, <i>H&aelig;c
+oportet facere</i>, <i>et illa non imittere</i>.</p>
+<p>(41) Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a
+man&rsquo;s self peremptorily in anything, though it seem not
+liable to accident; but ever to have a window to fly out at, or a
+way to retire: following the wisdom in the ancient fable of the
+two frogs, which consulted when their plash was dry whither they
+should go; and the one moved to go down into a pit, because it
+was not likely the water would dry there; but the other answered,
+&ldquo;True, but if it do, how shall we get out again?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(42) Another precept of this knowledge is that ancient precept
+of Bias, construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but to
+caution and moderation, <i>Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus et odi
+tanquam amaturus</i>.&nbsp; For it utterly betrayeth all utility
+for men to embark themselves too far into unfortunate
+friendships, troublesome spleens, and childish and humorous
+envies or emulations.</p>
+<p>(43) But I continue this beyond the measure of an example;
+led, because I would not have such knowledges, which I note as
+deficient, to be thought things imaginative or in the air, or an
+observation or two much made of, but things of bulk and mass,
+whereof an end is more hardly made than a beginning.&nbsp; It
+must be likewise conceived, that in these points which I mention
+and set down, they are far from complete tractates of them, but
+only as small pieces for patterns.&nbsp; And lastly, no man I
+suppose will think that I mean fortunes are not obtained without
+all this ado; for I know they come tumbling into some men&rsquo;s
+laps; and a number obtain good fortunes by diligence in a plain
+way, little intermeddling, and keeping themselves from gross
+errors.</p>
+<p>(44) But as Cicero, when he setteth down an idea of a perfect
+orator, doth not mean that every pleader should be such; and so
+likewise, when a prince or a courtier hath been described by such
+as have handled those subjects, the mould hath used to be made
+according to the perfection of the art, and not according to
+common practice: so I understand it, that it ought to be done in
+the description of a politic man, I mean politic for his own
+fortune.</p>
+<p>(45) But it must be remembered all this while, that the
+precepts which we have set down are of that kind which may be
+counted and called <i>Bon&aelig; Artes</i>.&nbsp; As for evil
+arts, if a man would set down for himself that principle of
+Machiavel, &ldquo;That a man seek not to attain virtue itself,
+but the appearance only thereof; because the credit of virtue is
+a help, but the use of it is cumber:&rdquo; or that other of his
+principles, &ldquo;That he presuppose that men are not fitly to
+be wrought otherwise but by fear; and therefore that he seek to
+have every man obnoxious, low, and in straits,&rdquo; which the
+Italians call <i>seminar spine</i>, to sow thorns: or that other
+principle, contained in the verse which Cicero citeth, <i>Cadant
+amici</i>, <i>dummodo inimici intercidant</i>, as the triumvirs,
+which sold every one to other the lives of their friends for the
+deaths of their enemies: or that other protestation of L.
+Catilina, to set on fire and trouble states, to the end to fish
+in droumy waters, and to unwrap their fortunes, <i>Ego si quid in
+fortunis meis excitatum sit incendium</i>, <i>id non aqua sed
+ruina restinguam</i>: or that other principle of Lysander,
+&ldquo;That children are to be deceived with comfits, and men
+with oaths:&rdquo; and the like evil and corrupt positions,
+whereof (as in all things) there are more in number than of the
+good: certainly with these dispensations from the laws of charity
+and integrity, the pressing of a man&rsquo;s fortune may be more
+hasty and compendious.&nbsp; But it is in life as it is in ways,
+the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer
+way is not much about.</p>
+<p>(46) But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and
+sustain themselves, and be not carried away with a whirlwind or
+tempest of ambition, ought in the pursuit of their own fortune to
+set before their eyes not only that general map of the world,
+&ldquo;That all things are vanity and vexation of spirit,&rdquo;
+but many other more particular cards and directions: chiefly
+that, that being without well-being is a curse, and the greater
+being the greater curse; and that all virtue is most rewarded and
+all wickedness most punished in itself: according as the poet
+saith excellently:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Qu&aelig; vobis, qu&aelig; digna, viri pro
+laudibus istis<br />
+Pr&aelig;mia posse rear solvi? pulcherrima primum<br />
+Dii <i>moresque</i> dabunt vestri.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And so of the contrary.&nbsp; And secondly they ought to look
+up to the Eternal Providence and Divine Judgment, which often
+subverteth the wisdom of evil plots and imaginations, according
+to that scripture, &ldquo;He hath conceived mischief, and shall
+bring forth a vain thing.&rdquo;&nbsp; And although men should
+refrain themselves from injury and evil arts, yet this incessant
+and Sabbathless pursuit of a man&rsquo;s fortune leaveth not
+tribute which we owe to God of our time; who (we see) demandeth a
+tenth of our substance, and a seventh, which is more strict, of
+our time: and it is to small purpose to have an erected face
+towards heaven, and a perpetual grovelling spirit upon earth,
+eating dust as doth the serpent, <i>Atque affigit humo
+divin&aelig; particulam aur&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; And if any man
+flatter himself that he will employ his fortune well, though he
+should obtain it ill, as was said concerning Augustus
+C&aelig;sar, and after of Septimius Severus, &ldquo;That either
+they should never have been born, or else they should never have
+died,&rdquo; they did so much mischief in the pursuit and ascent
+of their greatness, and so much good when they were established;
+yet these compensations and satisfactions are good to be used,
+but never good to be purposed.&nbsp; And lastly, it is not amiss
+for men, in their race towards their fortune, to cool themselves
+a little with that conceit which is elegantly expressed by the
+Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the king his son,
+&ldquo;That fortune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, that
+if she he too much wooed she is the farther off.&rdquo;&nbsp; But
+this last is but a remedy for those whose tastes are corrupted:
+let men rather build upon that foundation which is as a
+corner-stone of divinity and philosophy, wherein they join close,
+namely that same <i>Primum qu&aelig;rite</i>.&nbsp; For divinity
+saith, <i>Primum qu&aelig;rite regnum Dei</i>, <i>et ista omnia
+adjicientur vobis</i>: and philosophy saith, <i>Primum
+qu&aelig;rite bona animi</i>; <i>c&aelig;tera aut aderunt</i>,
+<i>aut non oberunt</i>.&nbsp; And although the human foundation
+hath somewhat of the sands, as we see in M. Brutus, when he broke
+forth into that speech,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Te colui (Virtus) ut rem; ast tu nomen
+inane es;&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>yet the divine foundation is upon the rock.&nbsp; But this may
+serve for a taste of that knowledge which I noted as
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(47) Concerning government, it is a part of knowledge secret
+and retired in both these respects in which things are deemed
+secret; for some things are secret because they are hard to know,
+and some because they are not fit to utter.&nbsp; We see all
+governments are obscure and invisible:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Totamque infusa per
+artus<br />
+Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Such is the description of governments.&nbsp; We see the
+government of God over the world is hidden, insomuch as it
+seemeth to participate of much irregularity and confusion.&nbsp;
+The government of the soul in moving the body is inward and
+profound, and the passages thereof hardly to be reduced to
+demonstration.&nbsp; Again, the wisdom of antiquity (the shadows
+whereof are in the poets) in the description of torments and
+pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was the
+giants&rsquo; offence, doth detest the offence of futility, as in
+Sisyphus and Tantalus.&nbsp; But this was meant of particulars:
+nevertheless even unto the general rules and discourses of policy
+and government there is due a reverent and reserved handling.</p>
+<p>(48) But contrariwise in the governors towards the governed,
+all things ought as far as the frailty of man permitteth to be
+manifest and revealed.&nbsp; For so it is expressed in the
+Scriptures touching the government of God, that this globe, which
+seemeth to us a dark and shady body, is in the view of God as
+crystal: <i>Et in conspectu sedis tanquam mare vitreum simile
+crystallo</i>.&nbsp; So unto princes and states, and specially
+towards wise senates and councils, the natures and dispositions
+of the people, their conditions and necessities, their factions
+and combinations, their animosities and discontents, ought to be,
+in regard of the variety of their intelligences, the wisdom of
+their observations, and the height of their station where they
+keep sentinel, in great part clear and transparent.&nbsp;
+Wherefore, considering that I write to a king that is a master of
+this science, and is so well assisted, I think it decent to pass
+over this part in silence, as willing to obtain the certificate
+which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto; who being
+silent, when others contended to make demonstration of their
+abilities by speech, desired it might be certified for his part,
+&ldquo;That there was one that knew how to hold his
+peace.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(49) Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government,
+which is laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which
+is, that all those which have written of laws have written either
+as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen.&nbsp; As
+for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary
+commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give
+little light because they are so high.&nbsp; For the lawyers,
+they write according to the states where they live what is
+received law, and not what ought to be law; for the wisdom of a
+law-maker is one, and of a lawyer is another.&nbsp; For there are
+in nature certain fountains of justice whence all civil laws are
+derived but as streams; and like as waters do take tinctures and
+tastes from the soils through which they run, so do civil laws
+vary according to the regions and governments where they are
+planted, though they proceed from the same fountains.&nbsp;
+Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a
+platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into
+consideration by what means laws may be made certain, and what
+are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and uncertainty
+of law; by what means laws may be made apt and easy to be
+executed, and what are the impediments and remedies in the
+execution of laws; what influence laws touching private right of
+<i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i> have into the public state, and how
+they may be made apt and agreeable; how laws are to be penned and
+delivered, whether in texts or in Acts, brief or large, with
+preambles or without; how they are to be pruned and reformed from
+time to time, and what is the best means to keep them from being
+too vast in volume, or too full of multiplicity and crossness;
+how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent and
+judicially discussed, and when upon responses and conferences
+touching general points or questions; how they are to be pressed,
+rigorously or tenderly; how they are to be mitigated by equity
+and good conscience, and whether discretion and strict law are to
+be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several courts;
+again, how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to
+be censured and governed; and many other points touching the
+administration and (as I may term it) animation of laws.&nbsp;
+Upon which I insist the less, because I purpose (if God give me
+leave), having begun a work of this nature in aphorisms, to
+propound it hereafter, noting it in the meantime for
+deficient.</p>
+<p>(50) And for your Majesty&rsquo;s laws of England, I could say
+much of their dignity, and somewhat of their defect; but they
+cannot but excel the civil laws in fitness for the government,
+for the civil law was <i>nonhos qu&aelig;situm munus in usus</i>;
+it was not made for the countries which it governeth.&nbsp;
+Hereof I cease to speak because I will not intermingle matter of
+action with matter of general learning.</p>
+<p>XXIV.&nbsp; Thus have I concluded this portion of learning
+touching civil knowledge; and with civil knowledge have concluded
+human philosophy; and with human philosophy, philosophy in
+general.&nbsp; And being now at some pause, looking back into
+that I have passed through, this writing seemeth to me (<i>si
+nunquam fallit imago</i>), as far as a man can judge of his own
+work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians
+make while they are in tuning their instruments, which is nothing
+pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter
+afterwards.&nbsp; So have I been content to tune the instruments
+of the Muses, that they may play that have better hands.&nbsp;
+And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in
+which learning hath made her third visitation or circuit in all
+the qualities thereof; as the excellency and vivacity of the wits
+of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the
+travails of ancient writers; the art of printing, which
+communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness of the
+world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of
+experiments, and a mass of natural history; the leisure wherewith
+these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil
+business, as the states of Gr&aelig;cia did, in respect of their
+popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of
+their monarchy; the present disposition of these times at this
+instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in
+controversies of religion, which have so much diverted men from
+other sciences; the perfection of your Majesty&rsquo;s learning,
+which as a ph&oelig;nix may call whole volleys of wits to follow
+you; and the inseparable propriety of time, which is ever more
+and more to disclose truth; I cannot but be raised to this
+persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that
+of the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their
+own strength and their own weakness both; and take, one from the
+other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction; and
+esteem of the inquisition of truth as of an enterprise, and not
+as of a quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence to
+things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of
+popular estimation.&nbsp; As for my labours, if any man shall
+please himself or others in the reprehension of them, they shall
+make that ancient and patient request, <i>Verbera</i>, <i>sed
+audi</i>: let men reprehend them, so they observe and weigh
+them.&nbsp; For the appeal is lawful (though it may be it shall
+not be needful) from the first cogitations of men to their
+second, and from the nearer times to the times further off.&nbsp;
+Now let us come to that learning, which both the former times
+were not so blessed as to know, sacred and inspired divinity, the
+Sabbath and port of all men&rsquo;s labours and
+peregrinations.</p>
+<p>XXV. (1) The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the
+reason as to the will of man: so that as we are to obey His law,
+though we find a reluctation in our will, so we are to believe
+His word, though we find a reluctation in our reason.&nbsp; For
+if we believe only that which is agreeable to our sense we give
+consent to the matter, and not to the author; which is no more
+than we would do towards a suspected and discredited witness; but
+that faith which was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was
+of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein was an
+image of natural reason.</p>
+<p>(2) Howbeit (if we will truly consider of it) more worthy it
+is to believe than to know as we now know.&nbsp; For in knowledge
+man&rsquo;s mind suffereth from sense: but in belief it suffereth
+from spirit, such one as it holdeth for more authorised than
+itself and so suffereth from the worthier agent.&nbsp; Otherwise
+it is of the state of man glorified; for then faith shall cease,
+and we shall know as we are known.</p>
+<p>(3) Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology (which in our
+idiom we call divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle
+of God, and not upon the light of nature: for it is written,
+<i>C&aelig;li enarrant gloriam Dei</i>; but it is not written,
+<i>C&aelig;li enarrant voluntatem Dei</i>: but of that it is
+said, <i>Ad legem et testimonium</i>: <i>si non fecerint secundum
+verbum istud</i>, &amp;c.&nbsp; This holdeth not only in those
+points of faith which concern the great mysteries of the Deity,
+of the creation, of the redemption, but likewise those which
+concern the law moral, truly interpreted: &ldquo;Love your
+enemies: do good to them that hate you; be like to your heavenly
+Father, that suffereth His rain to fall upon the just and
+unjust.&rdquo;&nbsp; To this it ought to be applauded, <i>Nec vox
+hominem sonat</i>: it is a voice beyond the light of
+nature.&nbsp; So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a
+libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moralities,
+as if they were opposite and malignant to nature: <i>Et quod
+natura remittit</i>, <i>invida jura negant</i>.&nbsp; So said
+Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander&rsquo;s messengers, that he
+had heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other of the wise men
+of Gr&aelig;cia, and that he held them for excellent men: but
+that they had a fault, which was that they had in too great
+reverence and veneration a thing they called law and
+manners.&nbsp; So it must be confessed that a great part of the
+law moral is of that perfection whereunto the light of nature
+cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have, by the
+light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and
+vice, justice and wrong, good and evil?&nbsp; Thus, because the
+light of nature is used in two several senses: the one, that
+which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argument,
+according to the laws of heaven and earth; the other, that which
+is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct,
+according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the
+purity of his first estate: in which latter sense only he is
+participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection
+of the moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice but not
+to inform the duty.&nbsp; So then the doctrine of religion, as
+well moral as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration
+and revelation from God.</p>
+<p>(4) The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, and
+the latitude thereof, is very great and general: for it is not
+for nothing that the apostle calleth religion &ldquo;our
+reasonable service of God;&rdquo; insomuch as the very ceremonies
+and figures of the old law were full of reason and signification,
+much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and magic, that are
+full of non-significants and surd characters.&nbsp; But most
+specially the Christian faith, as in all things so in this,
+deserveth to be highly magnified; holding and preserving the
+golden mediocrity in this point between the law of the heathen
+and the law of Mahomet, which have embraced the two
+extremes.&nbsp; For the religion of the heathen had no constant
+belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of agent; and
+the religion of Mahomet on the other side interdicteth argument
+altogether: the one having the very face of error, and the other
+of imposture; whereas the Faith doth both admit and reject
+disputation with difference.</p>
+<p>(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the
+former, in the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of
+God to us revealed; the other, in the inferring and deriving of
+doctrine and direction thereupon.&nbsp; The former extendeth to
+the mysteries themselves; but how? by way of illustration, and
+not by way of argument.&nbsp; The latter consisteth indeed of
+probation and argument.&nbsp; In the former we see God
+vouchsafeth to descend to our capacity, in the expressing of His
+mysteries in sort as may be sensible unto us; and doth graft His
+revelations and holy doctrine upon the notions of our reason, and
+applieth His inspirations to open our understanding, as the form
+of the key to the ward of the lock.&nbsp; For the latter there is
+allowed us a use of reason and argument, secondary and
+respective, although not original and absolute.&nbsp; For after
+the articles and principles of religion are placed and exempted
+from examination of reason, it is then permitted unto us to make
+derivations and inferences from and according to the analogy of
+them, for our better direction.&nbsp; In nature this holdeth not;
+for both the principles are examinable by induction, though not
+by a medium or syllogism; and besides, those principles or first
+positions have no discordance with that reason which draweth down
+and deduceth the inferior positions.&nbsp; But yet it holdeth not
+in religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and
+smaller nature, namely, wherein there are not only <i>posita</i>
+but <i>placita</i>; for in such there can be no use of absolute
+reason.&nbsp; We see it familiarly in games of wit, as chess, or
+the like.&nbsp; The draughts and first laws of the game are
+positive, but how? merely <i>ad placitum</i>, and not examinable
+by reason; but then how to direct our play thereupon with best
+advantage to win the game is artificial and rational.&nbsp; So in
+human laws there be many grounds and maxims which are <i>placita
+juris</i>, positive upon authority, and not upon reason, and
+therefore not to be disputed: but what is most just, not
+absolutely but relatively, and according to those maxims, that
+affordeth a long field of disputation.&nbsp; Such therefore is
+that secondary reason, which hath place in divinity, which is
+grounded upon the <i>placets</i> of God.</p>
+<p>(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath not
+been, to my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the
+true limits and use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of
+divine dialectic: which for that it is not done, it seemeth to me
+a thing usual, by pretext of true conceiving that which is
+revealed, to search and mine into that which is not revealed; and
+by pretext of enucleating inferences and contradictories, to
+examine that which is positive.&nbsp; The one sort falling into
+the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have things made more
+sensible than it pleaseth God to reveal them, <i>Quomodo possit
+homo nasci cum sit senex</i>?&nbsp; The other sort into the error
+of the disciples, which were scandalised at a show of
+contradiction, <i>Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis</i>?&nbsp;
+<i>Modicum et non videbitis me</i>; <i>et iterum</i>,
+<i>modicum</i>, <i>et videbitis me</i>, &amp;c.</p>
+<p>(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great
+and blessed use thereof; for this point well laboured and defined
+of would in my judgment be an opiate to stay and bridle not only
+the vanity of curious speculations, wherewith the schools labour,
+but the fury of controversies, wherewith the Church
+laboureth.&nbsp; For it cannot but open men&rsquo;s eyes to see
+that many controversies do merely pertain to that which is either
+not revealed or positive; and that many others do grow upon weak
+and obscure inferences or derivations: which latter sort, if men
+would revive the blessed style of that great doctor of the
+Gentiles, would be carried thus, <i>ego</i>, <i>non dominus</i>;
+and again, <i>secundum consilium meum</i>, in opinions and
+counsels, and not in positions and oppositions.&nbsp; But men are
+now over-ready to usurp the style, <i>non ego</i>, <i>sed
+dominus</i>; and not so only, but to bind it with the thunder and
+denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the terror of those
+which have not sufficiently learned out of Solomon that
+&ldquo;The causeless curse shall not come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(8) Divinity hath two principal parts: the matter informed or
+revealed, and the nature of the information or revelation; and
+with the latter we will begin, because it hath most coherence
+with that which we have now last handled.&nbsp; The nature of the
+information consisteth of three branches: the limits of the
+information, the sufficiency of the information, and the
+acquiring or obtaining the information.&nbsp; Unto the limits of
+the information belong these considerations: how far forth
+particular persons continue to be inspired; how far forth the
+Church is inspired; and how far forth reason may be used; the
+last point whereof I have noted as deficient.&nbsp; Unto the
+sufficiency of the information belong two considerations: what
+points of religion are fundamental, and what perfective, being
+matter of further building and perfection upon one and the same
+foundation; and again, how the gradations of light according to
+the dispensation of times are material to the sufficiency of
+belief.</p>
+<p>(9) Here again I may rather give it in advice than note it as
+deficient, that the points fundamental, and the points of further
+perfection only, ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished;
+a subject tending to much like end as that I noted before; for as
+that other were likely to abate the number of controversies, so
+this is likely to abate the heat of many of them.&nbsp; We see
+Moses when he saw the Israelite and the Egyptian fight, he did
+not say, &ldquo;Why strive you?&rdquo; but drew his sword and
+slew the Egyptian; but when he saw the two Israelites fight, he
+said, &ldquo;You are brethren, why strive you?&rdquo;&nbsp; If
+the point of doctrine be an Egyptian, it must be slain by the
+sword of the Spirit, and not reconciled; but if it be an
+Israelite, though in the wrong, then, &ldquo;Why strive
+you?&rdquo;&nbsp; We see of the fundamental points, our Saviour
+penneth the league thus, &ldquo;He that is not with us is against
+us;&rdquo; but of points not fundamental, thus, &ldquo;He that is
+not against us is with us.&rdquo;&nbsp; So we see the coat of our
+Saviour was entire without seam, and so is the doctrine of the
+Scriptures in itself; but the garment of the Church was of divers
+colours and yet not divided.&nbsp; We see the chaff may and ought
+to be severed from the corn in the ear, but the tares may not be
+pulled up from the corn in the field.&nbsp; So as it is a thing
+of great use well to define what, and of what latitude, those
+points are which do make men mere aliens and disincorporate from
+the Church of God.</p>
+<p>(10) For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the
+true and sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the
+fountains of the water of life.&nbsp; The interpretations of the
+Scriptures are of two sorts: methodical, and solute or at
+large.&nbsp; For this divine water, which excelleth so much that
+of Jacob&rsquo;s well, is drawn forth much in the same kind as
+natural water useth to be out of wells and fountains; either it
+is first forced up into a cistern, and from thence fetched and
+derived for use; or else it is drawn and received in buckets and
+vessels immediately where it springeth.&nbsp; The former sort
+whereof, though it seem to be the more ready, yet in my judgment
+is more subject to corrupt.&nbsp; This is that method which hath
+exhibited unto us the scholastical divinity; whereby divinity
+hath been reduced into an art, as into a cistern, and the streams
+of doctrine or positions fetched and derived from thence.</p>
+<p>(11) In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity,
+a compacted strength, and a complete perfection; whereof the two
+first they fail to find, and the last they ought not to
+seek.&nbsp; For as to brevity, we see in all summary methods,
+while men purpose to abridge, they give cause to dilate.&nbsp;
+For the sum or abridgment by contraction becometh obscure; the
+obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is deduced
+into large commentaries, or into commonplaces and titles, which
+grow to be more vast than the original writings, whence the sum
+was at first extracted.&nbsp; So we see the volumes of the
+schoolmen are greater much than the first writings of the
+fathers, whence the master of the sentences made his sum or
+collection.&nbsp; So in like manner the volumes of the modern
+doctors of the civil law exceed those of the ancient
+jurisconsults, of which Tribonian compiled the digest.&nbsp; So
+as this course of sums and commentaries is that which doth
+infallibly make the body of sciences more immense in quantity,
+and more base in substance.</p>
+<p>(12) And for strength, it is true that knowledges reduced into
+exact methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth
+to support and sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory
+than substantial, like unto buildings which stand by architecture
+and compaction, which are more subject to ruin than those that
+are built more strong in their several parts, though less
+compacted.&nbsp; But it is plain that the more you recede from
+your grounds, the weaker do you conclude; and as in nature, the
+more you remove yourself from particulars, the greater peril of
+error you do incur; so much more in divinity, the more you recede
+from the Scriptures by inferences and consequences, the more weak
+and dilute are your positions.</p>
+<p>(13) And as for perfection or completeness in divinity, it is
+not to be sought, which makes this course of artificial divinity
+the more suspect.&nbsp; For he that will reduce a knowledge into
+an art will make it round and uniform; but in divinity many
+things must be left abrupt, and concluded with this: <i>O
+altitudo sapienti&aelig; et scienti&aelig; Dei</i>! <i>quam
+incomprehensibilia sunt juducua ejus</i>, <i>et non
+investigabiles vi&aelig; ejus</i>.&nbsp; So again the apostle
+saith, <i>Ex parte scimus</i>: and to have the form of a total,
+where there is but matter for a part, cannot be without supplies
+by supposition and presumption.&nbsp; And therefore I conclude
+that the true use of these sums and methods hath place in
+institutions or introductions preparatory unto knowledge; but in
+them, or by deducement from them, to handle the main body and
+substance of a knowledge is in all sciences prejudicial, and in
+divinity dangerous.</p>
+<p>(14) As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at
+large, there have been divers kinds introduced and devised; some
+of them rather curious and unsafe than sober and warranted.&nbsp;
+Notwithstanding, thus much must be confessed, that the
+Scriptures, being given by inspiration and not by human reason,
+do differ from all other books in the Author, which by
+consequence doth draw on some difference to be used by the
+expositor.&nbsp; For the Inditer of them did know four things
+which no man attains to know; which are&mdash;the mysteries of
+the kingdom of glory, the perfection of the laws of nature, the
+secrets of the heart of man, and the future succession of all
+ages.&nbsp; For as to the first it is said, &ldquo;He that
+presseth into the light shall be oppressed of the
+glory.&rdquo;&nbsp; And again, &ldquo;No man shall see My face
+and live.&rdquo;&nbsp; To the second, &ldquo;When He prepared the
+heavens I was present, when by law and compass He enclosed the
+deep.&rdquo;&nbsp; To the third, &ldquo;Neither was it needful
+that any should bear witness to Him of man, for He knew well what
+was in man.&rdquo;&nbsp; And to the last, &ldquo;From the
+beginning are known to the Lord all His works.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>(15) From the former two of these have been drawn certain
+senses and expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained
+within the bounds of sobriety&mdash;the one anagogical, and the
+other philosophical.&nbsp; But as to the former, man is not to
+prevent his time: <i>Videmus nunc per speculum in
+&aelig;nigmate</i>, <i>tunc autem facie ad faciem</i>; wherein
+nevertheless there seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth
+as the polishing of this glass, or some moderate explication of
+this enigma.&nbsp; But to press too far into it cannot but cause
+a dissolution and overthrow of the spirit of man.&nbsp; For in
+the body there are three degrees of that we receive into
+it&mdash;aliment, medicine, and poison; whereof aliment is that
+which the nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome;
+medicine is that which is partly converted by nature, and partly
+converteth nature; and poison is that which worketh wholly upon
+nature, without that nature can in any part work upon it.&nbsp;
+So in the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at all work
+upon and convert is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a
+dissolution of the mind and understanding.</p>
+<p>(16) But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of
+late time by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have
+pretended to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the
+Scriptures; scandalising and traducing all other philosophy as
+heathenish and profane.&nbsp; But there is no such enmity between
+God&rsquo;s Word and His works; neither do they give honour to
+the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embase them.&nbsp; For
+to seek heaven and earth in the Word of God, whereof it is said,
+&ldquo;Heaven and earth shall pass, but My word shall not
+pass,&rdquo; is to seek temporary things amongst eternal: and as
+to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek the living amongst the
+dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead
+amongst the living: neither are the pots or lavers, whose place
+was in the outward part of the temple, to be sought in the
+holiest place of all where the ark of the testimony was
+seated.&nbsp; And again, the scope or purpose of the Spirit of
+God is not to express matters of nature in the Scriptures,
+otherwise than in passage, and for application to man&rsquo;s
+capacity and to matters moral or divine.&nbsp; And it is a true
+rule, <i>Auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas</i>.&nbsp; For
+it were a strange conclusion, if a man should use a similitude
+for ornament or illustration sake, borrowed from nature or
+history according to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, a unicorn,
+a centaur, a Briareus, a hydra, or the like, that therefore he
+must needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof positively to
+be true.&nbsp; To conclude therefore these two interpretations,
+the one by reduction or enigmatical, the other philosophical or
+physical, which have been received and pursued in imitation of
+the rabbins and cabalists, are to be confined with a <i>a noli
+akryn sapere</i>, <i>sed time</i>.</p>
+<p>(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to
+man, touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of
+time, doth make a just and sound difference between the manner of
+the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books.&nbsp; For
+it is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the
+answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were
+propounded to Him, how that they are impertinent to the state of
+the question demanded: the reason whereof is, because not being
+like man, which knows man&rsquo;s thoughts by his words, but
+knowing man&rsquo;s thoughts immediately, He never answered their
+words, but their thoughts.&nbsp; Much in the like manner it is
+with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men,
+and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all
+heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the Church, yea,
+and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only
+according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and
+respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words
+were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the
+words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal scope
+of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or
+collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite
+springs and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every
+part.&nbsp; And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were,
+the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and
+sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the Church
+hath most use; not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or
+indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that
+interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as
+men use to interpret a profane book.</p>
+<p>(18) In this part touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I
+can report no deficiency; but by way of remembrance this I will
+add.&nbsp; In perusing books of divinity I find many books of
+controversies, and many of commonplaces and treatises, a mass of
+positive divinity, as it is made an art: a number of sermons and
+lectures, and many prolix commentaries upon the Scriptures, with
+harmonies and concordances.&nbsp; But that form of writing in
+divinity which in my judgment is of all others most rich and
+precious is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts of
+Scriptures in brief observations; not dilated into commonplaces,
+not chasing after controversies, not reduced into method of art;
+a thing abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in
+books which will remain, and a thing wherein this age
+excelleth.&nbsp; For I am persuaded, and I may speak it with an
+<i>absit invidia verbo</i>, and nowise in derogation of
+antiquity, but as in a good emulation between the vine and the
+olive, that if the choice and best of those observations upon
+texts of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons
+within this your Majesty&rsquo;s Island of Brittany by the space
+of these forty years and more (leaving out the largeness of
+exhortations and applications thereupon) had been set down in a
+continuance, it had been the best work in divinity which had been
+written since the Apostles&rsquo; times.</p>
+<p>(19) The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds: matter
+of belief and truth of opinion, and matter of service and
+adoration; which is also judged and directed by the
+former&mdash;the one being as the internal soul of religion, and
+the other as the external body thereof.&nbsp; And, therefore, the
+heathen religion was not only a worship of idols, but the whole
+religion was an idol in itself; for it had no soul; that is, no
+certainty of belief or confession: as a man may well think,
+considering the chief doctors of their church were the poets; and
+the reason was because the heathen gods were no jealous gods, but
+were glad to be admitted into part, as they had reason.&nbsp;
+Neither did they respect the pureness of heart, so they might
+have external honour and rites.</p>
+<p>(20) But out of these two do result and issue four main
+branches of divinity: faith, manners, liturgy, and
+government.&nbsp; Faith containeth the doctrine of the nature of
+God, of the attributes of God, and of the works of God.&nbsp; The
+nature of God consisteth of three persons in unity of
+Godhead.&nbsp; The attributes of God are either common to the
+Deity, or respective to the persons.&nbsp; The works of God
+summary are two, that of the creation and that of the redemption;
+and both these works, as in total they appertain to the unity of
+the Godhead, so in their parts they refer to the three persons:
+that of the creation, in the mass of the matter, to the Father;
+in the disposition of the form, to the Son; and in the
+continuance and conservation of the being, to the Holy
+Spirit.&nbsp; So that of the redemption, in the election and
+counsel, to the Father; in the whole act and consummation, to the
+Son; and in the application, to the Holy Spirit; for by the Holy
+Ghost was Christ conceived in flesh, and by the Holy Ghost are
+the elect regenerate in spirit.&nbsp; This work likewise we
+consider either effectually, in the elect; or privately, in the
+reprobate; or according to appearance, in the visible Church.</p>
+<p>(21) For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the
+law, which discloseth sin.&nbsp; The law itself is divided,
+according to the edition thereof, into the law of nature, the law
+moral, and the law positive; and according to the style, into
+negative and affirmative, prohibitions and commandments.&nbsp;
+Sin, in the matter and subject thereof, is divided according to
+the commandments; in the form thereof it referreth to the three
+persons in Deity: sins of infirmity against the Father, whose
+more special attribute is power; sins of ignorance against the
+Son, whose attribute is wisdom; and sins of malice against the
+Holy Ghost, whose attribute is grace or love.&nbsp; In the
+motions of it, it either moveth to the right hand or to the left;
+either to blind devotion or to profane and libertine
+transgression; either in imposing restraint where God granteth
+liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth restraint.&nbsp;
+In the degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself into
+thought, word, or act.&nbsp; And in this part I commend much the
+deducing of the law of God to cases of conscience; for that I
+take indeed to be a breaking, and not exhibiting whole of the
+bread of life.&nbsp; But that which quickeneth both these
+doctrines of faith and manners is the elevation and consent of
+the heart; whereunto appertain books of exhortation, holy
+meditation, Christian resolution, and the like.</p>
+<p>(22) For the liturgy or service, it consisteth of the
+reciprocal acts between God and man; which, on the part of God,
+are the preaching of the word, and the sacraments, which are
+seals to the covenant, or as the visible word; and on the part of
+man, invocation of the name of God; and under the law,
+sacrifices; which were as visible prayers or confessions: but now
+the adoration being <i>in spiritu et veritate</i>, there
+remaineth only <i>vituli labiorum</i>; although the use of holy
+vows of thankfulness and retribution may be accounted also as
+sealed petitions.</p>
+<p>(23) And for the government of the Church, it consisteth of
+the patrimony of the Church, the franchises of the Church, and
+the offices and jurisdictions of the Church, and the laws of the
+Church directing the whole; all which have two considerations,
+the one in themselves, the other how they stand compatible and
+agreeable to the civil estate.</p>
+<p>(24) This matter of divinity is handled either in form of
+instruction of truth, or in form of confutation of
+falsehood.&nbsp; The declinations from religion, besides the
+privative, which is atheism and the branches thereof, are
+three&mdash;heresies, idolatry, and witchcraft: heresies, when we
+serve the true God with a false worship; idolatry, when we
+worship false gods, supposing them to be true; and witchcraft,
+when we adore false gods, knowing them to be wicked and
+false.&nbsp; For so your Majesty doth excellently well observe,
+that witchcraft is the height of idolatry.&nbsp; And yet we see
+though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that they are
+all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the Word of
+God; for so he saith, <i>Quasi peccatum ariolandi est
+repugnare</i>, <i>et quasi scelus idololatri&aelig; nolle
+acquiescere</i>.</p>
+<p>(25) These things I have passed over so briefly because I can
+report no deficiency concerning them: for I can find no space or
+ground that lieth vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity, so
+diligent have men been either in sowing of good seed, or in
+sowing of tares.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Thus have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual
+world, as truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note
+and description of those parts which seem to me not constantly
+occupate, or not well converted by the labour of man.&nbsp; In
+which, if I have in any point receded from that which is commonly
+received, it hath been with a purpose of proceeding in
+<i>melius</i>, and not <i>in aliud</i>; a mind of amendment and
+proficiency, and not of change and difference.&nbsp; For I could
+not be true and constant to the argument I handle if I were not
+willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to
+have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by
+this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not
+seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men&rsquo;s judgments by
+confutations.&nbsp; For in anything which is well set down, I am
+in good hope that if the first reading move an objection, the
+second reading will make an answer.&nbsp; And in those things
+wherein I have erred, I am sure I have not prejudiced the right
+by litigious arguments; which certainly have this contrary effect
+and operation, that they add authority to error, and destroy the
+authority of that which is well invented.&nbsp; For question is
+an honour and preferment to falsehood, as on the other side it is
+a repulse to truth.&nbsp; But the errors I claim and challenge to
+myself as mine own.&nbsp; The good, it any be, is due <i>tanquam
+adeps sacrificii</i>, to be incensed to the honour, first of the
+Divine Majesty, and next of your Majesty, to whom on earth I am
+most bounden.</p>
+<h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote39"></a><a href="#citation39"
+class="footnote">[39]</a>&nbsp; Stoops in the rice and takes the
+speeding gold.&nbsp; Ovid. Metam, x. 667.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING***</p>
+<pre>
+
+
+***** This file should be named 5500-h.htm or 5500-h.zip******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/5/0/5500
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Advancement of Learning, by Francis Bacon
+(#4 in our series by Francis Bacon)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+
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+Title: The Advancement of Learning
+
+Author: Francis Bacon
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5500]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 16, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+"The TVVOO Bookes of Francis Bacon.  Of the proficience and
+aduancement of Learning, divine and humane.  To the King.  At
+London.  Printed for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop
+at Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605."   That was the original
+title-page of the book now in the reader's hand--a living book that
+led the way to a new world of thought.  It was the book in which
+Bacon, early in the reign of James the First, prepared the way for a
+full setting forth of his New Organon, or instrument of knowledge.
+
+The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which Aristotle
+had written the doctrine of propositions.  Study of these treatises
+was a chief occupation of young men when they passed from school to
+college, and proceeded from Grammar to Logic, the second of the
+Seven Sciences.  Francis Bacon as a youth of sixteen, at Trinity
+College, Cambridge, felt the unfruitfulness of this method of search
+after truth.  He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen
+Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, and was born at York House, in the Strand,
+on the 22nd of January, 1561.  His mother was the Lord Keeper's
+second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other married Sir
+William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh.  Sir Nicholas Bacon had six
+children by his former marriage, and by his second wife two sons,
+Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years the elder.
+The family home was at York Place, and at Gorhambury, near St.
+Albans, from which town, in its ancient and its modern style, Bacon
+afterwards took his titles of Verulam and St. Albans.
+
+Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College,
+Cambridge, when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis twelve.
+Francis remained at Cambridge only until his sixteenth year; and Dr.
+Rawley, his chaplain in after-years, reports of him that "whilst he
+was commorant in the University, about sixteen years of age (as his
+lordship hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell
+into dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the
+worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ascribe all high
+attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being a
+philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for
+disputatious and contentions, but barren of the production of works
+for the benefit of the life of man; in which mind he continued to
+his dying day."  Bacon was sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with
+the ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet, to begin his training for the
+public service; but his father's death, in February, 1579, before he
+had completed the provision he was making for his youngest children,
+obliged him to return to London, and, at the age of eighteen, to
+settle down at Gray's Inn to the study of law as a profession.  He
+was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582, and about that time, at
+the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of his conception of a New
+Organon that should lead man to more fruitful knowledge, in a little
+Latin tract, which he called "Temporis Partus Maximus" ("The
+Greatest Birth of Time").
+
+In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons as
+member for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire.  In October, 1586, he sat
+for Taunton.  He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one
+of those who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of
+Scots.  In October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of
+Clerk of the Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth 1,600
+pounds or 2,000 pounds a year; but for the succession to this office
+he had to wait until 1608.  It had not yet fallen to him when he
+wrote his "Two Books of the Advancement of Learning."  In the
+Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as member for
+Middlesex.  He raised difficulties of procedure in the way of the
+grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the joining of the
+Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a desire to extend the
+time allowed for payment from three years to six; it was, in fact,
+extended to four years.  The Queen was offended.  Francis Bacon and
+his brother Antony had attached themselves to the young Earl of
+Essex, who was their friend and patron.  The office of Attorney-
+General became vacant.  Essex asked the Queen to appoint Francis
+Bacon.  The Queen gave the office to Sir Edward Coke, who was
+already Solicitor-General, and by nine years Bacon's senior.  The
+office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and that was sought
+for Francis Bacon.  The Queen, after delay and hesitation, gave it,
+in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming.  The Earl of Essex consoled
+his friend by giving him "a piece of land"--Twickenham Park--which
+Bacon afterwards sold for 1,800 pounds--equal, say, to 12,000 pounds
+in present buying power.  In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament
+as member for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the
+rich widow of Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady
+married, in the next year, Sir Edward Coke.  It was in 1597 that
+Bacon published the First Edition of his Essays.  That was a little
+book containing only ten essays in English, with twelve
+"Meditationes Sacrae," which were essays in Latin on religious
+subjects.  From 1597 onward to the end of his life, Bacon's Essays
+were subject to continuous addition and revision.  The author's
+Second Edition, in which the number of the Essays was increased from
+ten to thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December,
+1612, seven years later than these two books on the "Advancement of
+Learning;" and the final edition of the Essays, in which their
+number was increased from thirty-eight to fifty-eight, appeared only
+in 1625; and Bacon died on the 9th of April, 1626.  The edition of
+the Essays published in 1597, under Elizabeth, marked only the
+beginning of a course of thought that afterwards flowed in one
+stream with his teachings in philosophy.
+
+In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex.  Francis Bacon
+had separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that
+was disregarded.  Bacon, now Queen's Counsel, not only appeared
+against his old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps,
+he hoped to win back the Queen's favour, he twice obtruded violent
+attacks upon Essex when he was not called upon to speak.  On the
+25th of February, 1601, Essex was beheaded.  The genius of Bacon was
+next employed to justify that act by "A Declaration of the Practices
+and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late Earle of Essex
+and his Complices."  But James of Scotland, on whose behalf Essex
+had intervened, came to the throne by the death of Elizabeth on the
+24th of March, 1603.  Bacon was among the crowd of men who were made
+knights by James I., and he had to justify himself under the new
+order of things by writing "Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie in
+certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex."  He was
+returned to the first Parliament of James I. by Ipswich and St.
+Albans, and he was confirmed in his office of King's Counsel in
+August, 1604; but he was not appointed to the office of Solicitor-
+General when it became vacant in that year.
+
+That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published
+this work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of
+learning from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of
+the studies chosen, or the way of dealing with them.  This came, he
+said, especially by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or
+furthest end of knowledge, as if there were sought in it "a couch
+whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for
+a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair
+prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon;
+or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop
+for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the
+Creator and the relief of man's estate."  The rest of the First Book
+was given to an argument upon the Dignity of Learning; and the
+Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning, is, as Bacon himself
+described it, "a general and faithful perambulation of learning,
+with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not
+improved and converted by the industry of man; to the end that such
+a plot made and recorded to memory may both minister light to any
+public designation and also serve to excite voluntary endeavours."
+Bacon makes, by a sort of exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all
+subjects of study, as an intellectual map, helping the right
+inquirer in his search for the right path.  The right path is that
+by which he has the best chance of adding to the stock of knowledge
+in the world something worth labouring for; and the true worth is in
+labour for "the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's
+estate."
+
+H. M.
+
+
+
+THE FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON; OF THE PROFICIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT
+OF LEARNING, DIVINE AND HUMAN.
+
+
+
+To the King.
+
+
+
+There were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and
+freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon ordinary observance, the
+other upon a devout cheerfulness:  in like manner there belongeth to
+kings from their servants both tribute of duty and presents of
+affection.  In the former of these I hope I shall not live to be
+wanting, according to my most humble duty and the good pleasure of
+your Majesty's employments:  for the latter, I thought it more
+respective to make choice of some oblation which might rather refer
+to the propriety and excellency of your individual person, than to
+the business of your crown and state.
+
+Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind, and
+beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to
+discover that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but
+with the observant eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the
+other parts of your virtue and fortune, I have been touched--yea,
+and possessed--with an extreme wonder at those your virtues and
+faculties, which the philosophers call intellectual; the largeness
+of your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of
+your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, and the
+facility and order of your elocution:  and I have often thought that
+of all the persons living that I have known, your Majesty were the
+best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge
+is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by Nature knoweth all
+things, and hath but her own native and original notions (which by
+the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the body are
+sequestered) again revived and restored:  such a light of Nature I
+have observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame
+and blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark of
+another's knowledge delivered.  And as the Scripture saith of the
+wisest king, "That his heart was as the sands of the sea;" which,
+though it be one of the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the
+smallest and finest portions; so hath God given your Majesty a
+composition of understanding admirable, being able to compass and
+comprehend the greatest matters, and nevertheless to touch and
+apprehend the least; whereas it should seem an impossibility in
+Nature for the same instrument to make itself fit for great and
+small works.  And for your gift of speech, I call to mind what
+Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Caesar:  Augusto profluens, et
+quae principem deceret, eloquentia fuit.  For if we note it well,
+speech that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or speech that
+savoureth of the affectation of art and precepts, or speech that is
+framed after the imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though
+never so excellent; all this hath somewhat servile, and holding of
+the subject.  But your Majesty's manner of speech is, indeed,
+prince-like, flowing as from a fountain, and yet streaming and
+branching itself into Nature's order, full of facility and felicity,
+imitating none, and inimitable by any.  And as in your civil estate
+there appeareth to be an emulation and contention of your Majesty's
+virtue with your fortune; a virtuous disposition with a fortunate
+regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time was) of your greater
+fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the due time; a
+virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with most blessed and
+happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and most Christian desire of
+peace, with a fortunate inclination in your neighbour princes
+thereunto:  so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth
+to be no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty's
+gifts of Nature and the universality and perfection of your
+learning.  For I am well assured that this which I shall say is no
+amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth; which is,
+that there hath not been since Christ's time any king or temporal
+monarch which hath been so learned in all literature and erudition,
+divine and human.  For let a man seriously and diligently revolve
+and peruse the succession of the Emperors of Rome, of which Caesar
+the Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and Marcus
+Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the Emperors of
+Graecia, or of the West, and then to the lines of France, Spain,
+England, Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judgment is
+truly made.  For it seemeth much in a king if, by the compendious
+extractions of other men's wits and labours, he can take hold of any
+superficial ornaments and shows of learning, or if he countenance
+and prefer learning and learned men; but to drink, indeed, of the
+true fountains of learning--nay, to have such a fountain of learning
+in himself, in a king, and in a king born--is almost a miracle.  And
+the more, because there is met in your Majesty a rare conjunction,
+as well of divine and sacred literature as of profane and human; so
+as your Majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, which in great
+veneration was ascribed to the ancient Hermes:  the power and
+fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and
+the learning and universality of a philosopher.  This propriety
+inherent and individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be
+expressed not only in the fame and admiration of the present time,
+nor in the history or tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in
+some solid work, fixed memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a
+character or signature both of the power of a king and the
+difference and perfection of such a king.
+
+Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make unto your
+Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending to that end,
+whereof the sum will consist of these two parts:  the former
+concerning the excellency of learning and knowledge, and the
+excellency of the merit and true glory in the augmentation and
+propagation thereof; the latter, what the particular acts and works
+are which have been embraced and undertaken for the advancement of
+learning; and again, what defects and undervalues I find in such
+particular acts:  to the end that though I cannot positively or
+affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound unto you framed
+particulars, yet I may excite your princely cogitations to visit the
+excellent treasure of your own mind, and thence to extract
+particulars for this purpose agreeable to your magnanimity and
+wisdom.
+
+I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these--to clear the way and,
+as it were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning
+the dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption
+of tacit objections--I think good to deliver it from the discredits
+and disgraces which it hath received, all from ignorance, but
+ignorance severally disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and
+jealousy of divines, sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of
+politics, and sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned
+men themselves.
+
+(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those things
+which are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution; that
+the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and
+sin whereupon ensued the fall of man; that knowledge hath in it
+somewhat of the serpent, and, therefore, where it entereth into a
+man it makes him swell; Scientia inflat; that Solomon gives a
+censure, "That there is no end of making books, and that much
+reading is weariness of the flesh;" and again in another place,
+"That in spacious knowledge there is much contristation, and that he
+that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety;" that Saint Paul gives
+a caveat, "That we be not spoiled through vain philosophy;" that
+experience demonstrates how learned men have been arch-heretics, how
+learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how the
+contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our dependence
+upon God, who is the first cause.
+
+(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, and
+the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well appear
+these men do not observe or consider that it was not the pure
+knowledge of Nature and universality, a knowledge by the light
+whereof man did give names unto other creatures in Paradise as they
+were brought before him according unto their proprieties, which gave
+the occasion to the fall; but it was the proud knowledge of good and
+evil, with an intent in man to give law unto himself, and to depend
+no more upon God's commandments, which was the form of the
+temptation.  Neither is it any quantity of knowledge, how great
+soever, that can make the mind of man to swell; for nothing can
+fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God and the
+contemplation of God; and, therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two
+principal senses of inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that
+the eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing;
+and if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than the
+content:  so of knowledge itself and the mind of man, whereto the
+senses are but reporters, he defineth likewise in these words,
+placed after that calendar or ephemerides which he maketh of the
+diversities of times and seasons for all actions and purposes, and
+concludeth thus:  "God hath made all things beautiful, or decent, in
+the true return of their seasons.  Also He hath placed the world in
+man's heart, yet cannot man find out the work which God worketh from
+the beginning to the end"--declaring not obscurely that God hath
+framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the image of
+the universal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof,
+as the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only delighted in
+beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but raised
+also to find out and discern the ordinances and decrees which
+throughout all those changes are infallibly observed.  And although
+he doth insinuate that the supreme or summary law of Nature (which
+he calleth "the work which God worketh from the beginning to the
+end") is not possible to be found out by man, yet that doth not
+derogate from the capacity of the mind; but may be referred to the
+impediments, as of shortness of life, ill conjunction of labours,
+ill tradition of knowledge over from hand to hand, and many other
+inconveniences, whereunto the condition of man is subject.  For that
+nothing parcel of the world is denied to man's inquiry and
+invention, he doth in another place rule over, when he saith, "The
+spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the
+inwardness of all secrets."  If, then, such be the capacity and
+receipt of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no danger
+at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever,
+lest it should make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is
+merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or
+less, if it be taken without the true corrective thereof, hath in it
+some nature of venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom,
+which is ventosity or swelling.  This corrective spice, the mixture
+whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle
+immediately addeth to the former clause; for so he saith, "Knowledge
+bloweth up, but charity buildeth up;" not unlike unto that which he
+deilvereth in another place:  "If I spake," saith he, "with the
+tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it were but as a
+tinkling cymbal."  Not but that it is an excellent thing to speak
+with the tongues of men and angels, but because, if it be severed
+from charity, and not referred to the good of men and mankind, it
+hath rather a sounding and unworthy glory than a meriting and
+substantial virtue.  And as for that censure of Solomon concerning
+the excess of writing and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit
+which redoundeth from knowledge, and that admonition of St. Paul,
+"That we be not seduced by vain philosophy," let those places be
+rightly understood; and they do, indeed, excellently set forth the
+true bounds and limitations whereby human knowledge is confined and
+circumscribed, and yet without any such contracting or coarctation,
+but that it may comprehend all the universal nature of things; for
+these limitations are three:  the first, "That we do not so place
+our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality;" the second,
+"That we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose
+and contentment, and not distaste or repining;" the third, "That we
+do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the
+mysteries of God."  For as touching the first of these, Solomon doth
+excellently expound himself in another place of the same book, where
+he saith:  "I saw well that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance
+as light doth from darkness; and that the wise man's eyes keep watch
+in his head, whereas this fool roundeth about in darkness:  but
+withal I learned that the same mortality involveth them both."  And
+for the second, certain it is there is no vexation or anxiety of
+mind which resulteth from knowledge otherwise than merely by
+accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of
+knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when men fall
+to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it to their
+particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak fears or vast
+desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble of mind which is
+spoken of; for then knowledge is no more Lumen siccum, whereof
+Heraclitus the profound said, Lumen siccum optima anima; but it
+becometh Lumen madidum, or maceratum, being steeped and infused in
+the humours of the affections.  And as for the third point, it
+deserveth to be a little stood upon, and not to be lightly passed
+over; for if any man shall think by view and inquiry into these
+sensible and material things to attain that light, whereby he may
+reveal unto himself the nature or will of God, then, indeed, is he
+spoiled by vain philosophy; for the contemplation of God's creatures
+and works produceth (having regard to the works and creatures
+themselves) knowledge, but having regard to God no perfect
+knowledge, but wonder, which is broken knowledge.  And, therefore,
+it was most aptly said by one of Plato's school, "That the sense of
+man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which (as we see) openeth
+and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then, again, it
+obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe:  so doth the
+sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
+divine."  And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers
+great learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to
+fly up to the secrets of the Deity by this waxen wings of the
+senses.  And as for the conceit that too much knowledge should
+incline a man to atheism, and that the ignorance of second causes
+should make a more devout dependence upon God, which is the first
+cause; first, it is good to ask the question which Job asked of his
+friends:  "Will you lie for God, as one man will lie for another, to
+gratify him?"  For certain it is that God worketh nothing in Nature
+but by second causes; and if they would have it otherwise believed,
+it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards God, and nothing
+else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a
+lie.  But further, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion of
+experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may
+incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further proceeding therein
+doth bring the mind back again to religion.  For in the entrance of
+philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses,
+do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there
+it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man
+passeth on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the works
+of Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will
+easily believe that the highest link of Nature's chain must needs he
+tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair.  To conclude, therefore, let no
+man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation
+think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well
+studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works,
+divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless
+progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply
+both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to
+ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound
+these learnings together.
+
+II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from
+politics, they be of this nature:  that learning doth soften men's
+minds, and makes them more unapt for the honour and exercise of
+arms; that it doth mar and pervert men's dispositions for matter of
+government and policy, in making them too curious and irresolute by
+variety of reading, or too peremptory or positive by strictness of
+rules and axioms, or too immoderate and overweening by reason of the
+greatness of examples, or too incompatible and differing from the
+times by reason of the dissimilitude of examples; or at least, that
+it doth divert men's travails from action and business, and bringeth
+them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it doth bring
+into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more
+ready to argue than to obey and execute.  Out of this conceit Cato,
+surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed that ever lived,
+when Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to Rome, and that
+the young men of Rome began to flock about him, being allured with
+the sweetness and majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave
+counsel in open senate that they should give him his despatch with
+all speed, lest he should infect and enchant the minds and
+affections of the youth, and at unawares bring in an alteration of
+the manners and customs of the state.  Out of the same conceit or
+humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage of his country
+and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of
+separation between policy and government, and between arts and
+sciences, in the verses so much renowned, attributing and
+challenging the one to the Romans, and leaving and yielding the
+other to the Grecians:  Tu regere imperio popules, Romane, memento,
+Hae tibi erunt artes, &c.  So likewise we see that Anytus, the
+accuser of Socrates, laid it as an article of charge and accusation
+against him, that he did, with the variety and power of his
+discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men from due reverence
+to the laws and customs of their country, and that he did profess a
+dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the worse matter
+seem the better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence and
+speech.
+
+(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a countenance of
+gravity than any ground of justice:  for experience doth warrant
+that, both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and
+concurrence in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the
+same men and the same ages.  For as 'for men, there cannot be a
+better nor the hike instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great
+and Julius Caesar, the Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle's
+scholar in philosophy, and the other was Cicero's rival in
+eloquence; or if any man had rather call for scholars that were
+great generals, than generals that were great scholars, let him take
+Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian; whereof the one
+was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the other was the
+first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of Persia.  And
+this concurrence is yet more visible in times than in persons, by
+how much an age is greater object than a man.  For both in Egypt,
+Assyria, Persia, Graecia, and Rome, the same times that are most
+renowned for arms are, likewise, most admired for learning, so that
+the greatest authors and philosophers, and the greatest captains and
+governors, have lived in the same ages.  Neither can it otherwise
+he:  for as in man the ripeness of strength of the body and mind
+cometh much about an age, save that the strength of the body cometh
+somewhat the more early, so in states, arms and learning, whereof
+the one correspondeth to the body, the other to the soul of man,
+have a concurrence or near sequence in times.
+
+(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning, should
+rather hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable; we
+see it is accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric
+physicians, which commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon
+they are confident and adventurous, but know neither the causes of
+diseases, nor the complexions of patients, nor peril of accidents,
+nor the true method of cures; we see it is a like error to rely upon
+advocates or lawyers which are only men of practice, and not
+grounded in their books, who are many times easily surprised when
+matter falleth out besides their experience, to the prejudice of the
+causes they handle:  so by like reason it cannot be but a matter of
+doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric statesmen, not
+well mingled with men grounded in learning.  But contrariwise, it is
+almost without instance contradictory that ever any government was
+disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors.  For
+howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and
+disable learned men by the names of pedantes; yet in the records of
+time it appeareth in many particulars that the governments of
+princes in minority (notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of
+that kind of state)--have nevertheless excelled the government of
+princes of mature age, even for that reason which they seek to
+traduce, which is that by that occasion the state hath been in the
+hands of pedantes:  for so was the state of Rome for the first five
+years, which are so much magnified, during the minority of Nero, in
+the hands of Seneca, a pedenti; so it was again, for ten years'
+space or more, during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with
+great applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus, a
+pedanti:  so was it before that, in the minority of Alexander
+Severus, in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, by reason of
+the rule of the women, who were aided by the teachers and
+preceptors.  Nay, let a man look into the government of the Bishops
+of Rome, as by name, into the government of Pius Quintus and Sextus
+Quintus in our times, who were both at their entrance esteemed but
+as pedantical friars, and he shall find that such Popes do greater
+things, and proceed upon truer principles of state, than those which
+have ascended to the papacy from an education and breeding in
+affairs of state and courts of princes; for although men bred in
+learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and
+accommodating for the present, which the Italians call ragioni di
+stato, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with
+patience, terming them inventions against religion and the moral
+virtues; yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are perfect
+in those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral
+virtue, which if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be
+seldom use of those other, no more than of physic in a sound or
+well-dieted body.  Neither can the experience of one man's life
+furnish examples and precedents for the event of one man's life.
+For as it happeneth sometimes that the grandchild, or other
+descendant, resembleth the ancestor more than the son; so many times
+occurrences of present times may sort better with ancient examples
+than with those of the later or immediate times; and lastly, the wit
+of one man can no more countervail learning than one man's means can
+hold way with a common purse.
+
+(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions of the
+mind for policy and government, which learning is pretended to
+insinuate; if it be granted that any such thing be, it must be
+remembered withal that learning ministereth in every of them greater
+strength of medicine or remedy than it offereth cause of
+indisposition or infirmity.  For if by a secret operation it make
+men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side by plain precept it
+teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve; yea, and how to
+carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till they resolve.  If
+it make men positive and regular, it teacheth them what things are
+in their nature demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and as well
+the use of distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of
+principles and rules.  If it mislead by disproportion or
+dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth men the force of
+circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and all the cautions of
+application; so that in all these it doth rectify more effectually
+than it can pervert.  And these medicines it conveyeth into men's
+minds much more forcibly by the quickness and penetration of
+examples.  For let a man look into the errors of Clement VII., so
+lively described by Guicciardini, who served under him, or into the
+errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles to
+Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute.  Let him look
+into the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how he be obstinate
+or inflexible.  Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will
+hold him from being vaporous or imaginative.  Let him look into the
+errors of Cato II., and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to
+tread opposite to the present world.
+
+(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to leisure
+and privateness, and make men slothful:  it were a strange thing if
+that which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation
+should induce slothfulness, whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly
+affirmed that no kind of men love business for itself but those that
+are learned; for other persons love it for profit, as a hireling
+that loves the work for the wages; or for honour, as because it
+beareth them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputation,
+which otherwise would wear; or because it putteth them in mind of
+their fortune, and giveth them occasion to pleasure and displeasure;
+or because it exerciseth some faculty wherein they take pride, and
+so entertaineth them in good-humour and pleasing conceits towards
+themselves; or because it advanceth any other their ends.  So that
+as it is said of untrue valours, that some men's valours are in the
+eyes of them that look on, so such men's industries are in the eyes
+of others, or, at least, in regard of their own designments; only
+learned men love business as an action according to nature, as
+agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body, taking
+pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase, so that of
+all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any
+business which can hold or detain their mind.
+
+(6) And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle
+in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or
+softness of spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of:  Quidam tam sunt
+umbratiles, ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est; and not
+of learning:  well may it be that such a point of a man's nature may
+make him give himself to learning, but it is not learning that
+breedeth any such point in his nature.
+
+(7) And that learning should take up too much time or leisure:  I
+answer, the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath
+(no question) many vacant times of leisure while he expecteth the
+tides and returns of business (except he be either tedious and of no
+despatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things
+that may be better done by others), and then the question is but how
+those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent; whether
+in pleasure or in studies; as was well answered by Demosthenes to
+his adversary AEschines, that was a man given to pleasure, and told
+him "That his orations did smell of the lamp."  "Indeed," said
+Demosthenes, "there is a great difference between the things that
+you and I do by lamp-light."  So as no man need doubt that learning
+will expel business, but rather it will keep and defend the
+possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which
+otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice of both.
+
+(8) Again, for that other conceit that learning should undermine the
+reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation
+and calumny, without all shadow of truth.  For to say that a blind
+custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught
+and understood, it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by
+a guide than a seeing man can by a light.  And it is without all
+controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle,
+generous, manageable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance
+makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous:  and the evidence of time
+doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous,
+rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults,
+seditious, and changes.
+
+(9) And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well punished
+for his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he
+offended; for when he was past threescore years old, he was taken
+with an extreme desire to go to school again, and to learn the Greek
+tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well
+demonstrate that his former censure of the Grecian learning was
+rather an affected gravity, than according to the inward sense of
+his own opinion.  And as for Virgil's verses, though it pleased him
+to brave the world in taking to the Romans the art of empire, and
+leaving to others the arts of subjects, yet so much is manifest--
+that the Romans never ascended to that height of empire till the
+time they had ascended to the height of other arts.  For in the time
+of the two first Caesars, which had the art of government in
+greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro; the
+best historiographer, Titus Livius; the best antiquary, Marcus
+Varro; and the best or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the
+memory of man are known.  As for the accusation of Socrates, the
+time must be remembered when it was prosecuted; which was under the
+Thirty Tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious persons that have
+governed; which revolution of state was no sooner over but Socrates,
+whom they had made a person criminal, was made a person heroical,
+and his memory accumulate with honours divine and human; and those
+discourses of his which were then termed corrupting of manners, were
+after acknowledged for sovereign medicines of the mind and manners,
+and so have been received ever since till this day.  Let this,
+therefore, serve for answer to politiques, which in their humorous
+severity, or in their feigned gravity, have presumed to throw
+imputations upon learning; which redargution nevertheless (save that
+we know not whether our labours may extend to other ages) were not
+needful for the present, in regard of the love and reverence towards
+learning which the example and countenance of two so learned
+princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as Castor and
+Pollux, lucida sidera, stars of excellent light and most benign
+influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority in our
+nation.
+
+III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or
+diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men
+themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest:  it is either from
+their fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their
+studies.  For the first, it is not in their power; and the second is
+accidental; the third only is proper to be handled:  but because we
+are not in hand with true measure, but with popular estimation and
+conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former.  The
+derogations therefore which grow to learning from the fortune or
+condition of learned men, are either in respect of scarcity of
+means, or in respect of privateness of life and meanness of
+employments.
+
+(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually
+to begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as other men, by
+reason they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase,
+it were good to leave the commonplace in commendation of povery to
+some friar to handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in
+this point when he said, "That the kingdom of the clergy had been
+long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the
+poverty of friars had not borne out the scandal of the superfluities
+and excesses of bishops and prelates."  So a man might say that the
+felicity and delicacy of princes and great persons had long since
+turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had not
+kept up civility and honour of life; but without any such
+advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverent and
+honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in the Roman
+state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes.  For we see
+what Titus Livius saith in his introduction:  Caeterum aut me amor
+negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec major, nec
+sanctior, nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit; nec in quam tam sero
+avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint; nec ubi tantus ac tam diu
+paupertati ac parsimoniae honos fuerit.  We see likewise, after that
+the state of Rome was not itself, but did degenerate, how that
+person that took upon him to be counsellor to Julius Caesar after
+his victory where to begin his restoration of the state, maketh it
+of all points the most summary to take away the estimation of
+wealth:  Verum haec et omnia mala pariter cum honore pecuniae
+desinent; si neque magistratus, neque alia vulgo cupienda, venalia
+erunt.  To conclude this point:  as it was truly said that Paupertas
+est virtutis fortuna, though sometimes it come from vice, so it may
+be fitly said that, though some times it may proceed from
+misgovernment and accident.  Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both
+in censure, Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons; and in
+precept, "Buy the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and
+knowledge;" judging that means were to be spent upon learning, and
+not learning to be applied to means.  And as for the privateness or
+obscureness (as it may be in vulgar estimation accounted) of life of
+contemplative men, it is a theme so common to extol a private life,
+not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in comparison and to the
+disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty, pleasure, and
+dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no man handleth it
+but handleth it well; such a consonancy it hath to men's conceits in
+the expressing, and to men's consents in the allowing.  This only I
+will add, that learned men forgotten in states and not living in the
+eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the
+funeral of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others
+were, Tacitus saith, Eo ipso praefulgebant quod non visebantur.
+
+(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most traduced to
+contempt is that the government of youth is commonly allotted to
+them; which age, because it is the age of least authority, it is
+transferred to the disesteeming of those employments wherein youth
+is conversant, and which are conversant about youth.  But how unjust
+this traducement is (if you will reduce things from popularity of
+opinion to measure of reason) may appear in that we see men are more
+curious what they put into a new vessel than into a vessel seasoned;
+and what mould they lay about a young plant than about a plant
+corroborate; so as this weakest terms and times of all things use to
+have the best applications and helps.  And will you hearken to the
+Hebrew rabbins?  "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men
+shall dream dreams:" say they, youth is the worthier age, for that
+visions are nearer apparitions of God than dreams?  And let it be
+noted that howsoever the condition of life of pedantes hath been
+scorned upon theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern
+looseness or negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of
+schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times
+did always make a just complaint, that states were too busy with
+their laws and too negligent in point of education:  which excellent
+part of ancient discipline hath been in some sort revived of late
+times by the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard of
+their superstition I may say, Quo meliores, eo deteriores; yet in
+regard of this, and some other points concerning human learning and
+moral matters, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy
+Pharnabazus, Talis quum sis, utunam noster esses.  And that much
+touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of learned men.
+
+(4) As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing personal
+and individual:  and no doubt there be amongst them, as in other
+professions, of all temperatures:  but yet so as it is not without
+truth which is said, that Abeunt studua in mores, studies have an
+influence and operation upon the manners of those that are
+conversant in them.
+
+(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my part
+cannot find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of
+learned men; not inherent to them as they are learned; except it be
+a fault (which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato
+II., Seneca, and many more) that because the times they read of are
+commonly better than the times they live in, and the duties taught
+better than the duties practised, they contend sometimes too far to
+bring things to perfection, and to reduce the corruption of manners
+to honesty of precepts or examples of too great height.  And yet
+hereof they have caveats enough in their own walks.  For Solon, when
+he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best laws,
+answered wisely, "Yea, of such as they would receive:" and Plato,
+finding that his own heart could not agree with the corrupt manners
+of his country, refused to bear place or office, saying, "That a
+man's country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with
+humble persuasions, and not with contestations."  And Caesar's
+counsellor put in the same caveat, Non ad vetera instituta revocans
+quae jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt; and Cicero noteth
+this error directly in Cato II. when he writes to his friend
+Atticus, Cato optime sentit, sed nocet interdum reipublicae;
+loquitur enim tanquam in republica Platonis, non tanquam in faece
+Romuli.  And the same Cicero doth excuse and expound the
+philosophers for going too far and being too exact in their
+prescripts when he saith, Isti ipse praeceptores virtutis et
+magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura vellet
+protulisse, ut cum ad ultimum animo contendissemus, ibi tamen, ubi
+oportet, consisteremus:  and yet himself might have said, Monitis
+sum minor ipse meis; for it was his own fault, though not in so
+extreme a degree.
+
+(6) Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been incident to
+learned men, which is, that they have esteemed the preservation,
+good, and honour of their countries or masters before their own
+fortunes or safeties.  For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians:
+"If it please you to note it, my counsels unto you are not such
+whereby I should grow great amongst you, and you become little
+amongst the Grecians; but they be of that nature as they are
+sometimes not good for me to give, but are always good for you to
+follow."  And so Seneca, after he had consecrated that Quinquennium
+Neronis to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on his
+honest and loyal course of good and free counsel after his master
+grew extremely corrupt in his government.  Neither can this point
+otherwise be, for learning endueth men's minds with a true sense of
+the frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and
+the dignity of their soul and vocation, so that it is impossible for
+them to esteem that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true
+or worthy end of their being and ordainment, and therefore are
+desirous to give their account to God, and so likewise to their
+masters under God (as kings and the states that they serve) in those
+words, Ecce tibi lucrefeci, and not Ecce mihi lucrefeci; whereas the
+corrupter sort of mere politiques, that have not their thoughts
+established by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor
+never look abroad into universality, do refer all things to
+themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as
+if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes, never caring in
+all tempests what becomes of the ship of state, so they may save
+themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune; whereas men that
+feel the weight of duty and know the limits of self-love use to make
+good their places and duties, though with peril; and if they stand
+in seditious and violent alterations, it is rather the reverence
+which many times both adverse parts do give to honesty, than any
+versatile advantage of their own carriage.  But for this point of
+tender sense and fast obligation of duty which learning doth endue
+the mind withal, howsoever fortune may tax it, and many in the depth
+of their corrupt principles may despise it, yet it will receive an
+open allowance, and therefore needs the less disproof or excuse.
+
+(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be
+more properly defended than truly denied, is that they fail
+sometimes in applying themselves to particular persons, which want
+of exact application ariseth from two causes--the one, because the
+largeness of their mind can hardly confine itself to dwell in the
+exquisite observation or examination of the nature and customs of
+one person, for it is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man,
+Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus.  Nevertheless I shall
+yield that he that cannot contract the sight of his mind as well as
+disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty.  But there is a
+second cause, which is no inability, but a rejection upon choice and
+judgment.  For the honest and just bounds of observation by one
+person upon another extend no further but to understand him
+sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able
+to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable
+guard and caution in respect of a man's self.  But to be speculative
+into another man to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or
+govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and
+not entire and ingenuous; which as in friendship it is want of
+integrity, so towards princes or superiors is want of duty.  For the
+custom of the Levant, which is that subjects do forbear to gaze or
+fix their eyes upon princes, is in the outward ceremony barbarous,
+but the moral is good; for men ought not, by cunning and bent
+observations, to pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings,
+which the Scripture hath declared to be inscrutable.
+
+(8) There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this
+part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times
+fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and
+carriage, and commit errors in small and ordinary points of action,
+so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in
+greater matters by that which they find wanting in them in smaller.
+But this consequence doth oft deceive men, for which I do refer them
+over to that which was said by Themistocles, arrogantly and
+uncivilly being applied to himself out of his own mouth, but, being
+applied to the general state of this question, pertinently and
+justly, when, being invited to touch a lute, he said, "He could not
+fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state."  So no doubt
+many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy which
+are to seek in little and punctual occasions.  I refer them also to
+that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to
+the gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and
+owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious
+liquors and confections; acknowledging that, to an external report,
+he was not without superficial levities and deformities, but was
+inwardly replenished with excellent virtues and powers.  And so much
+touching the point of manners of learned men.
+
+(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to some
+conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors
+of learning have wronged themselves and gone too far; such as were
+those trencher philosophers which in the later age of the Roman
+state were usually in the houses of great persons, being little
+better than solemn parasites, of which kind, Lucian maketh a merry
+description of the philosopher that the great lady took to ride with
+her in her coach, and would needs have him carry her little dog,
+which he doing officiously and yet uncomely, the page scoffed and
+said, "That he doubted the philosopher of a Stoic would turn to be a
+Cynic."  But, above all the rest, this gross and palpable flattery
+whereunto many not unlearned have abased and abused their wits and
+pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina
+into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and estimation of
+learning.  Neither is the modern dedication of books and writings,
+as to patrons, to be commended, for that books (such as are worthy
+the name of books) ought to have no patrons but truth and reason.
+And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to private and
+equal friends, or to entitle the books with their names; or if to
+kings and great persons, it was to some such as the argument of the
+book was fit and proper for; but these and the like courses may
+deserve rather reprehension than defence.
+
+(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application
+of learned men to men in fortune.  For the answer was good that
+Diogenes made to one that asked him in mockery, "How it came to pass
+that philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men
+of philosophers?"  He answered soberly, and yet sharply, "Because
+the one sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not."
+And of the like nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when
+having a petition to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell
+down at his feet, whereupon Dionysius stayed and gave him the
+hearing, and granted it; and afterwards some person, tender on the
+behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that he would offer the
+profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a private suit to
+fall at a tyrant's feet; but he answered, "It was not his fault, but
+it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in his feet."
+Neither was it accounted weakness, but discretion, in him that would
+not dispute his best with Adrianus Caesar, excusing himself, "That
+it was reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions."  These
+and the like, applications, and stooping to points of necessity and
+convenience, cannot be disallowed; for though they may have some
+outward baseness, yet in a judgment truly made they are to be
+accounted submissions to the occasion and not to the person.
+
+IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have
+intervened amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is
+that which is principal and proper to the present argument; wherein
+my purpose is not to make a justification of the errors, but by a
+censure and separation of the errors to make a justification of that
+which is good and sound, and to deliver that from the aspersion of
+the other.  For we see that it is the manner of men to scandalise
+and deprave that which retaineth the state and virtue, by taking
+advantage upon that which is corrupt and degenerate, as the heathens
+in the primitive Church used to blemish and taint the Christians
+with the faults and corruptions of heretics.  But nevertheless I
+have no meaning at this time to make any exact animadversion of the
+errors and impediments in matters of learning, which are more secret
+and remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto such as do
+fall under or near unto a popular observation.
+
+(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby
+learning hath been most traduced.  For those things we do esteem
+vain which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no
+truth or no use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either
+credulous or curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words:
+so that in reason as well as in experience there fall out to be
+these three distempers (as I may term them) of learning--the first,
+fantastical learning; the second, contentious learning; and the
+last, delicate learning; vain imaginations, vain altercations, and
+vain affectations; and with the last I will begin.  Martin Luther,
+conducted, no doubt, by a higher Providence, but in discourse of
+reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against the Bishop
+of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, and finding his
+own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his own time,
+was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times to his
+succours to make a party against the present time.  So that the
+ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long
+time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved.
+This, by consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite
+travail in the languages original, wherein those authors did write,
+for the better understanding of those authors, and the better
+advantage of pressing and applying their words.  And thereof grew,
+again, a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an
+admiration of that kind of writing, which was much furthered and
+precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of
+those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the schoolmen,
+who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings were
+altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and
+frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid
+circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and
+(as I may call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word.  And again,
+because the great labour then was with the people (of whom the
+Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, quae non novit
+legem), for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of
+necessity in chief price and request eloquence and variety of
+discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of
+the vulgar sort; so that these four causes concurring--the
+admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact
+study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching--did bring in an
+affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began
+to flourish.  This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt
+more after words than matter--more after the choiceness of the
+phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the
+sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of
+their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of
+matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention,
+or depth of judgment.  Then grew the flowing and watery vein of
+Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price.  Then did Sturmius
+spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator and
+Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and
+Imitation, and the like.  Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with
+their lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and
+allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and
+polished kind of learning.  Then did Erasmus take occasion to make
+the scoffing echo, Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone; and
+the echo answered in Greek, One, Asine.  Then grew the learning of
+the schoolmen to be utterly despised as barbarous.  In sum, the
+whole inclination and bent of those times was rather towards copy
+than weight.
+
+(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when men
+study words and not matter; whereof, though I have represented an
+example of late times, yet it hath been and will be secundum majus
+et minus in all time.  And how is it possible but this should have
+an operation to discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities,
+when they see learned men's works like the first letter of a patent
+or limited book, which though it hath large flourishes, yet it is
+but a letter?  It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good
+emblem or portraiture of this vanity; for words are but the images
+of matter, and except they have life of reason and invention, to
+fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture.
+
+(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be
+condemned, to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy
+itself with sensible and plausible elocution.  For hereof we have
+great examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato
+also in some degree; and hereof likewise there is great use, for
+surely, to the severe inquisition of truth and the deep progress
+into philosophy, it is some hindrance because it is too early
+satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire of further
+search before we come to a just period.  But then if a man be to
+have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of conference,
+counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall he find it
+prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that manner.
+But the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules,
+when he saw the image of Adonis, Venus' minion, in a temple, said in
+disdain, Nil sacri es; so there is none of Hercules' followers in
+learning--that is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers
+into truth--but will despise those delicacies and affectations, as
+indeed capable of no divineness.  And thus much of the first disease
+or distemper of learning.
+
+(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former:
+for as substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so
+contrariwise vain matter is worse than vain words:  wherein it
+seemeth the reprehension of St. Paul was not only proper for those
+times, but prophetical for the times following; and not only
+respective to divinity, but extensive to all knowledge:  Devita
+profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae.
+For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected and falsified
+science:  the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the other,
+the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce
+oppositions, and so questions and altercations.  Surely, like as
+many substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt
+into worms;--so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to
+putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and
+(as I may term them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind
+of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or
+goodness of quality.  This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly
+reign amongst the schoolmen, who having sharp and strong wits, and
+abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits
+being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their
+dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries
+and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time,
+did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit
+spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant
+in their books.  For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon
+matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh
+according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon
+itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and
+brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness
+of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.
+
+(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two sorts:
+either in the subject itself that they handle, when it is a
+fruitless speculation or controversy (whereof there are no small
+number both in divinity and philosophy), or in the manner or method
+of handling of a knowledge, which amongst them was this--upon every
+particular position or assertion to frame objections, and to those
+objections, solutions; which solutions were for the most part not
+confutations, but distinctions:  whereas indeed the strength of all
+sciences is, as the strength of the old man's faggot, in the bond.
+For the harmony of a science, supporting each part the other, is and
+ought to be the true and brief confutation and suppression of all
+the smaller sort of objections.  But, on the other side, if you take
+out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by one, you may
+quarrel with them and bend them and break them at your pleasure:  so
+that, as was said of Seneca, Verborum minutiis rerum frangit
+pondera, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen, Quaestionum
+minutiis scientiarum frangunt soliditatem.  For were it not better
+for a man in fair room to set up one great light, or branching
+candlestick of lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle
+into every corner?  And such is their method, that rests not so much
+upon evidence of truth proved by arguments, authorities,
+similitudes, examples, as upon particular confutations and solutions
+of every scruple, cavillation, and objection; breeding for the most
+part one question as fast as it solveth another; even as in the
+former resemblance, when you carry the light into one corner, you
+darken the rest; so that the fable and fiction of Scylla seemeth to
+be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge; which was
+transformed into a comely virgin for the upper parts; but then
+Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris:  so the
+generalities of the schoolmen are for a while good and
+proportionable; but then when you descend into their distinctions
+and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb for the use and benefit of
+man's life, they end in monstrous altercations and barking
+questions.  So as it is not possible but this quality of knowledge
+must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to contemn
+truths upon occasion of controversies and altercations, and to think
+they are all out of their way which never meet; and when they see
+such digladiation about subtleties, and matters of no use or moment,
+they easily fall upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, Verba
+ista sunt senum otiosorum.
+
+(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to their
+great thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had joined
+variety and universality of reading and contemplation, they had
+proved excellent lights, to the great advancement of all learning
+and knowledge; but as they are, they are great undertakers indeed,
+and fierce with dark keeping.  But as in the inquiry of the divine
+truth, their pride inclined to leave the oracle of God's word, and
+to vanish in the mixture of their own inventions; so in the
+inquisition of nature, they ever left the oracle of God's works, and
+adored the deceiving and deformed images which the unequal mirror of
+their own minds, or a few received authors or principles, did
+represent unto them.  And thus much for the second disease of
+learning.
+
+(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth
+deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest; as that which
+doth destroy the essential form of knowledge, which is nothing but a
+representation of truth:  for the truth of being and the truth of
+knowing are one, differing no more than the direct beam and the beam
+reflected.  This vice therefore brancheth itself into two sorts;
+delight in deceiving and aptness to be deceived; imposture and
+credulity; which, although they appear to be of a diverse nature,
+the one seeming to proceed of cunning and the other of simplicity,
+yet certainly they do for the most part concur:  for, as the verse
+noteth -
+
+
+"Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est,"
+
+
+an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a
+credulous man is a deceiver:  as we see it in fame, that he that
+will easily believe rumours will as easily augment rumours and add
+somewhat to them of his own; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he
+saith, Fingunt simul creduntque:  so great an affinity hath fiction
+and belief.
+
+(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things weakly
+authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the subject:
+for it is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak,
+matter of fact; or else of matter of art and opinion.  As to the
+former, we see the experience and inconvenience of this error in
+ecclesiastical history; which hath too easily received and
+registered reports and narrations of miracles wrought by martyrs,
+hermits, or monks of the desert, and other holy men, and their
+relics, shrines, chapels and images:  which though they had a
+passage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the superstitious
+simplicity of some and the politic toleration of others holding them
+but as divine poesies, yet after a period of time, when the mist
+began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives'
+fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges
+of Antichrist, to the great scandal and detriment of religion.
+
+(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice
+and judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in the
+writings of Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians,
+being fraught with much fabulous matter, a great part not only
+untried, but notoriously untrue, to the great derogation of the
+credit of natural philosophy with the grave and sober kind of wits:
+wherein the wisdom and integrity of Aristotle is worthy to be
+observed, that, having made so diligent and exquisite a history of
+living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with any vain or feigned
+matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all prodigious
+narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into one book,
+excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such whereupon
+observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or
+weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that
+rarities and reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed
+or denied to the memory of men.
+
+(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and
+opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too much belief
+is attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any
+art.  The sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence
+and confederacy with the imagination of man than with his reason,
+are three in number:  astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of
+which sciences, nevertheless, the ends or pretences are noble.  For
+astrology pretendeth to discover that correspondence or
+concatenation which is between the superior globe and the inferior;
+natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural philosophy from
+variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and alchemy
+pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies
+which in mixtures of natures are incorporate.  But the derivations
+and prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the
+practices, are full of error and vanity; which the great professors
+themselves have sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical
+writings, and referring themselves to auricular traditions and such
+other devices, to save the credit of impostures.  And yet surely to
+alchemy this right is due, that it may be compared to the husbandman
+whereof AEsop makes the fable; that, when he died, told his sons
+that he had left unto them gold buried underground in his vineyard;
+and they digged over all the ground, and gold they found none; but
+by reason of their stirring and digging the mould about the roots of
+their vines, they had a great vintage the year following:  so
+assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to light a
+great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as
+well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man's life.
+
+(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto
+authors in sciences, in making them dictators, that their words
+should stand, and not consuls, to give advice; the damage is
+infinite that sciences have received thereby, as the principal cause
+that hath kept them low at a stay without growth or advancement.
+For hence it hath come, that in arts mechanical the first deviser
+comes shortest, and time addeth and perfecteth; but in sciences the
+first author goeth furthest, and time leeseth and corrupteth.  So we
+see artillery, sailing, printing, and the like, were grossly managed
+at the first, and by time accommodated and refined; but
+contrariwise, the philosophies and sciences of Aristotle, Plato,
+Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at the
+first, and by time degenerate and imbased:  whereof the reason is no
+other, but that in the former many wits and industries have
+contributed in one; and in the latter many wits and industries have
+been spent about the wit of some one, whom many times they have
+rather depraved than illustrated; for, as water will not ascend
+higher than the level of the first spring-head from whence it
+descendeth, so knowledge derived from Aristotle, and exempted from
+liberty of examination, will not rise again higher than the
+knowledge of Aristotle.  And, therefore, although the position be
+good, Oportet discentem credere, yet it must be coupled with this,
+Oportet edoctum judicare; for disciples do owe unto masters only a
+temporary belief and a suspension of their own judgment till they be
+fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual
+captivity; and therefore, to conclude this point, I will say no
+more, but so let great authors have their due, as time, which is the
+author of authors, be not deprived of his due--which is, further and
+further to discover truth.  Thus have I gone over these three
+diseases of learning; besides the which there are some other rather
+peccant humours than formed diseases, which, nevertheless, are not
+so secret and intrinsic, but that they fall under a popular
+observation and traducement, and, therefore, are not to be passed
+over.
+
+V. (1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two
+extremities:  the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it
+seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice of
+the father.  For as he devoureth his children, so one of them
+seeketh to devour and suppress the other; while antiquity envieth
+there should be new additions, and novelty cannot be content to add
+but it must deface; surely the advice of the prophet is the true
+direction in this matter, State super vias antiquas, et videte
+quaenam sit via recta et bona et ambulate in ea.  Antiquity
+deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon and
+discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is well taken,
+then to make progression.  And to speak truly, Antiquitas saeculi
+juventus mundi.  These times are the ancient times, when the world
+is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine
+retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.
+
+(2) Another error induced by the former is a distrust that anything
+should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed
+and passed over so long time:  as if the same objection were to be
+made to time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen
+gods; of which he wondereth that they begot so many children in old
+time, and begot none in his time; and asketh whether they were
+become septuagenary, or whether the law Papia, made against old
+men's marriages, had restrained them.  So it seemeth men doubt lest
+time is become past children and generation; wherein contrariwise we
+see commonly the levity and unconstancy of men's judgments, which,
+till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and as soon as it
+is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done:  as we see in the
+expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as a
+vast and impossible enterprise; and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy
+to make no more of it than this, Nil aliud quam bene ausus vana
+contemnere.  And the same happened to Columbus in the western
+navigation.  But in intellectual matters it is much more common, as
+may be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid; which till they
+be demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent; but being
+demonstrate, our mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation (as
+the lawyers speak), as if we had known them before.
+
+(3) Another error, that hath also some affinity with the former, is
+a conceit that of former opinions or sects after variety and
+examination the best hath still prevailed and suppressed the rest;
+so as if a man should begin the labour of a new search, he were but
+like to light upon somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection
+brought into oblivion; as if the multitude, or the wisest for the
+multitude's sake, were not ready to give passage rather to that
+which is popular and superficial than to that which is substantial
+and profound for the truth is, that time seemeth to be of the nature
+of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light
+and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and
+solid.
+
+(4) Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the
+over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and
+methods; from which time commonly sciences receive small or no
+augmentation.  But as young men, when they knit and shape perfectly,
+do seldom grow to a further stature, so knowledge, while it is in
+aphorisms and observations, it is in growth; but when it once is
+comprehended in exact methods, it may, perchance, be further
+polished, and illustrate and accommodated for use and practice, but
+it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.
+
+(5) Another error which doth succeed that which we last mentioned
+is, that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men
+have abandoned universality, or philosophia prima, which cannot but
+cease and stop all progression.  For no perfect discovery can be
+made upon a flat or a level; neither is it possible to discover the
+more remote and deeper parts of any science if you stand but upon
+the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.
+
+(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a
+kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means
+whereof, men have withdrawn themselves too much from the
+contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and
+have tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits.  Upon
+these intellectualists, which are notwithstanding commonly taken for
+the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just
+censure, saying: --"Men sought truth in their own little worlds, and
+not in the great and common world;" for they disdain to spell, and
+so by degrees to read in the volume of God's works; and contrariwise
+by continual meditation and agitation of wit do urge and, as it
+were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles unto
+them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.
+
+(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter is,
+that men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and
+doctrines with some conceits which they have most admired, or some
+sciences which they have most applied, and given all things else a
+tincture according to them, utterly untrue and improper.  So hath
+Plato intermingled his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with
+logic; and the second school of Plato, Proclus and the rest, with
+the mathematics; for these were the arts which had a kind of
+primogeniture with them severally.  So have the alchemists made a
+philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus
+our countryman hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a
+loadstone.  So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of the
+nature of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a
+harmony, saith pleasantly, Hic ab arte sua non recessit, &c.  But of
+these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he
+saith, Qui respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant.
+
+(8) Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion
+without due and mature suspension of judgment.  For the two ways of
+contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken
+of by the ancients:  the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and
+in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the
+entrance, but after a while fair and even.  So it is in
+contemplation:  if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end
+in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall
+end in certainties.
+
+(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of
+knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and
+not ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed,
+and not easiest examined.  It is true, that in compendious treatises
+for practice that form is not to be disallowed; but in the true
+handling of knowledge men ought not to fall either on the one side
+into the vein of Velleius the Epicurean, Nil tam metuens quam ne
+dubitare aliqua de revideretur:  nor, on the other side, into
+Socrates, his ironical doubting of all things; but to propound
+things sincerely with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a
+man's own judgment proved more or less.
+
+(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to
+themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas the
+more constant and devote kind of professors of any science ought to
+propound to themselves to make some additions to their science, they
+convert their labours to aspire to certain second prizes:  as to be
+a profound interpreter or commentor, to be a sharp champion or
+defender, to be a methodical compounder or abridger, and so the
+patrimony of knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved, but seldom
+augmented.
+
+(11) But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or
+misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge.  For men have
+entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a
+natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain
+their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and
+reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and
+contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom
+sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason to the
+benefit and use of men:  as if there were sought in knowledge a
+couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a
+terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a
+fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself
+upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or
+a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory
+of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.  But this is that
+which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and
+action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together
+than they have been:  a conjunction like unto that of the two
+highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation; and
+Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action, howbeit, I do not
+mean, when I speak of use and action, that end before-mentioned of
+the applying of knowledge to lucre and profession; for I am not
+ignorant how much that diverteth and interrupteth the prosecution
+and advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown
+before Atalanta, which, while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take
+up, the race is hindered,
+
+
+"Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit." {1}
+
+
+Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy
+down from heaven to converse upon the earth--that is, to leave
+natural philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and
+policy.  But as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to
+the use and benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both
+philosophies to separate and reject vain speculations, and
+whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve and augment whatsoever
+is solid and fruitful; that knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for
+pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond-woman, to acquire and gain to
+her master's use; but as a spouse, for generation, fruit, and
+comfort.
+
+(12) Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissection,
+those peccant humours (the principal of them) which have not only
+given impediment to the proficience of learning, but have given also
+occasion to the traducement thereof:  wherein, if I have been too
+plain, it must be remembered, fidelia vulnera amantis, sed dolosa
+oscula malignantis.  This I think I have gained, that I ought to be
+the better believed in that which I shall say pertaining to
+commendation; because I have proceeded so freely in that which
+concerneth censure.  And yet I have no purpose to enter into a
+laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the Muses (though I am
+of opinion that it is long since their rites were duly celebrated),
+but my intent is, without varnish or amplification justly to weigh
+the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other things, and to
+take the true value thereof by testimonies and arguments, divine and
+human.
+
+VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in
+the archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts
+of God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with
+sobriety; wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning, for
+all learning is knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is
+original, and therefore we must look for it by another name, that of
+wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures call it.
+
+(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a double
+emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more properly to
+power, the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the
+subsistence of the matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of
+the form.  This being supposed, it is to be observed that for
+anything which appeareth in the history of the creation, the
+confused mass and matter of heaven and earth was made in a moment,
+and the order and disposition of that chaos or mass was the work of
+six days; such a note of difference it pleased God to put upon the
+works of power, and the works of wisdom; wherewith concurreth, that
+in the former it is not set down that God said, "Let there be heaven
+and earth," as it is set down of the works following; but actually,
+that God made heaven and earth:  the one carrying the style of a
+manufacture, and the other of a law, decree, or counsel.
+
+(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to spirits:
+we find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy
+of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, the first place
+or degree is given to the angels of love, which are termed seraphim;
+the second to the angels of light, which are termed cherubim; and
+the third, and so following places, to thrones, principalities, and
+the rest, which are all angels of power and ministry; so as this
+angels of knowledge and illumination are placed before the angels of
+office and domination.
+
+(4) To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and
+material forms, we read the first form that was created was light,
+which hath a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal
+things to knowledge in spirits and incorporal things.
+
+(5) So in the distribution of days we see the day wherein God did
+rest and contemplate His own works was blessed above all the days
+wherein He did effect and accomplish them.
+
+(6) After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man
+was placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so appointed
+to him, could be no other than work of contemplation; that is, when
+the end of work is but for exercise and experiment, not for
+necessity; for there being then no reluctation of the creature, nor
+sweat of the brow, man's employment must of consequence have been
+matter of delight in the experiment, and not matter of labour for
+the use.  Again, the first acts which man performed in Paradise
+consisted of the two summary parts of knowledge; the view of
+creatures, and the imposition of names.  As for the knowledge which
+induced the fall, it was, as was touched before, not the natural
+knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge of good and evil;
+wherein the supposition was, that God's commandments or prohibitions
+were not the originals of good and evil, but that they had other
+beginnings, which man aspired to know, to the end to make a total
+defection from God and to depend wholly upon himself.
+
+(7) To pass on:  in the first event or occurrence after the fall of
+man, we see (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not
+violating at all the truth of this story or letter) an image of the
+two estates, the contemplative state and the active state, figured
+in the two persons of Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and
+most primitive trades of life; that of the shepherd (who, by reason
+of his leisure, rest in a place, and lying in view of heaven, is a
+lively image of a contemplative life), and that of the husbandman,
+where we see again the favour and election of God went to the
+shepherd, and not to the tiller of the ground.
+
+(8) So in the age before the flood, the holy records within those
+few memorials which are there entered and registered have vouchsafed
+to mention and honour the name of the inventors and authors of music
+and works in metal.  In the age after the flood, the first great
+judgment of God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of
+tongues; whereby the open trade and intercourse of learning and
+knowledge was chiefly imbarred.
+
+(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God's first pen:  he is
+adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, "That
+he was seen in all the learning of the Egyptians," which nation we
+know was one of the most ancient schools of the world:  for so Plato
+brings in the Egyptian priest saying unto Solon, "You Grecians are
+ever children; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of
+knowledge."  Take a view of the ceremonial law of Moses; you shall
+find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the badge or difference
+of the people of God, the exercise and impression of obedience, and
+other divine uses and fruits thereof, that some of the most learned
+Rabbins have travailed profitably and profoundly to observe, some of
+them a natural, some of them a moral sense, or reduction of many of
+the ceremonies and ordinances.  As in the law of the leprosy, where
+it is said, "If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient
+may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any whole flesh
+remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean;" one of them noteth a
+principle of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before
+maturity than after; and another noteth a position of moral
+philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt
+manners, as those that are half good and half evil.  So in this and
+very many other places in that law, there is to be found, besides
+the theological sense, much aspersion of philosophy.
+
+(10)  So likewise in that excellent hook of Job, if it be revolved
+with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural
+philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the roundness of the
+world, Qui extendit aquilonem super vacuum, et appendit terram super
+nihilum; wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the
+north, and the finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly
+touched.  So again, matter of astronomy:  Spiritus ejus ornavit
+caelos, et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est Coluber tortuoses.
+And in another place, Nunquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas
+Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare?  Where the fixing of
+the stars, ever standing at equal distance, is with great elegancy
+noted.  And in another place, Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et
+Hyadas, et interiora Austri; where again he takes knowledge of the
+depression of the southern pole, calling it the secrets of the
+south, because the southern stars were in that climate unseen.
+Matter of generation:  Annon sicut lac mulsisti me, et sicut caseum
+coagulasti me? &c.  Matter of minerals:  Habet argentum venarum
+suarum principia; et auro locus est in quo conflatur, ferrum de
+terra tollitur, et lapis solutus calore in aes vertitur; and so
+forwards in that chapter.
+
+(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift
+or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon's petition and
+in God's assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and
+temporal felicity.  By virtue of which grant or donative of God
+Solomon became enabled not only to write those excellent parables or
+aphorisms concerning divine and moral philosophy, but also to
+compile a natural history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the
+mountain to the moss upon the wall (which is but a rudiment between
+putrefaction and an herb), and also of all things that breathe or
+move.  Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the
+glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and
+navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the
+like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to
+the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, "The
+glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to
+find it out;" as if, according to the innocent play of children, the
+Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have
+them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour
+than to be God's playfellows in that game; considering the great
+commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden
+from them.
+
+(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our
+Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show
+His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests
+and doctors of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature
+by His miracles.  And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly
+figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which
+are but vehicula scientiae.
+
+(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God
+to use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the
+first He did employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by
+inspiration, more evidently to declare His immediate working, and to
+abase all human wisdom or knowledge; yet nevertheless that counsel
+of His was no sooner performed, but in the next vicissitude and
+succession He did send His divine truth into the world, waited on
+with other learnings, as with servants or handmaids:  for so we see
+St. Paul, who was only learned amongst the Apostles, had his pen
+most used in the Scriptures of the New Testament.
+
+(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers
+of the Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning
+of this heathen; insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julianus
+(whereby it was interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into
+schools, lectures, or exercises of learning) was esteemed and
+accounted a more pernicious engine and machination against the
+Christian Faith than were all the sanguinary prosecutions of his
+predecessors; neither could the emulation and jealousy of Gregory,
+the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever obtain the opinion of
+piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the censure of humour,
+malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men; in that he
+designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen
+antiquity and authors.  But contrariwise it was the Christian
+Church, which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one
+side from the north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did
+preserve in the sacred lap and bosom thereof the precious relics
+even of heathen learning, which otherwise had been extinguished, as
+if no such thing had ever been.
+
+(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and
+our fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to
+account for their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry
+doctrines obnoxious and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and
+the same time it was ordained by the Divine Providence that there
+should attend withal a renovation and new spring of all other
+knowledges.  And on the other side we see the Jesuits, who partly in
+themselves, and partly by the emulation and provocation of their
+example, have much quickened and strengthened the state of learning;
+we see (I say) what notable service and reparation they have done to
+the Roman see.
+
+(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that
+there be two principal duties and services, besides ornament and
+illustration, which philosophy and human learning do perform to
+faith and religion.  The one, because they are an effectual
+inducement to the exaltation of the glory of God.  For as the Psalms
+and other Scriptures do often invite us to consider and magnify the
+great and wonderful works of God, so if we should rest only in the
+contemplation of the exterior of them as they first offer themselves
+to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the majesty of God,
+as if we should judge or construe of the store of some excellent
+jeweller by that only which is set out toward the street in his
+shop.  The other, because they minister a singular help and
+preservative against unbelief and error.  For our Saviour saith,
+"You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God;" laying
+before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from
+error:  first the Scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then
+the creatures expressing His power; whereof the latter is a key unto
+the former:  not only opening our understanding to conceive the true
+sense of the Scriptures by the general notions of reason and rules
+of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a due
+meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly signed and
+engraven upon His works.  Thus much therefore for divine testimony
+and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of learning.
+
+VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a
+discourse of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice
+of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety
+of them.  First, therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst
+the heathen, it was the highest to obtain to a veneration and
+adoration as a God.  This unto the Christians is as the forbidden
+fruit.  But we speak now separately of human testimony, according to
+which--that which the Grecians call apotheosis, and the Latins
+relatio inter divos--was the supreme honour which man could
+attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a formal
+decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman Emperors),
+but by an inward assent and belief.  Which honour, being so high,
+had also a degree or middle term; for there were reckoned above
+human honours, honours heroical and divine:  in the attribution and
+distribution of which honours we see antiquity made this difference;
+that whereas founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers,
+extirpers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent
+persons in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of
+worthies or demigods, such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minus,
+Romulus, and the like; on the other side, such as were inventors and
+authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities towards man's life,
+were ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as was Ceres,
+Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and others.  And justly; for the merit
+of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
+and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and
+good, yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground
+where they fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of
+heaven, which are permanent and universal.  The former again is
+mixed with strife and perturbation, but the latter hath the true
+character of Divine Presence, coming in aura leni, without noise or
+agitation.
+
+(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing
+the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the
+former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which
+merit was lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation
+of Orpheus' theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and,
+forgetting their several appetites--some of prey, some of game, some
+of quarrel--stood all sociably together listening unto the airs and
+accords of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was
+drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own
+nature; wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men,
+who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, of profit, of lust,
+of revenge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to
+religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of
+sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but
+if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make
+them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion.
+
+(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves, or
+persons of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths
+and popular estates, are endued with learning.  For although he
+might be thought partial to his own profession that said "Then
+should people and estates be happy when either kings were
+philosophers, or philosophers kings;" yet so much is verified by
+experience, that under learned princes and governors there have been
+ever the best times:  for howsoever kings may have their
+imperfections in their passions and customs, yet, if they be
+illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy,
+and morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all
+ruinous and peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in
+their ears, when counsellors and servants stand mute and silent.
+And senators or counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed
+upon more safe and substantial principles, than counsellors which
+are only men of experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off,
+whereas the other discover them not till they come near hand, and
+then trust to the agility of their wit to ward or avoid them.
+
+ (4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still
+the law of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples)
+doth best appear in the age which passed from the death of
+Domitianus the emperor until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a
+succession of six princes, all learned, or singular favourers and
+advancers of learning, which age for temporal respects was the most
+happy and flourishing that ever the Roman Empire (which then was a
+model of the world) enjoyed--a matter revealed and prefigured unto
+Domitian in a dream the night before he was slain:  for he thought
+there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck and a head of gold,
+which came accordingly to pass in those golden times which
+succeeded; of which princes we will make some commemoration;
+wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought
+fitter for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as
+this is, yet, because it is pertinent to the point in hand--Neque
+semper arcum tendit Apollo--and to name them only were too naked and
+cursory, I will not omit it altogether.  The first was Nerva, the
+excellent temper of whose government is by a glance in Cornelius
+Tacitus touched to the life:  Postquam divus Nerva res oluim
+insociabiles miscuisset, imperium et libertatem.  And in token of
+his learning, the last act of his short reign left to memory was a
+missive to his adopted son, Trajan, proceeding upon some inward
+discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended in a verse
+of Homer's -
+
+
+"Telis, Phoebe, tuis, lacrymas ulciscere nostras."
+
+
+(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but if we
+will hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, "He that
+receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall have a prophet's
+reward," he deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes;
+for there was not a greater admirer of learning or benefactor of
+learning, a founder of famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of
+learned men to office, and familiar converser with learned
+professors and preceptors who were noted to have then most credit in
+court.  On the other side how much Trajan's virtue and government
+was admired and renowned, surely no testimony of grave and faithful
+history doth more lively set forth than that legend tale of
+Gregorius Magnum, Bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme envy
+he bare towards all heathen excellency; and yet he is reported, out
+of the love and estimation of Trajan's moral virtues, to have made
+unto God passionate and fervent prayers for the delivery of his soul
+out of hell, and to have obtained it, with a caveat that he should
+make no more such petitions.  In this prince's time also the
+persecutions against the Christians received intermission upon the
+certificate of Plinius Secundus, a man of excellent learning and by
+Trajan advanced.
+
+(6) Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that lived, and
+the most universal inquirer:  insomuch as it was noted for an error
+in his mind that he desired to comprehend all things, and not to
+reserve himself for the worthiest things, falling into the like
+humour that was long before noted in Philip of Macedon, who, when he
+would needs overrule and put down an excellent musician in an
+argument touching music, was well answered by him again--"God
+forbid, sir," saith he, "that your fortune should be so bad as to
+know these things better than I."  It pleased God likewise to use
+the curiosity of this emperor as an inducement to the peace of His
+Church in those days; for having Christ in veneration, not as a God
+or Saviour, but as a wonder or novelty, and having his picture in
+his gallery matched with Apollonius (with whom in his vain
+imagination he thought its had some conformity), yet it served the
+turn to allay the bitter hatred of those times against the Christian
+name, so as the Church had peace during his time.  And for his
+government civil, although he did not attain to that of Trajan's in
+glory of arms or perfection of justice, yet in deserving of the weal
+of the subject he did exceed him.  For Trajan erected many famous
+monuments and buildings, insomuch as Constantine the Great in
+emulation was wont to call him Parietaria, "wall-flower," because
+his name was upon so many walls; but his buildings and works were
+more of glory and triumph than use and necessity.  But Adrian spent
+his whole reign, which was peaceable, in a perambulation or survey
+of the Roman Empire, giving order and making assignation where he
+went for re-edifying of cities, towns, and forts decayed, and for
+cutting of rivers and streams, and for making bridges and passages,
+and for policing of cities and commonalties with new ordinances and
+constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so
+that his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and
+decays of former times.
+
+(7) Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently
+learned, and had the patient and subtle wit of a schoolman, insomuch
+as in common speech (which leaves no virtue untaxed) he was called
+Cymini Sector, a carver or a divider of cummin seed, which is one of
+the least seeds.  Such a patience he had and settled spirit to enter
+into the least and most exact differences of causes, a fruit no
+doubt of the exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which
+being no ways charged or encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or
+scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodness,
+without all fiction or affectation, that hath reigned or lived, made
+his mind continually present and entire.  He likewise approached a
+degree nearer unto Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto
+St. Paul, "half a Christian," holding their religion and law in good
+opinion, and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way to the
+advancement of Christians.
+
+(5) There succeeded him the first Divi fratres, the two adoptive
+brethren--Lucius Commodus Verus, son to AElius Verus, who delighted
+much in the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the poet
+Martial his Virgil; and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus:  whereof the
+latter, who obscured his colleague and survived him long, was named
+the "Philosopher," who, as he excelled all the rest in learning, so
+he excelled them likewise in perfection of all royal virtues;
+insomuch as Julianus the emperor, in his book entitled Caersares,
+being as a pasquil or satire to deride all his predecessors, feigned
+that they were all invited to a banquet of the gods, and Silenus the
+jester sat at the nether end of the table and bestowed a scoff on
+everyone as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus came in,
+Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance, not knowing where to
+carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance at his patience
+towards his wife.  And the virtue of this prince, continued with
+that of his predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the
+world, that though it were extremely dishonoured in Commodus,
+Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, who all bare the name, yet, when
+Alexander Severus refused the name because he was a stranger to the
+family, the Senate with one acclamation said, Quomodo Augustus, sic
+et Antoninus.  In such renown and veneration was the name of these
+two princes in those days, that they would have had it as a
+perpetual addition in all the emperors' style.  In this emperor's
+time also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as in this
+sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning in
+sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the world.
+
+(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not presuming to
+speak of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment the most
+excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in
+this part of Britain; a prince that, if Plutarch were now alive to
+write lives by parallels, would trouble him, I think, to find for
+her a parallel amongst women.  This lady was endued with learning in
+her sex singular, and rare even amongst masculine princes--whether
+we speak of learning, of language, or of science, modern or ancient,
+divinity or humanity--and unto the very last year of her life she
+accustomed to appoint set hours for reading, scarcely any young
+student in a university more daily or more duly.  As for her
+government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm) that
+this part of the island never had forty-five years of better tines,
+and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the
+wisdom of her regiment.  For if there be considered, of the one
+side, the truth of religion established, the constant peace and
+security, the good administration of justice, the temperate use of
+the prerogative, not slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing
+state of learning, sortable to so excellent a patroness; the
+convenient estate of wealth and means, both of crown and subject;
+the habit of obedience, and the moderation of discontents; and there
+be considered, on the other side, the differences of religion, the
+troubles of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain, and
+opposition of Rome, and then that she was solitary and of herself;
+these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an
+instance so recent and so proper, so I suppose I could not have
+chosen one more remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand,
+which is concerning the conjunction of learning in the prince with
+felicity in the people.
+
+(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon
+civil merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace
+and peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less power and
+efficacy in enablement towards martial and military virtue and
+prowess, as may be notably represented in the examples of Alexander
+the Great and Caesar the Dictator (mentioned before, but now in fit
+place to be resumed), of whose virtues and acts in war there needs
+no note or recital, having been the wonders of time in that kind;
+but of their affections towards learning and perfections in learning
+it is pertinent to say somewhat.
+
+(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great
+philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto
+him; he was attended with Callisthenes and divers other learned
+persons, that followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and
+conquests.  What price and estimation he had learning in doth
+notably appear in these three particulars:  first, in the envy he
+used to express that he bare towards Achilles, in this, that he had
+so good a trumpet of his praises as Homer's verses; secondly, in the
+judgment or solution he gave touching that precious cabinet of
+Darius, which was found among his jewels (whereof question was made
+what thing was worthy to be put into it, and he gave his opinion for
+Homer's works); thirdly, in his letter to Aristotle, after he had
+set forth his books of nature, wherein he expostulateth with him for
+publishing the secrets or mysteries of philosophy; and gave him to
+understand that himself esteemed it more to excel other men in
+learning and knowledge than in power and empire.  And what use he
+had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches
+and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that in
+all variety.
+
+(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat
+idle to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet, since the
+argument I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall
+perceive I am as willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an
+Alexander, or a Caesar, or an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred
+years since, as any that now liveth; for it is the displaying of the
+glory of learning in sovereignty that I propound to myself, and not
+a humour of declaiming in any man's praises.  Observe, then, the
+speech he used of Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state
+of one of the greatest questions of moral philosophy:  whether the
+enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of them, be the
+greatest happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly contented
+with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition, "were
+I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes."  But Seneca inverteth
+it, and saith, "Plus erat, quod hic nollet accipere, quam quod ille
+posset dare."  There were more things which Diogenes would have
+refused than those were which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.
+
+(13) Observe, again, that speech which was usual with him,--"That he
+felt his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust;" and see
+if it were not a speech extracted out of the depth of natural
+philosophy, and liker to have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or
+Democritus than from Alexander.
+
+(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon the
+bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his flatterers,
+that was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and said, "Look, this
+is very blood; this is not such a liquor as Homer speaketh of, which
+ran from Venus' hand when it was pierced by Diomedes."
+
+(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in the
+speech he used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made against
+his father Antipater; for when Alexander happened to say, "Do you
+think these men would have come from so far to complain except they
+had just cause of grief?" and Cassander answered, "Yea, that was the
+matter, because they thought they should not be disproved;" said
+Alexander, laughing, "See the subtleties of Aristotle, to take a
+matter both ways, pro et contra, &c."
+
+(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art which he
+reprehended to serve his own humour:  when bearing a secret grudge
+to Callisthenes, because he was against the new ceremony of his
+adoration, feasting one night where the same Callisthenes was at the
+table, it was moved by some after supper, for entertainment sake,
+that Callisthenes, who was an eloquent man, might speak of some
+theme or purpose at his own choice; which Callisthenes did, choosing
+the praise of the Macedonian nation for his discourse, and
+performing the same with so good manner as the hearers were much
+ravished; whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased, said, "It was easy
+to be eloquent upon so good a subject; but," saith he, "turn your
+style, and let us hear what you can say against us;" which
+Callisthenes presently undertook, and did with that sting and life
+that Alexander interrupted him, and said, "The goodness of the cause
+made him eloquent before, and despite made him eloquent then again."
+
+(17) Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent use of
+a metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxeth Antipater, who was an
+imperious and tyrannous governor; for when one of Antipater's
+friends commended him to Alexander for his moderation, that he did
+not degenerate as his other lieutenants did into the Persian pride,
+in uses of purple, but kept the ancient habit of Macedon, of black.
+"True," saith Alexander; "but Antipater is all purple within."  Or
+that other, when Parmenio came to him in the plain of Arbela and
+showed him the innumerable multitude of his enemies, specially as
+they appeared by the infinite number of lights as it had been a new
+firmament of stars, and thereupon advised him to assail them by
+night; whereupon he answered, "That he would not steal the victory."
+
+(18) For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, so
+much in all ages embraced, that he made between his two friends
+Hephaestion and Craterus, when he said, "That the one loved
+Alexander, and the other loved the king:" describing the principal
+difference of princes' best servants, that some in affection love
+their person, and other in duty love their crown.
+
+(19) Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary with
+counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters according to
+the model of their own mind and fortune, and not of their masters.
+When upon Darius' great offers Parmenio had said, "Surely I would
+accept these offers were I as Alexander;" saith Alexander, "So would
+I were I as Parmenio."
+
+(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made when he
+gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was asked what
+he did reserve for himself, and he answered, "Hope."  Weigh, I say,
+whether he had not cast up his account aright, because hope must be
+the portion of all that resolve upon great enterprises; for this was
+Caesar's portion when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then
+utterly overthrown with largesses.  And this was likewise the
+portion of that noble prince, howsoever transported with ambition,
+Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was usually said that he was the
+greatest usurer in France, because he had turned all his estate into
+obligations.
+
+(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to say
+hyperbolically, "That if all sciences were lost they might be found
+in Virgil," so certainly this may be said truly, there are the
+prints and footsteps of learning in those few speeches which are
+reported of this prince, the admiration of whom, when I consider him
+not as Alexander the Great, but as Aristotle's scholar, hath carried
+me too far.
+
+(22) As for Julius Caesar, the excellency of his learning needeth
+not to be argued from his education, or his company, or his
+speeches; but in a further degree doth declare itself in his
+writings and works:  whereof some are extant and permanent, and some
+unfortunately perished.  For first, we see there is left unto us
+that excellent history of his own wars, which he entitled only a
+Commentary, wherein all succeeding times have admired the solid
+weight of matter, and the real passages and lively images of actions
+and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of words and
+perspicuity of narration that ever was; which that it was not the
+effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept, is well
+witnessed by that work of his entitled De Analogia, being a
+grammatical philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same Vox
+ad placitum to become Vox ad licitum, and to reduce custom of speech
+to congruity of speech; and took as it were the pictures of words
+from the life of reason.
+
+(23) So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power and
+learning, the then reformed computation of the year; well expressing
+that he took it to be as great a glory to himself to observe and
+know the law of the heavens, as to give law to men upon the earth.
+
+(24) So likewise in that book of his, Anti-Cato, it may easily
+appear that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as victory of
+war:  undertaking therein a conflict against the greatest champion
+with the pen that then lived, Cicero the orator.
+
+(25) So, again, in his book of Apophthegms, which he collected, we
+see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of
+tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have
+every word of his own to be made an apophthegm or an oracle, as vain
+princes, by custom of flattery, pretend to do.  And yet if I should
+enumerate divers of his speeches, as I did those of Alexander, they
+are truly such as Solomon noteth, when he saith, Verba sapientum
+tanquam aculei, et tanquam clavi in altum defixi:  whereof I will
+only recite three, not so delectable for elegancy, but admirable for
+vigour and efficacy.
+
+(26) As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, that
+could with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was thus:
+The Romans, when their generals did speak to their army, did use the
+word Milites, but when the magistrates spake to the people they did
+use the word Quirites.  The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously
+prayed to be cashiered; not that they so meant, but by expostulation
+thereof to draw Caesar to other conditions; wherein he being
+resolute not to give way, after some silence, he began his speech,
+Ego Quirites, which did admit them already cashiered--wherewith they
+were so surprised, crossed, and confused, as they would not suffer
+him to go on in his speech, but relinquished their demands, and made
+it their suit to be again called by the name of Milites.
+
+(27) The second speech was thus:  Caesar did extremely affect the
+name of king; and some were set on as he passed by in popular
+acclamation to salute him king.  Whereupon, finding the cry weak and
+poor, he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken
+his surname:  Non Rex sum, sed Caesar; a speech that, if it be
+searched, the life and fulness of it can scarce be expressed.  For,
+first, it was a refusal of the name, but yet not serious; again, it
+did signify an infinite confidence and magnanimity, as if he
+presumed Caesar was the greater title, as by his worthiness it is
+come to pass till this day.  But chiefly it was a speech of great
+allurement toward his own purpose, as if the state did strive with
+him but for a name, whereof mean families were vested; for Rex was a
+surname with the Romans, as well as King is with us.
+
+(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus, when
+Caesar, after war declared, did possess himself of this city of
+Rome; at which time, entering into the inner treasury to take the
+money there accumulate, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him.
+Whereto Caesar said, "That if he did not desist, he would lay him
+dead in the place."  And presently taking himself up, he added,
+"Young man, it is harder for me to speak it than to do it--
+Adolescens, durius est mihi hoc dicere quam facere."  A speech
+compounded of the greatest terror and greatest clemency that could
+proceed out of the mouth of man.
+
+(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident himself knew
+well his own perfection in learning, and took it upon him, as
+appeared when upon occasion that some spake what a strange
+resolution it was in Lucius Sylla to resign his dictators, he,
+scoffing at him to his own advantage, answered, "That Sylla could
+not skill of letters, and therefore knew not how to dictate."
+
+(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the
+concurrence of military virtue and learning (for what example should
+come with any grace after those two of Alexander and Caesar?), were
+it not in regard of the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one
+other particular, as that which did so suddenly pass from extreme
+scorn to extreme wonder:  and it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who
+went from Socrates' school into Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the
+younger against King Artaxerxes.  This Xenophon at that time was
+very young, and never had seen the wars before, neither had any
+command in the army, but only followed the war as a voluntary, for
+the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.  He was present
+when Falinus came in message from the great king to the Grecians,
+after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of men,
+left to themselves in the midst of the king's territories, cut off
+from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles.
+The message imported that they should deliver up their arms and
+submit themselves to the king's mercy.  To which message, before
+answer was made, divers of the army conferred familiarly with
+Falinus; and amongst the rest Xenophon happened to say, "Why,
+Falinus, we have now but these two things left, our arms and our
+virtue; and if we yield up our arms, how shall we make use of our
+virtue?"  Whereto Falinus, smiling on him, said, "If I be not
+deceived, young gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I believe you
+study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say; but you are much
+abused if you think your virtue can withstand the king's power."
+Here was the scorn; the wonder followed:  which was that this young
+scholar or philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in
+parley by treason, conducted those ten thousand foot, through the
+heart of all the king's high countries, from Babylon to Graecia in
+safety, in despite of all the king's forces, to the astonishment of
+the world, and the encouragement of the Grecians in times succeeding
+to make invasion upon the kings of Persia, as was after purposed by
+Jason the Thessalian, attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and
+achieved by Alexander the Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act
+of that young scholar.
+
+VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral
+and private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is
+contained in the verses:-
+
+
+"Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
+Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros."
+
+
+It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's
+minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon fideliter; for a
+little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect.  It
+taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious
+suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind
+to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers
+and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and
+tried.  It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the
+root of all weakness.  For all things are admired, either because
+they are new, or because they are great.  For novelty, no man that
+wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly but will find that
+printed in his heart, Nil novi super terram.  Neither can any man
+marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and
+adviseth well of the motion.  And for magnitude, as Alexander the
+Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great
+conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received
+letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were
+commonly for a passage or a fort, or some walled town at the most,
+he said: --"It seemed to him that he was advertised of the battles
+of the frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of."  So
+certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal frame of
+nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls except)
+will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry
+corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and
+fro a little heap of dust.  It taketh away or mitigateth fear of
+death or adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments
+of virtue and imperfections of manners.  For if a man's mind be
+deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and
+corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus,
+who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of
+earth that was broken, and went forth the next day and saw a woman
+weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon said, "Heri vidi
+fragilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori."  And, therefore, Virgil
+did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and
+the conquest of all fears together, as concomitantia.
+
+
+"Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
+Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
+Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari."
+
+
+(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which
+learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind:  sometimes
+purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions,
+sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increasing appetite,
+sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the
+like; and, therefore, I will conclude with that which hath rationem
+totius--which is, that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not
+to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be
+capable and susceptible of growth and reformation.  For the
+unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to
+call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that suavissima vita,
+indies sentire se fieri meliorem.  The good parts he hath he will
+learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to
+increase them.  The faults he hath he will learn how to hide and
+colour them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that
+mows on still, and never whets his scythe.  Whereas with the learned
+man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction
+and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof.  Nay,
+further, in general and in sum, certain it is that Veritas and
+Bonitas differ but as the seal and the print; for truth prints
+goodness, and they be the clouds of error which descend in the
+storms of passions and perturbations.
+
+(3) From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and
+commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be any
+comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth
+man's nature.  We see the dignity of the commandment is according to
+the dignity of the commanded; to have commandment over beasts as
+herdmen have, is a thing contemptible; to have commandment over
+children as schoolmasters have, is a matter of small honour; to have
+commandment over galley-slaves is a disparagement rather than an
+honour.  Neither is the commandment of tyrants much better, over
+people which have put off the generosity of their minds; and,
+therefore, it was ever holden that honours in free monarchies and
+commonwealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the
+commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over
+their deeds and services.  And therefore, when Virgil putteth
+himself forth to attribute to Augustus Caesar the best of human
+honours, he doth it in these words:-
+
+
+      "Victorque volentes
+Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo."
+
+
+But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the
+commandment over the will; for it is a commandment over the reason,
+belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the
+mind, and giveth law to the will itself.  For there is no power on
+earth which setteth up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits
+and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions,
+and beliefs, but knowledge and learning.  And therefore we see the
+detestable and extreme pleasure that arch-heretics, and false
+prophets, and impostors are transported with, when they once find in
+themselves that they have a superiority in the faith and conscience
+of men; so great as if they have once tasted of it, it is seldom
+seen that any torture or persecution can make them relinquish or
+abandon it.  But as this is that which the author of the Revelation
+calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so by argument of
+contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men's
+understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that which
+approacheth nearest to the similitude of the divine rule.
+
+(4) As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of learning is
+not so confined to give fortune only to states and commonwealths, as
+it doth not likewise give fortune to particular persons.  For it was
+well noted long ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings,
+than either Sylla, or Caesar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding
+their great largesses and donatives, and distributions of lands to
+so many legions.  And no doubt it is hard to say whether arms or
+learning have advanced greater numbers.  And in case of sovereignty
+we see, that if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet
+learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in some
+competition with empire.
+
+(5) Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning,
+it far surpasseth all other in nature.  For, shall the pleasures of
+the affections so exceed the pleasure of the sense, as much as the
+obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner? and
+must not of consequence the pleasures of the intellect or
+understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections?  We see in all
+other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their
+verdure departeth, which showeth well they be but deceits of
+pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty which
+pleased, and not the quality.  And, therefore, we see that
+voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitions princes turn melancholy.
+But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite
+are perpetually interchangeable; and, therefore, appeareth to be
+good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident.  Neither is that
+pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which
+the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly:-
+
+
+"Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis, &c."
+
+
+"It is a view of delight," saith he, "to stand or walk upon the
+shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea; or
+to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a
+plain.  But it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be
+settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth; and from
+thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and
+wanderings up and down of other men.
+
+(6) Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man
+excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by learning
+man ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in body he
+cannot come; and the like:  let us conclude with the dignity and
+excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature
+doth most aspire, which is immortality, or continuance; for to this
+tendeth generation, and raising of houses and families; to this tend
+buildings, foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of
+memory, fame, and celebration; and in effect the strength of all
+other human desires.  We see then how far the monuments of wit and
+learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the
+hands.  For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five
+hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter;
+during which the infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have
+been decayed and demolished?  It is not possible to have the true
+pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no nor of the kings
+or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot
+last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth.  But
+the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted
+from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation.  Neither
+are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and
+cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing
+infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages.  So that if the
+invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches
+and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most
+remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are
+letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas
+of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom,
+illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?  Nay, further,
+we see some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most
+immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the
+soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of
+man could act and perform without the organs of the body, they
+thought might remain after death, which were only those of the
+understanding and not of the affection; so immortal and
+incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to be.  But we,
+that know by divine revelation that not only the understanding but
+the affections purified, not only the spirit but the body changed,
+shall be advanced to immortality, do disclaim in these rudiments of
+the senses.  But it must be remembered, both in this last point, and
+so it may likewise be needful in other places, that in probation of
+the dignity of knowledge or learning, I did in the beginning
+separate divine testimony from human, which method I have pursued,
+and so handled them both apart.
+
+(7) Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible
+for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of
+AEsop's cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem; or of
+Midas, that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the
+Muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris,
+that judged for beauty and love against wisdom and power; or of
+Agrippina, occidat matrem, modo imperet, that preferred empire with
+any condition never so detestable; or of Ulysses, qui vetulam
+praetulit immortalitati, being a figure of those which prefer custom
+and habit before all excellency, or of a number of the like popular
+judgments.  For these things must continue as they have been; but so
+will that also continue whereupon learning hath ever relied, and
+which faileth not:  Justificata est sapientia a filiis suis.
+
+
+
+THE SECOND BOOK.
+To the King.
+
+
+
+1.  It might seem to have more convenience, though it come often
+otherwise to pass (excellent King), that those which are fruitful in
+their generations, and have in themselves the foresight of
+immortality in their descendants, should likewise be more careful of
+the good estate of future times, unto which they know they must
+transmit and commend over their dearest pledges.  Queen Elizabeth
+was a sojourner in the world in respect of her unmarried life, and
+was a blessing to her own times; and yet so as the impression of her
+good government, besides her happy memory, is not without some
+effect which doth survive her.  But to your Majesty, whom God hath
+already blessed with so much royal issue, worthy to continue and
+represent you for ever, and whose youthful and fruitful bed doth yet
+promise many the like renovations, it is proper and agreeable to be
+conversant not only in the transitory parts of good government, but
+in those acts also which are in their nature permanent and
+perpetual.  Amongst the which (if affection do not transport me)
+there is not any more worthy than the further endowment of the world
+with sound and fruitful knowledge.  For why should a few received
+authors stand up like Hercules' columns, beyond which there should
+be no sailing or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a
+star as your Majesty to conduct and prosper us?  To return therefore
+where we left, it remaineth to consider of what kind those acts are
+which have been undertaken and performed by kings and others for the
+increase and advancement of learning, wherein I purpose to speak
+actively, without digressing or dilating.
+
+2.  Let this ground therefore be laid, that all works are over
+common by amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction, and by the
+conjunction of labours.  The first multiplieth endeavour, the second
+preventeth error, and the third supplieth the frailty of man.  But
+the principal of these is direction, for claudus in via antevertit
+cursorem extra viam; and Solomon excellently setteth it down, "If
+the iron be not sharp, it requireth more strength, but wisdom is
+that which prevaileth," signifying that the invention or election of
+the mean is more effectual than any enforcement or accumulation of
+endeavours.  This I am induced to speak, for that (not derogating
+from the noble intention of any that have been deservers towards the
+state of learning), I do observe nevertheless that their works and
+acts are rather matters of magnificence and memory than of
+progression and proficience, and tend rather to augment the mass of
+learning in the multitude of learned men than to rectify or raise
+the sciences themselves.
+
+3.  The works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant about
+three objects--the places of learning, the books of learning, and
+the persons of the learned.  For as water, whether it be the dew of
+heaven or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and leese itself in
+the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle where it may
+by union comfort and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry
+of man hath made and framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and
+pools, which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with
+accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and
+necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend
+from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon
+perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books,
+traditions, conferences, and places appointed, as universities,
+colleges, and schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same.
+
+4.  The works which concern the seats and places of learning are
+four--foundations and buildings, endowments with revenues,
+endowments with franchises and privileges, institutions and
+ordinances for government--all tending to quietness and privateness
+of life, and discharge of cares and troubles; much like the stations
+which Virgil prescribeth for the hiving of bees:
+
+
+"Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda,
+Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &c."
+
+
+5.  The works touching books are two--first, libraries, which are as
+the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true
+virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and
+reposed; secondly, new editions of authors, with more correct
+impressions, more faithful translations, more profitable glosses,
+more diligent annotations, and the like.
+
+6.  The works pertaining to the persons of learned men (besides the
+advancement and countenancing of them in general) are two--the
+reward and designation of readers in sciences already extant and
+invented; and the reward and designation of writers and inquirers
+concerning any parts of learning not sufficiently laboured and
+prosecuted.
+
+7.  These are summarily the works and acts wherein the merits of
+many excellent princes and other worthy personages, have been
+conversant.  As for any particular commemorations, I call to mind
+what Cicero said when he gave general thanks, Difficile non aliquem,
+ingratum quenquam praeterire.  Let us rather, according to the
+Scriptures, look unto that part of the race which is before us, than
+look back to that which is already attained.
+
+8.  First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations of colleges
+in Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to
+professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large.  For
+if men judge that learning should be referred to action, they judge
+well; but in this they fall into the error described in the ancient
+fable, in which the other parts of the body did suppose the stomach
+had been idle, because it neither performed the office of motion, as
+the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head doth; but yet
+notwithstanding it is the stomach that digesteth and distributeth to
+all the rest.  So if any man think philosophy and universality to be
+idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from
+thence served and supplied.  And this I take to be a great cause
+that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these
+fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage.  For if you
+will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not
+anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the
+earth and putting new mould about thee roots that must work it.
+Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of foundations
+and dotations to professory learning hath not only had a malign
+aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been
+prejudicial to states, and governments.  For hence it proceedeth
+that princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in
+causes of estate, because there is no education collegiate which is
+free, where such as were so disposed might give themselves in
+histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil discourse,
+and other the like enablements unto service of estate.
+
+9.  And because founders of colleges do plant, and founders of
+lectures do water, it followeth well in order to speak of the defect
+which is in public lectures; namely, in the smallness, and meanness
+of the salary or reward which in most places is assigned unto them,
+whether they be lectures of arts, or of professions.  For it is
+necessary to the progression of sciences that readers be of the most
+able and sufficient men; as those which are ordained for generating
+and propagating of sciences, and not for transitory use.  This
+cannot be, except their condition and endowment be such as may
+content the ablest man to appropriate his whole labour and continue
+his whole age in that function and attendance; and therefore must
+have a proportion answerable to that mediocrity or competency of
+advancement, which may be expected from a profession or the practice
+of a profession.  So as, if you will have sciences flourish, you
+must observe David's military law, which was, "That those which
+stayed with the carriage should have equal part with those which
+were in the action;" else will the carriages be ill attended.  So
+readers in sciences are indeed the guardians of the stores and
+provisions of sciences, whence men in active courses are furnished,
+and therefore ought to have equal entertainment with them; otherwise
+if the fathers in sciences be of the weakest sort or be ill
+maintained,
+
+
+"Et patrum invalidi referent jejunia nati."
+
+
+10.  Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some alchemist to
+help me, who call upon men to sell their books, and to build
+furnaces; quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses as barren
+virgins, and relying upon Vulcan.  But certain it is, that unto the
+deep, fruitful, and operative study of many sciences, specialty
+natural philosophy and physic, books be not only the instrumentals;
+wherein also the beneficence of men hath not been altogether
+wanting.  For we see spheres, globes, astrolabes, maps, and the
+like, have been provided as appurtenances to astronomy and
+cosmography, as well as books.  We see likewise that some places
+instituted for physic have annexed the commodity of gardens for
+simples of all sorts, and do likewise command the use of dead bodies
+for anatomies.  But these do respect but a few things.  In general,
+there will hardly be any main proficience in the disclosing of
+nature, except there be some allowance for expenses about
+experiments; whether they be experiments appertaining to Vulcanus or
+Daedalus, furnace or engine, or any other kind.  And therefore as
+secretaries and spials of princes and states bring in bills for
+intelligence, so you must allow the spials and intelligencers of
+nature to bring in their bills; or else you shall be ill advertised.
+
+11.  And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to Aristotle
+of treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, fishers, and the
+like, that he might compile a history of nature, much better do they
+deserve it that travail in arts of nature.
+
+12.  Another defect which I note is an intermission or neglect in
+those which are governors in universities, of consultation, and in
+princes or superior persons, of visitation:  to enter into account
+and consideration, whether the readings, exercises, and other
+customs appertaining unto learning, anciently begun and since
+continued, be well instituted or no; and thereupon to ground an
+amendment or reformation in that which shall be found inconvenient.
+For it is one of your Majesty's own most wise and princely maxims,
+"That in all usages and precedents, the times be considered wherein
+they first began; which if they were weak or ignorant, it derogateth
+from the authority of the usage, and leaveth it for suspect."  And
+therefore inasmuch as most of the usages and orders of the
+universities were derived from more obscure times, it is the more
+requisite they be re-examined.  In this kind I will give an instance
+or two, for example sake, of things that are the most obvious and
+familiar.  The one is a matter, which though it be ancient and
+general, yet I hold to be an error; which is, that scholars in
+universities come too soon and too unripe to logic and rhetoric,
+arts fitter for graduates than children and novices.  For these two,
+rightly taken, are the gravest of sciences, being the arts of arts;
+the one for judgment, the other for ornament.  And they be the rules
+and directions how to set forth and dispose matter:  and therefore
+for minds empty and unfraught with matter, and which have not
+gathered that which Cicero calleth sylva and supellex, stuff and
+variety, to begin with those arts (as if one should learn to weigh,
+or to measure, or to paint the wind) doth work but this effect, that
+the wisdom of those arts, which is great and universal, is almost
+made contemptible, and is degenerate into childish sophistry and
+ridiculous affectation.  And further, the untimely learning of them
+hath drawn on by consequence the superficial and unprofitable
+teaching and writing of them, as fitteth indeed to the capacity of
+children.  Another is a lack I find in the exercises used in the
+universities, which do snake too great a divorce between invention
+and memory.  For their speeches are either premeditate, in verbis
+conceptis, where nothing is left to invention, or merely extemporal,
+where little is left to memory.  Whereas in life and action there is
+least use of either of these, but rather of intermixtures of
+premeditation and invention, notes and memory.  So as the exercise
+fitteth not the practice, nor the image the life; and it is ever a
+true rule in exercises, that they be framed as near as may be to the
+life of practice; for otherwise they do pervert the motions and
+faculties of the mind, and not prepare them.  The truth whereof is
+not obscure, when scholars come to the practices of professions, or
+other actions of civil life; which when they set into, this want is
+soon found by themselves, and sooner by others.  But this part,
+touching the amendment of the institutions and orders of
+universities, I will conclude with the clause of Caesar's letter to
+Oppius and Balbes, Hoc quemadmodum fieri possit, nonnulla mihi in
+mentem veniunt, et multa reperiri possunt:  de iis rebus rgo vos ut
+cogitationem suscipiatis.
+
+13.  Another defect which I note ascendeth a little higher than the
+precedent.  For as the proficience of learning consisteth much in
+the orders and institutions of universities in the same states and
+kingdoms, so it would be yet more advanced, if there were more
+intelligence mutual between the universities of Europe than now
+there is.  We see there be many orders and foundations, which though
+they be divided under several sovereignties and territories, yet
+they take themselves to have a kind of contract, fraternity, and
+correspondence one with the other, insomuch as they have provincials
+and generals.  And surely as nature createth brotherhood in
+families, and arts mechanical contract brotherhoods in communalties,
+and the anointment of God superinduceth a brotherhood in kings and
+bishops, so in like manner there cannot but be a fraternity in
+learning and illumination, relating to that paternity which is
+attributed to God, who is called the Father of illuminations or
+lights.
+
+14.  The last defect which I will note is, that there hath not been,
+or very rarely been, any public designation of writers or inquirers
+concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to have been
+already sufficiently laboured or undertaken; unto which point it is
+an inducement to enter into a view and examination what parts of
+learning have been prosecuted, and what omitted.  For the opinion of
+plenty is amongst the causes of want, and the great quantity of
+books maketh a show rather of superfluity than lack; which surcharge
+nevertheless is not to be remedied by making no more books, but by
+making more good books, which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour
+the serpents of the enchanters.
+
+15.  The removing of all the defects formerly enumerate, except the
+last, and of the active part also of the last (which is the
+designation of writers), are opera basilica; towards which the
+endeavours of a private man may be but as an image in a crossway,
+that may point at the way, but cannot go it.  But the inducing part
+of the latter (which is the survey of learning) may be set forward
+by private travail.  Wherefore I will now attempt to make a general
+and faithful perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts
+thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the
+industry of man, to the end that such a plot made and recorded to
+memory may both minister light to any public designation, and, also
+serve to excite voluntary endeavours.  Wherein, nevertheless, my
+purpose is at this time to note only omissions and deficiences, and
+not to make any redargution of errors or incomplete prosecutions.
+For it is one thing to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and
+another thing to correct ill husbandry in that which is manured.
+
+In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant what
+it is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own
+weakness to sustain my purpose.  But my hope is, that if my extreme
+love to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of
+affection; for that "It is not granted to man to love and to be
+wise."  But I know well I can use no other liberty of judgment than
+I must leave to others; and I for my part shall be indifferently
+glad either to perform myself, or accept from another, that duty of
+humanity--Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam, &c.  I do foresee
+likewise that of those things which I shall enter and register as
+deficiences and omissions, many will conceive and censure that some
+of them are already done and extant; others to be but curiosities,
+and things of no great use; and others to be of too great
+difficulty, and almost impossibility to be compassed and effected.
+But for the two first, I refer myself to the particulars.  For the
+last, touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held
+possible which may be done by some person, though not by every one;
+and which may be done by many, though not by any one; and which may
+be done in the succession of ages, though not within the hourglass
+of one man's life; and which may be done by public designation,
+though not by private endeavour.  But, notwithstanding, if any man
+will take to himself rather that of Solomon, "Dicit piger, Leo est
+in via," than that of Virgil, "Possunt quia posse videntur," I shall
+be content that my labours be esteemed but as the better sort of
+wishes; for as it asketh some knowledge to demand a question not
+impertinent, so it requireth some sense to make a wish not absurd.
+
+I. (1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts
+of man's understanding, which is the seat of learning:  history to
+his memory, poesy to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason.
+Divine learning receiveth the same distribution; for, the spirit of
+man is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be
+diverse.  So as theology consisteth also of history of the Church;
+of parables, which is divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept.
+For as for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy,
+it is but divine history, which hath that prerogative over human, as
+the narration may be before the fact as well as after.
+
+(2) History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary; whereof
+the first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient.
+For no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning
+to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done
+the works of Nature, and the state, civil and ecclesiastical;
+without which the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the
+statue of Polyphemus with his eye out, that part being wanting which
+doth most show the spirit and life of the person.  And yet I am not
+ignorant that in divers particular sciences, as of the
+jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians, the
+philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the
+schools, authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations
+touching the invention of arts or usages.  But a just story of
+learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges and
+their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their diverse
+administrations and managings, their flourishings, their
+oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the
+causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning
+learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be
+wanting; the use and end of which work I do not so much design for
+curiosity or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning,
+but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in
+few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and
+administration of learning.  For it is not Saint Augustine's nor
+Saint Ambrose's works that will make so wise a divine as
+ecclesiastical history thoroughly read and observed, and the same
+reason is of learning.
+
+(3) History of Nature is of three sorts; of Nature in course, of
+Nature erring or varying, and of Nature altered or wrought; that is,
+history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts.  The
+first of these no doubt is extant, and that in good perfection; the
+two latter are bandied so weakly and unprofitably as I am moved to
+note them as deficient.  For I find no sufficient or competent
+collection of the works of Nature which have a digression and
+deflexion from the ordinary course of generations, productions, and
+motions; whether they be singularities of place and region, or the
+strange events of time and chance, or the effects of yet unknown
+properties, or the instances of exception to general kinds.  It is
+true I find a number of books of fabulous experiments and secrets,
+and frivolous impostures for pleasure and strangeness; but a
+substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites or irregulars
+of Nature, well examined and described, I find not, specially not
+with due rejection of fables and popular errors.  For as things now
+are, if an untruth in Nature be once on foot, what by reason of the
+neglect of examination, and countenance of antiquity, and what by
+reason of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments of
+speech, it is never called down.
+
+(4) The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is
+nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and
+vain wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries is to do; but for two
+reasons, both of great weight:  the one to correct the partiality of
+axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and
+familiar examples; the other because from the wonders of Nature is
+the nearest intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art, for
+it is no more but by following and, as it were, hounding Nature in
+her wanderings, to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place
+again.  Neither am I of opinion, in this history of marvels, that
+superstitious narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams,
+divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear
+evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded.  For it is not yet
+known in what cases and how far effects attributed to superstition
+do participate of natural causes; and, therefore, howsoever the
+practice of such things is to be condemned, yet from the speculation
+and consideration of them light may be taken, not only for the
+discerning of the offences, but for the further disclosing of
+Nature.  Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering into these
+things for inquisition of truth, as your Majesty hath showed in your
+own example, who, with the two clear eyes of religion and natural
+philosophy, have looked deeply and wisely into these shadows, and
+yet proved yourself to be of the nature of the sun, which passeth
+through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.  But this I
+hold fit, that these narrations, which have mixture with
+superstition, be sorted by themselves, and not to be mingled with
+the narrations which are merely and sincerely natural.  But as for
+the narrations touching the prodigies and miracles of religions,
+they are either not true or not natural; and, therefore, impertinent
+for the story of Nature.
+
+(5) For history of Nature, wrought or mechanical, I find some
+collections made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts; but
+commonly with a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar; for it
+is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry
+or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such as may be
+thought secrets, rarities, and special subtleties; which humour of
+vain and supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato, where he
+brings in Hippias, a vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates, a
+true and unfeigned inquisitor of truth; where, the subject being
+touching beauty, Socrates, after his wandering manner of inductions,
+put first an example of a fair virgin, and then of a fair horse, and
+then of a fair pot well glazed, whereat Hippias was offended, and
+said, "More than for courtesy's sake, he did think much to dispute
+with any that did allege such base and sordid instances."  Whereunto
+Socrates answereth, "You have reason, and it becomes you well, being
+a man so trim in your vestments," &c., and so goeth on in an irony.
+But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the
+securest information, as may be well expressed in the tale so common
+of the philosopher that, while he gazed upwards to the stars, fell
+into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the
+stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in
+the stars.  So it cometh often to pass that mean and small things
+discover great, better than great can discover the small; and
+therefore Aristotle noteth well, "That the nature of everything is
+best seen in his smallest portions."  And for that cause he
+inquireth the nature of a commonwealth, first in a family, and the
+simple conjugations of man and wife, parent and child, master and
+servant, which are in every cottage.  Even so likewise the nature of
+this great city of the world, and the policy thereof, must be first
+sought in mean concordances and small portions.  So we see how that
+secret of Nature, of the turning of iron touched with the loadstone
+towards the north, was found out in needles of iron, not in bars of
+iron.
+
+(6) But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of history
+mechanical is of all others the most radical and fundamental towards
+natural philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in
+the fume of subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as
+shall be operative to the endowment and benefit of man's life.  For
+it will not only minister and suggest for the present many ingenious
+practices in all trades, by a connection and transferring of the
+observations of one art to the use of another, when the experiences
+of several mysteries shall fall under the consideration of one man's
+mind; but further, it will give a more true and real illumination
+concerning causes and axioms than is hitherto attained.  For like as
+a man's disposition is never well known till he be crossed, nor
+Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and held fast; so
+the passages and variations of nature cannot appear so fully in the
+liberty of nature as in the trials and vexations of art.
+
+II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be
+compared with the three kinds of pictures or images.  For of
+pictures or images we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and
+some are defaced.  So of histories we may find three kinds:
+memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for memorials are
+history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of history; and
+antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which
+have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
+
+(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts; whereof the
+one may be termed commentaries, and the other registers.
+Commentaries are they which set down a continuance of the naked
+events and actions, without the motives or designs, the counsels,
+the speeches, the pretexts, the occasions, and other passages of
+action.  For this is the true nature of a commentary (though Caesar,
+in modesty mixed with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name
+of a commentary to the best history of the world).  Registers are
+collections of public acts, as decrees of council, judicial
+proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and the
+like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread of
+the narration.
+
+(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam
+tabula naufragii:  when industrious persons, by an exact and
+scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names,
+words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences,
+fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and
+the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.
+
+(4) In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign no deficience,
+for they are tanquam imperfecte mista; and therefore any deficience
+in them is but their nature.  As for the corruptions and moths of
+history, which are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be
+banished, as all men of sound judgment have confessed, as those that
+have fretted and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent
+histories, and wrought them into base and unprofitable dregs.
+
+(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of
+three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or
+pretendeth to represent:  for it either representeth a time, or a
+person, or an action.  The first we call chronicles, the second
+lives, and the third narrations or relations.  Of these, although
+the first be the most complete and absolute kind of history, and
+hath most estimation and glory, yet the second excelleth it in
+profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity.  For history
+of times representeth the magnitude of actions, and the public faces
+and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller
+passages and motions of men and matters.  But such being the
+workmanship of God, as He doth hang the greatest weight upon the
+smallest wires, maxima e minimis, suspendens, it comes therefore to
+pass, that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of business
+than the true and inward resorts thereof.  But lives, if they be
+well written, propounding to themselves a person to represent, in
+whom actions, both greater and smaller, public and private, have a
+commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, native, and
+lively representation.  So again narrations and relations of
+actions, as the war of Peloponnesus, the expedition of Cyrus Minor,
+the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be more purely and exactly
+true than histories of times, because they may choose an argument
+comprehensible within the notice and instructions of the writer:
+whereas he that undertaketh the story of a time, specially of any
+length, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must
+be forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.
+
+(6) For the history of times, I mean of civil history, the
+providence of God hath made the distribution.  For it hath pleased
+God to ordain and illustrate two exemplar states of the world for
+arms, learning, moral virtue, policy, and laws; the state of Graecia
+and the state of Rome; the histories whereof occupying the middle
+part of time, have more ancient to them histories which may by one
+common name be termed the antiquities of the world; and after them,
+histories which may be likewise called by the name of modern
+history.
+
+(7) Now to speak of the deficiences.  As to the heathen antiquities
+of the world it is in vain to note them for deficient.  Deficient
+they are no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments; but the
+deficience cannot be holpen; for antiquity is like fame, caput inter
+nubila condit, her head is muffled from our sight.  For the history
+of the exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection.  Not but I
+could wish there were a perfect course of history for Graecia, from
+Theseus to Philopoemen (what time the affairs of Graecia drowned and
+extinguished in the affairs of Rome), and for Rome from Romulus to
+Justinianus, who may be truly said to be ultimus Romanorum.  In
+which sequences of story the text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the
+one, and the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, Caesar,
+Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other, to be kept entire,
+without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied and
+continued.  But this is a matter of magnificence, rather to be
+commended than required; and we speak now of parts of learning
+supplemental, and not of supererogation.
+
+(8) But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very
+worthy, but the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of
+foreign stories to foreign states, because I will not be curiosus in
+aliena republica, I cannot fail to represent to your Majesty the
+unworthiness of the history of England in the main continuance
+thereof, and the partiality and obliquity of that of Scotland in the
+latest and largest author that I have seen:  supposing that it would
+be honour for your Majesty, and a work very memorable, if this
+island of Great Britain, as it is now joined in monarchy for the
+ages to come, so were joined in one history for the times passed,
+after the manner of the sacred history, which draweth down the story
+of the ten tribes and of the two tribes as twins together.  And if
+it shall seem that the greatness of this work may make it less
+exactly performed, there is an excellent period of a much smaller
+compass of time, as to the story of England; that is to say, from
+the uniting of the Roses to the uniting of the kingdoms; a portion
+of time wherein, to my understanding, there hath been the rarest
+varieties that in like number of successions of any hereditary
+monarchy hath been known.  For it beginneth with the mixed adoption
+of a crown by arms and title; an entry by battle, an establishment
+by marriage; and therefore times answerable, like waters after a
+tempest, full of working and swelling, though without extremity of
+storm; but well passed through by the wisdom of the pilot, being one
+of the most sufficient kings of all the number.  Then followeth the
+reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much
+intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining
+them variably; in whose time also began that great alteration in the
+state ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage.
+Then the reign of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it
+was but as febris ephemera).  Then the reign of a queen matched with
+a foreigner; then of a queen that lived solitary and unmarried, and
+yet her government so masculine, as it had greater impression and
+operation upon the states abroad than it any ways received from
+thence.  And now last, this most happy and glorious event, that this
+island of Britain, divided from all the world, should be united in
+itself, and that oracle of rest given to AENeas, antiquam exquirite
+matrem, should now be performed and fulfilled upon the nations of
+England and Scotland, being now reunited in the ancient mother name
+of Britain, as a full period of all instability and peregrinations.
+So that as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that they have
+certain trepidations and waverings before they fix and settle, so it
+seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it was
+to settle in your majesty and your generations (in which I hope it
+is now established for ever), it had these prelusive changes and
+varieties.
+
+(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so little
+esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writings of lives
+should be no more frequent.  For although there be not many
+sovereign princes or absolute commanders, and that states are most
+collected into monarchies, yet are there many worthy personages that
+deserve better than dispersed report or barren eulogies.  For herein
+the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well
+enrich the ancient fiction.  For he feigneth that at the end of the
+thread or web of every man's life there was a little medal
+containing the person's name, and that Time waited upon the shears,
+and as soon as the thread was cut caught the medals, and carried
+them to the river of Lathe; and about the bank there were many birds
+flying up and down, that would get the medals and carry them in
+their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the river.
+Only there were a few swans, which if they got a name would carry it
+to a temple where it was consecrate.  And although many men, more
+mortal in their affections than in their bodies, do esteem desire of
+name and memory but as a vanity and ventosity,
+
+
+"Animi nil magnae laudis egentes;"
+
+
+which opinion cometh from that root, Non prius laudes contempsimus,
+quam laudanda facere desivimus:  yet that will not alter Solomon's
+judgment, Memoria justi cum laudibus, at impiorum nomen putrescet:
+the one flourisheth, the other either consumeth to present oblivion,
+or turneth to an ill odour.  And therefore in that style or
+addition, which is and hath been long well received and brought in
+use, felicis memoriae, piae memoriae, bonae memoriae, we do
+acknowledge that which Cicero saith, borrowing it from Demosthenes,
+that bona fama propria possessio defunctorum; which possession I
+cannot but note that in our times it lieth much waste, and that
+therein there is a deficience.
+
+(10) For narrations and relations of particular actions, there were
+also to be wished a greater diligence therein; for there is no great
+action but hath some good pen which attends it.  And because it is
+an ability not common to write a good history, as may well appear by
+the small number of them; yet if particularity of actions memorable
+were but tolerably reported as they pass, the compiling of a
+complete history of times might be the better expected, when a
+writer should arise that were fit for it:  for the collection of
+such relations might be as a nursery garden, whereby to plant a fair
+and stately garden when time should serve.
+
+(11) There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius
+Tacitus maketh, which is not to be forgotten, specially with that
+application which he accoupleth it withal, annals and journals:
+appropriating to the former matters of estate, and to the latter
+acts and accidents of a meaner nature.  For giving but a touch of
+certain magnificent buildings, he addeth, Cum ex dignitate populi
+Romani repertum sit, res illustres annalibus, talia diurnis urbis
+actis mandare.  So as there is a kind of contemplative heraldry, as
+well as civil.  And as nothing doth derogate from the dignity of a
+state more than confusion of degrees, so it doth not a little imbase
+the authority of a history to intermingle matters of triumph, or
+matters of ceremony, or matters of novelty, with matters of state.
+But the use of a journal hath not only been in the history of time,
+but likewise in the history of persons, and chiefly of actions; for
+princes in ancient time had, upon point of honour and policy both,
+journals kept, what passed day by day.  For we see the chronicle
+which was read before Ahasuerus, when he could not take rest,
+contained matter of affairs, indeed, but such as had passed in his
+own time and very lately before.  But the journal of Alexander's
+house expressed every small particularity, even concerning his
+person and court; and it is yet a use well received in enterprises
+memorable, as expeditions of war, navigations, and the like, to keep
+diaries of that which passeth continually.
+
+(12) I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing which some
+grave and wise men have used, containing a scattered history of
+those actions which they have thought worthy of memory, with politic
+discourse and observation thereupon:  not incorporate into the
+history, but separately, and as the more principal in their
+intention; which kind of ruminated history I think more fit to place
+amongst books of policy, whereof we shall hereafter speak, than
+amongst books of history.  For it is the true office of history to
+represent the events themselves together with the counsels, and to
+leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and
+faculty of every man's judgment.  But mixtures are things irregular,
+whereof no man can define.
+
+(13) So also is there another kind of history manifoldly mixed, and
+that is history of cosmography:  being compounded of natural
+history, in respect of the regions themselves; of history civil, in
+respect of the habitations, regiments, and manners of the people;
+and the mathematics, in respect of the climates and configurations
+towards the heavens:  which part of learning of all others in this
+latter time hath obtained most proficience.  For it may be truly
+affirmed to the honour of these times, and in a virtuous emulation
+with antiquity, that this great building of the world had never
+through-lights made in it, till the age of us and our fathers.  For
+although they had knowledge of the antipodes,
+
+
+"Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,
+Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper,"
+
+
+yet that might be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by
+travel, it requireth the voyage but of half the globe.  But to
+circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor
+enterprised till these later times:  and therefore these times may
+justly bear in their word, not only plus ultra, in precedence of the
+ancient non ultra, and imitabile fulmen, in precedence of the
+ancient non imitabile fulmen,
+
+
+"Demens qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen," &c.
+
+
+but likewise imitabile caelum; in respect of the many memorable
+voyages after the manner of heaven about the globe of the earth.
+
+(14) And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant
+also an expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of
+all sciences; because it may seem they are ordained by God to be
+coevals, that is, to meet in one age.  For so the prophet Daniel
+speaking of the latter times foretelleth, Plurimi pertransibunt, et
+multiplex erit scientia:  as if the openness and through-passage of
+the world and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the
+same ages; as we see it is already performed in great part:  the
+learning of these later times not much giving place to the former
+two periods or returns of learning, the one of the Grecians, the
+other of the Romans.
+
+III. (1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions with
+history civil:  but further in the propriety thereof may be divided
+into the history of the Church, by a general name; history of
+prophecy; and history of providence.  The first describeth the times
+of the militant Church, whether it be fluctuant, as the ark of Noah,
+or movable, as the ark in the wilderness, or at rest, as the ark in
+the Temple:  that is, the state of the Church in persecution, in
+remove, and in peace.  This part I ought in no sort to note as
+deficient; only I would that the virtue and sincerity of it were
+according to the mass and quantity.  But I am not now in hand with
+censures, but with omissions.
+
+(2) The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of two
+relatives--the prophecy and the accomplishment; and, therefore, the
+nature of such a work ought to be, that every prophecy of the
+Scripture be sorted with the event fulfilling the same throughout
+the ages of the world, both for the better confirmation of faith and
+for the better illumination of the Church touching those parts of
+prophecies which are yet unfulfilled:  allowing, nevertheless, that
+latitude which is agreeable and familiar unto divine prophecies,
+being of the nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are
+but as one day, and therefore are not fulfilled punctually at once,
+but have springing and germinant accomplishment throughout many
+ages, though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one
+age.  This is a work which I find deficient, but is to be done with
+wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.
+
+(3) The third, which is history of Providence, containeth that
+excellent correspondence which is between God's revealed will and
+His secret will; which though it be so obscure, as for the most part
+it is not legible to the natural man--no, nor many times to those
+that behold it from the tabernacle--yet, at some times it pleaseth
+God, for our better establishment and the confuting of those which
+are as without God in the world, to write it in such text and
+capital letters, that, as the prophet saith, "He that runneth by may
+read it"--that is, mere sensual persons, which hasten by God's
+judgments, and never bend or fix their cogitations upon them, are
+nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern it.  Such
+are the notable events and examples of God's judgments,
+chastisements, deliverances, and blessings; and this is a work which
+has passed through the labour of many, and therefore I cannot
+present as omitted.
+
+(4) There are also other parts of learning which are appendices to
+history.  For all the exterior proceedings of man consist of words
+and deeds, whereof history doth properly receive and retain in
+memory the deeds; and if words, yet but as inducements and passages
+to deeds; so are there other books and writings which are
+appropriate to the custody and receipt of words only, which likewise
+are of three sorts--orations, letters, and brief speeches or
+sayings.  Orations are pleadings, speeches of counsel, laudatives,
+invectives, apologies, reprehensions, orations of formality or
+ceremony, and the like.  Letters are according to all the variety of
+occasions, advertisements, advises, directions, propositions,
+petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of compliment,
+of pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of action.  And
+such as are written from wise men, are of all the words of man, in
+my judgment, the best; for they are more natural than orations and
+public speeches, and more advised than conferences or present
+speeches.  So again letters of affairs from such as manage them, or
+are privy to them, are of all others the best instructions for
+history, and to a diligent reader the best histories in themselves.
+For apophthegms, it is a great loss of that book of Caesar's; for as
+his history, and those few letters of his which we have, and those
+apophthegms which were of his own, excel all men's else, so I
+suppose would his collection of apophthegms have done; for as for
+those which are collected by others, either I have no taste in such
+matters or else their choice hath not been happy.  But upon these
+three kinds of writings I do not insist, because I have no
+deficiences to propound concerning them.
+
+(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that part of
+learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or offices
+of the mind of man, which is that of the memory.
+
+IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for the
+most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed,
+and doth truly refer to the imagination; which, being not tied to
+the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath
+severed, and sever that which nature hath joined, and so make
+unlawful matches and divorces of things--Pictoribus atque poetis,
+&c.  It is taken in two senses in respect of words or matter.  In
+the first sense, it is but a character of style, and belongeth to
+arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the present.  In the
+latter, it is--as hath been said--one of the principal portions of
+learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may be
+styled as well in prose as in verse.
+
+(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of
+satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature
+of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to
+the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of
+man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more
+absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things.
+Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that
+magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and
+events greater and more heroical.  Because true history propoundeth
+the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits
+of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in
+retribution, and more according to revealed Providence.  Because
+true history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less
+interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and
+more unexpected and alternative variations.  So as it appeareth that
+poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality and to
+delectation.  And therefore, it was ever thought to have some
+participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the
+mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind;
+whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of
+things.  And we see that by these insinuations and congruities with
+man's nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and
+consort it hath with music, it hath had access and estimation in
+rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning stood
+excluded.
+
+(3) The division of poesy which is aptest in the propriety thereof
+(besides those divisions which are common unto it with history, as
+feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of history, as
+feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest) is into poesy
+narrative, representative, and allusive.  The narrative is a mere
+imitation of history, with the excesses before remembered, choosing
+for subjects commonly wars and love, rarely state, and sometimes
+pleasure or mirth.  Representative is as a visible history, and is
+an image of actions as if they were present, as history is of
+actions in nature as they are (that is) past.  Allusive, or
+parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some special
+purpose or conceit; which latter kind of parabolical wisdom was much
+more in use in the ancient times, as by the fables of AEsop, and the
+brief sentences of the seven, and the use of hieroglyphics may
+appear.  And the cause was (for that it was then of necessity to
+express any point of reason which was more sharp or subtle than the
+vulgar in that manner) because men in those times wanted both
+variety of examples and subtlety of conceit.  And as hieroglyphics
+were before letters, so parables were before arguments; and
+nevertheless now and at all times they do retain much life and
+rigour, because reason cannot be so sensible nor examples so fit.
+
+(4) But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical,
+opposite to that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to
+demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and
+this other to retire and obscure it--that is, when the secrets and
+mysteries of religion, policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables
+or parables.  Of this in divine poesy we see the use is authorised.
+In heathen poesy we see the exposition of fables doth fall out
+sometimes with great felicity:  as in the fable that the giants
+being overthrown in their war against the gods, the earth their
+mother in revenge thereof brought forth Fame:
+
+
+"Illam terra parens, ira irritat Deorum,
+Extremam, ut perhibent, Coeo Enceladoque soroem,
+Progenuit."
+
+
+Expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and
+open rebels, then the malignity of people (which is the mother of
+rebellion) doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of
+the states, which is of the same kind with rebellion but more
+feminine.  So in the fable that the rest of the gods having
+conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus with his hundred
+hands to his aid:  expounded that monarchies need not fear any
+curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as long as by
+wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be sure to come
+in on their side.  So in the fable that Achilles was brought up
+under Chiron, the centaur, who was part a man and part a beast,
+expounded ingeniously but corruptly by Machiavel, that it belongeth
+to the education and discipline of princes to know as well how to
+play the part of a lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the
+man in virtue and justice.  Nevertheless, in many the like
+encounters, I do rather think that the fable was first, and the
+exposition devised, than that the moral was first, and thereupon the
+fable framed; for I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus,
+that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the assertions
+of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets; but yet that
+all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure and not
+figure, I interpose no opinion.  Surely of these poets which are now
+extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made a kind of
+scripture by the later schools of the Grecians), yet I should
+without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no such
+inwardness in his own meaning.  But what they might have upon a more
+original tradition is not easy to affirm, for he was not the
+inventor of many of them.
+
+(5) In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can report no
+deficience; for being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the
+earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad
+more than any other kind.  But to ascribe unto it that which is due,
+for the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions, and
+customs, we are beholding to poets more than to the philosophers'
+works; and for wit and eloquence, not much less than to orators'
+harangues.  But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre.  Let
+us now pass on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we
+are to approach and view with more reverence and attention.
+
+V. (1) The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from
+above, and some springing from beneath:  the one informed by the
+light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.  The light
+of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind and the reports of
+the senses; for as for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it
+is cumulative and not original, as in a water that besides his own
+spring-head is fed with other springs and streams.  So then,
+according to these two differing illuminations or originals,
+knowledge is first of all divided into divinity and philosophy.
+
+(2) In philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto
+God, or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted
+upon himself.  Out of which several inquiries there do arise three
+knowledges--divine philosophy, natural philosophy, and human
+philosophy or humanity.  For all things are marked and stamped with
+this triple character--the power of God, the difference of nature
+and the use of man.  But because the distributions and partitions of
+knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so
+touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree that meet in a
+stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and
+continuance before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms
+and boughs; therefore it is good, before we enter into the former
+distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, by the
+name of philosophia prima, primitive or summary philosophy, as the
+main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide
+themselves; which science whether I should report as deficient or
+no, I stand doubtful.  For I find a certain rhapsody of natural
+theology, and of divers parts of logic; and of that part of natural
+philosophy which concerneth the principles, and of that other part
+of natural philosophy which concerneth the soul or spirit--all these
+strangely commixed and confused; but being examined, it seemeth to
+me rather a depredation of other sciences, advanced and exalted unto
+some height of terms, than anything solid or substantive of itself.
+Nevertheless I cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is
+current, that the same things are handled but in several respects.
+As for example, that logic considereth of many things as they are in
+notion, and this philosophy as they are in nature--the one in
+appearance, the other in existence; but I find this difference
+better made than pursued.  For if they had considered quantity,
+similitude, diversity, and the rest of those extern characters of
+things, as philosophers, and in nature, their inquiries must of
+force have been of a far other kind than they are.  For doth any of
+them, in handling quantity, speak of the force of union, how and how
+far it multiplieth virtue?  Doth any give the reason why some things
+in nature are so common, and in so great mass, and others so rare,
+and in so small quantity?  Doth any, in handling similitude and
+diversity, assign the cause why iron should not move to iron, which
+is more like, but move to the loadstone, which is less like?  Why in
+all diversities of things there should be certain participles in
+nature which are almost ambiguous to which kind they should be
+referred?  But there is a mere and deep silence touching the nature
+and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in nature; and
+only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of them in speech
+or argument.  Therefore, because in a writing of this nature I avoid
+all subtlety, my meaning touching this original or universal
+philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by negative:
+"That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations and
+axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of
+philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage."
+
+(3) Now that there are many of that kind need not be doubted.  For
+example:  Is not the rule, Si inoequalibus aequalia addas, omnia
+erunt inaequalia, an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics?
+and is there not a true coincidence between commutative and
+distributive justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion?
+Is not that other rule, Quae in eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se
+conveniunt, a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent in
+logic as all syllogisms are built upon it?  Is not the observation,
+Omnia mutantur, nil interit, a contemplation in philosophy thus,
+that the quantum of nature is eternal? in natural theology thus,
+that it requireth the same omnipotency to make somewhat nothing,
+which at the first made nothing somewhat? according to the
+Scripture, Didici quod omnia opera, quoe fecit Deus, perseverent in
+perpetuum; non possumus eis quicquam addere nec auferre.  Is not the
+ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely discourseth concerning
+governments, that the way to establish and preserve them is to
+reduce them ad principia--a rule in religion and nature, as well as
+in civil administration?  Was not the Persian magic a reduction or
+correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature to the
+rules and policy of governments?  Is not the precept of a musician,
+to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet
+accord, alike true in affection?  Is not the trope of music, to
+avoid or slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope of
+rhetoric of deceiving expectation?  Is not the delight of the
+quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light
+upon the water?
+
+
+"Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus."
+
+
+Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of
+reflection, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or strait,
+determined and bounded?  Neither are these only similitudes, as men
+of narrow observation may conceive them to be, but the same
+footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon several subjects or
+matters.  This science therefore (as I understand it) I may justly
+report as deficient; for I see sometimes the profounder sort of
+wits, in handling some particular argument, will now and then draw a
+bucket of water out of this well for their present use; but the
+spring-head thereof seemeth to me not to have been visited, being of
+so excellent use both for the disclosing of nature and the
+abridgment of art.
+
+VI. (1) This science being therefore first placed as a common parent
+like unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue, omnes
+coelicolas, omnes supera alta tenetes; we may return to the former
+distribution of the three philosophies--divine, natural, and human.
+And as concerning divine philosophy or natural theology, it is that
+knowledge or rudiment of knowledge concerning God which may be
+obtained by the contemplation of His creatures; which knowledge may
+be truly termed divine in respect of the object, and natural in
+respect of the light.  The bounds of this knowledge are, that it
+sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform religion; and
+therefore there was never miracle wrought by God to convert an
+atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a
+God; but miracles have been wrought to convert idolaters and the
+superstitious, because no light of nature extendeth to declare the
+will and true worship of God.  For as all works do show forth the
+power and skill of the workman, and not his image, so it is of the
+works of God, which do show the omnipotency and wisdom of the Maker,
+but not His image.  And therefore therein the heathen opinion
+differeth from the sacred truth:  for they supposed the world to be
+the image of God, and man to be an extract or compendious image of
+the world; but the Scriptures never vouchsafe to attribute to the
+world that honour, as to be the image of God, but only THE WORK OF
+HIS HANDS; neither do they speak of any other image of God but man.
+Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to induce and enforce the
+acknowledgment of God, and to demonstrate His power, providence, and
+goodness, is an excellent argument, and hath been excellently
+handled by divers, but on the other side, out of the contemplation
+of nature, or ground of human knowledges, to induce any verity or
+persuasion concerning the points of faith, is in my judgment not
+safe; Da fidei quae fidei sunt.  For the heathen themselves conclude
+as much in that excellent and divine fable of the golden chain,
+"That men and gods were not able to draw Jupiter down to the earth;
+but, contrariwise, Jupiter was able to draw them up to heaven."  So
+as we ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of
+God to our reason, but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason
+to the divine truth.  So as in this part of knowledge, touching
+divine philosophy, I am so far from noting any deficience, as I
+rather note an excess; whereunto I have digressed because of the
+extreme prejudice which both religion and philosophy hath received
+and may receive by being commixed together; as that which
+undoubtedly will make an heretical religion, and an imaginary and
+fabulous philosophy.
+
+(2) Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, which is an
+appendix of theology, both divine and natural, and is neither
+inscrutable nor interdicted.  For although the Scripture saith, "Let
+no man deceive you in sublime discourse touching the worship of
+angels, pressing into that he knoweth not," &c., yet notwithstanding
+if you observe well that precept, it may appear thereby that there
+be two things only forbidden--adoration of them, and opinion
+fantastical of them, either to extol them further than appertaineth
+to the degree of a creature, or to extol a man's knowledge of them
+further than he hath ground.  But the sober and grounded inquiry,
+which may arise out of the passages of Holy Scriptures, or out of
+the gradations of nature, is not restrained.  So of degenerate and
+revolted spirits, the conversing with them or the employment of them
+is prohibited, much more any veneration towards them; but the
+contemplation or science of their nature, their power, their
+illusions, either by Scripture or reason, is a part of spiritual
+wisdom.  For so the apostle saith, "We are not ignorant of his
+stratagems."  And it is no more unlawful to inquire the nature of
+evil spirits, than to inquire the force of poisons in nature, or the
+nature of sin and vice in morality.  But this part touching angels
+and spirits I cannot note as deficient, for many have occupied
+themselves in it; I may rather challenge it, in many of the writers
+thereof, as fabulous and fantastical.
+
+VII. (1) Leaving therefore divine philosophy or natural theology
+(not divinity or inspired theology, which we reserve for the last of
+all as the haven and sabbath of all man's contemplations) we will
+now proceed to natural philosophy.  If then it be true that
+Democritus said, "That the truth of nature lieth hid in certain deep
+mines and caves;" and if it be true likewise that the alchemists do
+so much inculcate, that Vulcan is a second nature, and imitateth
+that dexterously and compendiously, which nature worketh by ambages
+and length of time, it were good to divide natural philosophy into
+the mine and the furnace, and to make two professions or occupations
+of natural philosophers--some to be pioneers and some smiths; some
+to dig, and some to refine and hammer.  And surely I do best allow
+of a division of that kind, though in more familiar and scholastical
+terms:  namely, that these be the two parts of natural philosophy--
+the inquisition of causes, and the production of effects;
+speculative and operative; natural science, and natural prudence.
+For as in civil matters there is a wisdom of discourse, and a wisdom
+of direction; so is it in natural.  And here I will make a request,
+that for the latter (or at least for a part thereof) I may revive
+and reintegrate the misapplied and abused name of natural magic,
+which in the true sense is but natural wisdom, or natural prudence;
+taken according to the ancient acception, purged from vanity and
+superstition.  Now although it be true, and I know it well, that
+there is an intercourse between causes and effects, so as both these
+knowledges, speculative and operative, have a great connection
+between themselves; yet because all true and fruitful natural
+philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and descendent,
+ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and
+descending from causes to the invention of new experiments;
+therefore I judge it most requisite that these two parts be
+severally considered and handled.
+
+(2) Natural science or theory is divided into physic and metaphysic;
+wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the word metaphysic
+in a differing sense from that that is received.  And in like
+manner, I doubt not but it will easily appear to men of judgment,
+that in this and other particulars, wheresoever my conception and
+notion may differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the
+ancient terms.  For hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by
+the order and perspicuous expressing of that I do propound, I am
+otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as little from
+antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may stand with truth and
+the proficience of knowledge.  And herein I cannot a little marvel
+at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed in such a spirit of
+difference and contradiction towards all antiquity; undertaking not
+only to frame new words of science at pleasure, but to confound and
+extinguish all ancient wisdom; insomuch as he never nameth or
+mentioneth an ancient author or opinion, but to confute and reprove;
+wherein for glory, and drawing followers and disciples, he took the
+right course.  For certainly there cometh to pass, and hath place in
+human truth, that which was noted and pronounced in the highest
+truth:- Veni in nomine partis, nec recipits me; si quis venerit in
+nomine suo eum recipietis.  But in this divine aphorism (considering
+to whom it was applied, namely, to antichrist, the highest
+deceiver), we may discern well that the coming in a man's own name,
+without regard of antiquity or paternity, is no good sign of truth,
+although it be joined with the fortune and success of an eum
+recipietis.  But for this excellent person Aristotle, I will think
+of him that he learned that humour of his scholar, with whom it
+seemeth he did emulate; the one to conquer all opinions, as the
+other to conquer all nations.  Wherein, nevertheless, it may be, he
+may at some men's hands, that are of a bitter disposition, get a
+like title as his scholar did:-
+
+
+"Felix terrarum praedo, non utile mundo
+Editus exemplum, &c."
+
+
+So,
+
+
+"Felix doctrinae praedo."
+
+
+But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth in my
+pen to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and
+proficience, it seemeth best to keep way with antiquity usque ad
+aras; and, therefore, to retain the ancient terms, though I
+sometimes alter the uses and definitions, according to the moderate
+proceeding in civil government; where, although there be some
+alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus wisely noteth, eadem
+magistratuum vocabula.
+
+(3) To return, therefore, to the use and acception of the term
+metaphysic as I do now understand the word; it appeareth, by that
+which hath been already said, that I intend philosophia prima,
+summary philosophy and metaphysic, which heretofore have been
+confounded as one, to be two distinct things.  For the one I have
+made as a parent or common ancestor to all knowledge; and the other
+I have now brought in as a branch or descendant of natural science.
+It appeareth likewise that I have assigned to summary philosophy the
+common principles and axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent
+to several sciences; I have assigned unto it likewise the inquiry
+touching the operation or the relative and adventive characters of
+essences, as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility, and the
+rest, with this distinction and provision; that they be handled as
+they have efficacy in nature, and not logically.  It appeareth
+likewise that natural theology, which heretofore hath been handled
+confusedly with metaphysic, I have enclosed and bounded by itself.
+It is therefore now a question what is left remaining for
+metaphysic; wherein I may without prejudice preserve thus much of
+the conceit of antiquity, that physic should contemplate that which
+is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that
+which is abstracted and fixed.  And again, that physic should handle
+that which supposeth in nature only a being and moving; and
+metaphysic should handle that which supposeth further in nature a
+reason, understanding, and platform.  But the difference,
+perspicuously expressed, is most familiar and sensible.  For as we
+divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes and
+productions of effects, so that part which concerneth the inquiry of
+causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division
+of causes.  The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth
+the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is
+metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.
+
+(4) Physic (taking it according to the derivation, and not according
+to our idiom for medicine) is situate in a middle term or distance
+between natural history and metaphysic.  For natural history
+describeth the variety of things; physic the causes, but variable or
+respective causes; and metaphysic the fixed and constant causes.
+
+
+"Limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit,
+Uno eodemque igni."
+
+
+Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire is the
+cause of colliquation, but respective to wax.  But fire is no
+constant cause either of induration or colliquation; so then the
+physical causes are but the efficient and the matter.  Physic hath
+three parts, whereof two respect nature united or collected, the
+third contemplateth nature diffused or distributed.  Nature is
+collected either into one entire total, or else into the same
+principles or seeds.  So as the first doctrine is touching the
+contexture or configuration of things, as de mundo, de universitate
+rerum.  The second is the doctrine concerning the principles or
+originals of things.  The third is the doctrine concerning all
+variety and particularity of things; whether it be of the differing
+substances, or their differing qualities and natures; whereof there
+needeth no enumeration, this part being but as a gloss or paraphrase
+that attendeth upon the text of natural history.  Of these three I
+cannot report any as deficient.  In what truth or perfection they
+are handled, I make not now any judgment; but they are parts of
+knowledge not deserted by the labour of man.
+
+(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of formal
+and final causes; which assignation, as to the former of them, may
+seem to be nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate
+opinion, that the inquisition of man is not competent to find out
+essential forms or true differences; of which opinion we will take
+this hold, that the invention of forms is of all other parts of
+knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be found.
+As for the possibility, they are ill discoverers that think there is
+no land, when they can see nothing but sea.  But it is manifest that
+Plato, in his opinion of ideas, as one that had a wit of elevation
+situate as upon a cliff, did descry that forms were the true object
+of knowledge; but lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering
+of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and
+determined by matter; and so turning his opinion upon theology,
+wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected.  But if any man
+shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action,
+operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice
+what are the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and
+important to the state of man.  For as to the forms of substances
+(man only except, of whom it is said, Formavit hominem de limo
+terrae, et spiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vitae, and not as of
+all other creatures, Producant aquae, producat terra), the forms of
+substances I say (as they are now by compounding and transplanting
+multiplied) are so perplexed, as they are not to be inquired; no
+more than it were either possible or to purpose to seek in gross the
+forms of those sounds which make words, which by composition and
+transposition of letters are infinite.  But, on the other side, to
+inquire the form of those sounds or voices which make simple letters
+is easily comprehensible; and being known induceth and manifesteth
+the forms of all words, which consist and are compounded of them.
+In the same manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of
+gold; nay, of water, of air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the
+forms of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of
+gravity and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and
+all other natures and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not
+many, and of which the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures
+do consist; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these, is that part
+of metaphysic which we now define of.  Not but that physic doth make
+inquiry and take consideration of the same natures; but how?  Only
+as to the material and efficient causes of them, and not as to the
+forms.  For example, if the cause of whiteness in snow or froth be
+inquired, and it be rendered thus, that the subtle intermixture of
+air and water is the cause, it is well rendered; but, nevertheless,
+is this the form of whiteness?  No; but it is the efficient, which
+is ever but vehiculum formae.  This part of metaphysic I do not find
+laboured and performed; whereat I marvel not; because I hold it not
+possible to be invented by that course of invention which hath been
+used; in regard that men (which is the root of all error) have made
+too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from particulars.
+
+(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as
+deficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects:  the
+one, because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge
+the infinity of individual experience, as much as the conception of
+truth will permit, and to remedy the complaint of vita brevis, ars
+longa; which is performed by uniting the notions and conceptions of
+sciences.  For knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the
+basis.  So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history; the
+stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is
+metaphysic.  As for the vertical point, opus quod operatur Deus a
+principio usque ad finem, the summary law of nature, we know not
+whether man's inquiry can attain unto it.  But these three be the
+true stages of knowledge, and are to them that are depraved no
+better than the giants' hills:-
+
+
+"Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,
+Scilicet atque Ossae frondsum involvere Olympum."
+
+
+But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as
+the three acclamations, Sante, sancte, sancte! holy in the
+description or dilatation of His works; holy in the connection or
+concatenation of them; and holy in the union of them in a perpetual
+and uniform law.  And, therefore, the speculation was excellent in
+Parmenides and Plato, although but a speculation in them, that all
+things by scale did ascend to unity.  So then always that knowledge
+is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity, which
+appeareth to be metaphysic; as that which considereth the simple
+forms or differences of things, which are few in number, and the
+degrees and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety.  The
+second respect, which valueth and commendeth this part of
+metaphysic, is that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the
+greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects.  For physic
+carrieth men in narrow and restrained ways, subject to many
+accidents and impediments, imitating the ordinary flexuous courses
+of nature.  But latae undique sunt sapientibus viae; to sapience
+(which was anciently defined to be rerum divinarum et humanarum
+scientia) there is ever a choice of means.  For physical causes give
+light to new invention in simili materia.  But whosoever knoweth any
+form, knoweth the utmost possibility of superinducing that nature
+upon any variety of matter; and so is less restrained in operation,
+either to the basis of the matter, or the condition of the
+efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise, though in a
+more divine sense, elegantly describeth:  non arctabuntur gressus
+tui, et currens non habebis offendiculum.  The ways of sapience are
+not much liable either to particularity or chance.
+
+(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes,
+which I am moved to report not as omitted, but as misplaced.  And
+yet if it were but a fault in order, I would not speak of it; for
+order is matter of illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance
+of sciences.  But this misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at
+least a great improficience in the sciences themselves.  For the
+handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries,
+hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and
+physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these
+satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice
+of further discovery.  For this I find done not only by Plato, who
+ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others
+which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing
+causes.  For to say that "the hairs of the eyelids are for a
+quickset and fence about the sight;" or that "the firmness of the
+skins and hides of living creatures is to defend them from the
+extremities of heat or cold;" or that "the bones are for the columns
+or beams, whereupon the frames of the bodies of living creatures are
+built;" or that "the leaves of trees are for protecting of the
+fruit;" or that "the clouds are for watering of the earth;" or that
+"the solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living
+creatures;" and the like, is well inquired and collected in
+metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent.  Nay, they are,
+indeed, but remoras and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from
+further sailing; and have brought this to pass, that the search of
+the physical causes hath been neglected and passed in silence.  And,
+therefore, the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who
+did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but
+attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite
+essays or proofs of Nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me
+(as far as I can judge by the recital and fragments which remain
+unto us) in particularities of physical causes more real and better
+inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled
+final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part
+of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both
+those persons; not because those final causes are not true and
+worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province, but
+because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath
+bred a vastness and solitude in that tract.  For otherwise, keeping
+their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if they
+think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between them.  For the
+cause rendered, that "the hairs about the eyelids are for the
+safeguard of the sight," doth not impugn the cause rendered, that
+"pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture--muscosi fontes, &c."
+Nor the cause rendered, that "the firmness of hides is for the
+armour of the body against extremities of heat or cold," doth not
+impugn the cause rendered, that "contraction of pores is incident to
+the outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or
+unlike bodies;" and so of the rest, both causes being true and
+compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence
+only.  Neither doth this call in question or derogate from Divine
+Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it.  For as in civil
+actions he is the greater and deeper politique that can make other
+men the instruments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint
+them with his purpose, so as they shall do it and yet not know what
+they do, than he that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth;
+so is the wisdom of God more admirable, when Nature intendeth one
+thing and Providence draweth forth another, than if He had
+communicated to particular creatures and motions the characters and
+impressions of His Providence.  And thus much for metaphysic; the
+latter part whereof I allow as extant, but wish it confined to his
+proper place.
+
+VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of natural
+philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth
+rank with physic special and metaphysic, which is mathematic; but I
+think it more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of
+order, to place it as a branch of metaphysic.  For the subject of it
+being quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative,
+and belongeth to philosophia prima (as hath been said), but quantity
+determined or proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the
+essential forms of things, as that that is causative in Nature of a
+number of effects; insomuch as we see in the schools both of
+Democritus and of Pythagoras that the one did ascribe figure to the
+first seeds of things, and the other did suppose numbers to be the
+principles and originals of things.  And it is true also that of all
+other forms (as we understand forms) it is the most abstracted and
+separable from matter, and therefore most proper to metaphysic;
+which hath likewise been the cause why it hath been better laboured
+and inquired than any of the other forms, which are more immersed in
+matter.  For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme
+prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of
+generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of
+particularity, the mathematics of all other knowledge were the
+goodliest fields to satisfy that appetite.  But for the placing of
+this science, it is not much material:  only we have endeavoured in
+these our partitions to observe a kind of perspective, that one part
+may cast light upon another.
+
+(2) The mathematics are either pure or mixed.  To the pure
+mathematics are those sciences belonging which handle quantity
+determinate, merely severed from any axioms of natural philosophy;
+and these are two, geometry and arithmetic, the one handling
+quantity continued, and the other dissevered.  Mixed hath for
+subject some axioms or parts of natural philosophy, and considereth
+quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and incident unto them.  For
+many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient
+subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor
+accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and
+intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective,
+music, astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers
+others.  In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be
+that men do not sufficiently understand this excellent use of the
+pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in
+the wit and faculties intellectual.  For if the wit be too dull,
+they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in
+the sense, they abstract it.  So that as tennis is a game of no use
+in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a
+body ready to put itself into all postures, so in the mathematics
+that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than
+that which is principal and intended.  And as for the mixed
+mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail
+to be more kinds of them as Nature grows further disclosed.  Thus
+much of natural science, or the part of Nature speculative.
+
+(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural
+philosophy, we will divide it into three parts--experimental,
+philosophical, and magical; which three parts active have a
+correspondence and analogy with the three parts speculative, natural
+history, physic, and metaphysic.  For many operations have been
+invented, sometimes by a casual incidence and occurrence, sometimes
+by a purposed experiment; and of those which have been found by an
+intentional experiment, some have been found out by varying or
+extending the same experiment, some by transferring and compounding
+divers experiments the one into the other, which kind of invention
+an empiric may manage.  Again, by the knowledge of physical causes
+there cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of new
+particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon use
+and practice.  But these are but coastings along the shore, premendo
+littus iniquum; for it seemeth to me there can hardly be discovered
+any radical or fundamental alterations and innovations in Nature,
+either by the fortune and essays of experiments, or by the light and
+direction of physical causes.  If, therefore, we have reported
+metaphysic deficient, it must follow that we do the like of natural
+magic, which hath relation thereunto.  For as for the natural magic
+whereof now there is mention in books, containing certain credulous
+and superstitious conceits and observations of sympathies and
+antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and some frivolous experiments,
+strange rather by disguisement than in themselves, it is as far
+differing in truth of Nature from such a knowledge as we require as
+the story of King Arthur of Britain, or Hugh of Bourdeaux, differs
+from Caesar's Commentaries in truth of story; for it is manifest
+that Caesar did greater things de vero than those imaginary heroes
+were feigned to do.  But he did them not in that fabulous manner.
+Of this kind of learning the fable of Ixion was a figure, who
+designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess of power, and instead of her had
+copulation with a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and
+chimeras.  So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous
+imaginations, instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth,
+shall beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.
+And, therefore, we may note in these sciences which hold so much of
+imagination and belief, as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy,
+astrology, and the like, that in their propositions the description
+of the means is ever more monstrous than the pretence or end.  For
+it is a thing more probable that he that knoweth well the natures of
+weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect of the hammer,
+of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the rest, may
+superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such
+mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures afore
+rehearsed, than that some grains of the medicine projected should in
+a few moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver or other material
+into gold.  So it is more probable that he that knoweth the nature
+of arefaction, the nature of assimilation of nourishment to the
+thing nourished, the manner of increase and clearing of spirits, the
+manner of the depredations which spirits make upon the humours and
+solid parts, shall by ambages of diets, bathings, anointings,
+medicines, motions, and the like, prolong life, or restore some
+degree of youth or vivacity, than that it can be done with the use
+of a few drops or scruples of a liquor or receipt.  To conclude,
+therefore, the true natural magic, which is that great liberty and
+latitude of operation which dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I
+may report deficient, as the relative thereof is.  To which part, if
+we be serious and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse,
+besides the deriving and deducing the operations themselves from
+metaphysic, there are pertinent two points of much purpose, the one
+by way of preparation, the other by way of caution.  The first is,
+that there be made a calendar, resembling an inventory of the estate
+of man, containing all the inventions (being the works or fruits of
+Nature or art) which are now extant, and whereof man is already
+possessed; out of which doth naturally result a note what things are
+yet held impossible, or not invented, which calendar will be the
+more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed impossibility
+you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to
+that impossibility; to the end that by these optatives and
+potentials man's inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction
+of works from the speculation of causes.  And secondly, that these
+experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present
+use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence
+for invention of other experiments, and those which give most light
+to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's
+needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for
+navigation than the invention of the sails which give the motion.
+
+(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the
+deficiences thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient and
+received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for my
+part, as I affect not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend.  If
+it be truth,
+
+
+"Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvae,"
+
+
+the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.
+And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the
+French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark
+up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better
+that entry of truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up
+those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that
+which cometh with pugnacity and contention.
+
+(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according
+to the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or
+subject:  and that is positive and considerative, when the inquiry
+reporteth either an assertion or a doubt.  These doubts or non
+liquets are of two sorts, particular and total.  For the first, we
+see a good example thereof in Aristotle's Problems which deserved to
+have had a better continuance; but so nevertheless as there is one
+point whereof warning is to be given and taken.  The registering of
+doubts hath two excellent uses:  the one, that it saveth philosophy
+from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing
+is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but
+reserved in doubt; the other, that the entry of doubts are as so
+many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that
+which if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised,
+but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation
+of doubts is made to be attended and applied.  But both these
+commodities do scarcely countervail and inconvenience, which will
+intrude itself if it be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is
+once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than
+how to solve it, and accordingly bend their wits.  Of this we see
+the familiar example in lawyers and scholars, both which, if they
+have once admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for a
+doubt.  But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed, which
+laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those which
+labour to make certain things doubtful.  Therefore these calendars
+of doubts I commend as excellent things; so that there he this
+caution used, that when they be thoroughly sifted and brought to
+resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted, discarded, and not
+continued to cherish and encourage men in doubting.  To which
+calendar of doubts or problems I advise be annexed another calendar,
+as much or more material which is a calendar of popular errors:  I
+mean chiefly in natural history, such as pass in speech and conceit,
+and are nevertheless apparently detected and convicted of untruth,
+that man's knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and
+vanity.  As for the doubts or non liquets general or in total, I
+understand those differences of opinions touching the principles of
+nature, and the fundamental points of the same, which have caused
+the diversity of sects, schools, and philosophies, as that of
+Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus, Parmenides, and the rest.  For
+although Aristotle, as though he had been of the race of the
+Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first thing he did
+he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth and not
+magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to see
+before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature.
+Not for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for
+as the same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received
+astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the
+planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the
+theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move, and the
+calculations are indifferently agreeable to both, so the ordinary
+face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several
+theories and philosophies; whereas to find the real truth requireth
+another manner of severity and attention.  For as Aristotle saith,
+that children at the first will call every woman mother, but
+afterward they come to distinguish according to truth, so
+experience, if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy
+mother, but when it cometh to ripeness it will discern the true
+mother.  So as in the meantime it is good to see the several glosses
+and opinions upon Nature, whereof it may be everyone in some one
+point hath seen clearer than his fellows, therefore I wish some
+collection to be made painfully and understandingly de antiquis
+philosophiis, out of all the possible light which remaineth to us of
+them:  which kind of work I find deficient.  But here I must give
+warning, that it be done distinctly and severedly; the philosophies
+of everyone throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed and
+faggoted up together, as hath been done by Plutarch.  For it is the
+harmony of a philosophy in itself, which giveth it light and
+credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more
+foreign and dissonant.  For as when I read in Tacitus the actions of
+Nero or Claudius, with circumstances of times, inducements, and
+occasions, I find them not so strange; but when I read them in
+Suetonius Tranquillus, gathered into titles and bundles and not in
+order of time, they seem more monstrous and incredible:  so is it of
+any philosophy reported entire, and dismembered by articles.
+Neither do I exclude opinions of latter times to be likewise
+represented in this calendar of sects of philosophy, as that of
+Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into an harmony by the
+pen of Severinus the Dane; and that of Tilesius, and his scholar
+Donius, being as a pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but of no
+great depth; and that of Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not
+to make any new philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own
+sense upon the old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who
+revived, with some alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of
+Xenophanes; and any other worthy to be admitted.
+
+(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man's
+knowledge; that is radius directus, which is referred to nature,
+radius refractus, which is referred to God, and cannot report truly
+because of the inequality of the medium.  There resteth radius
+reflexus, whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.
+
+IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the
+ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves;
+which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth
+us more nearly.  This knowledge, as it is the end and term of
+natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding it is
+but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of Nature.  And
+generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be
+accepted rather for lines and veins than for sections and
+separations; and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be
+preserved.  For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to
+become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they have not been
+nourished and maintained from the common fountain.  So we see
+Cicero, the orator, complained of Socrates and his school, that he
+was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon
+rhetoric became an empty and verbal art.  So we may see that the
+opinion of Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which
+astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any
+of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy may correct.  So we see
+also that the science of medicine if it be destituted and forsaken
+by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical
+practice.  With this reservation, therefore, we proceed to human
+philosophy or humanity, which hath two parts:  the one considereth
+man segregate or distributively, the other congregate or in society;
+so as human philosophy is either simple and particular, or conjugate
+and civil.  Humanity particular consisteth of the same parts whereof
+man consisteth:  that is, of knowledges which respect the body, and
+of knowledges that respect the mind.  But before we distribute so
+far, it is good to constitute.  For I do take the consideration in
+general, and at large, of human nature to be fit to be emancipate
+and made a knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those
+delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the
+dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like
+adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard
+of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between
+the mind and body, which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to
+the sciences of either.
+
+(2) This knowledge hath two branches:  for as all leagues and
+amities consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this
+league of mind and body hath these two parts:  how the one
+discloseth the other, and how the one worketh upon the other;
+discovery and impression.  The former of these hath begotten two
+arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof the one is honoured
+with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of Hippocrates.  And
+although they have of later time been used to be coupled with
+superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged and restored to
+their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in Nature,
+and a profitable use in life.  The first is physiognomy, which
+discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the
+body.  The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which
+discovereth the state of the body by the imaginations of the mind.
+In the former of these I note a deficience.  For Aristotle hath very
+ingeniously and diligently handled the factures of the body, but not
+the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by art,
+and of greater use and advantage.  For the lineaments of the body do
+disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in general; but
+the motions of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do
+further disclose the present humour and state of the mind and will.
+For as your majesty saith most aptly and elegantly, "As the tongue
+speaketh to the ear so the gesture speaketh to the eye."  And,
+therefore, a number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the
+faces and fashions of men, do well know the advantage of this
+observation, as being most part of their ability; neither can it be
+denied, but that it is a great discovery of dissimulations, and a
+great direction in business.
+
+(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected
+into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same
+relation or antistrophe that the former hath.  For the consideration
+is double--either how and how far the humours and affects of the
+body do alter or work upon the mind, or, again, how and how far the
+passions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the
+body.  The former of these hath been inquired and considered as a
+part and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion
+or superstition.  For the physician prescribeth cures of the mind in
+frenzies and melancholy passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit
+medicines to exhilarate the mind, to control the courage, to clarify
+the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like; but the scruples
+and superstitions of diet and other regiment of the body in the sect
+of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manichees, and in the law
+of Mahomet, do exceed.  So likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial
+law, interdicting the eating of the blood and the fat,
+distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many
+and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from all
+clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences,
+and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real,
+and not figurative.  The root and life of all which prescripts is
+(besides the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which
+the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and
+disposition of the body.  And if any man of weak judgment do
+conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth either
+question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the
+soul, he may be taught, in easy instances, that the infant in the
+mother's womb is compatible with the mother, and yet separable; and
+the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants, and yet
+without subjection.  As for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the
+operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the body, we
+see all wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments to
+their patients, do ever consider accidentia animi, as of great force
+to further or hinder remedies or recoveries:  and more specially it
+is an inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how
+and how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for
+although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath
+the same degree of power to help.  No more than a man can conclude,
+that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in
+health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to
+cure a man in sickness.  But the inquisition of this part is of
+great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, "a Delian diver,"
+being difficult and profound.  But unto all this knowledge de
+communi vinculo, of the concordances between the mind and the body,
+that part of inquiry is most necessary which considereth of the
+seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take
+and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath been
+attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
+inquired.  For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in
+the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a
+greater mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or
+sensuality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less
+to be allowed.  So, then, we have constituted (as in our own wish
+and advice) the inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just
+portion of knowledge to be handled apart.
+
+X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man's body is divided as the
+good of man's body is divided, unto which it referreth.  The good of
+man's body is of four kinds--health, beauty, strength, and pleasure:
+so the knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration,
+which is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic;
+and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth eruditus luxus.
+This subject of man's body is, of all other things in nature, most
+susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of
+error; for the same subtlety of the subject doth cause large
+possibility and easy failing, and therefore the inquiry ought to be
+the more exact.
+
+(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have
+said, ascending a little higher:  the ancient opinion that man was
+microcosmus--an abstract or model of the world--hath been
+fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there
+were to be found in man's body certain correspondences and
+parallels, which should have respect to all varieties of things, as
+stars, planets, minerals, which are extant in the great world.  But
+thus much is evidently true, that of all substances which nature
+hath produced, man's body is the most extremely compounded.  For we
+see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for
+the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts,
+birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
+alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies
+before they come to be his food and aliment.  Add hereunto that
+beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of
+affections to work upon their bodies, whereas man in his mansion,
+sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations:  and it cannot
+be denied but that the body of man of all other things is of the
+most compounded mass.  The soul, on the other side, is the simplest
+of substances, as is well expressed:
+
+
+      "Purumque reliquit
+AEthereum sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem."
+
+
+So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if
+that principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum,
+placidus in loco.  But to the purpose.  This variable composition of
+man's body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and,
+therefore, the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in
+Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious
+harp of man's body and to reduce it to harmony.  So, then, the
+subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent more
+conjectural; and the art being conjectural hath made so much the
+more place to be left for imposture.  For almost all other arts and
+sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and
+not by the successes and events.  The lawyer is judged by the virtue
+of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; this master in
+this ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by
+the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps this
+politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but
+is judged most by the event, which is ever but as it is taken:  for
+who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be
+preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident?  And therefore
+many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed.
+Nay, we see [the] weakness and credulity of men is such, as they
+will often refer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician.
+And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this
+extreme folly when they made AEsculapius and Circe, brother and
+sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses -
+
+
+"Ipse repertorem medicinae talis et artis
+Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas."
+
+
+And again -
+
+
+"Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos," &c.
+
+
+For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old
+women and impostors, have had a competition with physicians.  And
+what followeth?  Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as
+Solomon expresseth it upon a higher occasion, "If it befall to me as
+befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?"  And
+therefore I cannot much blame physicians that they use commonly to
+intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their
+profession; for you shall have of them antiquaries, poets,
+humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these
+better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon this ground
+that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art maketh no
+difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune:  for the
+weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope,
+maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects.  But,
+nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of are courses
+begotten between a little occasion and a great deal of sloth and
+default; for if we will excite and awake our observation, we shall
+see in familiar instances what a predominant faculty the subtlety of
+spirit hath over the variety of matter or form.  Nothing more
+variable than faces and countenances, yet men can bear in memory the
+infinite distinctions of them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of
+colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his imagination,
+can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be, if they
+were brought before him.  Nothing more variable than voices, yet men
+can likewise discern them personally:  nay, you shall have a buffon
+or pantomimus will express as many as he pleaseth.  Nothing more
+variable than the differing sounds of words; yet men have found the
+way to reduce them to a few simple letters.  So that it is not the
+insufficiency or incapacity of man's mind, but it is the remote
+standing or placing thereof that breedeth these mazes and
+incomprehensions; for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking,
+but is exact at hand, so is it of the understanding, the remedy
+whereof is, not to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer
+to the object; and therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians
+will learn and use the true approaches and avenues of nature, they
+may assume as much as the poet saith:
+
+
+"Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;
+Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt."
+
+
+Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve:
+well shadowed by the poets, in that they made AEsculapius to be the
+son of [the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as
+the second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of
+our Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as
+the soul was the object of His doctrine.  For we read not that ever
+He vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money (except that
+one for giving tribute to Caesar), but only about the preserving,
+sustaining, and healing the body of man.
+
+(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more
+professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the
+labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in
+progression.  For I find much iteration, but small addition.  It
+considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions;
+the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the
+preservations.  The deficiences which I think good to note, being a
+few of many, and those such as are of a more open and manifest
+nature, I will enumerate and not place.
+
+(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious
+diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the
+special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they
+were judged by recovery or death.  Therefore having an example
+proper in the father of the art, I shall not need to allege an
+example foreign, of the wisdom of the lawyers, who are careful to
+report new cases and decisions, for the direction of future
+judgments.  This continuance of medicinal history I find deficient;
+which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend to every
+common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders:  for many
+things are new in this manner, which are not new in the kind; and if
+men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.
+
+(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience:
+for they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and
+collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts,
+the secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the
+humours, nor much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases.  The
+reason of which omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry
+may be satisfied in the view of one or a few anatomies; but the
+latter, being comparative and casual, must arise from the view of
+many.  And as to the diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the
+facture or framing of the inward parts is as full of difference as
+the outward, and in that is the cause continent of many diseases;
+which not being observed, they quarrel many times with the humours,
+which are not in fault; the fault being in the very frame and
+mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine
+alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and
+medicines familiar.  And for the passages and pores, it is true
+which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not
+in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies,
+though they be open and manifest in life:  which being supposed,
+though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly
+reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this observation, the
+inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished
+altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but
+might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive,
+which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may
+sufficiently satisfy this inquiry.  And for the humours, they are
+commonly passed over in anatomies as purgaments; whereas it is most
+necessary to observe, what cavities, nests, and receptacles the
+humours do find in the parts, with the differing kind of the humour
+so lodged and received.  And as for the footsteps of diseases, and
+their devastations of the inward parts, impostumations,
+exulcerations, discontinuations, putrefactions, consumptions,
+contractions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations, obstructions,
+repletions, together with all preternatural substances, as stones,
+carnosities, excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to have
+been exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the
+contribution of men's several experiences, and carefully set down
+both historically according to the appearances, and artificially
+with a reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from
+them, in case where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas now
+upon opening of bodies they are passed over slightly and in silence.
+
+(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of many,
+some as in their nature incurable, and others as past the period of
+cure; so that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed so many men
+to die, as they do by their ignorant edicts:  whereof numbers do
+escape with less difficulty than they did in the Roman
+prescriptions.  Therefore I will not doubt to note as a deficience,
+that they inquire not the perfect cures of many diseases, or
+extremities of diseases; but pronouncing them incurable do enact a
+law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from discredit.
+
+(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to
+restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not only when
+such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to
+make a fair and easy passage.  For it is no small felicity which
+Augustus Caesar was wont to wish to himself, that same Euthanasia;
+and which was specially noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose
+death was after the fashion, and semblance of a kindly and pleasant
+sheep.  So it is written of Epicurus, that after his disease was
+judged desperate, he drowned his stomach and senses with a large
+draught and ingurgitation of wine; whereupon the epigram was made,
+Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas; he was not sober enough to taste
+any bitterness of the Stygian water.  But the physicians
+contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to stay with the
+patient after the disease is deplored; whereas in my judgment they
+ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the attendances, for
+the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies of death.
+
+(5) In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a
+deficience in the receipts of propriety, respecting the particular
+cures of diseases:  for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of
+tradition and experience by their magistralities, in adding and
+taking out and changing quid pro qua in their receipts, at their
+pleasures; commanding so over the medicine, as the medicine cannot
+command over the disease.  For except it be treacle and mithridatum,
+and of late diascordium, and a few more, they tie themselves to no
+receipts severely and religiously.  For as to the confections of
+sale which are in the shops, they are for readiness and not for
+propriety.  For they are upon general intentions of purging,
+opening, comforting, altering, and not much appropriate to
+particular diseases.  And this is the cause why empirics and old
+women are more happy many times in their cures than learned
+physicians, because they are more religious in holding their
+medicines.  Therefore here is the deficience which I find, that
+physicians have not, partly out of their own practice, partly out of
+the constant probations reported in books, and partly out of the
+traditions of empirics, set down and delivered over certain
+experimental medicines for the cure of particular diseases, besides
+their own conjectural and magistral descriptions.  For as they were
+the men of the best composition in the state of Rome, which either
+being consuls inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to
+the senate; so in the matter we now handle, they be the best
+physicians, which being learned incline to the traditions of
+experience, or being empirics incline to the methods of learning.
+
+(9) In preparation of medicines I do find strange, specially
+considering how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that they
+are safer for the outward than inward parts, that no man hath sought
+to make an imitation by art of natural baths and medicinable
+fountains:  which nevertheless are confessed to receive their
+virtues from minerals; and not so only, but discerned and
+distinguished from what particular mineral they receive tincture, as
+sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which nature, if it may be
+reduced to compositions of art, both the variety of them will be
+increased, and the temper of them will be more commanded.
+
+(10) But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable either
+to my intention or to proportion, I will conclude this part with the
+note of one deficience more, which seemeth to me of greatest
+consequence:  which is, that the prescripts in use are too
+compendious to attain their end; for, to my understanding, it is a
+vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so
+sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt or miss of it can work
+any great effect upon the body of man.  It were a strange speech
+which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to
+which he were by nature subject.  It is order, pursuit, sequence,
+and interchange of application, which is mighty in nature; which
+although it require more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more
+precise obedience in observing, yet is recompensed with the
+magnitude of effects.  And although a man would think, by the daily
+visitations of the physicians, that there were a pursuance in the
+cure, yet let a man look into their prescripts and ministrations,
+and he shall find them but inconstancies and every day's devices,
+without any settled providence or project.  Not that every
+scrupulous or superstitious prescript is effectual, no more than
+every straight way is the way to heaven; but the truth of the
+direction must precede severity of observance.
+
+(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate:  for
+cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence
+to God, to society, and to ourselves.  As for artificial decoration,
+it is well worthy of the deficiences which it hath; being neither
+fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to use, nor wholesome to
+please.
+
+(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say,
+for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be brought,
+whether it be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two
+parts, strength and swiftness; and patience likewise hath two parts,
+hardness against wants and extremities, and endurance of pain or
+torment; whereof we see the practices in tumblers, in savages, and
+in those that suffer punishment.  Nay, if there be any other faculty
+which falls not within any of the former divisions, as in those that
+dive, that obtain a strange power of containing respiration, and the
+like, I refer it to this part.  Of these things the practices are
+known, but the philosophy that concerneth them is not much inquired;
+the rather, I think, because they are supposed to be obtained,
+either by an aptness of nature, which cannot be taught, or only by
+continual custom, which is soon prescribed which though it be not
+true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the Olympian games
+are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is for use;
+as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most part but for
+mercenary ostentation.
+
+(13) For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them is
+of laws to repress them.  For as it hath been well observed, that
+the arts which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are
+military; and while virtue is in state, are liberal; and while
+virtue is in declination, are voluptuary:  so I doubt that this age
+of the world is somewhat upon the descent of the wheel.  With arts
+voluptuary I couple practices joculary; for the deceiving of the
+senses is one of the pleasures of the senses.  As for games of
+recreation, I hold them to belong to civil life and education.  And
+thus much of that particular human philosophy which concerns the
+body, which is but the tabernacle of the mind.
+
+XI. (1) For human knowledge which concerns the mind, it hath two
+parts; the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul
+or mind, the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions
+thereof.   Unto the first of these, the considerations of the
+original of the soul, whether it be native or adventive, and how far
+it is exempted from laws of matter, and of the immortality thereof,
+and many other points, do appertain:  which have been not more
+laboriously inquired than variously reported; so as the travail
+therein taken seemeth to have been rather in a maze than in a way.
+But although I am of opinion that this knowledge may be more really
+and soundly inquired, even in nature, than it hath been, yet I hold
+that in the end it must be hounded by religion, or else it will be
+subject to deceit and delusion.  For as the substance of the soul in
+the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven and earth
+by the benediction of a producat, but was immediately inspired from
+God, so it is not possible that it should be (otherwise than by
+accident) subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which are the
+subject of philosophy; and therefore the true knowledge of the
+nature and state of the soul must come by the same inspiration that
+gave the substance.  Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul
+there be two appendices; which, as they have been handled, have
+rather vapoured forth fables than kindled truth:  divination and
+fascination.
+
+(2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial
+and natural:  whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a
+prediction by argument, concluding upon signs and tokens; natural
+is, when the mind hath a presention by an internal power, without
+the inducement of a sign.  Artificial is of two sorts:  either when
+the argument is coupled with a derivation of causes, which is
+rational; or when it is only grounded upon a coincidence of the
+effect, which is experimental:  whereof the latter for the most part
+is superstitious, such as were the heathen observations upon the
+inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the swarming of
+bees; and such as was the Chaldean astrology, and the like.  For
+artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are distributed
+amongst particular knowledges.  The astronomer hath his predictions,
+as of conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and the like.  The physician
+hath his predictions, of death, of recovery, of the accidents and
+issues of diseases.  The politique hath his predictions; O urbem
+venalem, et cito perituram, si emptorem invenerit! which stayed not
+long to be performed, in Sylla first, and after in Caesar:  so as
+these predictions are now impertinent, and to be referred over.  But
+the divination which springeth from the internal nature of the soul
+is that which we now speak of; which hath been made to be of two
+sorts, primitive and by influxion.  Primitive is grounded upon the
+supposition that the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected into
+itself, and not diffused into the organs of the body, hath some
+extent and latitude of prenotion; which therefore appeareth most in
+sleep, in ecstasies, and near death, and more rarely in waking
+apprehensions; and is induced and furthered by those abstinences and
+observances which make the mind most to consist in itself.  By
+influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as a mirror
+or glass, should take illumination from the foreknowledge of God and
+spirits:  unto which the same regiment doth likewise conduce.  For
+the retiring of the mind within itself is the state which is most
+susceptible of divine influxions; save that it is accompanied in
+this case with a fervency and elevation (which the ancients noted by
+fury), and not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other.
+
+(3) Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive upon
+other bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of that we spake in
+the proper place.  Wherein the school of Paracelsus, and the
+disciples of pretended natural magic, have been so intemperate, as
+they have exalted the power of the imagination to be much one with
+the power of miracle-working faith.  Others, that draw nearer to
+probability, calling to their view the secret passages of things,
+and specially of the contagion that passeth from body to body, do
+conceive it should likewise be agreeable to nature that there should
+be some transmissions and operations from spirit to spirit without
+the mediation of the senses; whence the conceits have grown (now
+almost made civil) of the mastering spirit, and the force of
+confidence, and the like.  Incident unto this is the inquiry how to
+raise and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination fortified
+have power, then it is material to know how to fortify and exalt it.
+And herein comes in crookedly and dangerously a palliation of a
+great part of ceremonial magic.  For it may be pretended that
+ceremonies, characters, and charms do work, not by any tacit or
+sacramental contract with evil spirits, but serve only to strengthen
+the imagination of him that useth it; as images are said by the
+Roman Church to fix the cogitations and raise the devotions of them
+that pray before them.  But for mine own judgment, if it be admitted
+that imagination hath power, and that ceremonies fortify
+imagination, and that they be used sincerely and intentionally for
+that purpose; yet I should hold them unlawful, as opposing to that
+first edict which God gave unto man, In sudore vultus comedes panem
+tuum.  For they propound those noble effects, which God hath set
+forth unto man to be bought at the price of labour, to be attained
+by a few easy and slothful observances.  Deficiences in these
+knowledges I will report none, other than the general deficience,
+that it is not known how much of them is verity, and how much
+vanity.
+
+XII. (1) The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the mind of
+man is of two kinds--the one respecting his understanding and
+reason, and the other his will, appetite, and affection; whereof the
+former produceth position or decree, the latter action or execution.
+It is true that the imagination is an agent or nuncius in both
+provinces, both the judicial and the ministerial.  For sense sendeth
+over to imagination before reason have judged, and reason sendeth
+over to imagination before the decree can be acted.  For imagination
+ever precedeth voluntary motion.  Saving that this Janus of
+imagination hath differing faces:  for the face towards reason hath
+the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the print of
+good; which nevertheless are faces,
+
+
+"Quales decet esse sororum."
+
+
+Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger; but is
+invested with, or at least wise usurpeth no small authority in
+itself, besides the duty of the message.  For it was well said by
+Aristotle, "That the mind hath over the body that commandment, which
+the lord hath over a bondman; but that reason hath over the
+imagination that commandment which a magistrate hath over a free
+citizen," who may come also to rule in his turn.  For we see that,
+in matters of faith and religion, we raise our imagination above our
+reason, which is the cause why religion sought ever access to the
+mind by similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams.  And again,
+in all persuasions that are wrought by eloquence, and other
+impressions of like nature, which do paint and disguise the true
+appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from
+the imagination.  Nevertheless, because I find not any science that
+doth properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no cause to
+alter the former division.  For as for poesy, it is rather a
+pleasure or play of imagination than a work or duty thereof.  And if
+it be a work, we speak not now of such parts of learning as the
+imagination produceth, but of such sciences as handle and consider
+of the imagination.  No more than we shall speak now of such
+knowledges as reason produceth (for that extendeth to all
+philosophy), but of such knowledges as do handle and inquire of the
+faculty of reason:  so as poesy had his true place.  As for the
+power of the imagination in nature, and the manner of fortifying the
+same, we have mentioned it in the doctrine De Anima, whereunto most
+fitly it belongeth.  And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative
+reason, which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to refer
+it to the arts of reason.  So therefore we content ourselves with
+the former division, that human philosophy, which respecteth the
+faculties of the mind of man, hath two parts, rational and moral.
+
+(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all
+knowledges, to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but
+a net of subtlety and spinosity.  For as it was truly said, that
+knowledge is pabulum animi; so in the nature of men's appetite to
+this food most men are of the taste and stomach of the Israelites in
+the desert, that would fain have returned ad ollas carnium, and were
+weary of manna; which, though it were celestial, yet seemed less
+nutritive and comfortable.  So generally men taste well knowledges
+that are drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality,
+policy, about the which men's affections, praises, fortunes do turn
+and are conversant.  But this same lumen siccum doth parch and
+offend most men's watery and soft natures.  But to speak truly of
+things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the keys of all
+other arts, for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, "That the
+hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of
+forms;" so these be truly said to be the art of arts.  Neither do
+they only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the
+habit of shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but
+also to draw a stronger bow.
+
+(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to
+the ends whereunto they are referred--for man's labour is to invent
+that which is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is
+invented; or to retain that which is judged; or to deliver over that
+which is retained.  So as the arts must be four--art of inquiry or
+invention; art of examination or judgment; art of custody or memory;
+and art of elocution or tradition.
+
+XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing--the one of arts
+and sciences, and the other of speech and arguments.  The former of
+these I do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a
+deficience as if, in the making of an inventory touching the state
+of a defunct, it should be set down that there is no ready money.
+For as money will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is
+that which should purchase all the rest.  And like as the West
+Indies had never been discovered if the use of the mariner's needle
+had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions, and
+the other a small motion; so it cannot be found strange if sciences
+be no further discovered, if the art itself of invention and
+discovery hath been passed over.
+
+(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth
+plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent
+sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a
+cuique in sua arte credendum.  And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely,
+speaking of the empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, "That
+medicines and cures were first found out, and then after the reasons
+and causes were discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and
+by light from them the medicines and cures discovered."  And Plato
+in his "Theaetetus" noteth well, "That particulars are infinite, and
+the higher generalities give no sufficient direction; and that the
+pith of all sciences, which maketh the artsman differ from the
+inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in every particular
+knowledge are taken from tradition and experience."  And therefore
+we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and originals of
+things refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather to
+beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.
+
+
+"Dictamnum genetrix Cretaea carpit ab Ida,
+Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem
+Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris
+Gramina, cum tergo volucres haesere sagittae."
+
+
+So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to
+consecrate inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in
+their temples, but almost all brute:
+
+
+"Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,
+Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c."
+
+
+And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe
+the first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that
+Prometheus first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than
+that when he first stroke the flints he expected the spark; and
+therefore we see the West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with
+the European, because of the rareness with them of flint, that gave
+the first occasion.  So as it should seem, that hitherto men are
+rather beholden to a wild goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for
+music, or to the ibis for some part of physic, or to the pot-lid
+that flew open for artillery, or generally to chance or anything
+else than to logic for the invention of arts and sciences.  Neither
+is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much other:
+
+
+"Ut varias usus meditande extunderet artes
+Paulatim."
+
+
+For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that
+which brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which is a
+perpetual intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed
+by an absolute necessity of conservation of being.  For so Cicero
+saith very truly, Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem saepe
+vincit.  And therefore if it be said of men,
+
+
+      "Labor omnia vincit
+Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,"
+
+
+it is likewise said of beasts, Quis psittaco docuit suum ?a??e?  Who
+taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree,
+where she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might
+come to it?  Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or
+air, and to find the way from a field in a flower a great way off to
+her hive?  Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she
+burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow?  Add then
+the word extundere, which importeth the extreme difficulty, and the
+word paulatim, which importeth the extreme slowness, and we are
+where we were, even amongst the Egyptians' gods; there being little
+left to the faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty or art, for
+matter of invention.
+
+(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which
+seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may
+be pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by
+derivation from the principles; their form of induction, I say, is
+utterly vicious and incompetent; wherein their error is the fouler,
+because it is the duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they
+contrariwise have wronged, abused, and traduced nature.  For he that
+shall attentively observe how the mind doth gather this excellent
+dew of knowledge, like unto that which the poet speaketh of, Aerei
+mellis caelestia dona, distilling and contriving it out of
+particulars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the field and
+garden, shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth manage
+and act an induction much better than they describe it.  For to
+conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without instance
+contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can
+assure (in many subjects) upon those particulars which appear of a
+side, that there are not other on the contrary side which appear
+not?  As if Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which
+were brought before him, and failed of David which was in the field.
+And this form (to say truth), is so gross, as it had not been
+possible for wits so subtle as have managed these things to have
+offered it to the world, but that they hasted to their theories and
+dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful toward particulars;
+which their manner was to use but as lictores and viatores, for
+sergeants and whifflers, ad summovendam turbam, to make way and make
+room for their opinions, rather than in their true use and service.
+Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with a religious wonder, to
+see how the footsteps of seducement are the very same in divine and
+human truth; for, as in divine truth man cannot endure to become as
+a child, so in human, they reputed the attending the inductions
+(whereof we speak), as if it were a second infancy or childhood.
+
+(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced,
+yet, nevertheless, certain it is that middle propositions cannot be
+deduced from them in subject of nature by syllogism--that is, by
+touch and reduction of them to principles in a middle term.  It is
+true that in sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like,
+yea, and divinity (because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the
+capacity of the simplest), that form may have use; and in natural
+philosophy likewise, by way of argument or satisfactory reason, Quae
+assensum parit operis effaeta est; but the subtlety of nature and
+operations will not be enchained in those bonds.  For arguments
+consist of propositions, and propositions of words, and words are
+but the current tokens or marks of popular notions of things; which
+notions, if they be grossly and variably collected out of
+particulars, it is not the laborious examination either of
+consequences of arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can
+ever correct that error, being (as the physicians speak) in the
+first digestion.  And, therefore, it was not without cause, that so
+many excellent philosophers became sceptics and academics, and
+denied any certainty of knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion
+that the knowledge of man extended only to appearances and
+probabilities.  It is true that in Socrates it was supposed to be
+but a form of irony, Scientiam dissimulando simulavit; for he used
+to disable his knowledge, to the end to enhance his knowledge; like
+the humour of Tiberius in his beginnings, that would reign, but
+would not acknowledge so much.  And in the later academy, which
+Cicero embraced, this opinion also of acatalepsia (I doubt) was not
+held sincerely; for that all those which excelled in copy of speech
+seem to have chosen that sect, as that which was fittest to give
+glory to their eloquence and variable discourses; being rather like
+progresses of pleasure than journeys to an end.  But assuredly many
+scattered in both academies did hold it in subtlety and integrity.
+But here was their chief error:  they charged the deceit upon the
+senses; which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their
+cavillations) are very sufficient to certify and report truth,
+though not always immediately, yet by comparison, by help of
+instrument, and by producing and urging such things as are too
+subtle for the sense to some effect comprehensible by the sense, and
+other like assistance.  But they ought to have charged the deceit
+upon the weakness of the intellectual powers, and upon the manner of
+collecting and concluding upon the reports of the senses.  This I
+speak, not to disable the mind of man, but to stir it up to seek
+help; for no man, be he never so cunning or practised, can make a
+straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand, which may be
+easily done by help of a ruler or compass.
+
+(5) This part of invention, concerning the invention of sciences, I
+purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound, having
+digested it into two parts:  whereof the one I term experientia
+literata, and the other interpretatio naturae; the former being but
+a degree and rudiment of the latter.  But I will not dwell too long,
+nor speak too great upon a promise.
+
+(6) The invention of speech or argument is not properly an
+invention; for to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to
+recover or resummon that which we already know; and the use of this
+invention is no other but, out of the knowledge whereof our mind is
+already possessed to draw forth or call before us that which may be
+pertinent to the purpose which we take into our consideration.  So
+as to speak truly, it is no invention, but a remembrance or
+suggestion, with an application; which is the cause why the schools
+do place it after judgment, as subsequent and not precedent.
+Nevertheless, because we do account it a chase as well of deer in an
+enclosed park as in a forest at large, and that it hath already
+obtained the name, let it be called invention; so as it be perceived
+and discerned, that the scope and end of this invention is readiness
+and present use of our knowledge, and not addition or amplification
+thereof.
+
+(7) To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two courses,
+preparation and suggestion.  The former of these seemeth scarcely a
+part of knowledge, consisting rather of diligence than of any
+artificial erudition.  And herein Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully,
+doth deride the sophists near his time, saying, "They did as if one
+that professed the art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up
+a shoe, but only exhibit in a readiness a number of shoes of all
+fashions and sizes."  But yet a man might reply, that if a shoemaker
+should have no shoes in his shop, but only work as he is bespoken,
+he should be weakly customed.  But our Saviour, speaking of divine
+knowledge, saith, "That the kingdom of heaven is like a good
+householder, that bringeth forth both new and old store;" and we see
+the ancient writers of rhetoric do give it in precept, that pleaders
+should have the places, whereof they have most continual use, ready
+handled in all the variety that may be; as that, to speak for the
+literal interpretation of the law against equity, and contrary; and
+to speak for presumptions and inferences against testimony, and
+contrary.  And Cicero himself, being broken unto it by great
+experience, delivereth it plainly, that whatsoever a man shall have
+occasion to speak of (if he will take the pains), he may have it in
+effect premeditate and handled in thesi.  So that when he cometh to
+a particular he shall have nothing to do, but to put to names, and
+times, and places, and such other circumstances of individuals.  We
+see likewise the exact diligence of Demosthenes; who, in regard of
+the great force that the entrance and access into causes hath to
+make a good impression, had ready framed a number of prefaces for
+orations and speeches.  All which authorities and precedents may
+overweigh Aristotle's opinion, that would have us change a rich
+wardrobe for a pair of shears.
+
+(8) But the nature of the collection of this provision or
+preparatory store, though it be common both to logic and rhetoric,
+yet having made an entry of it here, where it came first to be
+spoken of, I think fit to refer over the further handling of it to
+rhetoric.
+
+(9) The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, doth
+assign and direct us to certain marks, or places, which may excite
+our mind to return and produce such knowledge as it hath formerly
+collected, to the end we may make use thereof.  Neither is this use
+(truly taken) only to furnish argument to dispute, probably with
+others, but likewise to minister unto our judgment to conclude
+aright within ourselves.  Neither may these places serve only to
+apprompt our invention, but also to direct our inquiry.  For a
+faculty of wise interrogating is half a knowledge.  For as Plato
+saith, "Whosoever seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for in a
+general notion; else how shall he know it when he hath found it?"
+And, therefore, the larger your anticipation is, the more direct and
+compendious is your search.  But the same places which will help us
+what to produce of that which we know already, will also help us, if
+a man of experience were before us, what questions to ask; or, if we
+have books and authors to instruct us, what points to search and
+revolve; so as I cannot report that this part of invention, which is
+that which the schools call topics, is deficient.
+
+(10) Nevertheless, topics are of two sorts, general and special.
+The general we have spoken to; but the particular hath been touched
+by some, but rejected generally as inartificial and variable.  But
+leaving the humour which hath reigned too much in the schools (which
+is, to be vainly subtle in a few things which are within their
+command, and to reject the rest), I do receive particular topics;
+that is, places or directions of invention and inquiry in every
+particular knowledge, as things of great use, being mixtures of
+logic with the matter of sciences.  For in these it holdeth ars
+inveniendi adolescit cum inventis; for as in going of a way, we do
+not only gain that part of the way which is passed, but we gain the
+better sight of that part of the way which remaineth, so every
+degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light to that which
+followeth; which light, if we strengthen by drawing it forth into
+questions or places of inquiry, we do greatly advance our pursuit.
+
+XIV. (1) Now we pass unto the arts of judgment, which handle the
+natures of proofs and demonstrations, which as to induction hath a
+coincidence with invention; for all inductions, whether in good or
+vicious form, the same action of the mind which inventeth, judgeth--
+all one as in the sense.  But otherwise it is in proof by syllogism,
+for the proof being not immediate, but by mean, the invention of the
+mean is one thing, and the judgment of the consequence is another;
+the one exciting only, the other examining.  Therefore, for the real
+and exact form of judgment, we refer ourselves to that which we have
+spoken of interpretation of Nature.
+
+(2) For the other judgment by syllogism, as it is a thing most
+agreeable to the mind of man, so it hath been vehemently end
+excellently laboured.  For the nature of man doth extremely covet to
+have somewhat in his understanding fixed and unmovable, and as a
+rest and support of the mind.  And, therefore, as Aristotle
+endeavoureth to prove, that in all motion there is some point
+quiescent; and as he elegantly expoundeth the ancient fable of Atlas
+(that stood fixed, and bare up the heaven from falling) to be meant
+of the poles or axle-tree of heaven, whereupon the conversion is
+accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to have an Atlas or
+axle-tree within to keep them from fluctuation, which is like to a
+perpetual peril of falling.  Therefore men did hasten to set down
+some principles about which the variety of their disputatious might
+turn.
+
+(3) So, then, this art of judgment is but the reduction of
+propositions to principles in a middle term.  The principles to be
+agreed by all and exempted from argument; the middle term to be
+elected at the liberty of every man's invention; the reduction to be
+of two kinds, direct and inverted:  the one when the proposition is
+reduced to the principle, which they term a probation ostensive; the
+other, when the contradictory of the proposition is reduced to the
+contradictory of the principle, which is that which they call per
+incommodum, or pressing an absurdity; the number of middle terms to
+be as the proposition standeth degrees more or less removed from the
+principle.
+
+(4) But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one by
+way of direction, the other by way of caution:  the former frameth
+and setteth down a true form of consequence, by the variations and
+deflections from which errors and inconsequences may be exactly
+judged.  Toward the composition and structure of which form it is
+incident to handle the parts thereof, which are propositions, and
+the parts of propositions, which are simple words.  And this is that
+part of logic which is comprehended in the Analytics.
+
+(5) The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite use
+and assurance sake, discovering the more subtle forms of sophisms
+and illaqueations with their redargutions, which is that which is
+termed elenches.  For although in the more gross sorts of fallacies
+it happeneth (as Seneca maketh the comparison well) as in juggling
+feats, which, though we know not how they are done, yet we know well
+it is not as it seemeth to be; yet the more subtle sort of them doth
+not only put a man besides his answer, but doth many times abuse his
+judgment.
+
+(6) This part concerning elenches is excellently handled by
+Aristotle in precept, but more excellently by Plato in example; not
+only in the persons of the sophists, but even in Socrates himself,
+who, professing to affirm nothing, but to infirm that which was
+affirmed by another, hath exactly expressed all the forms of
+objection, fallace, and redargution.  And although we have said that
+the use of this doctrine is for redargution, yet it is manifest the
+degenerate and corrupt use is for caption and contradiction, which
+passeth for a great faculty, and no doubt is of very great
+advantage, though the difference be good which was made between
+orators and sophisters, that the one is as the greyhound, which hath
+his advantage in the race, and the other as the hare, which hath her
+advantage in the turn, so as it is the advantage of the weaker
+creature.
+
+(7) But yet further, this doctrine of elenches hath a more ample
+latitude and extent than is perceived; namely, unto divers parts of
+knowledge, whereof some are laboured and other omitted.  For first,
+I conceive (though it may seem at first somewhat strange) that that
+part which is variably referred, sometimes to logic, sometimes to
+metaphysic, touching the common adjuncts of essences, is but an
+elenche; for the great sophism of all sophisms being equivocation or
+ambiguity of words and phrase, specially of such words as are most
+general and intervene in every inquiry, it seemeth to me that the
+true and fruitful use (leaving vain subtleties and speculations) of
+the inquiry of majority, minority, priority, posteriority, identity,
+diversity, possibility, act, totality, parts, existence, privation,
+and the like, are but wise cautions against ambiguities of speech.
+So, again, the distribution of things into certain tribes, which we
+call categories or predicaments, are but cautions against the
+confusion of definitions and divisions.
+
+(8) Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by the strength of
+the impression, and not by the subtlety of the illaqueation--not so
+much perplexing the reason, as overruling it by power of the
+imagination.  But this part I think more proper to handle when I
+shall speak of rhetoric.
+
+(9) But lastly, there is yet a much more important and profound kind
+of fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not observed or
+inquired at all, and think good to place here, as that which of all
+others appertaineth most to rectify judgment, the force whereof is
+such as it doth not dazzle or snare the understanding in some
+particulars, but doth more generally and inwardly infect and corrupt
+the state thereof.  For the mind of man is far from the nature of a
+clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect
+according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an
+enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not
+delivered and reduced.  For this purpose, let us consider the false
+appearances that are imposed upon us by the general nature of the
+mind, beholding them in an example or two; as first, in that
+instance which is the root of all superstition, namely, that to the
+nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the affirmative or
+active to affect more than the negative or privative.  So that a few
+times hitting or presence countervails ofttimes failing or absence,
+as was well answered by Diagoras to him that showed him in Neptune's
+temple the great number of pictures of such as had escaped
+shipwreck, and had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, "Advise now,
+you that think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest."  "Yea,
+but," saith Diagoras, "where are they painted that are drowned?"
+Let us behold it in another instance, namely, that the spirit of
+man, being of an equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose
+and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in
+truth.  Hence it cometh that the mathematicians cannot satisfy
+themselves except they reduce the motions of the celestial bodies to
+perfect circles, rejecting spiral lines, and labouring to be
+discharged of eccentrics.  Hence it cometh that whereas there are
+many things in Nature as it were monodica, sui juris, yet the
+cogitations of man do feign unto them relatives, parallels, and
+conjugates, whereas no such thing is; as they have feigned an
+element of fire to keep square with earth, water, and air, and the
+like.  Nay, it is not credible, till it be opened, what a number of
+fictions and fantasies the similitude of human actions and arts,
+together with the making of man communis mensura, have brought into
+natural philosophy; not much better than the heresy of the
+Anthropomorphites, bred in the cells of gross and solitary monks,
+and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism,
+who supposed the gods to be of human shape.  And, therefore,
+Velleius the Epicurean needed not to have asked why God should have
+adorned the heavens with stars, as if He had been an aedilis, one
+that should have set forth some magnificent shows or plays.  For if
+that great Work-master had been of a human disposition, He would
+have cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and
+orders like the frets in the roofs of houses; whereas one can scarce
+find a posture in square, or triangle, or straight line, amongst
+such an infinite number, so differing a harmony there is between the
+spirit of man and the spirit of Nature.
+
+(10) Let us consider again the false appearances imposed upon us by
+every man's own individual nature and custom in that feigned
+supposition that Plato maketh of the cave; for certainly if a child
+were continued in a grot or cave under the earth until maturity of
+age, and came suddenly abroad, he would have strange and absurd
+imaginations.  So, in like manner, although our persons live in the
+view of heaven, yet our spirits are included in the caves of our own
+complexions and customs, which minister unto us infinite errors and
+vain opinions if they be not recalled to examination.  But hereof we
+have given many examples in one of the errors, or peccant humours,
+which we ran briefly over in our first book.
+
+(11) And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that are
+imposed upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to
+the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort; and although we think
+we govern our words, and prescribe it well loquendum ut vulgus
+sentiendum ut sapientes, yet certain it is that words, as a Tartar's
+bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and
+mightily entangle and pervert the judgment.  So as it is almost
+necessary in all controversies and disputations to imitate the
+wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting down in the very beginning
+the definitions of our words and terms, that others may know how we
+accept and understand them, and whether they concur with us or no.
+For it cometh to pass, for want of this, that we are sure to end
+there where we ought to have begun, which is, in questions and
+differences about words.  To conclude, therefore, it must be
+confessed that it is not possible to divorce ourselves from these
+fallacies and false appearances because they are inseparable from
+our nature and condition of life; so yet, nevertheless, the caution
+of them (for all elenches, as was said, are but cautions) doth
+extremely import the true conduct of human judgment.  The particular
+elenches or cautions against these three false appearances I find
+altogether deficient.
+
+(12) There remaineth one part of judgment of great excellency which
+to mine understanding is so slightly touched, as I may report that
+also deficient; which is the application of the differing kinds of
+proofs to the differing kinds of subjects.  For there being but four
+kinds of demonstrations, that is, by the immediate consent of the
+mind or sense, by induction, by syllogism, and by congruity, which
+is that which Aristotle calleth demonstration in orb or circle, and
+not a notioribus, every of these hath certain subjects in the matter
+of sciences, in which respectively they have chiefest use; and
+certain others, from which respectively they ought to be excluded;
+and the rigour and curiosity in requiring the more severe proofs in
+some things, and chiefly the facility in contenting ourselves with
+the more remiss proofs in others, hath been amongst the greatest
+causes of detriment and hindrance to knowledge.  The distributions
+and assignations of demonstrations according to the analogy of
+sciences I note as deficient.
+
+XV. (1) The custody or retaining of knowledge is either in writing
+or memory; whereof writing hath two parts, the nature of the
+character and the order of the entry.  For the art of characters, or
+other visible notes of words or things, it hath nearest conjugation
+with grammar, and, therefore, I refer it to the due place; for the
+disposition and collocation of that knowledge which we preserve in
+writing, it consisteth in a good digest of common-places, wherein I
+am not ignorant of the prejudice imputed to the use of common-place
+books, as causing a retardation of reading, and some sloth or
+relaxation of memory.  But because it is but a counterfeit thing in
+knowledges to be forward and pregnant, except a man be deep and
+full, I hold the entry of common-places to be a matter of great use
+and essence in studying, as that which assureth copy of invention,
+and contracteth judgment to a strength.  But this is true, that of
+the methods of common-places that I have seen, there is none of any
+sufficient worth, all of them carrying merely the face of a school
+and not of a world; and referring to vulgar matters and pedantical
+divisions, without all life or respect to action.
+
+(2) For the other principal part of the custody of knowledge, which
+is memory, I find that faculty in my judgment weakly inquired of.
+An art there is extant of it; but it seemeth to me that there are
+better precepts than that art, and better practices of that art than
+those received.  It is certain the art (as it is) may be raised to
+points of ostentation prodigious; but in use (as is now managed) it
+is barren, not burdensome, nor dangerous to natural memory, as is
+imagined, but barren, that is, not dexterous to be applied to the
+serious use of business and occasions.  And, therefore, I make no
+more estimation of repeating a great number of names or words upon
+once hearing, or the pouring forth of a number of verses or rhymes
+extempore, or the making of a satirical simile of everything, or the
+turning of everything to a jest, or the falsifying or contradicting
+of everything by cavil, or the like (whereof in the faculties of the
+mind there is great copy, and such as by device and practice may be
+exalted to an extreme degree of wonder), than I do of the tricks of
+tumblers, funambuloes, baladines; the one being the same in the mind
+that the other is in the body, matters of strangeness without
+worthiness.
+
+(3) This art of memory is but built upon two intentions; the one
+prenotion, the other emblem.  Prenotion dischargeth the indefinite
+seeking of that we would remember, and directeth us to seek in a
+narrow compass, that is, somewhat that hath congruity with our place
+of memory.  Emblem reduceth conceits intellectual to images
+sensible, which strike the memory more; out of which axioms may be
+drawn much better practice than that in use; and besides which
+axioms, there are divers more touching help of memory not inferior
+to them.  But I did in the beginning distinguish, not to report
+those things deficient, which are but only ill managed.
+
+XVI. (1) There remaineth the fourth kind of rational knowledge,
+which is transitive, concerning the expressing or transferring our
+knowledge to others, which I will term by the general name of
+tradition or delivery.  Tradition hath three parts:  the first
+concerning the organ of tradition; the second concerning the method
+of tradition; and the third concerning the illustration of
+tradition.
+
+(2) For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or writing; for
+Aristotle saith well, "Words are the images of cogitations, and
+letters are the images of words."  But yet it is not of necessity
+that cogitations be expressed by the medium of words.  For
+whatsoever is capable of sufficient differences, and those
+perceptible by the sense, is in nature competent to express
+cogitations.  And, therefore, we see in the commerce of barbarous
+people that understand not one another's language, and in the
+practice of divers that are dumb and deaf, that men's minds are
+expressed in gestures, though not exactly, yet to serve the turn.
+And we understand further, that it is the use of China and the
+kingdoms of the High Levant to write in characters real, which
+express neither letters nor words in gross, but things or notions;
+insomuch as countries and provinces which understand not one
+another's language can nevertheless read one another's writings,
+because the characters are accepted more generally than the
+languages do extend; and, therefore, they have a vast multitude of
+characters, as many, I suppose, as radical words.
+
+(3) These notes of cogitations are of two sorts:  the one when the
+note hath some similitude or congruity with the notion; the other ad
+placitum, having force only by contract or acceptation.  Of the
+former sort are hieroglyphics and gestures.  For as to hieroglyphics
+(things of ancient use and embraced chiefly by the Egyptians, one of
+the most ancient nations), they are but as continued impresses and
+emblems.  And as for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics,
+and are to hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in
+that they abide not; but they have evermore, as well as the other,
+an affinity with the things signified.  As Periander, being
+consulted with how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid the
+messenger attend and report what he saw him do; and went into his
+garden and topped all the highest flowers, signifying that it
+consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the nobility and
+grandees.  Ad placitum, are the characters real before mentioned,
+and words:  although some have been willing by curious inquiry, or
+rather by apt feigning, to have derived imposition of names from
+reason and intendment; a speculation elegant, and, by reason it
+searcheth into antiquity, reverent, but sparingly mixed with truth,
+and of small fruit.  This portion of knowledge touching the notes of
+things and cogitations in general, I find not inquired, but
+deficient.  And although it may seem of no great use, considering
+that words and writings by letters do far excel all the other ways;
+yet because this part concerneth, as it were, the mint of knowledge
+(for words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits, as
+moneys are for values, and that it is fit men be not ignorant that
+moneys may be of another kind than gold and silver), I thought good
+to propound it to better inquiry.
+
+(4) Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath
+produced the science of grammar.  For man still striveth to
+reintegrate himself in those benedictions, from which by his fault
+he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven against the first
+general curse by the invention of all other arts, so hath he sought
+to come forth of the second general curse (which was the confusion
+of tongues) by the art of grammar; whereof the use in a mother
+tongue is small, in a foreign tongue more; but most in such foreign
+tongues as have ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned only to
+learned tongues.  The duty of it is of two natures:  the one
+popular, which is for the speedy and perfect attaining languages, as
+well for intercourse of speech as for understanding of authors; the
+other philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as
+they are the footsteps and prints of reason:  which kind of analogy
+between words and reason is handled sparsim, brokenly though not
+entirely; and, therefore, I cannot report it deficient, though I
+think it very worthy to be reduced into a science by itself.
+
+(5) Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the consideration
+of the accidents of words; which are measure, sound, and elevation
+or accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them:  whence hath
+issued some curious observations in rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as
+we consider it, in respect of the verse and not of the argument.
+Wherein though men in learned tongues do tie themselves to the
+ancient measures, yet in modern languages it seemeth to me as free
+to make new measures of verses as of dances; for a dance is a
+measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech.  In these things
+this sense is better judge than the art:
+
+
+   "Coenae fercula nostrae
+Mallem convivis quam placuisse cocis."
+
+
+And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an unfit
+subject, it is well said, "Quod tempore antiquum videtur, id
+incongruitate est maxime novum."
+
+(6) For ciphers, they are commonly in letters or alphabets, but may
+be in words.  The kinds of ciphers (besides the simple ciphers, with
+changes, and intermixtures of nulls and non-significants) are many,
+according to the nature or rule of the infolding, wheel-ciphers,
+key-ciphers, doubles, &c.  But the virtues of them, whereby they are
+to be preferred, are three; that they be not laborious to write and
+read; that they be impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that
+they be without suspicion.  The highest degree whereof is to write
+omnia per omnia; which is undoubtedly possible, with a proportion
+quintuple at most of the writing infolding to the writing infolded,
+and no other restraint whatsoever.  This art of ciphering hath for
+relative an art of deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, but, as
+things are, of great use.  For suppose that ciphers were well
+managed, there be multitudes of them which exclude the decipherer.
+But in regard of the rawness and unskilfulness of the hands through
+which they pass, the greatest matters are many times carried in the
+weakest ciphers.
+
+(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it may be
+thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them
+for show and ostentation, and to little other purpose.  But let
+those, which are skilful in them, judge whether I bring them in only
+for appearance, or whether in that which I speak of them (though in
+few words) there be not some seed of proficience.  And this must be
+remembered, that as there be many of great account in their
+countries and provinces, which, when they come up to the seat of the
+estate, are but of mean rank and scarcely regarded; so these arts,
+being here placed with the principal and supreme sciences, seem
+petty things:  yet to such as have chosen them to spend their
+labours and studies in them, they seem great matters.
+
+XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a
+controversy in our time.  But as in civil business, if there be a
+meeting, and men fall at words, there is commonly an end of the
+matter for that time, and no proceeding at all; so in learning,
+where there is much controversy, there is many times little inquiry.
+For this part of knowledge of method seemeth to me so weakly
+inquired as I shall report it deficient.
+
+(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as a part
+of judgment.  For as the doctrine of syllogisms comprehendeth the
+rules of judgment upon that which is invented, so the doctrine of
+method containeth the rules of judgment upon that which is to be
+delivered; for judgment precedeth delivery, as it followeth
+invention.  Neither is the method or the nature of the tradition
+material only to the use of knowledge, but likewise to the
+progression of knowledge:  for since the labour and life of one man
+cannot attain to perfection of knowledge, the wisdom of the
+tradition is that which inspireth the felicity of continuance and
+proceeding.  And therefore the most real diversity of method is of
+method referred to use, and method referred to progression:  whereof
+the one may be termed magistral, and the other of probation.
+
+(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be via deserta et interclusa.  For
+as knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of
+error between the deliverer and the receiver.  For he that
+delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such form as may be
+best believed, and not as may be best examined; and he that
+receiveth knowledge desireth rather present satisfaction than
+expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt, than not to err:
+glory making the author not to lay open his weakness, and sloth
+making the disciple not to know his strength.
+
+(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought
+to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same
+method wherein it was invented:  and so is it possible of knowledge
+induced.  But in this same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no
+man knoweth how he came to the knowledge which he hath obtained.
+But yet, nevertheless, secundum majus et minus, a man may revisit
+and descend unto the foundations of his knowledge and consent; and
+so transplant it into another, as it grew in his own mind.  For it
+is in knowledges as it is in plants:  if you mean to use the plant,
+it is no matter for the roots--but if you mean to remove it to grow,
+then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips:  so the
+delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of
+trees without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the
+planter.  But if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for
+the shaft or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of
+the roots.  Of which kind of delivery the method of the mathematics,
+in that subject, hath some shadow:  but generally I see it neither
+put in use nor put in inquisition, and therefore note it for
+deficient.
+
+(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some affinity
+with the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the
+ancients, but disgraced since by the impostures of many vain
+persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit
+merchandises; and that is enigmatical and disclosed.  The pretence
+whereof is, to remove the vulgar capacities from being admitted to
+the secrets of knowledges, and to reserve them to selected auditors,
+or wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil.
+
+(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great,
+is the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods; wherein we
+may observe that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a
+few axioms or observations upon any subject, to make a solemn and
+formal art, filling it with some discourses, and illustrating it
+with examples, and digesting it into a sensible method.  But the
+writing in aphorisms hath many excellent virtues, whereto the
+writing in method doth not approach.
+
+(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or
+solid:  for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be
+made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of
+illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse
+of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut
+off.  So there remaineth nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good
+quantity of observation; and therefore no man can suffice, nor in
+reason will attempt, to write aphorisms, but he that is sound and
+grounded.  But in methods,
+
+
+   "Tantum series juncturaque pollet,
+Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,"
+
+
+as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were
+disjointed, would come to little.  Secondly, methods are more fit to
+win consent or belief, but less fit to point to action; for they
+carry a kind of demonstration in orb or circle, one part
+illuminating another, and therefore satisfy.  But particulars being
+dispersed do best agree with dispersed directions.  And lastly,
+aphorisms, representing a knowledge broken, do invite men to inquire
+further; whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure
+men, as if they were at furthest.
+
+(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great weight,
+is the handling of knowledge by assertions and their proofs, or by
+questions and their determinations.  The latter kind whereof, if it
+be immoderately followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of
+learning as it is to the proceeding of an army to go about to
+besiege every little fort or hold.  For if the field be kept, and
+the sum of the enterprise pursued, those smaller things will come in
+of themselves:  indeed a man would not leave some important piece
+enemy at his back.  In like manner, the use of confutation in the
+delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to serve to
+remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to minister
+and excite disputatious and doubts.
+
+(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject or
+matter which is handled.  For there is a great difference in
+delivery of the mathematics, which are the most abstracted of
+knowledges, and policy, which is the most immersed.  And howsoever
+contention hath been moved, touching a uniformity of method in
+multiformity of matter, yet we see how that opinion, besides the
+weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards learning, as that
+which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain empty and barren
+generalities; being but the very husks and shells of sciences, all
+the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture and press
+of the method.  And, therefore, as I did allow well of particular
+topics for invention, so I do allow likewise of particular methods
+of tradition.
+
+(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and teaching of
+knowledge is, according unto the light and presuppositions of that
+which is delivered.  For that knowledge which is new, and foreign
+from opinions received, is to be delivered in another form than that
+that is agreeable and familiar; and therefore Aristotle, when he
+thinks to tax Democritus, doth in truth commend him, where he saith
+"If we shall indeed dispute, and not follow after similitudes," &c.
+For those whose conceits are seated in popular opinions need only
+but to prove or dispute; but those whose conceits are beyond popular
+opinions, have a double labour; the one to make themselves
+conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate.  So that it is of
+necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and translations
+to express themselves.  And therefore in the infancy of learning,
+and in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial were
+then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
+would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for
+paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood or
+judged.  So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and
+tropes are, for it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not
+consonant to presuppositions must pray in aid of similitudes.
+
+(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and received:
+as that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or systasis, of
+concealment or cryptic, &c., which I do allow well of, though I have
+stood upon those which are least handled and observed.  All which I
+have remembered to this purpose, because I would erect and
+constitute one general inquiry (which seems to me deficient)
+touching the wisdom of tradition.
+
+(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth
+further belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a
+work, but also the several beams and columns thereof; not as to
+their stuff, but as to their quantity and figure.  And therefore
+method considereth not only the disposition of the argument or
+subject, but likewise the propositions:  not as to their truth or
+matter, but as to their limitation and manner.  For herein Ramus
+merited better a great deal in reviving the good rules of
+propositions--?a????? p??t??, ??ta pa?t?? &c.--than he did in
+introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet (as it is the condition
+of human things that, according to the ancient fables, "the most
+precious things have the most pernicious keepers") it was so, that
+the attempt of the one made him fall upon the other.  For he had
+need be well conducted that should design to make axioms
+convertible, if he make them not withal circular, and non-promovent,
+or incurring into themselves; but yet the intention was excellent.
+
+(13) The other considerations of method, concerning propositions,
+are chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which limit the
+dimensions of sciences:  for every knowledge may be fitly said,
+besides the profundity (which is the truth and substance of it, that
+makes it solid), to have a longitude and a latitude; accounting the
+latitude towards other sciences, and the longitude towards action;
+that is, from the greatest generality to the most particular
+precept.  The one giveth rule how far one knowledge ought to
+intermeddle within the province of another, which is the rule they
+call ?a?a?t?; the other giveth rule unto what degree of
+particularity a knowledge should descend:  which latter I find
+passed over in silence, being in my judgment the more material.  For
+certainty there must be somewhat left to practice; but how much is
+worthy the inquiry?  We see remote and superficial generalities do
+but offer knowledge to scorn of practical men; and are no more
+aiding to practice than an Ortelius' universal map is to direct the
+way between London and York.  The better sort of rules have been not
+unfitly compared to glasses of steel unpolished, where you may see
+the images of things, but first they must be filed:  so the rules
+will help if they be laboured and polished by practice.  But how
+crystalline they may be made at the first, and how far forth they
+may be polished aforehand, is the question, the inquiry whereof
+seemeth to me deficient.
+
+(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a method,
+which is not a lawful method, but a method of imposture:  which is,
+to deliver knowledges in such manner as men may speedily come to
+make a show of learning, who have it not.  Such was the travail of
+Raymundus Lullius in making that art which bears his name; not
+unlike to some books of typocosmy, which have been made since; being
+nothing but a mass of words of all arts, to give men countenance,
+that those which use the terms might be thought to understand the
+art; which collections are much like a fripper's or broker's shop,
+that hath ends of everything, but nothing of worth.
+
+XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the
+illustration of tradition, comprehended in that science which we
+call rhetoric, or art of eloquence, a science excellent, and
+excellently well laboured.  For although in true value it is
+inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to Moses, when he disabled
+himself for want of this faculty, "Aaron shall be thy speaker, and
+thou shalt be to him as God"), yet with people it is the more
+mighty; for so Solomon saith, Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens,
+sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet, signifying that profoundness of
+wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is
+eloquence that prevaileth in an active life.  And as to the
+labouring of it, the emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of
+his time, and the experience of Cicero, hath made them in their
+works of rhetoric exceed themselves.  Again, the excellency of
+examples of eloquence in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero,
+added to the perfection of the precepts of eloquence, hath doubled
+the progression in this art; and therefore the deficiences which I
+shall note will rather be in some collections, which may as
+handmaids attend the art, than in the rules or use of the art
+itself.
+
+(2)  Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots of
+this science, as we have done of the rest, the duty and office of
+rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of
+the will.  For we see reason is disturbed in the administration
+thereof by three means--by illaqueation or sophism, which pertains
+to logic; by imagination or impression, which pertains to rhetoric;
+and by passion or affection, which pertains to morality.  And as in
+negotiation with others, men are wrought by cunning, by importunity,
+and by vehemency; so in this negotiation within ourselves, men are
+undermined by inconsequences, solicited and importuned by
+impressions or observations, and transported by passions.  Neither
+is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as that those powers
+and arts should have force to disturb reason, and not to establish
+and advance it.  For the end of logic is to teach a form of argument
+to secure reason, and not to entrap it; the end of morality is to
+procure the affections to obey reason, and not to invade it; the end
+of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second reason, and not to
+oppress it; for these abuses of arts come in but ex oblique, for
+caution.
+
+(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing
+out of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of
+rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did
+mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to
+the pleasure of the taste.  For we see that speech is much more
+conversant in adorning that which is good than in colouring that
+which is evil; for there is no man but speaketh more honestly than
+he can do or think; and it was excellently noted by Thucydides, in
+Cleon, that because he used to hold on the bad side in causes of
+estate, therefore he was ever inveighing against eloquence and good
+speech, knowing that no man can speak fair of courses sordid and
+base.  And therefore, as Plato said elegantly, "That virtue, if she
+could be seen, would move great love and affection;" so seeing that
+she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the next degree
+is to show her to the imagination in lively representation; for to
+show her to reason only in subtlety of argument was a thing ever
+derided in Chrysippus and many of the Stoics, who thought to thrust
+virtue upon men by sharp disputations and conclusions, which have no
+sympathy with the will of man.
+
+(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient
+to reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions
+and insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and
+proofs; but in regard of the continual mutinies and seditious of the
+affections -
+
+
+   "Video meliora, proboque,
+Deteriora sequor,"
+
+
+reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions
+did not practise and win the imagination from the affections' part,
+and contract a confederacy between the reason and imagination
+against the affections; for the affections themselves carry ever an
+appetite to good, as reason doth.  The difference is, that the
+affection beholdeth merely the present; reason beholdeth the future
+and sum of time.  And, therefore, the present filling the
+imagination more, reason is commonly vanquished; but after that
+force of eloquence and persuasion hath made things future and remote
+appear as present, then upon the revolt of the imagination reason
+prevaileth.
+
+(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more charged
+with the colouring of the worst part, than logic with sophistry, or
+morality with vice; for we know the doctrines of contraries are the
+same, though the use be opposite.  It appeareth also that logic
+differeth from rhetoric, not only as the fist from the palm--the one
+close, the other at large--but much more in this, that logic
+handleth reason exact and in truth, and rhetoric handleth it as it
+is planted in popular opinions and manners.  And therefore Aristotle
+doth wisely place rhetoric as between logic on the one side, and
+moral or civil knowledge on the other, as participating of both; for
+the proofs and demonstrations of logic are toward all men
+indifferent and the same, but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric
+ought to differ according to the auditors:
+
+
+"Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion."
+
+
+Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far that
+if a man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he
+should speak to them all respectively and several ways; though this
+politic part of eloquence in private speech it is easy for the
+greatest orators to want:  whilst, by the observing their well-
+graced forms of speech, they leese the volubility of application;
+and therefore it shall not be amiss to recommend this to better
+inquiry, not being curious whether we place it here or in that part
+which concerneth policy.
+
+(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as I
+said, are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom and
+diligence of Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a collection
+of the popular signs and colours of good and evil, both simple and
+comparative, which are as the sophisms of rhetoric (as I touched
+before).  For example -
+
+
+   "Sophisma.
+Quod laudatur, bonum:  quod vituperatur, malum.
+   Redargutio.
+Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces."
+
+
+Malum est, malum est (inquit emptor):  sed cum recesserit, tum
+gloriabitur!  The defects in the labour of Aristotle are three--one,
+that there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are
+not annexed; and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use
+of them:  for their use is not only in probation, but much more in
+impression.  For many forms are equal in signification which are
+differing in impression, as the difference is great in the piercing
+of that which is sharp and that which is flat, though the strength
+of the percussion be the same.  For there is no man but will be a
+little more raised by hearing it said, "Your enemies will be glad of
+this" -
+
+
+"Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridae."
+
+
+than by hearing it said only, "This is evil for you."
+
+(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before,
+touching provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech
+and readiness of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts:  the
+one in resemblance to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a
+shop of things ready made up; both to be applied to that which is
+frequent and most in request.  The former of these I will call
+antitheta, and the latter formulae.
+
+(8) Antitheta are theses argued pro et contra, wherein men may be
+more large and laborious; but (in such as are able to do it) to
+avoid prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments
+to be cast up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited,
+but to be as skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large
+when they come to be used; supplying authorities and examples by
+reference.
+
+
+   "Pro verbis legis.
+Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quae recedit a litera:
+Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.
+
+   Pro sententia legis.
+Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur singula."
+
+
+(9) Formulae are but decent and apt passages or conveyances of
+speech, which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of
+preface, conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &c.  For as
+in buildings there is great pleasure and use in the well casting of
+the staircases, entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech,
+the conveyances and passages are of special ornament and effect.
+
+
+"A conclusion in a deliberative.
+So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences
+future."
+
+
+XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of
+knowledge, the one critical, the other pedantical.  For all
+knowledge is either delivered by teachers, or attained by men's
+proper endeavours:  and therefore as the principal part of tradition
+of knowledge concerneth chiefly writing of books, so the relative
+part thereof concerneth reading of books; whereunto appertain
+incidently these considerations.  The first is concerning the true
+correction and edition of authors; wherein nevertheless rash
+diligence hath done great prejudice.  For these critics have often
+presumed that that which they understand not is false set down:  as
+the priest that, where he found it written of St. Paul Demissus est
+per sportam, mended his book, and made it Demissus est per portam;
+because sporta was a hard word, and out of his reading:  and surely
+their errors, though they be not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are
+of the same kind.  And therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the
+most corrected copies are commonly the least correct.
+
+The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors,
+which resteth in annotations and commentaries:  wherein it is over
+usual to blanch the obscure places and discourse upon the plain.
+
+The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great
+light to true interpretations.
+
+The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the
+authors; that men thereby may make some election unto themselves
+what books to read.
+
+And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies;
+that men may know in what order or pursuit to read.
+
+(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of
+tradition which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers
+considerations of great fruit.
+
+As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what to
+initiate them, and from what for a time to refrain them.
+
+Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
+proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to press the more
+difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for it is one
+method to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise
+dancing with heavy shoes.
+
+A third is the application of learning according unto the propriety
+of the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual,
+but seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies:  as,
+for example, if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the
+faculty of attention, the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for
+in them, if the wit be caught away but a moment, one is new to
+begin.  And as sciences have a propriety towards faculties for cure
+and help, so faculties or powers have a sympathy towards sciences
+for excellency or speedy profiting:  and therefore it is an inquiry
+of great wisdom, what kinds of wits and natures are most apt and
+proper for what sciences.
+
+Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence
+to hurt or help:  for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in
+exercising their faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise
+their faults and get ill habits as well as good; so as there is a
+great judgment to be had in the continuance and intermission of
+exercises.  It were too long to particularise a number of other
+considerations of this nature, things but of mean appearance, but of
+singular efficacy.  For as the wronging or cherishing of seeds or
+young plants is that that is most important to their thriving, and
+as it was noted that the first six kings being in truth as tutors of
+the state of Rome in the infancy thereof was the principal cause of
+the immense greatness of that state which followed, so the culture
+and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible (though unseen)
+operation, as hardly any length of time or contention of labour can
+countervail it afterwards.  And it is not amiss to observe also how
+small and mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall
+into great men or great matters, do work great and important
+effects:  whereof we see a notable example in Tacitus of two stage
+players, Percennius and Vibulenus, who by their faculty of playing
+put the Pannonian armies into an extreme tumult and combustion.  For
+there arising a mutiny amongst them upon the death of Augustus
+Caesar, Blaesus the lieutenant had committed some of the mutineers,
+which were suddenly rescued; whereupon Vibulenus got to be heard
+speak, which he did in this manner:- "These poor innocent wretches
+appointed to cruel death, you have restored to behold the light; but
+who shall restore my brother to me, or life unto my brother, that
+was sent hither in message from the legions of Germany, to treat of
+the common cause? and he hath murdered him this last night by some
+of his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his
+executioners upon soldiers.  Answer, Blaesus, what is done with his
+body?  The mortalest enemies do not deny burial.  When I have
+performed my last duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears,
+command me to be slain besides him; so that these my fellows, for
+our good meaning and our true hearts to the legions, may have leave
+to bury us."  With which speech he put the army into an infinite
+fury and uproar:  whereas truth was he had no brother, neither was
+there any such matter; but he played it merely as if he had been
+upon the stage.
+
+(3) But to return:  we are now come to a period of rational
+knowledges; wherein if I have made the divisions other than those
+that are received, yet would I not be thought to disallow all those
+divisions which I do not use.  For there is a double necessity
+imposed upon me of altering the divisions.  The one, because it
+differeth in end and purpose, to sort together those things which
+are next in nature, and those things which are next in use.  For if
+a secretary of estate should sort his papers, it is like in his
+study or general cabinet he would sort together things of a nature,
+as treaties, instructions, &c.  But in his boxes or particular
+cabinet he would sort together those that he were like to use
+together, though of several natures.  So in this general cabinet of
+knowledge it was necessary for me to follow the divisions of the
+nature of things; whereas if myself had been to handle any
+particular knowledge, I would have respected the divisions fittest
+for use.  The other, because the bringing in of the deficiences did
+by consequence alter the partitions of the rest.  For let the
+knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be fifteen.  Let the
+knowledge with the deficiences be twenty; the parts of fifteen are
+not the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three and
+five; the parts of twenty are two, four, five, and ten.  So as these
+things are without contradiction, and could not otherwise be.
+
+XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the
+appetite and will of man:  whereof Solomon saith, Ante omnia, fili,
+custodi cor tuum:  nam inde procedunt actiones vitae.  In the
+handling of this science, those which have written seem to me to
+have done as if a man, that professed to teach to write, did only
+exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giving
+any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand and framing
+of the letters.  So have they made good and fair exemplars and
+copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue,
+duty, felicity; propounding them well described as the true objects
+and scopes of man's will and desires.  But how to attain these
+excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will of man to
+become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it over
+altogether, or slightly and unprofitably.  For it is not the
+disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not
+by nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by
+doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and
+punishment, and the like scattered glances and touches, that can
+excuse the absence of this part.
+
+(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock
+whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast
+away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary
+and common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is
+the wisest doctrine (for life consisteth not in novelties nor
+subtleties), but contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly
+of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give
+glory either to the subtlety of disputatious, or to the eloquence of
+discourses.  But Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence,
+Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit, sed sui.
+Doctrine should be such as should make men in love with the lesson,
+and not with the teacher; being directed to the auditor's benefit,
+and not to the author's commendation.  And therefore those are of
+the right kind which may be concluded as Demosthenes concludes his
+counsel, Quae si feceritis, non oratorem dumtaxat in praesentia
+laudabitis, sed vosmetipsos etiam non ita multo post statu rerum
+vestraram meliore.
+
+(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a
+fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed
+obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in
+the expressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical
+acts of AEneas:
+
+
+"Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
+Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem."
+
+
+And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at
+leisure that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct
+and suborn action and active life, these Georgics of the mind,
+concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy
+than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity.
+Wherefore the main and primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth
+to be into the exemplar or platform of good, and the regiment or
+culture of the mind:  the one describing the nature of good, the
+other prescribing rules how to subdue, apply, and accommodate the
+will of man thereunto.
+
+(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good considereth
+it either simple or compared; either the kinds of good, or the
+degrees of good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputatious
+which were touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term
+felicity, beatitude, or the highest good, the doctrines concerning
+which were as the heathen divinity, are by the Christian faith
+discharged.  And as Aristotle saith, "That young men may be happy,
+but not otherwise but by hope;" so we must all acknowledge our
+minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope of the future
+world.
+
+(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the
+philosopher's heaven, whereby they feigned a higher elevation of
+man's nature than was (for we see in what height of style Seneca
+writeth, Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei),
+we may with more sobriety and truth receive the rest of their
+inquiries and labours.  Wherein for the nature of good positive or
+simple, they have set it down excellently in describing the forms of
+virtue and duty, with their situations and postures; in distributing
+them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and
+administrations, and the like:  nay further, they have commended
+them to man's nature and spirit with great quickness of argument and
+beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them (as
+much as discourse can do) against corrupt and popular opinions.
+Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have
+also excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the
+comparisons between a contemplative and an active life, in the
+distinction between virtue with reluctation and virtue secured, in
+their encounters between honesty and profit, in their balancing of
+virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part deserveth to be
+reported for excellently laboured.
+
+(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and
+received notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the
+rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning
+the roots of good and evil, and the strings of those roots, they had
+given, in my opinion, a great light to that which followed; and
+specially if they had consulted with nature, they had made their
+doctrines less prolix and more profound:  which being by them in
+part omitted and in part handled with much confusion, we will
+endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.
+
+(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of good--the one,
+as everything is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it
+is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in
+degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the
+conservation of a more general form.  Therefore we see the iron in
+particular sympathy moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a
+certain quantity, it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and
+like a good patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region and
+country of massy bodies; so may we go forward, and see that water
+and massy bodies move to the centre of the earth; but rather than to
+suffer a divulsion in the continuance of nature, they will move
+upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking their duty to the
+earth in regard of their duty to the world.  This double nature of
+good, and the comparative thereof, is much more engraven upon man,
+if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the
+public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life
+and being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus,
+when being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and
+being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by his friends
+about him, that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity
+of weather, he said only to them, Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam.
+But it may be truly affirmed that there was never any philosophy,
+religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt
+the good which is communicative, and depress the good which is
+private and particular, as the Holy Faith; well declaring that it
+was the same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those
+laws of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before; for
+we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves
+anathematised and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of
+charity and infinite feeling of communion.
+
+(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and
+determine most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is
+conversant.  For first, it decideth the question touching the
+preferment of the contemplative or active life, and decideth it
+against Aristotle.  For all the reasons which he bringeth for the
+contemplative are private, and respecting the pleasure and dignity
+of a man's self (in which respects no question the contemplative
+life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike to that comparison
+which Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying of philosophy
+and contemplation, who being asked what he was, answered, "That if
+Hiero were ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner, that some
+came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some came as merchants
+to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer and
+meet their friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one of
+them that came to look on."  But men must know, that in this theatre
+of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers
+on.  Neither could the like question ever have been received in the
+Church, notwithstanding their Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors
+sanctorum ejus, by which place they would exalt their civil death
+and regular professions, but upon this defence, that the monastical
+life is not simple contemplative, but performeth the duty either of
+incessant prayers and supplications, which hath been truly esteemed
+as an office in the Church, or else of writing or taking
+instructions for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses did
+when he abode so long in the mount.  And so we see Enoch, the
+seventh from Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with
+God, yet did also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude
+citeth.  But for contemplation which should be finished in itself,
+without casting beams upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it
+not.
+
+(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates,
+and their schools and successions, on the one side, who placed
+felicity in virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises
+whereof do chiefly embrace and concern society; and on the other
+side, the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and
+made virtue (as it is used in some comedies of errors, wherein the
+mistress and the maid change habits) to be but as a servant, without
+which pleasure cannot be served and attended; and the reformed
+school of the Epicureans, which placed it in serenity of mind and
+freedom from perturbation; as if they would have deposed Jupiter
+again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when there was no
+summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and
+season; and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the
+disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil,
+esteeming things according to the clearness of the desires, or the
+reluctation; which opinion was revived in the heresy of the
+Anabaptists, measuring things according to the motions of the
+spirit, and the constancy or wavering of belief; all which are
+manifest to tend to private repose and contentment, and not to point
+of society.
+
+(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which
+presupposeth that felicity must be placed in those things which are
+in our power, lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance; as if it
+were not a thing much more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends
+for the public, than to obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in
+our proper fortune:  as Consalvo said to his soldiers, showing them
+Naples, and protesting he had rather die one foot forwards, than to
+have his life secured for long by one foot of retreat.  Whereunto
+the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath signed, who hath affirmed
+that "a good conscience is a continual feast;" showing plainly that
+the conscience of good intentions, howsoever succeeding, is a more
+continual joy to nature than all the provision which can be made for
+security and repose.
+
+(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew
+general about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an
+occupation or profession; as if the purpose had been, not to resist
+and extinguish perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of
+them, and to shape a particular kind and course of life to that end;
+introducing such a health of mind, as was that health of body of
+which Aristotle speaketh of Herodicus, who did nothing all his life
+long but intend his health; whereas if men refer themselves to
+duties of society, as that health of body is best which is ablest to
+endure all alterations and extremities, so likewise that health of
+mind is most proper which can go through the greatest temptations
+and perturbations.  So as Diogenes' opinion is to be accepted, who
+commended not them which abstained, but them which sustained, and
+could refrain their mind in praecipitio, and could give unto the
+mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest stop or turn.
+
+(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in
+some of the most ancient and reverend philosophers and philosophical
+men, that did retire too easily from civil business, for avoiding of
+indignities and perturbations; whereas the resolution of men truly
+moral ought to be such as the same Consalvo said the honour of a
+soldier should be, e tela crassiore, and not so fine as that
+everything should catch in it and endanger it.
+
+XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into the
+division of good active and passive; for this difference of good
+(not unlike to that which amongst the Romans was expressed in the
+familiar or household terms of promus and condus) is formed also in
+all things, and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in
+creatures; the one to preserve or continue themselves, and the other
+to dilate or multiply themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be
+the worthier; for in nature the heavens, which are the more worthy,
+are the agent, and the earth, which is the less worthy, is the
+patient.  In the pleasures of living creatures, that of generation
+is greater than that of food.  In divine doctrine, beatius est dare
+quam accipere.  And in life, there is no man's spirit so soft, but
+esteemeth the effecting of somewhat that he hath fixed in his
+desire, more than sensuality, which priority of the active good is
+much upheld by the consideration of our estate to be mortal and
+exposed to fortune.  For if we might have a perpetuity and certainty
+in our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price.  But
+when we see it is but magni aestimamus mori tardius, and ne
+glorieris de crastino, nescis partum diei, it maketh us to desire to
+have somewhat secured and exempted from time, which are only our
+deeds and works; as it is said, Opera eorum sequuntur eos.  The pre-
+eminence likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection
+which is natural in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the
+pleasures of the sense, which is the principal part of passive good,
+can have no great latitude.  Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; cibus,
+somnus, ludus per hunc circulum curritur; mori velle non tantum
+fortis, aut miser, aut prudens, sed etiam fastidiosus potest.  But
+in enterprises, pursuits, and purposes of life, there is much
+variety; whereof men are sensible with pleasure in their inceptions,
+progressions, recoils, reintegrations, approaches and attainings to
+their ends.  So as it was well said, Vita sine proposito languida et
+vaga est.  Neither hath this active good an identity with the good
+of society, though in some cases it hath an incidence into it.  For
+although it do many times bring forth acts of beneficence, yet it is
+with a respect private to a man's own power, glory, amplification,
+continuance; as appeareth plainly, when it findeth a contrary
+subject.  For that gigantine state of mind which possesseth the
+troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla and infinite other
+in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy as they
+were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world,
+according to their own humours (which is the true theomachy),
+pretendeth and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth furthest
+from good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.
+
+(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of
+conservative and effective.  For let us take a brief review of that
+which we have said:  we have spoken first of the good of society,
+the intention whereof embraceth the form of human nature, whereof we
+are members and portions, and not our own proper and individual
+form; we have spoken of active good, and supposed it as a part of
+private and particular good.  And rightly, for there is impressed
+upon all things a triple desire or appetite proceeding from love to
+themselves:  one of preserving and continuing their form; another of
+advancing and perfecting their form; and a third of multiplying and
+extending their form upon other things:  whereof the multiplying, or
+signature of it upon other things, is that which we handled by the
+name of active good.  So as there remaineth the conserving of it,
+and perfecting or raising of it, which latter is the highest degree
+of passive good.  For to preserve in state is the less, to preserve
+with advancement is the greater.  So in man,
+
+
+"Igneus est ollis vigor, et caelestis origo."
+
+
+His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the
+perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which good
+is that which is the tempest of human life; while man, upon the
+instinct of an advancement, formal and essential, is carried to seek
+an advancement local.  For as those which are sick, and find no
+remedy, do tumble up and down and change place, as if by a remove
+local they could obtain a remove internal, so is it with men in
+ambition, when failing of the mean to exalt their nature, they are
+in a perpetual estuation to exalt their place.  So then passive good
+is, as was said, either conservative or perfective.
+
+(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth
+in the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; it
+seemeth to be most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the
+softest and lowest.  And this also receiveth a difference, which
+hath neither been well judged of, nor well inquired; for the good of
+fruition or contentment is placed either in the sincereness of the
+fruition, or in the quickness and vigour of it; the one superinduced
+by equality, the other by vicissitude; the one having less mixture
+of evil, the other more impression of good.  Whether of these is the
+greater good is a question controverted; but whether man's nature
+may not be capable of both is a question not inquired.
+
+(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a
+sophist, Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of
+mind, and the sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell
+from argument to ill words:  the sophist saying that Socrates'
+felicity was the felicity of a block or stone; and Socrates saying
+that the sophist's felicity was the felicity of one that had the
+itch, who did nothing but itch and scratch.  And both these opinions
+do not want their supports.  For the opinion of Socrates is much
+upheld by the general consent even of the epicures themselves, that
+virtue beareth a great part in felicity; and if so, certain it is,
+that virtue hath more use in clearing perturbations then in
+compassing desires.  The sophist's opinion is much favoured by the
+assertion we last spake of, that good of advancement is greater than
+good of simple preservation; because every obtaining a desire hath a
+show of advancement, as motion though in a circle hath a show of
+progression.
+
+(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the former
+superfluous.  For can it be doubted, but that there are some who
+take more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some other, and yet,
+nevertheless, are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them?
+So as this same, Non uti ut non appetas, non appetere ut non metuas,
+sunt animi pusilli et diffidentis.  And it seemeth to me that most
+of the doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautious
+than the nature of things requireth.  So have they increased the
+fear of death in offering to cure it.  For when they would have a
+man's whole life to be but a discipline or preparation to die, they
+must needs make men think that it is a terrible enemy, against whom
+there is no end of preparing.  Better saith the poet:-
+
+
+"Qui finem vitae extremum inter munera ponat
+Naturae."
+
+
+So have they sought to make men's minds too uniform and harmonical,
+by not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions; the reasons
+whereof I suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated
+to a private, free, and unapplied course of life.  For as we see,
+upon the lute or like instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and
+have show of many changes, yet breaketh not the hand to such strange
+and hard stops and passages, as a set song or voluntary; much after
+the same manner was the diversity between a philosophical and civil
+life.  And, therefore, men are to imitate the wisdom of jewellers:
+who, if there be a grain, or a cloud, or an ice which may be ground
+forth without taking too much of the stone, they help it; but if it
+should lessen and abate the stone too much, they will not meddle
+with it:  so ought men so to procure serenity as they destroy not
+magnanimity.
+
+(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private and
+particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good
+of man which respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term
+duty; because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed
+and disposed towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a
+mind well formed and composed in itself; though neither can a man
+understand virtue without some relation to society, nor duty without
+an inward disposition.  This part may seem at first to pertain to
+science civil and politic; but not if it be well observed.  For it
+concerneth the regiment and government of every man over himself,
+and not over others.  And as in architecture the direction of
+framing the posts, beams, and other parts of building, is not the
+same with the manner of joining them and erecting the building; and
+in mechanicals, the direction how to frame an instrument or engine
+is not the same with the manner of setting it on work and employing
+it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one you incidently
+express the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine of
+conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their
+conformity thereunto.
+
+(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts:  the common duty
+of every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the
+respective or special duty of every man in his profession, vocation,
+and place.  The first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath
+been said.  The second likewise I may report rather dispersed than
+deficient; which manner of dispersed writing in this kind of
+argument I acknowledge to be best.  For who can take upon him to
+write of the proper duty, virtue, challenge, and right of every
+several vocation, profession, and place?  For although sometimes a
+looker on may see more than a gamester, and there be a proverb more
+arrogant than sound, "That the vale best discovereth the hill;" yet
+there is small doubt but that men can write best and most really and
+materially in their own professions; and that the writing of
+speculative men of active matter for the most part doth seem to men
+of experience, as Phormio's argument of the wars seemed to Hannibal,
+to be but dreams and dotage.  Only there is one vice which
+accompanieth them that write in their own professions, that they
+magnify them in excess.  But generally it were to be wished (as that
+which would make learning indeed solid and fruitful) that active men
+would or could become writers.
+
+(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, honoris causa, your
+Majesty's excellent book touching the duty of a king; a work richly
+compounded of divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion
+of all other arts; and being in some opinion one of the most sound
+and healthful writings that I have read:  not distempered in the
+heat of invention, nor in the coldness of negligence; not sick of
+dizziness, as those are who leese themselves in their order, nor of
+convulsions, as those which cramp in matters impertinent; not
+savouring of perfumes and paintings, as those do who seek to please
+the reader more than nature beareth; and chiefly well disposed in
+the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth and apt for action;
+and far removed from that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted those
+that write in their own professions to be subject--which is, that
+they exalt it above measure.  For your Majesty hath truly described,
+not a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory, but a Moses
+or a David, pastors of their people.  Neither can I ever leese out
+of my remembrance what I heard your Majesty in the same sacred
+spirit of government deliver in a great cause of judicature, which
+was, "That kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of
+nature; and ought as rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative
+as God doth His power of working miracles."  And yet notwithstanding
+in your book of a free monarchy, you do well give men to understand,
+that you know the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as
+well as the circle of his office and duty.  Thus have I presumed to
+allege this excellent writing of your Majesty, as a prime or eminent
+example of tractates concerning special and respective duties;
+wherein I should have said as much, if it had been written a
+thousand years since.  Neither am I moved with certain courtly
+decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in presence.  No, it
+is flattery to praise in absence--that is, when either the virtue is
+absent, or the occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural,
+but forced, either in truth or in time.  But let Cicero be read in
+his oration pro Marcello, which is nothing but an excellent table of
+Caesar's virtue, and made to his face; besides the example of many
+other excellent persons, wiser a great deal than such observers; and
+we will never doubt, upon a full occasion, to give just praises to
+present or absent.
+
+(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of this
+part, touching the duties of professions and vocations, a relative
+or opposite, touching the frauds, cautels, impostures, and vices of
+every profession, which hath been likewise handled; but how? rather
+in a satire and cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have
+rather sought by wit to deride and traduce much of that which is
+good in professions, than with judgment to discover and sever that
+which is corrupt.  For, as Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek
+after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure shall be sure to
+find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction:
+Quaerenti derisori scientiam ipsa se abscondit; sed studioso fit
+obviam.  But the managing of this argument with integrity and truth,
+which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be one of the best
+fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be planted.  For, as
+the fable goeth of the basilisk--that if he see you first, you die
+for it; but if you see him first, he dieth--so is it with deceits
+and evil arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their life;
+but if they prevent, they endanger.  So that we are much beholden to
+Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they
+ought to do.  For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with
+the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions
+of the serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his
+volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest--that is,
+all forms and natures of evil.  For without this, virtue lieth open
+and unfenced.  Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are
+wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil.
+For men of corrupted minds presuppose that honesty groweth out of
+simplicity of manners, and believing of preachers, schoolmasters,
+and men's exterior language.  So as, except you can make them
+perceive that you know the utmost reaches of their own corrupt
+opinions, they despise all morality.  Non recipit stultus verba
+prudentiae, nisi ea dixeris quae, versantur in corde ejus.
+
+(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also appertain
+the duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and
+servant.  So likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the
+civil bond of companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of
+neighbourhood, and all other proportionate duties; not as they are
+parts of government and society, but as to the framing of the mind
+of particular persons.
+
+(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth handle it
+also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto belongeth the
+weighing of duties between person and person, case and case,
+particular and public.  As we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus
+against his own sons, which was so much extolled, yet what was said?
+
+
+"Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata minores."
+
+
+So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides.  Again, we
+see when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose
+opinions they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their
+associates, and cast forth the question touching the killing of a
+tyrant being a usurper, they were divided in opinion; some holding
+that servitude was the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was
+better than a civil war:  and a number of the like cases there are
+of comparative duty.  Amongst which that of all others is the most
+frequent, where the question is of a great deal of good to ensue of
+a small injustice.  Which Jason of Thessalia determined against the
+truth:  Aliqua sunt injuste facienda, ut multa juste fieri possint.
+But the reply is good:  Auctorem praesentis justitiae habes,
+sponsorem futurae non habes.  Men must pursue things which are just
+in present, and leave the future to the Divine Providence.  So then
+we pass on from this general part touching the exemplar and
+description of good.
+
+XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of life,
+it remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth thereunto,
+without which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair
+image or statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without
+life and motion; whereunto Aristotle himself subscribeth in these
+words:  Necesse est scilicet de virtute dicere, et quid sit, et ex
+quibus gignatur.  Inutile enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem nosse,
+acquirendae autem ejus modos et vias ignorare.  Non enum de virtute
+tantum, qua specie sit, quaerendum est, sed et quomodo sui copiam
+faciat:  utrumque enum volumeus, et rem ipsam nosse, et ejus
+compotes fieri:  hoc autem ex voto non succedet, nisi sciamus et ex
+quibus et quomodo.  In such full words and with such iteration doth
+he inculcate this part.  So saith Cicero in great commendation of
+Cato the second, that he had applied himself to philosophy, Non ita
+disputandi causa, sed ita vivendi.  And although the neglect of our
+times, wherein few men do hold any consultations touching the
+reformation of their life (as Seneca excellently saith, De partibus
+vitae quisque deliberat, de summa nemo), may make this part seem
+superfluous; yet I must conclude with that aphorism of Hippocrates,
+Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non sentiunt, iis mens aegrotat.
+They need medicine, not only to assuage the disease, but to awake
+the sense.  And if it be said that the cure of men's minds belongeth
+to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral philosophy may be
+preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble handmaid.  For as
+the Psalm saith, "That the eyes of the handmaid look perpetually
+towards the mistress," and yet no doubt many things are left to the
+discretion of the handmaid to discern of the mistress' will; so
+ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines
+of divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself (within due
+limits) many sound and profitable directions.
+
+(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I
+cannot but find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to written
+inquiry; the rather, because it consisteth of much matter, wherein
+both speech and action is often conversant; and such wherein the
+common talk of men (which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass)
+is wiser than their books.  It is reasonable, therefore, that we
+propound it in the more particularity, both for the worthiness, and
+because we may acquit ourselves for reporting it deficient, which
+seemeth almost incredible, and is otherwise conceived and
+presupposed by those themselves that have written.  We will,
+therefore, enumerate some heads or points thereof, that it may
+appear the better what it is, and whether it be extant.
+
+(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical
+we ought to cast up our account, what is in our power, and what not;
+for the one may be dealt with by way of alteration, but the other by
+way of application only.  The husbandman cannot command neither the
+nature of the earth nor the seasons of the weather; no more can the
+physician the constitution of the patient nor the variety of
+accidents.  So in the culture and cure of the mind of man, two
+things are without our command:  points of Nature, and points of
+fortune.  For to the basis of the one, and the conditions of the
+other, our work is limited and tied.  In these things, therefore, it
+is left unto us to proceed by application
+
+
+"Vincenda est omnis fertuna ferendo:"
+
+
+and so likewise,
+
+
+"Vincenda est omnis Natura ferendo."
+
+
+But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and
+neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which
+draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth
+adverse and contrary; which is that properly which we call
+accommodating or applying.  Now the wisdom of application resteth
+principally in the exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent
+state or disposition, unto which we do apply; for we cannot fit a
+garment except we first take measure of the body.
+
+(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set down
+sound and true distributions and descriptions of the several
+characters and tempers of men's natures and dispositions, specially
+having regard to those differences which are most radical in being
+the fountains and causes of the rest, or most frequent in
+concurrence or commixture; wherein it is not the handling of a few
+of them in passage, the better to describe the mediocrities of
+virtues, that can satisfy this intention.  For if it deserve to be
+considered, that there are minds which are proportioned to great
+matters, and others to small (which Aristotle handleth, or ought to
+have bandied, by the name of magnanimity), doth it not deserve as
+well to be considered that there are minds proportioned to intend
+many matters, and others to few?  So that some can divide
+themselves:  others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be
+but in few things at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of
+mind, as well as a pusillanimity.  And again, that some minds are
+proportioned to that which may be dispatched at once, or within a
+short return of time; others to that which begins afar off, and is
+to be won with length of pursuit:-
+
+
+"Jam tum tenditqus fovetque."
+
+
+So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is
+commonly also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.  So further deserved
+it to be considered by Aristotle, "That there is a disposition in
+conversation (supposing it in things which do in no sort touch or
+concern a man's self) to soothe and please, and a disposition
+contrary to contradict and cross;" and deserveth it not much better
+to be considered.  "That there is a disposition, not in conversation
+or talk, but in matter of more serious nature (and supposing it
+still in things merely indifferent), to take pleasure in the good of
+another; and a disposition contrariwise, to take distaste at the
+good of another?" which is that properly which we call good nature
+or ill nature, benignity or malignity; and, therefore, I cannot
+sufficiently marvel that this part of knowledge, touching the
+several characters of natures and dispositions, should be omitted
+both in morality and policy, considering it is of so great ministry
+and suppeditation to them both.  A man shall find in the traditions
+of astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures,
+according to the predominances of the planets:  lovers of quiet,
+lovers of action, lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of
+pleasure, lovers of arts, lovers of change, and so forth.  A man
+shall find in the wisest sort of these relations which the Italians
+make touching conclaves, the natures of the several cardinals
+handsomely and lively painted forth.  A man shall meet with in every
+day's conference the denominations of sensitive, dry, formal, real,
+humorous, certain, huomo di prima impressione, huomo di ultima
+impressione, and the like; and yet, nevertheless, this kind of
+observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.  For
+the distinctions are found (many of them), but we conclude no
+precepts upon them:  wherein our fault is the greater, because both
+history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where
+these observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our
+hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary that receipts
+might be made of them for use of life.
+
+(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which are
+imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by
+health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which
+are inherent and not extern; and again, those which are caused by
+extern fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches,
+want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant
+fortune, variable fortune, rising per saltum, per gradus, and the
+like.  And, therefore, we see that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see
+an old man beneficent, benignitas hujis ut adolescentuli est.  Saint
+Paul concludeth that severity of discipline was to be used to the
+Cretans, increpa eos dure, upon the disposition of their country,
+Cretensus semper mendaces, malae bestiae, ventres.  Sallust noteth
+that it is usual with kings to desire contradictories:  Sed
+plerumque regiae voluntates, ut vehementes sunt, sic mobiles,
+saepeque ipsae sibi advers.  Tacitus observeth how rarely raising of
+the fortune mendeth the disposition:  solus Vespasianus mutatus in
+melius.  Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and sudden
+fortune for the most part defeateth men qui magnam felicitatem
+concoquere non possunt.  So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to
+keep a measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of
+fortune; Divitiae si affluant, nolite cor apponere.  These
+observations and the like I deny not but are touched a little by
+Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some
+scattered discourses; but they were never incorporate into moral
+philosophy, to which they do essentially appertain; as the knowledge
+of this diversity of grounds and moulds doth to agriculture, and the
+knowledge of the diversity of complexions and constitutions doth to
+the physician, except we mean to follow the indiscretion of
+empirics, which minister the same medicines to all patients.
+
+(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the
+affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first
+to know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the
+diseases; and lastly, the cures:  so in medicining of the mind,
+after knowledge of the divers characters of men's natures, it
+followeth in order to know the diseases and infirmities of the mind,
+which are no other than the perturbations and distempars of the
+affections.  For as the ancient politiques in popular estates were
+wont to compare the people to the sea, and the orators to the winds;
+because as the sea would of itself be calm and quiet, if the winds
+did not move and trouble it; so the people would be peaceable and
+tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in working and
+agitation:  so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the nature
+thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as winds,
+did not put it into tumult and perturbation.  And here again I find
+strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written divers
+volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which is the
+principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are
+considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may be
+moved by speech), he findeth place for them, and handleth them well
+for the quantity; but where their true place is he pretermitteth
+them.  For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that
+can satisfy this inquiry, no more than he that should generally
+handle the nature of light can be said to handle the nature of
+colours; for pleasure and pain are to the particular affections as
+light is to particular colours.  Better travails, I suppose, had the
+Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I can gather by that which
+we have at second hand.  But yet it is like it was after their
+manner, rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a subject of
+this nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
+descriptions and observations.  So likewise I find some particular
+writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections:  as
+of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of
+countenance, and other.  But the poets and writers of histories are
+the best doctors of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth,
+with great life, how affections are kindled and incited; and how
+pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further
+degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how they vary;
+how they gather and fortify:  how they are enwrapped one within
+another; and how they do fight and encounter one with another; and
+other the like particularities.  Amongst the which this last is of
+special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection
+against affection, and to master one by another; even as we used to
+hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise
+percase we could not so easily recover:  upon which foundation is
+erected that excellent use of praemium and paena, whereby civil
+states consist:  employing the predominant affections of fear and
+hope, for the suppressing and bridling the rest.  For as in the
+government of states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction
+with another, so it is in the government within.
+
+(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command,
+and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and
+appetite, and to alter manners:  wherein they ought to have handled
+custom, exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation,
+company, friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books,
+studies:  these as they have determinate use in moralities, from
+these the mind suffereth, and of these are such receipts and
+regiments compounded and described, as may serve to recover or
+preserve the health and good estate of the mind, as far as
+pertaineth to human medicine:  of which number we will insist upon
+some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it were too long
+to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and habit to
+speak of.
+
+(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that
+of those things which consist by Nature, nothing can be changed by
+custom; using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand
+times up it will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or
+hearing we do not learn to see or hear the better.  For though this
+principle be true in things wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason
+whereof we cannot now stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in
+things wherein Nature admitteth a latitude.  For he might see that a
+strait glove will come more easily on with use; and that a wand will
+by use bend otherwise than it grew; and that by use of the voice we
+speak louder and stronger; and that by use of enduring heat or cold
+we endure it the better, and the like:  which latter sort have a
+nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he handleth, than
+those instances which he allegeth.  But allowing his conclusion,
+that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more
+to have taught the manner of superinducing that habit:  for there be
+many precepts of the wise ordering the exercises of the mind, as
+there is of ordering the exercises of the body, whereof we will
+recite a few.
+
+(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first
+either too high a strain or too weak:  for if too high, in a
+diffident nature you discourage, in a confident nature you breed an
+opinion of facility, and so a sloth; and in all natures you breed a
+further expectation than can hold out, and so an insatisfaction in
+the end:  if too weak, of the other side, you may not look to
+perform and overcome any great task.
+
+(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two
+several times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other
+when it is worst disposed; that by the one you may gain a great
+step, by the other you may work out the knots and stonds of the
+mind, and make the middle times the more easy and pleasant.
+
+(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way,
+which is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto
+we are by nature inclined; like unto the rowing against the stream,
+or making a wand straight by bending him contrary to his natural
+crookedness.
+
+(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything better,
+and with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend
+be not first in the intention, but tanquam aliud agendo, because of
+the natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint.
+Many other axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and
+custom, which being so conducted doth prove indeed another nature;
+but, being governed by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of
+Nature, and bringeth forth that which is lame and counterfeit.
+
+(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what influence
+and operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts
+of great caution and direction appertaining thereunto?  Did not one
+of the fathers in great indignation call poesy vinum daemonum,
+because it increaseth temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions?
+Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he
+saith, "That young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy,
+because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their
+affections, nor attempered with time and experience"?  And doth it
+not hereof come, that those excellent books and discourses of the
+ancient writers (whereby they have persuaded unto virtue most
+effectually, by representing her in state and majesty, and popular
+opinions against virtue in their parasites' coats fit to be scorned
+and derided), are of so little effect towards honesty of life,
+because they are not read and revolved by men in their mature and
+settled years, but confined almost to boys and beginners?  But is it
+not true also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters
+of policy, till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and
+morality; lest their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think
+that there are no true differences of things, but according to
+utility and fortune, as the verse describes it, Prosperum et felix
+scelus virtus vocatur; and again, Ille crucem pretium sceleris
+tulit, hic diadema:  which the poets do speak satirically and in
+indignation on virtue's behalf; but books of policy do speak it
+seriously and positively; for so it pleaseth Machiavel to say, "That
+if Caesar had been overthrown, he would have been more odious than
+ever was Catiline;" as if there had been no difference, but in
+fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
+excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world?  Again, is
+there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of
+moralities themselves (some kinds of them), lest they make men too
+precise, arrogant, incompatible; as Cicero saith of Cato, In Marco
+Catone haec bona quae videmus divina et egregia, ipsius scitote esse
+propria; quae nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non a natura, sed a
+magistro?  Many other axioms and advices there are touching those
+proprieties and effects, which studies do infuse and instil into
+manners.  And so, likewise, is there touching the use of all those
+other points, of company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited
+in the beginning in the doctrine of morality.
+
+(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet
+more accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this
+ground; that the minds of all men are at some times in a state more
+perfect, and at other times in a state more depraved.  The purpose,
+therefore, of this practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of
+the mind, and to obliterate and take forth the evil.  The fixing of
+the good hath been practised by two means, vows or constant
+resolutions, and observances or exercises; which are not to be
+regarded so much in themselves, as because they keep the mind in
+continual obedience.  The obliteration of the evil hath been
+practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of that
+which is past, and an inception or account de novo for the time to
+come.  But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for
+all good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to
+religion.
+
+(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of
+all other means the most compendious and summary, and again, the
+most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and
+good estate; which is, the electing and propounding unto a man's
+self good and virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a
+reasonable sort within his compass to attain.  For if these two
+things be supposed, that a man set before him honest and good ends,
+and again, that he be resolute, constant, and true unto them; it
+will follow that he shall mould himself into all virtue at once.
+And this indeed is like the work of nature; whereas the other course
+is like the work of the hand.  For as when a carver makes an image,
+he shapes only that part whereupon he worketh; as if he be upon the
+face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude stone still,
+till such times as he comes to it.  But contrariwise when nature
+makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all the
+parts at one time.  So in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man
+practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude, nor the
+like but when he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look,
+what virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth
+commend unto him, he is invested of a precedent disposition to
+conform himself thereunto.  Which state of mind Aristotle doth
+excellently express himself, that it ought not to be called
+virtuous, but divine.  His words are these:  Immanitati autem
+consentaneum est opponere eam, quae supra humanitatem est, heroicam
+sive divinam virtutem; and a little after, Nam ut ferae neque vitium
+neque virtus est, swic neque Dei:  sed hic quidem status altius
+quiddam virtute est, ille aluid quiddam a vitio.  And therefore we
+may see what celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus attributeth to
+Trajan in his funeral oration, where he said, "That men needed to
+make no other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue as
+good lords to them as Trajan had been;" as if he had not been only
+an imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it.  But these be
+heathen and profane passages, having but a shadow of that divine
+state of mind, which religion and the holy faith doth conduct men
+unto, by imprinting upon their souls charity, which is excellently
+called the bond of perfection, because it comprehendeth and
+fasteneth all virtues together.  And as it is elegantly said by
+Menander of vain love, which is but a false imitation of divine
+love, Amor melior Sophista loevo ad humanam vitam--that love
+teacheth a man to carry himself better than the sophist or
+preceptor; which he calleth left-handed, because, with all his rules
+and preceptions, he cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that
+facility to prize himself and govern himself, as love can do:  so
+certainly, if a man's mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth
+work him suddenly into greater perfection than all the doctrine of
+morality can do, which is but a sophist in comparison of the other.
+Nay, further, as Xenophon observed truly, that all other affections,
+though they raise the mind, yet they do it by distorting and
+uncomeliness of ecstasies or excesses; but only love doth exalt the
+mind, and nevertheless at the same instant doth settle and compose
+it:  so in all other excellences, though they advance nature, yet
+they are subject to excess.  Only charity admitteth no excess.  For
+so we see, aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed
+and fell; Ascendam, et ero similis altissimo:  by aspiring to be
+like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; Eritis sicut Dii,
+scientes bonum et malum:  but by aspiring to a similitude of God in
+goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever transgressed, or shall
+transgress.  For unto that imitation we are called:  Diligite
+inimicos vestros, benefacite eis qui oderunt vos, et orate pro
+persequentibus et calumniantibus vos, ut sitis filii Patris vestri
+qui in coelis est, qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos et malos,
+et pluit super justos et injustos.  So in the first platform of the
+divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, Optimus
+Maximus:  and the sacred Scriptures thus, Miscericordia ejus super
+omnia opera ejus.
+
+(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge,
+concerning the culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any man,
+considering the arts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that
+my labour is but to collect into an art or science that which hath
+been pretermitted by others, as matter of common sense and
+experience, he judgeth well.  But as Philocrates sported with
+Demosthenes, "You may not marvel (Athenians) that Demosthenes and I
+do differ; for he drinketh water, and I drink wine;" and like as we
+read of an ancient parable of the two gates of sleep -
+
+
+"Sunt geminae somni portae:  quarum altera fertur
+Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
+Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
+Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes:"
+
+
+so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure
+maxim in knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor ("of wine") is the
+more vaporous, and the braver gate ("of ivory") sendeth forth the
+falser dreams.
+
+(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human
+philosophy, which contemplateth man segregate, and as he consisteth
+of body and spirit.  Wherein we may further note, that there seemeth
+to be a relation or conformity between the good of the mind and the
+good of the body.  For as we divided the good of the body into
+health, beauty, strength, and pleasure, so the good of the mind,
+inquired in rational and moral knowledges, tendeth to this, to make
+the mind sound, and without perturbation; beautiful, and graced with
+decency; and strong and agile for all duties of life.  These three,
+as in the body, so in the mind, seldom meet, and commonly sever.
+For it is easy to observe, that many have strength of wit and
+courage, but have neither health from perturbations, nor any beauty
+or decency in their doings; some again have an elegancy and fineness
+of carriage which have neither soundness of honesty nor substance of
+sufficiency; and some again have honest and reformed minds, that can
+neither become themselves nor manage business; and sometimes two of
+them meet, and rarely all three.  As for pleasure, we have likewise
+determined that the mind ought not to be reduced to stupid, but to
+retain pleasure; confined rather in the subject of it, than in the
+strength and vigour of it.
+
+XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which of
+all others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to
+axiom.  Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said, "That the Romans were
+like sheep, for that a man were better drive a flock of them, than
+one of them; for in a flock, if you could get but some few go right,
+the rest would follow:" so in that respect moral philosophy is more
+difficile than policy.  Again, moral philosophy propoundeth to
+itself the framing of internal goodness; but civil knowledge
+requireth only an external goodness; for that as to society
+sufficeth.  And therefore it cometh oft to pass that there be evil
+times in good governments:  for so we find in the Holy story, when
+the kings were good, yet it is added, Sed adhuc poulus non direxerat
+cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum suorum.  Again, states, as great
+engines, move slowly, and are not so soon put out of frame:  for as
+in Egypt the seven good years sustained the seven bad, so
+governments for a time well grounded do bear out errors following;
+but the resolution of particular persons is more suddenly subverted.
+These respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil
+knowledge.
+
+(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary
+actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation, and
+government.  For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and
+protection; and they be three wisdoms of divers natures which do
+often sever--wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom
+of state.
+
+(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected,
+but much less despised; for it hath not only an honour in itself,
+but an influence also into business and government.  The poet saith,
+Nec vultu destrue verba tuo:  a man may destroy the force of his
+words with his countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero,
+recommending to his brother affability and easy access; Nil interest
+habere ostium apertum, vultum clausum:  it is nothing won to admit
+men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved
+countenance.  So we see Atticus, before the first interview between
+Caesar and Cicero, the war depending, did seriously advise Cicero
+touching the composing and ordering of his countenance and gesture.
+And if the government of the countenance be of such effect, much
+more is that of the speech, and other carriage appertaining to
+conversation; the true model whereof seemeth to me well expressed by
+Livy, though not meant for this purpose:  Ne aut arrogans videar,
+aut obnoxius; quorum alterum est alienae libertatis obliti, alterum
+suae:  the sum of behaviour is to retain a man's own dignity,
+without intruding upon the liberty of others.  On the other side, if
+behaviour and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may
+pass into affectation, and then Quid deformius quam scenam in vitam
+transferre--to act a man's life?  But although it proceed not to
+that extreme, yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too
+much.  And therefore as we use to advise young students from company
+keeping, by saying, Amici fures temporis:  so certainly the
+intending of the discretion of behaviour is a great thief of
+meditation.  Again, such as are accomplished in that form of
+urbanity please themselves in it, and seldom aspire to higher
+virtue; whereas those that have defect in it do seek comeliness by
+reputation; for where reputation is, almost everything becometh; but
+where that is not, it must be supplied by puntos and compliments.
+Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an over-curious
+observance of decency, and the guide of decency, which is time and
+season.  For as Solomon saith, Qui respicit ad ventos, non seminat;
+et qui respicit ad nubes, non metet:  a man must make his
+opportunity, as oft as find it.  To conclude, behaviour seemeth to
+me as a garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a
+garment.  For it ought to be made in fashion; it ought not to be too
+curious; it ought to be shaped so as to set forth any good making of
+the mind and hide any deformity; and above all, it ought not to be
+too strait or restrained for exercise or motion.  But this part of
+civil knowledge hath been elegantly handled, and therefore I cannot
+report it for deficient.
+
+(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been
+hitherto collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning
+and the professors of learning.  For from this root springeth
+chiefly that note or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to
+this effect, that there is no great concurrence between learning and
+wisdom.  For of the three wisdoms which we have set down to pertain
+to civil life, for wisdom of behaviour, it is by learned men for the
+most part despised, as an inferior to virtue and an enemy to
+meditation; for wisdom of government, they acquit themselves well
+when they are called to it, but that happeneth to few; but for the
+wisdom of business, wherein man's life is most conversant, there be
+no books of it, except some few scattered advertisements, that have
+no proportion to the magnitude of this subject.  For if books were
+written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned men with mean
+experience would far excel men of long experience without learning,
+and outshoot them in their own bow.
+
+(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge
+should be so variable as it falleth not under precept; for it is
+much less infinite than science of government, which we see is
+laboured and in some part reduced.  Of this wisdom it seemeth some
+of the ancient Romans in the saddest and wisest times were
+professors; for Cicero reporteth, that it was then in use for
+senators that had name and opinion for general wise men, as
+Coruncanius, Curius, Laelius, and many others, to walk at certain
+hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that would use
+their advice; and that the particular citizens would resort unto
+them, and consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, or of the
+employing of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or of an
+accusation, and every other occasion incident to man's life.  So as
+there is a wisdom of counsel and advice even in private causes,
+arising out of a universal insight into the affairs of the world;
+which is used indeed upon particular causes propounded, but is
+gathered by general observation of causes of like nature.  For so we
+see in the book which Q. Cicero writeth to his brother, De petitione
+consulatus (being the only book of business that I know written by
+the ancients), although it concerned a particular action then on
+foot, yet the substance thereof consisteth of many wise and politic
+axioms, which contain not a temporary, but a perpetual direction in
+the case of popular elections.  But chiefly we may see in those
+aphorisms which have place amongst divine writings, composed by
+Solomon the king, of whom the Scriptures testify that his heart was
+as the sands of the sea, encompassing the world and all worldly
+matters, we see, I say, not a few profound and excellent cautions,
+precepts, positions, extending to much variety of occasions;
+whereupon we will stay a while, offering to consideration some
+number of examples.
+
+(6) Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes aurem tuam,
+ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem tibi.  Here is commended
+the provident stay of inquiry of that which we would be loth to
+find:  as it was judged great wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he
+burned Sertorius' papers unperused.
+
+Vir sapiens, si cum stulto contenderit, sive irascatur, sive rideat,
+non inveniet requiem.  Here is described the great disadvantage
+which a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than himself;
+which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to
+jest, or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no
+ways quit himself well of it.
+
+Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum, postea sentiet eum
+contumacem.  Here is signified, that if a man begin too high a pitch
+in his favours, it doth commonly end in unkindness and
+unthankfulness.
+
+Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo? coram regibus stabit, nec erit
+inter ignobiles.  Here is observed, that of all virtues for rising
+to honour, quickness of despatch is the best; for superiors many
+times love not to have those they employ too deep or too sufficient,
+but ready and diligent.
+
+Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole, cum adolescente secundo
+qui consurgit pro eo.  Here is expressed that which was noted by
+Sylla first, and after him by Tiberius.  Plures adorant solem
+orientem quam occidentem vel meridianum.
+
+Si spiritus potestatem habentis ascenderit super te, locum tuum ne
+demiseris; quia curatio faciet cessare peccata maxima.  Here caution
+is given, that upon displeasure, retiring is of all courses the
+unfittest; for a man leaveth things at worst, and depriveth himself
+of means to make them better.
+
+Erat civitas parva, et pauci in ea viri:  venit contra eam rex
+magnus, et vallavit eam, instruxitque munitones per gyrum, et
+perfecta est obsidio; inventusque est in ea vir pauper et sapiens,
+et liberavit eam per sapientiam suam; et nullus deinceps recordatus
+est huminis illius pauperis.  Here the corruption of states is set
+forth, that esteem not virtue or merit longer than they have use of
+it.
+
+Millis responsio frangit iram.  Here is noted that silence or rough
+answer exasperateth; but an answer present and temperate pacifieth.
+
+Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum.  Here is lively represented how
+laborious sloth proveth in the end; for when things are deferred
+till the last instant, and nothing prepared beforehand, every step
+findeth a briar or impediment, which catcheth or stoppeth.
+
+Melior est finis orationis quam principium.  Here is taxed the
+vanity of formal speakers, that study more about prefaces and
+inducements, than upon the conclusions and issues of speech.
+
+Qui cognoscit in judicio faciem, non bene facit; iste et pro
+buccella panis deseret veritatem.  Here is noted, that a judge were
+better be a briber than a respecter of persons; for a corrupt judge
+offendeth not so lightly as a facile.
+
+Vir pauper calumnians pauperes simils est imbri vehementi, in quo
+paratur fames.  Here is expressed the extremity of necessitous
+extortions, figured in the ancient fable of the full and the hungry
+horseleech.
+
+Fons turbatus pede, et vena corrupta, est justus cadens coram impio.
+Here is noted, that one judicial and exemplar iniquity in the face
+of the world doth trouble the fountains of justice more than many
+particular injuries passed over by connivance.
+
+Qui subtrahit aliquid a patre et a matre, et dicit hoc non esse
+peccatum, particeps est homicidii.  Here is noted that, whereas men
+in wronging their best friends use to extenuate their fault, as if
+they might presume or be bold upon them, it doth contrariwise indeed
+aggravate their fault, and turneth it from injury to impiety.
+
+Noli esse amicus homini iracundo, nec ambulato cum homine furioso.
+Here caution is given, that in the election of our friends we do
+principally avoid those which are impatient, as those that will
+espouse us to many factions and quarrels.
+
+Qui conturbat domum suam, possidebit ventum.  Here is noted, that in
+domestical separations and breaches men do promise to themselves
+quieting of their mind and contentment; but still they are deceived
+of their expectation, and it turneth to wind.
+
+Filius sapiens laetificat patrem:  filius vero stultus maestitia est
+matri suae.  Here is distinguished, that fathers have most comfort
+of the good proof of their sons; but mothers have most discomfort of
+their ill proof, because women have little discerning of virtue, but
+of fortune.
+
+Qui celat delictum, quaerit amicitiam; sed qui altero sermone
+repetit, separat faederatos.  Here caution is given, that
+reconcilement is better managed by an amnesty, and passing over that
+which is past, than by apologies and excuses.
+
+In omni opere bono erit abundantia; ubi autem verba sunt plurima,
+ibi frequenter egestas.  Here is noted, that words and discourse
+aboundeth most where there is idleness and want.
+
+Primus in sua causa justus:  sed venit altera pars, et inquiret in
+eum.  Here is observed, that in all causes the first tale possesseth
+much; in sort, that the prejudice thereby wrought will be hardly
+removed, except some abuse or falsity in the information be
+detected.
+
+Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia, et ipsa perveniunt ad interiora
+ventris.  Here is distinguished, that flattery and insinuation,
+which seemeth set and artificial, sinketh not far; but that entereth
+deep which hath show of nature, liberty, and simplicity.
+
+Qui erudit derisorem, ipse sibi injuriam facit; et qui arguit
+impium, sibi maculam generat.  Here caution is given how we tender
+reprehension to arrogant and scornful natures, whose manner is to
+esteem it for contumely, and accordingly to return it.
+
+Da sapienti occasionem, et addetur ei sapientia.  Here is
+distinguished the wisdom brought into habit, and that which is but
+verbal and swimming only in conceit; for the one upon the occasion
+presented is quickened and redoubled, the other is amazed and
+confused.
+
+Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium, sic corda
+hominum manifesta sunt prudentibus.  Here the mind of a wise man is
+compared to a glass, wherein the images of all diversity of natures
+and customs are represented; from which representation proceedeth
+that application,
+
+
+"Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus erit."
+
+
+(7) Thus have I stayed somewhat longer upon these sentences politic
+of Solomon than is agreeable to the proportion of an example; led
+with a desire to give authority to this part of knowledge, which I
+noted as deficient, by so excellent a precedent; and have also
+attended them with brief observations, such as to my understanding
+offer no violence to the sense, though I know they may be applied to
+a more divine use:  but it is allowed, even in divinity, that some
+interpretations, yea, and some writings, have more of the eagle than
+others; but taking them as instructions for life, they might have
+received large discourse, if I would have broken them and
+illustrated them by deducements and examples.
+
+(8) Neither was this in use only with the Hebrews, but it is
+generally to be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times; that
+as men found out any observation that they thought was good for
+life, they would gather it and express it in parable or aphorism or
+fable.  But for fables, they were vicegerents and supplies where
+examples failed:  now that the times abound with history, the aim is
+better when the mark is alive.  And therefore the form of writing
+which of all others is fittest for this variable argument of
+negotiation and occasions is that which Machiavel chose wisely and
+aptly for government; namely, discourse upon histories or examples.
+For knowledge drawn freshly and in our view out of particulars,
+knoweth the way best to particulars again.  And it hath much greater
+life for practice when the discourse attendeth upon the example,
+than when the example attendeth upon the discourse.  For this is no
+point of order, as it seemeth at first, but of substance.  For when
+the example is the ground, being set down in a history at large, it
+is set down with all circumstances, which may sometimes control the
+discourse thereupon made, and sometimes supply it, as a very pattern
+for action; whereas the examples alleged for the discourse's sake
+are cited succinctly, and without particularity, and carry a servile
+aspect towards the discourse which they are brought in to make good.
+
+(9) But this difference is not amiss to be remembered, that as
+history of times is the best ground for discourse of government,
+such as Machiavel handleth, so histories of lives is the most
+popular for discourse of business, because it is more conversant in
+private actions.  Nay, there is a ground of discourse for this
+purpose fitter than them both, which is discourse upon letters, such
+as are wise and weighty, as many are of Cicero ad Atticum, and
+others.  For letters have a great and more particular representation
+of business than either chronicles or lives.  Thus have we spoken
+both of the matter and form of this part of civil knowledge,
+touching negotiation, which we note to be deficient.
+
+(10) But yet there is another part of this part, which differeth as
+much from that whereof we have spoken as sapere and sibi sapere, the
+one moving as it were to the circumference, the other to the centre.
+For there is a wisdom of counsel, and again there is a wisdom of
+pressing a man's own fortune; and they do sometimes meet, and often
+sever.  For many are wise in their own ways that are weak for
+government or counsel; like ants, which is a wise creature for
+itself, but very hurtful for the garden.  This wisdom the Romans did
+take much knowledge of:  Nam pol sapiens (saith the comical poet)
+fingit fortunam sibi; and it grew to an adage, Faber quisque
+fortunae propriae; and Livy attributed it to Cato the first, In hoc
+viro tanta vis animi et ingenii inerat, ut quocunque loco natus
+esset sibi ipse fortunam facturus videretur.
+
+(11) This conceit or position, if it be too much declared and
+professed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was
+observed in Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great
+services to the state in his government, and giving an account
+thereof to the people as the manner was, did conclude every
+particular with this clause, "And in this fortune had no part."  And
+it came so to pass, that he never prospered in anything he took in
+hand afterwards.  For this is too high and too arrogant, savouring
+of that which Ezekiel saith of Pharaoh, Dicis, Fluvius est neus et
+ego feci memet ipsum; or of that which another prophet speaketh,
+that men offer sacrifices to their nets and snares; and that which
+the poet expresseth,
+
+
+"Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile libro,
+Nunc adsint!"
+
+
+For these confidences were ever unhallowed, and unblessed; and,
+therefore, those that were great politiques indeed ever ascribed
+their successes to their felicity and not to their skill or virtue.
+For so Sylla surnamed himself Felix, not Magnus.  So Caesar said to
+the master of the ship, Caesarem portas et fortunam ejus.
+
+(12) But yet, nevertheless, these positions, Faber quisque fortunae
+suae:  Sapiens dominabitur astris:  Invia virtuti null est via, and
+the like, being taken and used as spurs to industry, and not as
+stirrups to insolency, rather for resolution than for the
+presumption or outward declaration, have been ever thought sound and
+good; and are no question imprinted in the greatest minds, who are
+so sensible of this opinion as they can scarce contain it within.
+As we see in Augustus Caesar (who was rather diverse from his uncle
+than inferior in virtue), how when he died he desired his friends
+about him to give him a plaudite, as if he were conscious to himself
+that he had played his part well upon the stage.  This part of
+knowledge we do report also as deficient; not but that it is
+practised too much, but it hath not been reduced to writing.  And,
+therefore, lest it should seem to any that it is not comprehensible
+by axiom, it is requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down
+some heads or passages of it.
+
+(13) Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument
+to teach men how to raise and make their fortune; a doctrine wherein
+every man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple, till
+he see the difficulty:  for fortune layeth as heavy impositions as
+virtue; and it is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politique,
+as to be truly moral.  But the handling hereof concerneth learning
+greatly, both in honour and in substance.  In honour, because
+pragmatical men may not go away with an opinion that learning is
+like a lark, that can mount and sing, and please herself, and
+nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well of the hawk,
+that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the prey.
+In substance, because it is the perfect law of inquiry of truth,
+that nothing be in the globe of matter, which should not be likewise
+in the globe of crystal or form; that is, that there be not anything
+in being and action which should not be drawn and collected into
+contemplation and doctrine.  Neither doth learning admire or esteem
+of this architecture of fortune otherwise than as of an inferior
+work, for no man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being, and
+many times the worthiest men do abandon their fortune willingly for
+better respects:  but nevertheless fortune as an organ of virtue and
+merit deserveth the consideration.
+
+(14) First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most
+summary towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that window
+which Momus did require; who seeing in the frame of man's heart such
+angles and recesses, found fault there was not a window to look into
+them; that is, to procure good informations of particulars touching
+persons, their natures, their desires and ends, their customs and
+fashions, their helps and advantages, and whereby they chiefly
+stand, so again their weaknesses and disadvantages, and where they
+lie most open and obnoxious, their friends, factions, dependences;
+and again their opposites, enviers, competitors, their moods and
+times, Sola viri molles aditus et tempora noras; their principles,
+rules, and observations, and the like:  and this not only of persons
+but of actions; what are on foot from time to time, and how they are
+conducted, favoured, opposed, and how they import, and the like.
+For the knowledge of present actions is not only material in itself,
+but without it also the knowledge of persons is very erroneous:  for
+men change with the actions; and whilst they are in pursuit they are
+one, and when they return to their nature they are another.  These
+informations of particulars, touching persons and actions, are as
+the minor propositions in every active syllogism; for no excellency
+of observations (which are as the major propositions) can suffice to
+ground a conclusion, if there be error and mistaking in the minors.
+
+(15) That this knowledge is possible, Solomon is our surety, who
+saith, Consilium in corde viri tanquam aqua profunda; sed vir
+prudens exhauriet illud.  And although the knowledge itself falleth
+not under precept because it is of individuals, yet the instructions
+for the obtaining of it may.
+
+(16) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the
+ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief
+and distrust; that more trust be given to countenances and deeds
+than to words; and in words rather to sudden passages and surprised
+words than to set and purposed words.  Neither let that be feared
+which is said, Fronti nulla fides, which is meant of a general
+outward behaviour, and not of the private and subtle motions and
+labours of the countenance and gesture; which, as Q. Cicero
+elegantly saith, is Animi janua, "the gate of the mind."  None more
+close than Tiberius, and yet Tacitus saith of Gallus, Etenim vultu
+offensionem conjectaverat.  So again, noting the differing character
+and manner of his commending Germanicus and Drusus in the Senate, he
+saith, touching his fashion wherein he carried his speech of
+Germanicus, thus:  Magis in speciem adornatis verbis, quam ut
+penitus sentire crederetur; but of Drusus thus:  Paucioribus sed
+intentior, et fida oratione; and in another place, speaking of his
+character of speech when he did anything that was gracious and
+popular, he saith, "That in other things he was velut eluctantium
+verborum;" but then again, solutius loquebatur quando subveniret.
+So that there is no such artificer of dissimulation, nor no such
+commanded countenance (vultus jussus), that can sever from a feigned
+tale some of these fashions, either a more slight and careless
+fashion, or more set and formal, or more tedious and wandering, or
+coming from a man more drily and hardly.
+
+(17) Neither are deeds such assured pledges as that they may be
+trusted without a judicious consideration of their magnitude and
+nature:  Fraus sibi in parvis fidem praestruit ut majore emolumento
+fallat; and the Italian thinketh himself upon the point to be bought
+and sold, when he is better used than he was wont to be without
+manifest cause.  For small favours, they do but lull men to sleep,
+both as to caution and as to industry; and are, as Demosthenes
+calleth them, Alimenta socordiae.  So again we see how false the
+nature of some deeds are, in that particular which Mutianus
+practised upon Antonius Primus, upon that hollow and unfaithful
+reconcilement which was made between them; whereupon Mutianus
+advanced many of the friends of Antonius, Simul amicis ejus
+praefecturas et tribunatus largitur:  wherein, under pretence to
+strengthen him, he did desolate him, and won from him his
+dependents.
+
+(18) As for words, though they be like waters to physicians, full of
+flattery and uncertainty, yet they are not to be despised specially
+with the advantage of passion and affection.  For so we see
+Tiberius, upon a stinging and incensing speech of Agrippina, came a
+step forth of his dissimulation when he said, "You are hurt because
+you do not reign;" of which Tacitus saith, Audita haec raram occulti
+pectoris vocem elicuere:  correptamque Graeco versu admonuit, ideo
+laedi quia non regnaret.  And, therefore, the poet doth elegantly
+call passions tortures that urge men to confess their secrets:-
+
+
+"Vino torus et ira."
+
+
+And experience showeth there are few men so true to themselves and
+so settled but that, sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon bravery,
+sometimes upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind and
+weakness, they open themselves; specially if they be put to it with
+a counter-dissimulation, according to the proverb of Spain, Di
+mentira, y sacar as verdad:  "Tell a lie and find a truth."
+
+(19) As for the knowing of men which is at second hand from reports:
+men's weaknesses and faults are best known from their enemies, their
+virtues and abilities from their friends, their customs and times
+from their servants, their conceits and opinions from their familiar
+friends, with whom they discourse most.  General fame is light, and
+the opinions conceived by superiors or equals are deceitful; for to
+such men are more masked:  Verior fama e domesticis emanat.
+
+(20) But the soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by their
+natures and ends, wherein the weakest sort of men are best
+interpreted by their natures, and the wisest by their ends.  For it
+was both pleasantly and wisely said (though I think very untruly) by
+a nuncio of the Pope, returning from a certain nation where he
+served as lidger; whose opinion being asked touching the appointment
+of one to go in his place, he wished that in any case they did not
+send one that was too wise; because no very wise man would ever
+imagine what they in that country were like to do.  And certainly it
+is an error frequent for men to shoot over, and to suppose deeper
+ends and more compass reaches than are:  the Italian proverb being
+elegant, and for the most part true:-
+
+
+"Di danari, di senno, e di fede,
+C'e ne manco che non credi."
+
+
+"There is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less good faith than
+men do account upon."
+
+(21) But princes, upon a far other reason, are best interpreted by
+their natures, and private persons by their ends.  For princes being
+at the top of human desires, they have for the most part no
+particular ends whereto they aspire, by distance from which a man
+might take measure and scale of the rest of their actions and
+desires; which is one of the causes that maketh their hearts more
+inscrutable.  Neither is it sufficient to inform ourselves in men's
+ends and natures of the variety of them only, but also of the
+predominancy, what humour reigneth most, and what end is principally
+sought.  For so we see, when Tigellinus saw himself outstripped by
+Petronius Turpilianus in Nero's humours of pleasures, metus ejus
+rimatur, he wrought upon Nero's fears, whereby he broke the other's
+neck.
+
+(22) But to all this part of inquiry the most compendious way
+resteth in three things; the first, to have general acquaintance and
+inwardness with those which have general acquaintance and look most
+into the world; and specially according to the diversity of
+business, and the diversity of persons, to have privacy and
+conversation with some one friend at least which is perfect and
+well-intelligenced in every several kind.  The second is to keep a
+good mediocrity in liberty of speech and secrecy; in most things
+liberty; secrecy where it importeth; for liberty of speech inviteth
+and provoketh liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a
+man's knowledge; and secrecy on the other side induceth trust and
+inwardness.  The last is the reducing of a man's self to this
+watchful and serene habit, as to make account and purpose, in every
+conference and action, as well to observe as to act.  For as
+Epictetus would have a philosopher in every particular action to say
+to himself, Et hoc volo, et etiam institutum servare; so a politic
+man in everything should say to himself, Et hoc volo, ac etiam
+aliquid addiscere.  I have stayed the longer upon this precept of
+obtaining good information because it is a main part by itself,
+which answereth to all the rest.  But, above all things, caution
+must be taken that men have a good stay and hold of themselves, and
+that this much knowing do not draw on much meddling; for nothing is
+more unfortunate than light and rash intermeddling in many matters.
+So that this variety of knowledge tendeth in conclusion but only to
+this, to make a better and freer choice of those actions which may
+concern us, and to conduct them with the less error and the more
+dexterity.
+
+(23) The second precept concerning this knowledge is, for men to
+take good information touching their own person, and well to
+understand themselves; knowing that, as St. James saith, though men
+look oft in a glass, yet they do suddenly forget themselves; wherein
+as the divine glass is the Word of God, so the politic glass is the
+state of the world, or times wherein we live, in the which we are to
+behold ourselves.
+
+(24) For men ought to take an impartial view of their own abilities
+and virtues; and again of their wants and impediments; accounting
+these with the most, and those other with the least; and from this
+view and examination to frame the considerations following.
+
+(25) First, to consider how the constitution of their nature sorteth
+with the general state of the times; which if they find agreeable
+and fit, then in all things to give themselves more scope and
+liberty; but if differing and dissonant, then in the whole course of
+their life to be more close retired, and reserved; as we see in
+Tiberius, who was never seen at a play, and came not into the senate
+in twelve of his last years; whereas Augustus Caesar lived ever in
+men's eyes, which Tacitus observeth, alia Tiberio morum via.
+
+(26) Secondly, to consider how their nature sorteth with professions
+and courses of life, and accordingly to make election, if they be
+free; and, if engaged, to make the departure at the first
+opportunity; as we see was done by Duke Valentine, that was designed
+by his father to a sacerdotal profession, but quitted it soon after
+in regard of his parts and inclination; being such, nevertheless, as
+a man cannot tell well whether they were worse for a prince or for a
+priest.
+
+(27) Thirdly, to consider how they sort with those whom they are
+like to have competitors and concurrents; and to take that course
+wherein there is most solitude, and themselves like to be most
+eminent; as Caesar Julius did, who at first was an orator or
+pleader; but when he saw the excellency of Cicero, Hortensius,
+Catulus, and others for eloquence, and saw there was no man of
+reputation for the wars but Pompeius, upon whom the state was forced
+to rely, he forsook his course begun towards a civil and popular
+greatness, and transferred his designs to a martial greatness.
+
+(28) Fourthly, in the choice of their friends and dependents, to
+proceed according to the composition of their own nature; as we may
+see in Caesar, all whose friends and followers were men active and
+effectual, but not solemn, or of reputation.
+
+(29) Fifthly, to take special heed how they guide themselves by
+examples, in thinking they can do as they see others do; whereas
+perhaps their natures and carriages are far differing.  In which
+error it seemeth Pompey was, of whom Cicero saith that he was wont
+often to say, Sylla potuit, ego non potero?  Wherein he was much
+abused, the natures and proceedings of himself and his example being
+the unlikest in the world; the one being fierce, violent, and
+pressing the fact; the other solemn, and full of majesty and
+circumstance, and therefore the less effectual.
+
+But this precept touching the politic knowledge of ourselves hath
+many other branches, whereupon we cannot insist.
+
+(30) Next to the well understanding and discerning of a man's self,
+there followeth the well opening and revealing a man's self; wherein
+we see nothing more usual than for the more able man to make the
+less show.  For there is a great advantage in the well setting forth
+of a man's virtues, fortunes, merits; and again, in the artificial
+covering of a man's weaknesses, defects, disgraces; staying upon the
+one, sliding from the other; cherishing the one by circumstances,
+gracing the other by exposition, and the like.  Wherein we see what
+Tacitus saith of Mutianus, who was the greatest politique of his
+time, Omnium quae dixerat feceratque arte quadam ostentator, which
+requireth indeed some art, lest it turn tedious and arrogant; but
+yet so, as ostentation (though it be to the first degree of vanity)
+seemeth to me rather a vice in manners than in policy; for as it is
+said, Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret; so, except it be
+in a ridiculous degree of deformity, Audacter te vendita, semper
+aluquid haeret.  For it will stick with the more ignorant and
+inferior sort of men, though men of wisdom and rank do smile at it
+and despise it; and yet the authority won with many doth countervail
+the disdain of a few.  But if it be carried with decency and
+government, as with a natural, pleasant, and ingenious fashion; or
+at times when it is mixed with some peril and unsafety (as in
+military persons); or at times when others are most envied; or with
+easy and careless passage to it and from it, without dwelling too
+long, or being too serious; or with an equal freedom of taxing a
+man's self, as well as gracing himself; or by occasion of repelling
+or putting down others' injury or insolency; it doth greatly add to
+reputation:  and surely not a few solid natures, that want this
+ventosity and cannot sail in the height of the winds, are not
+without some prejudice and disadvantage by their moderation.
+
+(31) But for these flourishes and enhancements of virtue, as they
+are not perchance unnecessary, so it is at least necessary that
+virtue be not disvalued and embased under the just price, which is
+done in three manners--by offering and obtruding a man's self,
+wherein men think he is rewarded when he is accepted; by doing too
+much, which will not give that which is well done leave to settle,
+and in the end induceth satiety; and by finding too soon the fruit
+of a man's virtue, in commendation, applause, honour, favour;
+wherein if a man be pleased with a little, let him hear what is
+truly said:  Cave ne insuetus rebus majoribus videaris, si haec te
+res parva sicuti magna delectat.
+
+(32) But the covering of defects is of no less importance than the
+valuing of good parts; which may be done likewise in three manners--
+by caution, by colour, and by confidence.  Caution is when men do
+ingeniously and discreetly avoid to be put into those things for
+which they are not proper; whereas contrariwise bold and unquiet
+spirits will thrust themselves into matters without difference, and
+so publish and proclaim all their wants.  Colour is when men make a
+way for themselves to have a construction made of their faults or
+wants, as proceeding from a better cause or intended for some other
+purpose.  For of the one it is well said,
+
+
+"Saepe latet vitium proximitate boni,"
+
+
+and therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he
+pretend the virtue that shadoweth it; as if he be dull, he must
+affect gravity; if a coward, mildness; and so the rest.  For the
+second, a man must frame some probable cause why he should not do
+his best, and why he should dissemble his abilities; and for that
+purpose must use to dissemble those abilities which are notorious in
+him, to give colour that his true wants are but industries and
+dissimulations.  For confidence, it is the last but the surest
+remedy--namely, to depress and seem to despise whatsoever a man
+cannot attain; observing the good principle of the merchants, who
+endeavour to raise the price of their own commodities, and to beat
+down the price of others.  But there is a confidence that passeth
+this other, which is to face out a man's own defects, in seeming to
+conceive that he is best in those things wherein he is failing; and,
+to help that again, to seem on the other side that he hath least
+opinion of himself in those things wherein he is best:  like as we
+shall see it commonly in poets, that if they show their verses, and
+you except to any, they will say, "That that line cost them more
+labour than any of the rest;" and presently will seem to disable and
+suspect rather some other line, which they know well enough to be
+the best in the number.  But above all, in this righting and helping
+of a man's self in his own carriage, he must take heed he show not
+himself dismantled and exposed to scorn and injury, by too much
+dulceness, goodness, and facility of nature; but show some sparkles
+of liberty, spirit, and edge.  Which kind of fortified carriage,
+with a ready rescussing of a man's self from scorns, is sometimes of
+necessity imposed upon men by somewhat in their person or fortune;
+but it ever succeedeth with good felicity.
+
+(33) Another precept of this knowledge is by all possible endeavour
+to frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion; for nothing
+hindereth men's fortunes so much as this:  Idem manebat, neque idem
+decebat--men are where they were, when occasions turn:  and
+therefore to Cato, whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he
+addeth that he had versatile ingenium.  And thereof it cometh that
+these grave solemn wits, which must be like themselves and cannot
+make departures, have more dignity than felicity.  But in some it is
+nature to be somewhat vicious and enwrapped, and not easy to turn.
+In some it is a conceit that is almost a nature, which is, that men
+can hardly make themselves believe that they ought to change their
+course, when they have found good by it in former experience.  For
+Machiavel noted wisely how Fabius Maximus would have been
+temporising still, according to his old bias, when the nature of the
+war was altered and required hot pursuit.  In some other it is want
+of point and penetration in their judgment, that they do not discern
+when things have a period, but come in too late after the occasion;
+as Demosthenes compareth the people of Athens to country fellows,
+when they play in a fence school, that if they have a blow, then
+they remove their weapon to that ward, and not before.  In some
+other it is a lothness to lose labours passed, and a conceit that
+they can bring about occasions to their ply; and yet in the end,
+when they see no other remedy, then they come to it with
+disadvantage; as Tarquinius, that gave for the third part of
+Sibylla's books the treble price, when he might at first have had
+all three for the simple.  But from whatsoever root or cause this
+restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most prejudicial; and
+nothing is more politic than to make the wheels of our mind
+concentric and voluble with the wheels of fortune.
+
+(34) Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some affinity
+with that we last spoke of, but with difference, is that which is
+well expressed, Fatis accede deisque, that men do not only turn with
+the occasions, but also run with the occasions, and not strain their
+credit or strength to over-hard or extreme points; but choose in
+their actions that which is most passable:  for this will preserve
+men from foil, not occupy them too much about one matter, win
+opinion of moderation, please the most, and make a show of a
+perpetual felicity in all they undertake:  which cannot but mightily
+increase reputation.
+
+(35) Another part of this knowledge seemeth to have some repugnancy
+with the former two, but not as I understand it; and it is that
+which Demosthenes uttereth in high terms:  Et quemadmodum receptum
+est, ut exercitum ducat imperator, sic et a cordatis viris res ipsae
+ducendae; ut quaeipsis videntur, ea gerantur, et non ipsi eventus
+persequi cogantur.  For if we observe we shall find two differing
+kinds of sufficiency in managing of business:  some can make use of
+occasions aptly and dexterously, but plot little; some can urge and
+pursue their own plots well, but cannot accommodate nor take in;
+either of which is very imperfect without the other.
+
+(36) Another part of this knowledge is the observing a good
+mediocrity in the declaring or not declaring a man's self:  for
+although depth of secrecy, and making way (qualis est via navis in
+mari, which the French calleth sourdes menees, when men set things
+in work without opening themselves at all), be sometimes both
+prosperous and admirable; yet many times dissimulatio errores parit,
+qui dissimulatorem ipsum illaqueant.  And therefore we see the
+greatest politiques have in a natural and free manner professed
+their desires, rather than been reserved and disguised in them.  For
+so we see that Lucius Sylla made a kind of profession, "that he
+wished all men happy or unhappy, as they stood his friends or
+enemies."  So Caesar, when he went first into Gaul, made no scruple
+to profess "that he had rather be first in a village than second at
+Rome."  So again, as soon as he had begun the war, we see what
+Cicero saith of him, Alter (meaning of Caesar) non recusat, sed
+quodammodo postulat, ut (ut est) sic appelletur tyrannus.  So we may
+see in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, that Augustus Caesar, in his
+very entrance into affairs, when he was a darling of the senate, yet
+in his harangues to the people would swear, Ita parentis honores
+consequi liceat (which was no less than the tyranny), save that, to
+help it, he would stretch forth his hand towards a statue of
+Caesar's that was erected in the place:  and men laughed and
+wondered, and said, "Is it possible?" or, "Did you ever hear the
+like?" and yet thought he meant no hurt; he did it so handsomely and
+ingenuously.  And all these were prosperous:  whereas Pompey, who
+tended to the same ends, but in a more dark and dissembling manner
+as Tacitus saith of him, Occultior non melior, wherein Sallust
+concurreth, Ore probo, animo inverecundo, made it his design, by
+infinite secret engines, to cast the state into an absolute anarchy
+and confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for
+necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power be put upon
+him, and he never seen in it:  and when he had brought it (as he
+thought) to that point when he was chosen consul alone, as never any
+was, yet he could make no great matter of it, because men understood
+him not; but was fain in the end to go the beaten track of getting
+arms into his hands, by colour of the doubt of Caesar's designs:  so
+tedious, casual, and unfortunate are these deep dissimulations:
+whereof it seemeth Tacitus made this judgment, that they were a
+cunning of an inferior form in regard of true policy; attributing
+the one to Augustus, the other to Tiberius; where, speaking of
+Livia, he saith, Et cum artibus mariti simulatione filii bene
+compostia:  for surely the continual habit of dissimulation is but a
+weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly politic.
+
+(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to accustom
+our minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they
+conduce and are material to our particular ends; and that to do
+substantially and not superficially.  For we shall find the logical
+part (as I may term it) of some men's minds good, but the
+mathematical part erroneous; that is, they can well judge of
+consequences, but not of proportions and comparison, preferring
+things of show and sense before things of substance and effect.  So
+some fall in love with access to princes, others with popular fame
+and applause, supposing they are things of great purchase, when in
+many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment.  So
+some measure things according to the labour and difficulty or
+assiduity which are spent about them; and think, if they be ever
+moving, that they must needs advance and proceed; as Caesar saith in
+a despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth how
+laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose, Haec omnia
+magno studio agebat.  So in most things men are ready to abuse
+themselves in thinking the greatest means to be best, when it should
+be the fittest.
+
+(38) As for the true marshalling of men's pursuits towards their
+fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand
+thus.  First the amendment of their own minds.  For the removal of
+the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of
+fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of
+the mind.  In the second place I set down wealth and means; which I
+know most men would have placed first, because of the general use
+which it beareth towards all variety of occasions.  But that opinion
+I may condemn with like reason as Machiavel doth that other, that
+moneys were the sinews of the wars; whereas (saith he) the true
+sinews of the wars are the sinews of men's arms, that is, a valiant,
+populous, and military nation:  and he voucheth aptly the authority
+of Solon, who, when Croesus showed him his treasury of gold, said to
+him, that if another came that had better iron, he would be master
+of his gold.  In like manner it may be truly affirmed that it is not
+moneys that are the sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and
+steel of men's minds, wit, courage, audacity, resolution, temper,
+industry, and the like.  In the third place I set down reputation,
+because of the peremptory tides and currents it hath; which, if they
+be not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered, it being
+extreme hard to play an after-game of reputation.  And lastly I
+place honour, which is more easily won by any of the other three,
+much more by all, than any of them can be purchased by honour.  To
+conclude this precept, as there is order and priority in matter, so
+is there in time, the preposterous placing whereof is one of the
+commonest errors:  while men fly to their ends when they should
+intend their beginnings, and do not take things in order of time as
+they come on, but marshal them according to greatness and not
+according to instance; not observing the good precept, Quod nunc
+instat agamus.
+
+(39) Another precept of this knowledge is not to embrace any matters
+which do occupy too great a quantity of time, but to have that
+sounding in a man's ears, Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile
+tempus:  and that is the cause why those which take their course of
+rising by professions of burden, as lawyers, orators, painful
+divines, and the like, are not commonly so politic for their own
+fortune, otherwise than in their ordinary way, because they want
+time to learn particulars, to wait occasions, and to devise plots.
+
+(40) Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate nature, which
+doth nothing in vain; which surely a man may do if he do well
+interlace his business, and bend not his mind too much upon that
+which he principally intendeth.  For a man ought in every particular
+action so to carry the motions of his mind, and so to have one thing
+under another, as if he cannot have that he seeketh in the best
+degree, yet to have it in a second, or so in a third; and if he can
+have no part of that which he purposed, yet to turn the use of it to
+somewhat else; and if he cannot make anything of it for the present,
+yet to make it as a seed of somewhat in time to come; and if he can
+contrive no effect or substance from it, yet to win some good
+opinion by it, or the like.  So that he should exact an account of
+himself of every action, to reap somewhat, and not to stand amazed
+and confused if he fail of that he chiefly meant:  for nothing is
+more impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one.  For he that
+doth so loseth infinite occasions which intervene, and are many
+times more proper and propitious for somewhat that he shall need
+afterwards, than for that which he urgeth for the present; and
+therefore men must be perfect in that rule, Haec oportet facere, et
+illa non imittere.
+
+(41) Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a man's
+self peremptorily in anything, though it seem not liable to
+accident; but ever to have a window to fly out at, or a way to
+retire:  following the wisdom in the ancient fable of the two frogs,
+which consulted when their plash was dry whither they should go; and
+the one moved to go down into a pit, because it was not likely the
+water would dry there; but the other answered, "True, but if it do,
+how shall we get out again?"
+
+(42) Another precept of this knowledge is that ancient precept of
+Bias, construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but to caution
+and moderation, Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus et odi tanquam
+amaturus.  For it utterly betrayeth all utility for men to embark
+themselves too far into unfortunate friendships, troublesome
+spleens, and childish and humorous envies or emulations.
+
+(43) But I continue this beyond the measure of an example; led,
+because I would not have such knowledges, which I note as deficient,
+to be thought things imaginative or in the air, or an observation or
+two much made of, but things of bulk and mass, whereof an end is
+more hardly made than a beginning.  It must be likewise conceived,
+that in these points which I mention and set down, they are far from
+complete tractates of them, but only as small pieces for patterns.
+And lastly, no man I suppose will think that I mean fortunes are not
+obtained without all this ado; for I know they come tumbling into
+some men's laps; and a number obtain good fortunes by diligence in a
+plain way, little intermeddling, and keeping themselves from gross
+errors.
+
+(44) But as Cicero, when he setteth down an idea of a perfect
+orator, doth not mean that every pleader should be such; and so
+likewise, when a prince or a courtier hath been described by such as
+have handled those subjects, the mould hath used to be made
+according to the perfection of the art, and not according to common
+practice:  so I understand it, that it ought to be done in the
+description of a politic man, I mean politic for his own fortune.
+
+(45) But it must be remembered all this while, that the precepts
+which we have set down are of that kind which may be counted and
+called Bonae Artes.  As for evil arts, if a man would set down for
+himself that principle of Machiavel, "That a man seek not to attain
+virtue itself, but the appearance only thereof; because the credit
+of virtue is a help, but the use of it is cumber:" or that other of
+his principles, "That he presuppose that men are not fitly to be
+wrought otherwise but by fear; and therefore that he seek to have
+every man obnoxious, low, and in straits," which the Italians call
+seminar spine, to sow thorns:  or that other principle, contained in
+the verse which Cicero citeth, Cadant amici, dummodo inimici
+intercidant, as the triumvirs, which sold every one to other the
+lives of their friends for the deaths of their enemies:  or that
+other protestation of L. Catilina, to set on fire and trouble
+states, to the end to fish in droumy waters, and to unwrap their
+fortunes, Ego si quid in fortunis meis excitatum sit incendium, id
+non aqua sed ruina restinguam:  or that other principle of Lysander,
+"That children are to be deceived with comfits, and men with oaths:"
+and the like evil and corrupt positions, whereof (as in all things)
+there are more in number than of the good:  certainly with these
+dispensations from the laws of charity and integrity, the pressing
+of a man's fortune may be more hasty and compendious.  But it is in
+life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and
+surely the fairer way is not much about.
+
+(46) But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and sustain
+themselves, and be not carried away with a whirlwind or tempest of
+ambition, ought in the pursuit of their own fortune to set before
+their eyes not only that general map of the world, "That all things
+are vanity and vexation of spirit," but many other more particular
+cards and directions:  chiefly that, that being without well-being
+is a curse, and the greater being the greater curse; and that all
+virtue is most rewarded and all wickedness most punished in itself:
+according as the poet saith excellently:
+
+
+"Quae vobis, quae digna, viri pro laudibus istis
+Praemia posse rear solvi? pulcherrima primum
+Dii moresque dabunt vestri."
+
+
+And so of the contrary.  And secondly they ought to look up to the
+Eternal Providence and Divine Judgment, which often subverteth the
+wisdom of evil plots and imaginations, according to that scripture,
+"He hath conceived mischief, and shall bring forth a vain thing."
+And although men should refrain themselves from injury and evil
+arts, yet this incessant and Sabbathless pursuit of a man's fortune
+leaveth not tribute which we owe to God of our time; who (we see)
+demandeth a tenth of our substance, and a seventh, which is more
+strict, of our time:  and it is to small purpose to have an erected
+face towards heaven, and a perpetual grovelling spirit upon earth,
+eating dust as doth the serpent, Atque affigit humo divinae
+particulam aurae.  And if any man flatter himself that he will
+employ his fortune well, though he should obtain it ill, as was said
+concerning Augustus Caesar, and after of Septimius Severus, "That
+either they should never have been born, or else they should never
+have died," they did so much mischief in the pursuit and ascent of
+their greatness, and so much good when they were established; yet
+these compensations and satisfactions are good to be used, but never
+good to be purposed.  And lastly, it is not amiss for men, in their
+race towards their fortune, to cool themselves a little with that
+conceit which is elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in
+his instructions to the king his son, "That fortune hath somewhat of
+the nature of a woman, that if she he too much wooed she is the
+farther off."  But this last is but a remedy for those whose tastes
+are corrupted:  let men rather build upon that foundation which is
+as a corner-stone of divinity and philosophy, wherein they join
+close, namely that same Primum quaerite.  For divinity saith, Primum
+quaerite regnum Dei, et ista omnia adjicientur vobis:  and
+philosophy saith, Primum quaerite bona animi; caetera aut aderunt,
+aut non oberunt.  And although the human foundation hath somewhat of
+the sands, as we see in M. Brutus, when he broke forth into that
+speech,
+
+
+"Te colui (Virtus) ut rem; ast tu nomen inane es;"
+
+
+yet the divine foundation is upon the rock.  But this may serve for
+a taste of that knowledge which I noted as deficient.
+
+(47) Concerning government, it is a part of knowledge secret and
+retired in both these respects in which things are deemed secret;
+for some things are secret because they are hard to know, and some
+because they are not fit to utter.  We see all governments are
+obscure and invisible:
+
+
+   "Totamque infusa per artus
+Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
+
+
+Such is the description of governments.  We see the government of
+God over the world is hidden, insomuch as it seemeth to participate
+of much irregularity and confusion.  The government of the soul in
+moving the body is inward and profound, and the passages thereof
+hardly to be reduced to demonstration.  Again, the wisdom of
+antiquity (the shadows whereof are in the poets) in the description
+of torments and pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was
+the giants' offence, doth detest the offence of futility, as in
+Sisyphus and Tantalus.  But this was meant of particulars:
+nevertheless even unto the general rules and discourses of policy
+and government there is due a reverent and reserved handling.
+
+(48) But contrariwise in the governors towards the governed, all
+things ought as far as the frailty of man permitteth to be manifest
+and revealed.  For so it is expressed in the Scriptures touching the
+government of God, that this globe, which seemeth to us a dark and
+shady body, is in the view of God as crystal:  Et in conspectu sedis
+tanquam mare vitreum simile crystallo.  So unto princes and states,
+and specially towards wise senates and councils, the natures and
+dispositions of the people, their conditions and necessities, their
+factions and combinations, their animosities and discontents, ought
+to be, in regard of the variety of their intelligences, the wisdom
+of their observations, and the height of their station where they
+keep sentinel, in great part clear and transparent.  Wherefore,
+considering that I write to a king that is a master of this science,
+and is so well assisted, I think it decent to pass over this part in
+silence, as willing to obtain the certificate which one of the
+ancient philosophers aspired unto; who being silent, when others
+contended to make demonstration of their abilities by speech,
+desired it might be certified for his part, "That there was one that
+knew how to hold his peace."
+
+(49) Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which
+is laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which is, that
+all those which have written of laws have written either as
+philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen.  As for the
+philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths,
+and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light
+because they are so high.  For the lawyers, they write according to
+the states where they live what is received law, and not what ought
+to be law; for the wisdom of a law-maker is one, and of a lawyer is
+another.  For there are in nature certain fountains of justice
+whence all civil laws are derived but as streams; and like as waters
+do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through which they run,
+so do civil laws vary according to the regions and governments where
+they are planted, though they proceed from the same fountains.
+Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a platform
+of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into
+consideration by what means laws may be made certain, and what are
+the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and uncertainty of law;
+by what means laws may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what
+are the impediments and remedies in the execution of laws; what
+influence laws touching private right of meum and tuum have into the
+public state, and how they may be made apt and agreeable; how laws
+are to be penned and delivered, whether in texts or in Acts, brief
+or large, with preambles or without; how they are to be pruned and
+reformed from time to time, and what is the best means to keep them
+from being too vast in volume, or too full of multiplicity and
+crossness; how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent
+and judicially discussed, and when upon responses and conferences
+touching general points or questions; how they are to be pressed,
+rigorously or tenderly; how they are to be mitigated by equity and
+good conscience, and whether discretion and strict law are to be
+mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several courts; again,
+how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be censured
+and governed; and many other points touching the administration and
+(as I may term it) animation of laws.  Upon which I insist the less,
+because I purpose (if God give me leave), having begun a work of
+this nature in aphorisms, to propound it hereafter, noting it in the
+meantime for deficient.
+
+(50) And for your Majesty's laws of England, I could say much of
+their dignity, and somewhat of their defect; but they cannot but
+excel the civil laws in fitness for the government, for the civil
+law was nonhos quaesitum munus in usus; it was not made for the
+countries which it governeth.  Hereof I cease to speak because I
+will not intermingle matter of action with matter of general
+learning.
+
+XXIV.  Thus have I concluded this portion of learning touching civil
+knowledge; and with civil knowledge have concluded human philosophy;
+and with human philosophy, philosophy in general.  And being now at
+some pause, looking back into that I have passed through, this
+writing seemeth to me (si nunquam fallit imago), as far as a man can
+judge of his own work, not much better than that noise or sound
+which musicians make while they are in tuning their instruments,
+which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music
+is sweeter afterwards.  So have I been content to tune the
+instruments of the Muses, that they may play that have better hands.
+And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in
+which learning hath made her third visitation or circuit in all the
+qualities thereof; as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of
+this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails
+of ancient writers; the art of printing, which communicateth books
+to men of all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation,
+which hath disclosed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of
+natural history; the leisure wherewith these times abound, not
+employing men so generally in civil business, as the states of
+Graecia did, in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome,
+in respect of the greatness of their monarchy; the present
+disposition of these times at this instant to peace; the consumption
+of all that ever can be said in controversies of religion, which
+have so much diverted men from other sciences; the perfection of
+your Majesty's learning, which as a phoenix may call whole volleys
+of wits to follow you; and the inseparable propriety of time, which
+is ever more and more to disclose truth; I cannot but be raised to
+this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass
+that of the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their
+own strength and their own weakness both; and take, one from the
+other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem
+of the inquisition of truth as of an enterprise, and not as of a
+quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence to things of
+worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of popular
+estimation.  As for my labours, if any man shall please himself or
+others in the reprehension of them, they shall make that ancient and
+patient request, Verbera, sed audi:  let men reprehend them, so they
+observe and weigh them.  For the appeal is lawful (though it may be
+it shall not be needful) from the first cogitations of men to their
+second, and from the nearer times to the times further off.  Now let
+us come to that learning, which both the former times were not so
+blessed as to know, sacred and inspired divinity, the Sabbath and
+port of all men's labours and peregrinations.
+
+XXV. (1) The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as
+to the will of man:  so that as we are to obey His law, though we
+find a reluctation in our will, so we are to believe His word,
+though we find a reluctation in our reason.  For if we believe only
+that which is agreeable to our sense we give consent to the matter,
+and not to the author; which is no more than we would do towards a
+suspected and discredited witness; but that faith which was
+accounted to Abraham for righteousness was of such a point as
+whereat Sarah laughed, who therein was an image of natural reason.
+
+(2) Howbeit (if we will truly consider of it) more worthy it is to
+believe than to know as we now know.  For in knowledge man's mind
+suffereth from sense:  but in belief it suffereth from spirit, such
+one as it holdeth for more authorised than itself and so suffereth
+from the worthier agent.  Otherwise it is of the state of man
+glorified; for then faith shall cease, and we shall know as we are
+known.
+
+(3) Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology (which in our idiom
+we call divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God,
+and not upon the light of nature:  for it is written, Caeli enarrant
+gloriam Dei; but it is not written, Caeli enarrant voluntatem Dei:
+but of that it is said, Ad legem et testimonium:  si non fecerint
+secundum verbum istud, &c.  This holdeth not only in those points of
+faith which concern the great mysteries of the Deity, of the
+creation, of the redemption, but likewise those which concern the
+law moral, truly interpreted:  "Love your enemies:  do good to them
+that hate you; be like to your heavenly Father, that suffereth His
+rain to fall upon the just and unjust."  To this it ought to be
+applauded, Nec vox hominem sonat:  it is a voice beyond the light of
+nature.  So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a
+libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moralities, as
+if they were opposite and malignant to nature:  Et quod natura
+remittit, invida jura negant.  So said Dendamis the Indian unto
+Alexander's messengers, that he had heard somewhat of Pythagoras,
+and some other of the wise men of Graecia, and that he held them for
+excellent men:  but that they had a fault, which was that they had
+in too great reverence and veneration a thing they called law and
+manners.  So it must be confessed that a great part of the law moral
+is of that perfection whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire:
+how then is it that man is said to have, by the light and law of
+nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and vice, justice and
+wrong, good and evil?  Thus, because the light of nature is used in
+two several senses:  the one, that which springeth from reason,
+sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and
+earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by
+an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a
+sparkle of the purity of his first estate:  in which latter sense
+only he is participant of some light and discerning touching the
+perfection of the moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice
+but not to inform the duty.  So then the doctrine of religion, as
+well moral as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration and
+revelation from God.
+
+(4) The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, and the
+latitude thereof, is very great and general:  for it is not for
+nothing that the apostle calleth religion "our reasonable service of
+God;" insomuch as the very ceremonies and figures of the old law
+were full of reason and signification, much more than the ceremonies
+of idolatry and magic, that are full of non-significants and surd
+characters.  But most specially the Christian faith, as in all
+things so in this, deserveth to be highly magnified; holding and
+preserving the golden mediocrity in this point between the law of
+the heathen and the law of Mahomet, which have embraced the two
+extremes.  For the religion of the heathen had no constant belief or
+confession, but left all to the liberty of agent; and the religion
+of Mahomet on the other side interdicteth argument altogether:  the
+one having the very face of error, and the other of imposture;
+whereas the Faith doth both admit and reject disputation with
+difference.
+
+(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts:  the
+former, in the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God
+to us revealed; the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine
+and direction thereupon.  The former extendeth to the mysteries
+themselves; but how? by way of illustration, and not by way of
+argument.  The latter consisteth indeed of probation and argument.
+In the former we see God vouchsafeth to descend to our capacity, in
+the expressing of His mysteries in sort as may be sensible unto us;
+and doth graft His revelations and holy doctrine upon the notions of
+our reason, and applieth His inspirations to open our understanding,
+as the form of the key to the ward of the lock.  For the latter
+there is allowed us a use of reason and argument, secondary and
+respective, although not original and absolute.  For after the
+articles and principles of religion are placed and exempted from
+examination of reason, it is then permitted unto us to make
+derivations and inferences from and according to the analogy of
+them, for our better direction.  In nature this holdeth not; for
+both the principles are examinable by induction, though not by a
+medium or syllogism; and besides, those principles or first
+positions have no discordance with that reason which draweth down
+and deduceth the inferior positions.  But yet it holdeth not in
+religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and smaller
+nature, namely, wherein there are not only posita but placita; for
+in such there can be no use of absolute reason.  We see it
+familiarly in games of wit, as chess, or the like.  The draughts and
+first laws of the game are positive, but how? merely ad placitum,
+and not examinable by reason; but then how to direct our play
+thereupon with best advantage to win the game is artificial and
+rational.  So in human laws there be many grounds and maxims which
+are placita juris, positive upon authority, and not upon reason, and
+therefore not to be disputed:  but what is most just, not absolutely
+but relatively, and according to those maxims, that affordeth a long
+field of disputation.  Such therefore is that secondary reason,
+which hath place in divinity, which is grounded upon the placets of
+God.
+
+(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath not been,
+to my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the true
+limits and use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of divine
+dialectic:  which for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing
+usual, by pretext of true conceiving that which is revealed, to
+search and mine into that which is not revealed; and by pretext of
+enucleating inferences and contradictories, to examine that which is
+positive.  The one sort falling into the error of Nicodemus,
+demanding to have things made more sensible than it pleaseth God to
+reveal them, Quomodo possit homo nasci cum sit senex?  The other
+sort into the error of the disciples, which were scandalised at a
+show of contradiction, Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis?  Modicum et
+non videbitis me; et iterum, modicum, et videbitis me, &c.
+
+(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great and
+blessed use thereof; for this point well laboured and defined of
+would in my judgment be an opiate to stay and bridle not only the
+vanity of curious speculations, wherewith the schools labour, but
+the fury of controversies, wherewith the Church laboureth.  For it
+cannot but open men's eyes to see that many controversies do merely
+pertain to that which is either not revealed or positive; and that
+many others do grow upon weak and obscure inferences or derivations:
+which latter sort, if men would revive the blessed style of that
+great doctor of the Gentiles, would be carried thus, ego, non
+dominus; and again, secundum consilium meum, in opinions and
+counsels, and not in positions and oppositions.  But men are now
+over-ready to usurp the style, non ego, sed dominus; and not so
+only, but to bind it with the thunder and denunciation of curses and
+anathemas, to the terror of those which have not sufficiently
+learned out of Solomon that "The causeless curse shall not come."
+
+(8) Divinity hath two principal parts:  the matter informed or
+revealed, and the nature of the information or revelation; and with
+the latter we will begin, because it hath most coherence with that
+which we have now last handled.  The nature of the information
+consisteth of three branches:  the limits of the information, the
+sufficiency of the information, and the acquiring or obtaining the
+information.  Unto the limits of the information belong these
+considerations:  how far forth particular persons continue to be
+inspired; how far forth the Church is inspired; and how far forth
+reason may be used; the last point whereof I have noted as
+deficient.  Unto the sufficiency of the information belong two
+considerations:  what points of religion are fundamental, and what
+perfective, being matter of further building and perfection upon one
+and the same foundation; and again, how the gradations of light
+according to the dispensation of times are material to the
+sufficiency of belief.
+
+(9) Here again I may rather give it in advice than note it as
+deficient, that the points fundamental, and the points of further
+perfection only, ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished; a
+subject tending to much like end as that I noted before; for as that
+other were likely to abate the number of controversies, so this is
+likely to abate the heat of many of them.  We see Moses when he saw
+the Israelite and the Egyptian fight, he did not say, "Why strive
+you?" but drew his sword and slew the Egyptian; but when he saw the
+two Israelites fight, he said, "You are brethren, why strive you?"
+If the point of doctrine be an Egyptian, it must be slain by the
+sword of the Spirit, and not reconciled; but if it be an Israelite,
+though in the wrong, then, "Why strive you?"  We see of the
+fundamental points, our Saviour penneth the league thus, "He that is
+not with us is against us;" but of points not fundamental, thus, "He
+that is not against us is with us."  So we see the coat of our
+Saviour was entire without seam, and so is the doctrine of the
+Scriptures in itself; but the garment of the Church was of divers
+colours and yet not divided.  We see the chaff may and ought to be
+severed from the corn in the ear, but the tares may not be pulled up
+from the corn in the field.  So as it is a thing of great use well
+to define what, and of what latitude, those points are which do make
+men mere aliens and disincorporate from the Church of God.
+
+(10) For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the true
+and sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the fountains
+of the water of life.  The interpretations of the Scriptures are of
+two sorts:  methodical, and solute or at large.  For this divine
+water, which excelleth so much that of Jacob's well, is drawn forth
+much in the same kind as natural water useth to be out of wells and
+fountains; either it is first forced up into a cistern, and from
+thence fetched and derived for use; or else it is drawn and received
+in buckets and vessels immediately where it springeth.  The former
+sort whereof, though it seem to be the more ready, yet in my
+judgment is more subject to corrupt.  This is that method which hath
+exhibited unto us the scholastical divinity; whereby divinity hath
+been reduced into an art, as into a cistern, and the streams of
+doctrine or positions fetched and derived from thence.
+
+(11) In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity, a
+compacted strength, and a complete perfection; whereof the two first
+they fail to find, and the last they ought not to seek.  For as to
+brevity, we see in all summary methods, while men purpose to
+abridge, they give cause to dilate.  For the sum or abridgment by
+contraction becometh obscure; the obscurity requireth exposition,
+and the exposition is deduced into large commentaries, or into
+commonplaces and titles, which grow to be more vast than the
+original writings, whence the sum was at first extracted.  So we see
+the volumes of the schoolmen are greater much than the first
+writings of the fathers, whence the master of the sentences made his
+sum or collection.  So in like manner the volumes of the modern
+doctors of the civil law exceed those of the ancient jurisconsults,
+of which Tribonian compiled the digest.  So as this course of sums
+and commentaries is that which doth infallibly make the body of
+sciences more immense in quantity, and more base in substance.
+
+(12) And for strength, it is true that knowledges reduced into exact
+methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth to
+support and sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory than
+substantial, like unto buildings which stand by architecture and
+compaction, which are more subject to ruin than those that are built
+more strong in their several parts, though less compacted.  But it
+is plain that the more you recede from your grounds, the weaker do
+you conclude; and as in nature, the more you remove yourself from
+particulars, the greater peril of error you do incur; so much more
+in divinity, the more you recede from the Scriptures by inferences
+and consequences, the more weak and dilute are your positions.
+
+(13) And as for perfection or completeness in divinity, it is not to
+be sought, which makes this course of artificial divinity the more
+suspect.  For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art will make
+it round and uniform; but in divinity many things must be left
+abrupt, and concluded with this:  O altitudo sapientiae et scientiae
+Dei! quam incomprehensibilia sunt juducua ejus, et non
+investigabiles viae ejus.  So again the apostle saith, Ex parte
+scimus:  and to have the form of a total, where there is but matter
+for a part, cannot be without supplies by supposition and
+presumption.  And therefore I conclude that the true use of these
+sums and methods hath place in institutions or introductions
+preparatory unto knowledge; but in them, or by deducement from them,
+to handle the main body and substance of a knowledge is in all
+sciences prejudicial, and in divinity dangerous.
+
+(14) As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at large,
+there have been divers kinds introduced and devised; some of them
+rather curious and unsafe than sober and warranted.
+Notwithstanding, thus much must be confessed, that the Scriptures,
+being given by inspiration and not by human reason, do differ from
+all other books in the Author, which by consequence doth draw on
+some difference to be used by the expositor.  For the Inditer of
+them did know four things which no man attains to know; which are--
+the mysteries of the kingdom of glory, the perfection of the laws of
+nature, the secrets of the heart of man, and the future succession
+of all ages.  For as to the first it is said, "He that presseth into
+the light shall be oppressed of the glory."  And again, "No man
+shall see My face and live."  To the second, "When He prepared the
+heavens I was present, when by law and compass He enclosed the
+deep."  To the third, "Neither was it needful that any should bear
+witness to Him of man, for He knew well what was in man."  And to
+the last, "From the beginning are known to the Lord all His works."
+
+(15) From the former two of these have been drawn certain senses and
+expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained within the
+bounds of sobriety--the one anagogical, and the other philosophical.
+But as to the former, man is not to prevent his time:  Videmus nunc
+per speculum in aenigmate, tunc autem facie ad faciem; wherein
+nevertheless there seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth as
+the polishing of this glass, or some moderate explication of this
+enigma.  But to press too far into it cannot but cause a dissolution
+and overthrow of the spirit of man.  For in the body there are three
+degrees of that we receive into it--aliment, medicine, and poison;
+whereof aliment is that which the nature of man can perfectly alter
+and overcome; medicine is that which is partly converted by nature,
+and partly converteth nature; and poison is that which worketh
+wholly upon nature, without that nature can in any part work upon
+it.  So in the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at all work
+upon and convert is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a
+dissolution of the mind and understanding.
+
+(16) But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late
+time by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have
+pretended to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the
+Scriptures; scandalising and traducing all other philosophy as
+heathenish and profane.  But there is no such enmity between God's
+Word and His works; neither do they give honour to the Scriptures,
+as they suppose, but much embase them.  For to seek heaven and earth
+in the Word of God, whereof it is said, "Heaven and earth shall
+pass, but My word shall not pass," is to seek temporary things
+amongst eternal:  and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek
+the living amongst the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to
+seek the dead amongst the living:  neither are the pots or lavers,
+whose place was in the outward part of the temple, to be sought in
+the holiest place of all where the ark of the testimony was seated.
+And again, the scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to
+express matters of nature in the Scriptures, otherwise than in
+passage, and for application to man's capacity and to matters moral
+or divine.  And it is a true rule, Auctoris aliud agentis parva
+auctoritas.  For it were a strange conclusion, if a man should use a
+similitude for ornament or illustration sake, borrowed from nature
+or history according to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, a unicorn,
+a centaur, a Briareus, a hydra, or the like, that therefore he must
+needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof positively to be true.
+To conclude therefore these two interpretations, the one by
+reduction or enigmatical, the other philosophical or physical, which
+have been received and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and
+cabalists, are to be confined with a a noli akryn sapere, sed time.
+
+(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to man,
+touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of time, doth
+make a just and sound difference between the manner of the
+exposition of the Scriptures and all other books.  For it is an
+excellent observation which hath been made upon the answers of our
+Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were propounded to
+Him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question
+demanded:  the reason whereof is, because not being like man, which
+knows man's thoughts by his words, but knowing man's thoughts
+immediately, He never answered their words, but their thoughts.
+Much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being
+written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages,
+with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates
+of the Church, yea, and particularly of the elect, are not to be
+interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of
+the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon
+the words were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with
+the words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal
+scope of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or
+collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite
+springs and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part.
+And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream
+or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical
+or typical, are they whereof the Church hath most use; not that I
+wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in
+allusions:  but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the
+Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a
+profane book.
+
+(18) In this part touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can
+report no deficiency; but by way of remembrance this I will add.  In
+perusing books of divinity I find many books of controversies, and
+many of commonplaces and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as
+it is made an art:  a number of sermons and lectures, and many
+prolix commentaries upon the Scriptures, with harmonies and
+concordances.  But that form of writing in divinity which in my
+judgment is of all others most rich and precious is positive
+divinity, collected upon particular texts of Scriptures in brief
+observations; not dilated into commonplaces, not chasing after
+controversies, not reduced into method of art; a thing abounding in
+sermons, which will vanish, but defective in books which will
+remain, and a thing wherein this age excelleth.  For I am persuaded,
+and I may speak it with an absit invidia verbo, and nowise in
+derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between the vine
+and the olive, that if the choice and best of those observations
+upon texts of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons
+within this your Majesty's Island of Brittany by the space of these
+forty years and more (leaving out the largeness of exhortations and
+applications thereupon) had been set down in a continuance, it had
+been the best work in divinity which had been written since the
+Apostles' times.
+
+(19) The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds:  matter of
+belief and truth of opinion, and matter of service and adoration;
+which is also judged and directed by the former--the one being as
+the internal soul of religion, and the other as the external body
+thereof.  And, therefore, the heathen religion was not only a
+worship of idols, but the whole religion was an idol in itself; for
+it had no soul; that is, no certainty of belief or confession:  as a
+man may well think, considering the chief doctors of their church
+were the poets; and the reason was because the heathen gods were no
+jealous gods, but were glad to be admitted into part, as they had
+reason.  Neither did they respect the pureness of heart, so they
+might have external honour and rites.
+
+(20) But out of these two do result and issue four main branches of
+divinity:  faith, manners, liturgy, and government.  Faith
+containeth the doctrine of the nature of God, of the attributes of
+God, and of the works of God.  The nature of God consisteth of three
+persons in unity of Godhead.  The attributes of God are either
+common to the Deity, or respective to the persons.  The works of God
+summary are two, that of the creation and that of the redemption;
+and both these works, as in total they appertain to the unity of the
+Godhead, so in their parts they refer to the three persons:  that of
+the creation, in the mass of the matter, to the Father; in the
+disposition of the form, to the Son; and in the continuance and
+conservation of the being, to the Holy Spirit.  So that of the
+redemption, in the election and counsel, to the Father; in the whole
+act and consummation, to the Son; and in the application, to the
+Holy Spirit; for by the Holy Ghost was Christ conceived in flesh,
+and by the Holy Ghost are the elect regenerate in spirit.  This work
+likewise we consider either effectually, in the elect; or privately,
+in the reprobate; or according to appearance, in the visible Church.
+
+(21) For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the law,
+which discloseth sin.  The law itself is divided, according to the
+edition thereof, into the law of nature, the law moral, and the law
+positive; and according to the style, into negative and affirmative,
+prohibitions and commandments.  Sin, in the matter and subject
+thereof, is divided according to the commandments; in the form
+thereof it referreth to the three persons in Deity:  sins of
+infirmity against the Father, whose more special attribute is power;
+sins of ignorance against the Son, whose attribute is wisdom; and
+sins of malice against the Holy Ghost, whose attribute is grace or
+love.  In the motions of it, it either moveth to the right hand or
+to the left; either to blind devotion or to profane and libertine
+transgression; either in imposing restraint where God granteth
+liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth restraint.  In the
+degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself into thought, word,
+or act.  And in this part I commend much the deducing of the law of
+God to cases of conscience; for that I take indeed to be a breaking,
+and not exhibiting whole of the bread of life.  But that which
+quickeneth both these doctrines of faith and manners is the
+elevation and consent of the heart; whereunto appertain books of
+exhortation, holy meditation, Christian resolution, and the like.
+
+(22) For the liturgy or service, it consisteth of the reciprocal
+acts between God and man; which, on the part of God, are the
+preaching of the word, and the sacraments, which are seals to the
+covenant, or as the visible word; and on the part of man, invocation
+of the name of God; and under the law, sacrifices; which were as
+visible prayers or confessions:  but now the adoration being in
+spiritu et veritate, there remaineth only vituli labiorum; although
+the use of holy vows of thankfulness and retribution may be
+accounted also as sealed petitions.
+
+(23) And for the government of the Church, it consisteth of the
+patrimony of the Church, the franchises of the Church, and the
+offices and jurisdictions of the Church, and the laws of the Church
+directing the whole; all which have two considerations, the one in
+themselves, the other how they stand compatible and agreeable to the
+civil estate.
+
+(24) This matter of divinity is handled either in form of
+instruction of truth, or in form of confutation of falsehood.  The
+declinations from religion, besides the privative, which is atheism
+and the branches thereof, are three--heresies, idolatry, and
+witchcraft:  heresies, when we serve the true God with a false
+worship; idolatry, when we worship false gods, supposing them to be
+true; and witchcraft, when we adore false gods, knowing them to be
+wicked and false.  For so your Majesty doth excellently well
+observe, that witchcraft is the height of idolatry.  And yet we see
+though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that they are all
+of a nature, when there is once a receding from the Word of God; for
+so he saith, Quasi peccatum ariolandi est repugnare, et quasi scelus
+idololatriae nolle acquiescere.
+
+(25) These things I have passed over so briefly because I can report
+no deficiency concerning them:  for I can find no space or ground
+that lieth vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity, so diligent
+have men been either in sowing of good seed, or in sowing of tares.
+
+
+Thus have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual world,
+as truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note and
+description of those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate,
+or not well converted by the labour of man.  In which, if I have in
+any point receded from that which is commonly received, it hath been
+with a purpose of proceeding in melius, and not in aliud; a mind of
+amendment and proficiency, and not of change and difference.  For I
+could not be true and constant to the argument I handle if I were
+not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to
+have others go beyond me again:  which may the better appear by
+this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not
+seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by
+confutations.  For in anything which is well set down, I am in good
+hope that if the first reading move an objection, the second reading
+will make an answer.  And in those things wherein I have erred, I am
+sure I have not prejudiced the right by litigious arguments; which
+certainly have this contrary effect and operation, that they add
+authority to error, and destroy the authority of that which is well
+invented.  For question is an honour and preferment to falsehood, as
+on the other side it is a repulse to truth.  But the errors I claim
+and challenge to myself as mine own.  The good, it any be, is due
+tanquam adeps sacrificii, to be incensed to the honour, first of the
+Divine Majesty, and next of your Majesty, to whom on earth I am most
+bounden.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  Stoops in the rice and takes the speeding gold.  Ovid. Metam,
+x. 667.
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+Title: The Advancement of Learning
+
+Author: Francis Bacon
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5500]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 16, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+</pre>
+<p>
+<a name="startoftext"></a>
+Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell &amp; Company edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+INTRODUCTION.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The TVVOO Bookes of Francis Bacon.&nbsp; Of the proficience and
+aduancement of Learning, divine and humane.&nbsp; To the King.&nbsp;
+At London.&nbsp; Printed for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his
+shop at Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605.&rdquo;&nbsp;  That was the
+original title-page of the book now in the reader&rsquo;s hand - a living
+book that led the way to a new world of thought.&nbsp; It was the book
+in which Bacon, early in the reign of James the First, prepared the
+way for a full setting forth of his New Organon, or instrument of knowledge.<br>
+<br>
+The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which Aristotle had
+written the doctrine of propositions.&nbsp; Study of these treatises
+was a chief occupation of young men when they passed from school to
+college, and proceeded from Grammar to Logic, the second of the Seven
+Sciences.&nbsp; Francis Bacon as a youth of sixteen, at Trinity College,
+Cambridge, felt the unfruitfulness of this method of search after truth.&nbsp;
+He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth&rsquo;s Lord Keeper,
+and was born at York House, in the Strand, on the 22nd of January, 1561.&nbsp;
+His mother was the Lord Keeper&rsquo;s second wife, one of two sisters,
+of whom the other married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh.&nbsp;
+Sir Nicholas Bacon had six children by his former marriage, and by his
+second wife two sons, Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two
+years the elder.&nbsp; The family home was at York Place, and at Gorhambury,
+near St. Albans, from which town, in its ancient and its modern style,
+Bacon afterwards took his titles of Verulam and St. Albans.<br>
+<br>
+Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College, Cambridge,
+when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis twelve.&nbsp; Francis
+remained at Cambridge only until his sixteenth year; and Dr. Rawley,
+his chaplain in after-years, reports of him that &ldquo;whilst he was
+commorant in the University, about sixteen years of age (as his lordship
+hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell into dislike
+of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author,
+to whom he would ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness
+of the way, being a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong
+for disputatious and contentions, but barren of the production of works
+for the benefit of the life of man; in which mind he continued to his
+dying day.&rdquo;&nbsp; Bacon was sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris
+with the ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet, to begin his training for the
+public service; but his father&rsquo;s death, in February, 1579, before
+he had completed the provision he was making for his youngest children,
+obliged him to return to London, and, at the age of eighteen, to settle
+down at Gray&rsquo;s Inn to the study of law as a profession.&nbsp;
+He was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582, and about that time,
+at the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of his conception of a New
+Organon that should lead man to more fruitful knowledge, in a little
+Latin tract, which he called &ldquo;Temporis Partus Maximus&rdquo; (&ldquo;The
+Greatest Birth of Time&rdquo;).<br>
+<br>
+In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons as member
+for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire.&nbsp; In October, 1586, he sat for
+Taunton.&nbsp; He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one
+of those who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of Scots.&nbsp;
+In October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk of
+the Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth &pound;1,600 or &pound;2,000
+a year; but for the succession to this office he had to wait until 1608.&nbsp;
+It had not yet fallen to him when he wrote his &ldquo;Two Books of the
+Advancement of Learning.&rdquo;&nbsp; In the Parliament that met in
+February, 1593, Bacon sat as member for Middlesex.&nbsp; He raised difficulties
+of procedure in the way of the grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection
+to the joining of the Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a
+desire to extend the time allowed for payment from three years to six;
+it was, in fact, extended to four years.&nbsp; The Queen was offended.&nbsp;
+Francis Bacon and his brother Antony had attached themselves to the
+young Earl of Essex, who was their friend and patron.&nbsp; The office
+of Attorney-General became vacant.&nbsp; Essex asked the Queen to appoint
+Francis Bacon.&nbsp; The Queen gave the office to Sir Edward Coke, who
+was already Solicitor-General, and by nine years Bacon&rsquo;s senior.&nbsp;
+The office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and that was sought
+for Francis Bacon.&nbsp; The Queen, after delay and hesitation, gave
+it, in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming.&nbsp; The Earl of Essex
+consoled his friend by giving him &ldquo;a piece of land&rdquo; - Twickenham
+Park - which Bacon afterwards sold for &pound;1,800 - equal, say, to
+&pound;12,000 in present buying power.&nbsp; In 1597 Bacon was returned
+to Parliament as member for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping
+to marry the rich widow of Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the
+lady married, in the next year, Sir Edward Coke.&nbsp; It was in 1597
+that Bacon published the First Edition of his Essays.&nbsp; That was
+a little book containing only ten essays in English, with twelve &ldquo;Meditationes
+Sacr&aelig;,&rdquo; which were essays in Latin on religious subjects.&nbsp;
+From 1597 onward to the end of his life, Bacon&rsquo;s Essays were subject
+to continuous addition and revision.&nbsp; The author&rsquo;s Second
+Edition, in which the number of the Essays was increased from ten to
+thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December, 1612, seven
+years later than these two books on the &ldquo;Advancement of Learning;&rdquo;
+and the final edition of the Essays, in which their number was increased
+from thirty-eight to fifty-eight, appeared only in 1625; and Bacon died
+on the 9th of April, 1626.&nbsp; The edition of the Essays published
+in 1597, under Elizabeth, marked only the beginning of a course of thought
+that afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in philosophy.<br>
+<br>
+In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex.&nbsp; Francis Bacon
+had separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that was
+disregarded.&nbsp; Bacon, now Queen&rsquo;s Counsel, not only appeared
+against his old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps,
+he hoped to win back the Queen&rsquo;s favour, he twice obtruded violent
+attacks upon Essex when he was not called upon to speak.&nbsp; On the
+25th of February, 1601, Essex was beheaded.&nbsp; The genius of Bacon
+was next employed to justify that act by &ldquo;A Declaration of the
+Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late Earle
+of Essex and his Complices.&rdquo;&nbsp; But James of Scotland, on whose
+behalf Essex had intervened, came to the throne by the death of Elizabeth
+on the 24th of March, 1603.&nbsp; Bacon was among the crowd of men who
+were made knights by James I., and he had to justify himself under the
+new order of things by writing &ldquo;Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie
+in certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He was returned to the first Parliament of James I. by Ipswich and St.
+Albans, and he was confirmed in his office of King&rsquo;s Counsel in
+August, 1604; but he was not appointed to the office of Solicitor-General
+when it became vacant in that year.<br>
+<br>
+That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published this
+work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of learning
+from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of the studies
+chosen, or the way of dealing with them.&nbsp; This came, he said, especially
+by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge,
+as if there were sought in it &ldquo;a couch whereupon to rest a searching
+and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind
+to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a
+proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for
+strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich
+storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man&rsquo;s
+estate.&rdquo;&nbsp; The rest of the First Book was given to an argument
+upon the Dignity of Learning; and the Second Book, on the Advancement
+of Learning, is, as Bacon himself described it, &ldquo;a general and
+faithful perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof
+lie fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry
+of man; to the end that such a plot made and recorded to memory may
+both minister light to any public designation and also serve to excite
+voluntary endeavours.&rdquo;&nbsp; Bacon makes, by a sort of exhaustive
+analysis, a ground-plan of all subjects of study, as an intellectual
+map, helping the right inquirer in his search for the right path.&nbsp;
+The right path is that by which he has the best chance of adding to
+the stock of knowledge in the world something worth labouring for; and
+the true worth is in labour for &ldquo;the glory of the Creator and
+the relief of man&rsquo;s estate.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+H. M.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+THE FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON; OF THE PROFICIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT
+OF LEARNING, DIVINE AND HUMAN.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<i>To the King.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</i>There were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices
+and freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon ordinary observance,
+the other upon a devout cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth
+to kings from their servants both tribute of duty and presents of affection.&nbsp;
+In the former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting, according
+to my most humble duty and the good pleasure of your Majesty&rsquo;s
+employments: for the latter, I thought it more respective to make choice
+of some oblation which might rather refer to the propriety and excellency
+of your individual person, than to the business of your crown and state.<br>
+<br>
+Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind, and beholding
+you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to discover that which
+the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but with the observant eye
+of duty and admiration, leaving aside the other parts of your virtue
+and fortune, I have been touched - yea, and possessed - with an extreme
+wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the philosophers call
+intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of your
+memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration of your
+judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution: and I have often
+thought that of all the persons living that I have known, your Majesty
+were the best instance to make a man of Plato&rsquo;s opinion, that
+all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by Nature
+knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original notions
+(which by the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the body
+are sequestered) again revived and restored: such a light of Nature
+I have observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame
+and blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark of another&rsquo;s
+knowledge delivered.&nbsp; And as the Scripture saith of the wisest
+king, &ldquo;That his heart was as the sands of the sea;&rdquo; which,
+though it be one of the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest
+and finest portions; so hath God given your Majesty a composition of
+understanding admirable, being able to compass and comprehend the greatest
+matters, and nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least; whereas
+it should seem an impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to
+make itself fit for great and small works.&nbsp; And for your gift of
+speech, I call to mind what Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus C&aelig;sar:
+<i>Augusto</i> <i>profluens</i>,<i> et qu&aelig; principem deceret</i>,<i>
+eloquentia fuit</i>.&nbsp; For if we note it well, speech that is uttered
+with labour and difficulty, or speech that savoureth of the affectation
+of art and precepts, or speech that is framed after the imitation of
+some pattern of eloquence, though never so excellent; all this hath
+somewhat servile, and holding of the subject.&nbsp; But your Majesty&rsquo;s
+manner of speech is, indeed, prince-like, flowing as from a fountain,
+and yet streaming and branching itself into Nature&rsquo;s order, full
+of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any.&nbsp;
+And as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emulation and contention
+of your Majesty&rsquo;s virtue with your fortune; a virtuous disposition
+with a fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time was) of
+your greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the due
+time; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with most blessed
+and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and most Christian desire of
+peace, with a fortunate inclination in your neighbour princes thereunto:
+so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be no less
+contention between the excellency of your Majesty&rsquo;s gifts of Nature
+and the universality and perfection of your learning.&nbsp; For I am
+well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all,
+but a positive and measured truth; which is, that there hath not been
+since Christ&rsquo;s time any king or temporal monarch which hath been
+so learned in all literature and erudition, divine and human.&nbsp;
+For let a man seriously and diligently revolve and peruse the succession
+of the Emperors of Rome, of which C&aelig;sar the Dictator (who lived
+some years before Christ) and Marcus Antoninus were the best learned,
+and so descend to the Emperors of Gr&aelig;cia, or of the West, and
+then to the lines of France, Spain, England, Scotland, and the rest,
+and he shall find this judgment is truly made.&nbsp; For it seemeth
+much in a king if, by the compendious extractions of other men&rsquo;s
+wits and labours, he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and
+shows of learning, or if he countenance and prefer learning and learned
+men; but to drink, indeed, of the true fountains of learning - nay,
+to have such a fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a
+king born - is almost a miracle.&nbsp; And the more, because there is
+met in your Majesty a rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred
+literature as of profane and human; so as your Majesty standeth invested
+of that triplicity, which in great veneration was ascribed to the ancient
+Hermes: the power and fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination
+of a priest, and the learning and universality of a philosopher.&nbsp;
+This propriety inherent and individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth
+to be expressed not only in the fame and admiration of the present time,
+nor in the history or tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in
+some solid work, fixed memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a character
+or signature both of the power of a king and the difference and perfection
+of such a king.<br>
+<br>
+Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make unto your
+Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending to that end,
+whereof the sum will consist of these two parts: the former concerning
+the excellency of learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the
+merit and true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof; the
+latter, what the particular acts and works are which have been embraced
+and undertaken for the advancement of learning; and again, what defects
+and undervalues I find in such particular acts: to the end that though
+I cannot positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound
+unto you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely cogitations
+to visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, and thence to extract
+particulars for this purpose agreeable to your magnanimity and wisdom.<br>
+<br>
+I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these - to clear the way and,
+as it were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning
+the dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption
+of tacit objections - I think good to deliver it from the discredits
+and disgraces which it hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance
+severally disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of
+divines, sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of politics, and sometimes
+in the errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.<br>
+<br>
+(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those things which
+are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution; that the aspiring
+to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and sin whereupon
+ensued the fall of man; that knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent,
+and, therefore, where it entereth into a man it makes him swell; <i>Scientia
+inflat</i>; that Solomon gives a censure, &ldquo;That there is no end
+of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the flesh;&rdquo;
+and again in another place, &ldquo;That in spacious knowledge there
+is much contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth
+anxiety;&rdquo; that Saint Paul gives a caveat, &ldquo;That we be not
+spoiled through vain philosophy;&rdquo; that experience demonstrates
+how learned men have been arch-heretics, how learned times have been
+inclined to atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes doth
+derogate from our dependence upon God, who is the first cause.<br>
+<br>
+(3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, and
+the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well appear these
+men do not observe or consider that it was not the pure knowledge of
+Nature and universality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give
+names unto other creatures in Paradise as they were brought before him
+according unto their proprieties, which gave the occasion to the fall;
+but it was the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man
+to give law unto himself, and to depend no more upon God&rsquo;s commandments,
+which was the form of the temptation.&nbsp; Neither is it any quantity
+of knowledge, how great soever, that can make the mind of man to swell;
+for nothing can fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God and
+the contemplation of God; and, therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two
+principal senses of inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that
+the eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and
+if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than the content:
+so of knowledge itself and the mind of man, whereto the senses are but
+reporters, he defineth likewise in these words, placed after that calendar
+or ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of times and seasons
+for all actions and purposes, and concludeth thus: &ldquo;God hath made
+all things beautiful, or decent, in the true return of their seasons.&nbsp;
+Also He hath placed the world in man&rsquo;s heart, yet cannot man find
+out the work which God worketh from the beginning to the end&rdquo;
+- declaring not obscurely that God hath framed the mind of man as a
+mirror or glass, capable of the image of the universal world, and joyful
+to receive the impression thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light;
+and not only delighted in beholding the variety of things and vicissitude
+of times, but raised also to find out and discern the ordinances and
+decrees which throughout all those changes are infallibly observed.&nbsp;
+And although he doth insinuate that the supreme or summary law of Nature
+(which he calleth &ldquo;the work which God worketh from the beginning
+to the end&rdquo;) is not possible to be found out by man, yet that
+doth not derogate from the capacity of the mind; but may be referred
+to the impediments, as of shortness of life, ill conjunction of labours,
+ill tradition of knowledge over from hand to hand, and many other inconveniences,
+whereunto the condition of man is subject.&nbsp; For that nothing parcel
+of the world is denied to man&rsquo;s inquiry and invention, he doth
+in another place rule over, when he saith, &ldquo;The spirit of man
+is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the inwardness of all
+secrets.&rdquo;&nbsp; If, then, such be the capacity and receipt of
+the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no danger at all in the
+proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it should
+make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality
+of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken
+without the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature of venom
+or malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or
+swelling.&nbsp; This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge
+so sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to the
+former clause; for so he saith, &ldquo;Knowledge bloweth up, but charity
+buildeth up;&rdquo; not unlike unto that which he deilvereth in another
+place: &ldquo;If I spake,&rdquo; saith he, &ldquo;with the tongues of
+men and angels, and had not charity, it were but as a tinkling cymbal.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Not but that it is an excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men
+and angels, but because, if it be severed from charity, and not referred
+to the good of men and mankind, it hath rather a sounding and unworthy
+glory than a meriting and substantial virtue.&nbsp; And as for that
+censure of Solomon concerning the excess of writing and reading books,
+and the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth from knowledge, and that
+admonition of St. Paul, &ldquo;That we be not seduced by vain philosophy,&rdquo;
+let those places be rightly understood; and they do, indeed, excellently
+set forth the true bounds and limitations whereby human knowledge is
+confined and circumscribed, and yet without any such contracting or
+coarctation, but that it may comprehend all the universal nature of
+things; for these limitations are three: the first, &ldquo;That we do
+not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality;&rdquo;
+the second, &ldquo;That we make application of our knowledge, to give
+ourselves repose and contentment, and not distaste or repining;&rdquo;
+the third, &ldquo;That we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature
+to attain to the mysteries of God.&rdquo;&nbsp; For as touching the
+first of these, Solomon doth excellently expound himself in another
+place of the same book, where he saith: &ldquo;I saw well that knowledge
+recedeth as far from ignorance as light doth from darkness; and that
+the wise man&rsquo;s eyes keep watch in his head, whereas this fool
+roundeth about in darkness: but withal I learned that the same mortality
+involveth them both.&rdquo;&nbsp; And for the second, certain it is
+there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which resulteth from knowledge
+otherwise than merely by accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which
+is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but
+when men fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying
+it to their particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak fears
+or vast desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble of mind
+which is spoken of; for then knowledge is no more <i>Lumen siccum</i>,
+whereof Heraclitus the profound said, <i>Lumen siccum optima anima</i>;
+but it becometh <i>Lumen madidum</i>, or <i>maceratum</i>, being steeped
+and infused in the humours of the affections.&nbsp; And as for the third
+point, it deserveth to be a little stood upon, and not to be lightly
+passed over; for if any man shall think by view and inquiry into these
+sensible and material things to attain that light, whereby he may reveal
+unto himself the nature or will of God, then, indeed, is he spoiled
+by vain philosophy; for the contemplation of God&rsquo;s creatures and
+works produceth (having regard to the works and creatures themselves)
+knowledge, but having regard to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder,
+which is broken knowledge.&nbsp; And, therefore, it was most aptly said
+by one of Plato&rsquo;s school, &ldquo;That the sense of man carrieth
+a resemblance with the sun, which (as we see) openeth and revealeth
+all the terrestrial globe; but then, again, it obscureth and concealeth
+the stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense discover natural things,
+but it darkeneth and shutteth up divine.&rdquo;&nbsp; And hence it is
+true that it hath proceeded, that divers great learned men have been
+heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the secrets of the Deity
+by this waxen wings of the senses.&nbsp; And as for the conceit that
+too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that the ignorance
+of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon God, which
+is the first cause; first, it is good to ask the question which Job
+asked of his friends: &ldquo;Will you lie for God, as one man will lie
+for another, to gratify him?&rdquo;&nbsp; For certain it is that God
+worketh nothing in Nature but by second causes; and if they would have
+it otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards
+God, and nothing else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean
+sacrifice of a lie.&nbsp; But further, it is an assured truth, and a
+conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
+philosophy may incline the mind of men to atheism, but a further proceeding
+therein doth bring the mind back again to religion.&nbsp; For in the
+entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto
+the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and
+stay there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when
+a man passeth on further and seeth the dependence of causes and the
+works of Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he
+will easily believe that the highest link of Nature&rsquo;s chain must
+needs he tied to the foot of Jupiter&rsquo;s chair.&nbsp; To conclude,
+therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied
+moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too
+well studied in the book of God&rsquo;s word, or in the book of God&rsquo;s
+works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless
+progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply
+both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation;
+and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings
+together.<br>
+<br>
+II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from politics,
+they be of this nature: that learning doth soften men&rsquo;s minds,
+and makes them more unapt for the honour and exercise of arms; that
+it doth mar and pervert men&rsquo;s dispositions for matter of government
+and policy, in making them too curious and irresolute by variety of
+reading, or too peremptory or positive by strictness of rules and axioms,
+or too immoderate and overweening by reason of the greatness of examples,
+or too incompatible and differing from the times by reason of the dissimilitude
+of examples; or at least, that it doth divert men&rsquo;s travails from
+action and business, and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness;
+and that it doth bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst
+every man is more ready to argue than to obey and execute.&nbsp; Out
+of this conceit Cato, surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed
+that ever lived, when Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to
+Rome, and that the young men of Rome began to flock about him, being
+allured with the sweetness and majesty of his eloquence and learning,
+gave counsel in open senate that they should give him his despatch with
+all speed, lest he should infect and enchant the minds and affections
+of the youth, and at unawares bring in an alteration of the manners
+and customs of the state.&nbsp; Out of the same conceit or humour did
+Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage of his country and the disadvantage
+of his own profession, make a kind of separation between policy and
+government, and between arts and sciences, in the verses so much renowned,
+attributing and challenging the one to the Romans, and leaving and yielding
+the other to the Grecians: <i>Tu regere imperio popules</i>, <i>Romane</i>,
+<i>memento</i>, <i>H&aelig; tibi erunt artes</i>, &amp;c.&nbsp; So likewise
+we see that Anytus, the accuser of Socrates, laid it as an article of
+charge and accusation against him, that he did, with the variety and
+power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men from due
+reverence to the laws and customs of their country, and that he did
+profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the worse
+matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence
+and speech.<br>
+<br>
+(2) But these and the like imputations have rather a countenance of
+gravity than any ground of justice: for experience doth warrant that,
+both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and concurrence
+in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and
+the same ages.&nbsp; For as &lsquo;for men, there cannot be a better
+nor the hike instance as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius
+C&aelig;sar, the Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle&rsquo;s scholar
+in philosophy, and the other was Cicero&rsquo;s rival in eloquence;
+or if any man had rather call for scholars that were great generals,
+than generals that were great scholars, let him take Epaminondas the
+Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian; whereof the one was the first that
+abated the power of Sparta, and the other was the first that made way
+to the overthrow of the monarchy of Persia.&nbsp; And this concurrence
+is yet more visible in times than in persons, by how much an age is
+greater object than a man.&nbsp; For both in Egypt, Assyria, Persia,
+Gr&aelig;cia, and Rome, the same times that are most renowned for arms
+are, likewise, most admired for learning, so that the greatest authors
+and philosophers, and the greatest captains and governors, have lived
+in the same ages.&nbsp; Neither can it otherwise he: for as in man the
+ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much about an age,
+save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the more early, so
+in states, arms and learning, whereof the one correspondeth to the body,
+the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or near sequence in
+times.<br>
+<br>
+(3) And for matter of policy and government, that learning, should rather
+hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable; we see it is
+accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians, which
+commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are confident and
+adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions
+of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures; we
+see it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are only
+men of practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many times
+easily surprised when matter falleth out besides their experience, to
+the prejudice of the causes they handle: so by like reason it cannot
+be but a matter of doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric
+statesmen, not well mingled with men grounded in learning.&nbsp; But
+contrariwise, it is almost without instance contradictory that ever
+any government was disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors.&nbsp;
+For howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and
+disable learned men by the names of <i>pedantes</i>; yet in the records
+of time it appeareth in many particulars that the governments of princes
+in minority (notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind
+of state) - have nevertheless excelled the government of princes of
+mature age, even for that reason which they seek to traduce, which is
+that by that occasion the state hath been in the hands of <i>pedantes</i>:
+for so was the state of Rome for the first five years, which are so
+much magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca,
+a <i>pedenti</i>; so it was again, for ten years&rsquo; space or more,
+during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great applause and
+contentation in the hands of Misitheus, a <i>pedanti</i>: so was it
+before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus, in like happiness,
+in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the women, who were
+aided by the teachers and preceptors.&nbsp; Nay, let a man look into
+the government of the Bishops of Rome, as by name, into the government
+of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who were both at their
+entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find that such
+Popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of state,
+than those which have ascended to the papacy from an education and breeding
+in affairs of state and courts of princes; for although men bred in
+learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and accommodating
+for the present, which the Italians call <i>ragioni di stato</i>, whereof
+the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with patience, terming them
+inventions against religion and the moral virtues; yet on the other
+side, to recompense that, they are perfect in those same plain grounds
+of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, which if they be well
+and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of those other, no
+more than of physic in a sound or well-dieted body.&nbsp; Neither can
+the experience of one man&rsquo;s life furnish examples and precedents
+for the event of one man&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; For as it happeneth sometimes
+that the grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more
+than the son; so many times occurrences of present times may sort better
+with ancient examples than with those of the later or immediate times;
+and lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning than
+one man&rsquo;s means can hold way with a common purse.<br>
+<br>
+(4) And as for those particular seducements or indispositions of the
+mind for policy and government, which learning is pretended to insinuate;
+if it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered withal
+that learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine
+or remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity.&nbsp;
+For if by a secret operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on
+the other side by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what
+ground to resolve; yea, and how to carry things in suspense, without
+prejudice, till they resolve.&nbsp; If it make men positive and regular,
+it teacheth them what things are in their nature demonstrative, and
+what are conjectural, and as well the use of distinctions and exceptions,
+as the latitude of principles and rules.&nbsp; If it mislead by disproportion
+or dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances,
+the errors of comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that
+in all these it doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert.&nbsp;
+And these medicines it conveyeth into men&rsquo;s minds much more forcibly
+by the quickness and penetration of examples.&nbsp; For let a man look
+into the errors of Clement VII., so lively described by Guicciardini,
+who served under him, or into the errors of Cicero, painted out by his
+own pencil in his Epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being
+irresolute.&nbsp; Let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will
+beware how he be obstinate or inflexible.&nbsp; Let him but read the
+fable of Ixion, and it will hold him from being vaporous or imaginative.&nbsp;
+Let him look into the errors of Cato II., and he will never be one of
+the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the present world.<br>
+<br>
+(5) And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to leisure
+and privateness, and make men slothful: it were a strange thing if that
+which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should
+induce slothfulness, whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed
+that no kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned;
+for other persons love it for profit, as a hireling that loves the work
+for the wages; or for honour, as because it beareth them up in the eyes
+of men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear;
+or because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them
+occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth some
+faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good-humour
+and pleasing conceits towards themselves; or because it advanceth any
+other their ends.&nbsp; So that as it is said of untrue valours, that
+some men&rsquo;s valours are in the eyes of them that look on, so such
+men&rsquo;s industries are in the eyes of others, or, at least, in regard
+of their own designments; only learned men love business as an action
+according to nature, as agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to
+health of body, taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the
+purchase, so that of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it
+be towards any business which can hold or detain their mind.<br>
+<br>
+(6) And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle in
+business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or softness
+of spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of: <i>Quidam tam sunt umbratiles</i>,<i>
+ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est</i>; and not of learning:
+well may it be that such a point of a man&rsquo;s nature may make him
+give himself to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such
+point in his nature.<br>
+<br>
+(7) And that learning should take up too much time or leisure: I answer,
+the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath (no question)
+many vacant times of leisure while he expecteth the tides and returns
+of business (except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly
+and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done
+by others), and then the question is but how those spaces and times
+of leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in pleasure or in studies;
+as was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary &AElig;schines,
+that was a man given to pleasure, and told him &ldquo;That his orations
+did smell of the lamp.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Demosthenes,
+&ldquo;there is a great difference between the things that you and I
+do by lamp-light.&rdquo;&nbsp; So as no man need doubt that learning
+will expel business, but rather it will keep and defend the possession
+of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares
+may enter to the prejudice of both.<br>
+<br>
+(8) Again, for that other conceit that learning should undermine the
+reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation
+and calumny, without all shadow of truth.&nbsp; For to say that a blind
+custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and
+understood, it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide
+than a seeing man can by a light.&nbsp; And it is without all controversy
+that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable,
+and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart,
+and mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering
+that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject
+to tumults, seditious, and changes.<br>
+<br>
+(9) And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well punished
+for his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he offended;
+for when he was past threescore years old, he was taken with an extreme
+desire to go to school again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to the
+end to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well demonstrate that his
+former censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity,
+than according to the inward sense of his own opinion.&nbsp; And as
+for Virgil&rsquo;s verses, though it pleased him to brave the world
+in taking to the Romans the art of empire, and leaving to others the
+arts of subjects, yet so much is manifest - that the Romans never ascended
+to that height of empire till the time they had ascended to the height
+of other arts.&nbsp; For in the time of the two first C&aelig;sars,
+which had the art of government in greatest perfection, there lived
+the best poet, Virgilius Maro; the best historiographer, Titus Livius;
+the best antiquary, Marcus Varro; and the best or second orator, Marcus
+Cicero, that to the memory of man are known.&nbsp; As for the accusation
+of Socrates, the time must be remembered when it was prosecuted; which
+was under the Thirty Tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious persons
+that have governed; which revolution of state was no sooner over but
+Socrates, whom they had made a person criminal, was made a person heroical,
+and his memory accumulate with honours divine and human; and those discourses
+of his which were then termed corrupting of manners, were after acknowledged
+for sovereign medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been received
+ever since till this day.&nbsp; Let this, therefore, serve for answer
+to politiques, which in their humorous severity, or in their feigned
+gravity, have presumed to throw imputations upon learning; which redargution
+nevertheless (save that we know not whether our labours may extend to
+other ages) were not needful for the present, in regard of the love
+and reverence towards learning which the example and countenance of
+two so learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as Castor
+and Pollux, <i>lucida sidera</i>, stars of excellent light and most
+benign influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority in
+our nation.<br>
+<br>
+III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or diminution
+of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men themselves, which
+commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their fortune, or from
+their manners, or from the nature of their studies.&nbsp; For the first,
+it is not in their power; and the second is accidental; the third only
+is proper to be handled: but because we are not in hand with true measure,
+but with popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat
+of the two former.&nbsp; The derogations therefore which grow to learning
+from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either in respect
+of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life and meanness
+of employments.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually
+to begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as other men, by
+reason they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase,
+it were good to leave the commonplace in commendation of povery to some
+friar to handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this point
+when he said, &ldquo;That the kingdom of the clergy had been long before
+at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the poverty of friars
+had not borne out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of bishops
+and prelates.&rdquo;&nbsp; So a man might say that the felicity and
+delicacy of princes and great persons had long since turned to rudeness
+and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had not kept up civility and
+honour of life; but without any such advantages, it is worthy the observation
+what a reverent and honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages
+in the Roman state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes.&nbsp;
+For we see what Titus Livius saith in his introduction:<i> C&aelig;terum
+aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec
+major</i>,<i> nec sanctior</i>,<i> nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit; nec
+in quam tam sero avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint; nec ubi tantus ac
+tam diu paupertati ac parsimoni&aelig; honos fuerit</i>.&nbsp; We see
+likewise, after that the state of Rome was not itself, but did degenerate,
+how that person that took upon him to be counsellor to Julius C&aelig;sar
+after his victory where to begin his restoration of the state, maketh
+it of all points the most summary to take away the estimation of wealth:
+<i>Verum h&aelig;c et omnia mala pariter cum honore pecuni&aelig; desinent;
+si neque magistratus</i>,<i> neque alia vulgo cupienda</i>,<i> venalia
+erunt</i>.&nbsp; To conclude this point: as it was truly said that <i>Paupertas
+est virtutis fortuna</i>, though sometimes it come from vice, so it
+may be fitly said that, though some times it may proceed from misgovernment
+and accident.&nbsp; Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure,
+<i>Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons</i>; and in precept, &ldquo;Buy
+the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and knowledge;&rdquo; judging
+that means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied
+to means.&nbsp; And as for the privateness or obscureness (as it may
+be in vulgar estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men, it
+is a theme so common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality
+and sloth, in comparison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for
+safety, liberty, pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity,
+as no man handleth it but handleth it well; such a consonancy it hath
+to men&rsquo;s conceits in the expressing, and to men&rsquo;s consents
+in the allowing.&nbsp; This only I will add, that learned men forgotten
+in states and not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of
+Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia, of which, not being represented
+as many others were, Tacitus saith, <i>Eo ipso pr&aelig;fulgebant quod
+non visebantur</i>.<br>
+<br>
+(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most traduced to contempt
+is that the government of youth is commonly allotted to them; which
+age, because it is the age of least authority, it is transferred to
+the disesteeming of those employments wherein youth is conversant, and
+which are conversant about youth.&nbsp; But how unjust this traducement
+is (if you will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure
+of reason) may appear in that we see men are more curious what they
+put into a new vessel than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould they
+lay about a young plant than about a plant corroborate; so as this weakest
+terms and times of all things use to have the best applications and
+helps.&nbsp; And will you hearken to the Hebrew rabbins?&nbsp; &ldquo;Your
+young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:&rdquo;
+say they, youth is the worthier age, for that visions are nearer apparitions
+of God than dreams?&nbsp; And let it be noted that howsoever the condition
+of life of <i>pedantes</i> hath been scorned upon theatres, as the ape
+of tyranny; and that the modern looseness or negligence hath taken no
+due regard to the choice of schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient
+wisdom of the best times did always make a just complaint, that states
+were too busy with their laws and too negligent in point of education:
+which excellent part of ancient discipline hath been in some sort revived
+of late times by the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard
+of their superstition I may say, <i>Quo meliores</i>,<i> eo deteriores</i>;
+yet in regard of this, and some other points concerning human learning
+and moral matters, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus,
+<i>Talis quum sis</i>,<i> utunam noster esses</i>.&nbsp; And that much
+touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of learned men.<br>
+<br>
+(4) As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing personal and
+individual: and no doubt there be amongst them, as in other professions,
+of all temperatures: but yet so as it is not without truth which is
+said, that <i>Abeunt studua in mores</i>, studies have an influence
+and operation upon the manners of those that are conversant in them.<br>
+<br>
+(5) But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my part cannot
+find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of learned
+men; not inherent to them as they are learned; except it be a fault
+(which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato II., Seneca,
+and many more) that because the times they read of are commonly better
+than the times they live in, and the duties taught better than the duties
+practised, they contend sometimes too far to bring things to perfection,
+and to reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of precepts or examples
+of too great height.&nbsp; And yet hereof they have caveats enough in
+their own walks.&nbsp; For Solon, when he was asked whether he had given
+his citizens the best laws, answered wisely, &ldquo;Yea, of such as
+they would receive:&rdquo; and Plato, finding that his own heart could
+not agree with the corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear place
+or office, saying, &ldquo;That a man&rsquo;s country was to be used
+as his parents were, that is, with humble persuasions, and not with
+contestations.&rdquo;&nbsp; And C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s counsellor put in
+the same caveat, <i>Non ad vetera instituta revocans qu&aelig; jampridem
+corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt</i>; and Cicero noteth this error directly
+in Cato II. when he writes to his friend Atticus, <i>Cato optime sentit</i>,<i>
+sed nocet interdum reipublic&aelig;; loquitur enim tanquam in republic&acirc;
+Platonis</i>,<i> non tanquam in f&aelig;ce Romuli</i>.&nbsp; And the
+same Cicero doth excuse and expound the philosophers for going too far
+and being too exact in their prescripts when he saith, <i>Isti ipse
+pr&aelig;ceptores virtutis et magistri videntur fines officiorum paulo
+longius quam natura vellet protulisse</i>,<i> ut cum ad ultimum animo
+contendissemus</i>,<i> ibi tamen</i>,<i> ubi oportet</i>,<i> consisteremus</i>:
+and yet himself might have said, <i>Monitis sum minor ipse meis</i>;
+for it was his own fault, though not in so extreme a degree.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been incident to learned
+men, which is, that they have esteemed the preservation, good, and honour
+of their countries or masters before their own fortunes or safeties.&nbsp;
+For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians: &ldquo;If it please you
+to note it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should grow
+great amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians; but they
+be of that nature as they are sometimes not good for me to give, but
+are always good for you to follow.&rdquo;&nbsp; And so Seneca, after
+he had consecrated that <i>Quinquennium Neronis</i> to the eternal glory
+of learned governors, held on his honest and loyal course of good and
+free counsel after his master grew extremely corrupt in his government.&nbsp;
+Neither can this point otherwise be, for learning endueth men&rsquo;s
+minds with a true sense of the frailty of their persons, the casualty
+of their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and vocation, so that
+it is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness of their own
+fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being and ordainment, and
+therefore are desirous to give their account to God, and so likewise
+to their masters under God (as kings and the states that they serve)
+in those words, <i>Ecce tibi lucrefeci</i>, and not <i>Ecce mihi lucrefeci</i>;
+whereas the corrupter sort of mere politiques, that have not their thoughts
+established by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor never
+look abroad into universality, do refer all things to themselves, and
+thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as if all lines should
+meet in them and their fortunes, never caring in all tempests what becomes
+of the ship of state, so they may save themselves in the cockboat of
+their own fortune; whereas men that feel the weight of duty and know
+the limits of self-love use to make good their places and duties, though
+with peril; and if they stand in seditious and violent alterations,
+it is rather the reverence which many times both adverse parts do give
+to honesty, than any versatile advantage of their own carriage.&nbsp;
+But for this point of tender sense and fast obligation of duty which
+learning doth endue the mind withal, howsoever fortune may tax it, and
+many in the depth of their corrupt principles may despise it, yet it
+will receive an open allowance, and therefore needs the less disproof
+or excuse.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be more
+properly defended than truly denied, is that they fail sometimes in
+applying themselves to particular persons, which want of exact application
+ariseth from two causes - the one, because the largeness of their mind
+can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite observation or examination
+of the nature and customs of one person, for it is a speech for a lover,
+and not for a wise man, <i>Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus</i>.&nbsp;
+Nevertheless I shall yield that he that cannot contract the sight of
+his mind as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty.&nbsp;
+But there is a second cause, which is no inability, but a rejection
+upon choice and judgment.&nbsp; For the honest and just bounds of observation
+by one person upon another extend no further but to understand him sufficiently,
+whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful
+counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution in respect
+of a man&rsquo;s self.&nbsp; But to be speculative into another man
+to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth
+from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous;
+which as in friendship it is want of integrity, so towards princes or
+superiors is want of duty.&nbsp; For the custom of the Levant, which
+is that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix their eyes upon princes,
+is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but the moral is good; for men
+ought not, by cunning and bent observations, to pierce and penetrate
+into the hearts of kings, which the Scripture hath declared to be inscrutable.<br>
+<br>
+(8) There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part)
+which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to
+observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and
+commit errors in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar
+sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by
+that which they find wanting in them in smaller.&nbsp; But this consequence
+doth oft deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which was
+said by Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself
+out of his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this
+question, pertinently and justly, when, being invited to touch a lute,
+he said, &ldquo;He could not fiddle, but he could make a small town
+a great state.&rdquo;&nbsp; So no doubt many may be well seen in the
+passages of government and policy which are to seek in little and punctual
+occasions.&nbsp; I refer them also to that which Plato said of his master
+Socrates, whom he compared to the gallipots of apothecaries, which on
+the outside had apes and owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign
+and precious liquors and confections; acknowledging that, to an external
+report, he was not without superficial levities and deformities, but
+was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues and powers.&nbsp; And
+so much touching the point of manners of learned men.<br>
+<br>
+(9) But in the meantime I have no purpose to give allowance to some
+conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors
+of learning have wronged themselves and gone too far; such as were those
+trencher philosophers which in the later age of the Roman state were
+usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn
+parasites, of which kind, Lucian maketh a merry description of the philosopher
+that the great lady took to ride with her in her coach, and would needs
+have him carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and yet uncomely,
+the page scoffed and said, &ldquo;That he doubted the philosopher of
+a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic.&rdquo;&nbsp; But, above all the rest,
+this gross and palpable flattery whereunto many not unlearned have abased
+and abused their wits and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba
+into Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price
+and estimation of learning.&nbsp; Neither is the modern dedication of
+books and writings, as to patrons, to be commended, for that books (such
+as are worthy the name of books) ought to have no patrons but truth
+and reason.&nbsp; And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to
+private and equal friends, or to entitle the books with their names;
+or if to kings and great persons, it was to some such as the argument
+of the book was fit and proper for; but these and the like courses may
+deserve rather reprehension than defence.<br>
+<br>
+(10) Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application of
+learned men to men in fortune.&nbsp; For the answer was good that Diogenes
+made to one that asked him in mockery, &ldquo;How it came to pass that
+philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He answered soberly, and yet sharply, &ldquo;Because the one sort knew
+what they had need of, and the other did not.&rdquo;&nbsp; And of the
+like nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having a petition
+to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon
+Dionysius stayed and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and afterwards
+some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus
+that he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as
+for a private suit to fall at a tyrant&rsquo;s feet; but he answered,
+&ldquo;It was not his fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that
+had his ears in his feet.&rdquo;&nbsp; Neither was it accounted weakness,
+but discretion, in him that would not dispute his best with Adrianus
+C&aelig;sar, excusing himself, &ldquo;That it was reason to yield to
+him that commanded thirty legions.&rdquo;&nbsp; These and the like,
+applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience, cannot
+be disallowed; for though they may have some outward baseness, yet in
+a judgment truly made they are to be accounted submissions to the occasion
+and not to the person.<br>
+<br>
+IV. (1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have intervened
+amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is that which is
+principal and proper to the present argument; wherein my purpose is
+not to make a justification of the errors, but by a censure and separation
+of the errors to make a justification of that which is good and sound,
+and to deliver that from the aspersion of the other.&nbsp; For we see
+that it is the manner of men to scandalise and deprave that which retaineth
+the state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is corrupt
+and degenerate, as the heathens in the primitive Church used to blemish
+and taint the Christians with the faults and corruptions of heretics.&nbsp;
+But nevertheless I have no meaning at this time to make any exact animadversion
+of the errors and impediments in matters of learning, which are more
+secret and remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto such as
+do fall under or near unto a popular observation.<br>
+<br>
+(2) There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby learning
+hath been most traduced.&nbsp; For those things we do esteem vain which
+are either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth or no
+use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either credulous or
+curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason
+as well as in experience there fall out to be these three distempers
+(as I may term them) of learning - the first, fantastical learning;
+the second, contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning; vain
+imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the
+last I will begin.&nbsp; Martin Luther, conducted, no doubt, by a higher
+Providence, but in discourse of reason, finding what a province he had
+undertaken against the Bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions
+of the Church, and finding his own solitude, being in nowise aided by
+the opinions of his own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and
+to call former times to his succours to make a party against the present
+time.&nbsp; So that the ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity,
+which had long time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and
+revolved.&nbsp; This, by consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more
+exquisite travail in the languages original, wherein those authors did
+write, for the better understanding of those authors, and the better
+advantage of pressing and applying their words.&nbsp; And thereof grew,
+again, a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an admiration
+of that kind of writing, which was much furthered and precipitated by
+the enmity and opposition that the propounders of those primitive but
+seeming new opinions had against the schoolmen, who were generally of
+the contrary part, and whose writings were altogether in a differing
+style and form; taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to
+express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard
+to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of
+the phrase or word.&nbsp; And again, because the great labour then was
+with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, <i>Execrabilis
+ista turba</i>,<i> qu&aelig; non novit legem</i>), for the winning and
+persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request
+eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access
+into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes concurring
+- the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the
+exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching - did bring
+in an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then
+began to flourish.&nbsp; This grew speedily to an excess; for men began
+to hunt more after words than matter - more after the choiceness of
+the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and
+the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of
+their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter,
+worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth
+of judgment.&nbsp; Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius,
+the Portugal bishop, to be in price.&nbsp; Then did Sturmius spend such
+infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator and Hermogenes the
+Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and Imitation, and the
+like.&nbsp; Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their lectures
+and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young
+men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of learning.&nbsp;
+Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo, <i>Decem annos
+consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone</i>; and the echo answered in Greek,
+<i>One</i>, <i>Asine</i>.&nbsp; Then grew the learning of the schoolmen
+to be utterly despised as barbarous.&nbsp; In sum, the whole inclination
+and bent of those times was rather towards copy than weight.<br>
+<br>
+(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when men study
+words and not matter; whereof, though I have represented an example
+of late times, yet it hath been and will be <i>secundum majus et minus</i>
+in all time.&nbsp; And how is it possible but this should have an operation
+to discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
+men&rsquo;s works like the first letter of a patent or limited book,
+which though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter?&nbsp;
+It seems to me that Pygmalion&rsquo;s frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture
+of this vanity; for words are but the images of matter, and except they
+have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all
+one as to fall in love with a picture.<br>
+<br>
+(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be condemned,
+to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy itself with sensible
+and plausible elocution.&nbsp; For hereof we have great examples in
+Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree;
+and hereof likewise there is great use, for surely, to the severe inquisition
+of truth and the deep progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance
+because it is too early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth
+the desire of further search before we come to a just period.&nbsp;
+But then if a man be to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions,
+of conference, counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall
+he find it prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that
+manner.&nbsp; But the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that
+as Hercules, when he saw the image of Adonis, Venus&rsquo; minion, in
+a temple, said in disdain, <i>Nil sacri es</i>; so there is none of
+Hercules&rsquo; followers in learning - that is, the more severe and
+laborious sort of inquirers into truth - but will despise those delicacies
+and affectations, as indeed capable of no divineness.&nbsp; And thus
+much of the first disease or distemper of learning.<br>
+<br>
+(5) The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former: for
+as substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so contrariwise
+vain matter is worse than vain words: wherein it seemeth the reprehension
+of St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for
+the times following; and not only respective to divinity, but extensive
+to all knowledge: <i>Devita profanas vocum novitates</i>,<i> et oppositiones
+falsi nominis scienti&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; For he assigneth two marks and
+badges of suspected and falsified science: the one, the novelty and
+strangeness of terms; the other, the strictness of positions, which
+of necessity doth induce oppositions, and so questions and altercations.&nbsp;
+Surely, like as many substances in nature which are solid do putrefy
+and corrupt into worms; - so it is the property of good and sound knowledge
+to putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome,
+and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a
+kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or
+goodness of quality.&nbsp; This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly
+reign amongst the schoolmen, who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance
+of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut
+up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator)
+as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges,
+and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no
+great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto
+us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books.&nbsp;
+For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation
+of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited
+thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web,
+then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable
+for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.<br>
+<br>
+(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two sorts: either
+in the subject itself that they handle, when it is a fruitless speculation
+or controversy (whereof there are no small number both in divinity and
+philosophy), or in the manner or method of handling of a knowledge,
+which amongst them was this - upon every particular position or assertion
+to frame objections, and to those objections, solutions; which solutions
+were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions: whereas indeed
+the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of the old man&rsquo;s
+faggot, in the bond.&nbsp; For the harmony of a science, supporting
+each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation
+and suppression of all the smaller sort of objections.&nbsp; But, on
+the other side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot,
+one by one, you may quarrel with them and bend them and break them at
+your pleasure: so that, as was said of Seneca, <i>Verborum minutiis
+rerum frangit pondera</i>, so a man may truly say of the schoolmen,
+<i>Qu&aelig;stionum minutiis scientiarum frangunt soliditatem</i>.&nbsp;
+For were it not better for a man in fair room to set up one great light,
+or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle
+into every corner?&nbsp; And such is their method, that rests not so
+much upon evidence of truth proved by arguments, authorities, similitudes,
+examples, as upon particular confutations and solutions of every scruple,
+cavillation, and objection; breeding for the most part one question
+as fast as it solveth another; even as in the former resemblance, when
+you carry the light into one corner, you darken the rest; so that the
+fable and fiction of Scylla seemeth to be a lively image of this kind
+of philosophy or knowledge; which was transformed into a comely virgin
+for the upper parts; but then <i>Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina
+monstris: </i>so the generalities of the schoolmen are for a while good
+and proportionable; but then when you descend into their distinctions
+and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb for the use and benefit of
+man&rsquo;s life, they end in monstrous altercations and barking questions.&nbsp;
+So as it is not possible but this quality of knowledge must fall under
+popular contempt, the people being apt to contemn truths upon occasion
+of controversies and altercations, and to think they are all out of
+their way which never meet; and when they see such digladiation about
+subtleties, and matters of no use or moment, they easily fall upon that
+judgment of Dionysius of Syracusa, <i>Verba ista sunt senum otiosorum</i>.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen to their
+great thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had joined variety
+and universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent
+lights, to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge; but
+as they are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark
+keeping.&nbsp; But as in the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride
+inclined to leave the oracle of God&rsquo;s word, and to vanish in the
+mixture of their own inventions; so in the inquisition of nature, they
+ever left the oracle of God&rsquo;s works, and adored the deceiving
+and deformed images which the unequal mirror of their own minds, or
+a few received authors or principles, did represent unto them.&nbsp;
+And thus much for the second disease of learning.<br>
+<br>
+(8) For the third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth deceit
+or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest; as that which doth destroy
+the essential form of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation
+of truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing
+no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected.&nbsp; This vice
+therefore brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving and
+aptness to be deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they
+appear to be of a diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning
+and the other of simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most part
+concur: for, as the verse noteth -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason a credulous
+man is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe
+rumours will as easily augment rumours and add somewhat to them of his
+own; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, <i>Fingunt simul creduntque</i>:
+so great an affinity hath fiction and belief.<br>
+<br>
+(9) This facility of credit and accepting or admitting things weakly
+authorised or warranted is of two kinds according to the subject: for
+it is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of
+fact; or else of matter of art and opinion.&nbsp; As to the former,
+we see the experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical
+history; which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations
+of miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and
+other holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels and images: which
+though they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of the people,
+the superstitious simplicity of some and the politic toleration of others
+holding them but as divine poesies, yet after a period of time, when
+the mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives&rsquo;
+fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of
+Antichrist, to the great scandal and detriment of religion.<br>
+<br>
+(10) So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and
+judgment used as ought to have been; as may appear in the writings of
+Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught
+with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously
+untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural philosophy
+with the grave and sober kind of wits: wherein the wisdom and integrity
+of Aristotle is worthy to be observed, that, having made so diligent
+and exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly
+with any vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast
+all prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into
+one book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such
+whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled
+or weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities
+and reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied
+to the memory of men.<br>
+<br>
+(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and
+opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too much belief is
+attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art.&nbsp;
+The sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and confederacy
+with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number:
+astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless,
+the ends or pretences are noble.&nbsp; For astrology pretendeth to discover
+that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe
+and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural
+philosophy from variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and
+alchemy pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies
+which in mixtures of natures are incorporate.&nbsp; But the derivations
+and prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the practices,
+are full of error and vanity; which the great professors themselves
+have sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring
+themselves to auricular traditions and such other devices, to save the
+credit of impostures.&nbsp; And yet surely to alchemy this right is
+due, that it may be compared to the husbandman whereof &AElig;sop makes
+the fable; that, when he died, told his sons that he had left unto them
+gold buried underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the
+ground, and gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and
+digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage
+the year following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath
+brought to light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and
+experiments, as well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of
+man&rsquo;s life.<br>
+<br>
+(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors
+in sciences, in making them dictators, that their words should stand,
+and not consuls, to give advice; the damage is infinite that sciences
+have received thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low
+at a stay without growth or advancement.&nbsp; For hence it hath come,
+that in arts mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth
+and perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and
+time leeseth and corrupteth.&nbsp; So we see artillery, sailing, printing,
+and the like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accommodated
+and refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies and sciences of Aristotle,
+Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour
+at the first, and by time degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason
+is no other, but that in the former many wits and industries have contributed
+in one; and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about
+the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved than
+illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the level of
+the first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so knowledge derived
+from Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of examination, will not rise
+again higher than the knowledge of Aristotle.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+although the position be good, <i>Oportet discentem credere</i>, yet
+it must be coupled with this, <i>Oportet edoctum judicare</i>; for disciples
+do owe unto masters only a temporary belief and a suspension of their
+own judgment till they be fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation
+or perpetual captivity; and therefore, to conclude this point, I will
+say no more, but so let great authors have their due, as time, which
+is the author of authors, be not deprived of his due - which is, further
+and further to discover truth.&nbsp; Thus have I gone over these three
+diseases of learning; besides the which there are some other rather
+peccant humours than formed diseases, which, nevertheless, are not so
+secret and intrinsic, but that they fall under a popular observation
+and traducement, and, therefore, are not to be passed over.<br>
+<br>
+V. (1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two extremities:
+the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it seemeth the children
+of time do take after the nature and malice of the father.&nbsp; For
+as he devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress
+the other; while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and
+novelty cannot be content to add but it must deface; surely the advice
+of the prophet is the true direction in this matter, <i>State super
+vias antiquas</i>,<i> et videte qu&aelig;nam sit via recta et bona et
+ambulate in ea</i>.&nbsp; Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men
+should make a stand thereupon and discover what is the best way; but
+when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression.&nbsp; And
+to speak truly, <i>Antiquitas s&aelig;culi juventus mundi</i>.&nbsp;
+These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not
+those which we account ancient <i>ordine retrogrado</i>, by a computation
+backward from ourselves.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Another error induced by the former is a distrust that anything
+should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed and
+passed over so long time: as if the same objection were to be made to
+time that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods; of which
+he wondereth that they begot so many children in old time, and begot
+none in his time; and asketh whether they were become septuagenary,
+or whether the law <i>Papia</i>,<i> </i>made against old men&rsquo;s
+marriages, had restrained them.&nbsp; So it seemeth men doubt lest time
+is become past children and generation; wherein contrariwise we see
+commonly the levity and unconstancy of men&rsquo;s judgments, which,
+till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and as soon as it
+is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as we see in the expedition
+of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as a vast and impossible
+enterprise; and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more of it
+than this, <i>Nil aliud qu&agrave;m bene ausus vana contemnere</i>.&nbsp;
+And the same happened to Columbus in the western navigation.&nbsp; But
+in intellectual matters it is much more common, as may be seen in most
+of the propositions of Euclid; which till they be demonstrate, they
+seem strange to our assent; but being demonstrate, our mind accepteth
+of them by a kind of relation (as the lawyers speak), as if we had known
+them before.<br>
+<br>
+(3) Another error, that hath also some affinity with the former, is
+a conceit that of former opinions or sects after variety and examination
+the best hath still prevailed and suppressed the rest; so as if a man
+should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light upon
+somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion;
+as if the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude&rsquo;s sake, were
+not ready to give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial
+than to that which is substantial and profound for the truth is, that
+time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth
+down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth
+that which is weighty and solid.<br>
+<br>
+(4) Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the over-early
+and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods; from which
+time commonly sciences receive small or no augmentation.&nbsp; But as
+young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a further
+stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations, it
+is in growth; but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it
+may, perchance, be further polished, and illustrate and accommodated
+for use and practice, but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Another error which doth succeed that which we last mentioned is,
+that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have
+abandoned universality, or <i>philosophia prima</i>, which cannot but
+cease and stop all progression.&nbsp; For no perfect discovery can be
+made upon a flat or a level; neither is it possible to discover the
+more remote and deeper parts of any science if you stand but upon the
+level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a kind
+of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means whereof,
+men have withdrawn themselves too much from the contemplation of nature,
+and the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in
+their own reason and conceits.&nbsp; Upon these intellectualists, which
+are notwithstanding commonly taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers,
+Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying: - &ldquo;Men sought truth in
+their own little worlds, and not in the great and common world;&rdquo;
+for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of
+God&rsquo;s works; and contrariwise by continual meditation and agitation
+of wit do urge and, as it were, invocate their own spirits to divine
+and give oracles unto them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Another error that hath some connection with this latter is, that
+men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines with
+some conceits which they have most admired, or some sciences which they
+have most applied, and given all things else a tincture according to
+them, utterly untrue and improper.&nbsp; So hath Plato intermingled
+his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second
+school of Plato, Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these
+were the arts which had a kind of primogeniture with them severally.&nbsp;
+So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of
+the furnace; and Gilbertus our countryman hath made a philosophy out
+of the observations of a loadstone.&nbsp; So Cicero, when reciting the
+several opinions of the nature of the soul, he found a musician that
+held the soul was but a harmony, saith pleasantly, <i>Hic ab arte sua
+non recessit</i>,<i> &amp;c</i>.&nbsp; But of these conceits Aristotle
+speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, <i>Qui respiciunt ad pauca
+de facili pronunciant</i>.<br>
+<br>
+(8) Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion
+without due and mature suspension of judgment.&nbsp; For the two ways
+of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken
+of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in
+the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance,
+but after a while fair and even.&nbsp; So it is in contemplation: if
+a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he
+will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.<br>
+<br>
+(9) Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of
+knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and
+not ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and
+not easiest examined.&nbsp; It is true, that in compendious treatises
+for practice that form is not to be disallowed; but in the true handling
+of knowledge men ought not to fall either on the one side into the vein
+of Velleius the Epicurean, <i>Nil tam metuens quam ne dubitare aliqua
+de revideretur</i>: nor, on the other side, into Socrates, his ironical
+doubting of all things; but to propound things sincerely with more or
+less asseveration, as they stand in a man&rsquo;s own judgment proved
+more or less.<br>
+<br>
+(10) Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to themselves,
+whereunto they bend their endeavours; for, whereas the more constant
+and devote kind of professors of any science ought to propound to themselves
+to make some additions to their science, they convert their labours
+to aspire to certain second prizes: as to be a profound interpreter
+or commentor, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical
+compounder or abridger, and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to
+be sometimes improved, but seldom augmented.<br>
+<br>
+(11) But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing
+of the last or furthest end of knowledge.&nbsp; For men have entered
+into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity
+and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety
+and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to
+enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for
+lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of
+their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if there were
+sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless
+spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and
+down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to
+raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention;
+or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory
+of the Creator and the relief of man&rsquo;s estate.&nbsp; But this
+is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation
+and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together
+than they have been: a conjunction like unto that of the two highest
+planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation; and Jupiter,
+the planet of civil society and action, howbeit, I do not mean, when
+I speak of use and action, that end before-mentioned of the applying
+of knowledge to lucre and profession; for I am not ignorant how much
+that diverteth and interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of knowledge,
+like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which, while she goeth
+aside and stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.&rdquo; <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy
+down from heaven to converse upon the earth - that is, to leave natural
+philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and policy.&nbsp;
+But as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and
+benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both philosophies to separate
+and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void, and
+to preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that knowledge
+may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond-woman,
+to acquire and gain to her master&rsquo;s use; but as a spouse, for
+generation, fruit, and comfort.<br>
+<br>
+(12) Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissection, those
+peccant humours (the principal of them) which have not only given impediment
+to the proficience of learning, but have given also occasion to the
+traducement thereof: wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be remembered,
+<i>fidelia vulnera amantis</i>,<i> sed dolosa oscula malignantis</i>.&nbsp;
+This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better believed in
+that which I shall say pertaining to commendation; because I have proceeded
+so freely in that which concerneth censure.&nbsp; And yet I have no
+purpose to enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to
+the Muses (though I am of opinion that it is long since their rites
+were duly celebrated), but my intent is, without varnish or amplification
+justly to weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other things,
+and to take the true value thereof by testimonies and arguments, divine
+and human.<br>
+<br>
+VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the
+archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of
+God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with sobriety;
+wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning, for all learning
+is knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original, and therefore
+we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as
+the Scriptures call it.<br>
+<br>
+(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a double
+emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more properly to power,
+the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the subsistence of
+the matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of the form.&nbsp;
+This being supposed, it is to be observed that for anything which appeareth
+in the history of the creation, the confused mass and matter of heaven
+and earth was made in a moment, and the order and disposition of that
+chaos or mass was the work of six days; such a note of difference it
+pleased God to put upon the works of power, and the works of wisdom;
+wherewith concurreth, that in the former it is not set down that God
+said, &ldquo;Let there be heaven and earth,&rdquo; as it is set down
+of the works following; but actually, that God made heaven and earth:
+the one carrying the style of a manufacture, and the other of a law,
+decree, or counsel.<br>
+<br>
+(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to spirits:
+we find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy
+of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, the first place or
+degree is given to the angels of love, which are termed seraphim; the
+second to the angels of light, which are termed cherubim; and the third,
+and so following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which
+are all angels of power and ministry; so as this angels of knowledge
+and illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.<br>
+<br>
+(4) To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and material
+forms, we read the first form that was created was light, which hath
+a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal things to knowledge
+in spirits and incorporal things.<br>
+<br>
+(5) So in the distribution of days we see the day wherein God did rest
+and contemplate His own works was blessed above all the days wherein
+He did effect and accomplish them.<br>
+<br>
+(6) After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man
+was placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so appointed to
+him, could be no other than work of contemplation; that is, when the
+end of work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity; for
+there being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow,
+man&rsquo;s employment must of consequence have been matter of delight
+in the experiment, and not matter of labour for the use.&nbsp; Again,
+the first acts which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two
+summary parts of knowledge; the view of creatures, and the imposition
+of names.&nbsp; As for the knowledge which induced the fall, it was,
+as was touched before, not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the
+moral knowledge of good and evil; wherein the supposition was, that
+God&rsquo;s commandments or prohibitions were not the originals of good
+and evil, but that they had other beginnings, which man aspired to know,
+to the end to make a total defection from God and to depend wholly upon
+himself.<br>
+<br>
+(7) To pass on: in the first event or occurrence after the fall of man,
+we see (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not violating at
+all the truth of this story or letter) an image of the two estates,
+the contemplative state and the active state, figured in the two persons
+of Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most primitive trades
+of life; that of the shepherd (who, by reason of his leisure, rest in
+a place, and lying in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative
+life), and that of the husbandman, where we see again the favour and
+election of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of the ground.<br>
+<br>
+(8) So in the age before the flood, the holy records within those few
+memorials which are there entered and registered have vouchsafed to
+mention and honour the name of the inventors and authors of music and
+works in metal.&nbsp; In the age after the flood, the first great judgment
+of God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues; whereby
+the open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly
+imbarred.<br>
+<br>
+(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God&rsquo;s first pen: he
+is adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, &ldquo;That
+he was seen in all the learning of the Egyptians,&rdquo; which nation
+we know was one of the most ancient schools of the world: for so Plato
+brings in the Egyptian priest saying unto Solon, &ldquo;You Grecians
+are ever children; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity
+of knowledge.&rdquo;&nbsp; Take a view of the ceremonial law of Moses;
+you shall find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the badge or difference
+of the people of God, the exercise and impression of obedience, and
+other divine uses and fruits thereof, that some of the most learned
+Rabbins have travailed profitably and profoundly to observe, some of
+them a natural, some of them a moral sense, or reduction of many of
+the ceremonies and ordinances.&nbsp; As in the law of the leprosy, where
+it is said, &ldquo;If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient
+may pass abroad for clean; but if there be any whole flesh remaining,
+he is to be shut up for unclean;&rdquo; one of them noteth a principle
+of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before maturity than
+after; and another noteth a position of moral philosophy, that men abandoned
+to vice do not so much corrupt manners, as those that are half good
+and half evil.&nbsp; So in this and very many other places in that law,
+there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion
+of philosophy.<br>
+<br>
+(10)&nbsp; So likewise in that excellent hook of Job, if it be revolved
+with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural
+philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the roundness of the world,
+<i>Qui extendit aquilonem super vacuum</i>,<i> et appendit terram super
+nihilum</i>; wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north,
+and the finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched.&nbsp;
+So again, matter of astronomy: <i>Spiritus ejus ornavit c&aelig;los</i>,<i>
+et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est Coluber tortuoses</i>.&nbsp;
+And in another place, <i>Nunquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas
+Pleiadas</i>,<i> aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare</i>?&nbsp; Where
+the fixing of the stars, ever standing at equal distance, is with great
+elegancy noted.&nbsp; And in another place, <i>Qui facit Arcturum</i>,<i>
+et Oriona</i>,<i> et Hyadas</i>,<i> et interiora Austri</i>; where again
+he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern pole, calling it
+the secrets of the south, because the southern stars were in that climate
+unseen.&nbsp; Matter of generation: <i>Annon sicut lac mulsisti me</i>,<i>
+et sicut caseum coagulasti me</i>? &amp;c.&nbsp; Matter of minerals:
+<i>Habet argentum venarum suarum principia; et auro locus est in quo
+conflatur</i>,<i> ferrum de terra tollitur</i>,<i> et lapis solutus
+calore in &aelig;s vertitur</i>; and so forwards in that chapter.<br>
+<br>
+(11) So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift
+or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon&rsquo;s petition
+and in God&rsquo;s assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene
+and temporal felicity.&nbsp; By virtue of which grant or donative of
+God Solomon became enabled not only to write those excellent parables
+or aphorisms concerning divine and moral philosophy, but also to compile
+a natural history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to
+the moss upon the wall (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction
+and an herb), and also of all things that breathe or move.&nbsp; Nay,
+the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure
+and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and
+attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim
+to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth;
+for so he saith expressly, &ldquo;The glory of God is to conceal a thing,
+but the glory of the king is to find it out;&rdquo; as if, according
+to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to
+hide His works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could
+not obtain a greater honour than to be God&rsquo;s playfellows in that
+game; considering the great commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing
+needeth to be hidden from them.<br>
+<br>
+(12) Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our
+Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show
+His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and
+doctors of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His
+miracles.&nbsp; And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured
+and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but <i>vehicula
+scienti&aelig;</i>.<br>
+<br>
+(13) So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to
+use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first
+He did employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration,
+more evidently to declare His immediate working, and to abase all human
+wisdom or knowledge; yet nevertheless that counsel of His was no sooner
+performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession He did send His
+divine truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with
+servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was only learned
+amongst the Apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the
+New Testament.<br>
+<br>
+(14) So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of
+the Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of
+this heathen; insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julianus (whereby
+it was interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures,
+or exercises of learning) was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious
+engine and machination against the Christian Faith than were all the
+sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation
+and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever
+obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the
+censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men;
+in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen
+antiquity and authors.&nbsp; But contrariwise it was the Christian Church,
+which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one side from
+the north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the
+sacred lap and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning,
+which otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever
+been.<br>
+<br>
+(15) And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our
+fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to account for
+their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious
+and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was
+ordained by the Divine Providence that there should attend withal a
+renovation and new spring of all other knowledges.&nbsp; And on the
+other side we see the Jesuits, who partly in themselves, and partly
+by the emulation and provocation of their example, have much quickened
+and strengthened the state of learning; we see (I say) what notable
+service and reparation they have done to the Roman see.<br>
+<br>
+(16) Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there
+be two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration,
+which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion.&nbsp;
+The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation
+of the glory of God.&nbsp; For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do
+often invite us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works
+of God, so if we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior
+of them as they first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a
+like injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe
+of the store of some excellent jeweller by that only which is set out
+toward the street in his shop.&nbsp; The other, because they minister
+a singular help and preservative against unbelief and error.&nbsp; For
+our Saviour saith, &ldquo;You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the
+power of God;&rdquo; laying before us two books or volumes to study,
+if we will be secured from error: first the Scriptures, revealing the
+will of God, and then the creatures expressing His power; whereof the
+latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our understanding
+to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general notions
+of reason and rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing
+us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly
+signed and engraven upon His works.&nbsp; Thus much therefore for divine
+testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of learning.<br>
+<br>
+VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a discourse
+of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice of those things
+which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them.&nbsp; First,
+therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was
+the highest to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God.&nbsp;
+This unto the Christians is as the forbidden fruit.&nbsp; But we speak
+now separately of human testimony, according to which - that which the
+Grecians call <i>apotheosis</i>, and the Latins <i>relatio inter divos</i>
+- was the supreme honour which man could attribute unto man, specially
+when it was given, not by a formal decree or act of state (as it was
+used among the Roman Emperors), but by an inward assent and belief.&nbsp;
+Which honour, being so high, had also a degree or middle term; for there
+were reckoned above human honours, honours heroical and divine: in the
+attribution and distribution of which honours we see antiquity made
+this difference; that whereas founders and uniters of states and cities,
+lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent
+persons in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies
+or demigods, such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the
+like; on the other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts,
+endowments, and commodities towards man&rsquo;s life, were ever consecrated
+amongst the gods themselves, as was Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo,
+and others.&nbsp; And justly; for the merit of the former is confined
+within the circle of an age or a nation, and is like fruitful showers,
+which though they be profitable and good, yet serve but for that season,
+and for a latitude of ground where they fall; but the other is, indeed,
+like the benefits of heaven, which are permanent and universal.&nbsp;
+The former again is mixed with strife and perturbation, but the latter
+hath the true character of Divine Presence, coming in <i>aura leni</i>,
+without noise or agitation.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing
+the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the
+former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which
+merit was lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation
+of Orpheus&rsquo; theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and,
+forgetting their several appetites - some of prey, some of game, some
+of quarrel - stood all sociably together listening unto the airs and
+accords of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned
+by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature; wherein
+is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of
+savage and unreclaimed desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which
+as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly
+touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues,
+so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be
+silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things
+dissolve into anarchy and confusion.<br>
+<br>
+(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves, or persons
+of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular
+estates, are endued with learning.&nbsp; For although he might be thought
+partial to his own profession that said &ldquo;Then should people and
+estates be happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers
+kings;&rdquo; yet so much is verified by experience, that under learned
+princes and governors there have been ever the best times: for howsoever
+kings may have their imperfections in their passions and customs, yet,
+if they be illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion,
+policy, and morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all
+ruinous and peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their
+ears, when counsellors and servants stand mute and silent.&nbsp; And
+senators or counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed upon
+more safe and substantial principles, than counsellors which are only
+men of experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the
+other discover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to
+the agility of their wit to ward or avoid them.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still
+the law of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples)
+doth best appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitianus
+the emperor until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a succession
+of six princes, all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of
+learning, which age for temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing
+that ever the Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world) enjoyed
+- a matter revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a dream the night
+before he was slain: for he thought there was grown behind upon his
+shoulders a neck and a head of gold, which came accordingly to pass
+in those golden times which succeeded; of which princes we will make
+some commemoration; wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and
+may be thought fitter for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise
+infolded as this is, yet, because it is pertinent to the point in hand
+- <i>Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo</i> - and to name them only were
+too naked and cursory, I will not omit it altogether.&nbsp; The first
+was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose government is by a glance in
+Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life: <i>Postquam divus Nerva res oluim
+insociabiles miscuisset</i>,<i> imperium et libertatem</i>.&nbsp; And
+in token of his learning, the last act of his short reign left to memory
+was a missive to his adopted son, Trajan, proceeding upon some inward
+discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended in a verse
+of Homer&rsquo;s -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Telis, Ph&oelig;be, tuis, lacrymas ulciscere nostras.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but if we
+will hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, &ldquo;He that
+receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall have a prophet&rsquo;s
+reward,&rdquo; he deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes;
+for there was not a greater admirer of learning or benefactor of learning,
+a founder of famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned men to
+office, and familiar converser with learned professors and preceptors
+who were noted to have then most credit in court.&nbsp; On the other
+side how much Trajan&rsquo;s virtue and government was admired and renowned,
+surely no testimony of grave and faithful history doth more lively set
+forth than that legend tale of Gregorius Magnum, Bishop of Rome, who
+was noted for the extreme envy he bare towards all heathen excellency;
+and yet he is reported, out of the love and estimation of Trajan&rsquo;s
+moral virtues, to have made unto God passionate and fervent prayers
+for the delivery of his soul out of hell, and to have obtained it, with
+a caveat that he should make no more such petitions.&nbsp; In this prince&rsquo;s
+time also the persecutions against the Christians received intermission
+upon the certificate of Plinius Secundus, a man of excellent learning
+and by Trajan advanced.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that lived, and
+the most universal inquirer: insomuch as it was noted for an error in
+his mind that he desired to comprehend all things, and not to reserve
+himself for the worthiest things, falling into the like humour that
+was long before noted in Philip of Macedon, who, when he would needs
+overrule and put down an excellent musician in an argument touching
+music, was well answered by him again - &ldquo;God forbid, sir,&rdquo;
+saith he, &ldquo;that your fortune should be so bad as to know these
+things better than I.&rdquo;&nbsp; It pleased God likewise to use the
+curiosity of this emperor as an inducement to the peace of His Church
+in those days; for having Christ in veneration, not as a God or Saviour,
+but as a wonder or novelty, and having his picture in his gallery matched
+with Apollonius (with whom in his vain imagination he thought its had
+some conformity), yet it served the turn to allay the bitter hatred
+of those times against the Christian name, so as the Church had peace
+during his time.&nbsp; And for his government civil, although he did
+not attain to that of Trajan&rsquo;s in glory of arms or perfection
+of justice, yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he did exceed
+him.&nbsp; For Trajan erected many famous monuments and buildings, insomuch
+as Constantine the Great in emulation was wont to call him <i>Parietaria</i>,
+&ldquo;wall-flower,&rdquo; because his name was upon so many walls;
+but his buildings and works were more of glory and triumph than use
+and necessity.&nbsp; But Adrian spent his whole reign, which was peaceable,
+in a perambulation or survey of the Roman Empire, giving order and making
+assignation where he went for re-edifying of cities, towns, and forts
+decayed, and for cutting of rivers and streams, and for making bridges
+and passages, and for policing of cities and commonalties with new ordinances
+and constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so
+that his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and decays
+of former times.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently learned,
+and had the patient and subtle wit of a schoolman, insomuch as in common
+speech (which leaves no virtue untaxed) he was called <i>Cymini</i>
+<i>Sector</i>,<i> </i>a carver or a divider of cummin seed, which is
+one of the least seeds.&nbsp; Such a patience he had and settled spirit
+to enter into the least and most exact differences of causes, a fruit
+no doubt of the exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind, which
+being no ways charged or encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or
+scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodness, without
+all fiction or affectation, that hath reigned or lived, made his mind
+continually present and entire.&nbsp; He likewise approached a degree
+nearer unto Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto St. Paul,
+&ldquo;half a Christian,&rdquo; holding their religion and law in good
+opinion, and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement
+of Christians.<br>
+<br>
+(5) There succeeded him the first <i>Divi fratres</i>, the two adoptive
+brethren - Lucius Commodus Verus, son to &AElig;lius Verus, who delighted
+much in the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the poet Martial
+his Virgil; and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: whereof the latter, who obscured
+his colleague and survived him long, was named the &ldquo;Philosopher,&rdquo;
+who, as he excelled all the rest in learning, so he excelled them likewise
+in perfection of all royal virtues; insomuch as Julianus the emperor,
+in his book entitled <i>C&aelig;rsares</i>, being as a pasquil or satire
+to deride all his predecessors, feigned that they were all invited to
+a banquet of the gods, and Silenus the jester sat at the nether end
+of the table and bestowed a scoff on everyone as they came in; but when
+Marcus Philosophus came in, Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance,
+not knowing where to carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance
+at his patience towards his wife.&nbsp; And the virtue of this prince,
+continued with that of his predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so
+sacred in the world, that though it were extremely dishonoured in Commodus,
+Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, who all bare the name, yet, when Alexander
+Severus refused the name because he was a stranger to the family, the
+Senate with one acclamation said, <i>Quomodo Augustus, sic et Antoninus</i>.&nbsp;
+In such renown and veneration was the name of these two princes in those
+days, that they would have had it as a perpetual addition in all the
+emperors&rsquo; style.&nbsp; In this emperor&rsquo;s time also the Church
+for the most part was in peace; so as in this sequence of six princes
+we do see the blessed effects of learning in sovereignty, painted forth
+in the greatest table of the world.<br>
+<br>
+(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not presuming to
+speak of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment the most excellent
+is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part
+of Britain; a prince that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives
+by parallels, would trouble him, I think, to find for her a parallel
+amongst women.&nbsp; This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular,
+and rare even amongst masculine princes - whether we speak of learning,
+of language, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity
+- and unto the very last year of her life she accustomed to appoint
+set hours for reading, scarcely any young student in a university more
+daily or more duly.&nbsp; As for her government, I assure myself (I
+shall not exceed if I do affirm) that this part of the island never
+had forty-five years of better tines, and yet not through the calmness
+of the season, but through the wisdom of her regiment.&nbsp; For if
+there be considered, of the one side, the truth of religion established,
+the constant peace and security, the good administration of justice,
+the temperate use of the prerogative, not slackened, nor much strained;
+the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so excellent a patroness;
+the convenient estate of wealth and means, both of crown and subject;
+the habit of obedience, and the moderation of discontents; and there
+be considered, on the other side, the differences of religion, the troubles
+of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain, and opposition of Rome,
+and then that she was solitary and of herself; these things, I say,
+considered, as I could not have chosen an instance so recent and so
+proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more remarkable or
+eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is concerning the conjunction
+of learning in the prince with felicity in the people.<br>
+<br>
+(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil
+merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and peaceable
+government; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy in enablement
+towards martial and military virtue and prowess, as may be notably represented
+in the examples of Alexander the Great and C&aelig;sar the Dictator
+(mentioned before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose virtues
+and acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the wonders
+of time in that kind; but of their affections towards learning and perfections
+in learning it is pertinent to say somewhat.<br>
+<br>
+(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great philosopher,
+who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto him; he was attended
+with Callisthenes and divers other learned persons, that followed him
+in camp, throughout his journeys and conquests.&nbsp; What price and
+estimation he had learning in doth notably appear in these three particulars:
+first, in the envy he used to express that he bare towards Achilles,
+in this, that he had so good a trumpet of his praises as Homer&rsquo;s
+verses; secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave touching that
+precious cabinet of Darius, which was found among his jewels (whereof
+question was made what thing was worthy to be put into it, and he gave
+his opinion for Homer&rsquo;s works); thirdly, in his letter to Aristotle,
+after he had set forth his books of nature, wherein he expostulateth
+with him for publishing the secrets or mysteries of philosophy; and
+gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more to excel other
+men in learning and knowledge than in power and empire.&nbsp; And what
+use he had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches
+and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that in all
+variety.<br>
+<br>
+(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat
+idle to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet, since the argument
+I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall perceive I am
+as willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an Alexander, or a C&aelig;sar,
+or an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred years since, as any that
+now liveth; for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty
+that I propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming in any man&rsquo;s
+praises.&nbsp; Observe, then, the speech he used of Diogenes, and see
+if it tend not to the true state of one of the greatest questions of
+moral philosophy: whether the enjoying of outward things, or the contemning
+of them, be the greatest happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly
+contented with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition,
+&ldquo;were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But Seneca inverteth it, and saith, &ldquo;<i>Plus erat, quod hic nollet
+accipere, qu&agrave;m quod ille posset dare</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; There
+were more things which Diogenes would have refused than those were which
+Alexander could have given or enjoyed.<br>
+<br>
+(13) Observe, again, that speech which was usual with him, - &ldquo;That
+he felt his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust;&rdquo;
+and see if it were not a speech extracted out of the depth of natural
+philosophy, and liker to have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or
+Democritus than from Alexander.<br>
+<br>
+(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon the bleeding
+of his wounds, he called unto him one of his flatterers, that was wont
+to ascribe to him divine honour, and said, &ldquo;Look, this is very
+blood; this is not such a liquor as Homer speaketh of, which ran from
+Venus&rsquo; hand when it was pierced by Diomedes.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in the speech
+he used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made against his father
+Antipater; for when Alexander happened to say, &ldquo;Do you think these
+men would have come from so far to complain except they had just cause
+of grief?&rdquo; and Cassander answered, &ldquo;Yea, that was the matter,
+because they thought they should not be disproved;&rdquo; said Alexander,
+laughing, &ldquo;See the subtleties of Aristotle, to take a matter both
+ways, <i>pro et contra</i>,<i> </i>&amp;c.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art which he reprehended
+to serve his own humour: when bearing a secret grudge to Callisthenes,
+because he was against the new ceremony of his adoration, feasting one
+night where the same Callisthenes was at the table, it was moved by
+some after supper, for entertainment sake, that Callisthenes, who was
+an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or purpose at his own choice;
+which Callisthenes did, choosing the praise of the Macedonian nation
+for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner as the
+hearers were much ravished; whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased, said,
+&ldquo;It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a subject; but,&rdquo;
+saith he, &ldquo;turn your style, and let us hear what you can say against
+us;&rdquo; which Callisthenes presently undertook, and did with that
+sting and life that Alexander interrupted him, and said, &ldquo;The
+goodness of the cause made him eloquent before, and despite made him
+eloquent then again.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(17) Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent use of
+a metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxeth Antipater, who was an
+imperious and tyrannous governor; for when one of Antipater&rsquo;s
+friends commended him to Alexander for his moderation, that he did not
+degenerate as his other lieutenants did into the Persian pride, in uses
+of purple, but kept the ancient habit of Macedon, of black.&nbsp; &ldquo;True,&rdquo;
+saith Alexander; &ldquo;but Antipater is all purple within.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Or that other, when Parmenio came to him in the plain of Arbela and
+showed him the innumerable multitude of his enemies, specially as they
+appeared by the infinite number of lights as it had been a new firmament
+of stars, and thereupon advised him to assail them by night; whereupon
+he answered, &ldquo;That he would not steal the victory.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(18) For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, so much
+in all ages embraced, that he made between his two friends Heph&aelig;stion
+and Craterus, when he said, &ldquo;That the one loved Alexander, and
+the other loved the king:&rdquo; describing the principal difference
+of princes&rsquo; best servants, that some in affection love their person,
+and other in duty love their crown.<br>
+<br>
+(19) Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary with counsellors
+of princes, that they counsel their masters according to the model of
+their own mind and fortune, and not of their masters.&nbsp; When upon
+Darius&rsquo; great offers Parmenio had said, &ldquo;Surely I would
+accept these offers were I as Alexander;&rdquo; saith Alexander, &ldquo;So
+would I were I as Parmenio.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made when he
+gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was asked what
+he did reserve for himself, and he answered, &ldquo;Hope.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Weigh, I say, whether he had not cast up his account aright, because
+<i>hope</i> must be the portion of all that resolve upon great enterprises;
+for this was C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s portion when he went first into Gaul,
+his estate being then utterly overthrown with largesses.&nbsp; And this
+was likewise the portion of that noble prince, howsoever transported
+with ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was usually said that
+he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had turned all his
+estate into obligations.<br>
+<br>
+(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to say hyperbolically,
+&ldquo;That if all sciences were lost they might be found in Virgil,&rdquo;
+so certainly this may be said truly, there are the prints and footsteps
+of learning in those few speeches which are reported of this prince,
+the admiration of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the Great,
+but as Aristotle&rsquo;s scholar, hath carried me too far.<br>
+<br>
+(22) As for Julius C&aelig;sar, the excellency of his learning needeth
+not to be argued from his education, or his company, or his speeches;
+but in a further degree doth declare itself in his writings and works:
+whereof some are extant and permanent, and some unfortunately perished.&nbsp;
+For first, we see there is left unto us that excellent history of his
+own wars, which he entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding
+times have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages
+and lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest
+propriety of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was; which
+that it was not the effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept,
+is well witnessed by that work of his entitled <i>De Analogia</i>, being
+a grammatical philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same <i>Vox
+ad placitum </i>to become <i>Vox ad licitum</i>, and to reduce custom
+of speech to congruity of speech; and took as it were the pictures of
+words from the life of reason.<br>
+<br>
+(23) So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power and learning,
+the then reformed computation of the year; well expressing that he took
+it to be as great a glory to himself to observe and know the law of
+the heavens, as to give law to men upon the earth.<br>
+<br>
+(24) So likewise in that book of his, <i>Anti-Cato</i>,<i> </i>it may
+easily appear that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as victory
+of war: undertaking therein a conflict against the greatest champion
+with the pen that then lived, Cicero the orator.<br>
+<br>
+(25) So, again, in his book of Apophthegms, which he collected, we see
+that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables,
+to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word
+of his own to be made an apophthegm or an oracle, as vain princes, by
+custom of flattery, pretend to do.&nbsp; And yet if I should enumerate
+divers of his speeches, as I did those of Alexander, they are truly
+such as Solomon noteth, when he saith, <i>Verba sapientum tanquam aculei,
+et tanquam clavi in altum defixi</i>: whereof I will only recite three,
+not so delectable for elegancy, but admirable for vigour and efficacy.<br>
+<br>
+(26) As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, that could
+with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was thus: The Romans,
+when their generals did speak to their army, did use the word <i>Milites</i>,<i>
+</i>but when the magistrates spake to the people they did use the word
+<i>Quirites</i>.&nbsp; The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously
+prayed to be cashiered; not that they so meant, but by expostulation
+thereof to draw C&aelig;sar to other conditions; wherein he being resolute
+not to give way, after some silence, he began his speech, <i>Ego Quirites</i>,<i>
+</i>which did admit them already cashiered - wherewith they were so
+surprised, crossed, and confused, as they would not suffer him to go
+on in his speech, but relinquished their demands, and made it their
+suit to be again called by the name of <i>Milites</i>.<br>
+<br>
+(27) The second speech was thus: C&aelig;sar did extremely affect the
+name of king; and some were set on as he passed by in popular acclamation
+to salute him king.&nbsp; Whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor,
+he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname:
+<i>Non Rex sum</i>,<i> sed C&aelig;sar</i>; a speech that, if it be
+searched, the life and fulness of it can scarce be expressed.&nbsp;
+For, first, it was a refusal of the name, but yet not serious; again,
+it did signify an infinite confidence and magnanimity, as if he presumed
+C&aelig;sar was the greater title, as by his worthiness it is come to
+pass till this day.&nbsp; But chiefly it was a speech of great allurement
+toward his own purpose, as if the state did strive with him but for
+a name, whereof mean families were vested; for <i>Rex</i> was a surname
+with the Romans, as well as <i>King </i>is with us.<br>
+<br>
+(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus, when
+C&aelig;sar, after war declared, did possess himself of this city of
+Rome; at which time, entering into the inner treasury to take the money
+there accumulate, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him.&nbsp; Whereto
+C&aelig;sar said, &ldquo;That if he did not desist, he would lay him
+dead in the place.&rdquo;&nbsp; And presently taking himself up, he
+added, &ldquo;Young man, it is harder for me to speak it than to do
+it - <i>Adolescens, durius est mihi hoc dicere qu&agrave;m facere</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+A speech compounded of the greatest terror and greatest clemency that
+could proceed out of the mouth of man.<br>
+<br>
+(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident himself knew
+well his own perfection in learning, and took it upon him, as appeared
+when upon occasion that some spake what a strange resolution it was
+in Lucius Sylla to resign his dictators, he, scoffing at him to his
+own advantage, answered, &ldquo;That Sylla could not skill of letters,
+and therefore knew not how to dictate.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the concurrence
+of military virtue and learning (for what example should come with any
+grace after those two of Alexander and C&aelig;sar?), were it not in
+regard of the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one other particular,
+as that which did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme wonder:
+and it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from Socrates&rsquo;
+school into Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against King
+Artaxerxes.&nbsp; This Xenophon at that time was very young, and never
+had seen the wars before, neither had any command in the army, but only
+followed the war as a voluntary, for the love and conversation of Proxenus,
+his friend.&nbsp; He was present when Falinus came in message from the
+great king to the Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field,
+and they, a handful of men, left to themselves in the midst of the king&rsquo;s
+territories, cut off from their country by many navigable rivers and
+many hundred miles.&nbsp; The message imported that they should deliver
+up their arms and submit themselves to the king&rsquo;s mercy.&nbsp;
+To which message, before answer was made, divers of the army conferred
+familiarly with Falinus; and amongst the rest Xenophon happened to say,
+&ldquo;Why, Falinus, we have now but these two things left, our arms
+and our virtue; and if we yield up our arms, how shall we make use of
+our virtue?&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereto Falinus, smiling on him, said, &ldquo;If
+I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I believe
+you study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say; but you are much
+abused if you think your virtue can withstand the king&rsquo;s power.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Here was the scorn; the wonder followed: which was that this young scholar
+or philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by treason,
+conducted those ten thousand foot, through the heart of all the king&rsquo;s
+high countries, from Babylon to Gr&aelig;cia in safety, in despite of
+all the king&rsquo;s forces, to the astonishment of the world, and the
+encouragement of the Grecians in times succeeding to make invasion upon
+the kings of Persia, as was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian,
+attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the Macedonian,
+all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.<br>
+<br>
+VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral
+and private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is contained
+in the verses:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes<br>
+Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men&rsquo;s
+minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon <i>fideliter</i>; for
+a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect.&nbsp;
+It taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion
+of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance
+reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits
+of the mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried.&nbsp;
+It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all
+weakness.&nbsp; For all things are admired, either because they are
+new, or because they are great.&nbsp; For novelty, no man that wadeth
+in learning or contemplation thoroughly but will find that printed in
+his heart, <i>Nil novi super terram</i>.&nbsp; Neither can any man marvel
+at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth
+well of the motion.&nbsp; And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great,
+after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of the
+spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece,
+of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage
+or a fort, or some walled town at the most, he said: - &ldquo;It seemed
+to him that he was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the mice,
+that the old tales went of.&rdquo;&nbsp; So certainly, if a man meditate
+much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it
+(the divineness of souls except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill,
+whereas some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go
+empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust.&nbsp; It taketh away
+or mitigateth fear of death or adverse fortune, which is one of the
+greatest impediments of virtue and imperfections of manners.&nbsp; For
+if a man&rsquo;s mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the
+mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with
+Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher
+of earth that was broken, and went forth the next day and saw a woman
+weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon said, &ldquo;<i>Heri
+vidi fragilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; And,
+therefore, Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge
+of causes and the conquest of all fears together, as <i>concomitantia.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</i>&ldquo;Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,<br>
+Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum<br>
+Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning
+doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes purging the
+ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion,
+sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations
+thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will conclude with that which
+hath <i>rationem totius</i> - which is, that it disposeth the constitution
+of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still
+to be capable and susceptible of growth and reformation.&nbsp; For the
+unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call
+himself to account, nor the pleasure of that <i>suavissima vita, indies
+sentire se fieri meliorem</i>.&nbsp; The good parts he hath he will
+learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to
+increase them.&nbsp; The faults he hath he will learn how to hide and
+colour them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that mows
+on still, and never whets his scythe.&nbsp; Whereas with the learned
+man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and
+amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof.&nbsp; Nay,
+further, in general and in sum, certain it is that <i>Veritas </i>and
+<i>Bonitas </i>differ but as the seal and the print; for truth prints
+goodness, and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms
+of passions and perturbations.<br>
+<br>
+(3) From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and commandment,
+and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable with that
+wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man&rsquo;s nature.&nbsp;
+We see the dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of
+the commanded; to have commandment over beasts as herdmen have, is a
+thing contemptible; to have commandment over children as schoolmasters
+have, is a matter of small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves
+is a disparagement rather than an honour.&nbsp; Neither is the commandment
+of tyrants much better, over people which have put off the generosity
+of their minds; and, therefore, it was ever holden that honours in free
+monarchies and commonwealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies,
+because the commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not
+only over their deeds and services.&nbsp; And therefore, when Virgil
+putteth himself forth to attribute to Augustus C&aelig;sar the best
+of human honours, he doth it in these words:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Victorque volentes<br>
+Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment
+over the will; for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and
+understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth
+law to the will itself.&nbsp; For there is no power on earth which setteth
+up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and
+in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge
+and learning.&nbsp; And therefore we see the detestable and extreme
+pleasure that arch-heretics, and false prophets, and impostors are transported
+with, when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority
+in the faith and conscience of men; so great as if they have once tasted
+of it, it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make them
+relinquish or abandon it.&nbsp; But as this is that which the author
+of the Revelation calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so by
+argument of contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men&rsquo;s
+understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that which
+approacheth nearest to the similitude of the divine rule.<br>
+<br>
+(4) As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of learning is not
+so confined to give fortune only to states and commonwealths, as it
+doth not likewise give fortune to particular persons.&nbsp; For it was
+well noted long ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings, than
+either Sylla, or C&aelig;sar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding
+their great largesses and donatives, and distributions of lands to so
+many legions.&nbsp; And no doubt it is hard to say whether arms or learning
+have advanced greater numbers.&nbsp; And in case of sovereignty we see,
+that if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet learning
+hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in some competition
+with empire.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it
+far surpasseth all other in nature.&nbsp; For, shall the pleasures of
+the affections so exceed the pleasure of the sense, as much as the obtaining
+of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner? and must not of consequence
+the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures
+of the affections?&nbsp; We see in all other pleasures there is satiety,
+and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth well
+they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was
+the novelty which pleased, and not the quality.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitions princes turn melancholy.&nbsp;
+But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite
+are perpetually interchangeable; and, therefore, appeareth to be good
+in itself simply, without fallacy or accident.&nbsp; Neither is that
+pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which
+the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Suave mari magno, turbantibus &aelig;quora ventis, &amp;c.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is a view of delight,&rdquo; saith he, &ldquo;to stand or
+walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon
+the sea; or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join
+upon a plain.&nbsp; But it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind
+of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth;
+and from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours,
+and wanderings up and down of other men.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man excelleth
+man in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by learning man ascendeth
+to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot come; and
+the like: let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge
+and learning in that whereunto man&rsquo;s nature doth most aspire,
+which is immortality, or continuance; for to this tendeth generation,
+and raising of houses and families; to this tend buildings, foundations,
+and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration;
+and in effect the strength of all other human desires.&nbsp; We see
+then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than
+the monuments of power or of the hands.&nbsp; For have not the verses
+of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss
+of a syllable or letter; during which the infinite palaces, temples,
+castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished?&nbsp; It is not possible
+to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, C&aelig;sar,
+no nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the
+originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life and
+truth.&nbsp; But the images of men&rsquo;s wits and knowledges remain
+in books, exempted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation.&nbsp;
+Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still,
+and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite
+actions and opinions in succeeding ages.&nbsp; So that if the invention
+of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities
+from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation
+of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which as
+ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to
+participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of
+the other?&nbsp; Nay, further, we see some of the philosophers which
+were least divine, and most immersed in the senses, and denied generally
+the immortality of the soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever
+motions the spirit of man could act and perform without the organs of
+the body, they thought might remain after death, which were only those
+of the understanding and not of the affection; so immortal and incorruptible
+a thing did knowledge seem unto them to be.&nbsp; But we, that know
+by divine revelation that not only the understanding but the affections
+purified, not only the spirit but the body changed, shall be advanced
+to immortality, do disclaim in these rudiments of the senses.&nbsp;
+But it must be remembered, both in this last point, and so it may likewise
+be needful in other places, that in probation of the dignity of knowledge
+or learning, I did in the beginning separate divine testimony from human,
+which method I have pursued, and so handled them both apart.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible
+for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of
+&AElig;sop&rsquo;s cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem;
+or of Midas, that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the
+Muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that
+judged for beauty and love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina,
+<i>occidat matrem, modo imperet</i>, that preferred empire with any
+condition never so detestable; or of Ulysses, <i>qui vetulam pr&aelig;tulit
+immortalitati</i>,<i> </i>being a figure of those which prefer custom
+and habit before all excellency, or of a number of the like popular
+judgments.&nbsp; For these things must continue as they have been; but
+so will that also continue whereupon learning hath ever relied, and
+which faileth not: <i>Justificata est sapientia a filiis suis</i>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+THE SECOND BOOK.<br>
+<i>To the King.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</i>1.&nbsp; It might seem to have more convenience, though it come
+often otherwise to pass (excellent King), that those which are fruitful
+in their generations, and have in themselves the foresight of immortality
+in their descendants, should likewise be more careful of the good estate
+of future times, unto which they know they must transmit and commend
+over their dearest pledges.&nbsp; Queen Elizabeth was a sojourner in
+the world in respect of her unmarried life, and was a blessing to her
+own times; and yet so as the impression of her good government, besides
+her happy memory, is not without some effect which doth survive her.&nbsp;
+But to your Majesty, whom God hath already blessed with so much royal
+issue, worthy to continue and represent you for ever, and whose youthful
+and fruitful bed doth yet promise many the like renovations, it is proper
+and agreeable to be conversant not only in the transitory parts of good
+government, but in those acts also which are in their nature permanent
+and perpetual.&nbsp; Amongst the which (if affection do not transport
+me) there is not any more worthy than the further endowment of the world
+with sound and fruitful knowledge.&nbsp; For why should a few received
+authors stand up like Hercules&rsquo; columns, beyond which there should
+be no sailing or discovering, since we have so bright and benign a star
+as your Majesty to conduct and prosper us?&nbsp; To return therefore
+where we left, it remaineth to consider of what kind those acts are
+which have been undertaken and performed by kings and others for the
+increase and advancement of learning, wherein I purpose to speak actively,
+without digressing or dilating.<br>
+<br>
+2.&nbsp; Let this ground therefore be laid, that all works are over
+common by amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction, and by the
+conjunction of labours.&nbsp; The first multiplieth endeavour, the second
+preventeth error, and the third supplieth the frailty of man.&nbsp;
+But the principal of these is direction, for <i>claudus in via antevertit
+cursorem extra viam</i>;<i> </i>and Solomon excellently setteth it down,
+&ldquo;If the iron be not sharp, it requireth more strength, but wisdom
+is that which prevaileth,&rdquo; signifying that the invention or election
+of the mean is more effectual than any enforcement or accumulation of
+endeavours.&nbsp; This I am induced to speak, for that (not derogating
+from the noble intention of any that have been deservers towards the
+state of learning), I do observe nevertheless that their works and acts
+are rather matters of magnificence and memory than of progression and
+proficience, and tend rather to augment the mass of learning in the
+multitude of learned men than to rectify or raise the sciences themselves.<br>
+<br>
+3.&nbsp; The works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant
+about three objects - the places of learning, the books of learning,
+and the persons of the learned.&nbsp; For as water, whether it be the
+dew of heaven or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and leese itself
+in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle where it
+may by union comfort and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry
+of man hath made and framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and pools,
+which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments
+of magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so this
+excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration,
+or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion,
+if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places
+appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt and
+comforting of the same.<br>
+<br>
+4.&nbsp; The works which concern the seats and places of learning are
+four - foundations and buildings, endowments with revenues, endowments
+with franchises and privileges, institutions and ordinances for government
+- all tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of
+cares and troubles; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth
+for the hiving of bees:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda,<br>
+Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &amp;c.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+5.&nbsp; The works touching books are two - first, libraries, which
+are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full
+of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved
+and reposed; secondly, new editions of authors, with more correct impressions,
+more faithful translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annotations,
+and the like.<br>
+<br>
+6.&nbsp; The works pertaining to the persons of learned men (besides
+the advancement and countenancing of them in general) are two - the
+reward and designation of readers in sciences already extant and invented;
+and the reward and designation of writers and inquirers concerning any
+parts of learning not sufficiently laboured and prosecuted.<br>
+<br>
+7.&nbsp; These are summarily the works and acts wherein the merits of
+many excellent princes and other worthy personages, have been conversant.&nbsp;
+As for any particular commemorations, I call to mind what Cicero said
+when he gave general thanks, <i>Difficile non aliquem, ingratum quenquam
+pr&aelig;terire</i>.&nbsp; Let us rather, according to the Scriptures,
+look unto that part of the race which is before us, than look back to
+that which is already attained.<br>
+<br>
+8.&nbsp; First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations of colleges
+in Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to professions,
+and none left free to arts and sciences at large.&nbsp; For if men judge
+that learning should be referred to action, they judge well; but in
+this they fall into the error described in the ancient fable, in which
+the other parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because
+it neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense,
+as the head doth; but yet notwithstanding it is the stomach that digesteth
+and distributeth to all the rest.&nbsp; So if any man think philosophy
+and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions
+are from thence served and supplied.&nbsp; And this I take to be a great
+cause that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these
+fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage.&nbsp; For if
+you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is
+not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the
+earth and putting new mould about thee roots that must work it.&nbsp;
+Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of foundations and
+dotations to professory learning hath not only had a malign aspect and
+influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial
+to states, and governments.&nbsp; For hence it proceedeth that princes
+find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of estate,
+because there is no education collegiate which is free, where such as
+were so disposed might give themselves in histories, modern languages,
+books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like enablements
+unto service of estate.<br>
+<br>
+9.&nbsp; And because founders of colleges do plant, and founders of
+lectures do water, it followeth well in order to speak of the defect
+which is in public lectures; namely, in the smallness, and meanness
+of the salary or reward which in most places is assigned unto them,
+whether they be lectures of arts, or of professions.&nbsp; For it is
+necessary to the progression of sciences that readers be of the most
+able and sufficient men; as those which are ordained for generating
+and propagating of sciences, and not for transitory use.&nbsp; This
+cannot be, except their condition and endowment be such as may content
+the ablest man to appropriate his whole labour and continue his whole
+age in that function and attendance; and therefore must have a proportion
+answerable to that mediocrity or competency of advancement, which may
+be expected from a profession or the practice of a profession.&nbsp;
+So as, if you will have sciences flourish, you must observe David&rsquo;s
+military law, which was, &ldquo;That those which stayed with the carriage
+should have equal part with those which were in the action;&rdquo; else
+will the carriages be ill attended.&nbsp; So readers in sciences are
+indeed the guardians of the stores and provisions of sciences, whence
+men in active courses are furnished, and therefore ought to have equal
+entertainment with them; otherwise if the fathers in sciences be of
+the weakest sort or be ill maintained,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Et patrum invalidi referent jejunia nati.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+10.&nbsp; Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some alchemist
+to help me, who call upon men to sell their books, and to build furnaces;
+quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses as barren virgins, and
+relying upon Vulcan.&nbsp; But certain it is, that unto the deep, fruitful,
+and operative study of many sciences, specialty natural philosophy and
+physic, books be not only the instrumentals; wherein also the beneficence
+of men hath not been altogether wanting.&nbsp; For we see spheres, globes,
+astrolabes, maps, and the like, have been provided as appurtenances
+to astronomy and cosmography, as well as books.&nbsp; We see likewise
+that some places instituted for physic have annexed the commodity of
+gardens for simples of all sorts, and do likewise command the use of
+dead bodies for anatomies.&nbsp; But these do respect but a few things.&nbsp;
+In general, there will hardly be any main proficience in the disclosing
+of nature, except there be some allowance for expenses about experiments;
+whether they be experiments appertaining to Vulcanus or D&aelig;dalus,
+furnace or engine, or any other kind.&nbsp; And therefore as secretaries
+and spials of princes and states bring in bills for intelligence, so
+you must allow the spials and intelligencers of nature to bring in their
+bills; or else you shall be ill advertised.<br>
+<br>
+11.&nbsp; And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to Aristotle
+of treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, fishers, and the
+like, that he might compile a history of nature, much better do they
+deserve it that travail in arts of nature.<br>
+<br>
+12.&nbsp; Another defect which I note is an intermission or neglect
+in those which are governors in universities, of consultation, and in
+princes or superior persons, of visitation: to enter into account and
+consideration, whether the readings, exercises, and other customs appertaining
+unto learning, anciently begun and since continued, be well instituted
+or no; and thereupon to ground an amendment or reformation in that which
+shall be found inconvenient.&nbsp; For it is one of your Majesty&rsquo;s
+own most wise and princely maxims, &ldquo;That in all usages and precedents,
+the times be considered wherein they first began; which if they were
+weak or ignorant, it derogateth from the authority of the usage, and
+leaveth it for suspect.&rdquo;&nbsp; And therefore inasmuch as most
+of the usages and orders of the universities were derived from more
+obscure times, it is the more requisite they be re-examined.&nbsp; In
+this kind I will give an instance or two, for example sake, of things
+that are the most obvious and familiar.&nbsp; The one is a matter, which
+though it be ancient and general, yet I hold to be an error; which is,
+that scholars in universities come too soon and too unripe to logic
+and rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than children and novices.&nbsp;
+For these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of sciences, being the
+arts of arts; the one for judgment, the other for ornament.&nbsp; And
+they be the rules and directions how to set forth and dispose matter:
+and therefore for minds empty and unfraught with matter, and which have
+not gathered that which Cicero calleth <i>sylva</i> and <i>supellex</i>,
+stuff and variety, to begin with those arts (as if one should learn
+to weigh, or to measure, or to paint the wind) doth work but this effect,
+that the wisdom of those arts, which is great and universal, is almost
+made contemptible, and is degenerate into childish sophistry and ridiculous
+affectation.&nbsp; And further, the untimely learning of them hath drawn
+on by consequence the superficial and unprofitable teaching and writing
+of them, as fitteth indeed to the capacity of children.&nbsp; Another
+is a lack I find in the exercises used in the universities, which do
+snake too great a divorce between invention and memory.&nbsp; For their
+speeches are either premeditate, in <i>verbis conceptis</i>, where nothing
+is left to invention, or merely extemporal, where little is left to
+memory.&nbsp; Whereas in life and action there is least use of either
+of these, but rather of intermixtures of premeditation and invention,
+notes and memory.&nbsp; So as the exercise fitteth not the practice,
+nor the image the life; and it is ever a true rule in exercises, that
+they be framed as near as may be to the life of practice; for otherwise
+they do pervert the motions and faculties of the mind, and not prepare
+them.&nbsp; The truth whereof is not obscure, when scholars come to
+the practices of professions, or other actions of civil life; which
+when they set into, this want is soon found by themselves, and sooner
+by others.&nbsp; But this part, touching the amendment of the institutions
+and orders of universities, I will conclude with the clause of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s
+letter to Oppius and Balbes, <i>Hoc quemadmodum fieri possit, nonnulla
+mihi in mentem veniunt, et multa reperiri possunt: de iis rebus rgo
+vos ut cogitationem suscipiatis</i>.<br>
+<br>
+13.&nbsp; Another defect which I note ascendeth a little higher than
+the precedent.&nbsp; For as the proficience of learning consisteth much
+in the orders and institutions of universities in the same states and
+kingdoms, so it would be yet more advanced, if there were more intelligence
+mutual between the universities of Europe than now there is.&nbsp; We
+see there be many orders and foundations, which though they be divided
+under several sovereignties and territories, yet they take themselves
+to have a kind of contract, fraternity, and correspondence one with
+the other, insomuch as they have provincials and generals.&nbsp; And
+surely as nature createth brotherhood in families, and arts mechanical
+contract brotherhoods in communalties, and the anointment of God superinduceth
+a brotherhood in kings and bishops, so in like manner there cannot but
+be a fraternity in learning and illumination, relating to that paternity
+which is attributed to God, who is called the Father of illuminations
+or lights.<br>
+<br>
+14.&nbsp; The last defect which I will note is, that there hath not
+been, or very rarely been, any public designation of writers or inquirers
+concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to have been already
+sufficiently laboured or undertaken; unto which point it is an inducement
+to enter into a view and examination what parts of learning have been
+prosecuted, and what omitted.&nbsp; For the opinion of plenty is amongst
+the causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show rather
+of superfluity than lack; which surcharge nevertheless is not to be
+remedied by making no more books, but by making more good books, which,
+as the serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents of the enchanters.<br>
+<br>
+15.&nbsp; The removing of all the defects formerly enumerate, except
+the last, and of the active part also of the last (which is the designation
+of writers), are <i>opera basilica</i>;<i> </i>towards which the endeavours
+of a private man may be but as an image in a crossway, that may point
+at the way, but cannot go it.&nbsp; But the inducing part of the latter
+(which is the survey of learning) may be set forward by private travail.&nbsp;
+Wherefore I will now attempt to make a general and faithful perambulation
+of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste,
+and not improved and converted by the industry of man, to the end that
+such a plot made and recorded to memory may both minister light to any
+public designation, and, also serve to excite voluntary endeavours.&nbsp;
+Wherein, nevertheless, my purpose is at this time to note only omissions
+and deficiences, and not to make any redargution of errors or incomplete
+prosecutions.&nbsp; For it is one thing to set forth what ground lieth
+unmanured, and another thing to correct ill husbandry in that which
+is manured.<br>
+<br>
+In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant what
+it is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own weakness
+to sustain my purpose.&nbsp; But my hope is, that if my extreme love
+to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection;
+for that &ldquo;It is not granted to man to love and to be wise.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But I know well I can use no other liberty of judgment than I must leave
+to others; and I for my part shall be indifferently glad either to perform
+myself, or accept from another, that duty of humanity - <i>Nam qui erranti
+comiter monstrat viam</i>, &amp;c.&nbsp; I do foresee likewise that
+of those things which I shall enter and register as deficiences and
+omissions, many will conceive and censure that some of them are already
+done and extant; others to be but curiosities, and things of no great
+use; and others to be of too great difficulty, and almost impossibility
+to be compassed and effected.&nbsp; But for the two first, I refer myself
+to the particulars.&nbsp; For the last, touching impossibility, I take
+it those things are to be held possible which may be done by some person,
+though not by every one; and which may be done by many, though not by
+any one; and which may be done in the succession of ages, though not
+within the hourglass of one man&rsquo;s life; and which may be done
+by public designation, though not by private endeavour.&nbsp; But, notwithstanding,
+if any man will take to himself rather that of Solomon, &ldquo;<i>Dicit
+piger, Leo est in via</i>,&rdquo; than that of Virgil, &ldquo;<i>Possunt
+quia posse videntur</i>,&rdquo;<i> </i>I shall be content that my labours
+be esteemed but as the better sort of wishes; for as it asketh some
+knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some
+sense to make a wish not absurd.<br>
+<br>
+I. (1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts
+of man&rsquo;s understanding, which is the seat of learning: history
+to his memory, poesy to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason.&nbsp;
+Divine learning receiveth the same distribution; for, the spirit of
+man is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse.&nbsp;
+So as theology consisteth also of history of the Church; of parables,
+which is divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept.&nbsp; For as
+for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is
+but divine history, which hath that prerogative over human, as the narration
+may be before the fact as well as after.<br>
+<br>
+(2) History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary; whereof
+the first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient.&nbsp;
+For no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning
+to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done the
+works of Nature, and the state, civil and ecclesiastical; without which
+the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus
+with his eye out, that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit
+and life of the person.&nbsp; And yet I am not ignorant that in divers
+particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the
+rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small memorials
+of the schools, authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations
+touching the invention of arts or usages.&nbsp; But a just story of
+learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges and
+their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations
+and managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions,
+oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them, and all other
+events concerning learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may
+truly affirm to be wanting; the use and end of which work I do not so
+much design for curiosity or satisfaction of those that are the lovers
+of learning, but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which
+is this in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use
+and administration of learning.&nbsp; For it is not Saint Augustine&rsquo;s
+nor Saint Ambrose&rsquo;s works that will make so wise a divine as ecclesiastical
+history thoroughly read and observed, and the same reason is of learning.<br>
+<br>
+(3) History of Nature is of three sorts; of Nature in course, of Nature
+erring or varying, and of Nature altered or wrought; that is, history
+of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts.&nbsp; The first
+of these no doubt is extant, and that in good perfection; the two latter
+are bandied so weakly and unprofitably as I am moved to note them as
+deficient.&nbsp; For I find no sufficient or competent collection of
+the works of Nature which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary
+course of generations, productions, and motions; whether they be singularities
+of place and region, or the strange events of time and chance, or the
+effects of yet unknown properties, or the instances of exception to
+general kinds.&nbsp; It is true I find a number of books of fabulous
+experiments and secrets, and frivolous impostures for pleasure and strangeness;
+but a substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites or irregulars
+of Nature, well examined and described, I find not, specially not with
+due rejection of fables and popular errors.&nbsp; For as things now
+are, if an untruth in Nature be once on foot, what by reason of the
+neglect of examination, and countenance of antiquity, and what by reason
+of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments of speech, it
+is never called down.<br>
+<br>
+(4) The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is
+nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and
+vain wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries is to do; but for two reasons,
+both of great weight: the one to correct the partiality of axioms and
+opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar examples;
+the other because from the wonders of Nature is the nearest intelligence
+and passage towards the wonders of art, for it is no more but by following
+and, as it were, hounding Nature in her wanderings, to be able to lead
+her afterwards to the same place again.&nbsp; Neither am I of opinion,
+in this history of marvels, that superstitious narrations of sorceries,
+witchcrafts, dreams, divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance
+and clear evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded.&nbsp; For it
+is not yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to superstition
+do participate of natural causes; and, therefore, howsoever the practice
+of such things is to be condemned, yet from the speculation and consideration
+of them light may be taken, not only for the discerning of the offences,
+but for the further disclosing of Nature.&nbsp; Neither ought a man
+to make scruple of entering into these things for inquisition of truth,
+as your Majesty hath showed in your own example, who, with the two clear
+eyes of religion and natural philosophy, have looked deeply and wisely
+into these shadows, and yet proved yourself to be of the nature of the
+sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as
+before.&nbsp; But this I hold fit, that these narrations, which have
+mixture with superstition, be sorted by themselves, and not to be mingled
+with the narrations which are merely and sincerely natural.&nbsp; But
+as for the narrations touching the prodigies and miracles of religions,
+they are either not true or not natural; and, therefore, impertinent
+for the story of Nature.<br>
+<br>
+(5) For history of Nature, wrought or mechanical, I find some collections
+made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts; but commonly with
+a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar; for it is esteemed a
+kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation
+upon matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets,
+rarities, and special subtleties; which humour of vain and supercilious
+arrogancy is justly derided in Plato, where he brings in Hippias, a
+vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates, a true and unfeigned inquisitor
+of truth; where, the subject being touching beauty, Socrates, after
+his wandering manner of inductions, put first an example of a fair virgin,
+and then of a fair horse, and then of a fair pot well glazed, whereat
+Hippias was offended, and said, &ldquo;More than for courtesy&rsquo;s
+sake, he did think much to dispute with any that did allege such base
+and sordid instances.&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereunto Socrates answereth, &ldquo;You
+have reason, and it becomes you well, being a man so trim in your vestments,&rdquo;
+&amp;c., and so goeth on in an irony.&nbsp; But the truth is, they be
+not the highest instances that give the securest information, as may
+be well expressed in the tale so common of the philosopher that, while
+he gazed upwards to the stars, fell into the water; for if he had looked
+down he might have seen the stars in the water, but looking aloft he
+could not see the water in the stars.&nbsp; So it cometh often to pass
+that mean and small things discover great, better than great can discover
+the small; and therefore Aristotle noteth well, &ldquo;That the nature
+of everything is best seen in his smallest portions.&rdquo;&nbsp; And
+for that cause he inquireth the nature of a commonwealth, first in a
+family, and the simple conjugations of man and wife, parent and child,
+master and servant, which are in every cottage.&nbsp; Even so likewise
+the nature of this great city of the world, and the policy thereof,
+must be first sought in mean concordances and small portions.&nbsp;
+So we see how that secret of Nature, of the turning of iron touched
+with the loadstone towards the north, was found out in needles of iron,
+not in bars of iron.<br>
+<br>
+(6) But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of history mechanical
+is of all others the most radical and fundamental towards natural philosophy;
+such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtle, sublime,
+or delectable speculation, but such as shall be operative to the endowment
+and benefit of man&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; For it will not only minister
+and suggest for the present many ingenious practices in all trades,
+by a connection and transferring of the observations of one art to the
+use of another, when the experiences of several mysteries shall fall
+under the consideration of one man&rsquo;s mind; but further, it will
+give a more true and real illumination concerning causes and axioms
+than is hitherto attained.&nbsp; For like as a man&rsquo;s disposition
+is never well known till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes
+till he was straitened and held fast; so the passages and variations
+of nature cannot appear so fully in the liberty of nature as in the
+trials and vexations of art.<br>
+<br>
+II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be compared
+with the three kinds of pictures or images.&nbsp; For of pictures or
+images we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced.&nbsp;
+So of histories we may find three kinds: memorials, perfect histories,
+and antiquities; for memorials are history unfinished, or the first
+or rough drafts of history; and antiquities are history defaced, or
+some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of
+time.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts; whereof the
+one may be termed commentaries, and the other registers.&nbsp; Commentaries
+are they which set down a continuance of the naked events and actions,
+without the motives or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts,
+the occasions, and other passages of action.&nbsp; For this is the true
+nature of a commentary (though C&aelig;sar, in modesty mixed with greatness,
+did for his pleasure apply the name of a commentary to the best history
+of the world).&nbsp; Registers are collections of public acts, as decrees
+of council, judicial proceedings, declarations and letters of estate,
+orations, and the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture
+of the thread of the narration.<br>
+<br>
+(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, <i>tanquam
+tabula naufragii</i>: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous
+diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs,
+traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages
+of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat
+from the deluge of time.<br>
+<br>
+(4) In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign no deficience,
+for they are <i>tanquam imperfecte mista</i>; and therefore any deficience
+in them is but their nature.&nbsp; As for the corruptions and moths
+of history, which are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be banished,
+as all men of sound judgment have confessed, as those that have fretted
+and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought
+them into base and unprofitable dregs.<br>
+<br>
+(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three
+kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or pretendeth to
+represent: for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action.&nbsp;
+The first we call chronicles, the second lives, and the third narrations
+or relations.&nbsp; Of these, although the first be the most complete
+and absolute kind of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet
+the second excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and
+sincerity.&nbsp; For history of times representeth the magnitude of
+actions, and the public faces and deportments of persons, and passeth
+over in silence the smaller passages and motions of men and matters.&nbsp;
+But such being the workmanship of God, as He doth hang the greatest
+weight upon the smallest wires, <i>maxima &egrave; minimis, suspendens</i>,
+it comes therefore to pass, that such histories do rather set forth
+the pomp of business than the true and inward resorts thereof.&nbsp;
+But lives, if they be well written, propounding to themselves a person
+to represent, in whom actions, both greater and smaller, public and
+private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, native,
+and lively representation.&nbsp; So again narrations and relations of
+actions, as the war of Peloponnesus, the expedition of Cyrus Minor,
+the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be more purely and exactly true
+than histories of times, because they may choose an argument comprehensible
+within the notice and instructions of the writer: whereas he that undertaketh
+the story of a time, specially of any length, cannot but meet with many
+blanks and spaces, which he must be forced to fill up out of his own
+wit and conjecture.<br>
+<br>
+(6) For the history of times, I mean of civil history, the providence
+of God hath made the distribution.&nbsp; For it hath pleased God to
+ordain and illustrate two exemplar states of the world for arms, learning,
+moral virtue, policy, and laws; the state of Gr&aelig;cia and the state
+of Rome; the histories whereof occupying the middle part of time, have
+more ancient to them histories which may by one common name be termed
+the antiquities of the world; and after them, histories which may be
+likewise called by the name of modern history.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Now to speak of the deficiences.&nbsp; As to the heathen antiquities
+of the world it is in vain to note them for deficient.&nbsp; Deficient
+they are no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments; but the
+deficience cannot be holpen; for antiquity is like fame, <i>caput inter
+nubila condit</i>,<i> </i>her head is muffled from our sight.&nbsp;
+For the history of the exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection.&nbsp;
+Not but I could wish there were a perfect course of history for Gr&aelig;cia,
+from Theseus to Philop&oelig;men (what time the affairs of Gr&aelig;cia
+drowned and extinguished in the affairs of Rome), and for Rome from
+Romulus to Justinianus, who may be truly said to be <i>ultimus Romanorum</i>.&nbsp;
+In which sequences of story the text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the
+one, and the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, C&aelig;sar, Appianus,
+Tacitus, Herodianus in the other, to be kept entire, without any diminution
+at all, and only to be supplied and continued.&nbsp; But this is a matter
+of magnificence, rather to be commended than required; and we speak
+now of parts of learning supplemental, and not of supererogation.<br>
+<br>
+(8) But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very worthy,
+but the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of foreign
+stories to foreign states, because I will not be <i>curiosus in aliena
+republica</i>,<i> </i>I cannot fail to represent to your Majesty the
+unworthiness of the history of England in the main continuance thereof,
+and the partiality and obliquity of that of Scotland in the latest and
+largest author that I have seen: supposing that it would be honour for
+your Majesty, and a work very memorable, if this island of Great Britain,
+as it is now joined in monarchy for the ages to come, so were joined
+in one history for the times passed, after the manner of the sacred
+history, which draweth down the story of the ten tribes and of the two
+tribes as twins together.&nbsp; And if it shall seem that the greatness
+of this work may make it less exactly performed, there is an excellent
+period of a much smaller compass of time, as to the story of England;
+that is to say, from the uniting of the Roses to the uniting of the
+kingdoms; a portion of time wherein, to my understanding, there hath
+been the rarest varieties that in like number of successions of any
+hereditary monarchy hath been known.&nbsp; For it beginneth with the
+mixed adoption of a crown by arms and title; an entry by battle, an
+establishment by marriage; and therefore times answerable, like waters
+after a tempest, full of working and swelling, though without extremity
+of storm; but well passed through by the wisdom of the pilot, being
+one of the most sufficient kings of all the number.&nbsp; Then followeth
+the reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much intermixture
+with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining them variably; in
+whose time also began that great alteration in the state ecclesiastical,
+an action which seldom cometh upon the stage.&nbsp; Then the reign of
+a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it was but as <i>febris</i>
+<i>ephemera</i>).&nbsp; Then the reign of a queen matched with a foreigner;
+then of a queen that lived solitary and unmarried, and yet her government
+so masculine, as it had greater impression and operation upon the states
+abroad than it any ways received from thence.&nbsp; And now last, this
+most happy and glorious event, that this island of Britain, divided
+from all the world, should be united in itself, and that oracle of rest
+given to &AElig;Neas, <i>antiquam exquirite matrem</i>,<i> </i>should
+now be performed and fulfilled upon the nations of England and Scotland,
+being now reunited in the ancient mother name of Britain, as a full
+period of all instability and peregrinations.&nbsp; So that as it cometh
+to pass in massive bodies, that they have certain trepidations and waverings
+before they fix and settle, so it seemeth that by the providence of
+God this monarchy, before it was to settle in your majesty and your
+generations (in which I hope it is now established for ever), it had
+these prelusive changes and varieties.<br>
+<br>
+(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so little esteemed
+the virtues of the times, as that the writings of lives should be no
+more frequent.&nbsp; For although there be not many sovereign princes
+or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected into monarchies,
+yet are there many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed
+report or barren eulogies.&nbsp; For herein the invention of one of
+the late poets is proper, and doth well enrich the ancient fiction.&nbsp;
+For he feigneth that at the end of the thread or web of every man&rsquo;s
+life there was a little medal containing the person&rsquo;s name, and
+that Time waited upon the shears, and as soon as the thread was cut
+caught the medals, and carried them to the river of Lathe; and about
+the bank there were many birds flying up and down, that would get the
+medals and carry them in their beak a little while, and then let them
+fall into the river.&nbsp; Only there were a few swans, which if they
+got a name would carry it to a temple where it was consecrate.&nbsp;
+And although many men, more mortal in their affections than in their
+bodies, do esteem desire of name and memory but as a vanity and ventosity,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Animi nil magn&aelig; laudis egentes;&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+which opinion cometh from that root, <i>Non prius laudes contempsimus,
+quam laudanda facere desivimus</i>: yet that will not alter Solomon&rsquo;s
+judgment, <i>Memoria justi cum laudibus, at impiorum nomen putrescet</i>:
+the one flourisheth, the other either consumeth to present oblivion,
+or turneth to an ill odour.&nbsp; And therefore in that style or addition,
+which is and hath been long well received and brought in use, <i>felicis
+memori&aelig;, pi&aelig; memori&aelig;, bon&aelig; memori&aelig;</i>,<i>
+</i>we do acknowledge that which Cicero saith, borrowing it from Demosthenes,
+that <i>bona fama propria possessio defunctorum</i>; which possession
+I cannot but note that in our times it lieth much waste, and that therein
+there is a deficience.<br>
+<br>
+(10) For narrations and relations of particular actions, there were
+also to be wished a greater diligence therein; for there is no great
+action but hath some good pen which attends it.&nbsp; And because it
+is an ability not common to write a good history, as may well appear
+by the small number of them; yet if particularity of actions memorable
+were but tolerably reported as they pass, the compiling of a complete
+history of times might be the better expected, when a writer should
+arise that were fit for it: for the collection of such relations might
+be as a nursery garden, whereby to plant a fair and stately garden when
+time should serve.<br>
+<br>
+(11) There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius Tacitus
+maketh, which is not to be forgotten, specially with that application
+which he accoupleth it withal, annals and journals: appropriating to
+the former matters of estate, and to the latter acts and accidents of
+a meaner nature.&nbsp; For giving but a touch of certain magnificent
+buildings, he addeth, <i>Cum ex dignitate populi Romani repertum sit,
+res illustres annalibus, talia diurnis urbis actis mandare</i>.&nbsp;
+So as there is a kind of contemplative heraldry, as well as civil.&nbsp;
+And as nothing doth derogate from the dignity of a state more than confusion
+of degrees, so it doth not a little imbase the authority of a history
+to intermingle matters of triumph, or matters of ceremony, or matters
+of novelty, with matters of state.&nbsp; But the use of a journal hath
+not only been in the history of time, but likewise in the history of
+persons, and chiefly of actions; for princes in ancient time had, upon
+point of honour and policy both, journals kept, what passed day by day.&nbsp;
+For we see the chronicle which was read before Ahasuerus, when he could
+not take rest, contained matter of affairs, indeed, but such as had
+passed in his own time and very lately before.&nbsp; But the journal
+of Alexander&rsquo;s house expressed every small particularity, even
+concerning his person and court; and it is yet a use well received in
+enterprises memorable, as expeditions of war, navigations, and the like,
+to keep diaries of that which passeth continually.<br>
+<br>
+(12) I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing which some grave
+and wise men have used, containing a scattered history of those actions
+which they have thought worthy of memory, with politic discourse and
+observation thereupon: not incorporate into the history, but separately,
+and as the more principal in their intention; which kind of ruminated
+history I think more fit to place amongst books of policy, whereof we
+shall hereafter speak, than amongst books of history.&nbsp; For it is
+the true office of history to represent the events themselves together
+with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon
+to the liberty and faculty of every man&rsquo;s judgment.&nbsp; But
+mixtures are things irregular, whereof no man can define.<br>
+<br>
+(13) So also is there another kind of history manifoldly mixed, and
+that is history of cosmography: being compounded of natural history,
+in respect of the regions themselves; of history civil, in respect of
+the habitations, regiments, and manners of the people; and the mathematics,
+in respect of the climates and configurations towards the heavens: which
+part of learning of all others in this latter time hath obtained most
+proficience.&nbsp; For it may be truly affirmed to the honour of these
+times, and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building
+of the world had never through-lights made in it, till the age of us
+and our fathers.&nbsp; For although they had knowledge of the antipodes,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,<br>
+Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+yet that might be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by travel,
+it requireth the voyage but of half the globe.&nbsp; But to circle the
+earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor enterprised till
+these later times: and therefore these times may justly bear in their
+word, not only <i>plus ultra</i>, in precedence of the ancient <i>non
+ultra</i>,<i> </i>and <i>imitabile fulmen</i>,<i> </i>in precedence
+of the ancient <i>non imitabile fulmen</i>,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Demens qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen,&rdquo; &amp;c.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+but likewise <i>imitabile c&aelig;lum</i>; in respect of the many memorable
+voyages after the manner of heaven about the globe of the earth.<br>
+<br>
+(14) And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also
+an expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of all sciences;
+because it may seem they are ordained by God to be coevals, that is,
+to meet in one age.&nbsp; For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the
+latter times foretelleth, <i>Plurimi pertransibunt, et multiplex erit
+scientia</i>:<i> </i>as if the openness and through-passage of the world
+and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages;
+as we see it is already performed in great part: the learning of these
+later times not much giving place to the former two periods or returns
+of learning, the one of the Grecians, the other of the Romans.<br>
+<br>
+III. (1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions with history
+civil: but further in the propriety thereof may be divided into the
+history of the Church, by a general name; history of prophecy; and history
+of providence.&nbsp; The first describeth the times of the militant
+Church, whether it be fluctuant, as the ark of Noah, or movable, as
+the ark in the wilderness, or at rest, as the ark in the Temple: that
+is, the state of the Church in persecution, in remove, and in peace.&nbsp;
+This part I ought in no sort to note as deficient; only I would that
+the virtue and sincerity of it were according to the mass and quantity.&nbsp;
+But I am not now in hand with censures, but with omissions.<br>
+<br>
+(2) The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of two relatives
+- the prophecy and the accomplishment; and, therefore, the nature of
+such a work ought to be, that every prophecy of the Scripture be sorted
+with the event fulfilling the same throughout the ages of the world,
+both for the better confirmation of faith and for the better illumination
+of the Church touching those parts of prophecies which are yet unfulfilled:
+allowing, nevertheless, that latitude which is agreeable and familiar
+unto divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author, with whom
+a thousand years are but as one day, and therefore are not fulfilled
+punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment
+throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of them may refer
+to some one age.&nbsp; This is a work which I find deficient, but is
+to be done with wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.<br>
+<br>
+(3) The third, which is history of Providence, containeth that excellent
+correspondence which is between God&rsquo;s revealed will and His secret
+will; which though it be so obscure, as for the most part it is not
+legible to the natural man - no, nor many times to those that behold
+it from the tabernacle - yet, at some times it pleaseth God, for our
+better establishment and the confuting of those which are as without
+God in the world, to write it in such text and capital letters, that,
+as the prophet saith, &ldquo;He that runneth by may read it&rdquo; -
+that is, mere sensual persons, which hasten by God&rsquo;s judgments,
+and never bend or fix their cogitations upon them, are nevertheless
+in their passage and race urged to discern it.&nbsp; Such are the notable
+events and examples of God&rsquo;s judgments, chastisements, deliverances,
+and blessings; and this is a work which has passed through the labour
+of many, and therefore I cannot present as omitted.<br>
+<br>
+(4) There are also other parts of learning which are appendices to history.&nbsp;
+For all the exterior proceedings of man consist of words and deeds,
+whereof history doth properly receive and retain in memory the deeds;
+and if words, yet but as inducements and passages to deeds; so are there
+other books and writings which are appropriate to the custody and receipt
+of words only, which likewise are of three sorts - orations, letters,
+and brief speeches or sayings.&nbsp; Orations are pleadings, speeches
+of counsel, laudatives, invectives, apologies, reprehensions, orations
+of formality or ceremony, and the like.&nbsp; Letters are according
+to all the variety of occasions, advertisements, advises, directions,
+propositions, petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory,
+of compliment, of pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of
+action.&nbsp; And such as are written from wise men, are of all the
+words of man, in my judgment, the best; for they are more natural than
+orations and public speeches, and more advised than conferences or present
+speeches.&nbsp; So again letters of affairs from such as manage them,
+or are privy to them, are of all others the best instructions for history,
+and to a diligent reader the best histories in themselves.&nbsp; For
+apophthegms, it is a great loss of that book of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s;
+for as his history, and those few letters of his which we have, and
+those apophthegms which were of his own, excel all men&rsquo;s else,
+so I suppose would his collection of apophthegms have done; for as for
+those which are collected by others, either I have no taste in such
+matters or else their choice hath not been happy.&nbsp; But upon these
+three kinds of writings I do not insist, because I have no deficiences
+to propound concerning them.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that part of learning
+which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or offices of the mind
+of man, which is that of the memory.<br>
+<br>
+IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for the most
+part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth
+truly refer to the imagination; which, being not tied to the laws of
+matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever
+that which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces
+of things - <i>Pictoribus atque poetis</i>, &amp;c.&nbsp; It is taken
+in two senses in respect of words or matter.&nbsp; In the first sense,
+it is but a character of style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and
+is not pertinent for the present.&nbsp; In the latter, it is - as hath
+been said - one of the principal portions of learning, and is nothing
+else but feigned history, which may be styled as well in prose as in
+verse.<br>
+<br>
+(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of
+satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of
+things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul;
+by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample
+greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than
+can be found in the nature of things.&nbsp; Therefore, because the acts
+or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the
+mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.&nbsp;
+Because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions
+not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns
+them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed Providence.&nbsp;
+Because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary and
+less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and
+more unexpected and alternative variations.&nbsp; So as it appeareth
+that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality and to delectation.&nbsp;
+And therefore, it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness,
+because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of
+things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow
+the mind unto the nature of things.&nbsp; And we see that by these insinuations
+and congruities with man&rsquo;s nature and pleasure, joined also with
+the agreement and consort it hath with music, it hath had access and
+estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning
+stood excluded.<br>
+<br>
+(3) The division of poesy which is aptest in the propriety thereof (besides
+those divisions which are common unto it with history, as feigned chronicles,
+feigned lives, and the appendices of history, as feigned epistles, feigned
+orations, and the rest) is into poesy narrative, representative, and
+allusive.&nbsp; The narrative is a mere imitation of history, with the
+excesses before remembered, choosing for subjects commonly wars and
+love, rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or mirth.&nbsp; Representative
+is as a visible history, and is an image of actions as if they were
+present, as history is of actions in nature as they are (that is) past.&nbsp;
+Allusive, or parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some
+special purpose or conceit; which latter kind of parabolical wisdom
+was much more in use in the ancient times, as by the fables of &AElig;sop,
+and the brief sentences of the seven, and the use of hieroglyphics may
+appear.&nbsp; And the cause was (for that it was then of necessity to
+express any point of reason which was more sharp or subtle than the
+vulgar in that manner) because men in those times wanted both variety
+of examples and subtlety of conceit.&nbsp; And as hieroglyphics were
+before letters, so parables were before arguments; and nevertheless
+now and at all times they do retain much life and rigour, because reason
+cannot be so sensible nor examples so fit.<br>
+<br>
+(4) But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical, opposite
+to that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to demonstrate and
+illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other to retire
+and obscure it - that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion,
+policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables or parables.&nbsp; Of
+this in divine poesy we see the use is authorised.&nbsp; In heathen
+poesy we see the exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great
+felicity: as in the fable that the giants being overthrown in their
+war against the gods, the earth their mother in revenge thereof brought
+forth Fame:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Illam terra parens, ira irritat Deorum,<br>
+Extremam, ut perhibent, C&oelig;o Enceladoque soroem,<br>
+Progenuit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and
+open rebels, then the malignity of people (which is the mother of rebellion)
+doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the states, which
+is of the same kind with rebellion but more feminine.&nbsp; So in the
+fable that the rest of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas
+called Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid: expounded that monarchies
+need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects,
+as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be
+sure to come in on their side.&nbsp; So in the fable that Achilles was
+brought up under Chiron, the centaur, who was part a man and part a
+beast, expounded ingeniously but corruptly by Machiavel, that it belongeth
+to the education and discipline of princes to know as well how to play
+the part of a lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man
+in virtue and justice.&nbsp; Nevertheless, in many the like encounters,
+I do rather think that the fable was first, and the exposition devised,
+than that the moral was first, and thereupon the fable framed; for I
+find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled himself with
+great contention to fasten the assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions
+of the ancient poets; but yet that all the fables and fictions of the
+poets were but pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion.&nbsp;
+Surely of these poets which are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding
+he was made a kind of scripture by the later schools of the Grecians),
+yet I should without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no
+such inwardness in his own meaning.&nbsp; But what they might have upon
+a more original tradition is not easy to affirm, for he was not the
+inventor of many of them.<br>
+<br>
+(5) In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can report no
+deficience; for being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth,
+without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than
+any other kind.&nbsp; But to ascribe unto it that which is due, for
+the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we
+are beholding to poets more than to the philosophers&rsquo; works; and
+for wit and eloquence, not much less than to orators&rsquo; harangues.&nbsp;
+But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre.&nbsp; Let us now
+pass on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to
+approach and view with more reverence and attention.<br>
+<br>
+V. (1) The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above,
+and some springing from beneath: the one informed by the light of nature,
+the other inspired by divine revelation.&nbsp; The light of nature consisteth
+in the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses; for as for
+knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not
+original, as in a water that besides his own spring-head is fed with
+other springs and streams.&nbsp; So then, according to these two differing
+illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of all divided into divinity
+and philosophy.<br>
+<br>
+(2) In philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto
+God, or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon
+himself.&nbsp; Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges
+- divine philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy or humanity.&nbsp;
+For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character - the
+power of God, the difference of nature and the use of man.&nbsp; But
+because the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several
+lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like
+branches of a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity
+of entireness and continuance before it come to discontinue and break
+itself into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, before we enter into
+the former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science,
+by the name of <i>philosophia prima</i>,<i> </i>primitive or summary
+philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways
+part and divide themselves; which science whether I should report as
+deficient or no, I stand doubtful.&nbsp; For I find a certain rhapsody
+of natural theology, and of divers parts of logic; and of that part
+of natural philosophy which concerneth the principles, and of that other
+part of natural philosophy which concerneth the soul or spirit - all
+these strangely commixed and confused; but being examined, it seemeth
+to me rather a depredation of other sciences, advanced and exalted unto
+some height of terms, than anything solid or substantive of itself.&nbsp;
+Nevertheless I cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is current,
+that the same things are handled but in several respects.&nbsp; As for
+example, that logic considereth of many things as they are in notion,
+and this philosophy as they are in nature - the one in appearance, the
+other in existence; but I find this difference better made than pursued.&nbsp;
+For if they had considered quantity, similitude, diversity, and the
+rest of those extern characters of things, as philosophers, and in nature,
+their inquiries must of force have been of a far other kind than they
+are.&nbsp; For doth any of them, in handling quantity, speak of the
+force of union, how and how far it multiplieth virtue?&nbsp; Doth any
+give the reason why some things in nature are so common, and in so great
+mass, and others so rare, and in so small quantity?&nbsp; Doth any,
+in handling similitude and diversity, assign the cause why iron should
+not move to iron, which is more like, but move to the loadstone, which
+is less like?&nbsp; Why in all diversities of things there should be
+certain participles in nature which are almost ambiguous to which kind
+they should be referred?&nbsp; But there is a mere and deep silence
+touching the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things,
+as in nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use
+of them in speech or argument.&nbsp; Therefore, because in a writing
+of this nature I avoid all subtlety, my meaning touching this original
+or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by
+negative: &ldquo;That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations
+and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts
+of philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(3) Now that there are many of that kind need not be doubted.&nbsp;
+For example: Is not the rule, <i>Si in&oelig;qualibus &aelig;qualia
+addas, omnia erunt in&aelig;qualia</i>,<i> </i>an axiom as well of justice
+as of the mathematics? and is there not a true coincidence between commutative
+and distributive justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion?&nbsp;
+Is not that other rule, <i>Qu&aelig; in eodem tertio conveniunt, et
+inter se conveniunt</i>, a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent
+in logic as all syllogisms are built upon it?&nbsp; Is not the observation,
+<i>Omnia mutantur, nil interit</i>, a contemplation in philosophy thus,
+that the <i>quantum </i>of nature is eternal? in natural theology thus,
+that it requireth the same omnipotency to make somewhat nothing, which
+at the first made nothing somewhat? according to the Scripture, <i>Didici
+quod omnia opera, qu&oelig; fecit Deus, perseverent in perpetuum; non
+possumus eis quicquam addere nec auferre</i>.&nbsp; Is not the ground,
+which Machiavel wisely and largely discourseth concerning governments,
+that the way to establish and preserve them is to reduce them <i>ad
+principia</i> - a rule in religion and nature, as well as in civil administration?&nbsp;
+Was not the Persian magic a reduction or correspondence of the principles
+and architectures of nature to the rules and policy of governments?&nbsp;
+Is not the precept of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord
+upon a concord or sweet accord, alike true in affection?&nbsp; Is not
+the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence, common
+with the trope of rhetoric of deceiving expectation?&nbsp; Is not the
+delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing
+of light upon the water?<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of reflection,
+the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or strait, determined and
+bounded?&nbsp; Neither are these only similitudes, as men of narrow
+observation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of nature,
+treading or printing upon several subjects or matters.&nbsp; This science
+therefore (as I understand it) I may justly report as deficient; for
+I see sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling some particular
+argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water out of this well
+for their present use; but the spring-head thereof seemeth to me not
+to have been visited, being of so excellent use both for the disclosing
+of nature and the abridgment of art.<br>
+<br>
+VI. (1) This science being therefore first placed as a common parent
+like unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue, <i>omnes c&oelig;licolas,
+omnes supera alta tenetes</i>;<i> </i>we may return to the former distribution
+of the three philosophies - divine, natural, and human.&nbsp; And as
+concerning divine philosophy or natural theology, it is that knowledge
+or rudiment of knowledge concerning God which may be obtained by the
+contemplation of His creatures; which knowledge may be truly termed
+divine in respect of the object, and natural in respect of the light.&nbsp;
+The bounds of this knowledge are, that it sufficeth to convince atheism,
+but not to inform religion; and therefore there was never miracle wrought
+by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have
+led him to confess a God; but miracles have been wrought to convert
+idolaters and the superstitious, because no light of nature extendeth
+to declare the will and true worship of God.&nbsp; For as all works
+do show forth the power and skill of the workman, and not his image,
+so it is of the works of God, which do show the omnipotency and wisdom
+of the Maker, but not His image.&nbsp; And therefore therein the heathen
+opinion differeth from the sacred truth: for they supposed the world
+to be the image of God, and man to be an extract or compendious image
+of the world; but the Scriptures never vouchsafe to attribute to the
+world that honour, as to be the image of God, but only <i>the work of
+His hands</i>;<i> </i>neither do they speak of any other image of God
+but man.&nbsp; Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to induce and
+enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to demonstrate His power, providence,
+and goodness, is an excellent argument, and hath been excellently handled
+by divers, but on the other side, out of the contemplation of nature,
+or ground of human knowledges, to induce any verity or persuasion concerning
+the points of faith, is in my judgment not safe; <i>Da fidei qu&aelig;
+fidei sunt</i>.&nbsp; For the heathen themselves conclude as much in
+that excellent and divine fable of the golden chain, &ldquo;That men
+and gods were not able to draw Jupiter down to the earth; but, contrariwise,
+Jupiter was able to draw them up to heaven.&rdquo;&nbsp; So as we ought
+not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God to our reason,
+but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason to the divine truth.&nbsp;
+So as in this part of knowledge, touching divine philosophy, I am so
+far from noting any deficience, as I rather note an excess; whereunto
+I have digressed because of the extreme prejudice which both religion
+and philosophy hath received and may receive by being commixed together;
+as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion, and an imaginary
+and fabulous philosophy.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, which is an
+appendix of theology, both divine and natural, and is neither inscrutable
+nor interdicted.&nbsp; For although the Scripture saith, &ldquo;Let
+no man deceive you in sublime discourse touching the worship of angels,
+pressing into that he knoweth not,&rdquo; &amp;c., yet notwithstanding
+if you observe well that precept, it may appear thereby that there be
+two things only forbidden - adoration of them, and opinion fantastical
+of them, either to extol them further than appertaineth to the degree
+of a creature, or to extol a man&rsquo;s knowledge of them further than
+he hath ground.&nbsp; But the sober and grounded inquiry, which may
+arise out of the passages of Holy Scriptures, or out of the gradations
+of nature, is not restrained.&nbsp; So of degenerate and revolted spirits,
+the conversing with them or the employment of them is prohibited, much
+more any veneration towards them; but the contemplation or science of
+their nature, their power, their illusions, either by Scripture or reason,
+is a part of spiritual wisdom.&nbsp; For so the apostle saith, &ldquo;We
+are not ignorant of his stratagems.&rdquo;&nbsp; And it is no more unlawful
+to inquire the nature of evil spirits, than to inquire the force of
+poisons in nature, or the nature of sin and vice in morality.&nbsp;
+But this part touching angels and spirits I cannot note as deficient,
+for many have occupied themselves in it; I may rather challenge it,
+in many of the writers thereof, as fabulous and fantastical.<br>
+<br>
+VII. (1) Leaving therefore divine philosophy or natural theology (not
+divinity or inspired theology, which we reserve for the last of all
+as the haven and sabbath of all man&rsquo;s contemplations) we will
+now proceed to natural philosophy.&nbsp; If then it be true that Democritus
+said, &ldquo;That the truth of nature lieth hid in certain deep mines
+and caves;&rdquo; and if it be true likewise that the alchemists do
+so much inculcate, that Vulcan is a second nature, and imitateth that
+dexterously and compendiously, which nature worketh by ambages and length
+of time, it were good to divide natural philosophy into the mine and
+the furnace, and to make two professions or occupations of natural philosophers
+- some to be pioneers and some smiths; some to dig, and some to refine
+and hammer.&nbsp; And surely I do best allow of a division of that kind,
+though in more familiar and scholastical terms: namely, that these be
+the two parts of natural philosophy - the inquisition of causes, and
+the production of effects; speculative and operative; natural science,
+and natural prudence.&nbsp; For as in civil matters there is a wisdom
+of discourse, and a wisdom of direction; so is it in natural.&nbsp;
+And here I will make a request, that for the latter (or at least for
+a part thereof) I may revive and reintegrate the misapplied and abused
+name of natural magic, which in the true sense is but natural wisdom,
+or natural prudence; taken according to the ancient acception, purged
+from vanity and superstition.&nbsp; Now although it be true, and I know
+it well, that there is an intercourse between causes and effects, so
+as both these knowledges, speculative and operative, have a great connection
+between themselves; yet because all true and fruitful natural philosophy
+hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and descendent, ascending from
+experiments to the invention of causes, and descending from causes to
+the invention of new experiments; therefore I judge it most requisite
+that these two parts be severally considered and handled.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Natural science or theory is divided into physic and metaphysic;
+wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the word metaphysic
+in a differing sense from that that is received.&nbsp; And in like manner,
+I doubt not but it will easily appear to men of judgment, that in this
+and other particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ
+from the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms.&nbsp;
+For hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by the order and perspicuous
+expressing of that I do propound, I am otherwise zealous and affectionate
+to recede as little from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as
+may stand with truth and the proficience of knowledge.&nbsp; And herein
+I cannot a little marvel at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed
+in such a spirit of difference and contradiction towards all antiquity;
+undertaking not only to frame new words of science at pleasure, but
+to confound and extinguish all ancient wisdom; insomuch as he never
+nameth or mentioneth an ancient author or opinion, but to confute and
+reprove; wherein for glory, and drawing followers and disciples, he
+took the right course.&nbsp; For certainly there cometh to pass, and
+hath place in human truth, that which was noted and pronounced in the
+highest truth:- <i>Veni in nomine partis, nec recipits me; si quis venerit
+in nomine suo eum recipietis</i>.&nbsp; But in this divine aphorism
+(considering to whom it was applied, namely, to antichrist, the highest
+deceiver), we may discern well that the coming in a man&rsquo;s own
+name, without regard of antiquity or paternity, is no good sign of truth,
+although it be joined with the fortune and success of an <i>eum recipietis</i>.&nbsp;
+But for this excellent person Aristotle, I will think of him that he
+learned that humour of his scholar, with whom it seemeth he did emulate;
+the one to conquer all opinions, as the other to conquer all nations.&nbsp;
+Wherein, nevertheless, it may be, he may at some men&rsquo;s hands,
+that are of a bitter disposition, get a like title as his scholar did:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Felix terrarum pr&aelig;do, non utile mundo<br>
+Editus exemplum, &amp;c.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+So,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Felix doctrin&aelig; pr&aelig;do.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth in my
+pen to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and proficience,
+it seemeth best to keep way with antiquity <i>usque ad aras</i>;<i>
+</i>and, therefore, to retain the ancient terms, though I sometimes
+alter the uses and definitions, according to the moderate proceeding
+in civil government; where, although there be some alteration, yet that
+holdeth which Tacitus wisely noteth, <i>eadem magistratuum vocabula.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(3) To return, therefore, to the use and acception of the term metaphysic
+as I do now understand the word; it appeareth, by that which hath been
+already said, that I intend <i>philosophia prima</i>, summary philosophy
+and metaphysic, which heretofore have been confounded as one, to be
+two distinct things.&nbsp; For the one I have made as a parent or common
+ancestor to all knowledge; and the other I have now brought in as a
+branch or descendant of natural science.&nbsp; It appeareth likewise
+that I have assigned to summary philosophy the common principles and
+axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent to several sciences; I
+have assigned unto it likewise the inquiry touching the operation or
+the relative and adventive characters of essences, as quantity, similitude,
+diversity, possibility, and the rest, with this distinction and provision;
+that they be handled as they have efficacy in nature, and not logically.&nbsp;
+It appeareth likewise that natural theology, which heretofore hath been
+handled confusedly with metaphysic, I have enclosed and bounded by itself.&nbsp;
+It is therefore now a question what is left remaining for metaphysic;
+wherein I may without prejudice preserve thus much of the conceit of
+antiquity, that physic should contemplate that which is inherent in
+matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted
+and fixed.&nbsp; And again, that physic should handle that which supposeth
+in nature only a being and moving; and metaphysic should handle that
+which supposeth further in nature a reason, understanding, and platform.&nbsp;
+But the difference, perspicuously expressed, is most familiar and sensible.&nbsp;
+For as we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of
+causes and productions of effects, so that part which concerneth the
+inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound
+division of causes.&nbsp; The one part, which is physic, inquireth and
+handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is
+metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.<br>
+<br>
+(4) Physic (taking it according to the derivation, and not according
+to our idiom for medicine) is situate in a middle term or distance between
+natural history and metaphysic.&nbsp; For natural history describeth
+the variety of things; physic the causes, but variable or respective
+causes; and metaphysic the fixed and constant causes.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Limus ut hic durescit, et h&aelig;c ut cera liquescit,<br>
+Uno eodemque igni.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire is the
+cause of colliquation, but respective to wax.&nbsp; But fire is no constant
+cause either of induration or colliquation; so then the physical causes
+are but the efficient and the matter.&nbsp; Physic hath three parts,
+whereof two respect nature united or collected, the third contemplateth
+nature diffused or distributed.&nbsp; Nature is collected either into
+one entire total, or else into the same principles or seeds.&nbsp; So
+as the first doctrine is touching the contexture or configuration of
+things, as <i>de mundo, de universitate rerum.&nbsp; </i>The second
+is the doctrine concerning the principles or originals of things.&nbsp;
+The third is the doctrine concerning all variety and particularity of
+things; whether it be of the differing substances, or their differing
+qualities and natures; whereof there needeth no enumeration, this part
+being but as a gloss or paraphrase that attendeth upon the text of natural
+history.&nbsp; Of these three I cannot report any as deficient.&nbsp;
+In what truth or perfection they are handled, I make not now any judgment;
+but they are parts of knowledge not deserted by the labour of man.<br>
+<br>
+(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of formal and
+final causes; which assignation, as to the former of them, may seem
+to be nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion,
+that the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential forms
+or true differences; of which opinion we will take this hold, that the
+invention of forms is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest
+to be sought, if it be possible to be found.&nbsp; As for the possibility,
+they are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can
+see nothing but sea.&nbsp; But it is manifest that Plato, in his opinion
+of ideas, as one that had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff,
+did descry that forms were the true object of knowledge; but lost the
+real fruit of his opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted
+from matter, and not confined and determined by matter; and so turning
+his opinion upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected.&nbsp;
+But if any man shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action,
+operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice what
+are the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and important to
+the state of man.&nbsp; For as to the forms of substances (man only
+except, of whom it is said, <i>Formavit hominem de limo terr&aelig;,
+et spiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vit&aelig;, </i>and not as of
+all other creatures, <i>Producant aqu&aelig;, producat terra</i>), the
+forms of substances I say (as they are now by compounding and transplanting
+multiplied) are so perplexed, as they are not to be inquired; no more
+than it were either possible or to purpose to seek in gross the forms
+of those sounds which make words, which by composition and transposition
+of letters are infinite.&nbsp; But, on the other side, to inquire the
+form of those sounds or voices which make simple letters is easily comprehensible;
+and being known induceth and manifesteth the forms of all words, which
+consist and are compounded of them.&nbsp; In the same manner to inquire
+the form of a lion, of an oak, of gold; nay, of water, of air, is a
+vain pursuit; but to inquire the forms of sense, of voluntary motion,
+of vegetation, of colours, of gravity and levity, of density, of tenuity,
+of heat, of cold, and all other natures and qualities, which, like an
+alphabet, are not many, and of which the essences (upheld by matter)
+of all creatures do consist; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these,
+is that part of metaphysic which we now define of.&nbsp; Not but that
+physic doth make inquiry and take consideration of the same natures;
+but how?&nbsp; Only as to the material and efficient causes of them,
+and not as to the forms.&nbsp; For example, if the cause of whiteness
+in snow or froth be inquired, and it be rendered thus, that the subtle
+intermixture of air and water is the cause, it is well rendered; but,
+nevertheless, is this the form of whiteness?&nbsp; No; but it is the
+efficient, which is ever but <i>vehiculum form&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; This
+part of metaphysic I do not find laboured and performed; whereat I marvel
+not; because I hold it not possible to be invented by that course of
+invention which hath been used; in regard that men (which is the root
+of all error) have made too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess
+from particulars.<br>
+<br>
+(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as deficient,
+is of the rest the most excellent in two respects: the one, because
+it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge the infinity of
+individual experience, as much as the conception of truth will permit,
+and to remedy the complaint of <i>vita brevis, ars longa</i>; which
+is performed by uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences.&nbsp;
+For knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis.&nbsp;
+So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage next
+the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic.&nbsp;
+As for the vertical point, <i>opus quod operatur Deus &agrave; principio
+usque ad finem</i>, the summary law of nature, we know not whether man&rsquo;s
+inquiry can attain unto it.&nbsp; But these three be the true stages
+of knowledge, and are to them that are depraved no better than the giants&rsquo;
+hills:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,<br>
+Scilicet atque Oss&aelig; frondsum involvere Olympum.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as
+the three acclamations, <i>Sante</i>, <i>sancte</i>, <i>sancte</i>!
+holy in the description or dilatation of His works; holy in the connection
+or concatenation of them; and holy in the union of them in a perpetual
+and uniform law.&nbsp; And, therefore, the speculation was excellent
+in Parmenides and Plato, although but a speculation in them, that all
+things by scale did ascend to unity.&nbsp; So then always that knowledge
+is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity, which appeareth
+to be metaphysic; as that which considereth the simple forms or differences
+of things, which are few in number, and the degrees and co-ordinations
+whereof make all this variety.&nbsp; The second respect, which valueth
+and commendeth this part of metaphysic, is that it doth enfranchise
+the power of man unto the greatest liberty and possibility of works
+and effects.&nbsp; For physic carrieth men in narrow and restrained
+ways, subject to many accidents and impediments, imitating the ordinary
+flexuous courses of nature.&nbsp; But <i>lat&aelig; undique sunt sapientibus
+vi&aelig;</i>; to sapience (which was anciently defined to be <i>rerum
+divinarum et humanarum scientia</i>) there is ever a choice of means.&nbsp;
+For physical causes give light to new invention in <i>simili materia</i>.&nbsp;
+But whosoever knoweth any form, knoweth the utmost possibility of superinducing
+that nature upon any variety of matter; and so is less restrained in
+operation, either to the basis of the matter, or the condition of the
+efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise, though in a more
+divine sense, elegantly describeth: <i>non arctabuntur gressus tui,
+et currens non habebis offendiculum</i>.&nbsp; The ways of sapience
+are not much liable either to particularity or chance.<br>
+<br>
+(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes, which
+I am moved to report not as omitted, but as misplaced.&nbsp; And yet
+if it were but a fault in order, I would not speak of it; for order
+is matter of illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance of sciences.&nbsp;
+But this misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience
+in the sciences themselves.&nbsp; For the handling of final causes,
+mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe
+and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men
+the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to
+the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery.&nbsp; For this
+I find done not only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but
+by Aristotle, Galen, and others which do usually likewise fall upon
+these flats of discoursing causes.&nbsp; For to say that &ldquo;the
+hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence about the sight;&rdquo;
+or that &ldquo;the firmness of the skins and hides of living creatures
+is to defend them from the extremities of heat or cold;&rdquo; or that
+&ldquo;the bones are for the columns or beams, whereupon the frames
+of the bodies of living creatures are built;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the
+leaves of trees are for protecting of the fruit;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the
+clouds are for watering of the earth;&rdquo; or that &ldquo;the solidness
+of the earth is for the station and mansion of living creatures;&rdquo;
+and the like, is well inquired and collected in metaphysic, but in physic
+they are impertinent.&nbsp; Nay, they are, indeed, but <i>remoras</i>
+and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from further sailing; and have
+brought this to pass, that the search of the physical causes hath been
+neglected and passed in silence.&nbsp; And, therefore, the natural philosophy
+of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind or reason
+in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain
+itself to infinite essays or proofs of Nature, which they term fortune,
+seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by the recital and fragments which
+remain unto us) in particularities of physical causes more real and
+better inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled
+final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part
+of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both those
+persons; not because those final causes are not true and worthy to be
+inquired, being kept within their own province, but because their excursions
+into the limits of physical causes hath bred a vastness and solitude
+in that tract.&nbsp; For otherwise, keeping their precincts and borders,
+men are extremely deceived if they think there is an enmity or repugnancy
+at all between them.&nbsp; For the cause rendered, that &ldquo;the hairs
+about the eyelids are for the safeguard of the sight,&rdquo; doth not
+impugn the cause rendered, that &ldquo;pilosity is incident to orifices
+of moisture - <i>muscosi fontes</i>, &amp;c.&rdquo;&nbsp; Nor the cause
+rendered, that &ldquo;the firmness of hides is for the armour of the
+body against extremities of heat or cold,&rdquo; doth not impugn the
+cause rendered, that &ldquo;contraction of pores is incident to the
+outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or unlike
+bodies;&rdquo; and so of the rest, both causes being true and compatible,
+the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence only.&nbsp;
+Neither doth this call in question or derogate from Divine Providence,
+but highly confirm and exalt it.&nbsp; For as in civil actions he is
+the greater and deeper politique that can make other men the instruments
+of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint them with his purpose,
+so as they shall do it and yet not know what they do, than he that imparteth
+his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of God more admirable,
+when Nature intendeth one thing and Providence draweth forth another,
+than if He had communicated to particular creatures and motions the
+characters and impressions of His Providence.&nbsp; And thus much for
+metaphysic; the latter part whereof I allow as extant, but wish it confined
+to his proper place.<br>
+<br>
+VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of natural
+philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth rank
+with physic special and metaphysic, which is mathematic; but I think
+it more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order,
+to place it as a branch of metaphysic.&nbsp; For the subject of it being
+quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth
+to <i>philosophia prima</i> (as hath been said), but quantity determined
+or proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the essential forms of
+things, as that that is causative in Nature of a number of effects;
+insomuch as we see in the schools both of Democritus and of Pythagoras
+that the one did ascribe figure to the first seeds of things, and the
+other did suppose numbers to be the principles and originals of things.&nbsp;
+And it is true also that of all other forms (as we understand forms)
+it is the most abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore most
+proper to metaphysic; which hath likewise been the cause why it hath
+been better laboured and inquired than any of the other forms, which
+are more immersed in matter.&nbsp; For it being the nature of the mind
+of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious
+liberty of generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures
+of particularity, the mathematics of all other knowledge were the goodliest
+fields to satisfy that appetite.&nbsp; But for the placing of this science,
+it is not much material: only we have endeavoured in these our partitions
+to observe a kind of perspective, that one part may cast light upon
+another.<br>
+<br>
+(2) The mathematics are either pure or mixed.&nbsp; To the pure mathematics
+are those sciences belonging which handle quantity determinate, merely
+severed from any axioms of natural philosophy; and these are two, geometry
+and arithmetic, the one handling quantity continued, and the other dissevered.&nbsp;
+Mixed hath for subject some axioms or parts of natural philosophy, and
+considereth quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and incident unto
+them.&nbsp; For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient
+subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated
+unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening
+of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy,
+cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.&nbsp; In the
+mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men do not
+sufficiently understand this excellent use of the pure mathematics,
+in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties
+intellectual.&nbsp; For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if
+too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract
+it.&nbsp; So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great
+use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself
+into all postures, so in the mathematics that use which is collateral
+and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and
+intended.&nbsp; And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only make this
+prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them as Nature
+grows further disclosed.&nbsp; Thus much of natural science, or the
+part of Nature speculative.<br>
+<br>
+(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural philosophy,
+we will divide it into three parts - experimental, philosophical, and
+magical; which three parts active have a correspondence and analogy
+with the three parts speculative, natural history, physic, and metaphysic.&nbsp;
+For many operations have been invented, sometimes by a casual incidence
+and occurrence, sometimes by a purposed experiment; and of those which
+have been found by an intentional experiment, some have been found out
+by varying or extending the same experiment, some by transferring and
+compounding divers experiments the one into the other, which kind of
+invention an empiric may manage.&nbsp; Again, by the knowledge of physical
+causes there cannot fail to follow many indications and designations
+of new particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon
+use and practice.&nbsp; But these are but coastings along the shore,
+<i>premendo littus iniquum</i>;<i> </i>for it seemeth to me there can
+hardly be discovered any radical or fundamental alterations and innovations
+in Nature, either by the fortune and essays of experiments, or by the
+light and direction of physical causes.&nbsp; If, therefore, we have
+reported metaphysic deficient, it must follow that we do the like of
+natural magic, which hath relation thereunto.&nbsp; For as for the natural
+magic whereof now there is mention in books, containing certain credulous
+and superstitious conceits and observations of sympathies and antipathies,
+and hidden proprieties, and some frivolous experiments, strange rather
+by disguisement than in themselves, it is as far differing in truth
+of Nature from such a knowledge as we require as the story of King Arthur
+of Britain, or Hugh of Bourdeaux, differs from C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s Commentaries
+in truth of story; for it is manifest that C&aelig;sar did greater things
+<i>de vero </i>than those imaginary heroes were feigned to do.&nbsp;
+But he did them not in that fabulous manner.&nbsp; Of this kind of learning
+the fable of Ixion was a figure, who designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess
+of power, and instead of her had copulation with a cloud, of which mixture
+were begotten centaurs and chimeras.&nbsp; So whosoever shall entertain
+high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a laborious and sober inquiry
+of truth, shall beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.&nbsp;
+And, therefore, we may note in these sciences which hold so much of
+imagination and belief, as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy, astrology,
+and the like, that in their propositions the description of the means
+is ever more monstrous than the pretence or end.&nbsp; For it is a thing
+more probable that he that knoweth well the natures of weight, of colour,
+of pliant and fragile in respect of the hammer, of volatile and fixed
+in respect of the fire, and the rest, may superinduce upon some metal
+the nature and form of gold by such mechanic as longeth to the production
+of the natures afore rehearsed, than that some grains of the medicine
+projected should in a few moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver
+or other material into gold.&nbsp; So it is more probable that he that
+knoweth the nature of arefaction, the nature of assimilation of nourishment
+to the thing nourished, the manner of increase and clearing of spirits,
+the manner of the depredations which spirits make upon the humours and
+solid parts, shall by ambages of diets, bathings, anointings, medicines,
+motions, and the like, prolong life, or restore some degree of youth
+or vivacity, than that it can be done with the use of a few drops or
+scruples of a liquor or receipt.&nbsp; To conclude, therefore, the true
+natural magic, which is that great liberty and latitude of operation
+which dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I may report deficient,
+as the relative thereof is.&nbsp; To which part, if we be serious and
+incline not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the deriving
+and deducing the operations themselves from metaphysic, there are pertinent
+two points of much purpose, the one by way of preparation, the other
+by way of caution.&nbsp; The first is, that there be made a calendar,
+resembling an inventory of the estate of man, containing all the inventions
+(being the works or fruits of Nature or art) which are now extant, and
+whereof man is already possessed; out of which doth naturally result
+a note what things are yet held impossible, or not invented, which calendar
+will be the more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed impossibility
+you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to that
+impossibility; to the end that by these optatives and potentials man&rsquo;s
+inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction of works from the
+speculation of causes.&nbsp; And secondly, that these experiments be
+not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those
+principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of
+other experiments, and those which give most light to the invention
+of causes; for the invention of the mariner&rsquo;s needle, which giveth
+the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention
+of the sails which give the motion.<br>
+<br>
+(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the deficiences
+thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient and received doctrines,
+and thereby shall move contradiction, for my part, as I affect not to
+dissent, so I purpose not to contend.&nbsp; If it be truth,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylv&aelig;,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.&nbsp;
+And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French
+for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their
+lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry
+of truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which
+are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity
+and contention.<br>
+<br>
+(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according to
+the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or subject:
+and that is positive and considerative, when the inquiry reporteth either
+an assertion or a doubt.&nbsp; These doubts or <i>non liquets </i>are
+of two sorts, particular and total.&nbsp; For the first, we see a good
+example thereof in Aristotle&rsquo;s Problems which deserved to have
+had a better continuance; but so nevertheless as there is one point
+whereof warning is to be given and taken.&nbsp; The registering of doubts
+hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy from errors
+and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing is not collected
+into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but reserved in doubt;
+the other, that the entry of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges
+to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that which if doubts had not preceded,
+a man should never have advised, but passed it over without note, by
+the suggestion and solicitation of doubts is made to be attended and
+applied.&nbsp; But both these commodities do scarcely countervail and
+inconvenience, which will intrude itself if it be not debarred; which
+is, that when a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep
+it a doubt still, than how to solve it, and accordingly bend their wits.&nbsp;
+Of this we see the familiar example in lawyers and scholars, both which,
+if they have once admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for
+a doubt.&nbsp; But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed, which
+laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those which labour
+to make certain things doubtful.&nbsp; Therefore these calendars of
+doubts I commend as excellent things; so that there he this caution
+used, that when they be thoroughly sifted and brought to resolution,
+they be from thenceforth omitted, discarded, and not continued to cherish
+and encourage men in doubting.&nbsp; To which calendar of doubts or
+problems I advise be annexed another calendar, as much or more material
+which is a calendar of popular errors: I mean chiefly in natural history,
+such as pass in speech and conceit, and are nevertheless apparently
+detected and convicted of untruth, that man&rsquo;s knowledge be not
+weakened nor embased by such dross and vanity.&nbsp; As for the doubts
+or <i>non liquets </i>general or in total, I understand those differences
+of opinions touching the principles of nature, and the fundamental points
+of the same, which have caused the diversity of sects, schools, and
+philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus, Parmenides,
+and the rest.&nbsp; For although Aristotle, as though he had been of
+the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first
+thing he did he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth
+and not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to
+see before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature.&nbsp;
+Not for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for
+as the same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received astronomy
+of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the planets, with their
+eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the theory of Copernicus,
+who supposed the earth to move, and the calculations are indifferently
+agreeable to both, so the ordinary face and view of experience is many
+times satisfied by several theories and philosophies; whereas to find
+the real truth requireth another manner of severity and attention.&nbsp;
+For as Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call every woman
+mother, but afterward they come to distinguish according to truth, so
+experience, if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy mother,
+but when it cometh to ripeness it will discern the true mother.&nbsp;
+So as in the meantime it is good to see the several glosses and opinions
+upon Nature, whereof it may be everyone in some one point hath seen
+clearer than his fellows, therefore I wish some collection to be made
+painfully and understandingly <i>de antiquis philosophiis</i>,<i> </i>out
+of all the possible light which remaineth to us of them: which kind
+of work I find deficient.&nbsp; But here I must give warning, that it
+be done distinctly and severedly; the philosophies of everyone throughout
+by themselves, and not by titles packed and faggoted up together, as
+hath been done by Plutarch.&nbsp; For it is the harmony of a philosophy
+in itself, which giveth it light and credence; whereas if it be singled
+and broken, it will seem more foreign and dissonant.&nbsp; For as when
+I read in Tacitus the actions of Nero or Claudius, with circumstances
+of times, inducements, and occasions, I find them not so strange; but
+when I read them in Suetonius Tranquillus, gathered into titles and
+bundles and not in order of time, they seem more monstrous and incredible:
+so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and dismembered by articles.&nbsp;
+Neither do I exclude opinions of latter times to be likewise represented
+in this calendar of sects of philosophy, as that of Theophrastus Paracelsus,
+eloquently reduced into an harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane;
+and that of Tilesius, and his scholar Donius, being as a pastoral philosophy,
+full of sense, but of no great depth; and that of Fracastorius, who,
+though he pretended not to make any new philosophy, yet did use the
+absoluteness of his own sense upon the old; and that of Gilbertus our
+countryman, who revived, with some alterations and demonstrations, the
+opinions of Xenophanes; and any other worthy to be admitted.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man&rsquo;s
+knowledge; that is <i>radius directus</i>, which is referred to nature,
+<i>radius refractus</i>,<i> </i>which is referred to God, and cannot
+report truly because of the inequality of the medium.&nbsp; There resteth
+<i>radius reflexus</i>,<i> </i>whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth
+himself.<br>
+<br>
+IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient
+oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth
+the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly.&nbsp;
+This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the
+intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural
+philosophy in the continent of Nature.&nbsp; And generally let this
+be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for
+lines and veins than for sections and separations; and that the continuance
+and entireness of knowledge be preserved.&nbsp; For the contrary hereof
+hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous,
+while they have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain.&nbsp;
+So we see Cicero, the orator, complained of Socrates and his school,
+that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon
+rhetoric became an empty and verbal art.&nbsp; So we may see that the
+opinion of Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy
+itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the <i>phenomena</i>,
+yet natural philosophy may correct.&nbsp; So we see also that the science
+of medicine if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy,
+it is not much better than an empirical practice.&nbsp; With this reservation,
+therefore, we proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two
+parts: the one considereth man segregate or distributively, the other
+congregate or in society; so as human philosophy is either simple and
+particular, or conjugate and civil.&nbsp; Humanity particular consisteth
+of the same parts whereof man consisteth: that is, of knowledges which
+respect the body, and of knowledges that respect the mind.&nbsp; But
+before we distribute so far, it is good to constitute.&nbsp; For I do
+take the consideration in general, and at large, of human nature to
+be fit to be emancipate and made a knowledge by itself, not so much
+in regard of those delightful and elegant discourses which have been
+made of the dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life,
+and the like adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly
+in regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances
+between the mind and body, which being mixed cannot be properly assigned
+to the sciences of either.<br>
+<br>
+(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and amities
+consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of
+mind and body hath these two parts: how the one discloseth the other,
+and how the one worketh upon the other; discovery and impression.&nbsp;
+The former of these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or prenotion;
+whereof the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other
+of Hippocrates.&nbsp; And although they have of later time been used
+to be coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged
+and restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground
+in Nature, and a profitable use in life.&nbsp; The first is physiognomy,
+which discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the
+body.&nbsp; The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth
+the state of the body by the imaginations of the mind.&nbsp; In the
+former of these I note a deficience.&nbsp; For Aristotle hath very ingeniously
+and diligently handled the factures of the body, but not the gestures
+of the body, which are no less comprehensible by art, and of greater
+use and advantage.&nbsp; For the lineaments of the body do disclose
+the disposition and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions
+of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose
+the present humour and state of the mind and will.&nbsp; For as your
+majesty saith most aptly and elegantly, &ldquo;As the tongue speaketh
+to the ear so the gesture speaketh to the eye.&rdquo;&nbsp; And, therefore,
+a number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions
+of men, do well know the advantage of this observation, as being most
+part of their ability; neither can it be denied, but that it is a great
+discovery of dissimulations, and a great direction in business.<br>
+<br>
+(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected
+into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same relation
+or <i>antistrophe </i>that the former hath.&nbsp; For the consideration
+is double - either how and how far the humours and affects of the body
+do alter or work upon the mind, or, again, how and how far the passions
+or apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body.&nbsp; The
+former of these hath been inquired and considered as a part and appendix
+of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition.&nbsp;
+For the physician prescribeth cures of the mind in frenzies and melancholy
+passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the
+mind, to control the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the
+memory, and the like; but the scruples and superstitions of diet and
+other regiment of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy
+of the Manichees, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed.&nbsp; So likewise
+the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the
+blood and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for
+meat, are many and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene
+from all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences,
+and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real,
+and not figurative.&nbsp; The root and life of all which prescripts
+is (besides the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which
+the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition
+of the body.&nbsp; And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that
+this suffering of the mind from the body doth either question the immortality,
+or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught, in easy
+instances, that the infant in the mother&rsquo;s womb is compatible
+with the mother, and yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is
+sometimes led by his servants, and yet without subjection.&nbsp; As
+for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits
+and passions of the mind upon the body, we see all wise physicians,
+in the prescriptions of their regiments to their patients, do ever consider
+<i>accidentia animi</i>, as of great force to further or hinder remedies
+or recoveries: and more specially it is an inquiry of great depth and
+worth concerning imagination, how and how far it altereth the body proper
+of the imaginant; for although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it
+followeth not it hath the same degree of power to help.&nbsp; No more
+than a man can conclude, that because there be pestilent airs, able
+suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign
+airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness.&nbsp; But the inquisition
+of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, &ldquo;a
+Delian diver,&rdquo; being difficult and profound.&nbsp; But unto all
+this knowledge <i>de communi vinculo</i>, of the concordances between
+the mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary which
+considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of
+the mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge
+hath been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
+inquired.&nbsp; For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding
+in the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater
+mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in
+the liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less to be allowed.&nbsp;
+So, then, we have constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry
+touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be handled
+apart.<br>
+<br>
+X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man&rsquo;s body is divided as
+the good of man&rsquo;s body is divided, unto which it referreth.&nbsp;
+The good of man&rsquo;s body is of four kinds - health, beauty, strength,
+and pleasure: so the knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of
+decoration, which is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called
+athletic; and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth <i>eruditus
+luxus</i>.&nbsp; This subject of man&rsquo;s body is, of all other things
+in nature, most susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is most
+susceptible of error; for the same subtlety of the subject doth cause
+large possibility and easy failing, and therefore the inquiry ought
+to be the more exact.<br>
+<br>
+(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said,
+ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was <i>microcosmus</i>
+- an abstract or model of the world - hath been fantastically strained
+by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found in man&rsquo;s
+body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect
+to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which are extant
+in the great world.&nbsp; But thus much is evidently true, that of all
+substances which nature hath produced, man&rsquo;s body is the most
+extremely compounded.&nbsp; For we see herbs and plants are nourished
+by earth and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man
+by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water,
+and the manifold alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several
+bodies before they come to be his food and aliment.&nbsp; Add hereunto
+that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of affections
+to work upon their bodies, whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise,
+passions, hath infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that
+the body of man of all other things is of the most compounded mass.&nbsp;
+The soul, on the other side, is the simplest of substances, as is well
+expressed:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Purumque reliquit<br>
+&AElig;thereum sensum atque aura&iuml; simplicis ignem.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if
+that principle be true, that <i>Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum,
+placidus in loco</i>.&nbsp; But to the purpose.&nbsp; This variable
+composition of man&rsquo;s body hath made it as an instrument easy to
+distemper; and, therefore, the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine
+in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious
+harp of man&rsquo;s body and to reduce it to harmony.&nbsp; So, then,
+the subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent more conjectural;
+and the art being conjectural hath made so much the more place to be
+left for imposture.&nbsp; For almost all other arts and sciences are
+judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes
+and events.&nbsp; The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading,
+and not by the issue of the cause; this master in this ship is judged
+by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage;
+but the physician, and perhaps this politique, hath no particular acts
+demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event, which
+is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient die or recover,
+or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident?&nbsp;
+And therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue
+taxed.&nbsp; Nay, we see [the] weakness and credulity of men is such,
+as they will often refer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician.&nbsp;
+And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme
+folly when they made &AElig;sculapius and Circe, brother and sister,
+both children of the sun, as in the verses -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ipse repertorem medicin&aelig; talis et artis<br>
+Fulmine Ph&oelig;bigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And again -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos,&rdquo; &amp;c.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women
+and impostors, have had a competition with physicians.&nbsp; And what
+followeth?&nbsp; Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon
+expresseth it upon a higher occasion, &ldquo;If it befall to me as befalleth
+to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?&rdquo;&nbsp; And
+therefore I cannot much blame physicians that they use commonly to intend
+some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their profession;
+for you shall have of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen,
+merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen than in their
+profession; and no doubt upon this ground that they find that mediocrity
+and excellency in their art maketh no difference in profit or reputation
+towards their fortune: for the weakness of patients, and sweetness of
+life, and nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all
+their defects.&nbsp; But, nevertheless, these things which we have spoken
+of are courses begotten between a little occasion and a great deal of
+sloth and default; for if we will excite and awake our observation,
+we shall see in familiar instances what a predominant faculty the subtlety
+of spirit hath over the variety of matter or form.&nbsp; Nothing more
+variable than faces and countenances, yet men can bear in memory the
+infinite distinctions of them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of
+colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his imagination, can
+imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be, if they were brought
+before him.&nbsp; Nothing more variable than voices, yet men can likewise
+discern them personally: nay, you shall have a <i>buffon </i>or <i>pantomimus</i>
+will express as many as he pleaseth.&nbsp; Nothing more variable than
+the differing sounds of words; yet men have found the way to reduce
+them to a few simple letters.&nbsp; So that it is not the insufficiency
+or incapacity of man&rsquo;s mind, but it is the remote standing or
+placing thereof that breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions; for
+as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so
+is it of the understanding, the remedy whereof is, not to quicken or
+strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and therefore
+there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and use the true
+approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the poet
+saith:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;<br>
+Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve:
+well shadowed by the poets, in that they made &AElig;sculapius to be
+the son of [the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other
+as the second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of
+our Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as
+the soul was the object of His doctrine.&nbsp; For we read not that
+ever He vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money (except that
+one for giving tribute to C&aelig;sar), but only about the preserving,
+sustaining, and healing the body of man.<br>
+<br>
+(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more professed
+than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having
+been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.&nbsp; For
+I find much iteration, but small addition.&nbsp; It considereth causes
+of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves,
+with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.&nbsp; The
+deficiences which I think good to note, being a few of many, and those
+such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate and
+not place.<br>
+<br>
+(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence
+of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases
+of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by
+recovery or death.&nbsp; Therefore having an example proper in the father
+of the art, I shall not need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom
+of the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions, for
+the direction of future judgments.&nbsp; This continuance of medicinal
+history I find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite
+as to extend to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none
+but wonders: for many things are new in this manner, which are not new
+in the kind; and if men will intend to observe, they shall find much
+worthy to observe.<br>
+<br>
+(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience:
+for they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and collocations;
+but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the secrecies
+of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the humours, nor much
+of the footsteps and impressions of diseases.&nbsp; The reason of which
+omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied
+in the view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative
+and casual, must arise from the view of many.&nbsp; And as to the diversity
+of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward
+parts is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause
+continent of many diseases; which not being observed, they quarrel many
+times with the humours, which are not in fault; the fault being in the
+very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine
+alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines
+familiar.&nbsp; And for the passages and pores, it is true which was
+anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies,
+because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open
+and manifest in life: which being supposed, though the inhumanity of
+<i>anatomia vivorum </i>was by Celsus justly reproved; yet in regard
+of the great use of this observation, the inquiry needed not by him
+so slightly to have been relinquished altogether, or referred to the
+casual practices of surgery; but might have been well diverted upon
+the dissection of beasts alive, which notwithstanding the dissimilitude
+of their parts may sufficiently satisfy this inquiry.&nbsp; And for
+the humours, they are commonly passed over in anatomies as purgaments;
+whereas it is most necessary to observe, what cavities, nests, and receptacles
+the humours do find in the parts, with the differing kind of the humour
+so lodged and received.&nbsp; And as for the footsteps of diseases,
+and their devastations of the inward parts, impostumations, exulcerations,
+discontinuations, putrefactions, consumptions, contractions, extensions,
+convulsions, dislocations, obstructions, repletions, together with all
+preternatural substances, as stones, carnosities, excrescences, worms,
+and the like; they ought to have been exactly observed by multitude
+of anatomies, and the contribution of men&rsquo;s several experiences,
+and carefully set down both historically according to the appearances,
+and artificially with a reference to the diseases and symptoms which
+resulted from them, in case where the anatomy is of a defunct patient;
+whereas now upon opening of bodies they are passed over slightly and
+in silence.<br>
+<br>
+(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of many, some
+as in their nature incurable, and others as past the period of cure;
+so that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die,
+as they do by their ignorant edicts: whereof numbers do escape with
+less difficulty than they did in the Roman prescriptions.&nbsp; Therefore
+I will not doubt to note as a deficience, that they inquire not the
+perfect cures of many diseases, or extremities of diseases; but pronouncing
+them incurable do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from
+discredit.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to restore
+health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not only when such mitigation
+may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair and easy
+passage.&nbsp; For it is no small felicity which Augustus C&aelig;sar
+was wont to wish to himself, that same <i>Euthanasia</i>;<i> </i>and
+which was specially noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death
+was after the fashion, and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sheep.&nbsp;
+So it is written of Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate,
+he drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation
+of wine; whereupon the epigram was made, <i>Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit
+aquas</i>;<i> </i>he was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of
+the Stygian water.&nbsp; But the physicians contrariwise do make a kind
+of scruple and religion to stay with the patient after the disease is
+deplored; whereas in my judgment they ought both to inquire the skill,
+and to give the attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the
+pains and agonies of death.<br>
+<br>
+(5) In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficience
+in the receipts of propriety, respecting the particular cures of diseases:
+for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition and experience
+by their magistralities, in adding and taking out and changing <i>quid
+pro qua </i>in their receipts, at their pleasures; commanding so over
+the medicine, as the medicine cannot command over the disease.&nbsp;
+For except it be treacle and <i>mithridatum</i>,<i> </i>and of late
+<i>diascordium</i>,<i> </i>and a few more, they tie themselves to no
+receipts severely and religiously.&nbsp; For as to the confections of
+sale which are in the shops, they are for readiness and not for propriety.&nbsp;
+For they are upon general intentions of purging, opening, comforting,
+altering, and not much appropriate to particular diseases.&nbsp; And
+this is the cause why empirics and old women are more happy many times
+in their cures than learned physicians, because they are more religious
+in holding their medicines.&nbsp; Therefore here is the deficience which
+I find, that physicians have not, partly out of their own practice,
+partly out of the constant probations reported in books, and partly
+out of the traditions of empirics, set down and delivered over certain
+experimental medicines for the cure of particular diseases, besides
+their own conjectural and magistral descriptions.&nbsp; For as they
+were the men of the best composition in the state of Rome, which either
+being consuls inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to
+the senate; so in the matter we now handle, they be the best physicians,
+which being learned incline to the traditions of experience, or being
+empirics incline to the methods of learning.<br>
+<br>
+(9) In preparation of medicines I do find strange, specially considering
+how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that they are safer for
+the outward than inward parts, that no man hath sought to make an imitation
+by art of natural baths and medicinable fountains: which nevertheless
+are confessed to receive their virtues from minerals; and not so only,
+but discerned and distinguished from what particular mineral they receive
+tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which nature, if
+it may be reduced to compositions of art, both the variety of them will
+be increased, and the temper of them will be more commanded.<br>
+<br>
+(10) But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable either
+to my intention or to proportion, I will conclude this part with the
+note of one deficience more, which seemeth to me of greatest consequence:
+which is, that the prescripts in use are too compendious to attain their
+end; for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to
+think any medicine can be so sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt
+or miss of it can work any great effect upon the body of man.&nbsp;
+It were a strange speech which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim
+a man from a vice to which he were by nature subject.&nbsp; It is order,
+pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, which is mighty in
+nature; which although it require more exact knowledge in prescribing,
+and more precise obedience in observing, yet is recompensed with the
+magnitude of effects.&nbsp; And although a man would think, by the daily
+visitations of the physicians, that there were a pursuance in the cure,
+yet let a man look into their prescripts and ministrations, and he shall
+find them but inconstancies and every day&rsquo;s devices, without any
+settled providence or project.&nbsp; Not that every scrupulous or superstitious
+prescript is effectual, no more than every straight way is the way to
+heaven; but the truth of the direction must precede severity of observance.<br>
+<br>
+(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate: for cleanness
+of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to
+society, and to ourselves.&nbsp; As for artificial decoration, it is
+well worthy of the deficiences which it hath; being neither fine enough
+to deceive, nor handsome to use, nor wholesome to please.<br>
+<br>
+(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say,
+for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be brought, whether
+it be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two parts,
+strength and swiftness; and patience likewise hath two parts, hardness
+against wants and extremities, and endurance of pain or torment; whereof
+we see the practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer
+punishment.&nbsp; Nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not
+within any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain
+a strange power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it
+to this part.&nbsp; Of these things the practices are known, but the
+philosophy that concerneth them is not much inquired; the rather, I
+think, because they are supposed to be obtained, either by an aptness
+of nature, which cannot be taught, or only by continual custom, which
+is soon prescribed which though it be not true, yet I forbear to note
+any deficiences; for the Olympian games are down long since, and the
+mediocrity of these things is for use; as for the excellency of them
+it serveth for the most part but for mercenary ostentation.<br>
+<br>
+(13) For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them is of
+laws to repress them.&nbsp; For as it hath been well observed, that
+the arts which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military;
+and while virtue is in state, are liberal; and while virtue is in declination,
+are voluptuary: so I doubt that this age of the world is somewhat upon
+the descent of the wheel.&nbsp; With arts voluptuary I couple practices
+joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures of
+the senses.&nbsp; As for games of recreation, I hold them to belong
+to civil life and education.&nbsp; And thus much of that particular
+human philosophy which concerns the body, which is but the tabernacle
+of the mind.<br>
+<br>
+XI. (1) For human knowledge which concerns the mind, it hath two parts;
+the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul or mind,
+the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions thereof.&nbsp;
+ Unto the first of these, the considerations of the original of the
+soul, whether it be native or adventive, and how far it is exempted
+from laws of matter, and of the immortality thereof, and many other
+points, do appertain: which have been not more laboriously inquired
+than variously reported; so as the travail therein taken seemeth to
+have been rather in a maze than in a way.&nbsp; But although I am of
+opinion that this knowledge may be more really and soundly inquired,
+even in nature, than it hath been, yet I hold that in the end it must
+be hounded by religion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delusion.&nbsp;
+For as the substance of the soul in the creation was not extracted out
+of the mass of heaven and earth by the benediction of a <i>producat</i>,<i>
+</i>but was immediately inspired from God, so it is not possible that
+it should be (otherwise than by accident) subject to the laws of heaven
+and earth, which are the subject of philosophy; and therefore the true
+knowledge of the nature and state of the soul must come by the same
+inspiration that gave the substance.&nbsp; Unto this part of knowledge
+touching the soul there be two appendices; which, as they have been
+handled, have rather vapoured forth fables than kindled truth: divination
+and fascination.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial
+and natural: whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a prediction
+by argument, concluding upon signs and tokens; natural is, when the
+mind hath a presention by an internal power, without the inducement
+of a sign.&nbsp; Artificial is of two sorts: either when the argument
+is coupled with a derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it
+is only grounded upon a coincidence of the effect, which is experimental:
+whereof the latter for the most part is superstitious, such as were
+the heathen observations upon the inspection of sacrifices, the flights
+of birds, the swarming of bees; and such as was the Chaldean astrology,
+and the like.&nbsp; For artificial divination, the several kinds thereof
+are distributed amongst particular knowledges.&nbsp; The astronomer
+hath his predictions, as of conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and the
+like.&nbsp; The physician hath his predictions, of death, of recovery,
+of the accidents and issues of diseases.&nbsp; The politique hath his
+predictions; <i>O urbem venalem, et cito perituram, si emptorem invenerit</i>!
+which stayed not long to be performed, in Sylla first, and after in
+C&aelig;sar: so as these predictions are now impertinent, and to be
+referred over.&nbsp; But the divination which springeth from the internal
+nature of the soul is that which we now speak of; which hath been made
+to be of two sorts, primitive and by influxion.&nbsp; Primitive is grounded
+upon the supposition that the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected
+into itself, and not diffused into the organs of the body, hath some
+extent and latitude of prenotion; which therefore appeareth most in
+sleep, in ecstasies, and near death, and more rarely in waking apprehensions;
+and is induced and furthered by those abstinences and observances which
+make the mind most to consist in itself.&nbsp; By influxion, is grounded
+upon the conceit that the mind, as a mirror or glass, should take illumination
+from the foreknowledge of God and spirits: unto which the same regiment
+doth likewise conduce.&nbsp; For the retiring of the mind within itself
+is the state which is most susceptible of divine influxions; save that
+it is accompanied in this case with a fervency and elevation (which
+the ancients noted by fury), and not with a repose and quiet, as it
+is in the other.<br>
+<br>
+(3) Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive upon other
+bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of that we spake in the proper
+place.&nbsp; Wherein the school of Paracelsus, and the disciples of
+pretended natural magic, have been so intemperate, as they have exalted
+the power of the imagination to be much one with the power of miracle-working
+faith.&nbsp; Others, that draw nearer to probability, calling to their
+view the secret passages of things, and specially of the contagion that
+passeth from body to body, do conceive it should likewise be agreeable
+to nature that there should be some transmissions and operations from
+spirit to spirit without the mediation of the senses; whence the conceits
+have grown (now almost made civil) of the mastering spirit, and the
+force of confidence, and the like.&nbsp; Incident unto this is the inquiry
+how to raise and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination fortified
+have power, then it is material to know how to fortify and exalt it.&nbsp;
+And herein comes in crookedly and dangerously a palliation of a great
+part of ceremonial magic.&nbsp; For it may be pretended that ceremonies,
+characters, and charms do work, not by any tacit or sacramental contract
+with evil spirits, but serve only to strengthen the imagination of him
+that useth it; as images are said by the Roman Church to fix the cogitations
+and raise the devotions of them that pray before them.&nbsp; But for
+mine own judgment, if it be admitted that imagination hath power, and
+that ceremonies fortify imagination, and that they be used sincerely
+and intentionally for that purpose; yet I should hold them unlawful,
+as opposing to that first edict which God gave unto man, <i>In sudore
+vultus comedes panem tuum</i>.&nbsp; For they propound those noble effects,
+which God hath set forth unto man to be bought at the price of labour,
+to be attained by a few easy and slothful observances.&nbsp; Deficiences
+in these knowledges I will report none, other than the general deficience,
+that it is not known how much of them is verity, and how much vanity.<br>
+<br>
+XII. (1) The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the mind of
+man is of two kinds - the one respecting his understanding and reason,
+and the other his will, appetite, and affection; whereof the former
+produceth position or decree, the latter action or execution.&nbsp;
+It is true that the imagination is an agent or <i>nuncius </i>in both
+provinces, both the judicial and the ministerial.&nbsp; For sense sendeth
+over to imagination before reason have judged, and reason sendeth over
+to imagination before the decree can be acted.&nbsp; For imagination
+ever precedeth voluntary motion.&nbsp; Saving that this Janus of imagination
+hath differing faces: for the face towards reason hath the print of
+truth, but the face towards action hath the print of good; which nevertheless
+are faces,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Quales decet esse sororum.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger; but is invested
+with, or at least wise usurpeth no small authority in itself, besides
+the duty of the message.&nbsp; For it was well said by Aristotle, &ldquo;That
+the mind hath over the body that commandment, which the lord hath over
+a bondman; but that reason hath over the imagination that commandment
+which a magistrate hath over a free citizen,&rdquo; who may come also
+to rule in his turn.&nbsp; For we see that, in matters of faith and
+religion, we raise our imagination above our reason, which is the cause
+why religion sought ever access to the mind by similitudes, types, parables,
+visions, dreams.&nbsp; And again, in all persuasions that are wrought
+by eloquence, and other impressions of like nature, which do paint and
+disguise the true appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto
+reason is from the imagination.&nbsp; Nevertheless, because I find not
+any science that doth properly or fitly pertain to the imagination,
+I see no cause to alter the former division.&nbsp; For as for poesy,
+it is rather a pleasure or play of imagination than a work or duty thereof.&nbsp;
+And if it be a work, we speak not now of such parts of learning as the
+imagination produceth, but of such sciences as handle and consider of
+the imagination.&nbsp; No more than we shall speak now of such knowledges
+as reason produceth (for that extendeth to all philosophy), but of such
+knowledges as do handle and inquire of the faculty of reason: so as
+poesy had his true place.&nbsp; As for the power of the imagination
+in nature, and the manner of fortifying the same, we have mentioned
+it in the doctrine <i>De Anima</i>,<i> </i>whereunto most fitly it belongeth.&nbsp;
+And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative reason, which is the subject
+of rhetoric, we think it best to refer it to the arts of reason.&nbsp;
+So therefore we content ourselves with the former division, that human
+philosophy, which respecteth the faculties of the mind of man, hath
+two parts, rational and moral.<br>
+<br>
+(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all knowledges,
+to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of subtlety
+and spinosity.&nbsp; For as it was truly said, that knowledge is <i>pabulum
+animi</i>; so in the nature of men&rsquo;s appetite to this food most
+men are of the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that
+would fain have returned <i>ad ollas carnium</i>,<i> </i>and were weary
+of manna; which, though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive
+and comfortable.&nbsp; So generally men taste well knowledges that are
+drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about
+the which men&rsquo;s affections, praises, fortunes do turn and are
+conversant.&nbsp; But this same <i>lumen siccum </i>doth parch and offend
+most men&rsquo;s watery and soft natures.&nbsp; But to speak truly of
+things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the keys of all
+other arts, for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, &ldquo;That
+the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form
+of forms;&rdquo; so these be truly said to be the art of arts.&nbsp;
+Neither do they only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even
+as the habit of shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot,
+but also to draw a stronger bow.<br>
+<br>
+(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the
+ends whereunto they are referred - for man&rsquo;s labour is to invent
+that which is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is invented;
+or to retain that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is
+retained.&nbsp; So as the arts must be four - art of inquiry or invention;
+art of examination or judgment; art of custody or memory; and art of
+elocution or tradition.<br>
+<br>
+XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing - the one of arts
+and sciences, and the other of speech and arguments.&nbsp; The former
+of these I do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience
+as if, in the making of an inventory touching the state of a defunct,
+it should be set down that there is no ready money.&nbsp; For as money
+will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should
+purchase all the rest.&nbsp; And like as the West Indies had never been
+discovered if the use of the mariner&rsquo;s needle had not been first
+discovered, though the one be vast regions, and the other a small motion;
+so it cannot be found strange if sciences be no further discovered,
+if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed over.<br>
+<br>
+(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth
+plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences,
+or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a <i>cuique in sua
+arte credendum</i>.&nbsp; And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking
+of the empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, &ldquo;That medicines
+and cures were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes
+were discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from
+them the medicines and cures discovered.&rdquo;&nbsp; And Plato in his
+&ldquo;The&aelig;tetus&rdquo; noteth well, &ldquo;That particulars are
+infinite, and the higher generalities give no sufficient direction;
+and that the pith of all sciences, which maketh the artsman differ from
+the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in every particular
+knowledge are taken from tradition and experience.&rdquo;&nbsp; And
+therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and originals
+of things refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather to beasts,
+birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Dictamnum genetrix Cret&aelig;a carpit ab Ida,<br>
+Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem<br>
+Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris<br>
+Gramina, cum tergo volucres h&aelig;sere sagitt&aelig;.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate
+inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples,
+but almost all brute:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,<br>
+Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &amp;c.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the
+first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus
+first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when
+he first stroke the flints he expected the spark; and therefore we see
+the West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because
+of the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion.&nbsp;
+So as it should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild
+goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for
+some part of physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery,
+or generally to chance or anything else than to logic for the invention
+of arts and sciences.&nbsp; Neither is the form of invention which Virgil
+describeth much other:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ut varias usus meditande extunderet artes<br>
+Paulatim.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that which
+brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which is a perpetual
+intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute
+necessity of conservation of being.&nbsp; For so Cicero saith very truly,
+<i>Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem s&aelig;pe vincit</i>.&nbsp;
+And therefore if it be said of men,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Labor omnia vincit<br>
+Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+it is likewise said of beasts, <i>Quis psittaco docuit suum &chi;&alpha;&iota;&rho;&epsilon;</i>?&nbsp;
+Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree,
+where she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come
+to it?&nbsp; Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or air,
+and to find the way from a field in a flower a great way off to her
+hive?&nbsp; Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she
+burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow?&nbsp; Add then
+the word <i>extundere</i>,<i> </i>which importeth the extreme difficulty,
+and the word <i>paulatim</i>, which importeth the extreme slowness,
+and we are where we were, even amongst the Egyptians&rsquo; gods; there
+being little left to the faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty
+or art, for matter of invention.<br>
+<br>
+(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which
+seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may
+be pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation
+from the principles; their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious
+and incompetent; wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the
+duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have
+wronged, abused, and traduced nature.&nbsp; For he that shall attentively
+observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge, like
+unto that which the poet speaketh of, <i>A&euml;rei mellis c&aelig;lestia
+dona</i>, distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and
+artificial, as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find that
+the mind of herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much
+better than they describe it.&nbsp; For to conclude upon an enumeration
+of particulars, without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but
+a conjecture; for who can assure (in many subjects) upon those particulars
+which appear of a side, that there are not other on the contrary side
+which appear not?&nbsp; As if Samuel should have rested upon those sons
+of Jesse which were brought before him, and failed of David which was
+in the field.&nbsp; And this form (to say truth), is so gross, as it
+had not been possible for wits so subtle as have managed these things
+to have offered it to the world, but that they hasted to their theories
+and dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful toward particulars;
+which their manner was to use but as <i>lictores </i>and <i>viatores</i>,<i>
+</i>for sergeants and whifflers, <i>ad summovendam turbam</i>,<i> </i>to
+make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in their true
+use and service.&nbsp; Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with
+a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very
+same in divine and human truth; for, as in divine truth man cannot endure
+to become as a child, so in human, they reputed the attending the inductions
+(whereof we speak), as if it were a second infancy or childhood.<br>
+<br>
+(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet,
+nevertheless, certain it is that middle propositions cannot be deduced
+from them in subject of nature by syllogism - that is, by touch and
+reduction of them to principles in a middle term.&nbsp; It is true that
+in sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity
+(because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the simplest),
+that form may have use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by way of
+argument or satisfactory reason, <i>Qu&aelig; assensum parit operis
+eff&aelig;ta est</i>;<i> </i>but the subtlety of nature and operations
+will not be enchained in those bonds.&nbsp; For arguments consist of
+propositions, and propositions of words, and words are but the current
+tokens or marks of popular notions of things; which notions, if they
+be grossly and variably collected out of particulars, it is not the
+laborious examination either of consequences of arguments, or of the
+truth of propositions, that can ever correct that error, being (as the
+physicians speak) in the first digestion.&nbsp; And, therefore, it was
+not without cause, that so many excellent philosophers became sceptics
+and academics, and denied any certainty of knowledge or comprehension;
+and held opinion that the knowledge of man extended only to appearances
+and probabilities.&nbsp; It is true that in Socrates it was supposed
+to be but a form of irony, <i>Scientiam dissimulando simulavit</i>;<i>
+</i>for he used to disable his knowledge, to the end to enhance his
+knowledge; like the humour of Tiberius in his beginnings, that would
+reign, but would not acknowledge so much.&nbsp; And in the later academy,
+which Cicero embraced, this opinion also of <i>acatalepsia </i>(I doubt)
+was not held sincerely; for that all those which excelled in copy of
+speech seem to have chosen that sect, as that which was fittest to give
+glory to their eloquence and variable discourses; being rather like
+progresses of pleasure than journeys to an end.&nbsp; But assuredly
+many scattered in both academies did hold it in subtlety and integrity.&nbsp;
+But here was their chief error: they charged the deceit upon the senses;
+which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their cavillations) are very
+sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always immediately,
+yet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by producing and urging
+such things as are too subtle for the sense to some effect comprehensible
+by the sense, and other like assistance.&nbsp; But they ought to have
+charged the deceit upon the weakness of the intellectual powers, and
+upon the manner of collecting and concluding upon the reports of the
+senses.&nbsp; This I speak, not to disable the mind of man, but to stir
+it up to seek help; for no man, be he never so cunning or practised,
+can make a straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand, which
+may be easily done by help of a ruler or compass.<br>
+<br>
+(5) This part of invention, concerning the invention of sciences, I
+purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound, having digested
+it into two parts: whereof the one I term <i>experientia literata</i>,<i>
+</i>and the other <i>interpretatio natur&aelig;</i>;<i> </i>the former
+being but a degree and rudiment of the latter.&nbsp; But I will not
+dwell too long, nor speak too great upon a promise.<br>
+<br>
+(6) The invention of speech or argument is not properly an invention;
+for to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or
+resummon that which we already know; and the use of this invention is
+no other but, out of the knowledge whereof our mind is already possessed
+to draw forth or call before us that which may be pertinent to the purpose
+which we take into our consideration.&nbsp; So as to speak truly, it
+is no invention, but a remembrance or suggestion, with an application;
+which is the cause why the schools do place it after judgment, as subsequent
+and not precedent.&nbsp; Nevertheless, because we do account it a chase
+as well of deer in an enclosed park as in a forest at large, and that
+it hath already obtained the name, let it be called invention; so as
+it be perceived and discerned, that the scope and end of this invention
+is readiness and present use of our knowledge, and not addition or amplification
+thereof.<br>
+<br>
+(7) To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two courses, preparation
+and suggestion.&nbsp; The former of these seemeth scarcely a part of
+knowledge, consisting rather of diligence than of any artificial erudition.&nbsp;
+And herein Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully, doth deride the sophists
+near his time, saying, &ldquo;They did as if one that professed the
+art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up a shoe, but only exhibit
+in a readiness a number of shoes of all fashions and sizes.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But yet a man might reply, that if a shoemaker should have no shoes
+in his shop, but only work as he is bespoken, he should be weakly customed.&nbsp;
+But our Saviour, speaking of divine knowledge, saith, &ldquo;That the
+kingdom of heaven is like a good householder, that bringeth forth both
+new and old store;&rdquo;<i> </i>and we see the ancient writers of rhetoric
+do give it in precept, that pleaders should have the places, whereof
+they have most continual use, ready handled in all the variety that
+may be; as that, to speak for the literal interpretation of the law
+against equity, and contrary; and to speak for presumptions and inferences
+against testimony, and contrary.&nbsp; And Cicero himself, being broken
+unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainly, that whatsoever
+a man shall have occasion to speak of (if he will take the pains), he
+may have it in effect premeditate and handled <i>in thesi</i>.&nbsp;
+So that when he cometh to a particular he shall have nothing to do,
+but to put to names, and times, and places, and such other circumstances
+of individuals.&nbsp; We see likewise the exact diligence of Demosthenes;
+who, in regard of the great force that the entrance and access into
+causes hath to make a good impression, had ready framed a number of
+prefaces for orations and speeches.&nbsp; All which authorities and
+precedents may overweigh Aristotle&rsquo;s opinion, that would have
+us change a rich wardrobe for a pair of shears.<br>
+<br>
+(8) But the nature of the collection of this provision or preparatory
+store, though it be common both to logic and rhetoric, yet having made
+an entry of it here, where it came first to be spoken of, I think fit
+to refer over the further handling of it to rhetoric.<br>
+<br>
+(9) The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, doth assign
+and direct us to certain marks, or places, which may excite our mind
+to return and produce such knowledge as it hath formerly collected,
+to the end we may make use thereof.&nbsp; Neither is this use (truly
+taken) only to furnish argument to dispute, probably with others, but
+likewise to minister unto our judgment to conclude aright within ourselves.&nbsp;
+Neither may these places serve only to apprompt our invention, but also
+to direct our inquiry.&nbsp; For a faculty of wise interrogating is
+half a knowledge.&nbsp; For as Plato saith, &ldquo;Whosoever seeketh,
+knoweth that which he seeketh for in a general notion; else how shall
+he know it when he hath found it?&rdquo;&nbsp; And, therefore, the larger
+your anticipation is, the more direct and compendious is your search.&nbsp;
+But the same places which will help us what to produce of that which
+we know already, will also help us, if a man of experience were before
+us, what questions to ask; or, if we have books and authors to instruct
+us, what points to search and revolve; so as I cannot report that this
+part of invention, which is that which the schools call topics, is deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(10) Nevertheless, topics are of two sorts, general and special.&nbsp;
+The general we have spoken to; but the particular hath been touched
+by some, but rejected generally as inartificial and variable.&nbsp;
+But leaving the humour which hath reigned too much in the schools (which
+is, to be vainly subtle in a few things which are within their command,
+and to reject the rest), I do receive particular topics; that is, places
+or directions of invention and inquiry in every particular knowledge,
+as things of great use, being mixtures of logic with the matter of sciences.&nbsp;
+For in these it holdeth <i>ars inveniendi adolescit cum inventis</i>;
+for as in going of a way, we do not only gain that part of the way which
+is passed, but we gain the better sight of that part of the way which
+remaineth, so every degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light
+to that which followeth; which light, if we strengthen by drawing it
+forth into questions or places of inquiry, we do greatly advance our
+pursuit.<br>
+<br>
+XIV. (1) Now we pass unto the arts of judgment, which handle the natures
+of proofs and demonstrations, which as to induction hath a coincidence
+with invention; for all inductions, whether in good or vicious form,
+the same action of the mind which inventeth, judgeth - all one as in
+the sense.&nbsp; But otherwise it is in proof by syllogism, for the
+proof being not immediate, but by mean, the invention of the mean is
+one thing, and the judgment of the consequence is another; the one exciting
+only, the other examining.&nbsp; Therefore, for the real and exact form
+of judgment, we refer ourselves to that which we have spoken of interpretation
+of Nature.<br>
+<br>
+(2) For the other judgment by syllogism, as it is a thing most agreeable
+to the mind of man, so it hath been vehemently end excellently laboured.&nbsp;
+For the nature of man doth extremely covet to have somewhat in his understanding
+fixed and unmovable, and as a rest and support of the mind.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, as Aristotle endeavoureth to prove, that in all motion there
+is some point quiescent; and as he elegantly expoundeth the ancient
+fable of Atlas (that stood fixed, and bare up the heaven from falling)
+to be meant of the poles or axle-tree of heaven, whereupon the conversion
+is accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to have an Atlas or
+axle-tree within to keep them from fluctuation, which is like to a perpetual
+peril of falling.&nbsp; Therefore men did hasten to set down some principles
+about which the variety of their disputatious might turn.<br>
+<br>
+(3) So, then, this art of judgment is but the reduction of propositions
+to principles in a middle term.&nbsp; The principles to be agreed by
+all and exempted from argument; the middle term to be elected at the
+liberty of every man&rsquo;s invention; the reduction to be of two kinds,
+direct and inverted: the one when the proposition is reduced to the
+principle, which they term a probation ostensive; the other, when the
+contradictory of the proposition is reduced to the contradictory of
+the principle, which is that which they call <i>per incommodum</i>,
+or pressing an absurdity; the number of middle terms to be as the proposition
+standeth degrees more or less removed from the principle.<br>
+<br>
+(4) But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one by way
+of direction, the other by way of caution: the former frameth and setteth
+down a true form of consequence, by the variations and deflections from
+which errors and inconsequences may be exactly judged.&nbsp; Toward
+the composition and structure of which form it is incident to handle
+the parts thereof, which are propositions, and the parts of propositions,
+which are simple words.&nbsp; And this is that part of logic which is
+comprehended in the Analytics.<br>
+<br>
+(5) The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite use and
+assurance sake, discovering the more subtle forms of sophisms and illaqueations
+with their redargutions, which is that which is termed <i>elenches</i>.&nbsp;
+For although in the more gross sorts of fallacies it happeneth (as Seneca
+maketh the comparison well) as in juggling feats, which, though we know
+not how they are done, yet we know well it is not as it seemeth to be;
+yet the more subtle sort of them doth not only put a man besides his
+answer, but doth many times abuse his judgment.<br>
+<br>
+(6) This part concerning <i>elenches </i>is excellently handled by Aristotle
+in precept, but more excellently by Plato in example; not only in the
+persons of the sophists, but even in Socrates himself, who, professing
+to affirm nothing, but to infirm that which was affirmed by another,
+hath exactly expressed all the forms of objection, fallace, and redargution.&nbsp;
+And although we have said that the use of this doctrine is for redargution,
+yet it is manifest the degenerate and corrupt use is for caption and
+contradiction, which passeth for a great faculty, and no doubt is of
+very great advantage, though the difference be good which was made between
+orators and sophisters, that the one is as the greyhound, which hath
+his advantage in the race, and the other as the hare, which hath her
+advantage in the turn, so as it is the advantage of the weaker creature.<br>
+<br>
+(7) But yet further, this doctrine of elenches hath a more ample latitude
+and extent than is perceived; namely, unto divers parts of knowledge,
+whereof some are laboured and other omitted.&nbsp; For first, I conceive
+(though it may seem at first somewhat strange) that that part which
+is variably referred, sometimes to logic, sometimes to metaphysic, touching
+the common adjuncts of essences, is but an <i>elenche</i>; for the great
+sophism of all sophisms being equivocation or ambiguity of words and
+phrase, specially of such words as are most general and intervene in
+every inquiry, it seemeth to me that the true and fruitful use (leaving
+vain subtleties and speculations) of the inquiry of majority, minority,
+priority, posteriority, identity, diversity, possibility, act, totality,
+parts, existence, privation, and the like, are but wise cautions against
+ambiguities of speech.&nbsp; So, again, the distribution of things into
+certain tribes, which we call categories or predicaments, are but cautions
+against the confusion of definitions and divisions.<br>
+<br>
+(8) Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by the strength of
+the impression, and not by the subtlety of the illaqueation - not so
+much perplexing the reason, as overruling it by power of the imagination.&nbsp;
+But this part I think more proper to handle when I shall speak of rhetoric.<br>
+<br>
+(9) But lastly, there is yet a much more important and profound kind
+of fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not observed or inquired
+at all, and think good to place here, as that which of all others appertaineth
+most to rectify judgment, the force whereof is such as it doth not dazzle
+or snare the understanding in some particulars, but doth more generally
+and inwardly infect and corrupt the state thereof.&nbsp; For the mind
+of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the
+beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay,
+it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture,
+if it be not delivered and reduced.&nbsp; For this purpose, let us consider
+the false appearances that are imposed upon us by the general nature
+of the mind, beholding them in an example or two; as first, in that
+instance which is the root of all superstition, namely, that to the
+nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the affirmative or
+active to affect more than the negative or privative.&nbsp; So that
+a few times hitting or presence countervails ofttimes failing or absence,
+as was well answered by Diagoras to him that showed him in Neptune&rsquo;s
+temple the great number of pictures of such as had escaped shipwreck,
+and had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, &ldquo;Advise now, you that
+think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Yea,
+but,&rdquo; saith Diagoras, &ldquo;where are they painted that are drowned?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Let us behold it in another instance, namely, that the spirit of man,
+being of an equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign
+in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in truth.&nbsp;
+Hence it cometh that the mathematicians cannot satisfy themselves except
+they reduce the motions of the celestial bodies to perfect circles,
+rejecting spiral lines, and labouring to be discharged of eccentrics.&nbsp;
+Hence it cometh that whereas there are many things in Nature as it were
+<i>monodica</i>, <i>sui juris</i>, yet the cogitations of man do feign
+unto them relatives, parallels, and conjugates, whereas no such thing
+is; as they have feigned an element of fire to keep square with earth,
+water, and air, and the like.&nbsp; Nay, it is not credible, till it
+be opened, what a number of fictions and fantasies the similitude of
+human actions and arts, together with the making of man <i>communis
+mensura</i>, have brought into natural philosophy; not much better than
+the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, bred in the cells of gross and
+solitary monks, and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same
+in heathenism, who supposed the gods to be of human shape.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, Velleius the Epicurean needed not to have asked why God should
+have adorned the heavens with stars, as if He had been an <i>&aelig;dilis</i>,
+one that should have set forth some magnificent shows or plays.&nbsp;
+For if that great Work-master had been of a human disposition, He would
+have cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and orders
+like the frets in the roofs of houses; whereas one can scarce find a
+posture in square, or triangle, or straight line, amongst such an infinite
+number, so differing a harmony there is between the spirit of man and
+the spirit of Nature.<br>
+<br>
+(10) Let us consider again the false appearances imposed upon us by
+every man&rsquo;s own individual nature and custom in that feigned supposition
+that Plato maketh of the cave; for certainly if a child were continued
+in a grot or cave under the earth until maturity of age, and came suddenly
+abroad, he would have strange and absurd imaginations.&nbsp; So, in
+like manner, although our persons live in the view of heaven, yet our
+spirits are included in the caves of our own complexions and customs,
+which minister unto us infinite errors and vain opinions if they be
+not recalled to examination.&nbsp; But hereof we have given many examples
+in one of the errors, or peccant humours, which we ran briefly over
+in our first book.<br>
+<br>
+(11) And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed
+upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to the conceit
+and capacities of the vulgar sort; and although we think we govern our
+words, and prescribe it well <i>loquendum ut vulgus sentiendum ut sapientes</i>,
+yet certain it is that words, as a Tartar&rsquo;s bow, do shoot back
+upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert
+the judgment.&nbsp; So as it is almost necessary in all controversies
+and disputations to imitate the wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting
+down in the very beginning the definitions of our words and terms, that
+others may know how we accept and understand them, and whether they
+concur with us or no.&nbsp; For it cometh to pass, for want of this,
+that we are sure to end there where we ought to have begun, which is,
+in questions and differences about words.&nbsp; To conclude, therefore,
+it must be confessed that it is not possible to divorce ourselves from
+these fallacies and false appearances because they are inseparable from
+our nature and condition of life; so yet, nevertheless, the caution
+of them (for all elenches, as was said, are but cautions) doth extremely
+import the true conduct of human judgment.&nbsp; The particular elenches
+or cautions against these three false appearances I find altogether
+deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(12) There remaineth one part of judgment of great excellency which
+to mine understanding is so slightly touched, as I may report that also
+deficient; which is the application of the differing kinds of proofs
+to the differing kinds of subjects.&nbsp; For there being but four kinds
+of demonstrations, that is, by the immediate consent of the mind or
+sense, by induction, by syllogism, and by congruity, which is that which
+Aristotle calleth demonstration in orb or circle, and not <i>a notioribus</i>,
+every of these hath certain subjects in the matter of sciences, in which
+respectively they have chiefest use; and certain others, from which
+respectively they ought to be excluded; and the rigour and curiosity
+in requiring the more severe proofs in some things, and chiefly the
+facility in contenting ourselves with the more remiss proofs in others,
+hath been amongst the greatest causes of detriment and hindrance to
+knowledge.&nbsp; The distributions and assignations of demonstrations
+according to the analogy of sciences I note as deficient.<br>
+<br>
+XV. (1) The custody or retaining of knowledge is either in writing or
+memory; whereof writing hath two parts, the nature of the character
+and the order of the entry.&nbsp; For the art of characters, or other
+visible notes of words or things, it hath nearest conjugation with grammar,
+and, therefore, I refer it to the due place; for the disposition and
+collocation of that knowledge which we preserve in writing, it consisteth
+in a good digest of common-places, wherein I am not ignorant of the
+prejudice imputed to the use of common-place books, as causing a retardation
+of reading, and some sloth or relaxation of memory.&nbsp; But because
+it is but a counterfeit thing in knowledges to be forward and pregnant,
+except a man be deep and full, I hold the entry of common-places to
+be a matter of great use and essence in studying, as that which assureth
+copy of invention, and contracteth judgment to a strength.&nbsp; But
+this is true, that of the methods of common-places that I have seen,
+there is none of any sufficient worth, all of them carrying merely the
+face of a school and not of a world; and referring to vulgar matters
+and pedantical divisions, without all life or respect to action.<br>
+<br>
+(2) For the other principal part of the custody of knowledge, which
+is memory, I find that faculty in my judgment weakly inquired of.&nbsp;
+An art there is extant of it; but it seemeth to me that there are better
+precepts than that art, and better practices of that art than those
+received.&nbsp; It is certain the art (as it is) may be raised to points
+of ostentation prodigious; but in use (as is now managed) it is barren,
+not burdensome, nor dangerous to natural memory, as is imagined, but
+barren, that is, not dexterous to be applied to the serious use of business
+and occasions.&nbsp; And, therefore, I make no more estimation of repeating
+a great number of names or words upon once hearing, or the pouring forth
+of a number of verses or rhymes <i>extempore</i>, or the making of a
+satirical simile of everything, or the turning of everything to a jest,
+or the falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like
+(whereof in the faculties of the mind there is great copy, and such
+as by device and practice may be exalted to an extreme degree of wonder),
+than I do of the tricks of tumblers, funambuloes, baladines; the one
+being the same in the mind that the other is in the body, matters of
+strangeness without worthiness.<br>
+<br>
+(3) This art of memory is but built upon two intentions; the one prenotion,
+the other emblem.&nbsp; Prenotion dischargeth the indefinite seeking
+of that we would remember, and directeth us to seek in a narrow compass,
+that is, somewhat that hath congruity with our place of memory.&nbsp;
+Emblem reduceth conceits intellectual to images sensible, which strike
+the memory more; out of which axioms may be drawn much better practice
+than that in use; and besides which axioms, there are divers more touching
+help of memory not inferior to them.&nbsp; But I did in the beginning
+distinguish, not to report those things deficient, which are but only
+ill managed.<br>
+<br>
+XVI. (1) There remaineth the fourth kind of rational knowledge, which
+is transitive, concerning the expressing or transferring our knowledge
+to others, which I will term by the general name of tradition or delivery.&nbsp;
+Tradition hath three parts: the first concerning the organ of tradition;
+the second concerning the method of tradition; and the third concerning
+the illustration of tradition.<br>
+<br>
+(2) For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or writing; for
+Aristotle saith well, &ldquo;Words are the images of cogitations, and
+letters are the images of words.&rdquo;&nbsp; But yet it is not of necessity
+that cogitations be expressed by the medium of words.&nbsp; For whatsoever
+is capable of sufficient differences, and those perceptible by the sense,
+is in nature competent to express cogitations.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+we see in the commerce of barbarous people that understand not one another&rsquo;s
+language, and in the practice of divers that are dumb and deaf, that
+men&rsquo;s minds are expressed in gestures, though not exactly, yet
+to serve the turn.&nbsp; And we understand further, that it is the use
+of China and the kingdoms of the High Levant to write in characters
+real, which express neither letters nor words in gross, but things or
+notions; insomuch as countries and provinces which understand not one
+another&rsquo;s language can nevertheless read one another&rsquo;s writings,
+because the characters are accepted more generally than the languages
+do extend; and, therefore, they have a vast multitude of characters,
+as many, I suppose, as radical words.<br>
+<br>
+(3) These notes of cogitations are of two sorts: the one when the note
+hath some similitude or congruity with the notion; the other <i>ad placitum</i>,
+having force only by contract or acceptation.&nbsp; Of the former sort
+are hieroglyphics and gestures.&nbsp; For as to hieroglyphics (things
+of ancient use and embraced chiefly by the Egyptians, one of the most
+ancient nations), they are but as continued impresses and emblems.&nbsp;
+And as for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics, and are to
+hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in that they abide
+not; but they have evermore, as well as the other, an affinity with
+the things signified.&nbsp; As Periander, being consulted with how to
+preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid the messenger attend and report
+what he saw him do; and went into his garden and topped all the highest
+flowers, signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping
+low of the nobility and grandees.&nbsp; <i>Ad placitum</i>, are the
+characters real before mentioned, and words: although some have been
+willing by curious inquiry, or rather by apt feigning, to have derived
+imposition of names from reason and intendment; a speculation elegant,
+and, by reason it searcheth into antiquity, reverent, but sparingly
+mixed with truth, and of small fruit.&nbsp; This portion of knowledge
+touching the notes of things and cogitations in general, I find not
+inquired, but deficient.&nbsp; And although it may seem of no great
+use, considering that words and writings by letters do far excel all
+the other ways; yet because this part concerneth, as it were, the mint
+of knowledge (for words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits,
+as moneys are for values, and that it is fit men be not ignorant that
+moneys may be of another kind than gold and silver), I thought good
+to propound it to better inquiry.<br>
+<br>
+(4) Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath produced
+the science of grammar.&nbsp; For man still striveth to reintegrate
+himself in those benedictions, from which by his fault he hath been
+deprived; and as he hath striven against the first general curse by
+the invention of all other arts, so hath he sought to come forth of
+the second general curse (which was the confusion of tongues) by the
+art of grammar; whereof the use in a mother tongue is small, in a foreign
+tongue more; but most in such foreign tongues as have ceased to be vulgar
+tongues, and are turned only to learned tongues.&nbsp; The duty of it
+is of two natures: the one popular, which is for the speedy and perfect
+attaining languages, as well for intercourse of speech as for understanding
+of authors; the other philosophical, examining the power and nature
+of words, as they are the footsteps and prints of reason: which kind
+of analogy between words and reason is handled <i>sparsim</i>, brokenly
+though not entirely; and, therefore, I cannot report it deficient, though
+I think it very worthy to be reduced into a science by itself.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the consideration of
+the accidents of words; which are measure, sound, and elevation or accent,
+and the sweetness and harshness of them: whence hath issued some curious
+observations in rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as we consider it, in respect
+of the verse and not of the argument.&nbsp; Wherein though men in learned
+tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet in modern languages
+it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of verses as of dances;
+for a dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech.&nbsp;
+In these things this sense is better judge than the art:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;C&oelig;n&aelig; fercula nostr&aelig;<br>
+Mallem convivis quam placuisse cocis.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an unfit subject,
+it is well said, &ldquo;<i>Quod tempore antiquum videtur, id incongruitate
+est maxime novum</i>.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(6) For ciphers, they are commonly in letters or alphabets, but may
+be in words.&nbsp; The kinds of ciphers (besides the simple ciphers,
+with changes, and intermixtures of nulls and non-significants) are many,
+according to the nature or rule of the infolding, wheel-ciphers, key-ciphers,
+doubles, &amp;c.&nbsp; But the virtues of them, whereby they are to
+be preferred, are three; that they be not laborious to write and read;
+that they be impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that they be
+without suspicion.&nbsp; The highest degree whereof is to write <i>omnia
+per omnia</i>; which is undoubtedly possible, with a proportion quintuple
+at most of the writing infolding to the writing infolded, and no other
+restraint whatsoever.&nbsp; This art of ciphering hath for relative
+an art of deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, but, as things are,
+of great use.&nbsp; For suppose that ciphers were well managed, there
+be multitudes of them which exclude the decipherer.&nbsp; But in regard
+of the rawness and unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass,
+the greatest matters are many times carried in the weakest ciphers.<br>
+<br>
+(7) In the enumeration of these private and retired arts it may be thought
+I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them for show
+and ostentation, and to little other purpose.&nbsp; But let those, which
+are skilful in them, judge whether I bring them in only for appearance,
+or whether in that which I speak of them (though in few words) there
+be not some seed of proficience.&nbsp; And this must be remembered,
+that as there be many of great account in their countries and provinces,
+which, when they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of mean
+rank and scarcely regarded; so these arts, being here placed with the
+principal and supreme sciences, seem petty things: yet to such as have
+chosen them to spend their labours and studies in them, they seem great
+matters.<br>
+<br>
+XVII. (1) For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a controversy
+in our time.&nbsp; But as in civil business, if there be a meeting,
+and men fall at words, there is commonly an end of the matter for that
+time, and no proceeding at all; so in learning, where there is much
+controversy, there is many times little inquiry.&nbsp; For this part
+of knowledge of method seemeth to me so weakly inquired as I shall report
+it deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as a part
+of judgment.&nbsp; For as the doctrine of syllogisms comprehendeth the
+rules of judgment upon that which is invented, so the doctrine of method
+containeth the rules of judgment upon that which is to be delivered;
+for judgment precedeth delivery, as it followeth invention.&nbsp; Neither
+is the method or the nature of the tradition material only to the use
+of knowledge, but likewise to the progression of knowledge: for since
+the labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of knowledge,
+the wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth the felicity of
+continuance and proceeding.&nbsp; And therefore the most real diversity
+of method is of method referred to use, and method referred to progression:
+whereof the one may be termed magistral, and the other of probation.<br>
+<br>
+(3) The latter whereof seemeth to be <i>via deserta et interclusa</i>.&nbsp;
+For as knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of
+error between the deliverer and the receiver.&nbsp; For he that delivereth
+knowledge desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed,
+and not as may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth
+rather present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not
+to doubt, than not to err: glory making the author not to lay open his
+weakness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength.<br>
+<br>
+(4) But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought
+to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method
+wherein it was invented: and so is it possible of knowledge induced.&nbsp;
+But in this same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man knoweth
+how he came to the knowledge which he hath obtained.&nbsp; But yet,
+nevertheless, <i>secundum majus et minus</i>, a man may revisit and
+descend unto the foundations of his knowledge and consent; and so transplant
+it into another, as it grew in his own mind.&nbsp; For it is in knowledges
+as it is in plants: if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter for
+the roots - but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is more assured
+to rest upon roots than slips: so the delivery of knowledges (as it
+is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots; good for
+the carpenter, but not for the planter.&nbsp; But if you will have sciences
+grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look
+well to the taking up of the roots.&nbsp; Of which kind of delivery
+the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath some shadow: but
+generally I see it neither put in use nor put in inquisition, and therefore
+note it for deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Another diversity of method there is, which hath some affinity with
+the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but
+disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made
+it as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is
+enigmatical and disclosed.&nbsp; The pretence whereof is, to remove
+the vulgar capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledges,
+and to reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness
+as can pierce the veil.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great, is
+the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods; wherein we may
+observe that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a few axioms
+or observations upon any subject, to make a solemn and formal art, filling
+it with some discourses, and illustrating it with examples, and digesting
+it into a sensible method.&nbsp; But the writing in aphorisms hath many
+excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not approach.<br>
+<br>
+(7) For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid:
+for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but
+of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is
+cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and
+order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off.&nbsp; So there
+remaineth nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation;
+and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write
+aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded.&nbsp; But in methods,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Tantum series juncturaque pollet,<br>
+Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were disjointed,
+would come to little.&nbsp; Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent
+or belief, but less fit to point to action; for they carry a kind of
+demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and therefore
+satisfy.&nbsp; But particulars being dispersed do best agree with dispersed
+directions.&nbsp; And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge broken,
+do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the show
+of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest.<br>
+<br>
+(8) Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great weight,
+is the handling of knowledge by assertions and their proofs, or by questions
+and their determinations.&nbsp; The latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately
+followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning as it is to
+the proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or
+hold.&nbsp; For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise
+pursued, those smaller things will come in of themselves: indeed a man
+would not leave some important piece enemy at his back.&nbsp; In like
+manner, the use of confutation in the delivery of sciences ought to
+be very sparing; and to serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments,
+and not to minister and excite disputatious and doubts.<br>
+<br>
+(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject or matter
+which is handled.&nbsp; For there is a great difference in delivery
+of the mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and
+policy, which is the most immersed.&nbsp; And howsoever contention hath
+been moved, touching a uniformity of method in multiformity of matter,
+yet we see how that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of
+ill desert towards learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce
+learning to certain empty and barren generalities; being but the very
+husks and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed
+with the torture and press of the method.&nbsp; And, therefore, as I
+did allow well of particular topics for invention, so I do allow likewise
+of particular methods of tradition.<br>
+<br>
+(10) Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and teaching of knowledge
+is, according unto the light and presuppositions of that which is delivered.&nbsp;
+For that knowledge which is new, and foreign from opinions received,
+is to be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable and familiar;
+and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus, doth in truth
+commend him, where he saith &ldquo;If we shall indeed dispute, and not
+follow after similitudes,&rdquo; &amp;c.&nbsp; For those whose conceits
+are seated in popular opinions need only but to prove or dispute; but
+those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour;
+the one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate.&nbsp;
+So that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes
+and translations to express themselves.&nbsp; And therefore in the infancy
+of learning, and in rude times when those conceits which are now trivial
+were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
+would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for
+paradoxes that which was offered, before they had understood or judged.&nbsp;
+So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are,
+for it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not consonant to presuppositions
+must pray in aid of similitudes.<br>
+<br>
+(11) There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and received:
+as that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or systasis, of concealment
+or cryptic, &amp;c., which I do allow well of, though I have stood upon
+those which are least handled and observed.&nbsp; All which I have remembered
+to this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one general inquiry
+(which seems to me deficient) touching the wisdom of tradition.<br>
+<br>
+(12) But unto this part of knowledge, concerning method, doth further
+belong not only the architecture of the whole frame of a work, but also
+the several beams and columns thereof; not as to their stuff, but as
+to their quantity and figure.&nbsp; And therefore method considereth
+not only the disposition of the argument or subject, but likewise the
+propositions: not as to their truth or matter, but as to their limitation
+and manner.&nbsp; For herein Ramus merited better a great deal in reviving
+the good rules of propositions - &Kappa;&alpha;&theta;&omicron;&lambda;&omicron;&nu;
+&pi;&rho;&omega;&tau;&omicron;&nu;, &kappa;&upsilon;&tau;&alpha; &pi;&alpha;&nu;&tau;&omicron;&sigmaf;
+&amp;c. - than he did in introducing the canker of epitomes; and yet
+(as it is the condition of human things that, according to the ancient
+fables, &ldquo;the most precious things have the most pernicious keepers&rdquo;)
+it was so, that the attempt of the one made him fall upon the other.&nbsp;
+For he had need be well conducted that should design to make axioms
+convertible, if he make them not withal circular, and non-promovent,
+or incurring into themselves; but yet the intention was excellent.<br>
+<br>
+(13) The other considerations of method, concerning propositions, are
+chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which limit the dimensions
+of sciences: for every knowledge may be fitly said, besides the profundity
+(which is the truth and substance of it, that makes it solid), to have
+a longitude and a latitude; accounting the latitude towards other sciences,
+and the longitude towards action; that is, from the greatest generality
+to the most particular precept.&nbsp; The one giveth rule how far one
+knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of another, which
+is the rule they call &Kappa;&alpha;&theta;&alpha;&upsilon;&tau;&omicron;;
+the other giveth rule unto what degree of particularity a knowledge
+should descend: which latter I find passed over in silence, being in
+my judgment the more material.&nbsp; For certainty there must be somewhat
+left to practice; but how much is worthy the inquiry?&nbsp; We see remote
+and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge to scorn of practical
+men; and are no more aiding to practice than an Ortelius&rsquo; universal
+map is to direct the way between London and York.&nbsp; The better sort
+of rules have been not unfitly compared to glasses of steel unpolished,
+where you may see the images of things, but first they must be filed:
+so the rules will help if they be laboured and polished by practice.&nbsp;
+But how crystalline they may be made at the first, and how far forth
+they may be polished aforehand, is the question, the inquiry whereof
+seemeth to me deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(14) There hath been also laboured and put in practice a method, which
+is not a lawful method, but a method of imposture: which is, to deliver
+knowledges in such manner as men may speedily come to make a show of
+learning, who have it not.&nbsp; Such was the travail of Raymundus Lullius
+in making that art which bears his name; not unlike to some books of
+typocosmy, which have been made since; being nothing but a mass of words
+of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms
+might be thought to understand the art; which collections are much like
+a fripper&rsquo;s or broker&rsquo;s shop, that hath ends of everything,
+but nothing of worth.<br>
+<br>
+XVIII. (1) Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration
+of tradition, comprehended in that science which we call rhetoric, or
+art of eloquence, a science excellent, and excellently well laboured.&nbsp;
+For although in true value it is inferior to wisdom (as it is said by
+God to Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, &ldquo;Aaron
+shall be thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God&rdquo;), yet with
+people it is the more mighty; for so Solomon saith, <i>Sapiens corde
+appellabitur prudens, sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet</i>, signifying
+that profoundness of wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration,
+but that it is eloquence that prevaileth in an active life.&nbsp; And
+as to the labouring of it, the emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians
+of his time, and the experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works
+of rhetoric exceed themselves.&nbsp; Again, the excellency of examples
+of eloquence in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the
+perfection of the precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression
+in this art; and therefore the deficiences which I shall note will rather
+be in some collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than
+in the rules or use of the art itself.<br>
+<br>
+(2)&nbsp; Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots
+of this science, as we have done of the rest, the duty and office of
+rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of
+the will.&nbsp; For we see reason is disturbed in the administration
+thereof by three means - by illaqueation or sophism, which pertains
+to logic; by imagination or impression, which pertains to rhetoric;
+and by passion or affection, which pertains to morality.&nbsp; And as
+in negotiation with others, men are wrought by cunning, by importunity,
+and by vehemency; so in this negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined
+by inconsequences, solicited and importuned by impressions or observations,
+and transported by passions.&nbsp; Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately
+built, as that those powers and arts should have force to disturb reason,
+and not to establish and advance it.&nbsp; For the end of logic is to
+teach a form of argument to secure reason, and not to entrap it; the
+end of morality is to procure the affections to obey reason, and not
+to invade it; the end of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second
+reason, and not to oppress it; for these abuses of arts come in but
+<i>ex oblique</i>, for caution.<br>
+<br>
+(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing
+out of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric
+but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome
+meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the pleasure of
+the taste.&nbsp; For we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning
+that which is good than in colouring that which is evil; for there is
+no man but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think; and it was
+excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that because he used to hold
+on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing
+against eloquence and good speech, knowing that no man can speak fair
+of courses sordid and base.&nbsp; And therefore, as Plato said elegantly,
+&ldquo;That virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and
+affection;&rdquo; so seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by
+corporal shape, the next degree is to show her to the imagination in
+lively representation; for to show her to reason only in subtlety of
+argument was a thing ever derided in Chrysippus and many of the Stoics,
+who thought to thrust virtue upon men by sharp disputations and conclusions,
+which have no sympathy with the will of man.<br>
+<br>
+(4) Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient
+to reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions
+and insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and proofs;
+but in regard of the continual mutinies and seditious of the affections
+-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Video meliora, proboque,<br>
+Deteriora sequor,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions
+did not practise and win the imagination from the affections&rsquo;
+part, and contract a confederacy between the reason and imagination
+against the affections; for the affections themselves carry ever an
+appetite to good, as reason doth.&nbsp; The difference is, that the
+affection beholdeth merely the present; reason beholdeth the future
+and sum of time.&nbsp; And, therefore, the present filling the imagination
+more, reason is commonly vanquished; but after that force of eloquence
+and persuasion hath made things future and remote appear as present,
+then upon the revolt of the imagination reason prevaileth.<br>
+<br>
+(5) We conclude, therefore, that rhetoric can be no more charged with
+the colouring of the worst part, than logic with sophistry, or morality
+with vice; for we know the doctrines of contraries are the same, though
+the use be opposite.&nbsp; It appeareth also that logic differeth from
+rhetoric, not only as the fist from the palm - the one close, the other
+at large - but much more in this, that logic handleth reason exact and
+in truth, and rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions
+and manners.&nbsp; And therefore Aristotle doth wisely place rhetoric
+as between logic on the one side, and moral or civil knowledge on the
+other, as participating of both; for the proofs and demonstrations of
+logic are toward all men indifferent and the same, but the proofs and
+persuasions of rhetoric ought to differ according to the auditors:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Which application in perfection of idea ought to extend so far that
+if a man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he should
+speak to them all respectively and several ways; though this politic
+part of eloquence in private speech it is easy for the greatest orators
+to want: whilst, by the observing their well-graced forms of speech,
+they leese the volubility of application; and therefore it shall not
+be amiss to recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whether
+we place it here or in that part which concerneth policy.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Now therefore will I descend to the deficiences, which, as I said,
+are but attendances; and first, I do not find the wisdom and diligence
+of Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a collection of the popular
+signs and colours of good and evil, both simple and comparative, which
+are as the sophisms of rhetoric (as I touched before).&nbsp; For example
+-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;<i>Sophisma</i>.<br>
+Quod laudatur, bonum: quod vituperatur, malum.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Redargutio</i>.<br>
+Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<i>Malum est</i>, <i>malum est (inquit emptor): sed cum recesserit,
+tum gloriabitur</i>!&nbsp; The defects in the labour of Aristotle are
+three - one, that there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches
+are not annexed; and the third, that he conceived but a part of the
+use of them: for their use is not only in probation, but much more in
+impression.&nbsp; For many forms are equal in signification which are
+differing in impression, as the difference is great in the piercing
+of that which is sharp and that which is flat, though the strength of
+the percussion be the same.&nbsp; For there is no man but will be a
+little more raised by hearing it said, &ldquo;Your enemies will be glad
+of this&rdquo; -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atrid&aelig;.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+than by hearing it said only, &ldquo;This is evil for you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(7) Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before, touching
+provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness
+of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts: the one in resemblance
+to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made
+up; both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request.&nbsp;
+The former of these I will call <i>antitheta</i>, and the latter <i>formul&aelig;.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(8) <i>Antitheta </i>are theses argued <i>pro et contra</i>, wherein
+men may be more large and laborious; but (in such as are able to do
+it) to avoid prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments
+to be cast up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited,
+but to be as skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when
+they come to be used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;<i>Pro verbis legis.<br>
+</i>Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, qu&aelig; recedit a litera:<br>
+Cum receditur a litera, judex transit in legislatorem.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Pro sententia legis</i>.<br>
+Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus qui interpretatur singula.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+(9) <i>Formul&aelig;</i> are but decent and apt passages or conveyances
+of speech, which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as
+of preface, conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &amp;c.&nbsp;
+For as in buildings there is great pleasure and use in the well casting
+of the staircases, entries, doors, windows, and the like; so in speech,
+the conveyances and passages are of special ornament and effect.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;<i>A conclusion in a deliberative.<br>
+</i>So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences
+future.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+XIX. (1) There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge,
+the one critical, the other pedantical.&nbsp; For all knowledge is either
+delivered by teachers, or attained by men&rsquo;s proper endeavours:
+and therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth
+chiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading
+of books; whereunto appertain incidently these considerations.&nbsp;
+The first is concerning the true correction and edition of authors;
+wherein nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice.&nbsp;
+For these critics have often presumed that that which they understand
+not is false set down: as the priest that, where he found it written
+of St. Paul <i>Demissus est per sportam</i>, mended his book, and made
+it <i>Demissus est per portam</i>; because <i>sporta </i>was a hard
+word, and out of his reading: and surely their errors, though they be
+not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are of the same kind.&nbsp; And
+therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most corrected copies are
+commonly the least correct.<br>
+<br>
+The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors,
+which resteth in annotations and commentaries: wherein it is over usual
+to blanch the obscure places and discourse upon the plain.<br>
+<br>
+The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great light
+to true interpretations.<br>
+<br>
+The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the authors;
+that men thereby may make some election unto themselves what books to
+read.<br>
+<br>
+And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies; that
+men may know in what order or pursuit to read.<br>
+<br>
+(2) For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of tradition
+which is proper for youth; whereunto appertain divers considerations
+of great fruit.<br>
+<br>
+As first, the timing and seasoning of knowledges; as with what to initiate
+them, and from what for a time to refrain them.<br>
+<br>
+Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
+proceed to the more difficult; and in what courses to press the more
+difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy; for it is one method
+to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing
+with heavy shoes.<br>
+<br>
+A third is the application of learning according unto the propriety
+of the wits; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual, but
+seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies: as, for example,
+if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention,
+the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be
+caught away but a moment, one is new to begin.&nbsp; And as sciences
+have a propriety towards faculties for cure and help, so faculties or
+powers have a sympathy towards sciences for excellency or speedy profiting:
+and therefore it is an inquiry of great wisdom, what kinds of wits and
+natures are most apt and proper for what sciences.<br>
+<br>
+Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence to
+hurt or help: for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in exercising
+their faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise their faults
+and get ill habits as well as good; so as there is a great judgment
+to be had in the continuance and intermission of exercises.&nbsp; It
+were too long to particularise a number of other considerations of this
+nature, things but of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy.&nbsp;
+For as the wronging or cherishing of seeds or young plants is that that
+is most important to their thriving, and as it was noted that the first
+six kings being in truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infancy
+thereof was the principal cause of the immense greatness of that state
+which followed, so the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath
+such a forcible (though unseen) operation, as hardly any length of time
+or contention of labour can countervail it afterwards.&nbsp; And it
+is not amiss to observe also how small and mean faculties gotten by
+education, yet when they fall into great men or great matters, do work
+great and important effects: whereof we see a notable example in Tacitus
+of two stage players, Percennius and Vibulenus, who by their faculty
+of playing put the Pannonian armies into an extreme tumult and combustion.&nbsp;
+For there arising a mutiny amongst them upon the death of Augustus C&aelig;sar,
+Bl&aelig;sus the lieutenant had committed some of the mutineers, which
+were suddenly rescued; whereupon Vibulenus got to be heard speak, which
+he did in this manner:- &ldquo;These poor innocent wretches appointed
+to cruel death, you have restored to behold the light; but who shall
+restore my brother to me, or life unto my brother, that was sent hither
+in message from the legions of Germany, to treat of the common cause?
+and he hath murdered him this last night by some of his fencers and
+ruffians, that he hath about him for his executioners upon soldiers.&nbsp;
+Answer, Bl&aelig;sus, what is done with his body?&nbsp; The mortalest
+enemies do not deny burial.&nbsp; When I have performed my last duties
+to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain besides
+him; so that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true hearts
+to the legions, may have leave to bury us.&rdquo;&nbsp; With which speech
+he put the army into an infinite fury and uproar: whereas truth was
+he had no brother, neither was there any such matter; but he played
+it merely as if he had been upon the stage.<br>
+<br>
+(3) But to return: we are now come to a period of rational knowledges;
+wherein if I have made the divisions other than those that are received,
+yet would I not be thought to disallow all those divisions which I do
+not use.&nbsp; For there is a double necessity imposed upon me of altering
+the divisions.&nbsp; The one, because it differeth in end and purpose,
+to sort together those things which are next in nature, and those things
+which are next in use.&nbsp; For if a secretary of estate should sort
+his papers, it is like in his study or general cabinet he would sort
+together things of a nature, as treaties, instructions, &amp;c.&nbsp;
+But in his boxes or particular cabinet he would sort together those
+that he were like to use together, though of several natures.&nbsp;
+So in this general cabinet of knowledge it was necessary for me to follow
+the divisions of the nature of things; whereas if myself had been to
+handle any particular knowledge, I would have respected the divisions
+fittest for use.&nbsp; The other, because the bringing in of the deficiences
+did by consequence alter the partitions of the rest.&nbsp; For let the
+knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be fifteen.&nbsp; Let the
+knowledge with the deficiences be twenty; the parts of fifteen are not
+the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three and five; the
+parts of twenty are two, four, five, and ten.&nbsp; So as these things
+are without contradiction, and could not otherwise be.<br>
+<br>
+XX. (1) We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the appetite
+and will of man: whereof Solomon saith, <i>Ante omnia, fili, custodi
+cor tuum: nam inde procedunt actiones vit&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; In the handling
+of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as
+if a man, that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies
+of alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions
+for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters.&nbsp; So have
+they made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts
+and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well
+described as the true objects and scopes of man&rsquo;s will and desires.&nbsp;
+But how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue
+the will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they
+pass it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably.&nbsp; For it
+is not the disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit
+and not by nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won
+by doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment,
+and the like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence
+of this part.<br>
+<br>
+(2) The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock whereupon
+both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast away; which
+is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters,
+the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the wisest doctrine
+(for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties), but contrariwise
+they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous
+mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of disputatious,
+or to the eloquence of discourses.&nbsp; But Seneca giveth an excellent
+check to eloquence, <i>Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem
+facit, sed sui</i>.&nbsp; Doctrine should be such as should make men
+in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher; being directed to
+the auditor&rsquo;s benefit, and not to the author&rsquo;s commendation.&nbsp;
+And therefore those are of the right kind which may be concluded as
+Demosthenes concludes his counsel, <i>Qu&aelig; si feceritis, non oratorem
+dumtaxat in pr&aelig;sentia laudabitis, sed vosmetipsos etiam non ita
+multo post statu rerum vestraram meliore.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(3) Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of
+a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained,
+who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing
+of the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of &AElig;neas:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum<br>
+Quam sit, et angustis his addere rebus honorem.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And surely, if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure
+that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn
+action and active life, these Georgics of the mind, concerning the husbandry
+and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions
+of virtue, duty, and felicity.&nbsp; Wherefore the main and primitive
+division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the exemplar or platform
+of good, and the regiment or culture of the mind: the one describing
+the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to subdue, apply,
+and accommodate the will of man thereunto.<br>
+<br>
+(4) The doctrine touching the platform or nature of good considereth
+it either simple or compared; either the kinds of good, or the degrees
+of good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputatious which were
+touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude,
+or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen
+divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged.&nbsp; And as Aristotle
+saith, &ldquo;That young men may be happy, but not otherwise but by
+hope;&rdquo; so we must all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the
+felicity which is by hope of the future world.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Freed therefore and delivered from this doctrine of the philosopher&rsquo;s
+heaven, whereby they feigned a higher elevation of man&rsquo;s nature
+than was (for we see in what height of style Seneca writeth, <i>Vere
+magnum</i>, <i>habere fragilitatem hominis</i>, <i>securitatem Dei</i>),
+we may with more sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries
+and labours.&nbsp; Wherein for the nature of good positive or simple,
+they have set it down excellently in describing the forms of virtue
+and duty, with their situations and postures; in distributing them into
+their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and administrations, and the
+like: nay further, they have commended them to man&rsquo;s nature and
+spirit with great quickness of argument and beauty of persuasions; yea,
+and fortified and entrenched them (as much as discourse can do) against
+corrupt and popular opinions.&nbsp; Again, for the degrees and comparative
+nature of good, they have also excellently handled it in their triplicity
+of good, in the comparisons between a contemplative and an active life,
+in the distinction between virtue with reluctation and virtue secured,
+in their encounters between honesty and profit, in their balancing of
+virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part deserveth to be reported
+for excellently laboured.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received
+notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had
+stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good
+and evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion,
+a great light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted
+with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound:
+which being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much confusion,
+we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.<br>
+<br>
+(7) There is formed in everything a double nature of good - the one,
+as everything is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it
+is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree
+the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation
+of a more general form.&nbsp; Therefore we see the iron in particular
+sympathy moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity,
+it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot
+moveth to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies;
+so may we go forward, and see that water and massy bodies move to the
+centre of the earth; but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continuance
+of nature, they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking
+their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world.&nbsp;
+This double nature of good, and the comparative thereof, is much more
+engraven upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation
+of duty to the public ought to be much more precious than the conservation
+of life and being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus,
+when being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being
+dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by his friends about him,
+that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather,
+he said only to them, <i>Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam</i>.&nbsp;
+But it may be truly affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion,
+or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good
+which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular,
+as the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the same God that gave
+the Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate
+creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints
+of God have wished themselves anathematised and razed out of the book
+of life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion.<br>
+<br>
+(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and determine
+most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant.&nbsp;
+For first, it decideth the question touching the preferment of the contemplative
+or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle.&nbsp; For all the
+reasons which he bringeth for the contemplative are private, and respecting
+the pleasure and dignity of a man&rsquo;s self (in which respects no
+question the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not much unlike
+to that comparison which Pythagoras made for the gracing and magnifying
+of philosophy and contemplation, who being asked what he was, answered,
+&ldquo;That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner,
+that some came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some came as
+merchants to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer
+and meet their friends, and some came to look on; and that he was one
+of them that came to look on.&rdquo;&nbsp; But men must know, that in
+this theatre of man&rsquo;s life it is reserved only for God and angels
+to be lookers on.&nbsp; Neither could the like question ever have been
+received in the Church, notwithstanding their <i>Pretiosa in oculis
+Domini mors sanctorum ejus</i>, by which place they would exalt their
+civil death and regular professions, but upon this defence, that the
+monastical life is not simple contemplative, but performeth the duty
+either of incessant prayers and supplications, which hath been truly
+esteemed as an office in the Church, or else of writing or taking instructions
+for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses did when he abode so
+long in the mount.&nbsp; And so we see Enoch, the seventh from Adam,
+who was the first contemplative and walked with God, yet did also endow
+the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude citeth.&nbsp; But for contemplation
+which should be finished in itself, without casting beams upon society,
+assuredly divinity knoweth it not.<br>
+<br>
+(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates, and
+their schools and successions, on the one side, who placed felicity
+in virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises whereof do chiefly
+embrace and concern society; and on the other side, the Cyrenaics and
+Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used
+in some comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change
+habits) to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served
+and attended; and the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed
+it in serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation; as if they would
+have deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when
+there was no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one
+air and season; and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment
+of the disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil,
+esteeming things according to the clearness of the desires, or the reluctation;
+which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, measuring
+things according to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or
+wavering of belief; all which are manifest to tend to private repose
+and contentment, and not to point of society.<br>
+<br>
+(10) It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which presupposeth
+that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power,
+lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance; as if it were not a thing
+much more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends for the public, than
+to obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune: as
+Consalvo said to his soldiers, showing them Naples, and protesting he
+had rather die one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for
+long by one foot of retreat.&nbsp; Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly
+leader hath signed, who hath affirmed that &ldquo;a good conscience
+is a continual feast;&rdquo; showing plainly that the conscience of
+good intentions, howsoever succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature
+than all the provision which can be made for security and repose.<br>
+<br>
+(11) It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which grew general
+about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or
+profession; as if the purpose had been, not to resist and extinguish
+perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of them, and to shape
+a particular kind and course of life to that end; introducing such a
+health of mind, as was that health of body of which Aristotle speaketh
+of Herodicus, who did nothing all his life long but intend his health;
+whereas if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that health
+of body is best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities,
+so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go through
+the greatest temptations and perturbations.&nbsp; So as Diogenes&rsquo;
+opinion is to be accepted, who commended not them which abstained, but
+them which sustained, and could refrain their mind <i>in pr&aelig;cipitio</i>,
+and could give unto the mind (as is used in horsemanship) the shortest
+stop or turn.<br>
+<br>
+(12) Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in
+some of the most ancient and reverend philosophers and philosophical
+men, that did retire too easily from civil business, for avoiding of
+indignities and perturbations; whereas the resolution of men truly moral
+ought to be such as the same Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should
+be, <i>e tel&acirc; crassiore</i>, and not so fine as that everything
+should catch in it and endanger it.<br>
+<br>
+XXI. (1) To resume private or particular good, it falleth into the division
+of good active and passive; for this difference of good (not unlike
+to that which amongst the Romans was expressed in the familiar or household
+terms of <i>promus </i>and <i>condus</i>) is formed also in all things,
+and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the
+one to preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or multiply
+themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the worthier; for in nature
+the heavens, which are the more worthy, are the agent, and the earth,
+which is the less worthy, is the patient.&nbsp; In the pleasures of
+living creatures, that of generation is greater than that of food.&nbsp;
+In divine doctrine, <i>beatius est dare quam accipere</i>.&nbsp; And
+in life, there is no man&rsquo;s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the effecting
+of somewhat that he hath fixed in his desire, more than sensuality,
+which priority of the active good is much upheld by the consideration
+of our estate to be mortal and exposed to fortune.&nbsp; For if we might
+have a perpetuity and certainty in our pleasures, the state of them
+would advance their price.&nbsp; But when we see it is but <i>magni
+&aelig;stimamus mori tardius</i>, and <i>ne glorieris de crastino, nescis
+partum diei</i>, it maketh us to desire to have somewhat secured and
+exempted from time, which are only our deeds and works; as it is said,
+<i>Opera eorum sequuntur eos</i>.&nbsp; The pre-eminence likewise of
+this active good is upheld by the affection which is natural in man
+towards variety and proceeding, which in the pleasures of the sense,
+which is the principal part of passive good, can have no great latitude.&nbsp;
+<i>Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; cibus, somnus, ludus per hunc circulum
+curritur; mori velle non tantum fortis, aut miser, aut prudens, sed
+etiam fastidiosus potest</i>.&nbsp; But in enterprises, pursuits, and
+purposes of life, there is much variety; whereof men are sensible with
+pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils, reintegrations,
+approaches and attainings to their ends.&nbsp; So as it was well said,
+<i>Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est</i>.&nbsp; Neither hath
+this active good an identity with the good of society, though in some
+cases it hath an incidence into it.&nbsp; For although it do many times
+bring forth acts of beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to
+a man&rsquo;s own power, glory, amplification, continuance; as appeareth
+plainly, when it findeth a contrary subject.&nbsp; For that gigantine
+state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was
+Lucius Sylla and infinite other in smaller model, who would have all
+men happy or unhappy as they were their friends or enemies, and would
+give form to the world, according to their own humours (which is the
+true theomachy), pretendeth and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth
+furthest from good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.<br>
+<br>
+(2) To resume passive good, it receiveth a subdivision of conservative
+and effective.&nbsp; For let us take a brief review of that which we
+have said: we have spoken first of the good of society, the intention
+whereof embraceth the form of human nature, whereof we are members and
+portions, and not our own proper and individual form; we have spoken
+of active good, and supposed it as a part of private and particular
+good.&nbsp; And rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple
+desire or appetite proceeding from love to themselves: one of preserving
+and continuing their form; another of advancing and perfecting their
+form; and a third of multiplying and extending their form upon other
+things: whereof the multiplying, or signature of it upon other things,
+is that which we handled by the name of active good.&nbsp; So as there
+remaineth the conserving of it, and perfecting or raising of it, which
+latter is the highest degree of passive good.&nbsp; For to preserve
+in state is the less, to preserve with advancement is the greater.&nbsp;
+So in man,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Igneus est ollis vigor, et c&aelig;lestis origo.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the perfection
+of his form; the error or false imitation of which good is that which
+is the tempest of human life; while man, upon the instinct of an advancement,
+formal and essential, is carried to seek an advancement local.&nbsp;
+For as those which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up and down
+and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain a remove
+internal, so is it with men in ambition, when failing of the mean to
+exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt their
+place.&nbsp; So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative
+or perfective.<br>
+<br>
+(3) To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth
+in the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures; it seemeth
+to be most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and lowest.&nbsp;
+And this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been well judged
+of, nor well inquired; for the good of fruition or contentment is placed
+either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the quickness and vigour
+of it; the one superinduced by equality, the other by vicissitude; the
+one having less mixture of evil, the other more impression of good.&nbsp;
+Whether of these is the greater good is a question controverted; but
+whether man&rsquo;s nature may not be capable of both is a question
+not inquired.<br>
+<br>
+(4) The former question being debated between Socrates and a sophist,
+Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of mind, and
+the sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell from argument
+to ill words: the sophist saying that Socrates&rsquo; felicity was the
+felicity of a block or stone; and Socrates saying that the sophist&rsquo;s
+felicity was the felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing
+but itch and scratch.&nbsp; And both these opinions do not want their
+supports.&nbsp; For the opinion of Socrates is much upheld by the general
+consent even of the epicures themselves, that virtue beareth a great
+part in felicity; and if so, certain it is, that virtue hath more use
+in clearing perturbations then in compassing desires.&nbsp; The sophist&rsquo;s
+opinion is much favoured by the assertion we last spake of, that good
+of advancement is greater than good of simple preservation; because
+every obtaining a desire hath a show of advancement, as motion though
+in a circle hath a show of progression.<br>
+<br>
+(5) But the second question, decided the true way, maketh the former
+superfluous.&nbsp; For can it be doubted, but that there are some who
+take more pleasure in enjoying pleasures than some other, and yet, nevertheless,
+are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them?&nbsp; So as this
+same, <i>Non uti ut non appetas, non appetere ut non metuas, sunt animi
+pusilli et diffidentis</i>.&nbsp; And it seemeth to me that most of
+the doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautious than
+the nature of things requireth.&nbsp; So have they increased the fear
+of death in offering to cure it.&nbsp; For when they would have a man&rsquo;s
+whole life to be but a discipline or preparation to die, they must needs
+make men think that it is a terrible enemy, against whom there is no
+end of preparing.&nbsp; Better saith the poet:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Qui finem vit&aelig; extremum inter munera ponat<br>
+Natur&aelig;.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+So have they sought to make men&rsquo;s minds too uniform and harmonical,
+by not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions; the reasons whereof
+I suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated to a private,
+free, and unapplied course of life.&nbsp; For as we see, upon the lute
+or like instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have show of many
+changes, yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and hard stops and
+passages, as a set song or voluntary; much after the same manner was
+the diversity between a philosophical and civil life.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+men are to imitate the wisdom of jewellers: who, if there be a grain,
+or a cloud, or an ice which may be ground forth without taking too much
+of the stone, they help it; but if it should lessen and abate the stone
+too much, they will not meddle with it: so ought men so to procure serenity
+as they destroy not magnanimity.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Having therefore deduced the good of man which is private and particular,
+as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good of man which
+respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term duty; because the
+term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed towards
+others, as the term of virtue is applied to a mind well formed and composed
+in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue without some relation
+to society, nor duty without an inward disposition.&nbsp; This part
+may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic; but not if
+it be well observed.&nbsp; For it concerneth the regiment and government
+of every man over himself, and not over others.&nbsp; And as in architecture
+the direction of framing the posts, beams, and other parts of building,
+is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting the building;
+and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame an instrument or engine
+is not the same with the manner of setting it on work and employing
+it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one you incidently express
+the aptness towards the other; so the doctrine of conjugation of men
+in society differeth from that of their conformity thereunto.<br>
+<br>
+(7) This part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common duty
+of every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the respective
+or special duty of every man in his profession, vocation, and place.&nbsp;
+The first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said.&nbsp;
+The second likewise I may report rather dispersed than deficient; which
+manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge to
+be best.&nbsp; For who can take upon him to write of the proper duty,
+virtue, challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession,
+and place?&nbsp; For although sometimes a looker on may see more than
+a gamester, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, &ldquo;That
+the vale best discovereth the hill;&rdquo; yet there is small doubt
+but that men can write best and most really and materially in their
+own professions; and that the writing of speculative men of active matter
+for the most part doth seem to men of experience, as Phormio&rsquo;s
+argument of the wars seemed to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage.&nbsp;
+Only there is one vice which accompanieth them that write in their own
+professions, that they magnify them in excess.&nbsp; But generally it
+were to be wished (as that which would make learning indeed solid and
+fruitful) that active men would or could become writers.<br>
+<br>
+(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, <i>honoris causa</i>, your Majesty&rsquo;s
+excellent book touching the duty of a king; a work richly compounded
+of divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other
+arts; and being in some opinion one of the most sound and healthful
+writings that I have read: not distempered in the heat of invention,
+nor in the coldness of negligence; not sick of dizziness, as those are
+who leese themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which
+cramp in matters impertinent; not savouring of perfumes and paintings,
+as those do who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth;
+and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to
+truth and apt for action; and far removed from that natural infirmity,
+whereunto I noted those that write in their own professions to be subject
+- which is, that they exalt it above measure.&nbsp; For your Majesty
+hath truly described, not a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern
+glory, but a Moses or a David, pastors of their people.&nbsp; Neither
+can I ever leese out of my remembrance what I heard your Majesty in
+the same sacred spirit of government deliver in a great cause of judicature,
+which was, &ldquo;That kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the
+laws of nature; and ought as rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative
+as God doth His power of working miracles.&rdquo;&nbsp; And yet notwithstanding
+in your book of a free monarchy, you do well give men to understand,
+that you know the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as well
+as the circle of his office and duty.&nbsp; Thus have I presumed to
+allege this excellent writing of your Majesty, as a prime or eminent
+example of tractates concerning special and respective duties; wherein
+I should have said as much, if it had been written a thousand years
+since.&nbsp; Neither am I moved with certain courtly decencies, which
+esteem it flattery to praise in presence.&nbsp; No, it is flattery to
+praise in absence - that is, when either the virtue is absent, or the
+occasion is absent; and so the praise is not natural, but forced, either
+in truth or in time.&nbsp; But let Cicero be read in his oration <i>pro
+Marcello</i>, which is nothing but an excellent table of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s
+virtue, and made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent
+persons, wiser a great deal than such observers; and we will never doubt,
+upon a full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.<br>
+<br>
+(9) But to return; there belongeth further to the handling of this part,
+touching the duties of professions and vocations, a relative or opposite,
+touching the frauds, cautels, impostures, and vices of every profession,
+which hath been likewise handled; but how? rather in a satire and cynically,
+than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit to deride
+and traduce much of that which is good in professions, than with judgment
+to discover and sever that which is corrupt.&nbsp; For, as Solomon saith,
+he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure
+shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction:
+<i>Qu&aelig;renti derisori scientiam ipsa se abscondit; sed studioso
+fit obviam</i>.&nbsp; But the managing of this argument with integrity
+and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be one of the
+best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be planted.&nbsp;
+For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk - that if he see you first,
+you die for it; but if you see him first, he dieth - so is it with deceits
+and evil arts, which, if they be first espied they leese their life;
+but if they prevent, they endanger.&nbsp; So that we are much beholden
+to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought
+to do.&nbsp; For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the
+columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the
+serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity,
+his envy and sting, and the rest - that is, all forms and natures of
+evil.&nbsp; For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.&nbsp;
+Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim
+them, without the help of the knowledge of evil.&nbsp; For men of corrupted
+minds presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners,
+and believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men&rsquo;s exterior
+language.&nbsp; So as, except you can make them perceive that you know
+the utmost reaches of their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality.&nbsp;
+<i>Non recipit stultus verba prudenti&aelig;, nisi ea dixeris qu&aelig;,
+versantur in corde ejus.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(10) Unto this part, touching respective duty, doth also appertain
+the duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant.&nbsp;
+So likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil bond of
+companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other
+proportionate duties; not as they are parts of government and society,
+but as to the framing of the mind of particular persons.<br>
+<br>
+(11) The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth handle it
+also, not simply alone, but comparatively; whereunto belongeth the weighing
+of duties between person and person, case and case, particular and public.&nbsp;
+As we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own sons, which
+was so much extolled, yet what was said?<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata minores.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides.&nbsp; Again,
+we see when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose
+opinions they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their
+associates, and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant
+being a usurper, they were divided in opinion; some holding that servitude
+was the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better than a
+civil war: and a number of the like cases there are of comparative duty.&nbsp;
+Amongst which that of all others is the most frequent, where the question
+is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice.&nbsp; Which
+Jason of Thessalia determined against the truth: <i>Aliqua sunt injuste
+facienda, ut multa juste fieri possint</i>.&nbsp; But the reply is good:
+<i>Auctorem pr&aelig;sentis justiti&aelig; habes, sponsorem futur&aelig;
+non habes</i>.&nbsp; Men must pursue things which are just in present,
+and leave the future to the Divine Providence.&nbsp; So then we pass
+on from this general part touching the exemplar and description of good.<br>
+<br>
+XXII. (1) Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this fruit of life,
+it remaineth to speak of the husbandry that belongeth thereunto, without
+which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image or statue,
+which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and motion; whereunto
+Aristotle himself subscribeth in these words: <i>Necesse est scilicet
+de virtute dicere, et quid sit, et ex quibus gignatur.&nbsp; Inutile
+enum fere fuerit virtutem quidem nosse, acquirend&aelig; autem ejus
+modos et vias ignorare.&nbsp; Non enum de virtute tantum, qua specie
+sit, qu&aelig;rendum est, sed et quomodo sui copiam faciat: utrumque
+enum volumeus, et rem ipsam nosse, et ejus compotes fieri: hoc autem
+ex voto non succedet, nisi sciamus et ex quibus et quomodo</i>.&nbsp;
+In such full words and with such iteration doth he inculcate this part.&nbsp;
+So saith Cicero in great commendation of Cato the second, that he had
+applied himself to philosophy, <i>Non ita disputandi causa, sed ita
+vivendi</i>.&nbsp; And although the neglect of our times, wherein few
+men do hold any consultations touching the reformation of their life
+(as Seneca excellently saith, <i>De partibus vit&aelig; quisque deliberat,
+de summa nemo</i>), may make this part seem superfluous; yet I must
+conclude with that aphorism of Hippocrates, <i>Qui gravi morbo correpti
+dolores non sentiunt, iis mens &aelig;grotat</i>.&nbsp; They need medicine,
+not only to assuage the disease, but to awake the sense.&nbsp; And if
+it be said that the cure of men&rsquo;s minds belongeth to sacred divinity,
+it is most true; but yet moral philosophy may be preferred unto her
+as a wise servant and humble handmaid.&nbsp; For as the Psalm saith,
+&ldquo;That the eyes of the handmaid look perpetually towards the mistress,&rdquo;
+and yet no doubt many things are left to the discretion of the handmaid
+to discern of the mistress&rsquo; will; so ought moral philosophy to
+give a constant attention to the doctrines of divinity, and yet so as
+it may yield of herself (within due limits) many sound and profitable
+directions.<br>
+<br>
+(2) This part, therefore, because of the excellency thereof, I cannot
+but find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to written inquiry;
+the rather, because it consisteth of much matter, wherein both speech
+and action is often conversant; and such wherein the common talk of
+men (which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass) is wiser than
+their books.&nbsp; It is reasonable, therefore, that we propound it
+in the more particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may
+acquit ourselves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost incredible,
+and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those themselves that
+have written.&nbsp; We will, therefore, enumerate some heads or points
+thereof, that it may appear the better what it is, and whether it be
+extant.<br>
+<br>
+(3) First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical
+we ought to cast up our account, what is in our power, and what not;
+for the one may be dealt with by way of alteration, but the other by
+way of application only.&nbsp; The husbandman cannot command neither
+the nature of the earth nor the seasons of the weather; no more can
+the physician the constitution of the patient nor the variety of accidents.&nbsp;
+So in the culture and cure of the mind of man, two things are without
+our command: points of Nature, and points of fortune.&nbsp; For to the
+basis of the one, and the conditions of the other, our work is limited
+and tied.&nbsp; In these things, therefore, it is left unto us to proceed
+by application<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Vincenda est omnis fertuna ferendo:&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+and so likewise,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Vincenda est omnis Natura ferendo.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull and neglected
+suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which draweth and
+contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth adverse and contrary;
+which is that properly which we call accommodating or applying.&nbsp;
+Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the exact and distinct
+knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which we do apply;
+for we cannot fit a garment except we first take measure of the body.<br>
+<br>
+(4) So, then, the first article of this knowledge is to set down sound
+and true distributions and descriptions of the several characters and
+tempers of men&rsquo;s natures and dispositions, specially having regard
+to those differences which are most radical in being the fountains and
+causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture; wherein
+it is not the handling of a few of them in passage, the better to describe
+the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention.&nbsp;
+For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which are proportioned
+to great matters, and others to small (which Aristotle handleth, or
+ought to have bandied, by the name of magnanimity), doth it not deserve
+as well to be considered that there are minds proportioned to intend
+many matters, and others to few?&nbsp; So that some can divide themselves:
+others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be but in few things
+at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as well as
+a pusillanimity.&nbsp; And again, that some minds are proportioned to
+that which may be dispatched at once, or within a short return of time;
+others to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with length of
+pursuit:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Jam tum tenditqus fovetque.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly
+also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.&nbsp; So further deserved it
+to be considered by Aristotle, &ldquo;That there is a disposition in
+conversation (supposing it in things which do in no sort touch or concern
+a man&rsquo;s self) to soothe and please, and a disposition contrary
+to contradict and cross;&rdquo; and deserveth it not much better to
+be considered.&nbsp; &ldquo;That there is a disposition, not in conversation
+or talk, but in matter of more serious nature (and supposing it still
+in things merely indifferent), to take pleasure in the good of another;
+and a disposition contrariwise, to take distaste at the good of another?&rdquo;
+which is that properly which we call good nature or ill nature, benignity
+or malignity; and, therefore, I cannot sufficiently marvel that this
+part of knowledge, touching the several characters of natures and dispositions,
+should be omitted both in morality and policy, considering it is of
+so great ministry and suppeditation to them both.&nbsp; A man shall
+find in the traditions of astrology some pretty and apt divisions of
+men&rsquo;s natures, according to the predominances of the planets:
+lovers of quiet, lovers of action, lovers of victory, lovers of honour,
+lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts, lovers of change, and so forth.&nbsp;
+A man shall find in the wisest sort of these relations which the Italians
+make touching conclaves, the natures of the several cardinals handsomely
+and lively painted forth.&nbsp; A man shall meet with in every day&rsquo;s
+conference the denominations of sensitive, dry, formal, real, humorous,
+certain, <i>huomo di prima impressione, huomo di ultima impressione</i>,
+and the like; and yet, nevertheless, this kind of observations wandereth
+in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.&nbsp; For the distinctions are
+found (many of them), but we conclude no precepts upon them: wherein
+our fault is the greater, because both history, poesy, and daily experience
+are as goodly fields where these observations grow; whereof we make
+a few posies to hold in our hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary
+that receipts might be made of them for use of life.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which are imposed
+upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and sickness,
+by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and not extern;
+and again, those which are caused by extern fortune, as sovereignty,
+nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity,
+adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune, rising <i>per saltum,
+per gradus</i>, and the like.&nbsp; And, therefore, we see that Plautus
+maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, <i>benignitas hujis
+ut adolescentuli est</i>.&nbsp; Saint Paul concludeth that severity
+of discipline was to be used to the Cretans, <i>increpa eos dure</i>,
+upon the disposition of their country, <i>Cretensus semper mendaces,
+mal&aelig; besti&aelig;, ventres</i>.&nbsp; Sallust noteth that it is
+usual with kings to desire contradictories: <i>Sed plerumque regi&aelig;
+voluntates, ut vehementes sunt, sic mobiles, s&aelig;peque ips&aelig;
+sibi advers</i>.&nbsp; Tacitus observeth how rarely raising of the fortune
+mendeth the disposition: <i>solus Vespasianus mutatus in melius</i>.&nbsp;
+Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and sudden fortune for the
+most part defeateth men <i>qui magnam felicitatem concoquere non possunt</i>.&nbsp;
+So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying
+of fortune, than in the increase of fortune; <i>Diviti&aelig; si affluant,
+nolite cor apponere</i>.&nbsp; These observations and the like I deny
+not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics,
+and are handled in some scattered discourses; but they were never incorporate
+into moral philosophy, to which they do essentially appertain; as the
+knowledge of this diversity of grounds and moulds doth to agriculture,
+and the knowledge of the diversity of complexions and constitutions
+doth to the physician, except we mean to follow the indiscretion of
+empirics, which minister the same medicines to all patients.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the affections;
+for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to know the divers
+complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases; and lastly, the
+cures: so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of the divers characters
+of men&rsquo;s natures, it followeth in order to know the diseases and
+infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the perturbations and
+distempars of the affections.&nbsp; For as the ancient politiques in
+popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea, and the
+orators to the winds; because as the sea would of itself be calm and
+quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would
+be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them
+in working and agitation: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in
+the nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections,
+as winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation.&nbsp; And here
+again I find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written
+divers volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which is
+the principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they
+are considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may
+be moved by speech), he findeth place for them, and handleth them well
+for the quantity; but where their true place is he pretermitteth them.&nbsp;
+For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy
+this inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature
+of light can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and
+pain are to the particular affections as light is to particular colours.&nbsp;
+Better travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as
+far as I can gather by that which we have at second hand.&nbsp; But
+yet it is like it was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions
+(which in a subject of this nature are but curiosities), than in active
+and ample descriptions and observations.&nbsp; So likewise I find some
+particular writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections:
+as of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance,
+and other.&nbsp; But the poets and writers of histories are the best
+doctors of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great
+life, how affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained;
+and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
+themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify:
+how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and
+encounter one with another; and other the like particularities.&nbsp;
+Amongst the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters;
+how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by
+another; even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with
+bird, which otherwise percase we could not so easily recover: upon which
+foundation is erected that excellent use of <i>pr&aelig;mium </i>and
+<i>p&aelig;na</i>, whereby civil states consist: employing the predominant
+affections of fear and hope, for the suppressing and bridling the rest.&nbsp;
+For as in the government of states it is sometimes necessary to bridle
+one faction with another, so it is in the government within.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command, and
+have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite,
+and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled custom, exercise,
+habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company, friends, praise,
+reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these as they have
+determinate use in moralities, from these the mind suffereth, and of
+these are such receipts and regiments compounded and described, as may
+serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate of the mind,
+as far as pertaineth to human medicine: of which number we will insist
+upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it were too
+long to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and habit to
+speak of.<br>
+<br>
+(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that
+of those things which consist by Nature, nothing can be changed by custom;
+using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times up it
+will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or hearing we do
+not learn to see or hear the better.&nbsp; For though this principle
+be true in things wherein Nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we
+cannot now stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise in things wherein
+Nature admitteth a latitude.&nbsp; For he might see that a strait glove
+will come more easily on with use; and that a wand will by use bend
+otherwise than it grew; and that by use of the voice we speak louder
+and stronger; and that by use of enduring heat or cold we endure it
+the better, and the like: which latter sort have a nearer resemblance
+unto that subject of manners he handleth, than those instances which
+he allegeth.&nbsp; But allowing his conclusion, that virtues and vices
+consist in habit, he ought so much the more to have taught the manner
+of superinducing that habit: for there be many precepts of the wise
+ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of ordering the exercises
+of the body, whereof we will recite a few.<br>
+<br>
+(9) The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either
+too high a strain or too weak: for if too high, in a diffident nature
+you discourage, in a confident nature you breed an opinion of facility,
+and so a sloth; and in all natures you breed a further expectation than
+can hold out, and so an insatisfaction in the end: if too weak, of the
+other side, you may not look to perform and overcome any great task.<br>
+<br>
+(10) Another precept is to practise all things chiefly at two several
+times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is
+worst disposed; that by the one you may gain a great step, by the other
+you may work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make the middle
+times the more easy and pleasant.<br>
+<br>
+(11) Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way,
+which is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto
+we are by nature inclined; like unto the rowing against the stream,
+or making a wand straight by bending him contrary to his natural crookedness.<br>
+<br>
+(12) Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything better,
+and with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend
+be not first in the intention, but <i>tanquam aliud agendo</i>, because
+of the natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint.&nbsp;
+Many other axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and custom,
+which being so conducted doth prove indeed another nature; but, being
+governed by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of Nature, and bringeth
+forth that which is lame and counterfeit.<br>
+<br>
+(13) So if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and
+operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great
+caution and direction appertaining thereunto?&nbsp; Did not one of the
+fathers in great indignation call poesy <i>vinum d&aelig;monum</i>,
+because it increaseth temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions?&nbsp;
+Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith,
+&ldquo;That young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy, because
+they are not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor
+attempered with time and experience&rdquo;?&nbsp; And doth it not hereof
+come, that those excellent books and discourses of the ancient writers
+(whereby they have persuaded unto virtue most effectually, by representing
+her in state and majesty, and popular opinions against virtue in their
+parasites&rsquo; coats fit to be scorned and derided), are of so little
+effect towards honesty of life, because they are not read and revolved
+by men in their mature and settled years, but confined almost to boys
+and beginners?&nbsp; But is it not true also, that much less young men
+are fit auditors of matters of policy, till they have been thoroughly
+seasoned in religion and morality; lest their judgments be corrupted,
+and made apt to think that there are no true differences of things,
+but according to utility and fortune, as the verse describes it, <i>Prosperum
+et felix scelus virtus vocatur</i>; and again, <i>Ille crucem pretium
+sceleris tulit, hic diadema</i>: which the poets do speak satirically
+and in indignation on virtue&rsquo;s behalf; but books of policy do
+speak it seriously and positively; for so it pleaseth Machiavel to say,
+&ldquo;That if C&aelig;sar had been overthrown, he would have been more
+odious than ever was Catiline;&rdquo; as if there had been no difference,
+but in fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood, and the most
+excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world?&nbsp; Again,
+is there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities
+themselves (some kinds of them), lest they make men too precise, arrogant,
+incompatible; as Cicero saith of Cato, <i>In Marco Catone h&aelig;c
+bona qu&aelig; videmus divina et egregia, ipsius scitote esse propria;
+qu&aelig; nonunquam requirimus ea sunt omnia non a natura, sed a magistro</i>?&nbsp;
+Many other axioms and advices there are touching those proprieties and
+effects, which studies do infuse and instil into manners.&nbsp; And
+so, likewise, is there touching the use of all those other points, of
+company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the beginning
+in the doctrine of morality.<br>
+<br>
+(14) But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more
+accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground;
+that the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect,
+and at other times in a state more depraved.&nbsp; The purpose, therefore,
+of this practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and
+to obliterate and take forth the evil.&nbsp; The fixing of the good
+hath been practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and
+observances or exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in themselves,
+as because they keep the mind in continual obedience.&nbsp; The obliteration
+of the evil hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption
+or expiation of that which is past, and an inception or account <i>de
+novo </i>for the time to come.&nbsp; But this part seemeth sacred and
+religious, and justly; for all good moral philosophy (as was said) is
+but a handmaid to religion.<br>
+<br>
+(15) Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of all
+other means the most compendious and summary, and again, the most noble
+and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate;
+which is, the electing and propounding unto a man&rsquo;s self good
+and virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within
+his compass to attain.&nbsp; For if these two things be supposed, that
+a man set before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute,
+constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould himself
+into all virtue at once.&nbsp; And this indeed is like the work of nature;
+whereas the other course is like the work of the hand.&nbsp; For as
+when a carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereupon he
+worketh; as if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body
+is but a rude stone still, till such times as he comes to it.&nbsp;
+But contrariwise when nature makes a flower or living creature, she
+formeth rudiments of all the parts at one time.&nbsp; So in obtaining
+virtue by habit, while a man practiseth temperance, he doth not profit
+much to fortitude, nor the like but when he dedicateth and applieth
+himself to good ends, look, what virtue soever the pursuit and passage
+towards those ends doth commend unto him, he is invested of a precedent
+disposition to conform himself thereunto.&nbsp; Which state of mind
+Aristotle doth excellently express himself, that it ought not to be
+called virtuous, but divine.&nbsp; His words are these: <i>Immanitati
+autem consentaneum est opponere eam, qu&aelig; supra humanitatem est,
+heroicam sive divinam virtutem</i>; and a little after, <i>Nam ut fer&aelig;
+neque vitium neque virtus est, swic neque Dei: sed hic quidem status
+altius quiddam virtute est, ille aluid quiddam a vitio</i>.&nbsp; And
+therefore we may see what celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus attributeth
+to Trajan in his funeral oration, where he said, &ldquo;That men needed
+to make no other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue as
+good lords to them as Trajan had been;&rdquo; as if he had not been
+only an imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it.&nbsp; But these
+be heathen and profane passages, having but a shadow of that divine
+state of mind, which religion and the holy faith doth conduct men unto,
+by imprinting upon their souls charity, which is excellently called
+the bond of perfection, because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues
+together.&nbsp; And as it is elegantly said by Menander of vain love,
+which is but a false imitation of divine love, <i>Amor melior Sophista
+l&oelig;vo ad humanam vitam </i>- that love teacheth a man to carry
+himself better than the sophist or preceptor; which he calleth left-handed,
+because, with all his rules and preceptions, he cannot form a man so
+dexterously, nor with that facility to prize himself and govern himself,
+as love can do: so certainly, if a man&rsquo;s mind be truly inflamed
+with charity, it doth work him suddenly into greater perfection than
+all the doctrine of morality can do, which is but a sophist in comparison
+of the other.&nbsp; Nay, further, as Xenophon observed truly, that all
+other affections, though they raise the mind, yet they do it by distorting
+and uncomeliness of ecstasies or excesses; but only love doth exalt
+the mind, and nevertheless at the same instant doth settle and compose
+it: so in all other excellences, though they advance nature, yet they
+are subject to excess.&nbsp; Only charity admitteth no excess.&nbsp;
+For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed
+and fell; <i>Ascendam, et ero similis altissimo</i>: by aspiring to
+be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; <i>Eritis sicut
+Dii, scientes bonum et malum</i>: but by aspiring to a similitude of
+God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever transgressed, or
+shall transgress.&nbsp; For unto that imitation we are called: <i>Diligite
+inimicos vestros, benefacite eis qui oderunt vos, et orate pro persequentibus
+et calumniantibus vos, ut sitis filii Patris vestri qui in c&oelig;lis
+est, qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos et malos, et pluit super
+justos et injustos</i>.&nbsp; So in the first platform of the divine
+nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, <i>Optimus Maximus:
+</i>and the sacred Scriptures thus, <i>Miscericordia ejus super omnia
+opera ejus.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(16) Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge, concerning
+the culture and regiment of the mind; wherein if any man, considering
+the arts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is
+but to collect into an art or science that which hath been pretermitted
+by others, as matter of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.&nbsp;
+But as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes, &ldquo;You may not marvel
+(Athenians) that Demosthenes and I do differ; for he drinketh water,
+and I drink wine;&rdquo; and like as we read of an ancient parable of
+the two gates of sleep -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Sunt gemin&aelig; somni port&aelig;: quarum altera fertur<br>
+Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:<br>
+Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,<br>
+Sed falsa ad c&oelig;lum mittunt insomnia manes:&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure maxim
+in knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor (&ldquo;of wine&rdquo;)
+is the more vaporous, and the braver gate (&ldquo;of ivory&rdquo;) sendeth
+forth the falser dreams.<br>
+<br>
+(17) But we have now concluded that general part of human philosophy,
+which contemplateth man segregate, and as he consisteth of body and
+spirit.&nbsp; Wherein we may further note, that there seemeth to be
+a relation or conformity between the good of the mind and the good of
+the body.&nbsp; For as we divided the good of the body into health,
+beauty, strength, and pleasure, so the good of the mind, inquired in
+rational and moral knowledges, tendeth to this, to make the mind sound,
+and without perturbation; beautiful, and graced with decency; and strong
+and agile for all duties of life.&nbsp; These three, as in the body,
+so in the mind, seldom meet, and commonly sever.&nbsp; For it is easy
+to observe, that many have strength of wit and courage, but have neither
+health from perturbations, nor any beauty or decency in their doings;
+some again have an elegancy and fineness of carriage which have neither
+soundness of honesty nor substance of sufficiency; and some again have
+honest and reformed minds, that can neither become themselves nor manage
+business; and sometimes two of them meet, and rarely all three.&nbsp;
+As for pleasure, we have likewise determined that the mind ought not
+to be reduced to stupid, but to retain pleasure; confined rather in
+the subject of it, than in the strength and vigour of it.<br>
+<br>
+XXIII. (1) Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject which of all
+others is most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom.&nbsp;
+Nevertheless, as Cato the Censor said, &ldquo;That the Romans were like
+sheep, for that a man were better drive a flock of them, than one of
+them; for in a flock, if you could get but some few go right, the rest
+would follow:&rdquo; so in that respect moral philosophy is more difficile
+than policy.&nbsp; Again, moral philosophy propoundeth to itself the
+framing of internal goodness; but civil knowledge requireth only an
+external goodness; for that as to society sufficeth.&nbsp; And therefore
+it cometh oft to pass that there be evil times in good governments:
+for so we find in the Holy story, when the kings were good, yet it is
+added, <i>Sed adhuc poulus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum
+suorum</i>.&nbsp; Again, states, as great engines, move slowly, and
+are not so soon put out of frame: for as in Egypt the seven good years
+sustained the seven bad, so governments for a time well grounded do
+bear out errors following; but the resolution of particular persons
+is more suddenly subverted.&nbsp; These respects do somewhat qualify
+the extreme difficulty of civil knowledge.<br>
+<br>
+(2) This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary
+actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation, and government.&nbsp;
+For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection; and they be
+three wisdoms of divers natures which do often sever - wisdom of the
+behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.<br>
+<br>
+(3) The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected, but
+much less despised; for it hath not only an honour in itself, but an
+influence also into business and government.&nbsp; The poet saith, <i>Nec
+vultu destrue verba tuo</i>: a man may destroy the force of his words
+with his countenance; so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero, recommending
+to his brother affability and easy access; <i>Nil interest habere ostium
+apertum, vultum clausum: </i>it is nothing won to admit men with an
+open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.&nbsp;
+So we see Atticus, before the first interview between C&aelig;sar and
+Cicero, the war depending, did seriously advise Cicero touching the
+composing and ordering of his countenance and gesture.&nbsp; And if
+the government of the countenance be of such effect, much more is that
+of the speech, and other carriage appertaining to conversation; the
+true model whereof seemeth to me well expressed by Livy, though not
+meant for this purpose: <i>Ne aut arrogans videar, aut obnoxius; quorum
+alterum est &agrave;lien&aelig; libertatis obliti, alterum su&aelig;</i>:
+the sum of behaviour is to retain a man&rsquo;s own dignity, without
+intruding upon the liberty of others.&nbsp; On the other side, if behaviour
+and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may pass into affectation,
+and then <i>Quid deformius quam scenam in vitam transferre </i>- to
+act a man&rsquo;s life?&nbsp; But although it proceed not to that extreme,
+yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too much.&nbsp; And therefore
+as we use to advise young students from company keeping, by saying,
+<i>Amici fures temporis</i>: so certainly the intending of the discretion
+of behaviour is a great thief of meditation.&nbsp; Again, such as are
+accomplished in that form of urbanity please themselves in it, and seldom
+aspire to higher virtue; whereas those that have defect in it do seek
+comeliness by reputation; for where reputation is, almost everything
+becometh; but where that is not, it must be supplied by <i>puntos </i>and
+compliments.&nbsp; Again, there is no greater impediment of action than
+an over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of decency, which
+is time and season.&nbsp; For as Solomon saith, <i>Qui respicit ad ventos,
+non seminat; et qui respicit ad nubes, non metet</i>: a man must make
+his opportunity, as oft as find it.&nbsp; To conclude, behaviour seemeth
+to me as a garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of a garment.&nbsp;
+For it ought to be made in fashion; it ought not to be too curious;
+it ought to be shaped so as to set forth any good making of the mind
+and hide any deformity; and above all, it ought not to be too strait
+or restrained for exercise or motion.&nbsp; But this part of civil knowledge
+hath been elegantly handled, and therefore I cannot report it for deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been hitherto
+collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning and the
+professors of learning.&nbsp; For from this root springeth chiefly that
+note or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect, that
+there is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.&nbsp; For
+of the three wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life,
+for wisdom of behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised,
+as an inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; for wisdom of government,
+they acquit themselves well when they are called to it, but that happeneth
+to few; but for the wisdom of business, wherein man&rsquo;s life is
+most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered
+advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of this subject.&nbsp;
+For if books were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned
+men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without
+learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.<br>
+<br>
+(5) Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge should
+be so variable as it falleth not under precept; for it is much less
+infinite than science of government, which we see is laboured and in
+some part reduced.&nbsp; Of this wisdom it seemeth some of the ancient
+Romans in the saddest and wisest times were professors; for Cicero reporteth,
+that it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general
+wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, L&aelig;lius, and many others, to
+walk at certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that
+would use their advice; and that the particular citizens would resort
+unto them, and consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, or of
+the employing of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or of an accusation,
+and every other occasion incident to man&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; So as there
+is a wisdom of counsel and advice even in private causes, arising out
+of a universal insight into the affairs of the world; which is used
+indeed upon particular causes propounded, but is gathered by general
+observation of causes of like nature.&nbsp; For so we see in the book
+which Q. Cicero writeth to his brother, <i>De petitione consulatus </i>(being
+the only book of business that I know written by the ancients), although
+it concerned a particular action then on foot, yet the substance thereof
+consisteth of many wise and politic axioms, which contain not a temporary,
+but a perpetual direction in the case of popular elections.&nbsp; But
+chiefly we may see in those aphorisms which have place amongst divine
+writings, composed by Solomon the king, of whom the Scriptures testify
+that his heart was as the sands of the sea, encompassing the world and
+all worldly matters, we see, I say, not a few profound and excellent
+cautions, precepts, positions, extending to much variety of occasions;
+whereupon we will stay a while, offering to consideration some number
+of examples.<br>
+<br>
+(6) <i>Sed et cunctis sermonibus qui dicuntur ne accommodes aurem tuam,
+ne forte audias servum tuum maledicentem tibi</i>.&nbsp; Here is commended
+the provident stay of inquiry of that which we would be loth to find:
+as it was judged great wisdom in Pompeius Magnus that he burned Sertorius&rsquo;
+papers unperused.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Vir sapiens, si cum stulto contenderit, sive irascatur, sive rideat,
+non inveniet requiem.&nbsp; </i>Here is described the great disadvantage
+which a wise man hath in undertaking a lighter person than himself;
+which is such an engagement as, whether a man turn the matter to jest,
+or turn it to heat, or howsoever he change copy, he can no ways quit
+himself well of it.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum, postea sentiet eum contumacem</i>.&nbsp;
+Here is signified, that if a man begin too high a pitch in his favours,
+it doth commonly end in unkindness and unthankfulness.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo? coram regibus stabit, nec erit
+inter ignobiles</i>.&nbsp; Here is observed, that of all virtues for
+rising to honour, quickness of despatch is the best; for superiors many
+times love not to have those they employ too deep or too sufficient,
+but ready and diligent.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Vidi cunctos viventes qui ambulant sub sole, cum adolescente secundo
+qui consurgit pro eo</i>.&nbsp; Here is expressed that which was noted
+by Sylla first, and after him by Tiberius.&nbsp; <i>Plures adorant solem
+orientem quam occidentem vel meridianum.<br>
+<br>
+Si spiritus potestatem habentis ascenderit super te, locum tuum ne demiseris;
+quia curatio faciet cessare peccata maxima</i>.&nbsp; Here caution is
+given, that upon displeasure, retiring is of all courses the unfittest;
+for a man leaveth things at worst, and depriveth himself of means to
+make them better.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Erat civitas parva, et pauci in ea viri: venit contra eam rex magnus,
+et vallavit eam, instruxitque munitones per gyrum, et perfecta est obsidio;
+inventusque est in ea vir pauper et sapiens, et liberavit eam per sapientiam
+suam; et nullus deinceps recordatus est huminis illius pauperis.&nbsp;
+</i>Here the corruption of states is set forth, that esteem not virtue
+or merit longer than they have use of it.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Millis responsio frangit iram</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted that silence
+or rough answer exasperateth; but an answer present and temperate pacifieth.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum</i>.&nbsp; Here is lively represented
+how laborious sloth proveth in the end; for when things are deferred
+till the last instant, and nothing prepared beforehand, every step findeth
+a briar or impediment, which catcheth or stoppeth.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Melior est finis orationis quam principium</i>.&nbsp; Here is taxed
+the vanity of formal speakers, that study more about prefaces and inducements,
+than upon the conclusions and issues of speech.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Qui cognoscit in judicio faciem, non bene facit; iste et pro buccella
+panis deseret veritatem</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted, that a judge were
+better be a briber than a respecter of persons; for a corrupt judge
+offendeth not so lightly as a facile.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Vir pauper calumnians pauperes simils est imbri vehementi, in quo
+paratur fames</i>.&nbsp; Here is expressed the extremity of necessitous
+extortions, figured in the ancient fable of the full and the hungry
+horseleech.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Fons turbatus pede, et vena corrupta, est justus cadens coram impio</i>.&nbsp;
+Here is noted, that one judicial and exemplar iniquity in the face of
+the world doth trouble the fountains of justice more than many particular
+injuries passed over by connivance.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Qui subtrahit aliquid a patre et a matre, et dicit hoc non esse peccatum,
+particeps est homicidii</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted that, whereas men in
+wronging their best friends use to extenuate their fault, as if they
+might presume or be bold upon them, it doth contrariwise indeed aggravate
+their fault, and turneth it from injury to impiety.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Noli esse amicus homini iracundo, nec ambulato cum homine furioso</i>.&nbsp;
+Here caution is given, that in the election of our friends we do principally
+avoid those which are impatient, as those that will espouse us to many
+factions and quarrels.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Qui conturbat domum suam, possidebit ventum</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted,
+that in domestical separations and breaches men do promise to themselves
+quieting of their mind and contentment; but still they are deceived
+of their expectation, and it turneth to wind.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Filius sapiens l&aelig;tificat patrem: filius vero stultus m&aelig;stitia
+est matri su&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; Here is distinguished, that fathers have
+most comfort of the good proof of their sons; but mothers have most
+discomfort of their ill proof, because women have little discerning
+of virtue, but of fortune.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Qui celat delictum, qu&aelig;rit amicitiam; sed qui altero sermone
+repetit, separat f&aelig;deratos</i>.&nbsp; Here caution is given, that
+reconcilement is better managed by an amnesty, and passing over that
+which is past, than by apologies and excuses.<br>
+<br>
+<i>In omni opere bono erit abundantia; ubi autem verba sunt plurima,
+ibi frequenter egestas</i>.&nbsp; Here is noted, that words and discourse
+aboundeth most where there is idleness and want.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Primus in sua causa justus: sed venit altera pars, et inquiret in
+eum</i>.&nbsp; Here is observed, that in all causes the first tale possesseth
+much; in sort, that the prejudice thereby wrought will be hardly removed,
+except some abuse or falsity in the information be detected.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia, et ipsa perveniunt ad interiora
+ventris</i>.&nbsp; Here is distinguished, that flattery and insinuation,
+which seemeth set and artificial, sinketh not far; but that entereth
+deep which hath show of nature, liberty, and simplicity.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Qui erudit derisorem, ipse sibi injuriam facit; et qui arguit impium,
+sibi maculam generat</i>.&nbsp; Here caution is given how we tender
+reprehension to arrogant and scornful natures, whose manner is to esteem
+it for contumely, and accordingly to return it.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Da sapienti occasionem, et addetur ei sapientia</i>.&nbsp; Here is
+distinguished the wisdom brought into habit, and that which is but verbal
+and swimming only in conceit; for the one upon the occasion presented
+is quickened and redoubled, the other is amazed and confused.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium, sic corda hominum
+manifesta sunt prudentibus</i>.&nbsp; Here the mind of a wise man is
+compared to a glass, wherein the images of all diversity of natures
+and customs are represented; from which representation proceedeth that
+application,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus erit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+(7) Thus have I stayed somewhat longer upon these sentences politic
+of Solomon than is agreeable to the proportion of an example; led with
+a desire to give authority to this part of knowledge, which I noted
+as deficient, by so excellent a precedent; and have also attended them
+with brief observations, such as to my understanding offer no violence
+to the sense, though I know they may be applied to a more divine use:
+but it is allowed, even in divinity, that some interpretations, yea,
+and some writings, have more of the eagle than others; but taking them
+as instructions for life, they might have received large discourse,
+if I would have broken them and illustrated them by deducements and
+examples.<br>
+<br>
+(8) Neither was this in use only with the Hebrews, but it is generally
+to be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times; that as men found
+out any observation that they thought was good for life, they would
+gather it and express it in parable or aphorism or fable.&nbsp; But
+for fables, they were vicegerents and supplies where examples failed:
+now that the times abound with history, the aim is better when the mark
+is alive.&nbsp; And therefore the form of writing which of all others
+is fittest for this variable argument of negotiation and occasions is
+that which Machiavel chose wisely and aptly for government; namely,
+discourse upon histories or examples.&nbsp; For knowledge drawn freshly
+and in our view out of particulars, knoweth the way best to particulars
+again.&nbsp; And it hath much greater life for practice when the discourse
+attendeth upon the example, than when the example attendeth upon the
+discourse.&nbsp; For this is no point of order, as it seemeth at first,
+but of substance.&nbsp; For when the example is the ground, being set
+down in a history at large, it is set down with all circumstances, which
+may sometimes control the discourse thereupon made, and sometimes supply
+it, as a very pattern for action; whereas the examples alleged for the
+discourse&rsquo;s sake are cited succinctly, and without particularity,
+and carry a servile aspect towards the discourse which they are brought
+in to make good.<br>
+<br>
+(9) But this difference is not amiss to be remembered, that as history
+of times is the best ground for discourse of government, such as Machiavel
+handleth, so histories of lives is the most popular for discourse of
+business, because it is more conversant in private actions.&nbsp; Nay,
+there is a ground of discourse for this purpose fitter than them both,
+which is discourse upon letters, such as are wise and weighty, as many
+are of Cicero <i>ad Atticum</i>, and others.&nbsp; For letters have
+a great and more particular representation of business than either chronicles
+or lives.&nbsp; Thus have we spoken both of the matter and form of this
+part of civil knowledge, touching negotiation, which we note to be deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(10) But yet there is another part of this part, which differeth as
+much from that whereof we have spoken as <i>sapere </i>and <i>sibi sapere</i>,
+the one moving as it were to the circumference, the other to the centre.&nbsp;
+For there is a wisdom of counsel, and again there is a wisdom of pressing
+a man&rsquo;s own fortune; and they do sometimes meet, and often sever.&nbsp;
+For many are wise in their own ways that are weak for government or
+counsel; like ants, which is a wise creature for itself, but very hurtful
+for the garden.&nbsp; This wisdom the Romans did take much knowledge
+of: <i>Nam pol sapiens </i>(saith the comical poet) <i>fingit fortunam
+sibi</i>; and it grew to an adage, <i>Faber quisque fortun&aelig; propri&aelig;</i>;
+and Livy attributed it to Cato the first, <i>In hoc viro tanta vis animi
+et ingenii inerat, ut quocunque loco natus esset sibi ipse fortunam
+facturus videretur.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(11) This conceit or position, if it be too much declared and professed,
+hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was observed in
+Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great services to the
+state in his government, and giving an account thereof to the people
+as the manner was, did conclude every particular with this clause, &ldquo;And
+in this fortune had no part.&rdquo;&nbsp; And it came so to pass, that
+he never prospered in anything he took in hand afterwards.&nbsp; For
+this is too high and too arrogant, savouring of that which Ezekiel saith
+of Pharaoh, <i>Dicis, Fluvius est neus et ego feci memet ipsum</i>;
+or of that which another prophet speaketh, that men offer sacrifices
+to their nets and snares; and that which the poet expresseth,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile libro,<br>
+Nunc adsint!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+For these confidences were ever unhallowed, and unblessed; and, therefore,
+those that were great politiques indeed ever ascribed their successes
+to their felicity and not to their skill or virtue.&nbsp; For so Sylla
+surnamed himself Felix, not Magnus.&nbsp; So C&aelig;sar said to the
+master of the ship, <i>C&aelig;sarem portas et fortunam ejus.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(12) But yet, nevertheless, these positions, <i>Faber quisque fortun&aelig;
+su&aelig;: Sapiens dominabitur astris: Invia virtuti null est via</i>,
+and the like, being taken and used as spurs to industry, and not as
+stirrups to insolency, rather for resolution than for the presumption
+or outward declaration, have been ever thought sound and good; and are
+no question imprinted in the greatest minds, who are so sensible of
+this opinion as they can scarce contain it within.&nbsp; As we see in
+Augustus C&aelig;sar (who was rather diverse from his uncle than inferior
+in virtue), how when he died he desired his friends about him to give
+him a <i>plaudite</i>, as if he were conscious to himself that he had
+played his part well upon the stage.&nbsp; This part of knowledge we
+do report also as deficient; not but that it is practised too much,
+but it hath not been reduced to writing.&nbsp; And, therefore, lest
+it should seem to any that it is not comprehensible by axiom, it is
+requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down some heads or passages
+of it.<br>
+<br>
+(13) Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument
+to teach men how to raise and make their fortune; a doctrine wherein
+every man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple, till
+he see the difficulty: for fortune layeth as heavy impositions as virtue;
+and it is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be
+truly moral.&nbsp; But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly,
+both in honour and in substance.&nbsp; In honour, because pragmatical
+men may not go away with an opinion that learning is like a lark, that
+can mount and sing, and please herself, and nothing else; but may know
+that she holdeth as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also
+descend and strike upon the prey.&nbsp; In substance, because it is
+the perfect law of inquiry of truth, that nothing be in the globe of
+matter, which should not be likewise in the globe of crystal or form;
+that is, that there be not anything in being and action which should
+not be drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine.&nbsp; Neither
+doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture of fortune otherwise
+than as of an inferior work, for no man&rsquo;s fortune can be an end
+worthy of his being, and many times the worthiest men do abandon their
+fortune willingly for better respects: but nevertheless fortune as an
+organ of virtue and merit deserveth the consideration.<br>
+<br>
+(14) First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most summary
+towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that window which Momus
+did require; who seeing in the frame of man&rsquo;s heart such angles
+and recesses, found fault there was not a window to look into them;
+that is, to procure good informations of particulars touching persons,
+their natures, their desires and ends, their customs and fashions, their
+helps and advantages, and whereby they chiefly stand, so again their
+weaknesses and disadvantages, and where they lie most open and obnoxious,
+their friends, factions, dependences; and again their opposites, enviers,
+competitors, their moods and times, <i>Sola viri molles aditus et tempora
+noras</i>; their principles, rules, and observations, and the like:
+and this not only of persons but of actions; what are on foot from time
+to time, and how they are conducted, favoured, opposed, and how they
+import, and the like.&nbsp; For the knowledge of present actions is
+not only material in itself, but without it also the knowledge of persons
+is very erroneous: for men change with the actions; and whilst they
+are in pursuit they are one, and when they return to their nature they
+are another.&nbsp; These informations of particulars, touching persons
+and actions, are as the minor propositions in every active syllogism;
+for no excellency of observations (which are as the major propositions)
+can suffice to ground a conclusion, if there be error and mistaking
+in the minors.<br>
+<br>
+(15) That this knowledge is possible, Solomon is our surety, who saith,
+<i>Consilium in corde viri tanquam aqua profunda; sed vir prudens exhauriet
+illud</i>.&nbsp; And although the knowledge itself falleth not under
+precept because it is of individuals, yet the instructions for the obtaining
+of it may.<br>
+<br>
+(16) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient
+opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and distrust;
+that more trust be given to countenances and deeds than to words; and
+in words rather to sudden passages and surprised words than to set and
+purposed words.&nbsp; Neither let that be feared which is said, <i>Fronti
+nulla fides</i>, which is meant of a general outward behaviour, and
+not of the private and subtle motions and labours of the countenance
+and gesture; which, as Q. Cicero elegantly saith, is <i>Animi janua</i>,
+&ldquo;the gate of the mind.&rdquo;&nbsp; None more close than Tiberius,
+and yet Tacitus saith of Gallus, <i>Etenim vultu offensionem conjectaverat</i>.&nbsp;
+So again, noting the differing character and manner of his commending
+Germanicus and Drusus in the Senate, he saith, touching his fashion
+wherein he carried his speech of Germanicus, thus: <i>Magis in speciem
+adornatis verbis, quam ut penitus sentire crederetur</i>; but of Drusus
+thus: <i>Paucioribus sed intentior, et fida oratione</i>;<i> </i>and
+in another place, speaking of his character of speech when he did anything
+that was gracious and popular, he saith, &ldquo;That in other things
+he was <i>velut eluctantium verborum</i>;&rdquo; but then again, <i>solutius
+loquebatur quando subveniret</i>.&nbsp; So that there is no such artificer
+of dissimulation, nor no such commanded countenance (<i>vultus jussus</i>),
+that can sever from a feigned tale some of these fashions, either a
+more slight and careless fashion, or more set and formal, or more tedious
+and wandering, or coming from a man more drily and hardly.<br>
+<br>
+(17) Neither are deeds such assured pledges as that they may be trusted
+without a judicious consideration of their magnitude and nature: <i>Fraus
+sibi in parvis fidem pr&aelig;struit ut majore emolumento fallat</i>;
+and the Italian thinketh himself upon the point to be bought and sold,
+when he is better used than he was wont to be without manifest cause.&nbsp;
+For small favours, they do but lull men to sleep, both as to caution
+and as to industry; and are, as Demosthenes calleth them, <i>Alimenta
+socordi&aelig;</i>.&nbsp; So again we see how false the nature of some
+deeds are, in that particular which Mutianus practised upon Antonius
+Primus, upon that hollow and unfaithful reconcilement which was made
+between them; whereupon Mutianus advanced many of the friends of Antonius,
+<i>Simul amicis ejus pr&aelig;fecturas et tribunatus largitur</i>: wherein,
+under pretence to strengthen him, he did desolate him, and won from
+him his dependents.<br>
+<br>
+(18) As for words, though they be like waters to physicians, full of
+flattery and uncertainty, yet they are not to be despised specially
+with the advantage of passion and affection.&nbsp; For so we see Tiberius,
+upon a stinging and incensing speech of Agrippina, came a step forth
+of his dissimulation when he said, &ldquo;You are hurt because you do
+not reign;&rdquo; of which Tacitus saith, <i>Audita h&aelig;c raram
+occulti pectoris vocem elicuere: correptamque Gr&aelig;co versu admonuit,
+ideo l&aelig;di quia non regnaret</i>.&nbsp; And, therefore, the poet
+doth elegantly call passions tortures that urge men to confess their
+secrets:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Vino torus et ira.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And experience showeth there are few men so true to themselves and so
+settled but that, sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon bravery, sometimes
+upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind and weakness, they open
+themselves; specially if they be put to it with a counter-dissimulation,
+according to the proverb of Spain, <i>Di mentira, y sacar as verdad</i>:
+&ldquo;Tell a lie and find a truth.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(19) As for the knowing of men which is at second hand from reports:
+men&rsquo;s weaknesses and faults are best known from their enemies,
+their virtues and abilities from their friends, their customs and times
+from their servants, their conceits and opinions from their familiar
+friends, with whom they discourse most.&nbsp; General fame is light,
+and the opinions conceived by superiors or equals are deceitful; for
+to such men are more masked: <i>Verior fama e domesticis emanat.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(20) But the soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by their
+natures and ends, wherein the weakest sort of men are best interpreted
+by their natures, and the wisest by their ends.&nbsp; For it was both
+pleasantly and wisely said (though I think very untruly) by a nuncio
+of the Pope, returning from a certain nation where he served as lidger;
+whose opinion being asked touching the appointment of one to go in his
+place, he wished that in any case they did not send one that was too
+wise; because no very wise man would ever imagine what they in that
+country were like to do.&nbsp; And certainly it is an error frequent
+for men to shoot over, and to suppose deeper ends and more compass reaches
+than are: the Italian proverb being elegant, and for the most part true:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Di danari, di senno, e di fede,<br>
+C&rsquo;&egrave; ne manco che non credi.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less good faith
+than men do account upon.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(21) But princes, upon a far other reason, are best interpreted by their
+natures, and private persons by their ends.&nbsp; For princes being
+at the top of human desires, they have for the most part no particular
+ends whereto they aspire, by distance from which a man might take measure
+and scale of the rest of their actions and desires; which is one of
+the causes that maketh their hearts more inscrutable.&nbsp; Neither
+is it sufficient to inform ourselves in men&rsquo;s ends and natures
+of the variety of them only, but also of the predominancy, what humour
+reigneth most, and what end is principally sought.&nbsp; For so we see,
+when Tigellinus saw himself outstripped by Petronius Turpilianus in
+Nero&rsquo;s humours of pleasures, <i>metus ejus rimatur</i>, he wrought
+upon Nero&rsquo;s fears, whereby he broke the other&rsquo;s neck.<br>
+<br>
+(22) But to all this part of inquiry the most compendious way resteth
+in three things; the first, to have general acquaintance and inwardness
+with those which have general acquaintance and look most into the world;
+and specially according to the diversity of business, and the diversity
+of persons, to have privacy and conversation with some one friend at
+least which is perfect and well-intelligenced in every several kind.&nbsp;
+The second is to keep a good mediocrity in liberty of speech and secrecy;
+in most things liberty; secrecy where it importeth; for liberty of speech
+inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much
+to a man&rsquo;s knowledge; and secrecy on the other side induceth trust
+and inwardness.&nbsp; The last is the reducing of a man&rsquo;s self
+to this watchful and serene habit, as to make account and purpose, in
+every conference and action, as well to observe as to act.&nbsp; For
+as Epictetus would have a philosopher in every particular action to
+say to himself, <i>Et hoc volo, et etiam institutum servare</i>; so
+a politic man in everything should say to himself, <i>Et hoc volo, ac
+etiam aliquid addiscere</i>.&nbsp; I have stayed the longer upon this
+precept of obtaining good information because it is a main part by itself,
+which answereth to all the rest.&nbsp; But, above all things, caution
+must be taken that men have a good stay and hold of themselves, and
+that this much knowing do not draw on much meddling; for nothing is
+more unfortunate than light and rash intermeddling in many matters.&nbsp;
+So that this variety of knowledge tendeth in conclusion but only to
+this, to make a better and freer choice of those actions which may concern
+us, and to conduct them with the less error and the more dexterity.<br>
+<br>
+(23) The second precept concerning this knowledge is, for men to take
+good information touching their own person, and well to understand themselves;
+knowing that, as St. James saith, though men look oft in a glass, yet
+they do suddenly forget themselves; wherein as the divine glass is the
+Word of God, so the politic glass is the state of the world, or times
+wherein we live, in the which we are to behold ourselves.<br>
+<br>
+(24) For men ought to take an impartial view of their own abilities
+and virtues; and again of their wants and impediments; accounting these
+with the most, and those other with the least; and from this view and
+examination to frame the considerations following.<br>
+<br>
+(25) First, to consider how the constitution of their nature sorteth
+with the general state of the times; which if they find agreeable and
+fit, then in all things to give themselves more scope and liberty; but
+if differing and dissonant, then in the whole course of their life to
+be more close retired, and reserved; as we see in Tiberius, who was
+never seen at a play, and came not into the senate in twelve of his
+last years; whereas Augustus C&aelig;sar lived ever in men&rsquo;s eyes,
+which Tacitus observeth, <i>alia Tiberio morum via.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(26) Secondly, to consider how their nature sorteth with professions
+and courses of life, and accordingly to make election, if they be free;
+and, if engaged, to make the departure at the first opportunity; as
+we see was done by Duke Valentine, that was designed by his father to
+a sacerdotal profession, but quitted it soon after in regard of his
+parts and inclination; being such, nevertheless, as a man cannot tell
+well whether they were worse for a prince or for a priest.<br>
+<br>
+(27) Thirdly, to consider how they sort with those whom they are like
+to have competitors and concurrents; and to take that course wherein
+there is most solitude, and themselves like to be most eminent; as C&aelig;sar
+Julius did, who at first was an orator or pleader; but when he saw the
+excellency of Cicero, Hortensius, Catulus, and others for eloquence,
+and saw there was no man of reputation for the wars but Pompeius, upon
+whom the state was forced to rely, he forsook his course begun towards
+a civil and popular greatness, and transferred his designs to a martial
+greatness.<br>
+<br>
+(28) Fourthly, in the choice of their friends and dependents, to proceed
+according to the composition of their own nature; as we may see in C&aelig;sar,
+all whose friends and followers were men active and effectual, but not
+solemn, or of reputation.<br>
+<br>
+(29) Fifthly, to take special heed how they guide themselves by examples,
+in thinking they can do as they see others do; whereas perhaps their
+natures and carriages are far differing.&nbsp; In which error it seemeth
+Pompey was, of whom Cicero saith that he was wont often to say, <i>Sylla
+potuit, ego non potero</i>?&nbsp; Wherein he was much abused, the natures
+and proceedings of himself and his example being the unlikest in the
+world; the one being fierce, violent, and pressing the fact; the other
+solemn, and full of majesty and circumstance, and therefore the less
+effectual.<br>
+<br>
+But this precept touching the politic knowledge of ourselves hath many
+other branches, whereupon we cannot insist.<br>
+<br>
+(30) Next to the well understanding and discerning of a man&rsquo;s
+self, there followeth the well opening and revealing a man&rsquo;s self;
+wherein we see nothing more usual than for the more able man to make
+the less show.&nbsp; For there is a great advantage in the well setting
+forth of a man&rsquo;s virtues, fortunes, merits; and again, in the
+artificial covering of a man&rsquo;s weaknesses, defects, disgraces;
+staying upon the one, sliding from the other; cherishing the one by
+circumstances, gracing the other by exposition, and the like.&nbsp;
+Wherein we see what Tacitus saith of Mutianus, who was the greatest
+politique of his time, <i>Omnium qu&aelig; dixerat feceratque arte quadam
+ostentator</i>, which requireth indeed some art, lest it turn tedious
+and arrogant; but yet so, as ostentation (though it be to the first
+degree of vanity) seemeth to me rather a vice in manners than in policy;
+for as it is said, <i>Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid h&aelig;ret</i>;
+so, except it be in a ridiculous degree of deformity, <i>Audacter te
+vendita, semper aluquid h&aelig;ret</i>.&nbsp; For it will stick with
+the more ignorant and inferior sort of men, though men of wisdom and
+rank do smile at it and despise it; and yet the authority won with many
+doth countervail the disdain of a few.&nbsp; But if it be carried with
+decency and government, as with a natural, pleasant, and ingenious fashion;
+or at times when it is mixed with some peril and unsafety (as in military
+persons); or at times when others are most envied; or with easy and
+careless passage to it and from it, without dwelling too long, or being
+too serious; or with an equal freedom of taxing a man&rsquo;s self,
+as well as gracing himself; or by occasion of repelling or putting down
+others&rsquo; injury or insolency; it doth greatly add to reputation:
+and surely not a few solid natures, that want this ventosity and cannot
+sail in the height of the winds, are not without some prejudice and
+disadvantage by their moderation.<br>
+<br>
+(31) But for these flourishes and enhancements of virtue, as they are
+not perchance unnecessary, so it is at least necessary that virtue be
+not disvalued and embased under the just price, which is done in three
+manners - by offering and obtruding a man&rsquo;s self, wherein men
+think he is rewarded when he is accepted; by doing too much, which will
+not give that which is well done leave to settle, and in the end induceth
+satiety; and by finding too soon the fruit of a man&rsquo;s virtue,
+in commendation, applause, honour, favour; wherein if a man be pleased
+with a little, let him hear what is truly said: <i>Cave ne insuetus
+rebus majoribus videaris, si h&aelig;c te res parva sicuti magna delectat</i>.<br>
+<br>
+(32) But the covering of defects is of no less importance than the valuing
+of good parts; which may be done likewise in three manners - by caution,
+by colour, and by confidence.&nbsp; Caution is when men do ingeniously
+and discreetly avoid to be put into those things for which they are
+not proper; whereas contrariwise bold and unquiet spirits will thrust
+themselves into matters without difference, and so publish and proclaim
+all their wants.&nbsp; Colour is when men make a way for themselves
+to have a construction made of their faults or wants, as proceeding
+from a better cause or intended for some other purpose.&nbsp; For of
+the one it is well said,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;S&aelig;pe latet vitium proximitate boni,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+and therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he pretend
+the virtue that shadoweth it; as if he be dull, he must affect gravity;
+if a coward, mildness; and so the rest.&nbsp; For the second, a man
+must frame some probable cause why he should not do his best, and why
+he should dissemble his abilities; and for that purpose must use to
+dissemble those abilities which are notorious in him, to give colour
+that his true wants are but industries and dissimulations.&nbsp; For
+confidence, it is the last but the surest remedy - namely, to depress
+and seem to despise whatsoever a man cannot attain; observing the good
+principle of the merchants, who endeavour to raise the price of their
+own commodities, and to beat down the price of others.&nbsp; But there
+is a confidence that passeth this other, which is to face out a man&rsquo;s
+own defects, in seeming to conceive that he is best in those things
+wherein he is failing; and, to help that again, to seem on the other
+side that he hath least opinion of himself in those things wherein he
+is best: like as we shall see it commonly in poets, that if they show
+their verses, and you except to any, they will say, &ldquo;That that
+line cost them more labour than any of the rest;&rdquo; and presently
+will seem to disable and suspect rather some other line, which they
+know well enough to be the best in the number.&nbsp; But above all,
+in this righting and helping of a man&rsquo;s self in his own carriage,
+he must take heed he show not himself dismantled and exposed to scorn
+and injury, by too much dulceness, goodness, and facility of nature;
+but show some sparkles of liberty, spirit, and edge.&nbsp; Which kind
+of fortified carriage, with a ready rescussing of a man&rsquo;s self
+from scorns, is sometimes of necessity imposed upon men by somewhat
+in their person or fortune; but it ever succeedeth with good felicity.<br>
+<br>
+(33) Another precept of this knowledge is by all possible endeavour
+to frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion; for nothing
+hindereth men&rsquo;s fortunes so much as this: <i>Idem manebat, neque
+idem decebat </i>- men are where they were, when occasions turn: and
+therefore to Cato, whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he
+addeth that he had <i>versatile ingenium</i>.&nbsp; And thereof it cometh
+that these grave solemn wits, which must be like themselves and cannot
+make departures, have more dignity than felicity.&nbsp; But in some
+it is nature to be somewhat vicious and enwrapped, and not easy to turn.&nbsp;
+In some it is a conceit that is almost a nature, which is, that men
+can hardly make themselves believe that they ought to change their course,
+when they have found good by it in former experience.&nbsp; For Machiavel
+noted wisely how Fabius Maximus would have been temporising still, according
+to his old bias, when the nature of the war was altered and required
+hot pursuit.&nbsp; In some other it is want of point and penetration
+in their judgment, that they do not discern when things have a period,
+but come in too late after the occasion; as Demosthenes compareth the
+people of Athens to country fellows, when they play in a fence school,
+that if they have a blow, then they remove their weapon to that ward,
+and not before.&nbsp; In some other it is a lothness to lose labours
+passed, and a conceit that they can bring about occasions to their ply;
+and yet in the end, when they see no other remedy, then they come to
+it with disadvantage; as Tarquinius, that gave for the third part of
+Sibylla&rsquo;s books the treble price, when he might at first have
+had all three for the simple.&nbsp; But from whatsoever root or cause
+this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most prejudicial;
+and nothing is more politic than to make the wheels of our mind concentric
+and voluble with the wheels of fortune.<br>
+<br>
+(34) Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some affinity with
+that we last spoke of, but with difference, is that which is well expressed,
+<i>Fatis accede deisque</i>, that men do not only turn with the occasions,
+but also run with the occasions, and not strain their credit or strength
+to over-hard or extreme points; but choose in their actions that which
+is most passable: for this will preserve men from foil, not occupy them
+too much about one matter, win opinion of moderation, please the most,
+and make a show of a perpetual felicity in all they undertake: which
+cannot but mightily increase reputation.<br>
+<br>
+(35) Another part of this knowledge seemeth to have some repugnancy
+with the former two, but not as I understand it; and it is that which
+Demosthenes uttereth in high terms: <i>Et quemadmodum receptum est,
+ut exercitum ducat imperator, sic et a cordatis viris res ips&aelig;
+ducend&aelig;; ut qu&aelig;ipsis videntur, ea gerantur, et non ipsi
+eventus persequi cogantur</i>.&nbsp; For if we observe we shall find
+two differing kinds of sufficiency in managing of business: some can
+make use of occasions aptly and dexterously, but plot little; some can
+urge and pursue their own plots well, but cannot accommodate nor take
+in; either of which is very imperfect without the other.<br>
+<br>
+(36) Another part of this knowledge is the observing a good mediocrity
+in the declaring or not declaring a man&rsquo;s self: for although depth
+of secrecy, and making way (<i>qualis est via navis in mari</i>, which
+the French calleth <i>sourdes men&eacute;es</i>, when men set things
+in work without opening themselves at all), be sometimes both prosperous
+and admirable; yet many times <i>dissimulatio errores parit, qui dissimulatorem
+ipsum illaqueant</i>.&nbsp; And therefore we see the greatest politiques
+have in a natural and free manner professed their desires, rather than
+been reserved and disguised in them.&nbsp; For so we see that Lucius
+Sylla made a kind of profession, &ldquo;that he wished all men happy
+or unhappy, as they stood his friends or enemies.&rdquo;&nbsp; So C&aelig;sar,
+when he went first into Gaul, made no scruple to profess &ldquo;that
+he had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+So again, as soon as he had begun the war, we see what Cicero saith
+of him, <i>Alter </i>(meaning of C&aelig;sar) <i>non recusat, sed quodammodo
+postulat, ut (ut est) sic appelletur tyrannus</i>.&nbsp; So we may see
+in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, that Augustus C&aelig;sar, in his
+very entrance into affairs, when he was a darling of the senate, yet
+in his harangues to the people would swear, <i>Ita parentis honores
+consequi liceat</i> (which was no less than the tyranny), save that,
+to help it, he would stretch forth his hand towards a statue of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s
+that was erected in the place: and men laughed and wondered, and said,
+&ldquo;Is it possible?&rdquo; or, &ldquo;Did you ever hear the like?&rdquo;
+and yet thought he meant no hurt; he did it so handsomely and ingenuously.&nbsp;
+And all these were prosperous: whereas Pompey, who tended to the same
+ends, but in a more dark and dissembling manner as Tacitus saith of
+him, <i>Occultior non melior</i>, wherein Sallust concurreth, <i>Ore
+probo, animo inverecundo</i>, made it his design, by infinite secret
+engines, to cast the state into an absolute anarchy and confusion, that
+the state might cast itself into his arms for necessity and protection,
+and so the sovereign power be put upon him, and he never seen in it:
+and when he had brought it (as he thought) to that point when he was
+chosen consul alone, as never any was, yet he could make no great matter
+of it, because men understood him not; but was fain in the end to go
+the beaten track of getting arms into his hands, by colour of the doubt
+of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s designs: so tedious, casual, and unfortunate
+are these deep dissimulations: whereof it seemeth Tacitus made this
+judgment, that they were a cunning of an inferior form in regard of
+true policy; attributing the one to Augustus, the other to Tiberius;
+where, speaking of Livia, he saith, <i>Et cum artibus mariti simulatione
+filii bene compostia</i>: for surely the continual habit of dissimulation
+is but a weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly politic.<br>
+<br>
+(37) Another precept of this architecture of fortune is to accustom
+our minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they conduce
+and are material to our particular ends; and that to do substantially
+and not superficially.&nbsp; For we shall find the logical part (as
+I may term it) of some men&rsquo;s minds good, but the mathematical
+part erroneous; that is, they can well judge of consequences, but not
+of proportions and comparison, preferring things of show and sense before
+things of substance and effect.&nbsp; So some fall in love with access
+to princes, others with popular fame and applause, supposing they are
+things of great purchase, when in many cases they are but matters of
+envy, peril, and impediment.&nbsp; So some measure things according
+to the labour and difficulty or assiduity which are spent about them;
+and think, if they be ever moving, that they must needs advance and
+proceed; as C&aelig;sar saith in a despising manner of Cato the second,
+when he describeth how laborious and indefatigable he was to no great
+purpose, <i>H&aelig;c omnia magno studio agebat</i>.&nbsp; So in most
+things men are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the greatest means
+to be best, when it should be the fittest.<br>
+<br>
+(38) As for the true marshalling of men&rsquo;s pursuits towards their
+fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus.&nbsp;
+First the amendment of their own minds.&nbsp; For the removal of the
+impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than
+the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind.&nbsp;
+In the second place I set down wealth and means; which I know most men
+would have placed first, because of the general use which it beareth
+towards all variety of occasions.&nbsp; But that opinion I may condemn
+with like reason as Machiavel doth that other, that moneys were the
+sinews of the wars; whereas (saith he) the true sinews of the wars are
+the sinews of men&rsquo;s arms, that is, a valiant, populous, and military
+nation: and he voucheth aptly the authority of Solon, who, when Cr&oelig;sus
+showed him his treasury of gold, said to him, that if another came that
+had better iron, he would be master of his gold.&nbsp; In like manner
+it may be truly affirmed that it is not moneys that are the sinews of
+fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men&rsquo;s minds, wit, courage,
+audacity, resolution, temper, industry, and the like.&nbsp; In the third
+place I set down reputation, because of the peremptory tides and currents
+it hath; which, if they be not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered,
+it being extreme hard to play an after-game of reputation.&nbsp; And
+lastly I place honour, which is more easily won by any of the other
+three, much more by all, than any of them can be purchased by honour.&nbsp;
+To conclude this precept, as there is order and priority in matter,
+so is there in time, the preposterous placing whereof is one of the
+commonest errors: while men fly to their ends when they should intend
+their beginnings, and do not take things in order of time as they come
+on, but marshal them according to greatness and not according to instance;
+not observing the good precept, <i>Quod nunc instat agamus.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(39) Another precept of this knowledge is not to embrace any matters
+which do occupy too great a quantity of time, but to have that sounding
+in a man&rsquo;s ears, <i>Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus</i>:
+and that is the cause why those which take their course of rising by
+professions of burden, as lawyers, orators, painful divines, and the
+like, are not commonly so politic for their own fortune, otherwise than
+in their ordinary way, because they want time to learn particulars,
+to wait occasions, and to devise plots.<br>
+<br>
+(40) Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate nature, which doth
+nothing in vain; which surely a man may do if he do well interlace his
+business, and bend not his mind too much upon that which he principally
+intendeth.&nbsp; For a man ought in every particular action so to carry
+the motions of his mind, and so to have one thing under another, as
+if he cannot have that he seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it
+in a second, or so in a third; and if he can have no part of that which
+he purposed, yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else; and if he cannot
+make anything of it for the present, yet to make it as a seed of somewhat
+in time to come; and if he can contrive no effect or substance from
+it, yet to win some good opinion by it, or the like.&nbsp; So that he
+should exact an account of himself of every action, to reap somewhat,
+and not to stand amazed and confused if he fail of that he chiefly meant:
+for nothing is more impolitic than to mind actions wholly one by one.&nbsp;
+For he that doth so loseth infinite occasions which intervene, and are
+many times more proper and propitious for somewhat that he shall need
+afterwards, than for that which he urgeth for the present; and therefore
+men must be perfect in that rule, <i>H&aelig;c oportet facere, et illa
+non imittere.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(41) Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a man&rsquo;s
+self peremptorily in anything, though it seem not liable to accident;
+but ever to have a window to fly out at, or a way to retire: following
+the wisdom in the ancient fable of the two frogs, which consulted when
+their plash was dry whither they should go; and the one moved to go
+down into a pit, because it was not likely the water would dry there;
+but the other answered, &ldquo;True, but if it do, how shall we get
+out again?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(42) Another precept of this knowledge is that ancient precept of Bias,
+construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but to caution and moderation,
+<i>Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus et odi tanquam amaturus</i>.&nbsp;
+For it utterly betrayeth all utility for men to embark themselves too
+far into unfortunate friendships, troublesome spleens, and childish
+and humorous envies or emulations.<br>
+<br>
+(43) But I continue this beyond the measure of an example; led, because
+I would not have such knowledges, which I note as deficient, to be thought
+things imaginative or in the air, or an observation or two much made
+of, but things of bulk and mass, whereof an end is more hardly made
+than a beginning.&nbsp; It must be likewise conceived, that in these
+points which I mention and set down, they are far from complete tractates
+of them, but only as small pieces for patterns.&nbsp; And lastly, no
+man I suppose will think that I mean fortunes are not obtained without
+all this ado; for I know they come tumbling into some men&rsquo;s laps;
+and a number obtain good fortunes by diligence in a plain way, little
+intermeddling, and keeping themselves from gross errors.<br>
+<br>
+(44) But as Cicero, when he setteth down an idea of a perfect orator,
+doth not mean that every pleader should be such; and so likewise, when
+a prince or a courtier hath been described by such as have handled those
+subjects, the mould hath used to be made according to the perfection
+of the art, and not according to common practice: so I understand it,
+that it ought to be done in the description of a politic man, I mean
+politic for his own fortune.<br>
+<br>
+(45) But it must be remembered all this while, that the precepts which
+we have set down are of that kind which may be counted and called <i>Bon&aelig;
+Artes</i>.&nbsp; As for evil arts, if a man would set down for himself
+that principle of Machiavel, &ldquo;That a man seek not to attain virtue
+itself, but the appearance only thereof; because the credit of virtue
+is a help, but the use of it is cumber:&rdquo; or that other of his
+principles, &ldquo;That he presuppose that men are not fitly to be wrought
+otherwise but by fear; and therefore that he seek to have every man
+obnoxious, low, and in straits,&rdquo; which the Italians call <i>seminar
+spine</i>, to sow thorns: or that other principle, contained in the
+verse which Cicero citeth, <i>Cadant amici, dummodo inimici intercidant</i>,
+as the triumvirs, which sold every one to other the lives of their friends
+for the deaths of their enemies: or that other protestation of L. Catilina,
+to set on fire and trouble states, to the end to fish in droumy waters,
+and to unwrap their fortunes, <i>Ego si quid in fortunis meis excitatum
+sit incendium, id non aqua sed ruina restinguam</i>: or that other principle
+of Lysander, &ldquo;That children are to be deceived with comfits, and
+men with oaths:&rdquo; and the like evil and corrupt positions, whereof
+(as in all things) there are more in number than of the good: certainly
+with these dispensations from the laws of charity and integrity, the
+pressing of a man&rsquo;s fortune may be more hasty and compendious.&nbsp;
+But it is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the
+foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.<br>
+<br>
+(46) But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and sustain
+themselves, and be not carried away with a whirlwind or tempest of ambition,
+ought in the pursuit of their own fortune to set before their eyes not
+only that general map of the world, &ldquo;That all things are vanity
+and vexation of spirit,&rdquo; but many other more particular cards
+and directions: chiefly that, that being without well-being is a curse,
+and the greater being the greater curse; and that all virtue is most
+rewarded and all wickedness most punished in itself: according as the
+poet saith excellently:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Qu&aelig; vobis, qu&aelig; digna, viri pro laudibus istis<br>
+Pr&aelig;mia posse rear solvi? pulcherrima primum<br>
+Dii <i>moresque</i> dabunt vestri.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And so of the contrary.&nbsp; And secondly they ought to look up to
+the Eternal Providence and Divine Judgment, which often subverteth the
+wisdom of evil plots and imaginations, according to that scripture,
+&ldquo;He hath conceived mischief, and shall bring forth a vain thing.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And although men should refrain themselves from injury and evil arts,
+yet this incessant and Sabbathless pursuit of a man&rsquo;s fortune
+leaveth not tribute which we owe to God of our time; who (we see) demandeth
+a tenth of our substance, and a seventh, which is more strict, of our
+time: and it is to small purpose to have an erected face towards heaven,
+and a perpetual grovelling spirit upon earth, eating dust as doth the
+serpent, <i>Atque affigit humo divin&aelig; particulam aur&aelig;</i>.&nbsp;
+And if any man flatter himself that he will employ his fortune well,
+though he should obtain it ill, as was said concerning Augustus C&aelig;sar,
+and after of Septimius Severus, &ldquo;That either they should never
+have been born, or else they should never have died,&rdquo; they did
+so much mischief in the pursuit and ascent of their greatness, and so
+much good when they were established; yet these compensations and satisfactions
+are good to be used, but never good to be purposed.&nbsp; And lastly,
+it is not amiss for men, in their race towards their fortune, to cool
+themselves a little with that conceit which is elegantly expressed by
+the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the king his son, &ldquo;That
+fortune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, that if she he too much
+wooed she is the farther off.&rdquo;&nbsp; But this last is but a remedy
+for those whose tastes are corrupted: let men rather build upon that
+foundation which is as a corner-stone of divinity and philosophy, wherein
+they join close, namely that same <i>Primum qu&aelig;rite</i>.&nbsp;
+For divinity saith, <i>Primum qu&aelig;rite regnum Dei, et ista omnia
+adjicientur vobis: </i>and philosophy saith, <i>Primum qu&aelig;rite
+bona animi; c&aelig;tera aut aderunt, aut non oberunt</i>.&nbsp; And
+although the human foundation hath somewhat of the sands, as we see
+in M. Brutus, when he broke forth into that speech,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Te colui (Virtus) ut rem; ast tu nomen inane es;&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+yet the divine foundation is upon the rock.&nbsp; But this may serve
+for a taste of that knowledge which I noted as deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(47) Concerning government, it is a part of knowledge secret and retired
+in both these respects in which things are deemed secret; for some things
+are secret because they are hard to know, and some because they are
+not fit to utter.&nbsp; We see all governments are obscure and invisible:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Totamque infusa per artus<br>
+Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Such is the description of governments.&nbsp; We see the government
+of God over the world is hidden, insomuch as it seemeth to participate
+of much irregularity and confusion.&nbsp; The government of the soul
+in moving the body is inward and profound, and the passages thereof
+hardly to be reduced to demonstration.&nbsp; Again, the wisdom of antiquity
+(the shadows whereof are in the poets) in the description of torments
+and pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was the giants&rsquo;
+offence, doth detest the offence of futility, as in Sisyphus and Tantalus.&nbsp;
+But this was meant of particulars: nevertheless even unto the general
+rules and discourses of policy and government there is due a reverent
+and reserved handling.<br>
+<br>
+(48) But contrariwise in the governors towards the governed, all things
+ought as far as the frailty of man permitteth to be manifest and revealed.&nbsp;
+For so it is expressed in the Scriptures touching the government of
+God, that this globe, which seemeth to us a dark and shady body, is
+in the view of God as crystal: <i>Et in conspectu sedis tanquam mare
+vitreum simile crystallo</i>.&nbsp; So unto princes and states, and
+specially towards wise senates and councils, the natures and dispositions
+of the people, their conditions and necessities, their factions and
+combinations, their animosities and discontents, ought to be, in regard
+of the variety of their intelligences, the wisdom of their observations,
+and the height of their station where they keep sentinel, in great part
+clear and transparent.&nbsp; Wherefore, considering that I write to
+a king that is a master of this science, and is so well assisted, I
+think it decent to pass over this part in silence, as willing to obtain
+the certificate which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto;
+who being silent, when others contended to make demonstration of their
+abilities by speech, desired it might be certified for his part, &ldquo;That
+there was one that knew how to hold his peace.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(49) Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which
+is laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which is, that all
+those which have written of laws have written either as philosophers
+or as lawyers, and none as statesmen.&nbsp; As for the philosophers,
+they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses
+are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.&nbsp;
+For the lawyers, they write according to the states where they live
+what is received law, and not what ought to be law; for the wisdom of
+a law-maker is one, and of a lawyer is another.&nbsp; For there are
+in nature certain fountains of justice whence all civil laws are derived
+but as streams; and like as waters do take tinctures and tastes from
+the soils through which they run, so do civil laws vary according to
+the regions and governments where they are planted, though they proceed
+from the same fountains.&nbsp; Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth
+not only in a platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking
+into consideration by what means laws may be made certain, and what
+are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and uncertainty of law;
+by what means laws may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what
+are the impediments and remedies in the execution of laws; what influence
+laws touching private right of <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i> have into
+the public state, and how they may be made apt and agreeable; how laws
+are to be penned and delivered, whether in texts or in Acts, brief or
+large, with preambles or without; how they are to be pruned and reformed
+from time to time, and what is the best means to keep them from being
+too vast in volume, or too full of multiplicity and crossness; how they
+are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent and judicially discussed,
+and when upon responses and conferences touching general points or questions;
+how they are to be pressed, rigorously or tenderly; how they are to
+be mitigated by equity and good conscience, and whether discretion and
+strict law are to be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several
+courts; again, how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is
+to be censured and governed; and many other points touching the administration
+and (as I may term it) animation of laws.&nbsp; Upon which I insist
+the less, because I purpose (if God give me leave), having begun a work
+of this nature in aphorisms, to propound it hereafter, noting it in
+the meantime for deficient.<br>
+<br>
+(50) And for your Majesty&rsquo;s laws of England, I could say much
+of their dignity, and somewhat of their defect; but they cannot but
+excel the civil laws in fitness for the government, for the civil law
+was <i>nonhos qu&aelig;situm munus in usus</i>; it was not made for
+the countries which it governeth.&nbsp; Hereof I cease to speak because
+I will not intermingle matter of action with matter of general learning.<br>
+<br>
+XXIV.&nbsp; Thus have I concluded this portion of learning touching
+civil knowledge; and with civil knowledge have concluded human philosophy;
+and with human philosophy, philosophy in general.&nbsp; And being now
+at some pause, looking back into that I have passed through, this writing
+seemeth to me (<i>si nunquam fallit imago</i>), as far as a man can
+judge of his own work, not much better than that noise or sound which
+musicians make while they are in tuning their instruments, which is
+nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter
+afterwards.&nbsp; So have I been content to tune the instruments of
+the Muses, that they may play that have better hands.&nbsp; And surely,
+when I set before me the condition of these times, in which learning
+hath made her third visitation or circuit in all the qualities thereof;
+as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age; the noble helps
+and lights which we have by the travails of ancient writers; the art
+of printing, which communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness
+of the world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experiments,
+and a mass of natural history; the leisure wherewith these times abound,
+not employing men so generally in civil business, as the states of Gr&aelig;cia
+did, in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect
+of the greatness of their monarchy; the present disposition of these
+times at this instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can
+be said in controversies of religion, which have so much diverted men
+from other sciences; the perfection of your Majesty&rsquo;s learning,
+which as a ph&oelig;nix may call whole volleys of wits to follow you;
+and the inseparable propriety of time, which is ever more and more to
+disclose truth; I cannot but be raised to this persuasion, that this
+third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman
+learning; only if men will know their own strength and their own weakness
+both; and take, one from the other, light of invention, and not fire
+of contradiction; and esteem of the inquisition of truth as of an enterprise,
+and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence
+to things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of popular
+estimation.&nbsp; As for my labours, if any man shall please himself
+or others in the reprehension of them, they shall make that ancient
+and patient request, <i>Verbera, sed audi</i>: let men reprehend them,
+so they observe and weigh them.&nbsp; For the appeal is lawful (though
+it may be it shall not be needful) from the first cogitations of men
+to their second, and from the nearer times to the times further off.&nbsp;
+Now let us come to that learning, which both the former times were not
+so blessed as to know, sacred and inspired divinity, the Sabbath and
+port of all men&rsquo;s labours and peregrinations.<br>
+<br>
+XXV. (1) The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as to
+the will of man: so that as we are to obey His law, though we find a
+reluctation in our will, so we are to believe His word, though we find
+a reluctation in our reason.&nbsp; For if we believe only that which
+is agreeable to our sense we give consent to the matter, and not to
+the author; which is no more than we would do towards a suspected and
+discredited witness; but that faith which was accounted to Abraham for
+righteousness was of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein
+was an image of natural reason.<br>
+<br>
+(2) Howbeit (if we will truly consider of it) more worthy it is to believe
+than to know as we now know.&nbsp; For in knowledge man&rsquo;s mind
+suffereth from sense: but in belief it suffereth from spirit, such one
+as it holdeth for more authorised than itself and so suffereth from
+the worthier agent.&nbsp; Otherwise it is of the state of man glorified;
+for then faith shall cease, and we shall know as we are known.<br>
+<br>
+(3) Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology (which in our idiom we
+call divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God, and
+not upon the light of nature: for it is written, <i>C&aelig;li enarrant
+gloriam Dei</i>; but it is not written, <i>C&aelig;li enarrant voluntatem
+Dei</i>: but of that it is said, <i>Ad legem et testimonium: si non
+fecerint secundum verbum istud</i>, &amp;c.&nbsp; This holdeth not only
+in those points of faith which concern the great mysteries of the Deity,
+of the creation, of the redemption, but likewise those which concern
+the law moral, truly interpreted: &ldquo;Love your enemies: do good
+to them that hate you; be like to your heavenly Father, that suffereth
+His rain to fall upon the just and unjust.&rdquo;&nbsp; To this it ought
+to be applauded, <i>Nec vox hominem sonat</i>: it is a voice beyond
+the light of nature.&nbsp; So we see the heathen poets, when they fall
+upon a libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moralities,
+as if they were opposite and malignant to nature: <i>Et quod natura
+remittit, invida jura negant</i>.&nbsp; So said Dendamis the Indian
+unto Alexander&rsquo;s messengers, that he had heard somewhat of Pythagoras,
+and some other of the wise men of Gr&aelig;cia, and that he held them
+for excellent men: but that they had a fault, which was that they had
+in too great reverence and veneration a thing they called law and manners.&nbsp;
+So it must be confessed that a great part of the law moral is of that
+perfection whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire: how then is
+it that man is said to have, by the light and law of nature, some notions
+and conceits of virtue and vice, justice and wrong, good and evil?&nbsp;
+Thus, because the light of nature is used in two several senses: the
+one, that which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argument, according
+to the laws of heaven and earth; the other, that which is imprinted
+upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct, according to the law of
+conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of his first estate: in
+which latter sense only he is participant of some light and discerning
+touching the perfection of the moral law; but how? sufficient to check
+the vice but not to inform the duty.&nbsp; So then the doctrine of religion,
+as well moral as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration
+and revelation from God.<br>
+<br>
+(4) The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, and the latitude
+thereof, is very great and general: for it is not for nothing that the
+apostle calleth religion &ldquo;our reasonable service of God;&rdquo;
+insomuch as the very ceremonies and figures of the old law were full
+of reason and signification, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry
+and magic, that are full of non-significants and surd characters.&nbsp;
+But most specially the Christian faith, as in all things so in this,
+deserveth to be highly magnified; holding and preserving the golden
+mediocrity in this point between the law of the heathen and the law
+of Mahomet, which have embraced the two extremes.&nbsp; For the religion
+of the heathen had no constant belief or confession, but left all to
+the liberty of agent; and the religion of Mahomet on the other side
+interdicteth argument altogether: the one having the very face of error,
+and the other of imposture; whereas the Faith doth both admit and reject
+disputation with difference.<br>
+<br>
+(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the former,
+in the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us revealed;
+the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction thereupon.&nbsp;
+The former extendeth to the mysteries themselves; but how? by way of
+illustration, and not by way of argument.&nbsp; The latter consisteth
+indeed of probation and argument.&nbsp; In the former we see God vouchsafeth
+to descend to our capacity, in the expressing of His mysteries in sort
+as may be sensible unto us; and doth graft His revelations and holy
+doctrine upon the notions of our reason, and applieth His inspirations
+to open our understanding, as the form of the key to the ward of the
+lock.&nbsp; For the latter there is allowed us a use of reason and argument,
+secondary and respective, although not original and absolute.&nbsp;
+For after the articles and principles of religion are placed and exempted
+from examination of reason, it is then permitted unto us to make derivations
+and inferences from and according to the analogy of them, for our better
+direction.&nbsp; In nature this holdeth not; for both the principles
+are examinable by induction, though not by a medium or syllogism; and
+besides, those principles or first positions have no discordance with
+that reason which draweth down and deduceth the inferior positions.&nbsp;
+But yet it holdeth not in religion alone, but in many knowledges, both
+of greater and smaller nature, namely, wherein there are not only <i>posita
+</i>but <i>placita</i>; for in such there can be no use of absolute
+reason.&nbsp; We see it familiarly in games of wit, as chess, or the
+like.&nbsp; The draughts and first laws of the game are positive, but
+how? merely <i>ad placitum</i>, and not examinable by reason; but then
+how to direct our play thereupon with best advantage to win the game
+is artificial and rational.&nbsp; So in human laws there be many grounds
+and maxims which are <i>placita juris</i>, positive upon authority,
+and not upon reason, and therefore not to be disputed: but what is most
+just, not absolutely but relatively, and according to those maxims,
+that affordeth a long field of disputation.&nbsp; Such therefore is
+that secondary reason, which hath place in divinity, which is grounded
+upon the <i>placets </i>of God.<br>
+<br>
+(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath not been,
+to my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the true limits
+and use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of divine dialectic:
+which for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing usual, by pretext
+of true conceiving that which is revealed, to search and mine into that
+which is not revealed; and by pretext of enucleating inferences and
+contradictories, to examine that which is positive.&nbsp; The one sort
+falling into the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have things made more
+sensible than it pleaseth God to reveal them, <i>Quomodo possit homo
+nasci cum sit senex</i>?&nbsp; The other sort into the error of the
+disciples, which were scandalised at a show of contradiction, <i>Quid
+est hoc quod dicit nobis?&nbsp; Modicum et non videbitis me; et iterum,
+modicum, et videbitis me</i>, &amp;c.<br>
+<br>
+(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great and blessed
+use thereof; for this point well laboured and defined of would in my
+judgment be an opiate to stay and bridle not only the vanity of curious
+speculations, wherewith the schools labour, but the fury of controversies,
+wherewith the Church laboureth.&nbsp; For it cannot but open men&rsquo;s
+eyes to see that many controversies do merely pertain to that which
+is either not revealed or positive; and that many others do grow upon
+weak and obscure inferences or derivations: which latter sort, if men
+would revive the blessed style of that great doctor of the Gentiles,
+would be carried thus, <i>ego, non dominus</i>; and again, <i>secundum
+consilium meum</i>, in opinions and counsels, and not in positions and
+oppositions.&nbsp; But men are now over-ready to usurp the style, <i>non
+ego</i>, <i>sed dominus</i>; and not so only, but to bind it with the
+thunder and denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the terror of those
+which have not sufficiently learned out of Solomon that &ldquo;The causeless
+curse shall not come.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(8) Divinity hath two principal parts: the matter informed or revealed,
+and the nature of the information or revelation; and with the latter
+we will begin, because it hath most coherence with that which we have
+now last handled.&nbsp; The nature of the information consisteth of
+three branches: the limits of the information, the sufficiency of the
+information, and the acquiring or obtaining the information.&nbsp; Unto
+the limits of the information belong these considerations: how far forth
+particular persons continue to be inspired; how far forth the Church
+is inspired; and how far forth reason may be used; the last point whereof
+I have noted as deficient.&nbsp; Unto the sufficiency of the information
+belong two considerations: what points of religion are fundamental,
+and what perfective, being matter of further building and perfection
+upon one and the same foundation; and again, how the gradations of light
+according to the dispensation of times are material to the sufficiency
+of belief.<br>
+<br>
+(9) Here again I may rather give it in advice than note it as deficient,
+that the points fundamental, and the points of further perfection only,
+ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished; a subject tending to
+much like end as that I noted before; for as that other were likely
+to abate the number of controversies, so this is likely to abate the
+heat of many of them.&nbsp; We see Moses when he saw the Israelite and
+the Egyptian fight, he did not say, &ldquo;Why strive you?&rdquo; but
+drew his sword and slew the Egyptian; but when he saw the two Israelites
+fight, he said, &ldquo;You are brethren, why strive you?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+If the point of doctrine be an Egyptian, it must be slain by the sword
+of the Spirit, and not reconciled; but if it be an Israelite, though
+in the wrong, then, &ldquo;Why strive you?&rdquo;&nbsp; We see of the
+fundamental points, our Saviour penneth the league thus, &ldquo;He that
+is not with us is against us;&rdquo; but of points not fundamental,
+thus, &ldquo;He that is not against us is with us.&rdquo;&nbsp; So we
+see the coat of our Saviour was entire without seam, and so is the doctrine
+of the Scriptures in itself; but the garment of the Church was of divers
+colours and yet not divided.&nbsp; We see the chaff may and ought to
+be severed from the corn in the ear, but the tares may not be pulled
+up from the corn in the field.&nbsp; So as it is a thing of great use
+well to define what, and of what latitude, those points are which do
+make men mere aliens and disincorporate from the Church of God.<br>
+<br>
+(10) For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the true
+and sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the fountains
+of the water of life.&nbsp; The interpretations of the Scriptures are
+of two sorts: methodical, and solute or at large.&nbsp; For this divine
+water, which excelleth so much that of Jacob&rsquo;s well, is drawn
+forth much in the same kind as natural water useth to be out of wells
+and fountains; either it is first forced up into a cistern, and from
+thence fetched and derived for use; or else it is drawn and received
+in buckets and vessels immediately where it springeth.&nbsp; The former
+sort whereof, though it seem to be the more ready, yet in my judgment
+is more subject to corrupt.&nbsp; This is that method which hath exhibited
+unto us the scholastical divinity; whereby divinity hath been reduced
+into an art, as into a cistern, and the streams of doctrine or positions
+fetched and derived from thence.<br>
+<br>
+(11) In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity, a compacted
+strength, and a complete perfection; whereof the two first they fail
+to find, and the last they ought not to seek.&nbsp; For as to brevity,
+we see in all summary methods, while men purpose to abridge, they give
+cause to dilate.&nbsp; For the sum or abridgment by contraction becometh
+obscure; the obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is deduced
+into large commentaries, or into commonplaces and titles, which grow
+to be more vast than the original writings, whence the sum was at first
+extracted.&nbsp; So we see the volumes of the schoolmen are greater
+much than the first writings of the fathers, whence the master of the
+sentences made his sum or collection.&nbsp; So in like manner the volumes
+of the modern doctors of the civil law exceed those of the ancient jurisconsults,
+of which Tribonian compiled the digest.&nbsp; So as this course of sums
+and commentaries is that which doth infallibly make the body of sciences
+more immense in quantity, and more base in substance.<br>
+<br>
+(12) And for strength, it is true that knowledges reduced into exact
+methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth to support
+and sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory than substantial,
+like unto buildings which stand by architecture and compaction, which
+are more subject to ruin than those that are built more strong in their
+several parts, though less compacted.&nbsp; But it is plain that the
+more you recede from your grounds, the weaker do you conclude; and as
+in nature, the more you remove yourself from particulars, the greater
+peril of error you do incur; so much more in divinity, the more you
+recede from the Scriptures by inferences and consequences, the more
+weak and dilute are your positions.<br>
+<br>
+(13) And as for perfection or completeness in divinity, it is not to
+be sought, which makes this course of artificial divinity the more suspect.&nbsp;
+For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art will make it round and
+uniform; but in divinity many things must be left abrupt, and concluded
+with this: <i>O altitudo sapienti&aelig; et scienti&aelig; Dei</i>!
+<i>quam incomprehensibilia sunt juducua ejus, et non investigabiles
+vi&aelig; ejus</i>.&nbsp; So again the apostle saith, <i>Ex parte scimus</i>:
+and to have the form of a total, where there is but matter for a part,
+cannot be without supplies by supposition and presumption.&nbsp; And
+therefore I conclude that the true use of these sums and methods hath
+place in institutions or introductions preparatory unto knowledge; but
+in them, or by deducement from them, to handle the main body and substance
+of a knowledge is in all sciences prejudicial, and in divinity dangerous.<br>
+<br>
+(14) As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at large,
+there have been divers kinds introduced and devised; some of them rather
+curious and unsafe than sober and warranted.&nbsp; Notwithstanding,
+thus much must be confessed, that the Scriptures, being given by inspiration
+and not by human reason, do differ from all other books in the Author,
+which by consequence doth draw on some difference to be used by the
+expositor.&nbsp; For the Inditer of them did know four things which
+no man attains to know; which are - the mysteries of the kingdom of
+glory, the perfection of the laws of nature, the secrets of the heart
+of man, and the future succession of all ages.&nbsp; For as to the first
+it is said, &ldquo;He that presseth into the light shall be oppressed
+of the glory.&rdquo;&nbsp; And again, &ldquo;No man shall see My face
+and live.&rdquo;&nbsp; To the second, &ldquo;When He prepared the heavens
+I was present, when by law and compass He enclosed the deep.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+To the third, &ldquo;Neither was it needful that any should bear witness
+to Him of man, for He knew well what was in man.&rdquo;&nbsp; And to
+the last, &ldquo;From the beginning are known to the Lord all His works.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+(15) From the former two of these have been drawn certain senses and
+expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained within the bounds
+of sobriety - the one anagogical, and the other philosophical.&nbsp;
+But as to the former, man is not to prevent his time: <i>Videmus nunc
+per speculum in &aelig;nigmate, tunc autem facie ad faciem</i>; wherein
+nevertheless there seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth as
+the polishing of this glass, or some moderate explication of this enigma.&nbsp;
+But to press too far into it cannot but cause a dissolution and overthrow
+of the spirit of man.&nbsp; For in the body there are three degrees
+of that we receive into it - aliment, medicine, and poison; whereof
+aliment is that which the nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome;
+medicine is that which is partly converted by nature, and partly converteth
+nature; and poison is that which worketh wholly upon nature, without
+that nature can in any part work upon it.&nbsp; So in the mind, whatsoever
+knowledge reason cannot at all work upon and convert is a mere intoxication,
+and endangereth a dissolution of the mind and understanding.<br>
+<br>
+(16) But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late
+time by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended
+to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalising
+and traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane.&nbsp;
+But there is no such enmity between God&rsquo;s Word and His works;
+neither do they give honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but
+much embase them.&nbsp; For to seek heaven and earth in the Word of
+God, whereof it is said, &ldquo;Heaven and earth shall pass, but My
+word shall not pass,&rdquo; is to seek temporary things amongst eternal:
+and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek the living amongst
+the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead amongst
+the living: neither are the pots or lavers, whose place was in the outward
+part of the temple, to be sought in the holiest place of all where the
+ark of the testimony was seated.&nbsp; And again, the scope or purpose
+of the Spirit of God is not to express matters of nature in the Scriptures,
+otherwise than in passage, and for application to man&rsquo;s capacity
+and to matters moral or divine.&nbsp; And it is a true rule, <i>Auctoris
+aliud agentis parva auctoritas</i>.&nbsp; For it were a strange conclusion,
+if a man should use a similitude for ornament or illustration sake,
+borrowed from nature or history according to vulgar conceit, as of a
+basilisk, a unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, a hydra, or the like, that
+therefore he must needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof positively
+to be true.&nbsp; To conclude therefore these two interpretations, the
+one by reduction or enigmatical, the other philosophical or physical,
+which have been received and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and
+cabalists, are to be confined with a <i>a noli akryn sapere, sed time.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to man,
+touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of time, doth
+make a just and sound difference between the manner of the exposition
+of the Scriptures and all other books.&nbsp; For it is an excellent
+observation which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ
+to many of the questions which were propounded to Him, how that they
+are impertinent to the state of the question demanded: the reason whereof
+is, because not being like man, which knows man&rsquo;s thoughts by
+his words, but knowing man&rsquo;s thoughts immediately, He never answered
+their words, but their thoughts.&nbsp; Much in the like manner it is
+with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men, and
+to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions,
+differing estates of the Church, yea, and particularly of the elect,
+are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper
+sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon
+the words were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the
+words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal scope of
+the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or collectively,
+but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams
+of doctrine to water the Church in every part.&nbsp; And therefore as
+the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the moral
+sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof
+the Church hath most use; not that I wish men to be bold in allegories,
+or indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that
+interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men
+use to interpret a profane book.<br>
+<br>
+(18) In this part touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can report
+no deficiency; but by way of remembrance this I will add.&nbsp; In perusing
+books of divinity I find many books of controversies, and many of commonplaces
+and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as it is made an art: a
+number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix commentaries upon the
+Scriptures, with harmonies and concordances.&nbsp; But that form of
+writing in divinity which in my judgment is of all others most rich
+and precious is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts of
+Scriptures in brief observations; not dilated into commonplaces, not
+chasing after controversies, not reduced into method of art; a thing
+abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in books which
+will remain, and a thing wherein this age excelleth.&nbsp; For I am
+persuaded, and I may speak it with an <i>absit invidia verbo</i>, and
+nowise in derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between
+the vine and the olive, that if the choice and best of those observations
+upon texts of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons
+within this your Majesty&rsquo;s Island of Brittany by the space of
+these forty years and more (leaving out the largeness of exhortations
+and applications thereupon) had been set down in a continuance, it had
+been the best work in divinity which had been written since the Apostles&rsquo;
+times.<br>
+<br>
+(19) The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds: matter of belief
+and truth of opinion, and matter of service and adoration; which is
+also judged and directed by the former - the one being as the internal
+soul of religion, and the other as the external body thereof.&nbsp;
+And, therefore, the heathen religion was not only a worship of idols,
+but the whole religion was an idol in itself; for it had no soul; that
+is, no certainty of belief or confession: as a man may well think, considering
+the chief doctors of their church were the poets; and the reason was
+because the heathen gods were no jealous gods, but were glad to be admitted
+into part, as they had reason.&nbsp; Neither did they respect the pureness
+of heart, so they might have external honour and rites.<br>
+<br>
+(20) But out of these two do result and issue four main branches of
+divinity: faith, manners, liturgy, and government.&nbsp; Faith containeth
+the doctrine of the nature of God, of the attributes of God, and of
+the works of God.&nbsp; The nature of God consisteth of three persons
+in unity of Godhead.&nbsp; The attributes of God are either common to
+the Deity, or respective to the persons.&nbsp; The works of God summary
+are two, that of the creation and that of the redemption; and both these
+works, as in total they appertain to the unity of the Godhead, so in
+their parts they refer to the three persons: that of the creation, in
+the mass of the matter, to the Father; in the disposition of the form,
+to the Son; and in the continuance and conservation of the being, to
+the Holy Spirit.&nbsp; So that of the redemption, in the election and
+counsel, to the Father; in the whole act and consummation, to the Son;
+and in the application, to the Holy Spirit; for by the Holy Ghost was
+Christ conceived in flesh, and by the Holy Ghost are the elect regenerate
+in spirit.&nbsp; This work likewise we consider either effectually,
+in the elect; or privately, in the reprobate; or according to appearance,
+in the visible Church.<br>
+<br>
+(21) For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the law, which
+discloseth sin.&nbsp; The law itself is divided, according to the edition
+thereof, into the law of nature, the law moral, and the law positive;
+and according to the style, into negative and affirmative, prohibitions
+and commandments.&nbsp; Sin, in the matter and subject thereof, is divided
+according to the commandments; in the form thereof it referreth to the
+three persons in Deity: sins of infirmity against the Father, whose
+more special attribute is power; sins of ignorance against the Son,
+whose attribute is wisdom; and sins of malice against the Holy Ghost,
+whose attribute is grace or love.&nbsp; In the motions of it, it either
+moveth to the right hand or to the left; either to blind devotion or
+to profane and libertine transgression; either in imposing restraint
+where God granteth liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth
+restraint.&nbsp; In the degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself
+into thought, word, or act.&nbsp; And in this part I commend much the
+deducing of the law of God to cases of conscience; for that I take indeed
+to be a breaking, and not exhibiting whole of the bread of life.&nbsp;
+But that which quickeneth both these doctrines of faith and manners
+is the elevation and consent of the heart; whereunto appertain books
+of exhortation, holy meditation, Christian resolution, and the like.<br>
+<br>
+(22) For the liturgy or service, it consisteth of the reciprocal acts
+between God and man; which, on the part of God, are the preaching of
+the word, and the sacraments, which are seals to the covenant, or as
+the visible word; and on the part of man, invocation of the name of
+God; and under the law, sacrifices; which were as visible prayers or
+confessions: but now the adoration being <i>in spiritu et veritate</i>,
+there remaineth only <i>vituli labiorum</i>; although the use of holy
+vows of thankfulness and retribution may be accounted also as sealed
+petitions.<br>
+<br>
+(23) And for the government of the Church, it consisteth of the patrimony
+of the Church, the franchises of the Church, and the offices and jurisdictions
+of the Church, and the laws of the Church directing the whole; all which
+have two considerations, the one in themselves, the other how they stand
+compatible and agreeable to the civil estate.<br>
+<br>
+(24) This matter of divinity is handled either in form of instruction
+of truth, or in form of confutation of falsehood.&nbsp; The declinations
+from religion, besides the privative, which is atheism and the branches
+thereof, are three - heresies, idolatry, and witchcraft: heresies, when
+we serve the true God with a false worship; idolatry, when we worship
+false gods, supposing them to be true; and witchcraft, when we adore
+false gods, knowing them to be wicked and false.&nbsp; For so your Majesty
+doth excellently well observe, that witchcraft is the height of idolatry.&nbsp;
+And yet we see though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that
+they are all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the Word
+of God; for so he saith, <i>Quasi peccatum ariolandi est repugnare,
+et quasi scelus idololatri&aelig; nolle acquiescere.<br>
+<br>
+</i>(25) These things I have passed over so briefly because I can report
+no deficiency concerning them: for I can find no space or ground that
+lieth vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity, so diligent have
+men been either in sowing of good seed, or in sowing of tares.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Thus have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual world,
+as truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note and description
+of those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or not well
+converted by the labour of man.&nbsp; In which, if I have in any point
+receded from that which is commonly received, it hath been with a purpose
+of proceeding in <i>melius</i>, and not <i>in aliud</i>; a mind of amendment
+and proficiency, and not of change and difference.&nbsp; For I could
+not be true and constant to the argument I handle if I were not willing
+to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go
+beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded
+my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty
+of men&rsquo;s judgments by confutations.&nbsp; For in anything which
+is well set down, I am in good hope that if the first reading move an
+objection, the second reading will make an answer.&nbsp; And in those
+things wherein I have erred, I am sure I have not prejudiced the right
+by litigious arguments; which certainly have this contrary effect and
+operation, that they add authority to error, and destroy the authority
+of that which is well invented.&nbsp; For question is an honour and
+preferment to falsehood, as on the other side it is a repulse to truth.&nbsp;
+But the errors I claim and challenge to myself as mine own.&nbsp; The
+good, it any be, is due <i>tanquam adeps sacrificii</i>, to be incensed
+to the honour, first of the Divine Majesty, and next of your Majesty,
+to whom on earth I am most bounden.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Footnotes:<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a>&nbsp; Stoops in
+the rice and takes the speeding gold.&nbsp; Ovid. Metam, x. 667.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING ***<br>
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