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.”