Silence were the best celebration of that which I mean to commend; for
who would not use silence, where silence is not made, and what crier can
make silence in such a noise and tumult of vain and popular opinions?
My praise shall be dedicated to the mind itself. The mind is the man and
the knowledge of the mind. A man is but what he knoweth. The mind itself
is but an accident to knowledge; for knowledge is a double of that which
is; the truth of being and the truth of knowing is all one.
Are not the pleasures of the affections greater than the pleasures of
the senses? And are not the pleasures of the intellect greater than the
pleasures of the affections? Is not knowledge a true and only natural
pleasure, whereof there is no satiety? Is it not knowledge that doth
alone clear the mind of all perturbation? How many things are there
which we imagine not? How many things do we esteem and value otherwise
than they are! This ill-proportioned estimation, these vain
imaginations, these be the clouds of error that turn into the storms of
perturbation. Is there any such happiness as for a man's mind to be
raised above the confusion of things, where he may have the prospect of
the order of nature and the error of men?
But is this a vein only of delight, and not of discovery? of
contentment, and not of benefit? Shall he not as well discern the riches
of nature's warehouse, as the benefit of her shop? Is truth ever barren?
Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the
life of man with infinite commodities?
But shall I make this garland to be put upon a wrong head? Would anybody
believe me, if I should verify this upon the knowledge that is now in
use? Are we the richer by one poor invention, by reason of all the
learning that hath been these many hundred years? The industry of
artificers maketh some small improvement of things invented; and chance
sometimes in experimenting maketh us to stumble upon somewhat which is
new; but all the disputation of the learned never brought to light one
effect of nature before unknown. When things are known and found out,
then they can descant upon them, they can knit them into certain
causes, they can reduce them to their principles. If any instance of
experience stand against them, they can range it in order by some
distinctions. But all this is but a web of the wit, it can work nothing.
I do not doubt but that common notions, which we call reason, and the
knitting of them together, which we call logic, are the art of reason
and studies. But they rather cast obscurity than gain light to the
contemplation of nature. All the philosophy of nature which is now
received, is either the philosophy of the Grecians, or that other of the
Alchemists. That of the Grecians hath the foundations in words, in
ostentation, in confutation, in sects, in schools, in disputations. The
Grecians were (as one of themselves saith), "you Grecians, ever
children." They knew little antiquity; they knew (except fables) not
much above five hundred years before themselves; they knew but a small
portion of the world. That of the Alchemists hath the foundation in
imposture, in auricular traditions and obscurity; it was catching hold
of religion, but the principle of it is, "Populus vult decipi." So that
I know no great difference between these great philosophies, but that
the one is a loud-crying folly, and the other is a whispering folly. The
one is gathered out of a few vulgar observations, and the other out of a
few experiments of a furnace. The one never faileth to multiply words,
and the other ever faileth to multiply gold. Who would not smile at
Aristotle, when he admireth the eternity and invariableness of the
heavens, as there were not the like in the bowels of the earth? Those be
the confines and borders of these two kingdoms, where the continual
alteration and incursion are. The superficies and upper parts of the
earth are full of varieties. The superficies and lower part of the
heavens (which we call the middle region of the air) is full of variety.
There is much spirit in the one part that cannot be brought into mass.
There is much massy body in the other place that cannot be refined to
spirit. The common air is as the waste ground between the borders. Who
would not smile at the astronomers? I mean not these new carmen which
drive the earth about, but the ancient astronomers, which feign the moon
to be the swiftest of all planets in motion, and the rest in order, the
higher the slower; and so are compelled to imagine a double motion;
whereas how evident is it, that that which they call a contrary motion
is but an abatement of motion. The fixed stars overgo Saturn, and so in
them and the rest all is but one motion, and the nearer the earth the
slower; a motion also whereof air and water do participate, though much
interrupted.
But why do I in a conference of pleasure enter into these great matters,
in sort that pretending to know much, I should forget what is
seasonable? Pardon me, it was because all [other] things may be endowed
and adorned with speeches, but knowledge itself is more beautiful than
any apparel of words that can be put upon it.
And let not me seem arrogant, without respect to these great reputed
authors. Let me so give every man his due, as I give Time his due, which
is to discover truth. Many of these men had greater wits, far above mine
own, and so are many in the universities of Europe at this day. But
alas, they learn nothing there but to believe: first to believe that
others know that which they know not; and after [that] themselves know
that which they know not. But indeed facility to believe, impatience to
doubt, temerity to answer, glory to know, doubt to contradict, end to
gain, sloth to search, seeking things in words, resting in part of
nature; these, and the like, have been the things which have forbidden
the happy match between the mind of man and the nature of things, and in
place thereof have married it to vain notions and blind experiments. And
what the posterity and issue of so honorable a match may be, it is not
hard to consider. Printing, a gross invention; artillery, a thing that
lay not far out of the way; the needle, a thing partly known before;
what a change have these three made in the world in these times; the one
in state of learning, the other in state of the war, the third in the
state of treasure, commodities, and navigation. And those, I say, were
but stumbled upon and lighted upon by chance. Therefore, no doubt the
sovereignty of man lieth hid in knowledge; wherein many things are
reserved, which kings with their treasure cannot buy, nor with their
force command; their spials and intelligencers can give no news of them,
their seamen and discoverers cannot sail where they grow. Now we govern
nature in opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity; but if we
would be led by her in invention, we should command her in action.