The Advancement of Learning

(6) In the inquiry of diseases, they do abandon the cures of many, some as in their nature incurable, and others as past the period of cure; so that Sylla and the Triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die, as they do by their ignorant edicts: whereof numbers do escape with less difficulty than they did in the Roman prescriptions.  Therefore I will not doubt to note as a deficience, that they inquire not the perfect cures of many diseases, or extremities of diseases; but pronouncing them incurable do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from discredit.

(7) Nay further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair and easy passage.  For it is no small felicity which Augustus Cæsar was wont to wish to himself, that same Euthanasia; and which was specially noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the fashion, and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sheep.  So it is written of Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate, he drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of wine; whereupon the epigram was made, Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas; he was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water.  But the physicians contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas in my judgment they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies of death.

(5) In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficience in the receipts of propriety, respecting the particular cures of diseases: for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition and experience by their magistralities, in adding and taking out and changing quid pro qua in their receipts, at their pleasures; commanding so over the medicine, as the medicine cannot command over the disease.  For except it be treacle and mithridatum, and of late diascordium, and a few more, they tie themselves to no receipts severely and religiously.  For as to the confections of sale which are in the shops, they are for readiness and not for propriety.  For they are upon general intentions of purging, opening, comforting, altering, and not much appropriate to particular diseases.  And this is the cause why empirics and old women are more happy many times in their cures than learned physicians, because they are more religious in holding their medicines.  Therefore here is the deficience which I find, that physicians have not, partly out of their own practice, partly out of the constant probations reported in books, and partly out of the traditions of empirics, set down and delivered over certain experimental medicines for the cure of particular diseases, besides their own conjectural and magistral descriptions.  For as they were the men of the best composition in the state of Rome, which either being consuls inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to the senate; so in the matter we now handle, they be the best physicians, which being learned incline to the traditions of experience, or being empirics incline to the methods of learning.

(9) In preparation of medicines I do find strange, specially considering how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that they are safer for the outward than inward parts, that no man hath sought to make an imitation by art of natural baths and medicinable fountains: which nevertheless are confessed to receive their virtues from minerals; and not so only, but discerned and distinguished from what particular mineral they receive tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which nature, if it may be reduced to compositions of art, both the variety of them will be increased, and the temper of them will be more commanded.

(10) But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable either to my intention or to proportion, I will conclude this part with the note of one deficience more, which seemeth to me of greatest consequence: which is, that the prescripts in use are too compendious to attain their end; for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so sovereign or so happy, as that the receipt or miss of it can work any great effect upon the body of man.  It were a strange speech which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he were by nature subject.  It is order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, which is mighty in nature; which although it require more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience in observing, yet is recompensed with the magnitude of effects.  And although a man would think, by the daily visitations of the physicians, that there were a pursuance in the cure, yet let a man look into their prescripts and ministrations, and he shall find them but inconstancies and every day’s devices, without any settled providence or project.  Not that every scrupulous or superstitious prescript is effectual, no more than every straight way is the way to heaven; but the truth of the direction must precede severity of observance.

(11) For cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate: for cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.  As for artificial decoration, it is well worthy of the deficiences which it hath; being neither fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to use, nor wholesome to please.

(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say, for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be brought, whether it be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two parts, strength and swiftness; and patience likewise hath two parts, hardness against wants and extremities, and endurance of pain or torment; whereof we see the practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer punishment.  Nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not within any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain a strange power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it to this part.  Of these things the practices are known, but the philosophy that concerneth them is not much inquired; the rather, I think, because they are supposed to be obtained, either by an aptness of nature, which cannot be taught, or only by continual custom, which is soon prescribed which though it be not true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the Olympian games are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is for use; as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most part but for mercenary ostentation.

(13) For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them is of laws to repress them.  For as it hath been well observed, that the arts which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military; and while virtue is in state, are liberal; and while virtue is in declination, are voluptuary: so I doubt that this age of the world is somewhat upon the descent of the wheel.  With arts voluptuary I couple practices joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures of the senses.  As for games of recreation, I hold them to belong to civil life and education.  And thus much of that particular human philosophy which concerns the body, which is but the tabernacle of the mind.

XI. (1) For human knowledge which concerns the mind, it hath two parts; the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul or mind, the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions thereof.  Unto the first of these, the considerations of the original of the soul, whether it be native or adventive, and how far it is exempted from laws of matter, and of the immortality thereof, and many other points, do appertain: which have been not more laboriously inquired than variously reported; so as the travail therein taken seemeth to have been rather in a maze than in a way.  But although I am of opinion that this knowledge may be more really and soundly inquired, even in nature, than it hath been, yet I hold that in the end it must be hounded by religion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delusion.  For as the substance of the soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven and earth by the benediction of a producat,but was immediately inspired from God, so it is not possible that it should be (otherwise than by accident) subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which are the subject of philosophy; and therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state of the soul must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance.  Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul there be two appendices; which, as they have been handled, have rather vapoured forth fables than kindled truth: divination and fascination.

(2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial and natural: whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a prediction by argument, concluding upon signs and tokens; natural is, when the mind hath a presention by an internal power, without the inducement of a sign.  Artificial is of two sorts: either when the argument is coupled with a derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it is only grounded upon a coincidence of the effect, which is experimental: whereof the latter for the most part is superstitious, such as were the heathen observations upon the inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the swarming of bees; and such as was the Chaldean astrology, and the like.  For artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are distributed amongst particular knowledges.  The astronomer hath his predictions, as of conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and the like.  The physician hath his predictions, of death, of recovery, of the accidents and issues of diseases.  The politique hath his predictions; O urbem venalem, et cito perituram, si emptorem invenerit! which stayed not long to be performed, in Sylla first, and after in Cæsar: so as these predictions are now impertinent, and to be referred over.  But the divination which springeth from the internal nature of the soul is that which we now speak of; which hath been made to be of two sorts, primitive and by influxion.  Primitive is grounded upon the supposition that the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected into itself, and not diffused into the organs of the body, hath some extent and latitude of prenotion; which therefore appeareth most in sleep, in ecstasies, and near death, and more rarely in waking apprehensions; and is induced and furthered by those abstinences and observances which make the mind most to consist in itself.  By influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as a mirror or glass, should take illumination from the foreknowledge of God and spirits: unto which the same regiment doth likewise conduce.  For the retiring of the mind within itself is the state which is most susceptible of divine influxions; save that it is accompanied in this case with a fervency and elevation (which the ancients noted by fury), and not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other.

(3) Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive upon other bodies than the body of the imaginant, for of that we spake in the proper place.  Wherein the school of Paracelsus, and the disciples of pretended natural magic, have been so intemperate, as they have exalted the power of the imagination to be much one with the power of miracle-working faith.  Others, that draw nearer to probability, calling to their view the secret passages of things, and specially of the contagion that passeth from body to body, do conceive it should likewise be agreeable to nature that there should be some transmissions and operations from spirit to spirit without the mediation of the senses; whence the conceits have grown (now almost made civil) of the mastering spirit, and the force of confidence, and the like.  Incident unto this is the inquiry how to raise and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination fortified have power, then it is material to know how to fortify and exalt it.  And herein comes in crookedly and dangerously a palliation of a great part of ceremonial magic.  For it may be pretended that ceremonies, characters, and charms do work, not by any tacit or sacramental contract with evil spirits, but serve only to strengthen the imagination of him that useth it; as images are said by the Roman Church to fix the cogitations and raise the devotions of them that pray before them.  But for mine own judgment, if it be admitted that imagination hath power, and that ceremonies fortify imagination, and that they be used sincerely and intentionally for that purpose; yet I should hold them unlawful, as opposing to that first edict which God gave unto man, In sudore vultus comedes panem tuum.  For they propound those noble effects, which God hath set forth unto man to be bought at the price of labour, to be attained by a few easy and slothful observances.  Deficiences in these knowledges I will report none, other than the general deficience, that it is not known how much of them is verity, and how much vanity.

XII. (1) The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the mind of man is of two kinds – the one respecting his understanding and reason, and the other his will, appetite, and affection; whereof the former produceth position or decree, the latter action or execution.  It is true that the imagination is an agent or nuncius in both provinces, both the judicial and the ministerial.  For sense sendeth over to imagination before reason have judged, and reason sendeth over to imagination before the decree can be acted.  For imagination ever precedeth voluntary motion.  Saving that this Janus of imagination hath differing faces: for the face towards reason hath the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the print of good; which nevertheless are faces,

“Quales decet esse sororum.”

Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger; but is invested with, or at least wise usurpeth no small authority in itself, besides the duty of the message.  For it was well said by Aristotle, “That the mind hath over the body that commandment, which the lord hath over a bondman; but that reason hath over the imagination that commandment which a magistrate hath over a free citizen,” who may come also to rule in his turn.  For we see that, in matters of faith and religion, we raise our imagination above our reason, which is the cause why religion sought ever access to the mind by similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams.  And again, in all persuasions that are wrought by eloquence, and other impressions of like nature, which do paint and disguise the true appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the imagination.  Nevertheless, because I find not any science that doth properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no cause to alter the former division.  For as for poesy, it is rather a pleasure or play of imagination than a work or duty thereof.  And if it be a work, we speak not now of such parts of learning as the imagination produceth, but of such sciences as handle and consider of the imagination.  No more than we shall speak now of such knowledges as reason produceth (for that extendeth to all philosophy), but of such knowledges as do handle and inquire of the faculty of reason: so as poesy had his true place.  As for the power of the imagination in nature, and the manner of fortifying the same, we have mentioned it in the doctrine De Anima, whereunto most fitly it belongeth.  And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative reason, which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to refer it to the arts of reason.  So therefore we content ourselves with the former division, that human philosophy, which respecteth the faculties of the mind of man, hath two parts, rational and moral.

(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all knowledges, to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of subtlety and spinosity.  For as it was truly said, that knowledge is pabulum animi; so in the nature of men’s appetite to this food most men are of the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain have returned ad ollas carnium, and were weary of manna; which, though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and comfortable.  So generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about the which men’s affections, praises, fortunes do turn and are conversant.  But this same lumen siccum doth parch and offend most men’s watery and soft natures.  But to speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the keys of all other arts, for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, “That the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms;” so these be truly said to be the art of arts.  Neither do they only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a stronger bow.

(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the ends whereunto they are referred – for man’s labour is to invent that which is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained.  So as the arts must be four – art of inquiry or invention; art of examination or judgment; art of custody or memory; and art of elocution or tradition.

XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing – the one of arts and sciences, and the other of speech and arguments.  The former of these I do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if, in the making of an inventory touching the state of a defunct, it should be set down that there is no ready money.  For as money will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all the rest.  And like as the West Indies had never been discovered if the use of the mariner’s needle had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions, and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found strange if sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed over.

(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a cuique in sua arte credendum.  And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, “That medicines and cures were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them the medicines and cures discovered.”  And Plato in his “Theætetus” noteth well, “That particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which maketh the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in every particular knowledge are taken from tradition and experience.”  And therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and originals of things refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.

“Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab Ida,

Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem

Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris

Gramina, cum tergo volucres hæsere sagittæ.”

So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples, but almost all brute:

“Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,

Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c.”

And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he first stroke the flints he expected the spark; and therefore we see the West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because of the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion.  So as it should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery, or generally to chance or anything else than to logic for the invention of arts and sciences.  Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much other:

“Ut varias usus meditande extunderet artes

Paulatim.”

For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that which brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which is a perpetual intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute necessity of conservation of being.  For so Cicero saith very truly, Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem sæpe vincit.  And therefore if it be said of men,

      “Labor omnia vincit

Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,”

it is likewise said of beasts, Quis psittaco docuit suum χαιρε?  Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it?  Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or air, and to find the way from a field in a flower a great way off to her hive?  Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow?  Add then the word extundere, which importeth the extreme difficulty, and the word paulatim, which importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even amongst the Egyptians’ gods; there being little left to the faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty or art, for matter of invention.

(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may be pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation from the principles; their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incompetent; wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have wronged, abused, and traduced nature.  For he that shall attentively observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge, like unto that which the poet speaketh of, Aërei mellis cælestia dona, distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than they describe it.  For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can assure (in many subjects) upon those particulars which appear of a side, that there are not other on the contrary side which appear not?  As if Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought before him, and failed of David which was in the field.  And this form (to say truth), is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so subtle as have managed these things to have offered it to the world, but that they hasted to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful toward particulars; which their manner was to use but as lictores and viatores,for sergeants and whifflers, ad summovendam turbam, to make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in their true use and service.  Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very same in divine and human truth; for, as in divine truth man cannot endure to become as a child, so in human, they reputed the attending the inductions (whereof we speak), as if it were a second infancy or childhood.

(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet, nevertheless, certain it is that middle propositions cannot be deduced from them in subject of nature by syllogism – that is, by touch and reduction of them to principles in a middle term.  It is true that in sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity (because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the simplest), that form may have use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by way of argument or satisfactory reason, Quæ assensum parit operis effæta est; but the subtlety of nature and operations will not be enchained in those bonds.  For arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of words, and words are but the current tokens or marks of popular notions of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably collected out of particulars, it is not the laborious examination either of consequences of arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can ever correct that error, being (as the physicians speak) in the first digestion.  And, therefore, it was not without cause, that so many excellent philosophers became sceptics and academics, and denied any certainty of knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion that the knowledge of man extended only to appearances and probabilities.  It is true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a form of irony, Scientiam dissimulando simulavit;for he used to disable his knowledge, to the end to enhance his knowledge; like the humour of Tiberius in his beginnings, that would reign, but would not acknowledge so much.  And in the later academy, which Cicero embraced, this opinion also of acatalepsia (I doubt) was not held sincerely; for that all those which excelled in copy of speech seem to have chosen that sect, as that which was fittest to give glory to their eloquence and variable discourses; being rather like progresses of pleasure than journeys to an end.  But assuredly many scattered in both academies did hold it in subtlety and integrity.  But here was their chief error: they charged the deceit upon the senses; which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their cavillations) are very sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always immediately, yet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by producing and urging such things as are too subtle for the sense to some effect comprehensible by the sense, and other like assistance.  But they ought to have charged the deceit upon the weakness of the intellectual powers, and upon the manner of collecting and concluding upon the reports of the senses.  This I speak, not to disable the mind of man, but to stir it up to seek help; for no man, be he never so cunning or practised, can make a straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand, which may be easily done by help of a ruler or compass.

(5) This part of invention, concerning the invention of sciences, I purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound, having digested it into two parts: whereof the one I term experientia literata,and the other interpretatio naturæ; the former being but a degree and rudiment of the latter.  But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too great upon a promise.

(6) The invention of speech or argument is not properly an invention; for to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or resummon that which we already know; and the use of this invention is no other but, out of the knowledge whereof our mind is already possessed to draw forth or call before us that which may be pertinent to the purpose which we take into our consideration.  So as to speak truly, it is no invention, but a remembrance or suggestion, with an application; which is the cause why the schools do place it after judgment, as subsequent and not precedent.  Nevertheless, because we do account it a chase as well of deer in an enclosed park as in a forest at large, and that it hath already obtained the name, let it be called invention; so as it be perceived and discerned, that the scope and end of this invention is readiness and present use of our knowledge, and not addition or amplification thereof.

(7) To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two courses, preparation and suggestion.  The former of these seemeth scarcely a part of knowledge, consisting rather of diligence than of any artificial erudition.  And herein Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully, doth deride the sophists near his time, saying, “They did as if one that professed the art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up a shoe, but only exhibit in a readiness a number of shoes of all fashions and sizes.”  But yet a man might reply, that if a shoemaker should have no shoes in his shop, but only work as he is bespoken, he should be weakly customed.  But our Saviour, speaking of divine knowledge, saith, “That the kingdom of heaven is like a good householder, that bringeth forth both new and old store;” and we see the ancient writers of rhetoric do give it in precept, that pleaders should have the places, whereof they have most continual use, ready handled in all the variety that may be; as that, to speak for the literal interpretation of the law against equity, and contrary; and to speak for presumptions and inferences against testimony, and contrary.  And Cicero himself, being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainly, that whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speak of (if he will take the pains), he may have it in effect premeditate and handled in thesi.  So that when he cometh to a particular he shall have nothing to do, but to put to names, and times, and places, and such other circumstances of individuals.  We see likewise the exact diligence of Demosthenes; who, in regard of the great force that the entrance and access into causes hath to make a good impression, had ready framed a number of prefaces for orations and speeches.  All which authorities and precedents may overweigh Aristotle’s opinion, that would have us change a rich wardrobe for a pair of shears.