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THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


BOOK I. 


| The 
Advancement of Learning 


Gn 


Book I. 


By 


Francis Bacon 


WITH NOTES BY 


F. G. Selby, M.A. Oxon. 


Late Scholar of Wadham College; Principal and Professor, of 
Logic and Moral Philosophy, Deccan College, Poona 
Fellow of the University of Bombay 


WOO3I 


OM MR ge RO ean 


ae ee a be 


London 


Macmillan and Co., Limited 


New York: The Macmillan Company 
1905 


All vights reserved 


First Edition 1802. 
Reprinted with alterations 1893, 1898, 1905. 


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— 


GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. 


CONTENTS. 


THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, 
Norss, 


INDEXx To NoTEs, 


v 


M4 


bo? n 


THE 
FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON ; 


OF THE PROFICIENCE AND 


ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, 


DIVINE AND HUMAN. 


To the King. 


THERE were under the law, excellent King, both daily 
sacrifices and freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon 
_ ordinary observance, the other upon a devout cheerfulness : 
in like manner there belongeth to kings from their servants 
both tribute of duty and presents of affection. In the 
former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting, 
according to my most humble duty, and the good pleasure 
| of your Majesty’s employments : for the latter, I thought it 
| more respective to make choice of some oblation, which might 
rather refer to the propriety and excellency of your individual 10 
person, than to the business of your crown and state. 

Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto 
my mind, and beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of 
| presumption, to discover that which the Scripture telleth 
‘me is inscrutable, but with the observant eye of duty and 
admiration ; leaving aside the other parts of your virtue 
and fortune, I have been touched, yea, and possessed with 

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a OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


an extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, 
which the Philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of 
your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness 
of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, 
and the facility and order of your elocution: and I have 
often thought, that of the persons living that I have known, 
your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato’s 
opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the 
mind of man by nature knoweth all things, and hath but her 
10 own native and original notions (which by the strangeness 
and darkness of this tabernacle of the body are sequestered) 
again revived and restored : such a light of nature I have 
observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame 
and blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least 
spark of another’s knowledge delivered. And as the Scrip- 
ture saith of the wisest king, That his heart was as the sands 
of the sea ; which though it be one of the largest bodies, yet 
it consisteth of the smallest and finest portions ; so hath God 
given your Majesty a composition of understanding admirable, 
20 being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters, 
and nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least ; whereas 
it should seem an impossibility in nature, for the same instru- 
ment to make itself fit for great and small works. And for 
your gift of speech, I call to mind what Cornelius Tacitus 
saith of Augustus Cesar: Augusto profluens, et quae princi- 
pem deceret, eloquentia fuit : [Augustus had an easy and fluent 
way of speaking, such as became a sovereign.| For, ifswe note 
it well, speech that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or 
speech that savoureth of the affectation of art and precepts, 
30 or speech that is framed after the imitation of some pattern 
of eloquence, though never so excellent ; all this hath some- 
what servile, and holding of the subject. But your Majesty’s 
manner of speech is indeed prince-like, flowing as from a 
fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into nature’s 
order, full of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimi- 
table by any. Fie: as in your civil estate there appeareth to | 


THE FIRST BOOK. 3 


be an emulation and contention of your Majesty’s virtue with | 
your fortune; a virtuous disposition with a fortunate 
regiment ; a virtuous expectation, when time was, of your 
greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the 
due time ; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, 
with most blessed and happy fruit of marriage ; a virtuous 
and most Christian desire of peace, with a fortunate inclina- 
tion in your neighbour princes thereunto: so likewise, in 
these intellectual matters, there seeméth to be no less con- 
tention between the excellency of your Majesty’s gifts of 10 
nature, and the universality and perfection of your learning. 
For I am well assured that this which I shall say is no 
amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth ; 
which is, that there hath not been since Christ’s time any 
king or temporal monarch, which hath been so learned in all 
literature and erudition, divine and human. For let a man 
seriously and diligently revolve and peruse the succession of 
the emperors of Rome, of which Cesar the Dictator, who 
lived some years before Christ, and Marcus Antoninus, were 
the best learned ; and so descend to the emperors of Greecia, 20 
or of the West; and then to the lines of France, Spain, 
England, Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judg- 
ment is truly made. For it seemeth much in a king, if, by 
the compendious extractions of other men’s wits and labours, 
he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and shows of 
learning ; or if he countenance and prefer learning and 
learned men: but to drink indeed of the true fountains of 
learning, nay, to have such a fountain of learning in himself, 
in a king, and in a king born, is almost a miracle. And the 
more, because there is met in your Majesty a rare conjunction, 30 
as well of divine and sacred literature, as of profane and 
human; so as your Majesty standeth invested of that 
_ triplicity, which in great veneration was ascribed to the i 
rcie t Hermes ; the power and fortune of a king, the 
edge and illumination of a priest, and the learning and 
of a philosopher. This propriety, inherent and 


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4 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


individual attribute in your Majesty, deserveth to be ex- 
pressed not only in the fame and admiration of the present 
time, nor in the history or tradition of the ages succeeding, 
but also in some solid work, fixed memorial, and immortal 
monument, bearing a character or signature both of the 
power of a king, and the difference and perfection of such 
a king. 
Therefore I did conclude with myself, that I could not 
make unto your Majesty a better oblation than of some 
10 treatise tending to that end, whereof the sum will consist of 
these two parts ; the former, concerning the excellency of 
learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the merit and 
true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof : the 
latter, what the particular acts and works are, which have 
been embraced and undertaken for the advancement of 
learning ; and again, what defects and undervalues I find 
in such particular acts: to the end that though I cannot 
positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound 
unto you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely 
20 cogitations to visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, 
and thence to extract particulars for this purpose, agreeable 
to your magnanimity and wisdom. 


In the entrance to the former of these, to clear the 
way, and as it were, to make silence, to have the true testi- 
monies concerning the dignity of learning to be better heard, 
without the interruption of tacit objections ; I think good to 
deliver it from the discredits and disgraces which it hath 
received, all from ignorance ; but ignorance severally dis- 
guised ; appearing sometimes in the zeal and_jealousy—of 

30 divines ; sometimes in the severity and arrogancy.of_polli- 
ticians ; ; and sometimes in the errors and imperfections. of 
learned men themselves. 

“TP hear the’ former sort say, that knowledge is of those 
things which are to be accepted of with great limitation anc 
caution ; fat the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the 


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THE FIRST BOOK, 5 


original temptation and sin, whereupon ensued the fall of 
man ; that knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, 
and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him 
swell ; scientia inflat: [knowledge puffeth up:| that Solomon 
gives a censure, That there is no end of making books, and that 
much reading is a weariness of the flesh ; and again in another e ' 
place, That in spacious knowledge there is much contristation, 
and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety ; that — | 
Saint Paul gives a caveat, That we be not spoiled through vain 
philosophy ; that experience demonstrates. how learned men 10 
| have been arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined. 

to to atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes doth 
derogate from.our-dependence upon God, who is the first 
cause, 

To discover then the ignorance and error of this opinion, 
and the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may 
well appear these men do not observe or consider that it 
was not the pure knowledge of nature and universality, a 
knowledge by the light whereof man did give names unto 
other creatures in Paradise, as they were brought before 20 
him, according unto their proprieties, which gave the occasion 
to the fall: but it was the proud knowledge of good and evil, 
with an imtent in man to give law unto himself, and to 
depend no more upon God’s commandments, which was the 
form of the temptation. Neither is it any quantity of know- 
ledge, how great soever, that can make the mind of man to 
swell ; for nothing can fill, much less extend the.soul of man, 
but God and the contemplation of God; and therefore 
Solomon, speaking of the two principal senses of inquisition, 
the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never satisfied 30 
with seeing, nor the ear with hearing ; and if there be no 
bcos then is the continent greater than the content : so of 

edge itself, and the mind of man, whereto the senses 

»p rters, he defineth likewise in these words, placed 
r - menae or Mee which he maketh of 06 

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6 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


and concludeth thus: God hath made all things beautiful, or 
decent, in the true return of their seasons: also He hath placed 
the world in man’s heart, yet cannot man find out the work 
which God worketh from the beginning to the end: declaring 
not obscurely, that God hath framed the mind of man as a 
mirror or glass, capable of the image of the universal world, 
and joyful to receive the impression thereof, as the eye 
joyeth to receive light ; and not only delighted in behold- 
ing the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but 
10 raised also to find out and discern the ordinances and 
decrees, which throughout all those changes are infallibly 
observed. And although he doth insinuate that the 
supreme or summary law of nature, which he calleth, 7he 
work uhich God worketh from the beginning .to the end, 
is not possible to be found out by man; yet that doth not 
derogate from the capacity of the mind, but may be referred 
to the impediments, as of shortness of life, ill conjunction of 
labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from hand to hand, 
and many other inconveniences, whereunto the condition of 
20 man is subject. For that nothing parcel of the world is 
denied to man’s inquiry and inventi@n, he doth in another 
place rule over, when he saith, The spirit of man is as the 
lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the inwardness of all 
secrets. If then such be the capacity and receipt of the mind 
of man, it is manifest that there is no danger at all in the 
proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest 
it should make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it 
is merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in quantity 
more or less, if it be taken without the true corrective 
30 thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or malignity, and | 
some effects of that venom, which is ventogsity or swelling. 
This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge 
80 sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth 
to the former clause : for so he saith, Knowledge bloweth ‘Up, | 
but charity buildeth up, not unlike unto that which he | 
delivereth in another place : If I spake, saith Pigs a | 


THE FIRST BOOK. 7 


tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it were but 
as a tinkling cymbal; not but that it is an excellent thing 
to speak with the tongues of men and angels, but because, | 
if it be severed from charity, and not referred to the good of | 
men and mankind, it hath rather a sounding and unworthy | 
glory, than a meriting and substanial virtue. “And as for 
that censure of Solomon, concerning the excess of writing 
and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit which redound- 
eth from knowledge ; and that admonition of St. Paul, That 
we be not seduced by vain philosophy, let those places be 10 
rightly understood, and they do indeed excellently set forth 
the true bounds and limitations, whereby human knowledge 
is confined and circumscribed ; and yet without any such 
contracting or coarctation, but that it may comprehend all 
the universal nature of things; for these limitations are 
three : the first, That we do not so place our felicity in know- \ 
ledge, as we forget our mortality: the second, That we make 
application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and 
contentment, and not distaste or repining: the third, That we ban 
do not presume by the contemplation of nature to attain to 20 f 
the mysteries of of God. For as touching the first of these, 
Solomon doth excellently expound himself in another place 
of the same book, where he saith: J saw well that knowledge 
recedeth as fur from ignorance as light doth from darkness ; 
and that the wise man’s eyes keep watch in his head, whereas 
the fool roundeth about in darkness: but withal I learned, that 
the same mortality involveth them both. And for the second, 
certain it is, there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which 
resulteth from knowledge, otherwise than merely by acci- 
dent ; for all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of 30 
knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when 
men fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, 
1 applying it to their particular, and ministering to themselves 
thereby weak fears or vast desires, there groweth that 
athens and trouble of mind which is spoken of : for then 
ov edge is no more Lumen siccum, [a dry light,] whereof | 


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8 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


Heraclitus the profound said, Lumen siccum optima anima: ; 
[a dry light is the best soul ;] but it becometh lumen madidum, 
[a light wet,] or maceratum [softened] by steeping, being 
steeped and infused in the humours of the affections. And 
as for the third point, it deserveth to be a little stood upon, 
‘and not to be lightly passed over: for if any man shall 
think by view and inquiry into these sensible and material 
things to attain that light, whereby he may reveal unto 
himself the nature or will of God, then indeed is he spoiled 
10 by vain philosophy : for the contemplation of God’s creatures 
and works produceth (having regard to the works and 
creatures themselves) knowledge, but having regard to God, 
no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken know- 
ledge. And therefore it was most aptly said by one of 
Plato’s school, That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance 
with the sun, which, as we see, openeth and revealeth all the 
terrestria? globe ; but then again it obscureth and concealeth the 
stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense discover natural 
things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up divine. And hence it 
20 is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great learned men 
have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the 
secrets of the Deity by the waxen wings of the senses. And 
as for the conceit that too much knowledge should incline 
aman to atheism, and that the ignorance of second causes 
should make a more devout dependence upon God, which 
is the first cause ; first, it is good to ask the question which 
Job asked of his friends: Will you lie for God, as one man 
will do for another, to gratify him? For certain it is that 
God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes: 
30 and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is ‘mere 
imposture, as it were in favour towards God; and nothing 
else but to offer to the author of truth the unclean sacrifice — 
of a lie. But further, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion — 
of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of 
philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but 
@ farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back 


THE FIRST BOOK. 9 


again to religion: for in the entrance of philosophy, when 
the second causes which are next unto the senses, do offer 
themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there 
it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause ; but when 
_@ man passeth on further, and seeth the dependence of 
causes, and the works of Providence; then, according to 
the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the 
highest link of nature’s chain must needs be tied to the foot 
of Jupiter’s chair. To conclude, therefore, let no man upon 
a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, 10 
think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be 
too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of 
God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men 
endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only 
let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to 
swelling ; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that 
they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings 


together. 

And as*for the disgraces which learning receiveth from 
politicians, they be of this nature; that learning doth 20 
soften men’s minds, and makes them more unapt_ for the 
honour and exercise.of.arms ; that it doth mar and pervert 


men’s dispositions for matter of government..and_policy ; 
in making them too curious _and_irresolute. by. variety..of 
Yeading; or too peremptory or positive by strictness of 
rules and axioms; or too immoderate and overweening by 
reason of the greatness of examples ;\ or too incompatible 
and differing from the times, by reason of the dissimilitude 
_ of examples; or at least, that it doth divert men’s travails 
_ from action and business, and bringeth them to a love of 30 
_ leisure and privateness ; and that it doth bring into statesa 
xation of oe —* whilst every man is more ready 
gue, than to and execute. Out of this conceit, 
1amed the , one of the wisest men indeed 
ived, whe Bi Cotnendes the philosopher. came in 


10 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


embassage to Rome, and that the young men of Rome began 
to flock about him, being allured with the sweetness and 
majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in 
open senate, that they should give him his dispatch with 
all speed, lest he should infect and enchant the minds 
and affections of the youth, and at unawares bring in an 
alteration of the manners and customs of the state. Out 
of the same conceit, or humour, did Virgil, turning his 
pen to the advantage of his country, and the disadvantage 

10 of his own profession, make a kind of separation between 
policy and government, and between arts and sciences, in 
the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging 
the one to the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other 
to the Grecians : Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, 
He tibi erunt artes, etc.: [Be it thy task, O Roman, to rule over 
subject peoples.| So likewise we see that Anytus, the 
accuser of Socrates, laid it as an article of charge and 
accusation against him, that he did, with the variety and 
power of his discourses and disputations, withdraw young 

20 men from due reverence to the laws and customs of their 
country ; and that. he did profess a dangerous and pernicious 
science, which was to make the worse matter seem the 
better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence and 
speech. ; . 

But these, and the like imputations, have rather a 
countenance of gravity, than any ground of justice: for 
experience doth warrant, that both in persons and in times, 

«there hath been a meeting and concurrence in learning and 
farms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the 

20 Bame ages. For, as for men, there cannot be a better nor 
the like instance, as of that pair, Alexander the Great and 
Julius Cesar the Dictator ; whereof the one was Aristotle’s 
scholar in philosophy, and the other was Cicero’s rival in 
eloquence : or if any man had rather call for scholars that 
were great generals, than generals that were great scholars,  —/ 
let him take Epaminondas the Theban or Xenophon the 


- 
. f By TAs 
* A ay ty 


THE FIRST BOOK. 1l 


Athenian ; whereof the one was the first that abated the 
power of Sparta, and the other was the first that made way 
to the overthrow of the monarchy of Persia. And this con- 
currence is yet more visible in times than in persons, by 
how much an age is a greater object than a man. For both 
in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Grecia, and Rome, the same times 
that are most renowned for arms, are likewise most admired 
for learning ; so that the greatest authors and philosophers, 
and the greatest captains and governors have lived in the 
same ages. Neither can it otherwise be: for as, in man, the 
ripeness of strength of the body and mind cometh much 
about an age, save that the strength of the body cometh 
somewhat the more early ; so in states, arms and learning, 
whereof the one correspondeth to the body, the other to 
the soul of man, have a concurrence or near sequence in 
times. 

And for matter of policy and government, that learn- 
ing should rather hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing 
very improbable: we see it is accounted an error to com- 


mit a natural body to empiric physicians which com- 20 


monly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are 
confident and adventurous, but know neither the causes of 
diseases, nor the complexions of patients, nor peril of 
accidents, nor the true method of cures: we see it is a like 
error to rely upon advocates or lawyers, which are only men 
of practice and not grounded in their books, who are many 
times easily surprised, when matter falleth out besides their 
experience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle : so, by 
like reason, it cannot be but a matter of doubtful conse- 
quence, if states be managed by empiric statesmen, not well 
mingled with men grounded in learning. But contrariwise, 
it is almost without instance contradictory, that ever any 
_ government was disastrous that was in the hands of learned 
h ‘governors. For howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic 


12 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


particulars, that the governments of princes in minority 
(notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind of 
state) have nevertheless excelled the government of princes 
of mature age, even for that reason which they seek to 
traduce, which is, that by that occasion the state hath been 
in the hands of pedants: for so was the state of Rome for the 
first five years, which are so much magnified, during the 
minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a pedant : so it 
was again, for ten years’ space or more, during the minority 
of Gordianus the younger, with great applause and contenta- 
tion in the hands of Misitheus a pedant: so was it before 
that, in the minority of Alexander Severus, in like happiness, 
in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the 
women, who were aided by the teachers and preceptors. 
Nay, let a man look into the government of the Bishops of 
Rome, as by name, into the government of Pius Quintus, 
and Sextus Quintus, in our times, who were both at their 
entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find 
that such Popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer 
20 principles of estate, than those which have ascended to the 
papacy from an education and breeding in affairs of estate 
and courts of princes ; for although men bred in learning are 
perhaps to seek in ‘points of convenience and accommodating 
for the present, which the Italians call ragiont di stato, 
[reasons of state,| whereof the same Pius Quintus could not 
hear spoken with patience, terming them inventions against 
religion and the moral virtues ; yet on the other side, to 
recompense that, they are perfect in those same plain 
grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue, which 
30 if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom 
use of those other, no more than of physic in a sound or 
well-dieted body, Neither can the experience of one man’s 
life furnish examples and precedents for the events of one 
man’s life : for, as it happeneth sometimes that the grand- 
child, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more 
than the son ; so many times occurrences of present times 


] 


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‘ 


THE FIRST BOOK. 13 


may sort better with ancient examples, than with those of the 


latter or immediate times: and lastly, the wit of one man 


can no more countervail learning than one man’s means can 
hold way with a common purse. 

And as for those particular seducements, or indisposi- 
tions of the mind for policy and government, which learning 
is pretended to insinuate ; if it be granted that any such 
thing be, it must be remembered withal, that learning 
ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine or 
remedy, than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity ; 
for if, by a secret operation, it make men perplexed and 
irresolute, on the other side, by plain precept it teacheth 
them when and upon what ground to resolve ; yea, and how 
to carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till they 
resolve ; if it make men positive and regular, it teacheth 
them what things are in their nature demonstrative, and 
what are conjectural ; and as well the use of distinctions and 
exceptions, as the latitude of principles and rules. If it mis- 
lead by disproportion, or dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth 
men the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, 
and all the cautions of application ; so that in all these it 
doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert. And these 
medicines it conveyeth into men’s minds much more forcibly 
by the quickness and penetration of examples. For let a man 
look into the errors of Clement the Seventh, so lively 
described by Guicciardine, who served under him, or into the 
errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles 
to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute. Let 
him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how 
he be obstinate or inflexible. Let him but read the fable of 
Txion, and it will hold him from being vaporous or imagina- 
tive. Let him look into the errors of Cato the second, and 
he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to 


__ the present world. 
And for the conceit that learning should dispose men to 


ure and privateness, and make men slothful ; it were a 


a8 


30 


Pi 
te Pie? 


14 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


strange thing if that, which accustometh the mind to a 
perpetual motion and agitation, should induce slothfulness : 
whereas contrariwise it may be truly affirmed, that no kind 
of men love business for itself, but those that are learned ; 
for other persons love it for profit, as a hireling, that loves 
the work for the wages ; or for honour, as because it beareth 
them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputation, 
which otherwise would wear ; or because it putteth them in 
mind of their fortune, and giveth them occasion to pleasure 

10 and displeasure ; or because it exerciseth some faculty 
wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good 
humour and pleasing conceits toward themselves ; or because 
it advanceth any other their ends. So that, as it is said of: + 
untrue valours, that some men’s valours are in the eyes of 
them that look on ; so such men’s industries are in the eyes 
of others, or at least in regard of their own designments : 
only learned men love business, as an action according to 
nature, as agreeable to health of mind, as exercise is to health 
of body, taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the 

20 purchase : so that of all men they are the most indefatigable, 
if it be towards any business which can hold or detain their 
mind. 

And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and 
yet idle in business and action, it groweth from some weak- 
ness of body, or softness of spirit ; such as Seneca speaketh 
of : Quidam tam sunt umbratiles, ut putent in turbido esse 
quicquid in luce est ; [Some men live so much in the shade, 
that whenever they are in the light they seem to be in trouble ga 
and not of learning : well may it be, that such a point of a 

30 man’s nature may make him give himself to learning, but it 
is not learning that breedeth any such point in his nature. 

And that learning should take up too much time or 
leisure : I answer ; the most active or busy man that hath 
been or can be, hath, no question, many vacant times of 
leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business 
(except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly 


¢ 
Y 4 


oe A A ae at * 


THE FIRST BOOK. ~ 15 


fand unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be 
‘Pbetter done by others :) and then the question is, but how 
“) Ithose spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent ; 
whether in pleasures or in studies ; as was well answered by 
MDemosthenes to his adversary Aischines, that was a man 
" fgiven to pleasure, and told him, That his orations did smell of 
ithe lamp: Indeed, said Demosthenes, there is great difference 
a between the things that you and I do by lamp-light. So as no 
man need doubt that learning will expulse business, but 
ather it will keep and defend the possession of the mind 10 
gainst idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares 
| may enter to the prejudice of both. 
) Again, for that other conceit, that learning should 
“)iHndermine the reverence of laws and government, it is 
¥ ssuredly a mere depravation and calumny, without all 
ie hadow of truth. For td say, that a blind custom of obedi- 
ence should be a surer obligation than duty taught and under- 
(Btood ; it is to affirm, that a blind man may tread surer 
a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is 
rithout all controversy, that learning doth make the minds 20 
f men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to government ; 
yhereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and muti- 
H ous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, 
‘Ponsidering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned 
s mes have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and 
Bhanges. 
And as to the judgment of Cato, the Censor, he was 
ell punished for his blasphemy against learning, in the 
ame kind wherein he offended; for when he was past 
_ | Phreescore years old, he was taken with an extreme desire 30 
i > go to school again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to 
%, 
y 


¥ 


nf » 
m » ny fight te 
Mat Le 3 Shee 


he end to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well 
emonstrate, that his former censure of the Grecian learning 
vas rather an affected gravity, than according to the in- 


_ yard sense of his own opinion. And as for Virgil’s verses, 
_ ‘Phough it pleased him to brave the world in taking to the 


16 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


Romans the art of empire, and leaving to others the-art " 
of subjects; yet so much is manifest, that the Roman¢_ 
never ascended to that height of empire, till the time they. 
had ascended to the height of other arts. For in the tims | 
of the two first Czesars, which had the art of government — 
in greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius — ? F 
Maro; the best historiographer, Titus Livius; the beet ‘ ir 
antiquary, Marcus Varro; and the best, or second orator) 
Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are known, — 
10 As for the accusation of Socrates, the time must be remen ay 
bered when it was prosecuted ; which was under the Thirt, +. 
Tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious persons that)! 
have governed; which revolution of state was no soonet’ Phy 
over, but Socrates, whom they had made a person criminal; | 
was made a person heroical, and his memory accumulate — 
with honours divine and human; and those discourses 0f rs ; 
his which were then termed corrupting of manners, wer: ri 
after acknowledged for sovereign medicines of the mini _ a . 
and manners, and so have been received ever since til 
20 this day. Let this, therefore, serve for answer to politicians, 
which in their humorous severity, or in their feigned 
gravity, have presumed to throw imputations upon learning ; ‘ : 
which redargution nevertheless (save that we know not 
whether our labours may extend to other ages) were nol 
needful for the present, in regard of the love and reverence — 
towards learning, which the example and countenance «# — 
two so learned princes, Qyeen Elizabeth and your Majest;, " 
being as Castor and Pollux, lucida sidera, [bright stars) 
stars of excellent light and most benign influence, hat 
30 wrought in all men of place and authority in our nation. _ 


Now therefore we come to that third sort of disc bit 
or diminution of credit, that groweth unto learnin } 
from learned men themselves, which commonly cleave 
fastest : it is either from their fortune ; or from | 
manners ; or from the nature of their studies. For thé. 


THE FIRST BOOK. R17 


it is not in their power ; and the second is accidental: the 
third only is proper to be handled: but because we are not 
in hand with true measure, but with popular estimation and 
conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former, 
The derogations therefore which grow to learning from the © 
fortune or condition of learned men, are either in respect of 
scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life, and 
meanness of employments. 

Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned 
men usually to begin with little, and not to grow rich so 10 
fast as other men, by reason they convert not their labours 
chiefly to lucre and increase: it were good to leave the 
common place in commendation of poverty to some friar to 
handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this 
point ; when he said, That the kingdom of the clergy had been 
long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards 
the poverty of friars had not borne out the scandal of the 
superfluities and excesses of bishops and prelates. So a man 
might say that the felicity and delicacy of princes and great 
persons had long since turned to rudeness and barbarism, 20 
if the poverty of learning had not kept up civility and 
honour of life: but without any such advantages, it is 
worthy the observation, what a reverent and honoured 
thing poverty of fortune was, for some ages, in the Roman 
state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes : 

_ for we see what Titus Livius saith in his introduction : 

- Caeterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam 
respublica nee major, nec sanctior, nec bonis exemplis ditior 
Suit; nec in quam tam sere avaritia luxuriaque immigra- 
verint ; nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac. parsimonie 30 

fuerit: (If I am not led away by love of the task which I 

undertaken, there never was a state greater nor more 

igious, nor richer in good examples than Rome: nor one 

0 which avarice and luxury were so long in making their 

nor one in which poverty and economy were held in such 

Pe os eae ee roe) We see likewise, after 


BRR) ea 
ay atin < 5 x BER ’ 
bib aaa ee ois 4 RR, ee ae 


-18. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


that the state of Rome was not itself, but did degenerate, 
how that person, that took upon him to be counsellor to 
Julius Cesar after his victory, where to begin his restoration 
of the state, maketh it of all points the most summary to 
take away the estimation of wealth: Verum hac et omnia 
mala pariter cum honore pecunie desinent: si neque magis- 
tratus, neque alia vulgo cupienda venalia erunt: [But these 
and all evils will disappear when wealth is no longer honoured, 
and when the magistracies and other objects of general 
10 ambition are not procurable by money.) To conclude this 
point, as it was truly said, that Rubor est virtutis color, 
[A blush is virtue’s colour,| though sometime it come from 
vice; so it may be fitly said that Paupertas est virtutis 
fortuna, [Poverty is virtues fortune,] though sometime it 
may proceed from misgovernment and accident. Surely 
Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure, Qui festinat 
ad divitias non erit insons, [He that maketh haste to be rich 
shall not be innocent ;| and in precept, Buy the truth, and sell 
it not; and so of wisdom and knowledge ; judging that means 
20 were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be 
applied to means, And as for the privateness, or obscure- 
ness (as it may be in vulgar estimation accounted) of life 
of contemplative men; it is a theme so common, to extol a _ 
private life not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in com- 
parison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, 
liberty, pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from 
indignity, as no man handleth it, but handleth it well: 
such a consonancy it hath to men’s conceits in the express- 
ing, and to men’s consents in the allowing. This only 
30 I will add, that learned men forgotten in states, and 
not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of 
Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia: of which 
not being represented, as many others were, Tacitus saith, 
Lo ipso prefulgebant, quod non visebantur: [They out- 


shone them all from the very fact that they were not to be — 
seen. | a 


THE FIRST BOOK. 19° 
fo 
~ And for meanness of employment, that which is most 
traduced to contempt is that the government of youth is 
commonly allotted to them; which age, because it is the 
age of least authority, it is transferred to the disesteeming 
of those employments wherein youth is conversant, and 
which are conversant about youth. But how unjust this 
traducement is (if you will reduce things from popularity 
of opinion to measure of reason) may appear in that, we 
see men are more curious what they put into a new vessel, 
than into a vessel seasoned ; and what mould they lay 10 
about a young plant, than about a plant corroborate ; so 
as the weakest terms and times of all things use to have 
the best applications and helps. And will you hearken to 
the Hebrew rabbins? Your young men shall see visions, 
and your old men shall dream dreams; say they youth is 
the worthier age, for that visions are nearer apparitions 
of God than dreams? And let it be noted, that howsoever 
the condition of life of pedants hath ‘heen scorned upon 
theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern 
looseness or negligence hath taken no due regard to the 20 4 
choice of schoolmasters and tutors ; yet the ancient wisdom 
of the best times, did always make a just complaint, that 
states were too busy with their laws, and too negligent 
in point of education: which excellent part of ancient dis- 
cipline hath been in some sort revived of late times by 
the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard 
of their superstition I may say, Quo meliores, eo deteriores, 
[The better they are the worse they are ;| yet in regard of this, 
and some other points concerning human learning and 
moral matters, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy 30 
Pharnabazus, Jalis quwm sis, utinam noster esses, [You are so 
good ‘that I wish you were on our side.| And thus much 
easing sy discredits drawn from the fortunes of learned 
men. 
As bennhitny the manners of learned men, it is a thing 


personal and individual: and no doubt there be amongst 


<a 


90 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


them, as in other professions. of all temperatures : but yet 
so as it is not without truth, which is said, that Abeunt 
studia in mores, studies have an influence and operation upon 
the manners of those that are conversant in them. 

But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my 
part cannot find any disgrace to learning can proceed 
from the manners of learned men not inherent to them as 
they are learned; except it be a fault (which was the 
supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato the second, 

10 Seneca, and many more) that, because the times they read 
of are commonly better than the times they live in, and the 
duties taught better than the duties practised, they contend 
sometimes too far to bring things to perfection, and to 
reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of precepts 
or examples of too great height. And yet hereof they 
have caveats enough in their own walks. For Solon, when 
he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best 
laws, answered wisely, Yea, of such as they would receive: 
and Plato, finding that his own heart could not agree with 
20 the corrupt manners of his country, refused to bear place 
or office ; saying, That a man’s country was to be used as his 
parents were, that is, with humble persuasions, and not with 
contestations. And Ceesar’s counsellor put in the same 
caveat, Non ad vetera instituta revocans que jampridem 
corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt: [Do not attempt to restore 
things to the original institutions which, by the long corruption 
of manners, have fallen into contempt ;] and Cicero noteth 
this error directly in Cato the second, when he writes to his 
friend Atticus, Cato optime sentit, sed nocet interdum ret- 
30 publice ; loquitur enim tanquam in republica Platonis, non 
tanquam in fece Romuli: [Cato’s opinions are excellent, but 
sometimes do harm to the commonwealth: for he speaks as if 
he were living in Plato's republic, and not amid the dregs of 
the Roman populace,| And the same Cicero doth excuse and 
expound the philosophers for going too far, and being too 
exact in their prescripts, when he saith, Ist’ ipsi_ preeceptores 


THE FIRST BOOK... >| 


virtutis et magistri, videntur fines officiorum paulo longius 
quam natura vellet protulisse, ut cum ad ultimum animo 
contendissemus, ibi tamen, ubi oportet, consisteremus: | Those 
very teachers of virtue themselves seem to have fixed the 
standard of duty somewhat higher than nature can bear: in 
order that after striving our utmost to attain to it, we might 
at any rate reach the proper standard;| and yet himself 
might have said, Monitis swum minor ipse meis, [I do not act 
up to my own precepts ;| for it was his own fault, though not 

in so extreme a degree. 10 
Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been in- 
cident to learned men; which is, that they have esteemed 
the preservation, good, and honour of their countries or 
masters before their own fortunes or safeties. For so 
saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians: Jf it please you 
to note it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should 
grow great amongst you, and you become little amongst the 
Grecians ; but they be of that nature, as they are sometimes not 
good for me to give, but are always good for you to follow. And 

so Seneca, after he had consecrated that guinguennium Neronis 20 
[those five years of Nero’s reign] to the eternal glory of learned 
governors, held on his honest and loyal course of good and 
free counsel, after his master grew extremely corrupt in his 
, government. Neither can this point otherwise be; for 
> learning endueth men’s minds with a ‘true sense of the 
frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, 
‘and the dignity of their soul and vocation: so that it is im- 
possible for them to esteem that any greatness of their own 
fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being and 

ordainment ; and therefore are desirous to give their account 30 
to God, and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings 
and the states that they serve) in these words; Eece tibj 
luerefeci, (Lo! I have made profit for you,and not Eece mihi 
Iucrefeci: [Lo! I have made profit for myself :] whereas the 
ter sort. of mere politicians, that have not their 


‘thous i a by learning in the love and appre- 


yy) OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


hension of duty, nor ever look abroad into universality, Go” 
refer all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the 
centre of the world, as if all lines should meet in them and 
their fortunes ; never caring, in all tempests, what becomes 
of the ship of estates, so they may save themselves in the 
cockboat of their own fortune : whereas men that feel the 
weight of duty, and know the limits of self-love, use to make 
good their places and duties, though with peril; and if they 
stand in seditious and violent alterations, it is rather the 
10 reverence which many times both adverse parts do give to 
honesty, than any versatile advantage of their own carriage. 
But for this point of tender sense, and fast obligation of 
duty, which learning doth endue the mind withal, howsoever 
fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their corrupt 
principles may despise it, yet it will receive an open allow- 
ance, and therefore needs the less disproof or excusation. 
Another fault incident , sommonly to learned men, which 
may be more probably a henrtsa than truly denied, is, that 
they fail sometimes in applying themselves to particular 
20 persons: which want of exact application ariseth from two 
causes ; the one, because the largeness of their mind can 
hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite observation or 
examination of the nature and customs of one person : for it 
is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man, Satis magnum 
alter alteri theatrum sumus: [ We are a sufficiently large theatre 
one for another.| Nevertheless I shall yield, that he that 
cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as disperse and 
dilate it, wanteth a great faculty. But there is a second 
cause, which is no inability, but a rejection upon choice and 
30 judgment. For the honest and just bounds of observation 
by one person upon another, extend no further but to under- 
stand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or 
whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby 
to stand upon reasonable guard and caution in respect of a 
man’s self: but to be speculative into another man, to the 
end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, 


_ THE FIRST BOOK. 23 


eedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not 
€ntire and ingenuous ; which as in friendship it is want of 
integrity, so towards princes or superiors is want of duty. 
For the custom of the Levant, which is, that subjects do for- | 
bear to gaze or fix their eyes upon princes, is in the outward | 
ceremony barbarous, but the moral is good : for men ought ; 
not. by cunning and bent observations to pierce and penetrate | 
into the hearts of kings, which the Scripture hath declared to | 
be inscrutable, | 
There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude 10 
this part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do 
many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their 
behaviour and carriage, and commit errors in small and 
ordinary~points of action, so as the vulgar sort of capacities 
do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that 
which they find wanting in them in smaller, But this con- 
sequence doth oft deceive men, for which I do refer them 
over to that which was said by Themistocles, arrogantly and 
uncivilly being applied to himself out of his own mouth ; 
but, being applied to the general state of this question, 20 
pertinently and justly ; when, being invited to touch a lute, 
he said, He could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a 
great state. So, no doubt, many may be well seen in the 
passages of government and policy, which are to seek in little 
and punctual occasions. I refer them also to that which 
Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the 
gallipots.of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and 
owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign and 
_ precious liquors and confectiens; acknowledging that to an 
_ external report he was not without superficial levities and 30 
deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent 
_ virtues and powers. And so much touching the point of 
Manners of learned men, 
. But in the mean . time I have no purpose to give allow- 
_ ance to some conditions and courses base and unworthy, 


| _ wherein, as acer of learning have wronged thein- 


ata 


F Se : 


et 


24 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


selves, and gone too far; such as were those trencher p 
osophers, which in the later age of the Roman state w 
usually in the houses of great persons, being little be 
y than solemn parasites ; of which kind, Lucian maketh a mei?) 
description of the philosopher that the great lady took to 
ride with her in her coach, and would needs have him carry — 
her little dog, which he doing officiously and yet uncomely, 
the page scoffed, and said, That he doubted, the philosopher of 
a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic. But above all the rest, the 
10 gross and palpable flattery, whereunto many not unlearned 
have abased and abused their wits and pens, turning, as Du 
Bartas saith, Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, 
hath most diminished the price and estimation of learning. 
Neither is the modern dedication of books and writings, as 
to patrons, to be commended, for that books, such as are 
worthy the name of books, ought to have no patrons but 
truth and reason. And the ancient custom was to dedicate 
them only to private and equal friends, or to entitle the 
books with their names: or if to kings and great persons, it 
20 was to some such as the argument of the book was fit and 
proper for: but these and the like courses may deserve 
rather reprehension than defence. 
Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or 
application of learned men to men in fortune. ’ For the 
answer was good that Diogenes made to one that asked him 
in mockery, How it came to pass that philosophers were.the 
followers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers 2 He 
answered soberly, and yét sharply, Because the one sort knew 
what they had need of, and the other did not. And of the like © 
30 nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having | 
a petition to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, hée fell down — 
at his feet ; whereupon Dionysius stayed, and gave him the f 
hearing, and granted it ; and afterward some person, tender — 
on the behalf of eielcaorer reproved Aristippus that het 
would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity, — 
as for a private suit to fall at a tyrant’s feet: ‘but, he 


, q v7 : A 
e : ss EDAX; 
e ab ae 


ro Salling ft 


bef , wer 46.) ee 
a eee , j 
se reppe aE FIRST BOOK. 25 


a Tt was not his fault, but it was the fault of 
vysius, that had his ears in his feet. Neither was it 
unted weakness, but discretion in him that would not 
ute his best with Adrianus Cesar; excusing himself, 
tt it was reason to yield to him that commanded thirty 
ns. ‘These and the like applications, and stooping to 
ts of necessity and convenience, cannot be disallowed ; 
though they may have some outward baseness, yet in a 
pment truly made they are to be accounted submissions 
he occasion and not to the person. 10 
4 
ow I proceed to those errors and vanities which have 
rvened amongst the studies themselves of the learned, 
ch is that which is principal and proper to the 
ent argument ; wherein my purpose is not to make a 
ification of the errors, but, by a censure and separation 
of the errors, to maké a justification of that which is good 
and sound, and t@deliver that from the aspersion of the 
other: For-.we see,'that it is the manner of men to scandalize 
and deprave that which retaineth the state and virtue, by 
taking advantage upon that which is corrupt and degenerate : 20 
as the heathens in the primitive church used to blemish and . 
taint the’ Christians with the faults and corruptions of 
heretics. But nevertheless I have no meaning at this time 
‘to make any exact animadversion of the errors and impedi- 
Ments in matters of learning, which are more secret and 
emote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak unto such as 
~ do fall under or near unto a ‘popular observation. 
There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, - 
hereby learning hath been most traduced. For those 
1g8 we do esteem vain, which are either false or frivolous, 30 
nose ‘which either have: no truth, or no use : and those 
persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous or 
urio as ; and curiosity is either in matter or words : so that 
eee wee at experience, there fall out to be these 
per as Ts may term them, of learning ; the first, 


26 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


fantastical learning ; the second,.contentious.learning ; 
the last, delicate learning ; vain imaginations, vain alte 
tions, and vain affectations ; and with the last I will be 
Martin Luther, conducted no doubt by a higher provide 
but in discourse of reason, finding what a province he 
- undertaken against the Bishop of Rome and the degene 
traditions of the Church, and finding his own solitude, b 


no ways aided by the opinions of his own time, was enforced — 


to awake all antiquity, and to call former times to his succour, ee 


10 to make a party against the present time. So that the 
ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had 
long time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and 
revolved. This by consequence did draw on a necessity of a 
more exquisite travail in the languages original, wherein 
those authors did write, for the better understanding of : 
those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and | 
applying their words. And thereof grew again a delight in 
their manner of style and phrase, and an admiration of that 
kind of writing ; which was much furthered and precipitated 

20 by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of those 
primitive, but seeming new opinions, had against the School- 
men ; who were generally of the contrary part, and whose 
writings were altogether in a different style and form; 
taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express 

\ their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard 

/ to the pureness, pleasantness, and, as I may call it, lawfulness 
of the phrase or word. And again, because the great labour 

) that then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were 
wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba que non novit legem, [ That 

30 wretched crowd that knoweth not the law,] for the winning and 
persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and 
request eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and 
forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort: so 

that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient 
thors, the hate of the Schoolmen, the exact study of 
guages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an — i 


/ 


THE FIRST BOOK. > 27 


= 


affectionate study of eloquence and copia of speech, which 
then began to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess ; for 
men began to hunt more after words than matter ; more 
after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and elean 
composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the 
clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with 
tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of 
subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of 
judgment. Then grew the flowing and watery vein of 
Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then did 10 
Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero 
the Orator, and Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own 
books of Periods, and Imitation, and the like. Then did Car 
of Cambridge, and Ascham, with their lectures and writings, 
almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young 
men that were studious, unto that delicate and polished kind 
of learning. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the 
scoffing echo : Decem annos consumpsi in legendo Cicerone ; [I 
have spent ten years in reading Cicero ;] and the echo answered 
in Greek,"Ove, Asine, [Thou donkey.| Then grew the learning 20 
of the Schoolmen to be utterly despised as barbarous. In 
sum, the whole indication and bent of those times was rather 
towards copia than weight. 
Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when 
men study words, and not matter ; whereof, though I have 
epresented an example of late times, yet it hath been, and 
will be, Secundwm majus et minus [in a greater or less degree] 
in all time. And how is it possible but this should have an 
operation to discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, 
when they see learned men’s works like the first letter of a 30 
patent, or limned book ; which though it hath large flourishes, 
yetit is but a letter. It seems to me that Pygmalion’s frenzy 
is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity : for words are 
but the images of matter ; and except they have life of reason 
and invention, to fallin love weie Sees lea cong tet ba Sa 


a Fhe date piped a ar 


-“ 


28 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


But yet, notwithstanding, it is a thing not hastily to 
be condemned, to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of 
philosophy itself, with sensible and plausible elocution ; 
for hereof we have great examples in Xenophon, Cicero, 
Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree; and 
hereof likewise there is great use: for surely, to the severe 
inquisition of truth, and the deep progress into philosophy, 
it is some hindrance ; because it is too early satisfactory to 
the mind of man, and quencheth the desire of further 

10 search, before we come to a just period: but then if a man 
be to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of 
conference, counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like ; then- 
shall he find it prepared to his hands in those authors which 
write in that manner. But the excess of this is so justly 
contemptible, that as Hercules, when he saw the image of 
Adonis, Venus’ minion, in a temple, said in disdain, Wil sacri 
es; [You are no divinity ;] so there is none of: Hercules’ 
followers in learning, that is, the more severe and laborious 
sort of inquirers into truth, but will despise those delicacies 

20 and affectations, as indeed capable of no divineness. And 
thus much of the first disease or distemper of learning. 

The second, which followeth, is in nature worse than 
the former: for as substance of matter is better than beauty 
of words, so, contrariwise, vain matter is worse than vain 
words : wherein it seemeth the reprehension of Saint Paul 
was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the 
times following; and not only respective to divinity, but 
extensive to all knowledge: Devita profanas vocum novitates, 
et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae; [Avoid profane novel- 

30 tes of terms, and oppositions of science falsely so called}. 
For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected and 
falsified science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of ° 
terms ; the other, the strictness of positions, which of neces-. . 
sity doth induce oppositions, and so questions and alterca- 
tions. Surely, like as many substances in nature, which are 
solid, do putrefy and corrupt into worms; so it is the y 


aN 
», 


THE FIRST BOOK. ' 29 


property of good and sound knowledge, to putrefy and 
dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and, 
as I may term them, vermiculate questions, which have 
indeed a kind of quickness, and life of spirit, ‘but no 
soundness of matter, or goodness of quality. This kind of 
degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst. the schoolmen : 
who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, 
and small variety of reading, (but their wits being shut up 
in the cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle their dictator, 
as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and 10 
colleges,) and knowing little history, either of nature or 
time, did, out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite 
agitation of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of 
learning, which are extant in their books. For the wit and 
mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contem- 

. plation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the 
stuff, and is limited thereby ; but if it work upon itself, as 
the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings 
forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness 
of thread and work, but of no substance or profit. 20 

This same unprofitable subtilty or curiosity is of two 
sorts ; either in the subject itself that they handle, when it 
is a fruitless speculation or controversy, whereof there are’ 
no small number both in divinity and philosophy, or in the 
manner or method of handling of a knowledge, which 
amongst them was this; upon every particular position or 
assertion to frame ‘objections, and to those objections, 
solutions ; which solutions were for the most part not con- 
futations, but distinctions: whereas indeed the strength of 
all sciences is, as the strength of the old man’s faggot, in the 30 
band. For the harmony of a science, supporting each part 
he other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation 
ression of all the smaller sort of objections, But, 
er side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks 
rot. one by one, you may quarrel with gare and 


30 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


was said of Seneca, Verborum minutiis rerum frangit pondera ; 
[He breaks up the weight of the matter by his verbal subtleties ;] 
so a man may truly say of the schoolmen, Questionwm 
minutiis, scientiarum frangunt soliditatem, [They break up the 
solidity and coherency of the sciences by the minuteness of their 
questions.| For were it not better for a man in a fair room 
to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of lights, 
than to go about with a small watch-candle into every 
corner? And such is their method, that rests not so much 
10 upon evidence of truth proved by arguments, authorities, 
similitudes, examples, as upon particular confutations and 
solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and objection ; breed- 
ing for the most part one question, as fast as it solveth 
another ; even as in the former resemblance, when you carry 
the light into one corner, you darken the rest ; so that the 
fable and fiction of Scylla seemeth to be a lively image of 
this kind of philosophy or knowledge ; which was trans- 
formed into a comely virgin for the upper parts; but then 
candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris : [there were 
20 barking monsters all about her loins:] so the generalities of 
the schoolmen are for a while good and proportionable ; but 
then, when you descend into their distinctions and decisions, 
instead of a fruitful womb, for the use and benefit of man’s 
life, they end in monstrous altercations and barking ques- 
tions. So as it is not possible but this quality of knowledge 
must fall under popular contempt, the people being apt 
to contemn truth upon occasion of controversies and alter- 
cations, and to think they are all out of their way which . 
never meet : and when they see such digladiation about 
30 subtilties, and matters of no use or moment, they easily fall 
upon that judgment of Dionysius of Syracuse, Verba ista 
sunt senum otiosorum: [Those are the words of old men who 
have nothing to do.) 
- Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those schoolmen, 
to their great thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit, 
had joined variety and universality of reading anil conken a 


THE FIRST BOOK. 3] 


plation, they had proved excellent lights, to the great 
advancement of all learning and knowledge; but as they 
are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark 
keeping : but as in the inquiry of the SGiivine truth, their 
pride inclined to leave the oracle of God’s word, and to 
vanish in the mixture of their own inventions; so in the 
inquisition of nature, they ever left the oracle of God’s 
works, and adored the deceiving and deformed images 
which the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few 
received authors or principles, did represent unto them. 10 
And thus much for the second disease of learning. 

For the’third vice or disease of learning, which con- 
cerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest ; 
as that which doth destroy the essential form of knowledge, 
which is nothing but a representation of truth: for the 
truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing 
no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected. 
This vice therefore brancheth itself into two sorts; delight 
in deceiving, and aptness to be deceived; imposture and 
eredulity ; which, although they appear to be of a diverse 20 
nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning, and the 
other of simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most part 
concur : for as the verse noteth, 

. Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est, 

[Avoid inquisitive men, for they are babblers,} 
an inquisitive man is a prattler, so, upon the like reason, a 
credulous man is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he 
that will easily believe rumours, will as easily augment 
rumours, and add somewhat to them of his own; which 
Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith Fingunt simul cre- 30 
duntque: [Those who are prone to invent are also prone to 
believe : :] so great an affinity hath fiction and belief. 

_ This facility of credit, and accepting or admitting things 

authorized or ‘warranted, is of two kinds, accord- 
ing to the subject: for it is either a belief of: history, 
of, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact ; or else of matter of 


a, 


VY 32 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 
art and opinion. As to the former, we see the experience 
and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history ; 
which hath too easily received and registered reports, and 
narrations of miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or 
monks of the desert, and other holy men, and their relics, 
shrines, chapels, and images: which though they had a 
passage for a time, by the ignorance of the people, the 
superstitious simplicity of some, and the politic toleration 
of others holding them but as divine poesies; yet after a 

10 period of time, when the mist began to clear up, they grew 
to be esteemed but as old wives’ fables, impostures of the 
clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of Antichrist, to the 
great scandal and detriment of religion. 

So in natural history, we see there hath not been that 
choice and judgment used as ought to have been; as may 
appear in the writings of Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and 
divers of the Arabians, being fraught with much fabulous 
matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously 
untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural 

20 philosophy with the grave and sober kind of wits: wherein 
the wisdom and integrity of Aristotle is worthy to be 
observed ; that, having made so diligent and exquisite a 
history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with 
any vain or feigned matter: and yet, on the other side, 
hath cast all prodigious narrations, which he thought 
worthy the recording, into one book : excellently discerning — 
that matter of manifest truth, (such, whereupon observation 
and rule were to be built,) was not to be mingled or weak- 
ened with matter of doubtful credit ; and yet again, that 

30 rarities and reports that seem incredible are not to be _ 
suppressed or denied to the memory of men. S 

And.as for the facility of credit which is yielded to 
arts and opinions, it is likewise of two kinds ; either when 
too much belief is attributed to the arts themselves, or to 
certain authors in any art. The sciences themselves, which nas 
have had better intelligence and confederacy with the 


THE FIRST BOOK. 33 


imagination of man than with his reason, are three in 
number ; astrology, natural magic, and alchemy: of which 
sciences, nevertheless, the ends or pretences are noble. 
For astrology pretendeth to discover that correspondence 
or concatenation, which is between the superior globe and 
the inferior : natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce 
natural philosophy from variety of speculations to the 
magnitude of works: and alchemy pretendeth to make 
separation of all the unlike parts of bodies, which in 
mixtures of nature are incorporate. But the derivations 
and prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in 
the practices, are full of error and vanity ; which the great 
professors themselves have sought to veil over and conceal 
by enigmatical writings, and referring themselves to auri- 
cular traditions and such other devices, to save the credit of 
impostures: and yet surely to alchemy this right is due, 
that it may be compared to the husbandman whereof AXsop 
makes the fable ; that, when he died, told his sons that he 
had left unto them gold buried under ground in his vine- 
yard ; and they digged over all the ground, and gold they 
found none ; but by reason of their stirring and digging the 
mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great 
vintage the year following : so assuredly the search and stir 
to make gold hath brought to light a great number of good 
and fruitful inventions and experiments, as well for the 
disclosing of nature, as for the use of man’s life. 

And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given 
unto authors in sciences, in making them dictators, that 
their words should stand, and not consuls to give advice ; 
the damage is infinite that sciences have received thereby, 
as the principal cause that hath kept them low, at 
a stay without growth or advancement. For hence it hath 
come, that in arts mechanical the first deviser comes 

shortest, and time addeth and perfecteth ; but in sciences 
author goeth furthest, and time leeseth and 
. So, we see, artillery, sailing, printing, and the 

Cc 


20 


30 


34 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accom- 
modated and refined ; but contrariwise, the philosophies 
and sciences of Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, 
Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at the first and by 
time degenerate and imbased ; whereof the reason is no 
other, but that in the former many wits and industries 
have contributed in one; and in the latter many wits and 
industries have been spent about the wit of some one, 
whom many times they have rather depraved than illus- 

10 trated. For as water will not ascend higher than the level 
of the first springhead from whence it descendeth, so 
knowledge derived from Aristotle, and exempted from 
liberty of examination, will not rise again higher than the 
knowledge of Aristotle. And therefore although the posi- 
tion be good, Oportet discentem credere, [ While we are learn- 
ing we should believe,| yet it must be coupled with this, 
Oportet edoctum judicare,; [After we have learnt we should 
judge ;| for disciples do owe unto masters only a temporary 
belief, and a suspension of their own judgment until they be 

20 fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation, or per-: 
petual captivity: and therefore, to conclude this point, I 
will say no more, but so let great authors have their due, as 
time, which is the author of authors, be not deprived of his 
due, which is, further and further to discover truth. 

Thus have I gone over these three diseases of learning ; 
besides the which, there are some other rather peccant 
humours than formed diseases: which nevertheless are not 
so secret and intrinsic, but that they fall under a popular 
observation and traducement, and therefore are not to be 

30 passed over. 


The first of these is the extreme affecting of two ex-’ 
tremities: the one antiquity, the other novelty ; wherein a 
it seemeth the children of time do take after the nature 
and malice of the father. For as he devoureth his children, — 
so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the ia, 3 


THE FIRST BOOK. 35 


while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and 
novelty cannot be content to add, but it must deface: 
surely, the advice of the prophet is the true direction in 
this matter, State super vias antiquas, et videte quenam sit 
via recta et bona, et ambulate in ea: [Stand upon the ancient 
paths and see which is the straight and good road, and walk 
in it.}| Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should 
make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way ; 
but when the discovery is well taken, then to make pro- 
gression. And to speak truly, Antiquitas seeculi juventus 
mundi: [Old times were the youth of the world.| These times 
are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not 
those which we account ancient ordine retrogrado, by a com- 
putation backward from ourselves. 

Another error, induced by the former, is a distrust that 
any thing should be now to be found out, which the 
world should have missed and passed over so long time ; 
as if the same objection were to be made to time, that 
Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods; of 


puoal 


0 


which he wondereth that they begot so many children in 20 


old time, and begot none in his time; and asketh whether 
they were become septuagenary, or whether the law Papia, 
made against old men’s marriages, had restrained them. 
So it seemeth men doubt lest time is become past children 
and generation ; wherein, contrariwise, we see commonly 
the levity and inconstancy of men’s judgments, which, till 
a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and, as soon 
as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as 
we see in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at 


first was prejudged as a vast and impossible enterprise: 30 


and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more of it 
than this, Vil aliud quam bene ausus vana contemnere: [He 
simply ventured to despise idle fears:| and the same happened 

Colv bus i in the western navigation. But in intellectual 
: is much more common ; as may be seen in most of 
8 of Euclid : which till they be demonstrate, 


Ns 


10 


20 


36 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


they seem strange to our assent ; but being demonstrate, ou 
mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation (as the lawyer: 
speak) as if we had known them before. 

Another error, that hath also some affinity with the 
former, is a conceit that of former opinions or sects, afte 
variety and examination, the best hath still prevailed, anc 
suppressed the rest; so as, if a man should begin the 
labour of a new search, he were but like to light upor 
somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought 
into oblivion: as if the multitude, or the wisest for the 
multitude’s sake, were not ready to give passage rather t¢ 
that which is popular and superficial, than to that which i: 
substantial and profound; for the truth is, that time 
seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, whicl 
carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, anc 
sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid. 

Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former 
is the over early and peremptory reduction of know: 
ledge into arts and methods; from which time com. 
monly sciences receive small or no augmentation. But a: 
young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom 
grow to a further stature; so knowledge, while it is ir 
aphorisms and observations, it is in growth: but when it 
once is comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance 
be further polished and illustrated, and accommodated fon 
use and practice; but it increaseth no more in bulk andé 
substance. 

Another error which doth succeed that which we last 
mentioned, is, that after the distribution of particular arts 


30 and sciences, men have abandoned universality, or phito: 


sophia prima: [first philosophy :| which cannot but cease and 
stop all progression. For no perfect discovery can be made 
upon a flat or a level: neither is it possible to discover the 
more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but 


upon the level of the same science, and ascend not tors a 
higher science. 


THE FIRST BOOK. 37 


Another error hath proceeded from too great a rever- 
ence, and a kind of adoration of the mind and understanding 
of man ; by means whereof, men have withdrawn themselves 
too much from the contemplation of nature, and the obser- 
vations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in 
their own reason atid conceits. Upon these intellectualists, 
which are, notwithstanding, commonly taken for the most 
sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just 
censure, saying, Men sought truth in their own little worlds, 
and not in the great and common world; for they disdain 
to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of God’s 
works: and contrariwise, by continual meditation, and 
agitation of wit, do urge and as it were invocate their own 
spirits to divine, and give oracles unto them, whereby 

they are deservedly deluded. 

Another error that hath some connection with this 
latter, is, that men have used to infect their meditations, 
opinions, and doctrines, with some conceits which they have 
most admired, or some sciences which they have most 


— 


0 


applied ; and given all things else a tincture according to 20 


them, utterly untrue and improper. So hath Plato inter- 
mingled his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with 
logic ; and the second school of Plato, Proclus and the rest, 
with the mathematics. For these were the arts which had 
a kind of primogeniture with them severally. So have 
the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments 
of the furnace ; and Gilbertus, our countryman, hath made a 
philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone. So Cicero, 
when, reciting the several opinions of the nature of the soul, 
he found a musician that held the soul was but a harmony, 
saith pleasantly, Hie ab arte sua non recessit, [This man 


is Faithful to his art,] etc. But of these conceits Aristotle | 


| speaketh seriously Ke wisely, when he saith, Qu respiciunt 


‘0 consideration, find it easy to give an opinion] 
other error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to 


et 
ra « 


: ~— de facili pronunciant : [Men, who only take a few 


4. 


NU 


38 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment 
For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the tw 
ways of action, commonly Spoken of by the ancients; th 
one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the en 
impassable ; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance 
but after a while fair and even: so it is in contemplation 
if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts 
but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall en 
in certainties. 

Another error is in the manner of the tradition an 
delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistra 
and peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful ; in a sorta 
may be soonest believed, and not easiliest examined. It ; 
true, that in compendious treatises for practice, that form 1 
not to be disallowed : but in the true handling of knowledge 
men ought not to fall either, on the one side, into the vein ¢ 
Velleius the Epicurean, Vil tam metuens, quam ne dubitar 
aliqua de re videretur: [Fearing nothing so much as that | 
might seem to be in doubt about anything :| nor, on the othe 


20 side, into Socrates his ironical doubting of all things ; but t 


propound things sincerely, with more or less asseveration, a 
they stand in a man’s own judgment proved more or less. 
Other errors there are in the scope that men propoun 
to themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours ; fe 
whereas the more constant and devoted kind of professor 
of any science ought to propound to themselves to make som 
additions to their science, they convert their labours t 
aspire to certain second prizes ; as to be a profound interprete 
or commenter, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be 


30 methodical compounder or abridger, and so the patrimony « 


knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved, but seldot 
augmented. 

But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistakin 
or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge : fc 
men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledg 
sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite 


ete 


et ar 
nga 


THE FIRST BOOK. a “ine 


sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight ; 
sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to 
enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most 
times for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give 
a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use 
of men : as if there were sought in knowledge a couch, where- 
upon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a tarasse, for a 
wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with 
a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to 
raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife 10 
and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a 
rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief 
of man’s estate. But this is that which will indeed dignify | 
and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and. action. may..be. 
more nearly. and. straitly..conjoined and united together.than 
they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two 
highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, 
and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action : howbeit, 
I do not mean, when I speak of use and action, that end 
before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre and 20 
profession ; for I am not ignorant how much that diverteth 
and interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of know- _ 
ledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, 
which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the race 
is hindered ; » 
Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit : 
[She goes aside from her course, and picks up the rolling gold.] 
Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call 
philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth ; 
that is, to leave natural philosophy aside, and to apply 30 


Imowledge only to manners and policy. But as both heaven 


and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and benefit, 


of man ; so the end ought: to be, from both philosophies to 


separate and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is |. 
mi y and void, and to preserve and augment whatsoever is 
1; that knowledge may inc abasaciamie 


OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond-woman, to acquire 
and gain to her master’s use ; but as a spouse, for generation, | 
fruit, and comfort. | 
Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of 
dissection, those peccant humours, (the principal of them,) 
which have not only given impediment to the proficience 
of learning, but have given also occasion to the traducement 
thereof : wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be remem- 
bered, Fidelia vulnera amantis, sed dolosa oscula malignantis : 
10 [Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy 
are decettful.| This, I think, I have gained, that I ought to 
be the better believed in that which I shall say pertaining 
to commendation ; because I have proceeded so freely in that 
which concerneth censure. And yet I have no purpose to 
enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the 
Muses ; (though I am of opinion that it is long since their 
rites were duly celebrated :) but my intent is, without var- 
nish or amplification, justly to_weigh the dignity of know- 
ledge in the balance with other things, and to take the true 
20 value thereof by testimonies and arguments divine and 
human. 


First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge | 
in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attri- 
butes and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man, 
and may be observed with sobriety ; wherein we may not 
seek it by the name of learning ; for all learning is know- 
ledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original: and 
therefore we must look for it by another name, that. of 
wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures call it. ; 

30 It is so then, that in the work of the creation we see a 
double emanation of virtue from God ; the one referring more 
properly to power, the other to wisdom ; the one expressed 
in making the subsistence of the matter, and the other in 
disposing the beauty of the form. This being supposed, it 
is to be observed that for anything which appeareth in the 


.& 
's 


THE FIRST BOOK. 41 


history of the creation, the confused mass and matter of 
heaven and earth was made in a moment; and the order 
and disposition of that chaos or mass was the work of six 
days ; such a note of difference it pleased God to put upon 
the works of power, and the works of wisdom ; wherewith 
concurreth, that in the former it is not set down that God 
said, Let there be heaven and earth, as it is set down of 
the works following ; but actually, that God made heaven 
and earth: the one carrying the style of a manufacture, 
and the other of a law, decree, or counsel. 10 

To proceed to that which is next in order from God 
to spirits; we find, as far as credit is to be given to the 
celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius the senator of 
Athens, the first place or degree is given to the angels of love, 
which are termed seraphim ; the second to the angels of light, 
which are termed cherubim ; and the third, and so following 
places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all 
angels of power and ministry ; so as the angels of knowledge 
and illumination are placed before the angels of office and 
domination. 20... 

To descend from spirits and intellectual forms tasensible . 

é 
andmaterial forms ; we read the first form that was creategh: 
was light, which hath a relation and correspondence in 
nature and corporal things to knowledge in spirits and 
incorporal things. 

So in the distribution of days, we see, the day wherein 
God did rest, and contemplate his own works, was blessed 
above all the days wherein he did effect and accomplish 
them. 

After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us, 30 
that man was placed in the garden to work therein ; which 
work, so appointed to him, could be no other than work of 
contemplation ; that is, when the end of work is but for 
exercise and experiment, not for necessity ; for there being 
thenine, reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, 

98 must of consequence have been matter of 


49 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


delight in the experiment, and not matter of labour for the 
use. Again, the first acts which man performed in Paradise 
consisted of the two summary parts of knowledge; the view 
of creatures, and the imposition of names. As for the know- 
ledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched before, 
not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral know- 
ledge of good and evil; wherein the supposition was, that 
God’s commandments or prohibitions were not the originals 
of good and evil, but that they had other beginnings, which 

10 man aspired to know; to the end to make a total defection 
from God, and to depend wholly upon himself. 

To pass on: in the first event or occurrence after the fall 
of man, we see, (as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not 
violating at all the truth of the story or letter,) an image of 
the two estates, the contemplative state and the active state, 
figured in the two persons of Abel and Cain, and in the two 
simplest and most primitive trades of life ; that of the shep- 
herd, (who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and 
living in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative 

20 life,) and that of the husbandman: where we see again the 
favour and election of God went to the shepherd, and not to 
the tiller of the ground. 

So in the age before the flood, the holy records within 
those few memorials which are there entered and registered, 
have vouchsafed to mention and honour the name of the in- 
ventors and authors of music and works in metal. In the 
age after the flood, the first great judgment of God upon the 
ambition of man was the confusion of tongues ; whereby the 
open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was 

30 chiefly imbarred. 
To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God’s first pen : 
he is adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and com- 
mendation, That he was seen in all the learning of the 
Egyptians ; which nation, we know, was one of the most 
ancient schools of the world: for so Plato brings in the 
Egyptian priest saying unto Solon: You Grecians are ever 


THE FIRST BOOK. 43 


children ; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of 
knowledge. Take a view of the ceremonial law of Moses ; 
you shall find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the badge 
or difference of the people of God, the exercise and impression 
of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits thereof, that 
some of the most learned Rabbins have travailed profitably 
and profoundly to observe some of them a natural, some of 
them a moral, sense or reduction of many of the ceremonies 
and ordinances. As in the law of the leprosy, where it is 
said, If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient may 10 
pass abroad for clean; but if there be any whole flesh remaining, 
he ws to be shut up for unclean; one of them noteth a principle 
of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before 
maturity than after: and another noteth a position of 
moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice, do not so 
much corrupt manners, as those that are half good and half 
evil. So in this and very many other places in that law, 
there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much 
aspersion of philosophy. 

So likewise in that excellent book of Job, if it be 20 
revolved with diligence, it will be found pregnant and 
swelling with natural philosophy ; as for example, cosmo- 
graphy, and the roundness of the world, Qui extendit 
aquilonem super vacuum, et appendit terram super nihilum ; 
[He stretcheth out the North over the empty place, and hangeth 
the earth upon nothing ;| wherein the pensileness of the earth, 
the pole of the north, and the finiteness or convexity of 
heaven are manifestly touched. So again, matter of 
astronomy ; Spiritus ejus ornavit ceelos, et obstetricante manu 
ejus eductus est coluber tortuosus: [By his spirit he hath 30 
garnished the heavens : his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.] 
And in another place ; Vunquid conjungere valebis micantes 
stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare ? [Canst 
thou bring together the glittering stars of the Pleiades, or 
scatter the array of Arcturus 2} Where the fixing of the stars, 
. at uae distance, i is with great elegancy noted. 


li —ess— 


( 


44 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


And in another place, Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et 
Hyadas, et interiora Austri; [who maketh Arcturus, Orion, and 
Hyades, and the secrets of the South ;] where again he takes 
knowledge of the depression of the southern pole, calling it 
the secrets of the south, because the southern stars were in 
that climate unseen. Matter of generation ; Annon sicut lac 
mulsist’ me, et sicut caseum coagulasti me? [Hast thou not 
poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese ?| ete. 
Matter of minerals; //abet argentum venarum suarum 
) principia: et auro locus est in quo conflatur, ferrum de 
terra tollitur, et lapis solutus calore in ws vertitur: [Surely 
there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold 
where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and 
brass is molten out of the stone:] and so forwards in that 
chapter. 

So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see 
the gift or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in 
Solomon's petition, and in God’s assent thereunto, preferred 
before all other terrene and temporal felicity. By virtue of 


20 which grant or donative of God Solomon became enabled, not 


only to write those excellent parables, or aphorisms concern- 
ing divine and moral philosophy ; but also to compile a 


natural history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the moun- 


tain to the moss upon the wall, (which is but a rudiment 
between putrefaction and an herb,) and also of all things that 
breathe or move. Nay, the same Solomon the king, although 
he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, 
of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of 
fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to 


30 any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of 


truth ; for so he saith expressly, The glory of God is to conceal 
a thing, but the glory of the king is to find tt out ; as if, accord- 
ing to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took 
delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found 
out ; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than 


to be God’s playfellows in that game ; considering the great — 


a ae 
ee 


THE FIRST BOOK. 45 


commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing needeth 
to be hidden from them. 

Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times 
after our Saviour came into the world ; for our Saviour him- 
self did first show his power to subdue ignorance, by his 
conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before he 
showed his power to subdue nature by his miracles. And 
the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and ex- 
pressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but 
vehicula scientie : [the carriers of knowledge. | 

So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased 
God to use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding 
that at the first he did employ persons altogether unlearned, 
otherwise than by inspiration, more evidently to declare his 
immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom or know- 
ledge ; yet, nevertheless, that counsel of his was no sooner 
performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession he did 
send his divine truth into the world, waited on with other 
learnings, as with servants or handmaids: for so we see 
St. Paul, who was the only learned amongst the Apostles, 
had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New 
Testament. 

So again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and 
fathers of the Church were excellently read, and studied in 
all the learning of the heathen ; insomuch, that the edict of 
the Emperor Julianus, whereby it was interdicted unto 
Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or exercises 
of learning, was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious 
engine and machination against the Christian Faith, than 


20 


were all the sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors ; 30 


neither could the emulation and jealousy of Gregory the first 
of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever obtain the opinion of 
piety or devotion ; but contrariwise received the censure of 


humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy 


nat he designed to obliterate and extinguish the 
athen antiquity and authors. But contrariwise, 


~ 


46 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


it was the Christian Church, which, amidst the inundations 
of the Scythians on the one side from the north-west, and 
the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred lap and 
bosom thereof, the precious relics even of heathen learning, 
which otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing 
had ever been. : 
And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves 
and our fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of 
Rome to account for their degenerate manners and cere- 
monies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious, and framed to up- 
hold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was 
ordained by the Divine Providence, that there should attend 
withal a renovation and new spring of all other knowledges ; 
and, on the other side we see the Jesuits, (who partly in 
themselves, and partly by the emulation and provocation of 
their example, have much quickened and strengthened the 
state of learning,) we see, I say, what notable service and 
reparation they have done to the Roman see. 
Whereof, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that 
20 there be two principal duties and services, besides ornament 
and illustration, which philosophy and human learning do 
perform to faith and religion, The one, because they are an 
effectual inducement to the exaltation of the glory of God : 
for as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite us to 
consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God ; 
so if we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior 
of them, as they first offer themselves to our senses, we 
should do a like injury unto the majesty of God, as if we 
should judge or construe of the store of some excellent 
30 jeweller, by that only which is set out toward the street in 
his shop. The other, because they minister a singular help 
and preservative against unbelief and error : for our Saviour 
saith, You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of 
God ; laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we 
will be secured-from error ; first, the Scriptures, revealing 3 


the will of God; and then the creatures expressing we 


oe 


1¢ 


a 


THE FIRST BOOK. 47 


power ; whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not 
only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of 
the Scriptures, by the general notions of reason and rules of 
“speech ; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a 
due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly 
signed and engraven upon his works. Thus much therefore 
’ for divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity 
and value of learning. 


As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as, in a discourse 
of this nature and brevity, it is fit rather to use choice 
of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace 
the variety of them. First, therefore, in the degrees 
of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the highest to 
obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto 
the Christians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now 
separately of human testimony: according to which, that 
which the Grecians call apotheosis, and the Latins relatio inter 
divos, [detfication,| was the supreme honour which man could 
attribute unto man: especially when it was given, not by a 
formal decree or act of state, as it was used among the Roman 
emperors, but by an inward assent and belief. Which 
honour, being so high, had also a degree or middle term : for 
there were reckoned, above human honours, honours heroical 
and divine: in the attribution and distribution of which 
honours, we see, antiquity made this difference : that whereas 

founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers 
_ of tyrants, fathers of the peopie, and other eminent persons 
in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies 
or demi-gods; such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, 
- Romulus, ‘and the like: on the other side, such as were 
inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and com- 
- modities towards man’s life, were ever consecrated amongst 
F. the ‘gods themselves ; as were Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, 


ithin the ere of an age or a nation ; and is like 


30 


and others : aiad justly ; for the merit of the former. 


48 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and good, 
yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground 
where they fall ; but the other is indeed like the benefits of 
heaven, which are permanent and universal. The former, 
again, is mixed with strife and perturbation ; but the latter 
hath the true character of Divine Presence ; coming in aura 
leni, [with gentle breath,| without noise or agitation. 

Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in 
repressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, 


10 much inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities which 


arise from nature ; which merit was lively set forth by the 
ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus’ theatre, where 
all beasts and birds assembled ; and, forgetting their several 
appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood 
all sociably together listening to the airs and accords of the 
harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned 
by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own 
nature: wherein is aptly described the jhature and condition 
of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, of 


20 profit, of lust, of revenge ; which as long as they give ear to 


3 


=~ 


precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence 
and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long: is 
society and peace maintained ; but if these instruments be 
silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, 
all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion. | 
But this appeareth more manifestly, when kings them- 
selves, or persons of authority under them, or other governors 
in commonwealths and popular estates, are endued with 
learning. For although he might be thought partial to his 
own profession, that said, Then should people and estates be 
happy, when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers 
kings; yet so much is verified by experience, that under 
learned princes and governors there have been ever the best 
times ; for howsoever kings may have their imperfections in 
their passions and customs; yet, if they be illuminate by 
learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and 


THE FIRST BOOK. 49 


morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all 
ruinous and peremptory errors and excesses; whispering 
evermore in their ears, when counsellors and servants stand 
mute and silent. And senators or counsellors likewise, 
which be learned, do proceed upon more safe and substantial 
principles, than counsellors which are only men of experience ; 
the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other dis- 
cover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to 
the agility of their wit to ward off or avoid them. 

Which felicity of times under learned princes, (to keep 10 
still the law of brevity, by using the most eminent and 
selected examples,) doth best appear in the age which passed 
from the death of Domitian the emperor until the reign of 
Commodus ; comprehending a succession of six princes, all 
learned, or singular. favourers and advancers of learning ; 
which age, for temporal respects, was the most happy and 
flourishing that ever the Roman empire (which then was a 
model of the world) enjoyed: a matter revealed and pre- 
figured unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was 
slain; for he thought there was grown behind upon his 20 
shoulders a neck and a head of gold: which came accordingly 
to pass in those golden times which succeeded: of which 
princes we will make some commemoration ; wherein although 
the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter for a 
declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, 
yet because it is pertinent to the point in hand, Vegue semper 
arcum tendit Apollo, [And Apollo is not always stretching his 
bow,] and to name them only were too naked and cursory, 
I will not omit it altogether. The first was Nerva; the 

excellent temper of whose government is by a glance in 30 
Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life: Postquam divus Nerva 
res olim insociabiles miscuisset, imperium et libertatem.; [| When 
the divine Nerva had reconciled things which did not go to- 

r before, namely, authority and liberty.| And in token 
g, the last act of his short reign, left to memory, 
‘ his adopted son Trajan, proceeding upon 


10 


50 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, 
comprehended in a verse of Homer's : 

Telis, Phebe, tuis lacrymas uleiscere nostras : 

[O Phebus, by thy shafts avenge these tears.] 

Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned : 
but if we will hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that 
saith, He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, 
shall have a prophet’s reward, he deserveth to be placed 
amongst the most learned princes: for there was not a 
greater admirer of learning, or benefactor of learning; a 
founder of famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned 
men to office, and a familiar converser with learned professors 
and preceptors, who were noted to have then most credit in 
court. On the other side, how much Trajan’s virtue and 
government was admired and renowned, surely no testimony 
of grave and faithful history doth more livelily set forth, 
than that legend tale of Gregorius Magnus, bishop of Rome, 
who was noted for the extreme envy he bore towards all 
heathen excellency ; and yet he is reported, out of the love 
and estimation of Trajan’s moral virtues, to have made unto 
God passionate and fervent prayers for the delivery of his 
soul out of hell; and to have obtained it, with a caveat that 
he should make no more such petitions. In this prince’s 
time also, the persecutions against the Christians received 
intermission, upon the certificate of Plinius Secundus, a man 
of excellent learning, and by Trajan advanced. 

Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that lived, 
and the most universal inquirer ; insomuch as it was noted 
for an error in his mind, that he desired to comprehend all 


30 things, and not to reserve himself for the worthiest things : 


falling into the like humour that was long before noted 
in Philip of Macedon ; who, when he would needs over-rule 
and put down an excellent musician in an argument touching 
music, was well answered by him again, God forbid, sir, saith 
he, that your fortune should be so bad, as to know these things 


better than I. It pleased God likewise to use the curiosity 


THE FIRST BOOK. 51 


of this emperor as an inducement to the peace of his Church 
in those days. For having Christ in veneration, not as a God 
or Saviour, but as a wonder or novelty; and having his 
picture in his gallery, matched with Apollonius, with whom, 
in his vain imagination, he thought he had some conformity ; 
yet it served the turn to allay the bitter hatred of those 
times against the Christian name, so as the church had peace 
during his time. And for his government civil, although he 
did not attain to that of Trajan’s in glory of arms, or 
perfection of justice, yet in deserving of the weal of the 10 
subject he did exceed him. For Trajan erected many 
famous monuments and buildings ; insomuch as Constantine 
the Great in emulation was wont to call him Parvetaria, 
(wall flower), because his name was upon so many walls : 
but his buildings and works were more of glory and triumph 
than use and necessity. But Adrian spent his whole reign, 
which was peaceable, in a perambulation or survey of the 
Roman empire ; giving order, and making assignation where 
he went, for re-edifying of cities, towns, and forts decayed ; 
and for cutting of rivers and streams, and for making 20 
bridges and passages, and for policying of cities and 
commonalties with new ordinances and constitutions, and 
granting new franchises and incorporations; so that his 
whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and 
decays of former times. 

Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince ex- 
cellently learned; and had the patient and subtle wit of 
a schoolman ; insomuch as in common speech, which leaves 
no virtue untaxed, he was called Cymini Sector, (a carver or 
divider of cummin,) which is one of the least seeds; such 30 
a patience he had and settled spirit, to enter into the least 
and most exact differences of causes ; a fruit no doubt of the 
exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind; which 
being no ways charged or incumbered, either with fears, 
_ remorses, or scruples, but having been noted for a man of 
Sodgam —— without all fiction or affectation, that 


10 


2 


3 


7d 
— 


=~ 


52 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


hath reigned or lived, made his mind continually present 
and entire. He likewise approached a degree nearer unto 
Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto St. Paul, 
half a Christian; holding their religion and law in good 
opinion, and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way 
to the advancement of Christians. 

There succeeded him the first Divi fratres, [Divine 
brothers, the two adoptive brethren, Lucius Commodus 
Verus, (son to Elius Verus, who delighted much in the 
softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the poet 
Martial his Virgil,) and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ; 
whereof the latter, who obscured his colleague and survived 
him long, was named the Philosopher: who, as he excelled 


all the rest in learning, so he excelled them likewise in - 


perfection of all royal virtues; insomuch as Julianus the 
emperor, in his book intitled Casares, beng as a pasquin 
or satire to deride all his predecessors, feigned that they 
were all invited to a banquet of the gods, and Silenus the 
jester sat at the nether end of the table, and bestowed a 
scoff on every one as they came in; but when Marcus 
Philosophus came in, Silenus was gravelled, and ont of 
countenance, not knowing where to carp at him; save at 
the last he gave a glance at his patience towards his wife. 
And the virtue of this prince, continued with that of his 
predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the 
world, that though it were extremely dishonoured in 
Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, who all bore the 
name, yet when Alexander Severus refused the name, 
because he was a stranger to the family, the senate with one 
acclamation said, Quomodo Augustus, sic et Antoninus: [Let 
the name of Antoninus be as the name of Augustus.| In such 
renown and veneration was the name of these two princes, 
in those days, that they would have had it as a perpetual 
addition in all the emperor's styles. In this emperor’s times 
also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as in 
this sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of 


THE FIRST BOOK. 53 


learning in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table 
of the world. 

But for a tablet, or picture of smaller volume, (not 
presuming to speak of your Majesty that liveth,) in my 
judgment the most excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth, 
your immediate predecessor in this part of Britain ; a prince 
that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels, 
would trouble him, I think, to find for her a_ parallel 
amongst women. This lady was endued with learning in 
her sex singular, and rare even amongst masculine princes ; 
whether we speak of learning, language, or of science, 
modern or ancient, divinity or humanity : and unto the very 
last year of her life she was accustomed to appoint set hours 
for reading, scarcely any young student in a university more 
daily, or more duly. As for her government, I assure my- 
self, I shall not exceed, if I do affirm that this part of the 
island never had forty-five years of better times; and yet 
not through the calmness of the season, but through the 
wisdom of her regiment. For if there be considered of the 
one side, the truth of religion established, the constant peace 
and security, the good administration of justice, the tem- 
perate use of the prerogative, not slackened, nor much 
strained, the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so 
excellent a patroness, the convenient estate of wealth and 
means, both of crown and subject, the habit of obedience, 
and the moderation of discontents ; and there be considered 
on the other side the differences of religion, the troubles of 
neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain, and opposition 
of Rome ; and then, that she was solitary and of herself: 


20 


these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an 30 


instance so recent and so proper, so, I suppose, I could not 
have chosen one more remarkable or eminent to the purpose 


zag hath ee ali influence baa operation only 
civil merit and moral virtue, and the arts or tempera- 


54 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


ture of peace and peaceable government; but likewise it 
hath no less power and efficacy in enablement towards 
martial and military virtue and prowess ; as may be notably 
represented in the examples of Alexander the Great, and 
Cresar the Dictator, mentioned before, but now in fit place 
to be resumed ; of whose virtues and acts in war there needs 
no note or recital, having been the wonders of time in that 
kind: but of their affections towards learning, and perfec- 
tions in learning, it is pertinent to say somewhat. 

10 Alexander was bred and taught under’ Aristotle the 
great philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of 
philosophy unto him: he was attended with Callisthenes 
and divers other learned persons, that followed him in camp, 
throughout his journeys and conquests. What price and 
estimation he had learning in doth notably appear in these 
three particulars: first, in the envy he used to express that 
he bore towards Achilles, in this, that he had so good a 
trumpet of his praises as Homer's verses: secondly, in the 
judgment or solution he gave touching that precious cabinet 

20 of Darius, which was found among his jewels; whereof 
question was made what thing was worthy to be put into it; 
and he gave his opinion for Homer’s works : thirdly, in his 
letter to Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of nature, 
wherein he expostulated with him for publishing the secrets 
or mysteries of philosophy ; and gave him to understand 
that himself esteemed it more to excel other men in learning 
and knowledge than in power and empire. And what use 
he had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his 
speeches and answers, being full of science, and use of 

30 science, and that in all variety. 

And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and 
somewhat idle, to recite things that every man knoweth ; but 
yet, since the argument I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am 
glad that men shall perceive I am as willing to flatter, if they 
will so call it, an Alexander, or a Cesar, or an Antoninus, 
that are dead many hundred years since, as any that now 


THE FIRST BOOK. 55 


liveth : for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in 
sovereignty that I propound to myself, and not a humour of 
declaiming in any man’s praises. Observe then the speech 
he used of Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state of 
one of the greatest questions of moral philosophy ; whether 
the enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of them, 
be the greatest happiness: for when he saw Diogenes so 
perfectly contented with so little, he said to those that 
mocked at his condition, Were I not Alexander, I would wish 
to be Diogenes. But Seneca inverteth it, and saith: Plus 10 

erat quod hic nollet accipere quam quod ille posset dure. (There 
were more things which Diogenes would have refused, than those 
were which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.) 

Observe again that speech which was usual with him, 
That he felt his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust ; 
and see if it were not a speech extracted out of the depth of 
natural philosophy, and liker to have come out of the mouth 
of Aristotle or Democritus, than from Alexander. 

_ See again that speech of humanity and poesy ; when upon 
the bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of 20 
his flatterers, that was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, 
and said, Look, this is very blood ; this is not such a liquor as 
Homer speaketh of, which ran from Venus’ hand, when it was 
prerced by Diomedes. 

See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic, in 
the speech he used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was 
made against his father Antipater: for when Alexander 
happened to say, Do you think these men would have come 
from so far to complain, except they had just cause of grief? 
and Cassander answered, Yea, that was the matter, because 30 
they thought they: should not be disproved. Said Alexander 
laughing : See the subtilties of Aristotle, to take a matter both 
ways, pro et contra, [ for and against,| etc. 

_ But note again how well he could use the same art, 

which he reprehended, to serve his own humour: when 
bearing a secret, grudge to Callisthenes, because he was 


syeeS 


56 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


against the new ceremony of his adoration, feasting one night 
where the same Callisthenes was at the table, it was moved by 
some after supper, for entertainment sake, that Callisthenes, 
who was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or 
purpose, at his own choice : which Callisthenes did : choosing 
the praise of the Macedonian nation for his discourse, and 
performing the same with so good manner, as the hearers 
were much ravished: whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased, 
said, /¢ was easy to be eloquent upon so good a subject. But, 
saith he, turn your style, and let us hear what you can say 
against us: which Callisthenes presently undertook, and did 
with that sting and life, that Alexander interrupted him, 
and said, The goodness of the cause made him eloquent before, 
and deste made him eloquent then again. 

Consider further, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent 
use of a metaphor or translation, wherewith he taxed Anti- 
pater, who was an imperious and tyrannous governor: for 
when one of Antipater’s friends commended him to Alexander 
for his moderation, that he did not degenerate, as his other 
20 lieutenants did, into the Persian pride, in use of purple, but 

kept the ancient habit of Macedon, of black ; True, saith 
Alexander, but Antipater is all purple within. Or that other, 
when Parmenio came to him in the plain 

showed him the innumerable ails ms ss 

especially as they appeared by the infinite number of lights, 

“ it nae been a na Rennie of stars, and thereupon 

advised him to assail them by night: wh 

That he would not steal the a neki 

For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, 

30 so much in all ages embraced, that he made between his two 

friends, Hepheestion and Craterus, when he said, That the one 

loved Alexander, and the other loved the king: describing the 

principal difference of princes’ best servants, that some 

in affection love their person, and others in duty love their 
crown. : 


Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error, ordinary 


1 


=~ 
~- 


f f 


3 


Hd 
THE FIRST BOOK. 57 


-with counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters 
according to the model of their own mind and fortune, and 
not of their masters’; when, upon Darius’s great offers, 
Parmenio had said, Surely [ would accept these offers, were I as 
Alexander ; saith Alexander, So would I, were I as Parmenio. 

Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply, which he made 
when he gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, 
and was asked what he did reserve for himself, and he 
answered, Hope: weigh, I say, whether he had not cast 
up his account aright, because hope must be the portion of all 10 
that resolve upon great enterprises. For this was Ceesar’s 
portion when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then 
utterly overthrown with largesses. And this was likewise 
the portion of that noble prince, howsoever transported with 
ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was usually said, 
that he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had 
turned all his estate into obligations. 

To conclude, therefore: as certain critics are used to 
say hyperbolically, That if all sciences were lost they might be 
found in Virgil! so certainly this may be said truly, there 20 
are the prints and footsteps of learning in those few speeches 
which are reported of this prince: the admiration-of whom, 
when I consider him not as Alexander the Great, but as 
Aristotle’s scholar, hath carried me too far. 

As for Julius Cesar, the excellency of his learning 
needeth not to be argued from his education, or his company, 
or his speéches ; but in a further degree doth declare itself in 
his writings and works ; whereof some are extant and per- 
manent, and some unfortunately perished. For, first, we 
see, there is left unto us that excellent history of his own 30 
wars, which he intitled only a Commentary, wherein all 
succeeding times have admired the solid weight of matter, 
and the real passages and lively images of actions and 
ee expressed in the greatest propriety of words and 
ii ob narration that ever was ; which that it was 


58 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


is well witnessed by that work of his, intitled, De Analogia, 

[On Analoegy,| being a grammatical philosophy, wherein he 

did labour to make this same vor ad placitum [conventional 

speech] to become vox ad licitum, [correct speech,| and to 

reduce custom of speech to congruity of speech ; and took, as 
it were, the pictures of words from the life of reason. 

So we receive from him, as a monument both of his 
power and learning, the then reformed computation of the 
year ; well expressing that he took it to be as great a glory 
to himself to observe and know the law of the heavens, as 
to give law to men upon the earth. 

So likewise in that book of his, Anti-Cato, it may easily 
appear that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as 
victory of war: undertaking therein a conflict against the 
greatest champion with the pen that then lived, Cicero the 
orator. 

So again in this book of Apophthegms, which he collected, 
we see that he esteemed it more honour to make 
himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy 
20 words of others, than to have every word of his own to be 

made an apophthegm or an oracle: as vain princes, by 
custom of flattery, pretend to do. And yet if I should 
enumerate divers of his speeches, as I did those of Alex- 
ander, they are truly such as Solomon noteth, when he 
saith, Verba sapientum tanquam aculei, et tanquam clavi in 
atum defizi: [The words of the wise are as goads and as 
nails driven deep in:| whereof I will only recite three, not 
so delectable for elegancy, but admirable for vigour and 
efficacy. 

30 As, first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, 
that could with one word appease a mutiny in his 
army, which was thus: The Romans, when their generals 
did speak to their army, did use the word Milites, [Soldiers,] 
but when the magistrates spake to the people, they did use 
the word, Quirites, [Citizens.| The soldiers were in tumult, 
and seditiously prayed to be cashiered; not that they so 


] 


— 


THE FIRST BOOK. 59 


meant, but by expostulation thereof to draw Cesar to other 
conditions ; wherein he being resolute not to give way, after 
some silence, he began his speech, Ego, Quirites, [J, citizens, | 
which did admit them already cashiered ; wherewith they 
were so surprised, crossed, and confused, as they would not 
suffer him to go on in his speech, but relinquished their 
demands, and made it their suit to be again called by the 
name of Milites : [Soldiers.] 

The second speech was thus: Cesar did extremely 
affect the name of king; and some were set on, as he 10 
passed by, in popular acclamation to salute him king: 
whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off 
thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname ; 
Non Rex sum, sed Cesar; [I am not King, but Cesar ;| a 
speech, that if it be searched, the life and fulness of it can 
scarce be expressed : for, first, it was a refusal of the name, 
but yet not serious: again, it did signify an infinite con- 
fidence and magnanimity, as if he presumed Cesar was the 
greater title ; as by his worthiness it is come to pass till 
this day: but chiefly it was a speech of great allurement 20 
toward his own purpose ; as if the state did strive with him 
but for a name, whereof mean families were vested; for 
Rex [King] was a surname with the Romans, as well as Aing 
is with us. 

The last speech which I will mention, was used to 
Metellus; when Cesar, after war declared, did possess 
himself of the city of Rome; at which time entering into 
the inner treasury to take the money there accumulate, 
Metellus, being tribune, forbade him: whereto Cesar said, 
That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place. 30 
And presently taking himself up, he added, Adolescens, 
durius est mihi hoe dicere quam facere: [Young man, it ts 

_ harder for me to speak it than to do tt.] A speech compounded 
of the greatest terror and greatest clemency that could pro- 
ceed out of the mouth of man. 

But to return and conclude with him; it is evident, 


l 


~~ 


20 


3 


— 


) 


60 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


himself knew well his own perfection in learning, and took 
it upon him; as appeared when, upon occasion that some 
spake what a strange resolution it was in Lucius Sylla to 
resign his dictature; he scoffing at him, to his own advan- 
tage, answered, That Sylla could not skill of letters, and there- 
fore knew not how to dictate. 

And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the 
concurrence of military virtue and learning, for what 
example would come with any grace after those two of 
Alexander and Cvsar? were it not in regard of the rare- 
ness of circumstance, that I find in one other particular, 
as that which did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to 
extreme wonder; and it is of Xenophon the philosopher, 
who went from Socrates’ school into Asia, in the expedition 
of Cyrus the younger, against king Artaxerxes. This 
Xenonhon at that time was very young, and never had 
seen the wars before; neither had any command in the 
army, but only followed the war as a voluntary, for the 
love and conversation of Proxenus his friend. He was 
present when Falinus came in message from the great king 
to the Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field, 
and they a handful of men left to themselves in the midst 
of the king’s territories, cut off from their country by 
many navigable rivers, and many hundred miles. The 
message imported, that they should deliver up their arms, 
and submit themselves to the king’s merey. To which 
message before answer was made, divers of the army 
conferred familiarly with Falinus: and amongst the rest 
Xenophon happened to say, Why, Falinus, we have now but 
these two things left, our arms and our virtue ; and if we yield 
up our arms, how shall we make use of our virtue? Whereto 
Falinus, smiling on him, said, Jf J be not deceived, young 
gentleman, you are an Athenian; and I believe you study 
philosophy, and it is pretty that you say: but you are much 
abused, if you think your virtue can withstand the king’s 
power. Here was the scorn; the wonder followed: which | 


THE FIRST BOOK. 61 


was, that this young scholar, or philosopher, after all the 
captains were murdered in parley by treason, conducted 
those ten thousand foot, through the heart of all the king’s 
high countries, from Babylon to Grecia in safety, in 
despite of all the king’s forces, to the astonishment of the 
world, and the encouragement of the Grecians in times 
succeeding to make invasion upon the kings of Persia: as 
was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian, attempted by 
Agesilaus the. Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the 
Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that young 
scholar. 


To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral 
and private virtue: first, it is an assured truth, which is 
contained in the verses : 

Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, 
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros: 
[Without doubt a faithful study of the liberal arts 
Softens and humanises the character. 
It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and _fierceness 
of men’s minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon 
fideliter: [ faithful :| for a little superficial learning doth 
rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, 
temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts 
and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons 
on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits 
of the mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and 
tried. -It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which 
___ is the root of all weakness : for all things are admired either 
) because they are new, or because they are great. For novelty, 
no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, 
but will find that printed in his heart, Nil novi super terram: 
[There is nothing new on the earth.) Neither can any man 
marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, 
and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as 


20 


30 


ees after that he was used to great armies, — 


] 


~ 
~ 


20 


30 


62 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


cd 


and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, 
when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights and 
services there, which were commonly for a passage, or a 
fort, or some walled town at the most, he said, /¢ seemed to 
him, that he was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the mice, 
that the old tales went of. So certainly, if a man meditate 
much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with 
men upon it, (the divineness of souls except,) will not seem 
much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, 
and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to- 
and-fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth 
fear of death, or adverse fortune ; which is one of the greatest 
impediments of virtue, and imperfections of manners. For if 
a man’s mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of 
the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily 
concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a 
woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken ; 


and went forth the next day and saw a woman weeping for - 


her son that was dead : and thereupon said, Heri vidi fragilem 
frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori: [Yesterday I saw a brittle 
thing broken, to-day a mortal dead.| And therefore Virgil 
did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of 
causes and the conquest of all fears together, as Concomitantia: 
[concomitants. | 

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 

Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum 

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari : 

[Happy the man who doth the causes know 

Of all that is: serene he stands, above 

All fears ; above the inexorable fate, 

And that insatiate gulf that roars below. 

It were too long to go over the particular remedies 

which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind 3 
sometimes purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the 


obstructions, sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increas- 


ing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations 


— 


THE FIRST BOOK. 63 


thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will conclude with 
that which hath rationem totius ; [the essence of the whole ;] 
which is, that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not 
to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be 
capable and susceptible of growth and reformation. For the 
unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, - 
or to call himself to account ; nor the pleasure of suaviss’ma 
vita, indies sentire se fier’ meliorem: [that most pleasant life, 
feeling one’s self grow better every day.| The good parts he 
hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them 10 
dexterously, but not much to increase them : the faults he 
hath he will learn how to hide and colour them, but not 
much 'to amend them : like an ill mower, that mows on still, 
and never whets his scythe. Whereas with the learned man 
it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction 
and amendment of his mind with the use and employment 
thereof. Nay further, in general and in sum, certain it is 
that Veritas [Truth] and Bonitas [Goodness] differ but as the 
seal andthe print : for Truth prints Goodness ; and they be 
the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions 20 
and perturbations. 

From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and 
commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be 
any comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth 
and crowneth man’s nature. We see the dignity of the com- 
mandment is according to the dignity of the commanded : to 
have commandment over beasts, as herdmen have, is a thing he 
contemptible ; to have commandment over children, as school- 
masters have, is a matter of small honour ; to have command- 
ment over galley-slaves is a disparagement rather than an 30 
honour. Neither is the commandment of tyrants much 
better, over people which have put offthe generosity of their 
minds : and therefore it was ever holden that honours in free 
_ monarchies and commonwealths had a sweetness more than 
in tyrannies; because the commandment extendeth more 

r the wills of men, and not only over their deeds and 


~ 


64 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


services. And therefore, when Virgil putteth himself forth 
to attribute to Augustus Cesar the best of human honours, 
he doth it in these words : 
Victorque volentes 

Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo. 

[Moving ta conquest onward, at his will 

To willing peoples he gives laws, and shapes 

Through worthiest deeds on earth his course to Heaven.] 
3ut yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than 


10 the commandment over the will; for it is a commandment 


20 


3 


over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is 
the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will 
itself : for there is no power on earth which setteth up a 
throne or chair of state in the spirits and souls of men, and 
in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but 
knowledge and learning. And therefore we see the detestable 
and extreme pleasure that arch-heretics, and false prophets, 
and impostors are transported with, when they once find in 
themselves that they have a superiority in the faith and 
conscience of men ; so great, that, if they have once tasted of 
it, it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make 
them relinquish or abandon it. Butas this is that which the 
author of the Revelation calleth the depth or profoundness of 
Satan: so by argument of contraries, the just and lawful 
sovereignty over men’s understanding, by force of truth 
rightly interpreted, is that which approacheth nearest to the 
similitude of the divine rule. ‘ 

As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of 
learning is not so confined to give fortune only to states 
and commonwealths, as it doth not likewise give fortune. to 
particular persons. For it was well noted long ago, that 
Homer hath given more men their livings, than either Sylla, 
or Cesar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding their great 


largesses and donatives, and distributions of lands to so many 


legions ; and no doubt it is hard to say, whether arms or 
learning have advanced greater numbers, And in case of 


Ree 
—— 


« 


THE FIRST BOOK. 65 


sovereignty we see, that if arms or descent have carried away 
the kingdom, yet learning hath carried the priesthood, which 
ever hath been in some competition with empire. 

Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and 
learning, it far surpasseth all other in nature : for, shall the 
pleasures of the affections so exceed the pleasure of the 
senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory ex- 
ceedeth a song or a dinner? and must not, of consequence, 
the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the 
pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures 10 
there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure 
departeth ; which showeth well they be but deceits of 
pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty 
which pleased, and not the quality : and therefore we see 
that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn 
melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satis- 
faction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable ; and 
therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without 
fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy 
and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet 20 
Lucretius describeth elegantly, 


SUAVE MARI MAGNO, TURBANTIBUS ZQUORA VENTIS, etc. 


It is a view of delight, saith he, to stand or walk upon the 

shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea ; or 

tobe in a@ fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a 

plain; butit is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man 

to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth ; and 

from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, 
labours, and wanderings up and down of other men. 


Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning 30 
man excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts ; 
that by learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their 
» motions, where in body he cannot come, and the like ; let us 
conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and 

in am me. ‘Whereunto man’s nature doth most aspire, 


65 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


which is immortality or continuance: for to this tendeth | 
ceneration, and raising of houses and families ; to this tend 
buildings, foundations, and monuments ; to this tendeth the 
desire of memory, fame, and celebration, and in effect the 
strength of all other human desires. We see then how far 
the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than 
the monuments of power or of the hands. For have not the 
verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or 
more, Without the loss of a syllable or letter ; during which | 
10time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been 
decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the 
true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Czesar; no, 
nor of the kings or great personages of much later years ; for 
the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but lose of 
the life and truth. But the images of men’s wits and know- 
ledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, 
and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly 
to be called images, because they generate still, and cast 
their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing 
20 infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages : so that if the 
invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth 
riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth 
the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how 
much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass 
through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to 
participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the 
one of the other? Nay further, we see, some of the phil- 
osophers which were least divine, and most immersed in the 
senses, and denied generally the immortality of the soul, yet 
30 came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man 
could act and perform without the organs of the body, they 
thought, might remain after death, which were only those of 
the understanding, and not of the affections ; so immortal and 
incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to be. 
But we, that know by divine revelation, that not only the 
understanding but the affections purified, not only the spirit. 


| 


THE FIRST BOOK. 67 


but the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, 
do disclaim in these rudiments of the senses. But it must 
be remembered both in this last point, and so it may likewise 
be needful in other places, that in probation of the dignity of 
knowledge or learning, I did in the beginning separate divine 
testimony from human, which method I have pursued, and so 
handled them both apart. 

Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be 


impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the 


judgment, either of AXsop’s cock, that preferred the barley- 
corn before the gem; orof Midas, that being chosen judge 
between Apollo president of the Muses, and Pan god of the 
flocks, judged for plenty ; or of Paris, that judged for beauty 
and love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, 
Occidat matrem, modo imperet, | Let him kill his mother, provided 
that he become Emperor,| that preferred empire with any con- 
dition never so detestable; or of Ulysses, Qu vetulam 
pretulit immortalitati, (who preferred an old woman to im- 
mortality,| being a figure of those which prefer custom and 


—_ 


0 


habit before all excellency; or of a number of the like 20 


popular judgments. For these things continue as they have 
been : but so will that also continue whereupon learning hath 
ever relied, and which faileth not: Justificata est sapientia a 
Jiliis suis [| Wisdom is justified by her children.| 


' 


{Lia 


to s2out vin 

bis [advonoorr-os ./ ¥ 
Bde ‘exailt ot tir’ mos 

wad yloo-dow Jédt .colis! 
thin e out vito. dom boitirey 


NOTES. 


(N.B.—The letters E., J. S., and W. show that the notes to 
which they are appended are borrowed from Mr. Ellis, Mr. 
Spedding, and Mr. Wright, to all of whom I am much indebted. 
The references to Bk. 2 are to my own edition. ] 


Pages 1-4. Dedication to the king. By the law of Moses 
there were certain daily sacrifices which every Jew was obliged 
to offer to God ; but, besides these, pious individuals might make 
volui.tary offerings according to their ability. In like manner 
subjects may make voluntary offerings to their sovereign, over — 
and above the services which they owe to him as subjects. 
Considering the largeness of the king’s intellect, his eloquence, 
and above all, his great learning, Bacon thinks that he cannot 
offer him a more appropriate present than a book which shall 
set forth the dignity of learning, and shall contain an account 
of what has been already done, and what still remains to be 
done, for the advancement of learning. Such a book will serve 
as a perpetual testimony to the merits of the king, and the 
perusal of it will, Bacon hopes, incite the king to take such 
measures as, in his wisdom, he shall think most fit to promote | 
learning. 

James’s flatterers used to call him the British Solomon. He was 
a bad king and wanted the qualities which make a man successful 
in action; but he was a man of great natural sagacity, and was 
eminent for his learning even amongst the learned men of his | 
time. Macaulay talks of him as ‘‘a witty and well-read scholar,” 
and Lingard P 
of judgment, 
affectation. 


{pace 1.] ‘ NOTES. 69 


exaggerated panegyric without a smile. Bacon, however, cer- 
tainly understood what would please the king better than we can 
do, and we must attribute his compliments to his earnest desire 
to attract the attention and obtain the 4 nes. 
“Bacon’s_great object was to abolish the old learning altogether, 


n institute the study of experimental philosophy in its place, 
This was a project anich the king, trained as he was in the old 


learning, could hardly be expected to favour. But a survey of 
the existing stock of knowledge, which is given in the Advance- 
mént, was a necessary preliminary to reform, and might be 


expected to interest the king very much. Ultimately, no doubt, 
Bacon hoped to enlist James’s sympathy in favour of the larger 
schemes which he was meditating. See Spedding’s Francis 
rie and his ead 1—426. Bacon had also another motive 
for flattering and conciliating the king. H ped _to obtain 


e ho 
from him the promotion for which he had striven with such 
small success under Elizabeth. Perhaps the best known picture 
of King James is that drawn by Sir Walter Scott in his Fortunes 
of Nigel. 
Page 1,1. 2. proceeding upon ordinary observance, ‘‘ These 
things ye shall do unto the Lord in your set feasts, beside your 


vows and your freewill offerings.”—Numbers xxix. 30. Pro- 
ceeding wpon means resulting from. 


1. 5. In the former, etc., I hope that, as long as I live, I shall 
never fail to do my duty in any position in which it may please 
you to place me. 


1, 9. respective, appropriate. oblation, offering. 


1, 10. propriety, peculiarity. It is the same as the logical 
term property, and is derived from the Latin adjective proprius, 
which signifies what belongs to‘ thing in its own right. n 
wishes to adapt his gift to the personal tastes of King James, not 

_to his official position. 
1. 12. representing, lit. bringing before the mind. Cf. ‘‘ calling 
to view,” Bk. 2, p. 73. 
1. 15. is inscrutable, Prov. xxv. 3. Cf. Bacon’s 19th Essay. 
_ “It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and 
many things to fear. And yet that commonly is the case of 
_kings: who, being at the highest, want matter of desire, which 
makes their minds more languishing: and have many repre- 
__sentations of perils and shadows, which makes their minds the | 
less clear. And this is one reason also of that effect, which the ~ 
Scripture speaketh of : that the king’s heart is inscrutable. For 
ultitude of jealousies and lack of some predominant desire, that 
1 marshal and put in order all the rest, maketh any man’s 
© find or sound,” etc. ' i 
virtue and fortune, see note on p. 2, 1. 36. Notice 


70 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. § [PAcEs 


that Bacon uses the word virtue in the general sense of excellence, 
and is, therefore, obliged to qualify it by an adjective showing 
what kind of excellence he means. Virtue with us means moral 
excellence. It is therefore unnecessary for us to talk of ‘moral 
virtue’ as Bacon does. See, e.g., p. 61, 1. 12. 

Page 2, 1. 5. I have often thought, The king learns so readily 
that, instead of learning something new, he seems to be merely 
recalling something which he had forgotten. The Platonic doe- 
trine eiented to is that our inoule: has possessed. noms eee 
previous state of existence? al at therefore the knowledge 
which we acquire in this life is not put into us from without. It 
is latent in_ the and is recovered by an act of recollection. 
Th the dislogue called “the—DfenoSoorees says ‘that he had 
heard from priests and priestesses and inspired men that the 
soul of man is immortal, and at one time has an end, which is 
termed dying, and at another time is born again, but is never 
destroyed. . . . . The soul, then, as being immortal, and 
having been born again many times, and having seen all things 
that there are, whether in this world or the world below, has 
knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be 
able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, 
and about everything ; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has 
learned all things, there is no difficulty in her eliciting, or as men 
say learning, all out of a single recollection, if a man is strenuous 
and does not faint ; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollec- 
tion.” Having thus stated the doctrine, he further proves the 
existence of this latent knowledge by the interrogation of one of 
Meno’s slaves, who, in the skilful hands of Socrates, is made to 
acknowledge some elementary relations of geometrical figures. 
But whence had the uneducated man this knowledge? He had 
never learnt geometry in this world ; nor was it born with him; 
he must therefore have had it when he was not a man. And as 
he always was or was not a man, he must have always had it. 
Jowett’s Plato, vol. 1, p. 261 and p. 281. The same doctrine is 
repeated and illustrated by Plato in the Phedo. _ Cf. the passage 
in Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of Immortality, beginning— 


‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar.” 


The form in which the doctrine is expressed is fanciful, but it. 
contains an important psychological truth. The mind of each in- 

dividual is not a mere passive receptivity, but a complex of 

tendencies and aptitudes. The mind takes an active part in the 

process by which knowledge is acquired. 


1. 11. tabernacle, a diminutive of the Latin taberna (Eng. 
tavern), lit. ‘a shed made of planks.’ It signifies a temporary 


2-3.] NOTES. 71 


dwelling. sequestered, obscured. Bacon also uses ‘ to sequester ’ 
in the sense of to put on one side. It was properly a law term 
signifying to withdraw or remove from a person and put 
temporarily in the hands of a trustee something of which the 
ownership was disputed. 


/ , . 
]. 12, such a light, etc. The most trifling observation or the 
slightest hint is sufficient to make a truth flash upon your mind. 


1, 15, the Scripture saith, etc. ‘*And God gave Solomon wis- 
dom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, 
even as the sand that is on the seashore.”—1 Kings iv. 29. 


1. 17. which ...it, This irregular construction, where 7¢ is un- 
necessarily inserted after the relative, occurs very frequently. 


1. 20. To compass and comprehend, to embrace and take in. To 
compass means literally to complete the circuit of a thing. To 
comprehend means to grasp. 


1, 23. for, as regards. 


1, 24. Tacitus, The reference is to the Annals, bk. 13, ch. 3. 
The Roman historian Tacitus lived from about 60—120 a.p. 


1, 31. though never so excellent, 7.e., no matter how excellent 
it may be. The use of never so is to be explained by an ellipsis. 
Thus—‘‘ Though the speech were excellent—though never a 
speech were so excellent.” Abbott, Sh. Gr. § 406. 


1, 32. holding of the subject, i.e., wanting in originality. It is 
opposed to prince-like in the pepe sentence, and means 
literally ‘ partaking of the nature of a subject,’ i.e., not indepen- 
dent. 


1. 33. flowing, etc., though copious, yet well arranged. 


1. 35. felicity, we still use the phrase ‘‘a happy expression,” to 
denote one which is peculiarly appropriate to express the thing 
intended, 


1. 36. And as in, etc. Just as in your political and domestic 
life your virtues have been as eminent as your good fortune has 
been conspicuous, so, in intellectual matters, the knowledge which 
you have acquired is not less remarkable than the faculties with 
which you were by nature endowed. estate, position. 


Page 3, l. 2. a virtuous disposition, etc. These sentences 
explain the ‘emulation and contention.’ In each sentence an 
instance of virtue is set over against an instance of good luck. 


1. 3. regiment, education. The word literally means control, 
from Lat. regere, to rule. On p. 53, 1. 19, it is used as equivalent 
to government. when time was, once upon a time, i.e., in the 
days, when, as yet, you were only heir to the throne. Notice 
that was is used absolutely. your greater fortune, i.e., the 
possession of the English crown. 


72. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [paces 


|. 8. neighbour, used as an adjective for neighbouring. 
]. 13. amplification, exaggeration. 
|. 15. temporal, opposed to ecclesiastical. 


1. 17. revolve, reflect upon. By Rome Bacon means the Roman 
Empire before it was divided. By Grecia he means the Eastern 
half of the original empire, of which Constantinople was the 
capital. The capital of the West was Rome. Peruse means to 
survey. It means properly ‘to use up,’ and so to go through 
thoroughly. 

|. 18. Cesar the Dictator, “Julius Cesar was invested with the 
Dictatorship at first temporarily after the return from Spain in 
49, then after the battle of Pharsalus from the autumn of 48 for 
an indefinite time, lastly after the battle of Thapeus from the 
Ist January, 45, as an annual office, to which he was designated 
at first for ten years, ultimately in 44 for life.” — Wommsen, vol. 
iv., p. 493. For the meaning of Dictator see on p. 29, 1. 9. 
Bacon gives examples of the learning of Cesar below, pp. 57-60, 
and on p. 52 he says that Marcus Antoninus was named The 
Philosopher. 


1. 24. wits, the word wit is generally used simply as_ the 
equivalent of mind. We must not expect original research or 
profound knowledge from a king. If he can appropriate and re- 
peat what others have discovered, so as to create the impression 
of being well informed, he has done all that is to be expected. 


1. 26. countenance and prefer, favour and promote. 


1. 29. in a king born, The learning of a sovereign who has been 
raised to the throne from a private station excites no astonish- 
ment. Before his elevation he had the same leisure, and the 
same incentives to work, that ordinary men have. 


1. 30. conjunction, a term borrowed from astrology. 


_L. 31. profane, secular. We now use the word to signify im- 
pious. The word literally expresses what is in front of or outside 
of the temple. Lat. fanwm. 


1. 32. so as, so that. The phrase occurs repeatedly in the text, 
and always in this sense. 


1, 34. Hermes, said to have been a great philosopher, king, and 
priest, of Egypt. But the real Hermes, or the writer of the 
works ascribed to him, was a neophyte Platonist of the second or 
third century.—E. The name, according to Dean Church, was 
given to a vast series of writings on theology, philosophy, and 
nature, which appear to have grown up in Egypt from the second 
century onwards, and which, embodying Jewish and Christian, as 
well as Eastern, Greek, and Egyptian ideas, were probably in- 
tended as a body of literature antagonistic to Christianity, giving 


84] NOTES. 73 


to Lila 64 the attractions of a religious and inspired character. 
For invested of, we should now say invested with. 


1. 36. propriety, see on p. 1, 1. 10. Bacon means that it must 
not be left unrecorded that James occupied an exceptional posi- 
tion among kings as an original thinker and teacher. The Latin 
translation has—‘it is right that it should be engraved on somesuch 
solid work as will express the power of a great king, and recall 
the image of a king so eminently learned.’ 

Page 4, 1. 5. character or signature, i.c., a stamp or impression. 
The word ‘character’ is here used in its literal sense to denote 
‘an impression.’ The Queen’s head on a coin is properly called 
‘acharacter.’ Shakespeare uses ‘ to character,’ for ‘to impress’— 

‘And these few precepts in thy memory 
See thou character.’— Hamlet, i. 3. 57. 

1. 6. difference means a distinguishing mark. It is a term used 
in heraldry to signify ‘‘a figure added to a coat of arms to dis- 
tinguish the persons or families who bear the same arms, and to 
indicate their nearness to the original bearer.”— Webster. The 
words used by Bacon show that he has in his mind the habit of 
blazoning arms upon monuments. 

1, 16. undervalues, i.e., shortcomings. 

1, 19. framed particulars, a scheme complete in all details. 

1. 21. for this purpose, the Latin translation has ‘ to extend the 
bounds of arts and sciences.’ 


Pages 4-9. Before proceeding to set forth the dignity of 
learning, Bacon wishes to clear the way by showing that the 
objections which have been raised against learning are based 
u ignorance. He deals first with the_objections raised by 


theologians, 

Theologians quote Scripture to prove that the desire of know- 
ledge was the4cause of original sin, that tt puf’s up the mind, as 
the serpents poison causes the body to swell, and that it is pro- 
ductive only of anxiety. They assert, moreover, that knowledge 
draws men away from God. In reply Bacon says that’ it was 
not the knowledge of the properties of natwral objects which was 
the cause of the fall, but the desire of man to learn the distinc- 
tion between good and evil with a view to emancipating himself 
from thé divine authority, and becoming a law to himself. As 
‘for knowledge puffing up the mind, there is, in realityPno sub- 
ject which is too great for the mind, except God hiseate Bacon 
quotes Scripture to prove that the human mind is so constituted 
capable of attaining to the knowledge of all phenomena, 
2 laws of their operation. If certain accidental hin- 
re removed, the mind mighi even attain to the know- 


74 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [pacEs 


ledge of the ‘summary law of nature. ~ It is never by knowledge 
that the mind ts corrupted, but by a wrong use of knowledge. 
Knowledge is to be used to improve the condition of men, not to 
flatter our own vanity, nor to raise extravagant hopes and fears, 
nor to lead us to attempt to understand God, who is incompre- 
hensible. If these cautions be observed, knowledge is an 
unmixed good. In reply to the assertion that knowledge draws 
men away from God, Bacon says thatthe truths of science are 
indisputable, and that therefore the cause of true religion cannot 
be served by denying them: (will you lie for God to gratify 
him ?) and, as a matter of fact, the wider and more profound 
a man’s knowledge is, the deeper will be his conviction of the 
truths of religion. Cf. Bk. 2, p. 44. 


In this passage Bacon gives his conception of the scope and 
object of science. The-scope of science is ‘nature and univer- 
‘Batity“+ e., a complete understanding of all natural phenomena. 
See ees aan, as he says elsewhere, is the glory of God, - 
and the relief of man’s estate. 


1. 23 the former of © i.¢., the first half of the present 


treatise: see above, l. lly 
1. 24. to have, etc., so as fo secure a favourable hearing for. 
1. 28. ignorance severally disguised, i.c., concealing itself under 


different forms, such for example, as zeal for religion or for the 
state. 


1. 30. divines, theologians ; for arrogancy we write arrogance. 

1. 33. the former sort, i.¢., theologians. is of, 7.¢., is one of. 
_ 1. 34. accepted of, the of is redundant. 

Page 5,1. 2. knowledge hath, the Latin translation adds, ‘even 
at the present day.’ 

l. 5. a censure, an opinion. Lcclesiast. xii. 12 and i. 18, 

l. 7. contristation, sadness. 

1. 9. a caveat, a warning. Coloss. ii. 8. 

1. 11. how learned times, etc. Amongst the causes of Atheism, 
Bacon, in his 16th Essay, mentions ‘‘ Learned times, specially 
with peace and prosperity : for troubles and adversities do more’ 
bow men’s minds to religion.” 

1. 12. second causes, what we call ‘ physical causes.’ The 
_ attraction of the earth is the second or physical cause of an un- 
supported body falling to the ground. Second causes are opposed 
to the first or efficient cause, viz., God. Cf. p. 8. 

1, 15. To discover, to show. The literal meaning of the word 
is to uncover. a, 


1, 16. it may well appear, it is obvious. he ects F 


4-6. ] NOTES. 75 


L 19. man did give names, cf. p. 42,1.2. The argument is that 
Adam knew the nature and properties of all creatures, because, 
in the garden of Eden, he gave them names, and names express 
the properties of the things named. Ellis quotes the same argu- 
ment from the writings of Thomas Aquinas. 


1. 21. proprieties, properties. 


1, 22. of good and evil, The tree of knowledge of good and 
evil stood in the midst of the garden of Eden, and man was for- 
bidden to taste the fruit of it on pain of death. See p. 42. It 
was the accepted doctrine of the Church that Adam’s sin arose 
from pride. See Dante’s Paradiso, vii. 25. Dante probably 
took it from Thomas Aquinas. 


1. 27. extend, distend. 


1. 29. principal senses of inquisition, 7.e., the senses which are 
of most use to us in acquiring knowledge. Bacon means that the 
senses supply the mina with the objects of thought: they are 
‘reporters to the mind.’ Cf. ‘‘ Our senses, conversant about par- 
ticular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct 
perceptions of things, according to those various ways in which 
those objects do effect them.”—Locke’sHssay, bk. 2, ch. 1. The 
objects of sight and hearing, colours angina, are those which 
we first apprehend, and which are most frequently presented to 
us. For the quotation, see Hcclesiast. i. 8. Bacon frequently 
uses the word inquisition where we should use inquiry or in- 
vestigation. 


1. 32. the continent, that which contains. 


1. 35. ephemerides, a calendar. It is a Greek word exactly 
equivalent to our ‘diary,’ from Latin dies, a day. The passage 
to which Bacon alludes begins thus, ‘‘ To everything there is a 
season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” Lecl. 3.1. 


Page 6, 1. 2. decent, becoming, suitable. in the true return of 
their seasons, i.¢., each at its proper time. The work which God 
worketh from the beginning to the end. Bacon often uses this 
phrase to denote the law on which the primary qualities of matter ° 
ultimately depend. In all our inquiries we must start with 
matter existing, and possessed of its primitive qualities. But on 
what do these primary qualities depend? What is the law of 
‘the force Stalin ted! wy God ‘in these first particles, from the 
multiplication whereof all the variety of things proceeds and is 
made up?’ Here, as elsewhere, he leaves it doubtful whether 
this question can ever be answered. Cf. Bk. 2, p. 44, and see On 
Principles and Origins, Ellis and Spedding’s edn., vol. 5, p. 461. 
He this law ‘ the work which God worketh from the beginning 


wa; sendy because the whole series of natural phenomena results 
1, 6. capable of, able to receive. 


ae 


76 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [paczs 


]. 9. vicissitude of times, change of seasons. 
]. 10. raised, desirous of finding. 
ordinances and decrees, 7.¢., the laws of nature. A uni- 
formity in nature is called a law because what happens in nature 
is regarded as happening by the command of God. Thus Words- 
worth, in his Ode to Duty, represents the heavens as being pre- 
served by the performance of their duty. The two senses of the 
term are brought together in a single sentence below, p. 58, 1. 10. 

l. 17. ill conjunction, imperfect co-operation. 

1. 18. tradition, the word is used, as Bacon generally uses it, 
in its literal sense of ‘ delivery,’ or ‘communication.’ 

]. 20. nothing parcel of, 7.e., no part of. Parcel is the low 
Latin word particella, which means a small part. 

]. 21. he doth rule over, he decides. 

24. receipt, capacity, or power of receiving. 

. 27. out-compass itself, exceed its proper limits. 

. 30. malignity, injurious property. 

31. ventosity, windiness. Cf. below, ‘‘ knowledge bloweth up.” 
. 32. corrective spice, an antidote. 

1. 33. sovereign, the word means properly supreme, and so 
possessed of great power, efficacious. It is often used as an 
epithet of the word medicine. charity, defined below as the 
habit of referring everything to the good of men and mankind. 
1 Corinth. xiii. 1. 

Page 7, |. 4. referred to, directed towards, as its object. 

1. 5. sounding, literally making a noise and nothing else, i.e., 
unsubstantial. 

1. 6. meriting, meritorious. 

1. 7. censure, PAD hid. 

1. 13. confined and circumscribed, limited and bounded. To 
confine means to keep within limits; to circumscribe means to 
draw a line round anything. 

Ll. 14. coarctation, a Latin word for narrowing. but that it may 
comprehend, z.¢., as would prevent it from comprehending, 7.e, 
including. ; 

1. 17. as, that. 

l. 19. distaste, the exact equivalent of disgust. 

1, 26. roundeth about, wanders about Ecclesiast. ii. 13, 14. 
o Be the same mortality involveth them both, Bacon means to 

y that we must not become such slaves to any pleasure that the 
renunciation of it at the time of death will’ be painful. Any 
pursuit, however pleasurable, will become painful, if we are con- 


ell ee 
ad . 


6-8.] NOTES. 77 


stantly distressing ourselves with the thought that, at some 
time or other, we shall have to abandon it. The wise man and 
the fool must alike submit to the conditions of human existence. 
But the wise man will not undertake more than he can hope to 
accomplish within the limits of a life-time. Instead of repining 
at the shortness of life, he will show his wisdom in making a 
good use of it. 

1. 29. merely, entirely. The Latin word merus means pure, or 
unmixed : and in Elizabethan English mere and merely are used 
in their literal sense. 

1. 30. wonder, Aristotle says that it was wonder which first led 
men to seek for knowledge: and Plato says, ‘‘ Wonder is the 
feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.” 

1. 33. their particular, their own condition. 

1, 35. carefulness, anxiety. We may illustrate Bacon’s re- 
marks by reference to the extravagant hopes entertained by the 
alchemists. 

1, 36. a dry light, Plutarch mentions the opinion of Heraclitus 
that ‘the wisest mind is a dry light’: and Bacon elsewhere says, 
Hetactttus the Obscure sand: The dry light was the best sow : 
meaning, when the faculties intellectual are in vigour, not wet, 
nor, as it were, blooded by the affections.” In the 27th Essay 
too Bacon says, ‘‘ Heraclitus saith well in one of his Enigmas ; 
Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is that the light that a 
man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than 
that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment, 
which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs.” 
The word dry is used in the sense of ‘clear’ or ‘pure.’ The 
meaning of the passage will be best understood by comparing it 
with the 49th Aphorism of the first book of the Novum Organum, 
in which Bacon says, ‘‘ The mind of man is not like a dry light, 
but it receives from the will and affections a taint which pro- 
duces capricious or arbitrary sciences: for what a man wishes to 
be true, that he is inclined to believe to be true.” In working 
out an arithmetical problem, we are not likely to be swayed by 

ion, but in the study of economical, or political, or theological 

octrine, we are very apt to be biassed, and to start with pre- 

conceived opinions which make us overlook or misinterpret 
evidence, sna so vitiate our conclusions, 

Page 8, 1. 5. stood upon, dwelt upon. 

1, 13. broken, incomplete. Cf. abrupt, Bk. 2, p. 190. 

1. 14. one of Plato’s school, Philo Judzeus, who was born at 
Alexandria about B.c. 20. He aimed at harmonizing the prin- 
ciples of the Greek philosophy of religion with the text of the 
Meanie writings. The more we study nature, the more we see 
that the human intellect cannot attain to the knowledge of God. 


78 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 


If therefore men try to arrive at such knowledge, their conclu- 
sions are sure to be heretical, i.e. at variance with the teaching 
of Revelation, which is the only source of knowledge as to the 
divine character and will. Bacon frequently insists in his writings 
on the necessity of keeping theology and science separate : see 
Bk. 2, pp. 35and 183. In the 65th Aphorism of the first book of the 
Novum Organum, he says, ‘ An ill-advised admixture of things 
human and divine produces a fantastical philosophy, and an 
heretical religion.” In his 17th Essay he mentions among the 
causes of superstition ‘‘the taking an aim at divine matters by 
human, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations.” We 
may here briefly consider what Bacon’s attitude towards religion 
was. He says in the text that the more we study nature, and 
see how law and harmony regulate its apparent diversity, the 
more convinced we become of the existence of a God, who put in 
motion originally, and who still controls, the vast machinery of 
the system. In his 16th Essay he says, ‘‘I had rather believe 
all the fables in the Legend, [a book containing the lives of the 
Saints] and the Talmud, and the Alcoran than that this Universal 
Frame is without a mind.... It is true that a little philosophy 
inclineth man’s mind to atheism: but depth in philosophy 
bringeth men’s minds about to religion: for while the mind of 
man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest 
in them and go no further. But when it beholdeth the chain of 
them confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to providence 
and deity.” See below, p. 46. Bacon, then, certainly believed 
in the existence of God, and in the government of the world by 
divine providence. These he regarded as truths established by 
natural religion. Natural religion, then, according to Bacon, 
falls within, and is demonstrated by philosophy. Theology, 
Bacon says, does not come within the sphere of philosophy. 
It rests simply on faith: its dogmas are not to be tested or 
criticised by reason, nor to be rejected if they are repugnant to 
reason (see Bk. 2, p. 183). If Bacon had been asked why he 
believed in the Christian theology, he would have replied because 
it is contained in the Bible. He did not ask whether the Bible 
was worthy of credit, nor did he care to co-ordinate his theo- 
logical with his other beliefs. He was too much interested in 
science to devote his time to theology. He lived in an age of 
violent theological discussion, but took neither part nor interest 
in it. Theological discussions are, he says, for the most part 
frivolous and unfruitful. Unity as to the essentials of religion: 
is all that is necessary. (See Essay 3.) He would have allowed 
perfect freedom of sla limited only by the positive declar- 
ations of Scripture. He accepted the doctrines of Christianity, 
but his was rather a belief of the lips than of the heart: and he 
was always more interested in the moral than in the doctrinal 
side of Christianity. (See Macaulay’s Essay on Bacon.) Bacon’s 


: 
: 


| e‘deosdl t,fOOD’ s 


8-9.] NOTES. 79 


sition was not altogether a logical one, but it is easily explained. 

irstly, as noticed above, he was so interested in science that he 
was content simply to accept theology as resting on evidence of 
its own, without caring to examine the evidence. Secondly, a 
historical criticism of the sacred books of the Christians was not 
taken up till after his time. Lastly, in an age when scientific 
inquirers were being punished by the church, it was of the first 
importance to show the absurdity of trying to control scientific 
inquiry. The task of reconciling its results to ecclesiastical 
dogmas might be left to theologians. 


1, 22. by the waxen wings of the senses, referring to the legend 
of Icarus, who attempted to fly from Crete on wings made of 
wax. He flew too near the sun: his wings melted, and he fell 
into the sea, and was drowned. The senses are as incapable 
of penetrating the divine mysteries as the wings of Icarus were 
of carrying him through the air. 

1. 23. the conceit, the idea. The word is used in this sense 
throughout the book. It means lit. anything which is conceived 
in the mind. 

1. 23. should incline, the conditional mood shows that Bacon is 
quoting an opinion of others, and not expressing his own. 

1, 27. Job, a person whose history is told in one of the books of 
the Jewish Scripture. He was distinguished for his patience 
under trials and misfortune. 

1, 29. worketh nothing, in the Latin tr. Bacon adds ordinarily. 
He excepts the miracles recorded in Scripture. 

1, 32. unclean, the word is used in the English translation of 
the Jewish law to signify what is ceremonially impure. 


Page 9, 1. 1. in the entrance of philosophy, when a man begins 
to study science. 

1. 4. it, ¢.e., the habit of concentrating the attention on second 
causes. The word indwce is used in its literal sense of bring on. 
This use of the word is common in Bacon, 


1. 7. the highest link, etc., an allegorical interpretation of a 
passage in Homer, in which Jupiter says ‘that if all the gods 
and goddesses were to pull at a golden chain hung from earth to 
heaven, they could not drag him down, but that he could dra, 
them up, together with earth and sea, and suspend all in mi 
air.” Ce Bk. 2, p. 35. Bacon means that the series of natural 
phenomena is directed by God. However far back we may go in 
the series of. Bhyaicnl causes, we are driven ultimately to the 
conception of a first cause. Cf. 
ts . £* But who can turn the stream of destiny, 

» >»... Or break the chain of strong necessity, 
.. ... Which fast is tied to Jove’s eternal seat?” 
>... —Spenser, Faery Queene, 1. v. 25; 


Py Ree 


6 Oe ae 


80 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PacE 


and, ‘‘ There is a nearer way to Heaven than Homer’s chain ; an 
easy logic may conjoin a heaven and earth in one argument, and, 
with less than a sorites, resolve all things to God. For though 
we christen effects by their most sensible and nearest causes, yet 
is God the true and infallible cause of all,’ etc. Relegio Medic, 
§ 18. 

1. 9. let no man, etc. Let no one, under the foolish impression 
that he is restraining his inquiries within proper limits, or im- 
pelled by a mistaken moderation, etc. 

1. 12. the book of God’s word is the Bible: the book of God’s 
works is nature. 

l. 13. divinity or philosophy, theology or science. 

1. 14. endeavour, attempt. We no longer use the word thus. 

1. 15. charity, see on p. 6, 1. 33. 


1. 16. swelling, pride. We talk of men being ‘ puffed up with 
pride.’ 
1. 17. learnings, studies, or branches of learning. 


Pages 9-16. Lacon now proceeds to refute the_objections 
which have been raised against learning by statesmen. 
' Statesmen quote authorities to show that learning enervates : 
‘that it induces habits of mind and body which unfit men for 
business: and that the habit of discussion ts fatal to the habit 
of obedience. Bacon in reply says that these three objections 
are based on exceptional instances which can easily be ex- 
plained. As a matter of fact,/learning does not enervate: 
history proves that the same individual may be both a good 
scholar and a brave and skilful general. History too confirms 
the natural expectation that the ages, which have been most 
distinguished for learning, would also be most distinguished for 
skill in the arts of war and government. As for the second 
objection; it is absurd to say that learning unfits men for the 
work of governing. An ignorant statesman is a mere empiric, 
no more to be trusted than a quack doctor. The most successful 
governments have been those which have been directed by learned 
men. Learned men may have their weaknesses, but from their 
knowledge of history they must have learned the essential prin- 
ciples of real statesmanship. Learned men are likety to tewle 
most indefatigable in business, and to be the only ones who will 
take it up for its own sake. The intervals of business will afford 
leisure for study. A learned man may occasionally be slothful : 
but that is not because he is learned. All ignorant men are not 
active, Lastly, learned men make the best citizens, because 


see the necessity of obedience, and therefore yield it willingly, — 


“ 


iin 
Hee iy 
pry 

pee 


9.) NOTES. 81 


It is in barbarous communities that the task of government is 
most difficult. 


Cf. the end of Article III. in Book v. chap. I. of Adam Smith’s 
Wealth of Nations. With the whole of this passage, cf. pp. 48-61. 

The substance of the passage is that, other things being equal, 
all arts, and therefore the arts of government and war among 
the rest, will be practised with greater success by those who 
have had a proper training, than by mere empirics. A quack 
doctor, who a a given remedy has cured a fever, may cure an- 
other by the same remedy, if the two cases happen to be exactly 
alike ; but a man trained in the principles of medicine, who 
knows how and why his medicines act, will be able to adjust his 
remedies to different constitutions and to different forms of the 
same disease. Similarly a mere empiric may hit upon a tax 
which will be productive, and which will be paid willingly: a 
scientific statesman will be able to make a rational and trust- 
worthy forecast. Cf. Essay xii. ‘‘So are there mountebanks 
for the paras body ; men that undertake great cures and 
perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but want 
the grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out.” By 
learning Bacon intends chiefly a knowledge of history, or rather 
of what we should call the philosophy of history. In the Intro- 
duction to Book 2, he repeats that a liberal education, 7.e., 
an education in histories, modern languages, books of policy and 
civil discourse, and other the like enablements unto service of 
estate, is a necessary qualification for statesmanship. The whole 
tendency of Burke’s political teaching is in harmony with these 
remarks of Bacon. The spirit of Bacon’s teaching reappears too 
in Carlyle’s Hero-worship, which is, in reality, a demand that 
nations should be governed by the wisest and best of their 
citizens. 

1, 19. as for the disgrag@s, etc. The meaning of the sentence 
is that politicians try t discredit learning on the following 
grounds. The use of be for are was common, specially in refer- 
rine to a number of persons or things considered as a kind or 
c 

1, 24. curious, careful. With this passage cf. p. 13. 8 seqq., 
where the objections here raised are answered. If their know- 
ledge of history suggests to them so many courses of action that 
they are ed which to choose, yet it teaches them when 
further hesitation is dangerous, and at the same time enables 
them to act on a reasonable principle, when they do act. 


_ 1. 26. peremptory, obstinate. It is said that learned men 
_ adhere too strictly to rigid rules and principles, from which, in 
practice, deviations are often required. For instance, it is often 
said that ‘modified free trade’ is expedient for some countries: 
“a learned statesman’ might enforce pure free trade everywhere. 

; F 


82 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PacEs 


Bacon says in reply (p. 13) that the learned man alone knows 
when a theory is proved, and when it is not: and within what 
limits, and under what circumstances, exceptions to a rule are 
reasonable. 


1. 26. too immoderate. etc. It is said that learned men will 
aim presumptuously at equalling the greatness of the most 
celebrated men of whom they have read in history: or that 
they will simply attempt to imitate the past, forgetting that 
what is possible in one age is impossible in another. In reply 
to this Bacon says (p. 13) that only ignorant men will regard 
every historical personage as a model to be imitated, and every 
historical event as a precedent to be followed. 


]. 27. incompatible, not suited to the times in which they live. 


1. 29. travails, the two forms travail and travel were used 
indiscriminately to express labour, as in this passage, and 
journeying. Dean Church quotes a passage from Hooker in 
which the connection between the two meanings is expressed— 
‘*Rest is the end of all motion, and the last perfection of all 
things that labour. Labours in us are journeys, and even in 
them which feel no weariness by any work, they are but ways 
whereby to come unto that which bringeth not happiness till it 
do bring rest.” 


1. 35. in embassage, on an embassy. In the year 155 B.c. 
the Athenians sent an embassy to Rome to ask for the remission 
of a fine which had been imposed on their city. Carneades, a 
philosopher of the sceptical school, was one of the envoys. The 
story is told by Plutarch in his life of Cato, ch. xxii. 

Page 10, 1. 1. that, redundant. Abbott (Sh. Gr. § 287) points 
out that ¢hat was affixed to words originally interrogative to 
give them a relative meaning, and was then by analogy attached 
to other words such as if and though. 

1. 6. at unawares, we should omit ‘at.’ Unawares is a genitive 
form. Needs, in the sense of necessarily, is another example of 
an adverb formed from the possessive inflection of nouns. 

1. 11. The second between is superfluous. The meaning is, 
‘between policy and government on the one hand, and arts and 
sciences on the other. 

1. 12. challenging, claiming. n. vi. 852. 


1. 22. to make tte worse matter seem the better, z.e., to em- 


ploy sophistical arguments in defence of a bad cause. Socrates. 
was tried and condemned B.c. 399. 


1, 26. countenance, appearance. 
1. 31. the like instance, i.¢., so good an instance, 5 
1. 36. Epaminondas, the Theban, in the fourth century B.C. 


10-11.] NOTES. 88 


destroyed the supremacy of Sparta in the Peloponnese. Up to 
his fortieth year he led a retired life and studied under Lysis the 
Pythagorean, who was an exile from Tarentum. Xenophon, see 
note on p. 60, 1. 13. 


Page 11, 1. 1. abated, lit. beat down. It is connected with to 
batter. 


1, 2. made way to, prepared the way for. 


1. 3. this concurrence, etc. Cf. Gibbon, ch. x., ‘‘In the most 
polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has displayed 
itself about the same period: and the age of science has generally 
been the age of military virtue and success.” 


1. 5. both, notice that the word is not used in its proper dual 
sense. 


1, 9. captains, military leaders. 
1, 12. about an age, 7.c. about the same age. 


1. 18. hurt than enable, unfit than qualify. For a similar use 
of enable, cf. p. 39, 1. 3. 


1, 20. empiric, derived from the Greek empeiria, i.e. experi- 
ence. The name of Empirics was anciently given to a sect of 
physicians who contended that practice was the one thing 
necessary in their art. The word empiric is used generally to 
denote a quack, as opposed to one who has had a scientific 
training. “ior which we should say who. 


1, 21. pleasing, 7.e. with which the empirics themselves are 
satisfied. receipts, prescriptions. 

1. 23. complexions, constitutions. 

1, 24. accidents, symptoms. 

1, 25. men of practice, whose knowledge is derived simply 
from their own experience, and who know nothing of the 
principles of law. 

1, 27. falleth out, happens. besides, used as a preposition for 
beside, i.e. outside of. The final s in besides is an adverbial 
suffix. 

1. 28. so by like reason, etc. Cf. Essay 1. ‘‘The chief use 
of studies for ability is in the judgment and disposition of busi- 
ness. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of 

iculars, one by one: but the general counsels, and the plots 
and marshalling of affairs come best from thoseShat are learned. 
... To judge wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar. ... 
Studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, 
except they be bounded in by experience.” 
1, 29. of doubtful consequence, dangerous: lit. of which the 
result cannot be foreseen. 
1. 81. contrariwise, on the other hand, A learned man is not 


84 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [paces 


necessarily a good governor, as we see in the case of James him- 
self. ‘‘ James, though an able man, was a weak monarch. His 
quickness of apprehension and soundness of judgment were marred 
by his credulity and partialities, his childish fears, and habit of 
vacillation. Eminently qualified to advise as a counsellor, he 
wanted the spirit and resolution to act as a sovereign. His 
discourse teemed with maxims of political wisdom, his conduct 
frequently bore the impress of political imbecility.”—Lingard, 
vol. vii., p. 139. 


1. 34. politic men, politicians. 


1. 35. to extenuate and disable, to depreciate and disparage. 
To extenuate now means to represent an evil as less than it is: 
and to disable means to disqualify. 


1. 36. pedants. The word is derived from the Greek word 
paideuein, which means, literally, to bring up a child. 


Page 12, 1. 1. particulars, instances. 


]. 2. the infinite disadvantage. Cf. ‘‘ Woe to the land that’s 
governed by achild!” Rich. ITI. ii. 3. 11. Stevens quotes as a 
parallel, ‘‘Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child.” 
Ecclesiastes, x. 16. 

1. 5. traduce, to ridicule. 


1. 8. Seneca, for the influence of Seneca over Nero, see Meri- 
vale’s Roman Empire, vol. vi. p. 273. 


1. 10. contentation, satisfaction. Gordian died at the age of 
nineteen. Gibbon says of Misitheus, who was Gordian’s father- 
in-law, that his ‘ wise counsels had no object except the glory of 
his sovereign and the happiness of the people.’ Ch. vii. 


1. 13. not much unlike, practically it was a government by 


pedants, because they advised the women who were the nominal 
rulers. | 


1. 14. the women, viz. Mamza his mother, and Mesa his grand- 
mother. The latter soon died, and Mamza then summoned to 
her assistance sixteen of the wisest and most virtuous senators, 
as a perpetual council of state. ‘‘The general tenor of her 
administration was equally for the benefit of her son and of the 
empire.” —Gibbon, ch. vi. 

1, 15. the Bishops of Rome, the Popes. 


1. 16. as by name, for instance. Pius the fifth was a Dominican, 
Sixtus the fifth a Franciscan friar. Pius was Pope from 1565- 
1572. The most remarkable event of his Pontificate was the 
defeat of the Turks in the battle of Lepanto, in which his fleet 
was engaged in conjunction with those of Venice and Spain. 
Sextus was Pope from 1585-1590. His vigorous, though cruel, 
administration is described by Gibbon, ch. Ixx. b 


12-13.] NOTES. 85 


1. 18. pedantical, the Latin tr. has ‘ignorant of affairs.’ 

1. 20. estate, state. 

AL 23. to seek in, deficient in. points of convenience, expe- 
dients. accommodating for the present, arranging matters for 
the moment. In our own time John Bright has expressed a 
similar dislike and distrust of the methods of diplomacy. 

1. 25. reasons of state, political considerations. 

1, 27. to recompense, to compensate for. We generally use the 
word now in the sense of to reward. 

1. 31. use, need. Notice other, used as a plural pronoun. 

1. 32. neither can, etc. This is an additional reason for en- 
trusting the work of government to learned men. 

Page 13, 1. 1. sort with, agree with, resemble. 

1, 2. immediate, present. 

1. 4. hold way with, to equal. For the metaphor, cf. ‘‘We are 
afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private 
stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man 
is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail them- 
selves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages.” — 
Burke. 

1. 5. And as for, etc., as for the ways in which it is declared 
that learning indirectly unfits the mind, etc. The present form of 
the word seducement is seduction. 

1.7. To insinuate means properly to introduce indirectly. It is 
derived from the Latin word sinus, which means a bend. 

1. 9. ministereth, supplies. every, each. For the explanation 
of this passage, see note on p. 9, 1. 24. 

1, 14. without prejudice, without any harm being done. 


1. 15. regular, adhering strictly to rules. 

1. 16. demonstrative, The terms demonstration and demonstra- 
tive are pa to propositions and reasonings which contain no 
mixture of hypothesis. 

1. 18. the latitude of principles, the cases to which they are 
opolicnhie. For instance, a Free Trader may logically concede 
that countries, which in the face of competition cannot develop 
their industries, may claim a temporary protection. 

1, 24. quickness and penetration, vividness and force. Cf. the 
common proverb, ‘‘ Example is better than precept.” The word 

i in Bacon’s time signified life: and quick was used 
where we should now say living. 

1. 25. Clement the Seventh, Pope Clement VII. was contem- 

rary with H VIII. of England. Guicciardine says of 
him Both in deliberation and in the execution of what he 


86 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.  [PAcEs 


had deliberated about, every fresh little consideration which 
might occur to him—every trifling impediment which he might 
encounter, seemed enough to make him fall back into the same 
state of confusion in which he had been before he began to 
deliberate.”—-E. Guicciardine was an Italian statesman and 
historian, who lived 1483-1540. 

1. 27. Cicero, Mommsen says of Cicero—‘‘ As a statesman 
without insight, opinion, or purpose, he figured successively as 
democrat, as aristocrat, and as a tool of the monarchs, and was 
never more than a_ short-sighted egotist.”—Vol. iv. p. 641. 
painted out, depicted. Cf. painted forth, p. 53, 1. 1. 


1. 29. Phocion, an Athenian general, born B.c. 402. He took 
art in the wars between the Athenians and Philip of Macedon, 
Dut he opposed what seemed to him the extreme policy of the 
great orator Demosthenes. He was condemned on a charge of 
treachery and put to death B.c. 317. Thucydides, bk. 2, ch. 40, 
makes Pericles say of the Athenians that they were lovers of 
wisdom without being effeminate. 


l. 31. Ixion, see Bk. 2, p. 50—‘‘ 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 whoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations shall 
beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.” 
Jupiter took up a king named Ixion to heaven, to purify him 
from a murder. For his attempted seduction of the wife of 
Jupiter he was tied to a wheel that never ceased revolving. 


1. 31. vaporous, boastful. The word naturally signifies some- 
thing unsubstantial. Similarly Bacon uses the word fume 
(smoke) to signify a foolish idea. 


1. 32. Cato, Marcus Cato, the last great champion of Repub- 
licanism in Rome. He committed suicide, B.c. 46, on hearing 
that his party was destroyed by the victory of Cesar at Thapsus. 
See Mommsen, vol. iv. p. 469. After a certain point, Bacon says, 
it is useless to oppose the spirit of the age. 


esas 1. 3. may be truly affirmed, etc. This is explained on 
pp. 21-2. 


l. 6. it beareth them up, etc. The Latin tr. explains it— 
‘whilst they are in charge of affairs, they live in the eyes of 
men. 


1. 8. wear, decrease. It means lit. to suffer from wear or 
use. —W. 


L 9. giveth them occasion, etc., i.e., gives them opportunities 
of rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies. 


1, 14, are in the eyes of them that look on, i.¢., a mere braggart 


13-15.] NOTES. 87 


is sometimes bold in the presence of others, where cowardice 
would bring disgrace: so the industry of some men is to be 
attributed either to the desire of applause, or a regard for their 
own interests. designments, designs. Their industry is assumed 
for a purpose. 


1, 17. according to. agreeable to: in harmony with. 


1. 19. in the purchase, in the advantage which they derive 
from it. 


1. 21. which can hold their mind, which seems to them worthy 
of attention. 


], 25. spirit, mind. There is no doubt that the retired life 
and mental habits of a student do tend to unfit him for active 
life. The concentration of his interests upon study makes him 
a Pr of the necessary drudgery of business; and his mode 
of life makes him deficient in ‘knowledge of the world.’ More- 
over, being accustomed never to come to a decision without com- 
plete evidence, he is unfitted to act in those frequent emergencies 
when either the requisite data for decision are not attainable, or 
when there is no time to weigh them. 


1. 27. Some men, etc. Men of a shy and nervous temperament, 
when they have to appear in public or take part in public affairs, 
are as perplexed and embarrassed as a man brought suddenly out 
of darkness into the light of the sun. 


1. 32. that, as for the objection that. 
1. 35. expecteth, is waiting for. 


the tides and returns of business, i.e., busy times. 

Business ebbs and flows: and in times when there is little or no 

business, the statesman can study. Bacon’s picture is drawn 

from the ministers of Queen Elizabeth, who were all men of 

letters, and who ‘‘were the first generation of statesmen by 

anemrcoae that England produced.”—See Macaulay’s Essay on 
n. 


1. 36. tedious, dilatory. We generally use the word in the 
sense of tiresome. 


Page 15, 1. 6. his orations did smell of the lamp, i.e. they were 
the fruit of much care and study. The point of Demosthenes’ 
reply is that he spent the night in study, A®schines in de- 
bauchery. A®schines, the Athenian orator, born B.c. 389, was 
the t rival of Demosthenes. While Demosthenes advocated 
a policy of opposition to Philip of Macedon, Aischines was the 
head of the peace party. hen Ctesiphon proposed that a 

Iden crown should be given to Demosthenes for his services to 

country, Aischines indicted him for bringing forward an 


sh illegal position. Demosthenes replied, an hines was 
re pecan. 


As a penalty for bringing forward an unfounded 


88 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 


accusation he had to retire from Athens. He died at Samos, 
BC..314, 
1. 9. doubt, fear. expulse, expel. 
1]. at unawares. See above, p. 10, 1. 6. 
12. both, viz., business and learning. 
14. of, we should say for. 
15. depravation, slander. all, any. It is a Latinism. 


_ 18. it, redundant. A man who simply obeys a rule of which 
he cannot understand the reason is compared to a blind man who 
follows a guide without seeing where he is going. Those who 
can see the reasonableness of duty, and are sufficiently enlightened 
to see what their duty is, are more likely to do it, than those who 
simply yield an unintelligent obedience to what seems an arbitrary 
command. 

1. 20. without, outside: beyond dispute. 

1. 21. maniable, manageable. 

]. 22. thwart, perverse. 

1. 23. clear, prove. 


1, 28. blasphemy, used in the general sense of evil speaking, or 
slander. We use it to signify profane language. 


1. 36. to brave, to challenge. 


Page 16, |. 7. historiographer, lit. a writer of histories. We 
should say historian. Livy (50 B.c.-17 A.D.) wrote the history of 
Rome from its foundation to the death of Drusus, 9 B.c. Of the 
142 books only 35 have come down to us, and two of those are 
imperfect. 

1. 8. Marcus Varro, born B.c. 116, was distinguished for his 
vast and varied erudition. Only a few fragments of his great 
work on Roman antiquities have survived. the best or second 
orator, Bacon doubts whether Cicero or Demosthenes is first. 


l. 11. the Thirty Tyrants, after the retirement of the Spartans 
from Athens, B.c. 404, the government of the city was for a short 
time in the hands of a Committee of Thirty. Bacon is mistaken 
here. It is true that Socrates was summoned before the Thirty 


and reprimanded. But his trial and death took place under the 
restored democracy. 


. . . . 


1. 12. envious, malicious. For a similar use of the word in a 
much stronger sense than it now bears, Wright refers to Shaks. 
Mer, of Ven., iii. 2. 285, ‘‘But none can drive him from the 
envious plea of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.” 


1. 15. accumulate, loaded. This form of the participle in verbs 
derived from the Latin frequently occurs in Bacon’s writings. _ 


1. 18. sovereign, see on p. 6, 1. 33. for, as. For »a similar. 


% 


16.) NOTES. 89 


estimate of the value of the Socratic dialectics, which we know 
chiefly in the dialogues of Plato, see Mill’s Hssay on Liberty, 
p. 26. 

1, 19. manners, morals. 

1, 21. humorous, capricious. 


], 23. redargution, refutation. Under governments so favour- 
able to learning as those of Elizabeth and James, a defence of 
learning is unnecessary. Other governments, however, may in 
time arise who will be hostile to learning, and then Bacon’s 
defence of it may prove useful. 


1, 25. in regard of, on account of. 


], 28. bright stars, Bacon was, to a certain extent, a believer 
in astrology. See note on p. 33, 1.2. The words bright stars are 
from Horace, Bk. 1, Od. 3, 1. 2. Castor and Pollux the twin 
sons of Leda were after death placed in heaven as the constella- 
tion of the Twins. They were worshipped as favourable to 
sailors. Cf. 

‘* At their joint star, what time on storm-beat seamen 
Dawns its white splendour, 
Back from the rocks recedes the rush of waters, 
Winds fall—clouds fly—and every threatening billow, 
Lulled at their will, upon the breast of ocean 
Sinks into slumber.” 
Martin’s Translation. Burke, in his speech on Conciliation with 
America, quoted this passage to illustrate his arguments that 
conciliatory measures on the part of England would quiet the 
political storm. 


Pages 16-25. Bacon now proceeds_to consider the disenedit 


which is su been ht _upo 
osttion, character, manners, and studies of learned men 
themselves. Of these the last alone deserve consideration. No 


reasonable man would condemn a scholar because of the position 
in which circumstances had placed him, or the disposition with 
which nature had endowed him. However, we are dealing here 
not with rational objections, but with popular prejudices: so 
that the remaining considerations cannot be thus lightly dis- 
missed. Learned men, it is said, are poor and obscure, and 
Pursue mean occupations. This is not the place, Bacon says, 
for a ppinegyric on poverty, but it would be easy to show that the 
“owes much to _but_ learned net pak is ot 
3a guarantee of virtue: nor ought learning to be rega 
n'a sestias of obtaining wealth. As for’obscurity, most men 
allow the superior dignity and comfort of a private station: 


% 


while there can be no greater mistake than that of regarding the 


* 


: 


90 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.  [raczs 


occupation of a teacher as either unimportant or contempigble. 
In its influence upon character, the tendency of learning is to 
refine: the defects which it produces are unselfishness, verging 
on imprudence, and an inclination to aim at too high a 
standard in the attempts to reform public manners. These, 
it must be confessed, are faults which ‘lean to virtues side’: 
and learning itself supplies an antidote to the second of them. 
Again, it is suid that in their intércowrse with others learned 
men are wanting in tact. This is not necessarily the case - 
and, besides, what men praise as tact is often only another 
name for interested obsequiousness. Mere awkwardness of 
demeanour is not worth consideration. Bacon utterly condemns 
all selfishness and meanness, but he says justly that there are 
occasions on which scholars may, without loss of dignity, make 
concessions to those who are great and powerful. 


1. 32. groweth to, attaches to. 
1. 34. fastest, closest. Cf. 


; ‘* Siloa’s brook that flowed 
Fast by the Oracle of God.”— Paradise Lost, I. 11. 


fortune, explained below to mean ‘scarcity of means,’ etc. 


1. 35. manners, the word includes both disposition and de- 
meanour. We use it now to denote only the latter. 


Page 17, l. 2. we are not in hand with, we are not dealing with. 
1. 11. by reason, equivalent to because, t.e., by the cause. 


1. 13. common place, a subject for discussion. The word ‘ place’ 
is frequently used by Bacon in the sense of a ‘topic,’ on the 
analogy of the Latin word ‘locus,’ (a place, or a topic) and the 
dase < topic’ is the Greek ‘topos,’ which signifies properly ‘a 
place. 

1. 13. friar ...to whom, a similar construction occurs, Bk. 2, p. 
6, 1. 6. In the Latin translation it is ‘ mendicant friars,’ a body 
of men so called from the vow of poverty which they took. They 
belonged to the Franciscan and Dominican orders of monks. For 
an account of their life and work, see Green’s History of the 
English People, vol. i., p. 256. 


1. 17. borne out, compensated for. The Christian priesthood 
would have been condemned long ago, if it had been judged by 
the conduct of the members of its higher orders : it was tolerated 
out of respect for the virtues of its humbler and poorer members. 
We may notice, in connection with Bacon’s remarks, the Defence 
of Poverty, by William of Ockham. It was published in 1323, 
and was a violent protest against the power, pride, and wealth 
of the Pope and the Prelates of the Church. Machiavelli was a 
Florentine of the 16th century. His books embody the principles 


% - 
7 


16-19. ] NOTES. 9] 


of the statesmanship of his time: and he himself has been un- 
fairly charged with the immorality which distinguished the 
statecraft of that age in Italy. Bacon is referring to ch. 1 of the 
3rd book of his Discourses on Livy. 


1, 19. delicacy, luxury. 


1, 21. civility, refinement. Bacon means that mere material 
prosperity does not constitute civilization. Without learning 
man would be ‘‘ devoid of every finer art and elegance of life.” — 
Thomson, Summer, v. 1761. The poverty of learning means the 
poverty of the learned. 


1, 23. worthy the observation, it is worth noticing. reverent, 
reverend, venerable. 


1. 25. without paradoxes, the Romans were distinguished for 


. plain common sense. The words paradox and paradoxical signify 


what runs counter to received opinion. 
1, 36. after that, See on p. 10, 1. 1. 


Page 18, 1. 4. summary, efficacious. The counsellor alluded to 
in the text is supposed to be Sallust. : 

1. 11. it was truly said, the saying is attributed to Diogenes 
the Cynic. 


1. 15. misgovernment, intemperance. 
1. 24. not taxed with, free from. 
1. 25. civil, public. 


1. 29. allowing, admitting: approving. It is the Latin allau- 
dare, to praise. Bacon means that ‘ it at once recommends itself 
to our minds, and commands our assent as soon as it is proposed.’ 


This only, etc. Bacon means to say that the public often 
keep a man’s merits in remembrance all the more, because 
Government does not honour them as they deserve. Tacitus 
says of another man, ‘‘ The refusal of the honour heightened his 
renown.” It was the custom at Roman funerals to carry in pro- 
cession the images of the ancestors and relations of the eceased. 
See Tac. Ann. iii. 76. Junia, who died a.p. 22, was the wife of 
Cassius and the sister of Brutus. Their images were not carried 
in the procession because they had been guilty of the murder of 
the first Czesar. 


Page 19, 1. 2. traduced to contempt, held up to contempt. 


‘ Traducement,’ below, signifies ‘calumny.’ Cf. p. 12, 1.5. Mr. 
Wright points out that the word is used here with a distinct 


reference to its original meaning ‘to lead along, lead in proces- 
sion,’ and so ‘to parade.’ Hence ‘ traduced to contempt’ would 


eo 


mean ‘paraded contemptuously, or so as to excite contempt.’ 
1.4. it, redundant. Cf. p.2,1.17.. disesteeming, disparaging. 


92 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 


~ 


1. 5. conversant in or about, to be, to have to do with ; to be 
concerned with. 

1. 9. curious, careful. 

l. 11. corroborate, which has attained its full strength. Cf. 
p- 16, 1. 15. 

2. use to have, are accustomed to have. 
3. applications, appliances. 
4. say they, z.c. from which text they infer. 

]. 15. rabbins, theological teachers. The word literally means 
masters. 

1. 17. howsoever, etc. Wright compares Florio’s Montaigne, 
p- 60, ‘(I have in my youth oftentimes been vexed to see a 
pedant brought in, in most of Italian comedies, for a vice or a 
sporte-maker.” For the meaning of ‘ pedant,’ see p. 12, 1. 6. 

1. 26. Jesuits, so called from the ‘Society of Jesus’ to which 
they belong. They are Catholic priests, and the Society was 
formed in 1534. For an account of their services in the cause of 
education, see Buckle’s History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 336 ; 
and Green’s History of the English People, vol. i. p. 262. 

1, 28. The better, etc. Their very cleverness makes them the 
more mischievous. In the Latin translation, which was intended 
to be read by scholars in Catholic as well as in Protestant 
countries, passages like this, depreciatory of the Catholic Church, 
are omitted. ; 

1. 30. For Agesilaus, see p. 61, 1. 9. Bacon is referring to 
Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus, ch. 12. 

Page 20, 1. 1. temperatures, dispositions. 


es Studies, In the Latin translation Bacon adds, ‘ Except 
when it enters into a mind which is much depraved, learning 
corrects and improves the natural disposition.’ Cf. Cardinal 
Newman’s /dea of a University, Discourse viii. § 4. 

1. 5. indifferent, impartial. 


_ 1. 7. not inherent, that is to say, not from such manners as are 
inherent, etc. For ¢o we should say in. 


1. 12. contend, strive. 


1 14. to reduce, etc., to bring back again. The Latin transla- 
tion has—‘ They strive to impose upon a dissolute age the moral 
code of a rigid antiquity.’ Cf. ‘It is no inconsiderable part of 
wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated, lest 
by attempting a degree of fries impracticable in degenerate 
times and manners, instead of cutting off the subsisting ill 
practices, new corruptions might be produced for the conceal- 


ment and security of tl bed, 2! 
Cf. 1. 20, ae Burke. manners, gh 


l. 1 
3 
ae 


19-21.] NOTES. 93 


1. 16. caveats, warnings. Cf. below, 1. 24. walks, lines of 
life, 7.e., relatively to a student, books. 

Solon, a celebrated Athenian legislator, born about 
638 B.C. 

1, 23. contestation, strife. See Cicero, Hp. ad Fam. 1. 9. 
Improvements, according to Plato, should be effected by per- 
suasion, not by force: and as he saw that, if he held office, he 
could not introduce the reforms which he considered necessary 
without using force, he preferred not to hold office. In the Crito, 
Socrates is represented as refusing to violate the laws of his 
country by escaping from the prison to which he had been 
condemned. 

Cesar’s counsellor, See p. 18, 1. 2. 


1, 28. Cato the second, p. 13, 1. 32. No violent revolution 
should be attempted either in morals or politics. We should 
attempt to raise the standard of both gradually, as the people 
advance in respect of education. 


]. 33. Plato’s republic, an ideally perfect state sketched by 
Plato: a Utopia. 

1, 34. excuse and expound, at the same time apologises for 
them, and shows why they did it. The philosophers, says Cicero, 
purposely proposed an unattainable standard of perfection, in 
order that, in their attempts to attain to it, men might not fail to 
attain to the highest perfection of which they were capable. 


Page 21, 1. 21. those five years, cf. p. 12, 1. 7. 
1, 25. endueth, an old spelling of endoweth. 


1. 26. casualty, uncertainty. We use the word in the sense of 
‘an accident.’ Here it means ‘liability to accident.’ With this 
paragraph cf. pp. 13-14, and Wssay xxxiii. In the Latin transla- 
tion Bacon says that scrupulous honesty and unselfishness are 
attributed to learned men ‘ perhaps not unjustly.’ 


1, 28. to esteem, to think. We no longer say ‘to esteem that.’ 


1, 30. ordainment, position: appointment. God ordained them 
for something higher than mere happiness. In illustration of this 
eens. the ns, pe may profitably read two fine chapters in 

arlyle’s Past and Present, bk. iii. ch. 4 and 12. 

1. 31. as kings and the states, etc., 7.c., whether they serve 
under a king or a republic. 

1, 33. I have made profit, etc. Wishing to emphasize the fact 
that power is a trust, Bacon appropriately uses words taken from 
the well-known parable of the talents—‘‘ The kingdom of heaven 
is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own 
servants, and delivered unto them his goods, and unto one he 
gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every 


‘ 


94 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [pacEs 


man according to his several ability ; and straightway took his 
‘ journey ..... After a long time the lord of these servants cometh 
and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five 
talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou 
deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, J have gained, beside 
these, five talents more. His Lord said, Well done, thou good 
and faithful servant : thou hast been faithful over a few things, I 
will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy 
of thy lord,” ete. Matt. xxv. 14. Our use of the word talent in 
the sense of ability is derived from this parable. 


]. 36. apprehension, understanding. 


Page 22, |. 1. nor ever, etc., 7.e., who confine their attention to 
their own individual interests, without thinking of the public 
good. 

do refer, etc. Cf. ‘It is a poor centre of a man’s actions 
himself..... The referring of all to a man’s self is a desperate 
evil in a servant to a prince... whatsoever affairs pass such 
a man’s hands, he crooketh (bendeth) them to his own ends, 
which must needs be often eccentric to (different from) the ends 
of his master or state.” —Hssay xxiii. 


1. 5. estates, kingdoms. 


1. 6. cockboat, little boat. The word shows the insignificance 
of the fate of the individual, in comparison with that of the state, 
which is compared to a large vessel. Shakespeare uses the form 
cock. It is from the Latin concha, a shell, and appears in the 
derivative coxswain, i.e., cock’s-swain. 


1. 7. make good their places and duties, 7.c., perform the duties 
of their station. Cf. ‘‘ Divide with reason between self-love and 
society : and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, 
specially to thy king and country.”—Zssay xxiii. For use to, 
oc. m. 19,1, 12. 

1. 9. stand, remain safe. The meaning of the passage is that, 
if they are preserved through seasons of rebellion and revolution, 
they owe their safety not to their power of making friends with 
the stronger party, but to the universal respect which their 
honesty commands. 


1. 11. versatile, lit. changeable. Bacon says they are not pre- 
gid by their skill in changing from side to side. carriage, be- 
aviour. . 


1. 12. tender, scrupulous. 


1. 13. withal, frequently used for with, after the object at the 
end of the sentence. . 


_ 1 14. tax, burden, i.e., try it. No amount of misfortune will 
induce such a man to become dishonest. 


1. 15. allowance, approval. Cf. p. 18, 1, 29. 


21-23.) NOTES. 95 


1. 16. excusation, excuse. There is no need to deny or to | 
apologise for what every one approves of. 

1, 18. more probably, 7.e., in a way which will meet with more 
general approval ; more successfully. 

1, 19. inapplying themselves, in accommodating themselves to : 
in humouring. 

1, 22. exquisite, careful. 

1, 23. itis a speech, etc. A lover is content with contemplating 
his beloved: but no one is of sufficient importance to claim the 
undivided attention of the wise man. Cf. ‘‘ It was a poor saying 
of Epicurus, ‘ We are a sufficiently large theatre, one for another’: 
as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven and all noble 
objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make 
himself subject, though not of the mouth, as beasts are, yet of the 
eye, which was given him for higher purposes.” —Lssay x. 

1, 26. I shall yield, I am willing to admit. 

1, 29. cause, viz., why learned men do not study the character of 
individuals. The cause is their uprightness. a rejection upon 
choice, a deliberate refusal to do so. 

1. 30. bounds of observation, cf. ‘‘Counsellors should not be too 

eculative into their Sovereign’s person. The true composition 
of a counsellor is rather to be skilful in their master’s business, 
than in his nature: for then he is like to advise him and not to 
feed his humour ”—Lssay xx. 

l. 34. a man’s self, Bacon generally uses ‘a man’ where we 
should use the indefinite ‘ one.’ 

1. 35. speculative is used in its literal sense of ‘ prying into.’ 

1, 36. to work, to influence. to wind, to make him do what you 

lease. The Latin tr. has ‘lead him about at your pleasure.’ 

. our expression, ‘ to twist a person round one’s fingers.’ 

Page 23, 1. 2. entire, honest. It is the Latin integer, which 
means both whole and honest. 

1. 4. the Levant, 7.c. the East generally. The Greek historian 
Herodotus makes this custom as old as 700 B.c. Ellis supposes 
that Bacon is referring to the narration of some modern traveller. 

1, 7. bent, crafty : not straightforward. 

1. 8. the hearts of kings, etc., p. 1, 1. 13. 

1. 13. carriage, demeanour. small and ordinary, ete. In the 


- Latin translation Bacon adds, ‘For instance in their looks, ges- 


ture, gait, daily conversation, and the like.’ 
1, 16. consequence, inference. 


1. 19. uncivilly, with bad taste. Cf. ‘‘The speech of Themi- 
stocles, the Athenian, which was haughty and arrogant in taking 


96 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [paces 


so much to himself, had been a grave and wise censure applied at 
large to others. Desired at a feast to touch a lute, he said he 
could not fiddle, but yet he could make a small town a great 
city.” —Hssay xxix. Aman may be wanting in small accomplish- 
ments, and yet be a very able man. 

]. 23. well seen in the passages, well versed in the transactions. 
The Latin participle spectatus, lit. seen, is also used in the sense 
of tried or proved. 

1, 24. to seek in, p. 12, 1. 23. 

]. 25. punctual, minute. 

1. 27. gallipots, glazed earthen pots. 


]. 28. antiques, fanciful figures. The word used in the Latin 
translation is ‘Satyrs.’ Alcibiades, in the Symposium, one of 
the dialogues of Plato, compares Socrates to the masks of the god 
Silenus, the faces of which were hideous : but when they were 
opened, images of the gods were found inside. Spedding sup- 
poses that Bacon was thinking of the following passage in the 
French humourist Rabelais: ‘‘ Silenuses formerly were small 
boxes, such as we see at present in apothecaries’ shops, with 
merry and grotesque figures painted on the top.” For sovereign, 


“oe 


see p. 6, 1. 33. 

1. 29. confections, medicines. It means lit. ‘something made 
up,’ Latin conjicere. The words comfit, confection, etc., are from 
the same root. to an external report, to those who judged by 
appearances. 

1. 34. in the meantime, i.c., before proceding further, I must 
warn my readers that, etc. allowance, p. 18, 1. 29. 


1, 36. wronged themselves, disgraced themselves. 


Page 24, |. 1. trencher philosophers, hangers-on at the 
tables of the great. A trencher is a dish or plate on which 
food is placed. It is from the French word Trencher, to 
cut. 


1. 4, A parasite means literally ‘one who eats with another’: 
‘a guest.’ It is used to denote those who by flattery manage to 
live at the expense of others. The satire of Lucian, referred to 
below, is directed against Greek scholars, who practised the arts 
of the parasite in the houses of wealthy Romans, and so brought 
disgrace both on themselves and their calling. 


1. 4. Lucian, a satirist and humourist, was a native of Samosata 
on the Euphrates. He was born about 125 a.p. 


1. 6. would needs, etc., insisted on his carrying. Needs is the 
old genitive used adverbially. 


1, 7, uncomely, adv., awkwardly. We use the word as an 
adjective, rt (84 


23-24. ] NOTES. 97 


1. 8. of a Stoic, from being a Stoic. It is a literal translation 
of the Latin e stoico. 


1. 9. a Cynic, there is a play on the word Cynic, which means 
dog-like, and was also the name of a school of Greek philosophers, 
to which Diogenes, mentioned below, belonged. The name ‘ dog- 
like’ was perhaps given to these philosophers from their coarse 
way of life. The Stoics were another sect of philosophers, re- 
markable for their austerity and indifference to worldly goods. 
The name Stoic is derived from the Stoa Poecile or colonnade in 
Athens where Zeno taught. 


1. 11. abused, turned to a bad use. 


, etc. ,2.e. representing oldand ugly womenas young 
and beautiful, and vicious women as chaste. Beak was the wife 
of Priam, king of Troy. Helen was the wife of the Grecian Mene- 
laus : her seduction te Paris was the cause of the Trojan war. 
Faustina was the wife of the Roman emperor, Marcus Antoninus, 
and was celebrated for her immorality. Lucretia was a virtuous 
Roman matron who was violated by the son of king Tarquin, and 
who, rather than survive the shame, committed suicide. 

Ellis says that the writings of Du Bartas were held in great 
esteem by King James. He was born in 1544, at Montfort in 
Armagnac. His chief poem was on the subject of the Creation. 

The student will find some remarks on titoraey patronage in 
Macaulay’s Hssay on Johnson and in Buckle’s History of Civiliza- 
tion, vol. ii., ch. iv. Patronage was necessary to the scholar in 
times when readers were so few that he could not maintain him- 
self by his pen. 

1. 15. for that, because. 


1, 20. it was to some such, etc. As Bacon himself had done: 
see above, pp. 1-4. argument, the subject. The word argu- 
mentum bears this sense in Latin. ; 


1, 23. tax, find fault with. morigeration, humouring. It isa 
Latin word, and signifies literally ‘ bearing the habits’ of a man. 
1, 24, application, p. 22, 1. 19. 
Diogenes, it should be Aristippus. 
1, 28. the one sort, etc., philosophers. 
1, 29. the other, etc., the rich. 
1. 30. Aristippus, born about 435 B.c. He was the founder of 


_ the Cyrenaic school of philosophy. Dionysius was the ruler of 


Syracuse. 
1. 33. tender, sensitive. 
1. 34. that he would offer, i.c., for offering. The point of 
i ’ reply is that a philosopher, who has a request to 


make, must make it prostrate, if the king will not listen to him 


a 


9g OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [pPAGEs 


in any other attitude. Cf. Johnson, ‘‘You may be prudently 
attached to great men, and yet independent. You are not to do 
what you think wrong: and, Sir, you are to calculate, and not to 
pay too dear for what you get. You must not give a shilling’s 
worth of court for sixpence worth of good. But if you can get a 
shilling’s worth of good for sixpence worth of court, you are a 
fool if you do not pay court.” 


Page 25, |. 7. disallowed, disapproved. 
1. 8. outward, z.¢., in appearance. 


Pages 25-34. Bacon now proceeds to_consider the last and 
most serious objection which has been raised against learning, 


matter. 
The second fault, viz., that of over-subtlety and contentious us- 
ness, is worse than the first. _ There is no ati harm in affected — 
language, provided it is the vehicle of truth: but nothing can — 
atone rhe? deficiency in the matter. It is the fault of which — 


the schoolmen were conspicuously guilty. constantly én. 
ercising their ingenuity upon very limited pity pd b seth 


spun an endless but quite unsubstantial and worthless : seb 


* 


25.1 | NOTES. 99 


penopty: This over-subtlety of the schoolmen showed itself 
oth in their choice of subjects, and in their method of discussion. 
They chose the most fruitless subjects for discussion: and in the 
discussions themselves they contented themselvés with setting up 
each proposition in science as an object of attack and defence. 
Such a method could only issue in fruitless altercations about 
trifles. A proposition is to be considered with the limitations 
which the context requires: thus looked at, it may be true: 
though stated absolutely, it may be false. A stick will stand 
upright in the middle of a bundle: but unsupported, it will fall 
to the ground. The schoolmen might have advanced the cause 
of learning, if they had sought the necessury data for reasoning 
either from g od’s word or from his works. They failed because 
t _content-to-argue from ther own & priori ideas, or to 
spin endless syllogisms from a few unverified premises. 

The third fnlt—satruth is the worst of atl. Jt is the very 
negation of knowledge. It is due to credulity and intentional 
deceit, two faults which generally coexist. Credulity manifests 
itself in three ways, (i.) with regard to matters of fact. Men 
are too ready to give credence to alleged miracles, ur to prodigies 
in natural history, (ii.) A man may be too credulous as to 
what a given art can effect. Alchemy, astrology, and magic are 
effective arts within certain limits: but it is well known how the 
professors of them have imposed upon the credulity of mankind. 
(iii.) Men give too ready an assent to any proposition which is 
sanctioned by the authority of a great name. 


1. 13. which is principal and proper to, 7.e., with which the 
present argument is principally and more appropriately con- 
cerned. 

1. 17. aspersion, the word literally signifies sprinkling, or 
admixture. It is used in this sense on p. 43,1. 19. The sentence 
in the text might mean ‘to save it from being confounded with 
the rest.’ But the word aspersion has also derived from the 
Latin the sense of calumny, and Bacon probably uses it in that 


- sense here, so that the sentence would mean, ‘to show that it 


ao, 
ou 


does not deserve the reproaches which have been directed » SBR 


- the rest.’ The Latin translation has ‘to save from reproac 


100 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Paces 


1. 23. Ihave no meaning, I do not intend. 


1, 24. animadversion, consideration. It is a Latin word signi- 
fying literally ‘a turning of the mind towards’ a thing. 

]. 26. unto, concerning. 

1. 29. traduced, calumniated. Cf. p. 19, Ll. 2. 

1. 33. curious, subtle. The Latin translation adds—‘ In things 
which are of little use.’ curiosity is either in matter or words, 
the Latin translation adds by way of explanation—‘ that is to 
say, when men labour at unimportant subjects or devote too 
much attention to purity of style.’ 


1. 34. in reason, as we should have expected a priori. Credulity 
produces false or fantastical philosophy. Frivolity, in the sense 
of ‘curiosity in matter,’ 7.e. subtlety in trifles, produces con- 
tentious philosophy. Frivolity, in the sense of ‘curiosity in 
words,’ z.e. undue attention to verbal purity, leads to affectation. 

]. 35. distempers, <liseases. 

Page 26, 1. 1. fantastical, fanciful. 

1, 2. delicate, affected. ; 

l. 4. Martin Luther, In the Latin translation the words which 
would offend the Catholics are omitted, and Bacon merely says 
that ‘though this extravagance of luxuriant speech has been 
admired at intervals in the past, yet it grew to an extraordinary 
pitch about the time of Luther.’ He attributes this to the 
desire to attract the vulgar by sermons and to a hatred of the 
scholastic style. 

1. 5. in discourse of reason, by the exercise of his reason. 
Shakespeare uses the phrase to denote the reasoning faculty. 
Hamlet, i. 2, 150. 

a province, a task. It is probable that the Latin word 
‘provincia’ meant ‘a public duty,’ before it acquired the more 
special meaning of ‘a district.’ 

1. 9. to awake all antiquity, i.e. to call attention to the 
opinions of the ancients. succours, we should now use the 
singular. 

1. 13. revolved, considered. 

1. 14. exquisite, careful. For travail, see note on p. 9, 1. 29. 

1, 21. the Schoolmen, the philosophers of the middle ages. 
The Scholastic philosophy lasted, roughly speaking, from the 


ninth to the fifteenth century. The name was taken originally 
trom the teachers in the schools established by Charlemagne. 

1, 22. part, party. The Schoolmen were all ecclesiastics, and, 
of course, members of the Catholic Church. 


1, 24, to coin and frame new terms, we are indebted to the 


26-27. ] NOTES. 101 


Schoolmen for many of the technical terms of the formal logic, 
and for a number of words, such as essence, entity, substance, 
etc., which are familiar to students of philosophy. 


], 28. the Pharisees, a sect of the Jews, remarkable for their 
scrupulous observance of the precepts and ritual of the Mosaic 
Law. 

1. 33. the vulgar sort, the common people. 

Page 27, 1. 1. copia, a Latin word for fluency. 

1.4. round and clean, perfect and polished. The word 
‘round’ expresses an absence of roughness. 

1, 5. falling, cadence: rhythm. 

l. 7. tropes, a trope is a figure of speech. It is derived from a 
Greek word signifying to turn, or twist. 

1. 8. life of invention, lively invention, vigorous. 

1.9. watery, thin: unsubstantial. The word denotes the 
absence of matter in his speech. Osorius was Bishop of Sylves 
in Algarves. He died in 1580. One of his chief works was a 
book containing an account, of the Portuguese discoveries and 
conquests which took place in the reign of Emanuel the Great 
(1495-1521).—E. 

1. 10, to be in price, to be valued : a Latinism. 

1. 31. Sturmius (1507-1589) was a Professor at Paris and 


. Strasburg. He has been styled ‘the German Cicero.’—E. Her- 


mogenes lived under Marcus Aurelius. He was so successful in 
communicating a polished style that he went by the name of 
‘the file.’ curious, p. 19, 1. 9. 


1, 13. Car of Cambridge, Nicholas Carr (1523-1568) was Pro- 
fessor of Greek in the University of Cambridge. 


1. 14. Roger Ascham (1515-1568) was tutor to Queen Eliza- 
beth. 


1, 16. delicate, p. 26, 1. 2. 

1. 17. Erasmus, one of the most learned scholars of the Renais- 
sance period. See Green’s History of the English People, vol. ii. 
p. 81. 

1, 18. The last word in Erasmus’ sentence is ‘ Cicerone’: the 
Greek word which echoes to it is ‘ one,’ t.e., ‘ thou donkey.’ 


~ 1, 81. patent, any warrant issued by the sovereign, and con- 
ferring a title or privilege on a subject. It is so called because 
such a warrant is open to public inspection. limned book, illus- 
trated book. though it hath large flourishes, though it is much 
ornamented : in the Latin translation, it is—‘ though it be deco- 
rated with flourishes of the pen and flowers.’ 


1, 32. It seems, etc. Pygmalion fell in love with a statue of a 


| 


102. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGE 


woman that he had made. At his request Venus endowed the 
statue with life. To admire a frivolous book is like falling in 
love with lifeless stone. Cf. ‘In all speech, words and sense are 
as the body and the soul. The sense is as the life and soul of 
language, without which all words are dead.’—Ben Jonson. 


Page 28, l. 1. it, i.e., the clothing and adorning, etc. 


1. 3. sensible, striking the senses. plausible, such as attracts 
the admiration of readers. The literal meaning of the word is 
to attract or deserve applause: and it is frequently used in this 
sense by Bacon. 

1. 7. inquisition, cf. p. 5, 1. 29. 


1. 10. period, conclusion. Attractiveness of style must not 
blind us to the necessity of strict proof. The meaning of the 
word satisfactory is explained by the following passage from 
Bacon’s Of the Interpretation of Nature,—‘In the inquiring of 
causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as 
will satisfy the mind of man and quiet objections than such causes 
as will direct him,’ etc. Cf. Bk. 2: ‘He that receiveth know- 
ledge, desireth rather present satisfaction, than expectant in- 
quiry ; and so rather not to doubt, than not to err.’ if a man 
be to have, etc., i.e., if a man have occasion to make use of his 
knowledge. 


Lui, stvil, p.-18, 1 2. 
1. 16. Adonis, a beautiful youth beloved by Venus. 


1. 17. Hercules, the strong man of Grecian mythology. Hence 
scholars who shrink from no labour in study are called ‘Her- 
cules’ followers in learning.’ Burke talks of ‘a man with an 
ame robustness of mind, and nerves not to be broken with 
abour.’ 


1]. 21. distemper of learning, In the Latin translation Bacon 
adds—‘ There is also another kind of style a little better than the 
former, and commonly following it in point of time, which aims 
at having the words pointed, the sentences concise, and the 
language rather forced than flowing. By a trick of this kind 
everything seems more ingenious than it really is. Such a style 
is found conspicuously in Seneca, and to a less extent in Tacitus 
and Plinius Secundus, and for some little time it has been pleasing 
to the ears of our own time. It is true that it is generally pleasing 
to men of ordinary understanding, so that it brings some dignity 
to literature: but it is justly despised by more polished judg- 
ments, and may be considered as one of the diseases of learn- 


ing, because it is a kind of hunting after words and their 
charm.’ 


1, 22, The second, Supply ‘distemper of learning.’ In order 
_ to understand this section the student should _bear_in mind that 


27-28] NOTES. 103 


1s was its character on the 

whole. ccasionally we meet with a Schoolman who left the 
beaten track of theology. Roger Bacon, for instance, was as 
diligent and enthusiastic a votary of science as his more cele- 
brated namesake. Cf. Green’s History of the English People, vol. 
i., p. 259. But the circumstances of the time were not favour- 
ableto scientific inquiry : and the great evil of Scholasticism, in 
Bacon’s opinion, was that it diverted men’s minds from more 
useful studies. Cf. Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. iii., p. 432. We 
may distinguish certain periods in Scholasticism. The first of the 
Schoolmen was Erigena, who was born between 800 and 810. 
The only work of Aristotle with which he was acquainted was 
the Logic. His philosophy was that of the later Platonists : and 
his system is an attempt to reconcile theology with his philosophy 
by means of the rules of the Aristotelian logic. With him philo- 
sophy was only so far subject to theology, that the latter determined 
the former in all cases where the two diverged. He allowed him- 
self full liberty of speculation on points which did not come within 
the sphere of theology. His writings were afterwards condemned 
by the Church. The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries were 
occupied with the great struggle between the Realists and the 
Nominalists, a struggle which gave the Church an opportunity of 
asserting a constantly increasing authority, since the various 
issues raised by the conflict had a distinct bearing on theological 
dogmas. The most conspicuous figure in the twelfth century is 
Abelard, who came into conflict with, and was condemned by the 
Church, for his fearless application of the Aristotelian dialectic 
to subjects which, according to the contention of the Church, were 
to be settled by authority. It was not until the thirteenth cen- 
tury that Scholasticism attained its full development and all 
hilosophy--was included in theology. This phenomenon was 
lue to the introduction into Europe of the ethical, physical, and 
metaphysical treatises of Aristotle. Armed with these the 
Church was in a position to put forth an authoritative exposi- 
tion of the truth on a// subjects. The most eminent representa- 
tive of this fully developed Scholasticism is Thomas Aquinas. 
Thus the history of Scholasticism displays a progressive limitation 
of the right to freedom of thought. The last representative of 
the Scholastic method is the famous William of Ockham. When 
he appeared Scholasticism was doomed. In his works we see the 
human mind once more asserting its irrepressible claim to the 
right of freedom in speculation. Ockham was a revolutionist 
both in philosophy and politics. He employed his dialectic skill 
in attacking the main positions of the philosophy of Aquinas. 
He was scholastic in his method, but his philosophical ideas are 


the Se i i i in, an application of the 
ogic of Aristotle to the opment and explanation of the doc- 
rines of the Christian faith. 


those not of the past, but of succeeding generations. It is not 


’ 


104. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [paces 


then to be wondered at if the Schoolmen only succeeded in 
weaving a web of contentious metaphysics. When the mind has 
exhausted, the data presented to it, if no fresh experience is 
forthcoming, it must either be idle, or return upon the same data 
from which everything of value has already been extracted, or 
else it must invent questions for the mere purpose of discussing 
them. The only data presented_to_the Schoolmen were _the 


a ae ae eee RTE These were 
accepted on authority, and conclusions were drawn from them 
by syllogism. The want of fresh data inevitably drove men to 
controversies about trifle’ A philosophy of any value presup- 
poses scientific knowledge. Bacon, who was impatient of all 
metaphysical and theological discussions, naturally despised 
Scholasticism. He gives the true reason of the failure of the 
Schoolmen—‘“‘ Their wits were shut up in the cells of a few 
authors,” and they had ‘‘no great quantity of matter.” They 
did not_eyen know Aristotle at first hand, but only through 
Arabian commentators. Science wants data: and_a_fruitful 
pay Due rest on a wide and well-considered experience. 
Scholasticism failed because it had no experience, and because it 
had a—bad-meéthod. This is the truth which Bacon wished to 
impress upon the world. He says in the Nov. Org., Bk. 1, Aph. 
121—‘‘ Subtlety of discussion and reasoning is too late and is 
useless when the principles of science have once been established : 


the only, or, at any rate, the principal time when subtlety is~ 


required is when we are weighing evidence and_ establishing 
principles — Nature like Fortune has long hair in front, but she 
is behind bald.” Roger Bacon gives the same preference.to 
inductive over formal reasoning—and the general resemblance 
between Roger and Francis Bacon is very strong—see Hallam, 
thid. The student will find an excellent sketch of the Scholastic 
philosophy in Milman’s Latin Christianity, bk. 14, ch. 3. He 
may also consult with advantage Whewell’s History of the In- 
ductive Sciences, vol. 1, bk. 4. For the Scholastic character of 
Indian philosophy, see Duncker’s History of India, bk. 5, ch. viii. 


1. 27. respective, having reference to. ; 


1, 28. extensive, capable of being extended to. St. Paul is 
warning the person to whom he writes to keep the Christian 
faith in its primitive purity and simplicity. 1 Tim. vi. 20. 
Bacon condemns the Schoolmen for importing new ideas and 
drawing unmeaning distinctions, which become the subject of 
violent but unfruitful controversy. In the third Hssay Bacon 
remarks upon this same text from St. Paul, ‘‘Men create oppo- 
sitions which are not, and put them into terms so fixed, as 


whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in 


effect governeth the meaning.” 
1, 33. strictness of positions, dogmatic assertions. 


AS 
wat 


28-29. ] NOTES. 105 


Page 29, 1. 3. vermiculate, wriggling like a worm, intricate. 
which have indeed, etc., a book which bristles with discussion 
appears to be full of life: but if the discussions are trivial, the 
book is worthless. 


1. 4, quickness, see p. 13, 1. 24. 


1. 8. their wits being shut up, etc., their knowledge being con- 
fined to a few authors, 


1. 9. their dictator, the authority whom they followed blindly. 
The Dictator was a magistrate whom the Romans appointed on 
extraordinary emergencies, and who, so long as he held office, 
possessed absolute power. Dante, in the Divina Commedia (a.p. 
1300), calls Aristotle ‘‘the master of those that know.” He 
represents him as sitting as head of ‘‘the philosophic family,” 
and says that Plato and all the rest look up to him. 


1, 15. which, viz., working on matter. By working on matter, 
says Bacon, I mean studying nature. 


1. 16. creatures, 7.c., all created things. We now use the word 
to express living things. worketh according to the stuff and is 
limited thereby, z.e., does not transcend experience, but asserts 
such propositions only as are warranted by experience. 


1, 17. if it work upon itself, 7.e., if it employ itself merely 
with ideas of its own creation, and not about ideas which are 
abstracted from actual facts. 


], 23. whereof there are no small number, Ba egarded all 
of any material resu e following questions, which are dis- 
e omas Aquinas, may serve as more glaring instances 
of the ‘fruitless speculation of the Schoolmen’:—Whether all 
angels belong to the same genus. Whether demons are evil by 
nature, or by will. Whether they can change one substance into 
another. Whether Christ possessed merit in the very instant of 
his conception, or not till the following instant. Whether an 
angel can move from one point to another without passing 
through the intermediate space. Whether, if Adam had not 
sinne E eeactly equal numbers of males and females would have 
n born. 


1, 24. the manner, etc. The method of the Schoolmen is 
correctly described in the text. Generally each inquiry begins 
with a statement of the different points which are to be eluci- 
dated. To each of these is allotted a separate paragraph. One 
or more reasons are alleged in favour of the opinion which the 
author means to reject. Some objection, generally founded on a 
quotation from some conclusive authority, is then stated against 
it, and then the author gives his own opinion in what is called 
the conclusion, and proceeds to refute one by one the arguments 
he has atiusebaatiios other side. It is impossible not to recog- 


106 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 


nise in this procedure the influence of a system of oral disputa- 
tion.—E. See Bk. 2, p. 101, where the substance of this section 
isrepeated. Cf. Ueberweg’s History of Philosophy, vol. i., p. 482. 
“The method of the Schoolmen consisted first in connecting the 
doctrines to be expounded with a commentary on some work 
chosen for the purpose. he contents of this work were divided 
and sub-divided, until the separate propositions, of which it was 
composed, were reached. Then these were interpreted, questions 
were raised with reference to them, and the grounds for affirming 
and for denying them were presented. Finally the conclusion was 
announced,” etc. Bacon means to say that the truth or false- 
hood of a proposition cannot be determined without taking into 
account the limitations imposed by the other propositions of the 
science, of which it forms a part. The proposition that ‘ wages 
tend to an equality’ is false, absolutely : it is true in the place 
which it occupies in an English treatise on economy. 


1. 28. which solutions, etc. Milman says of Thomas Aquinas, 
that ‘‘his luxury of distinction and definition, if it be not a con- 
tradiction, his imaginative logic is inexhaustible.” Again, talk- 
ing of Scotus’ vindication of the grace of God, he says that, 
‘“Scotus draws a distinction (he saves everything by a distinction 
which his subtlety never fails to furnish) between the absolute 
and secondary will of God.” Again, talking of the controversy 
between the Scotists and Thomists, he says that ‘‘one defines 
away necessity till it ceases to be necessity, the other fetters 
free-will till it ceases to be free.” The following may serve as an 
instance of a ‘‘solution” which in reality consists merely of 
formal distinctions. ‘Thomas Aquinas thus proves that the 
beginning of the world in time is not philosophically demon- 
strable. ‘‘It is said that the cause must precede the effect: 
but we must draw a distinction between efficient causes and per- 
fect causes. The dictum applies to the former, but not to the 
latter. God is a perfect cause, and could by his almighty power 
create an eternal world. Again, that the world was created from 
nothing does not prove its temporal origin. Here we must draw 
a distinction between temporal succession and order. ‘ From 
nothing’ means ‘after nothing,’ but not necessarily in the sense 
of temporal succession. Again it is said, that we cannot pursue 
the chain of causation to infinity, but that at some point we 
must come to that which is uncaused. Those who urge this ob- 
jection overlook the distinction between intermediary causes and 
the absolute cause.” In the Paradiso, c. 13, Dante represents 
Thomas Aquinas as emphasizing the importance of drawing dis- 
tinctions in all affirmation or negation. The same method of 
demonstration was employed generally by the Schoolmen both in 
theology and physics. In the sphere of physics their formal dis- 
tinctions were generally supported by quotations from Aristotle, 
whose physical speculations are peculiarly fanciful, so that the 


29-30. ] NOTES. 107 


student will easily understand that this method would_neyer 
enable the Schoolmen to make any progress in scientific dis- 
covery. At the best, their method was but an analysis, accord- 
ing to the rules of logic, of abstract_terms and popular general- 
. ‘gations: So Tong as the terms which men use are an inadequate 
or incorrect expression of facts, mere formal consistency in 
reasoning is simply consistency in error. Moreover, progress was 
impossible. No new ideas were got by fresh examinations of 
nature, consequently the Schoolmen were perpetually engaged 
with the same questions. Another circumstance which hindered 
progress was that they were not allowed to question their pre- 
mises. In the sphere of theology they were bound by the 
dogmas of the Church: in the sphere of physics, ‘ Aristotle was 
their dictator.’ Cf. Whewell, ‘On the Character of Commen- 
tators.’ History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. I., bk. iv., ch. ii. 

1. 30. the old man’s faggot, see Aisop’s Fables, 52. It is im- 
possible to break sticks when they are tied in a large bundle, but 
each can be broken separately if taken out of the bundle. So 
the strength of a science lies ‘in the bond,’ i.e., in the consistency 
of each part with every other. 

1, 34. axiom, proposition. 

Page 30, 1. 4. They break up, etc., they never get a comprehen- 
‘sive view of a subject. The remark about Seneca is from the 
Roman rhetorician Quintilian. 


1. 6. fair, large. 


l. 8. watch-candle, a small light kept burning in a room at 
night. Science should take a comprehensive view of the whole 
extent of a subject, such as a brilliant light gives us of a large 
room. 

1. 12. cavillation, quibble: captious objection. 

1. 14. as in the former resemblance, to take the comparison 
which we took above, 1. 6. In The Interpretation of Nature, 
when he is condemning the science of his day, Bacon repeats the 
comparison which occurs below. ‘‘ The strange fiction of the 
poets of the transformation of Scylla seemeth to be a lively 
emblem of this philosophy and knowledge: a fair woman up- 
wards in the parts of show, but when you come to the parts 
of use and generation, Barking Monsters ; for no better are the 
endless distorted questions, which ever have been, and of neces- 
sity must be, the end and womb of such knowledge.” It must 
always be borne in mind that, futile as the speculations of the 

.Schoolmen appear in the light of modern science, still we have to 
thank them for maintaining an intellectual activity through ages 
in which all but themselves were sunk in ignorance. 


; : 1 20. generalities, generalizations. 
» 1 21. proportionable, comprehensive enough. 


q a a ees 


108 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PacEs 


1. 28. instead of a fruitful, etc., the student should notice the 
stress which Bacon lays on the proposition, that all study is 
worthless, which is not productive of benefits to mankind. 

1. 24. barking, loud. It is mere noise. 

]. 25. quality, kind. 

], 28. they are all out of their way which never meet, people 
who never agree must, it is thought, all be in error. 

1. 29. digladiation, obstinate fighting. 

Page 31, 1. 3. with dark keeping, with being kept in the dark— 
“shut up in the cells of a few authors,” p. 29, 1. 10. He alludes 
to the effect of darkness on the temper of animals. 

1. 5. to leave the oracle, etc., as for instance in the discussion 
of such subjects as I have alluded to on p. 29, 1. 23. 

l. 7. the oracle of God’s works, called ‘‘ the book of God’s 
works,” p. 9, 1. 12. 

1. 9. unequal, uneven. Instead of deriving their ideas of 
things from a direct study of things themselves, they contented 
themselves with their own erroneous ideas of things. The idea 
which 1 prejudiced mind forms of a thing no more resembles the 
reality, than does an image reflected in a mirror with a rough or 
broken surface. 

1. 13. of all the rest, this is a confusion of two expressions, 
‘* Foulest of all,” and ‘* Fouler than all the rest.” 

_l. 14. the essential form, the Latin tr. has ‘the very nature and 

life of knowledge.’ The words essence and form signify the 
qualities which make a thing what it is. 
_ 1, 15. for the truth, 7.c., the truth is to reality as the reflection 
is to the object reflected. We have attained to truth when our 
subjective ideas about things and their .relations correspond 
exactly to the things themselves and their objective relations. 

1. 21. to proceed of, we should say from. 

1, 23. the verse, quoted from Horace, Ep. 1. 8. 69. 

1, 27. as we see it in fame, as we see in the case of rumours. 


1. 32. fiction and belief, the wish to deceive, and the tendency 
to be imposed upon. 


1. 36. speak, say. matter of art and opinion, see p. 32, 1. 32. 


Page 32, |. 6. they had a passage, they were believed. On 
this subject, see Gibbon, ch. 28. 


1. 9. divine poesies, religious fictions. It was. thought unwise 
to shake any of the foundations of religious belief. 


1. 10. they, for the construction cf, p. 2, 1. 17. 


1. 12. Antichrist, the spirit of evil ; literally, the opponent of 
Christ. When predicting the signs of the approaching destruc- 


30-33.) NOTES. 109 


tion of Jerusalem, Christ said, ‘‘ There shall arise false Christs, 
and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; 
insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very 
elect.” Matt. xxv. 24. St. Paul, foretelling the defections from 
the purity of the Christian faith, says, ‘‘Then shall that wicked 
be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume. . . . Even him, 
whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and 
signs and lying wonders.” 2 Thess. ii. 8. 


1. 16. Plinius was a Roman writer on Natural History, a.p. 
23-79. 
Cardanus (1501-1576), a physician of Milan, who wrote 
on Natural History, Medicine, and Astrology. 


Albertus also wrote on Natural History. He was Bishop 
of Ratisbon, and on account of his learning was called ‘ The 
Great.’ He was born A.p. 1193. 


1, 17. the Arabians, see Gibbon, ch. 52, and Whewell’s History 
of the Inductive Sciences, bk. iv., ch. 2. - They became acquainted 
with the philosophy and science of the Greéks in the eighth 
century after Christ. It was through them that the Sc en 
became acquainted with the physic i 
Aristotle: and their commentaries on the works of Aristotle, 
especially those of Ibn-Raschid, known in Europe as Averroes, 
had a considerable influence on the Scholastic philosophies. Jn 
philosophy, however, the Arabians confined themselves to ex- 


Piping ward developing the doctrines of Aristotle: it in the 
Sphere of science (hat they displayed originality- To the science 
of me @ especially, and also to the sciences of chemistry and 
algebra, they made considerable contributions. 

1. 18. untried, unverified. 

1, 22. exquisite, p. 26, 1. 14. 

1. 26. worthy the recording, this record of extraordinary narra- 
tions, which the author had heard, is not really by Aristotle. 
With this passage cf. 2, i. 3. 

1, 31. to the memory of man, i.¢., to posterity. 

1. 35. which have had, etc., which are rather fanciful than 
rational. Literally, which have corresponded more closely, and 
been more nearly allied, to imagination than to reason. The 
Latin translation has ‘which rest more upon imagination and 
faith than upon reason and proofs.’ For natural magic and 
alchemy, see Bk. 2, p. 51. 

Page 33, 1. 2. astrology. The so-called science of Astra}o 
came originally from the Chaldeans. The chief power whic 
astrol claimed was that of prediction. It was thought 
that Abe havent bodies influenced the course of natural 
phenomena: and that each of the stars had a different influence 


110 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGE 


according to its composition. Jupiter and Venus were com- 
pounded of warm and moist, and their influence was good, since 
heat and moisture are creative elements. On the other hand, the 
influence of Mars and Mercury was bad, since the one was dry, 
and the other was changeable. It was thought, moreover, that 
each of the signs of the zodiac presides over a special part of the 
body : and that a child’s fortune in life could be predicted from 
the sign of the zodiac which rose at its birth. It was thought 
also that an undertaking would prosper according to the season 
in which it was undertaken. This last belief was held by Bacon— 
“We must not,” he says, ‘‘altogether reject the choice of times, 
though we should place less reliance on it than on predictions. For 
we see that in sowing, and planting, and grafting, an observation 
of the age of the moon is a thing not altogether to be despised.” 
Bacon rejected the grosser follies of Astrology. ‘‘ Astrology,” he 
seys, ‘‘is so full of superstition, that we can scarcely find anything 
sound in it’—but he could not shake off the belief in it alto- 
gether. He says that it may enable us to predict not only 
natural phenomena, such as frosts, floods, earthquakes, etc., but 
wars, seditions, schisms, transmigrations of peoples, and, in 
short, all commotions or great revolutions of things, natural as 
well as civil. See Fowler’s Introd. to Nov. Org. p. 26, and 
Whewell’s History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. I., bk. iv., ch. 3. 
Alchemy is the Arabic Alkimia. Alisthe Arabic article. Kétmia 
is the late Greek word chemeia, which is perhaps a corruption of 
chumeia, a mixture, or fusion. The form chumeia justifies the 
spellings alchymy and chymistry. 
1. 5. concatenation, connection. 


1. 6. to reduce is used in its literal sense, and is equivalent to 
‘to bring back.’ Cf. ‘induceth,’ Bk. 2, p. 43. In the De Aug. 
Bacon says ‘‘that the proper function of natural magic is to 
apply the knowledge of hidden causes to the production of 
wonderful results.” See below, Bk. 2, p. 38. For the ground 
of Bacon’s objections to the ordinary magic, see Bk. 2, p. 51. 
pretendeth, claims, professes. 


1. 9. in mixtures of nature, in substances as they exist in 
nature. The order is, ‘which are incorporate, ¢.e., incorporated, 
in mixtures of nature.’ He explains this in the De Aug. thus: 
‘‘ Alchemy professes to extract and eliminate the heterogeneous 
elements which are latent in substances, as they exist in nature, ‘ 
and to purify bodies which are impure, to set free those which 
are enchained, and to perfect those which are incomplete,” ‘.e., 
Alchemy was engaged in the refining and transmuting of metals. 
See Bk. 2, p. 51, for Bacon’s opinion as to the way in which: 
transmutation can really be effected, and the futility of the means 
by which the alchemists sought to effect it. f 


1, 10, derivations and prosecutions, the devices and the» 


33.] NOTES. 111 


methods. Mr. Wright points out that the words mean literally, 
‘the subsidiary channels leading to those ends and the modes in 
which they have been followed.’ Cf. Bk. 2, p. 51: ‘‘In their 
propositions the description of the means is ever more monstrous 
than the pretence or end.” 


1, 14. enigmatical writings, in the corresponding passage in the 
De Aug. Bacon says that alchemy is not taught in a straight- 
forward way, but is artificially fenced round with obscurities ; 
ef. the Filum Labyrinthi, Ellis and Spedding’s edn., vol. iii., 
p. 496. The alchemists published their more important dis- 
coveries in entgmatical writings, i.e., in writings which the un- 
initiated could not understand. The alleged reason for this pro- 
ceeding was ‘for the avoiding of abuse in the excluded, and the 
id, Spas of affection in the admitted,’ z.e., to prevent the 
knowledge thus reserved from becoming known to aati being mis- 
used by incapable persons, and to encourage those, to whom it 
was committed, to take more interest in it, by making them feel 
that they were entrusted with a valuable treasure. This, how- 
ever, says Bacon, though the alleged reason, was not the real 
one. They wrote enigmatically to hide their ignorance and 
fraud ; for that, which they published enigmatically, was no less 
worthless and false, than that which they published openly. Mr. 
Nichol says ‘‘ that the interval between the twelfth and _ six- 
teenth centuries is studded with books of secrets.” The explana- 
tion of this, he says, is that some writers were afraid of being 
punished for unhallowed dealing in the black arts, others were 
anxious to gain credit for the possession of superhuman know- 
ledge. The student will find some interesting information on 
this point in Vaughan’s Hours with the Mystics. f 

referring themselves to auricular traditions, this was 
another device of the alchemists, similar to that of ‘enigmatical 
writing.’ The pretext and real reason for the two were the 
same, They pretended that some of their discoveries were so 
important, that they were not even published enigmatically, but 
were reserved for selected auditors. The words auricular tradition 
mean ‘teaching by word of mouth’ (literally, ‘delivery, 7.e., 
teaching, to the ears’) as opposed to books. Referring themselves 
to, having recourse to. 


1. 15. to save the credit of impostures, to induce people still to 
believe in their impostures. 


1. 28, dictators, p. 29, 1. 9. 

1, 29. stand, maintain their position, be accepted without 
question. 
_-°) gonsuls, magistrates whose power was not absolute, but 
who voted in the Senate. The pe eer from the 
expulsion of the last king of Rome, B.c. 510. is prints counsels 


112. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [pacns 


from the original edition. He supposes that Bacon wrote 
counsel” This conjecture is supported by the Latin translation 
—‘Credulity has invested certain authors with a dictatorial 
power of giving orders, instead of the senatorial power of giving 
counsel.’ 

1. 31. ata stay, kept them from making progress. We should 
say at a standstill. 

]. 33. comes shortest, accomplishes least. 

1. 35. leeseth, loseth. 


1. 36. artillery, the art of constructing engines for the dis- 
charge of missile weapons. The word now means ‘ cannon.’ 

Page 34, |. 1. grossly, unskilfully. 

l. 3. Democritus, born about B.c. 460, a leader of the Atomistic 
school of philosophy in Greece. Bacon thought more highly of 
him than of any of the Greek philosophers, because he devoted 
himself more to the study of nature, and less to the elaboration 
of logical forms. 

Hippocrates, B.c. 460, a well-known Greek physician, and 
writer on medicine. 


1. 4. Euclides, the geometrician. He lived in the fourth 
century B.c., but the exact date of his birth is unknown. 


Archimedes, B.c. 287, a great astronomer, and discoverer 
in mathematics, both pure and applied. He was a native of 
Syracuse, and lost his life in the storming of the city by the 
Romans, B.c. 212. It is told of him that, during the siege, he 
burned the enemies’ ships in the harbour by reflections from a 
mirror. 


1. 5. imbased, corrupted. In the Latin translation it is— 
‘having lost much of their original splendour.’ 


1. 6. many wits and industries, the labour of many minds, 
1. 7. in one, to the same object. 


1. 9. whom ... illustrated, in spite of the time which they have 
spent upon him, they have rather distorted than illustrated his 
works. This is a parenthetical remark. The word For, which 
follows, continues the sense from some one. 


1, 12. exempted from liberty of examination, 7.e. accepted on 
authority : as the doctrines of Aristotle were by the Schoolmen. 
Bacon means that time is wasted, if spent in making endless | 
comments on one author. When we have learned all that an 
author has to say, we should leave him, and go on to fresh 
studies. Cf. ‘‘To go beyond Aristotle by the light of Aristotle 
is to think that a borrowed light can increase the original light 
from whom it is taken.” —Bacon, On the Interpretation of Nature. 


1. 14. the position, the maxim, or rule, 


= 


cs 


33-34. ] NOTES. 113 


1, 23. time which is the author of authors, cf. ‘“‘ Truth is the 
daughter of time.”—Nov. Org., Bk. 1. Aph. 84, cf. p. 34, L 11. 


1. 24. to discover, to disclose. 

1. 26. peccant humours, unhealthy states. Literally the words 
signify ‘morbid juices’ in the body. 

1, 28. intrinsic, used in its literal sense of ‘ internal,’ ‘ hidden 
from sight.’ 


1, 29. traducement, see on p. 19, 1. 2. 
Pages 34-40. Having considered the grosser blemishes which 


disfigure and bring discredit upon learning, Bacon now proceeds 
. consider its more superficial defects, Of these he enumerates 
eleven— 

(i.) Men are too ready to accept ideas and beliefs, either 
because they are old, or because they are novel. 

(ii.) Lt 2 generally thought that everything that is to be 
discovered must have been discovered long ago. Hence ensues 
+a want of enterprise in science. 

(ili.) Jt is commonly thought that, by a kind of ‘natural 
selection, those doctrines, oh have survived to the present 
time, must be the soundest. In reality, the opposite of this as 
true. In the river of time the weightiest doctrines sink first. 

(iv.) Arts and sciences have been formulated before the 
necessary data were obtained. Thus a false air of completeness 
has been given to knowledge. 

(v.) The results of the Liao sciences have not been cum- 
pared and co-ordinated. ence individual sciences have not 

rogressed as they might have done, because deprived of the 
ight which other sciences might have thrown upon them. 

(vi.) Students have placed such confidence in their own 
faculties that they have ventured to explain phenomena a priori, 
wanting the patience for a diligent study of nature. 

(vii.) Men have come biassed to the study of nature, reading 
it in the light of preconceived ideas, and interpreting it in 
terms of their own philosophy. 

» (viii.) There has been a general impatience of iene 
Wo satisfactory conclusions can be arrived at, when difficulties 
are passed over instead of being solved. 
ix.) Writers have asserted as proved things which are not 
ue whereas they ought in their writings to distinguish 
‘those principles which are proved, from those which need 
ia Tek eon 


(x) Students have neglected original research, and have been 
contented with simply editing the works of others. 
aw a ' ‘ H 


ay 


114. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 


(xi.) Men have mistaken the end of knowledge. The student 
should woo knowledge as a spouse, the fruit of whose womb shall 
be benefits for mankind. NBE Lo 

Lastly, says Bacon, as I have not been sparing mm my critcism 
of learning, I hope that due weight will be given to what I shall 
urge in its favour. 

1. 31. affecting of, liking for. 

l. 34. the father, Bacon refers to the Greek myth, according 
to which Kronos, i.e., time, devoured his children as soon as 
they were born. The myth expressed the passage of time, 
which cannot be recalled. Bacon says that the children are 
imitating the father; the old days wishing to destroy the later, 
and the later to destroy the older. 

Page 35, l. 1. while antiquity, etc. Conservatives hate all 
changes : radicals insist on destroying, instead of merely reform- 
ing, what is old. 

l. 3. surely, etc. A man, says Bacon, should dwell upon what 
has been already discovered, only until he has hit upon the path 
of further discoveries, which he must then follow. Cf. Essay xxiv. 


1. 9. when the discovery is well taken, when he is certain that 
he has discovered it. 


1. 11. old times, etc. Elsewhere Bacon says ‘‘ the present time 
is the real antiquity, for the world has now grown old. And, 
indeed, as we expect greater knowledge and riper judgment from 
an old man than from a youth, because of his wider experience, 
so it is natural to expect far greater things from our own age 
than from ancient times ; for the world has now grown old, and 
has been enriched with countless experiments and observations.” 
—Nov. Org. 1. 84. Ellis quotes the same idea from a dialogue 
by the Italian Giordano Bruno, who was contemporary with 
Bacon. Similar reflexions, he says, occur in the writings of 
several of the scientific reformers. He also quotes from 2 
Esdras, xiv. 10, ‘‘ The world has lost its youth, and the times 
begin to grow old.” 


1. 15. induced, used in its literal sense of ‘ brought on.’ 
1. 19. Lucian, the remark is really Seneca’s. It is a satire on 
the popular mythology. 


1. 22. septuagenary, too old to beget children: literally, seventy 
years old. the Papian law, the Ler Papia Poppea, which was 


passed in the reign of Augustus, did not actually forbid old men 


to marry. Its object was to induce all men, who had not 
reached a certain age, to marry, by granting them political 
privileges. of: 49: 


1. 24. doubt, fear. past children and generation, past produe- 


ing children, 7.¢., new discoveries, 


3 


34-36. ] NOTES. 115 


1, 34. Columbus, writing in 1503 to Ferdinand and Isabella, 
says—‘‘ I was seven years at your court, and for seven years I 
was told that my plan was an absurdity: and now the very 
tailors ask leave to go to discover new countries.” —E. 

Page 36, 1. 1. they, see on p. 2,1. 17. seem strange to our assent, 
1.€., we hesitate to assent to them. For the form demonstrate, 
chp, 16,1 15. 

1. 2. relation, lit. carrying backward, a technical term in law, 
denoting that effect is given to an action from a date preceding 
that on which it was performed. For example, letters of 
administration, though issued after a man’s decease, take effect 
from the day of his death. In the case of simple truths, Bacon 
says, we appear to ourselves to have known them before the 
time at which we actually acquired them. 


1. 3. speak, p. 31, 1. 36. 

1. 5. after variety and examination, 7.e., when a number of 
different opinions have been propounded and examined. Cf. The 
Interpretation of Nature, ‘‘ It is sensible to think that when men 
first enter into search and inquiry, according to the several 
frames and compositions of their understanding they light upon 
different conceits, and so all opinions and doubts are beaten over, 
and then men having made a taste of all wax weary of variety, 
and so reject the worst and hold themselves to the best.”” Then, 
after repeating the metaphor of the river, Bacon says: ‘‘ The 
state of knowledge is ever a Democratie, and that prevaileth 
which is most agreeable to the senses and conceits of people.” 

1. 6. still, always. 

1, 8. he were but like, etc., he would probably only light. 

1. 10. for the multitude’s sake, to please the multitude. 

i. 11. to give passage to, to accept. 

1. 15. blown up, filled with air. This image of a river is a 
false anal which Bacon often employs. Cf. Essay liii. : 
“Fame is like a river that beareth up things light and swollen, 
and drowns things weighty and solid.” 

1. 17. Another error, etc. Cf. The Interpretation of Nature : 
‘* Men have used of a few observations upon any subject to make 
a solemn and formal art, by filling it up with discourse, accom- 
modating it with some circumstances and directions to practice, 
and. digesting it into method, whereby men grow satisfied and 
secure, as if no more inquiry were to be made of that matter.” 


See Bk. 2, p. 100. 
_L 18. peremptory, arbitrary. 
1. 21. knit and shape, when the limbs are firmly set and the 
body is fully formed. ; 
1. 24, methods, by a method Bacon means a formal treatise 


116 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGEs 


professing to contain an exhaustive exposition of a subject, as 
opposed to the exposition of a subject in aphorisms, which are 
professedly imperfect, and valuable rather as suggestions than as 
dogmas. See Nov. Org., 1, 86. 


], 25. illustrate, for this form of the participle, cf. accumulate, 
p- 16, 1. 15, demonstrate, p. 36, 1. 1, ete. 


1. 31. cease, used transitively. For an explanation of this 
paragraph, see Bk. 2, pp. 31-3 and p. 40. Bacon frequently and 
wisely emphasizes the danger of excessive specialization. The 
world is so vast that we are obliged to study it in parts. The 
specialization of inquiry is only an application of the principle of 
what economists call the division of labour to intellectual industry. 
But there are no absolute divisions in nature corresponding to 
the divisions of the sciences. If, therefore, we study a subject 
in isolation, we must remember that our conclusions will have to 
be modified in virtue of the relation in which the subject really 
stands to the rest of nature. Each science, in other words, gives 
an imperfect view of its object. The jirst philosophy of Bacon is 
intended to correct the errors of specialized inquiry. It was to 
determine the principles common to all or many sciences, 7.é., it 
was to show how nature works according to the same laws in 
different spheres : and secondly it was to answer certain general 
questions about nature which it is not the business of any special 
science to solve. Cf. ‘‘ All knowledge forms one whole, because 
its subject-matter is one: for the universe in its length and 
breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot separate 
off portion from portion, and operation from operation, except by 
mental abstraction .... Sciences are the result of that mental 
abstraction, which I have spoken of, being the logical record 
of this or that aspect of the whole subject-matter of knowledge. 
As they all belong to one and the same circle of objects, they are 
one and all connected together: as they are but aspects of things, 
they are severally incomplete in their relation to the things 
themselves, though complete in their own idea and for their own 
respective purposes ; on both accounts they at once need and 
subserve each other. And further, the comprehension of the 
bearings of one science on another, and the use of each to each, 
and the location and limitation and adjustment and due apprecia- 
tion of them all, one with another, this belongs, I conceive, to a 
sort of science distinct from all of them, and in some sense a 
science of sciences, which is my own conception of what is meant 
by philosophy, in the true sense of the word, and of a philosophi- 
cal habit of mind.” Cardinal Newman’s Idew of a University, 
Discourse iii. § 4, 


_ 1. 32. for no perfect discovery, etc. In the Latin translation 
it is ‘ Extensive views can be obtained only from towers, or high 
places”: and after the words “‘to a higher science,” 1. 36, the 


4 


Novum Organum, Bk. 1, Ap 


36-37. ] NOTES. 117 


Latin adds ‘‘as to a watch-tower.” In The Interpretation of 
Nature, he says: ‘Sciences distinguished (i.e. individual sciences) 
have a dependence upon universal knowledge to be augmented 
and rectified by the superior light thereof”; and he gives a 
curious instance of this. ‘‘ The opinion of Copernicus in Astro- 
nomy,” he says, ‘‘ which astronomy itself cannot correct because 
it is not repugnant to any of the appearances, yet natural philo- 
sophy doth correct.” Cf. Bk. 2, p. 56. In his 278th Apophthegm 
Bacon says ‘‘ Aristippus said that those that studied cartieniae 
sciences and neglected philosophy were like Penelope’s wooers, 
that made love to the waiting woman.” 


Page 37, 1.5. tumbled up and down in, have become confused 
among. See notes on p. 30, ll. 34 segqg., where the substance 
of this paragraph is repeated. 


1. 6. intellectualists, Bacon coins the word to express those 
who contemplate only the creations of their own aie 


1. 9. in their own little worlds, in the microcosm of their own 
minds. They try to get at truth a priori, or, in Bacon’s lan- 
guage, they wish to anticipate, instead of being content to 
interpret nature. 

1, 11. the volume of God’s works, p. 9, 1. 12. In The Inter- 
pretation of Nature Bacon speaks of the felicity wherewith God 
hath blessed an humility of mind, such as rather laboureth to 
eS and so by degrees to read in the volumes of his creatures, 
than to solicit and urge and as it were to invocate a man’s own 
spirit (mind) to divine and give oracles unto him. For the 
metaphor of spelling, cf. our expression ‘ The A B C of a subject.’ 


1. 13. invocate, call upon. We say invoke. 


1, 14. to divine, to account for phenomena or to anticipate the 
future by a supernatural power. A diviner is a soothsayer. 

1, 16. Another error, etc. With this section cf. Buckle’s 
History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 289, where, in illustrating the 
influence of theological prejudice pa writers of history, the 
author speaks of ‘“‘a general law of the mind, by which those 
who have any favourite profession, are apt to exaggerate its 
capacity : to explain events by its maxims, and, as it were, to 
refract through its medium the occurrences of life.” 


1. 17. have used, have been accustomed. 
1, 20. applied, studied. 


1, 21. Plato, the same charge is brought against Plato in the 
fh. 96, in which passage also, the 
same charges, as here, are made against Aristotle and Proclus. 


He is referring to Plato’s fondness for the theologian’s argument 


from design. _ Cf. Bk. 2, p. 45. 
1, 22. Aristotle was fond of viewing natural phenomena as 


\ 


118 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. ([pacEs 


exemplifications of his metaphysical distinctions. The seed and 
the tree for instance exemplify ‘ potentiality’ and ‘ actuality.’ 
See Bk. 2, p. 88. Aristotle ought to have kept distinct the 
logical question, What is the meaning of the terms actuality 
and potentiality ? and the physical question, By what process 
is the tree, as a matter of fact, developed out of the seed? Cf. 
below Bk. 2, p. 32. It is only fair to Aristotle to remember 
that, as he lived before the age of physical science, his task was 
not so much to explain the world as to conceive it. The most 
elementary ideas of physics were not defined in his time. Besides, 
we can hardly blame Plato or Aristotle for not doing the work of 
aman of science. Plato, as a philosopher, was properly concerned 
to show that the universe is a rational system ; and Aristotle, as 
a metaphysician, was properly concerned with the characteristics 
of being as such, and not with the discovery of the properties of 
any particular kind of being. Many of Aristotle’s conceptions 
are still of the greatest value as applied even in science. 


1. 23. the second school of Plato, 7.c. the Neo-Platonists, the 
last representatives of ancient philosophy. The doctrines of 
Plato and the vaguer traditions of Pythagoreanism, coming into 
contact with the ideas of the East, produced the philosophy 
of Neo-Platonism, the chief characteristic of which is its 
mysticism. Proclus (A.D, 412-485) was born in Constantinople, 
but spent most of his life in Athens. He wrote commentaries 
on Plato’s dialogues, that on the Z%imaeus being especially well 
known. His own philosophical ideas are mainly contained in 
his treatise ‘On the Platonic Theology.’ Pythagoras first 
attempted to find in numbers the key to the explanation of the 
Universe. He exercised a profound influence on the mind of 
Plato. It was not therefore wonderful that this influence was 
transmitted to the Neo-Platonists. See Whewell’s History of the 
Inductive Sciences, vol. 1, bk. iv. ch. 3. § 2. 


|. 24. which had a kind of primogeniture with them, of which 
they were fondest. The Latin has ‘which they used to fondle 
as if they had been their first-born children.’ 


1. 26. the alchemists, See Bk. 2, p. 50. 


1. 27. Gilbertus, cf. Nov. Org., 1. 54. Bacon means to say that 
he tried to explain by magnetism phenomena which it would not 
account for. For instance, he explained the phenomena of 
Sebel a as cases of magnetism. William Gilbert (1540-1603), 

ourt Physician to Queen Elizabeth, and author of the celebrated 
treatise ‘On the Magnet,’ was, according to Fowler, the real 
founder of the sciences of Electricity and Magnetism. Else- 
where Bacon praises him for his industry and method : though he 
justly censures him for endeavouring to build a universal philosophy 
upon so narrow a basis,—E. See also Whewell’s Philosophy of 
Discovery, ch, xiv. § 7. 


we i taal 


37-38. ] NOTES. 119 


1. 31. pleasantly, wittily. 

1, 32. Aristotle speaketh, similarly Carlyle says ‘‘ The Universe 
makes no immediate objection to be conceived in any way.” 
This section is quoted and illustrated by Cardinal Newman, 
Idea of a University, Discourse iv., § 4. 

Page 38, 1. 2. two ways of action, Cf. two sayings quoted b 
Xenophon, ‘‘ Do not aim at ease, lest you meet with discomfort, ” 
and ‘* The gods sell us all good things for labour.” 

l. 7. he shall end, he will certainly end. Shall properly 
connotes compulsion, and is often, therefore, used to denote 
what is inevitable. 

1. 10. the manner of the tradition, the way of handing on 
or communicating knowledge. Cf. The Interpretation of Nature : 
‘*He that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such 
form as may be soonest believed, etc. ... Glory (7.e., pride) maketh 
the author not to lay open his weakness.” Cf. Bk. ii. pp. 98-9. 

l. 11. magistral, after the fashion of a master, whose word is 
not to be disputed. 

1, 12. peremptory, dogmatic: not brooking question or contra- 
diction. 

1, 15, disallowed, disapproved. 

1, 17. Velleius, Bacon is referring to Cicero’s treatise on the 
Nature of the Gods. The treatise is in the form of a discussion 
in which Velleius takes part. Authors, says Bacon, should avoid 
the two extremes of dogmatism and scepticism. 

1, 20. Socrates his, in early times his was substituted by mis- 
take for the ’s of the genitive. The change occurred most fre- 
quently in the case of nouns ending in a sibilant, owing to the 
coincidence of sound. Abbott, Sk. Gr. § 217. 

ironical doubting, the word ‘irony’ as applied to 
Socrates means ‘self-depreciation.’ Socrates wrote nothing, 
and established few positive conclusions. Jt was his custom 
to profess entire ignorance of a subject and to ask some one for 
an explanation of it. This explanation he then criticised, and 
by a process of cross-examination showed that the explanation 
which he had received was either insufficient or incorrect. His 
chief subject of discussion was the meaning of eagle names, 
cially those of moral philosophy. Socrates thus performed 

e essential service of showing men their ignorance, and porns 
them in the way of right reasoning. Our reasoning will never 
be of any value so long as we can attach no definite meaning to 
the terms which we employ. 

1. 23. scope, aim. It is a Greek word signifying literally ‘a 
mark to aim at,’ 

1, 29. commenter, we should say commentator. 


120 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGEs 


1. 30. compounder, one who makes an analysis, or abstract, of 
a book. 

1, 33. of all the rest, see note on p. 3], 1. 13. 

1. 34. furthest, ultimate. 

1. 36. upon, out of : by reason of. 

Page 39, l. 4. profession, means of livelihood. 


1. 4. to give a true account, etc. Cf. The Interpretation of 
Nature: ‘‘ The true end, scope, or office of knowledge I have set 
down to consist not in any plausible, delectable, reverend, or 
admired discourse, or any satisfactory arguments, but in effecting 
and working, and in discovery of particulars not revealed before 
for the better endowment and help of man’s life.” 

1. 7. a tarasse, a terrace. 

1. 9. a tower of state, a lofty tower. 

1. 10. commanding, a commanding position is one which gives 
the holder of it any advantage. 

1. 12. the glory of the Creator, because the more we know of nature, 
the more we admire the power and the wisdom of the Creator. 

l. 13. estate, condition. straitly, closely. It is the same as 
strictly. Both words are from the Latin stringere, to draw tight. 
For the implied belief in astrology, see on p. 33, 1. 2. 

1. 23. Atalanta, the daughter of a king of Beotia, who refused 
to marry any one who had not beaten her in a foot race. 
Milanion obtained her by a stratagem. He obtained from Venus 
some golden apples, which, when he was pressed in the race, he 
threw down, from time to time, before the maiden. She could 
not resist the temptation to stop and pick them up, and so lost 
the race. Similarly, the student who goes aside from the path of 
knowledge for the sake of lucre will make but slow progress. 


1. 29. to converse upon the earth, 7.¢., to occupy itself with 
human affairs. Cf. ‘‘ Socrates was the first to call down philo- 
sophy from heaven, to place it in cities, to introduce it even into 
men’s homes, and to force it to inquire concerning life and 
morals, concerning things good and evil.”—Cic. Tusc. v. 4. 
See on p. 38, 1. 20. 

1, 31. manners and policy, ethics and politics. 

1. 33. both philosophies, i.c., both physics and moral and 
political philosophy. } 

Page 40, 1. 1. a bond-woman, a female slave. 

1. 5. peccant humours, see on p. 34, 1. 26. ee 

1. 6. proficience, progress. The quotation which follows is 
from Proverbs, xxvii. 6. aif 


1. 15. a laudative, a panegyric, 


38-40. ] NOTES. 121 


~ 


1. 16. The Muses were the patron goddesses of art and science. 


1. 17. varnish, literally ‘an external polish’: here equivalent 
to ‘exaggeration.’ Cf. ‘I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver.” 
—Othello, i. 3.90. 


Pages 40-47. Having now ‘cleared the way’ (p. 4, 1. 23) 
disposing of objections, Bacon proceeds to adduce evidence in 
avour of learning, both from the Scriptures and Ecclesiastical 
History, and from Secular History. e cannot talk of God's 
learning, since he possesses all knowledge without having 
acquired it; but we see that, in the creation of the world, he 
manifested wisdom as well as power: and while the works of 
power were completed in a moment, seven days were given to the y 
disposition of created matter by divine wisdom. 
Among the celestial beings, who stand next in rank to God, 
a hig lace is given to the spirits of knowledge than to the 
spirits #4 power; and the day of rest and contemplation is 
more blessed than the days of labour. The work which God 
assigned to man in Eden was to be pursued for the sake of 
pleasure and observation; and the first acts of man in Paradise 
were manifestations of knowledge. The story of the first 
fratricide displays, in an allegory, the preference of God for a 
contemplative rather than an active li fr The Scriptures men- 
tion with honour the inventors who lived before the flood; and 
the greatest punishment which God could inflict on sinful man, 
after the flood, was to stop the progress of knowledge. Jt is 
cially mentioned in the Scriptures that Moses, whom God 
= to communicate the divine law to the Jews, was a learned 
man; and both from the writings of Moses, and from other 
parts of the holy books, we learn lessons in morals and science. 
Solomon preferred knowledge to all things, and God approved 
of his choice. Christ showed his wisdom beforeffe showed fhis 
power; and the chosen apostles of Christianity were learned [lp 
Learning was held in esteem in the Early Church, and in the [yp 
sixteenth century, at the same time that God reformed his 
church, he also gave fresh life to learning. The Church of 
Rome owes the deepest debt of gratitude to the learned order of 
_ — Sesuits. Learning performs a double service to religion. The 
| man alone can appreciate the power of God as mani- 
fested in nature; and learning enables a man to understand 
|? the Scriptures, and predisposes him to believe them. 
1. 23. platform, pattern. Similarly in xlix., Bacom talks 
of ‘the platform of a garden.’ The most perfect type of wisdom 
must be looked forin God. : 


—— = 


* 


122. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Paczs 


1. 29. sapience, the Latin sapientia, wisdom. 


]. 30. we see, etc., Bacon wishes to show from the Jewish 
account of the creation that God assigns to wisdom a preéminence 
over power. He distinguishes the creation of matter, which was 
at first formless (cf. Genesis i. 2, ‘‘and the earth was without 
form”), from the arrangement of the matter in the form of the 
world as we know it; and the preéminence of wisdom appears 
from this, that the mere creation of matter, which was an act of 
power, is clearly distinguished from the orderly distribution of 
the matter in the form of the world as we know it, which was an 
exercise of wisdom. The first ‘carries the style of,’ 7.e., is 
described as, a manufacture, the second as a law or decree. If 
we look at the time which God allotted to the two, we shall find 
that the act of power may, for anything that appears to the 
contrary, have been performed in a moment, whereas six days 
were assigned to the work of wisdom. With this passage cf. 
Hooker, Heclesiastical Polity, Bk. 1. 3. 

The student must bear in mind that when it is said that matter 
was formless, it is only meant that it had not assumed its present 
orderly arrangement. 


]. 32. expressed, manifested. 
l. 33. subsistence, substance. 
]. 35. for anything which appeareth, sc. to the contrary. 


Page 41, 1.4. note, mark. By ‘ God made heaven and earth’ is 
meant, ‘God created matter’: by ‘the works following’ Bacon 
means the orderly distribution of the matter. He is alluding to 
the form of words used in the Bible—‘ Let there be light,’ ‘ Let 
there be a firmament,’ etc. 


1. 12. the celestial hierarchy, this work, in the genuineness of 
which no one probably now believes, exercised great influence on 
the medieval development of the doctrine of the nature and 
faculties of angels.--E. Dante, in his Paradiso, refers to the 
book, and believes Dionysius to be the author of it. Dionysius 
is said to have been converted by St. Paul, from whom he might 
naturally acquire information about the angels, because it is said 
in the Bible that St. Paul, during his life-time, was ‘caught up 
into Paradise.’ In place of ‘that supposed Dionysius’ Bacon 
says in the Latin translation that the book is ‘published in the 
name of Dionysius,’ ¢.e., is attributed to him. 


1. 18. ministry, the words ministry and office mean service and 
duty. These angels are charged with the execution of God's 
orders. The student will remember that in Milton the angels 
are frequently addressed as ‘thrones, dominations, virtues, 
princedoms, powers.’ The curious student will find information 
on the scholastic views of the angels in Longfellow’s notes to 
Dante’s Paradiso, c. 28. 


40-42. ] NOTES. 123 


1, 21. forms, Observe that the word ‘form’ is applied both to 
angels and material objects. Bacon probably had in mind 
scholastic uses of the word. Thomas Aquinas uses the word, as 
Bacon does here, to express ‘material objects’—‘ matter to 
which shape has been given,’—but he also says that there are 
separate and immaterial forms, as an instance of which he 
mentions the angels. incorporal, incorporeal. 


1. 26. in the distribution, etc., ‘‘ And on the seventh day God 
ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh 
day . . . and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” 


1. 30. it is set down, it is written. 


1, 35. reluctation, effort. The necessity of labour was imposed 
on man as a punishment after the fall. 


1. 36. of consequence, consequently. For of we should say 
im. The words ‘sweat of the brow’ are suggested by the 
words of the curse pronounced by God upon Adam after his 
sin: ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”— 
Gen. iii. 19. 


Page 42, 1. 3. summary, most important. Observation and 
language are necessary to knowledge. With this passage, 
ef, 1. 3. 


1. 5. induced, brought on. Cf. p. 35, 1. 15. touched, just 
mentioned, 


1. 8. were not the originals, 7.c., things were not constituted 
right or wrong simply by God ordering or forbidding them. 
This remark might seem to imply a discouragement of the study 
of Ethics, but we must not press his words too closely. In the 
first place, he is not expressing an opinion of his own, but in- 
terpreting a text of Scripture. Moreover, Bacon held that 
Kithougt the laws of morals are discoverable by reason, still 
they are to be inferred from the will of God as revealed in 
Scripture and manifested in nature. 


1. 13. as the Scriptures, etc., in bk. 2, pp. 193-4. Bacon says 
that the words of Scripture bear not only the literal sense, but 
also a moral, and often a typical or allegorical sense. 


-1. 16, Abel and Cain, the two brothers Abel and Cain, sons of 
Adam, the one a shepherd and the other a tiller of the ground, 
both made offerings to God. That of Abel was accepted, and 
that of Cain rejected. In a fit of jealousy, Cain murdered his 
brother. After the word husbandman, Bacon adds in the Latin 
translation : ‘one who is weary with labour, and whose eyes are 
bent upon the ground.’ 

1, 28. the confusion of tongues, ‘‘ And the Lord said, Behold, 
“the people is one, and they have all one language ... and now 
oe will be restrained from them which they have imagined 


194. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Pacers 


to do. Go to, let us go down, and confound their language, that 
they may not understand one another's speech.”—Gen. xi. 6. 
The punishment was inflicted on men because they wished to 
build a tower which should reach to heaven. 


1. 29. open, unrestricted. trade, on the analogy of the Latin 
“‘commercium,” which had the general meaning of “inter- 
.) : ° . . . 99 
course,” before it acquired the special meaning of “ trade. 


1. 30. imbarred, stopped. 

1. 31. God’s first pen, the writer of the first of the sacred 
books. 

1. 33. seen in, p. 23, 1 23. 


]. 34. which nation, 7.e., learning flourished in Egypt earlier 
than almost any other country. 


1. 35. Plato brings in, etc., ‘‘ Thereupon one of the priests, who 
was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are 
but children, and there is never an old man who is a Hellene. 
Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he 
replied, that in mind you are all young: there is no old opinion 
handed down among you by ancient tradition: nor any science 
eee is hoary with age.”—Plato’s Timaeus. Cf. Nov. Org., 
= bbe 

Page 43, 1. 3. you shall find, you cannot help finding. See on 
p. 38, l. 7. the prefiguration of Christ, Christian theologians 
find in the Jewish ritual a series of types or foreshadowings of 
the teaching of Christ, or of events in his life. 

l. 4, difference, see on p. 4, 1. 6. the people of God, viz., the 
Jews, who were distinguished from other nations as ‘‘God’s 
chosen people.” the impression, the enforcement of. 

l. 8. a moral reduction of the ceremonies, 7.c., a moral inference 
from the ceremonies. By ‘‘a natural reduction” is meant “an 
inference in physics.” 

1. 14. a position, a maxim. When a man is half good and half 
bad, the attractiveness of his good qualities blinds us to the danger 
of being infected by his vices. 


ee aspersion, a sprinkling, 7.c., an intermixture. See on p. 


1, 26. pensileness, the fact that the earth is suspended. Milton 
talks of ‘the pendulous round earth.” 


_ 1. 27. the finiteness, etc., because it is said that our Universe 
is suspended in empty space. . 


1. 28, touched, see p. 42, 1. 5. 
Page 44, |. 3. he takes knowledge of, he recognises. 
1, 14. so forwards, so forth: so on. 


—_— 


42-45.] NOTES. 125 


1. 17. both in Solomon’s petition, etc., ‘‘ The Lord appeared to 
Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall 
give thee. And Solomon said ... Give thy servant an under- 
standing heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between 
good and bad... And the speech pleased the Lord. ... And God 
said unto him... Lo! I have given thee a wise and understanding 
heart.” — History of the Jewish Kings, i. iii, 5. 

1, 20. donative, a gift. 


1. 21. parables, ‘And Solomon spake three thousand proverbs 
... And he spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon 
even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spoke 
also of beasts and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.” 


—Ibid. i. iv. 33. 
1, 23. verdure, trees and vegetables. 


1, 24. a rudiment, something undeveloped. Elsewhere Bacon 
calls rudiments ‘participles,’ i.e. partakers of two kinds. He 
defines them as ‘‘ things, the appearance of which is such, that 
they seem to be made up of two species or to be ‘rudiments’ 
between one species and another.” According to Fowler, moss 
is incorrectly described as a rudiment. He mentions as instances 
of ‘rudiments,’ in the animal world, the order Dipnoi, which 
have affinities to fishes in one set of organs, and to amphibia in 
another. 


], 28. of service and attendance, 7.e., of servants to wait upon 
him. 


1. 30. inquisition, cf. p. 5, 1. 29. The inquirer trying to dis- 
cover the secrets of nature, is represented as playing a game of 
hide and seek with the author of nature. 


1. 36. the great commandment of wits and means, 7.¢., con- 
sidering that a king can command the assistance of so many 
men’s brains, and has such large resources at his disposal. The 
student should observe the truth, which Bacon so often insists 
on, that Nature does not reveal her secrets spontaneously. He 
who would learn the truth must patiently ‘interrogate nature,’ 
and cross-examine her, as a lawyer does a witness. 


Page 45, 1. 4, for our Saviour, etc., when Christ was only twelve | 
years old, his parents ‘‘found him in the temple, sitting in the 
midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them ques- 
tions. And all that heard him were astonished at his under- 
standing and answers.” —Luke, ii. 46. 

1. 7. to subdue nature, a miracle is a suspension of the ordinary 
course of nature by God. 


1. 8. the Holy Spirit, the third paren of the Christian Trinity. 
The disciples of Christ are said to have been visited by the 
Spirit, and his presence was revealed to them by their suddenly 


4 


126 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PaGEs 


being endowed with the power of speaking the languages of all 
those to whom they wished to preach Christianity. 


1. 12. for the plantation of the faith, i.e., to disseminate the 
doctrines of Christianity. 

1, 13. altogether unlearned, the immediate followers of Christ 
and first preachers of Christianity possessed no knowledge except 
such as was miraculously given them by God, ‘ by inspiration.’ 
They belonged, mostly, to the lowest classes: some of them being 
common fishermen. Their natural ignorance, says Bacon, dis- 
played all the more clearly that they were under the direct 
influence, ‘immediate working,’ of God. 


1. 16. counsel, intention. 

1. 17. in the next vicissitude and succession, in the times 
immediately following. 

]. 20. who was the only learned, 7.e., who alone, among the 

postles, was learned. Bacon’s argument is that learning must 
be a good thing, otherwise God would not have employed it in 
the service of religion, 

1. 21. had his pen most used in, wrote the greater part of. 
the New Testament, the Christian, as opposed to the Jewish, 
Scriptures. 

1, 24. fathers, the word is used of those priests of the church 
whose writings have been accepted as authoritative on points of 
doctrine, 

1, 26. interdicted, forbidden. The Emperor Julian, who wished 
to destroy Christianity and to restore the early religion of Rome, 
issued an edict, A.D. 363, forbidding Christian professors to teach. 
This cndirectly forbade Christians to learn, since they could not 
conscientiously attend the schools of Pagan teachers.—Gibbon, 
e, Xxiii, 

I 31. emulation and jealousy, 7.¢., his zeal for Christianity, and 
his hatred cf anything that might prove a dangerous rival to it, 
See below, p. 50. 

1. 32. the opinion, the reputation. 

1. 34. humour, caprice. 


1. 35. in that, because. Gregory the First, commonly called 
‘the Great,’ was Pope from a.p. 590-604. ‘‘It is commonly 
believed that Pope Gregory the First attacked the temples and 
mutilated the statues of the city: that by the command of the 
barbarian the Palatine Library was reduced to ashes, and that 
the history of Livy was the peculiar mark of his absurd and 
mischievous fanaticism, The writings of Gregory himself reveal 


his implacable aversion to the monuments of classic genius, and | 


he points his severest censure against the pr®fane learning of a 
bishop who studied the Latin poets, and pronounced with the 


45-47.] NOTES. 127 


- 


same voice the praises of Jupiter and those of Christ. But the 
evidence of his destructive rage is doubtful and recent.”— 
Gibbon, ch. xlv. 


Page 46, 1. 2. the Scythians, the Scythians in Europe inhabited 
the tract of country stretching from the Danube to the Crimea 
and Mount Caucasus. They appeared on the boundaries of the 
Roman Empire, A.D. 375. But the name is vaguely applied to a 
great number of barbarian tribes. 


1, 3. the Saracens, this name is applied to the tribes who 
dwelt between Mecca and the Euphrates. In the seventh century 
they conquered Persia, Syria, and Africa; and in the eighth 
century they conquered Spain. 


1. 4. thereof, viz., of the church. 


1. 13. a renovation and new spring, etc. Bacon alludes to the 
Renaissance, or Revival of Learning. As a matter of fact the 
Reformation was due to the spirit of inquiry generated, and the 
new ideas which were everywhere disseminated by the New 
Learning. 


1. 14. partly in themselves, etc., i.e., partly by what they did 
themselves, and partly by what their example induced others to 
do. Cf. p. 19, 1. 25. 


1, 16. quickened, given life to. 


1. 18. reparation, restoration. Bacon means that the Jesuits 
have increased the power of the Papacy. the Roman see, 7.¢., 
the Papacy. ‘‘A see” is the district over which the authority 
of a Bishop extends. The see of the Pope, of course, includes 
all parts of the world in which there are any Catholics. 


1, 24, the Psalms, a book of hymns forming part of the Jewish 
Scriptures. 

1. 29. construe of, form an opinion of. Our admiration of 
God’s power will be greater in proportion as we go beneath the 
surface of things, and penetrate into the hidden workings of 
nature. 

1. 34. if we will, if we wish to be. 


1. 36. the creatures, p. 29, 1. 16. expressing, showing. In 
Bk; 2, pp. 35-6, Bacon says that natural theology can prove the 
existence, power, providence, and wisdom of God, but that his 
nature can only be learnt from the Bible, the contents of which 
are to be taken on faith. 


Page 47, l. 1. not oniy opening, etc., i.c., study strengthens the 
intellectual faculties, and so helps us to understand the Scrip- 
tures: and it i us to belief by the evidence which it 


brings to light of Gol power. 
“16. signed, stamped, 


128 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 


Pages 47-61. Passing from the Bible and Ecclesiastical 
history, Bacon now proceeds to give certain proofs of the value 
of learning drawn from history. Innumerable proofs might be 
given; it is impossible here to do more than select a few of 
them. 

Of all the honours which men have bestowed upon their more 
famous fellow-men, the highest honour of all, that of deification, 
has been conferred on those who by their labours and inventions 
have added to the stock of human comforts. . 

Learning, like an Orpheus’ lute, tames the evil passions, and 
renders social life possible. 

No societies have been so prosperous as those which have been 
directed by governors learned in the principles of morality and 
true statesmanship. This fact rs illustrated by the history of the 
Roman people under the learned successors of Domitian—Nerva, 
who showed that the maintenance of the authority of the law was 
not incompatible with the liberty of the sulject ; Trajan, who 
combined patronage of learning with virtue and good govern- 
ment; the inquiring Adrian, who gave peace to the Church, and 
traversed the Empire, redressing wrongs and improving the 
condition of his people; the pure and studious Antoninus, who 
was almost a Christian ; the philosophic Marcus Aurelius, that 
perfect ruler in whom envy itself could detect no fault. In 
modern times, to say nothing of James himself, Queen Elizabeth — 
was at the same time the most learned of women and the most 
successful of sovereigns. 

Nor is learning less conducive to success in war, than to success 
tn the arts of peace. Alexander was equally great as a soldier 
and as a philosopher. He understood the true value of worldly 
goods, the weaknesses of man, the worthlessness of flattery, and 
the uses and abuses - argument. He was skilled in the use of 
rhetoric. He was a keen judge of character, and could truly» 
estimate the resources which ambition has to rely upon. Julius 
Cesar was a great general, but he was. also a great scholar. He 
was a good writer, and a master of style. He reformed the_ 
Calendar. He was not afraid to enter the lists against the most _ 
learned disputants. Though a sayer of wise things himself, he, 
was not above studying the wisdom of others. By a single word 
he suppressed a mutiny ; he knew how to relieve hinbelh from an _ 
embarrassing situation by a happy speech, and in a pithy saying © 
he could give expression to the most opposite feelings. He was 
conscious of his superiority, and knew how to turn this conscious-’ 
ness to his own advantage, Xenophon the philosopher also 
performed one of the greatest military feats that history records, 

a 
¥3 ot 


ha des Bahn 
Salter» * hi Shared 


i 


Sosmieacunetibabs Bilah, aad 
Re oy oe er go gi 


47-48. ] NOTES. 129 


1. 9. it is so large, etc., 7.e., the evidence afforded by history 
is so vast. 

1. 10. to use choice, etc., z.¢e., it is more convenient to select a 
few than to include them all. 


lL 13. human honour, honour which man could confer upon 
man. 
1. 15. as the forbidden fruit, referring to the story of Adam’s 
temptation. Cf.— 
‘< Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woes,” ete. 
Paradise Lost, 1. 1. 
Christians are not allowed to worship any man as God. 


1, 20. as it was used among, as it was the custom to give it to 
the Roman Emperors. Divine honours were regularly decreed 


- to the Emperors, generally during their lifetime, by the Senate. 


1. 21. by an inward assent, 7.e., voluntarily, or by tacit con- 
sent. The honour was all the greater, when it was granted by 
the people spontaneously. 

1, 22. a degree or middle term, i.c., there were three degrees of 
honour—deification was the highest, and honour granted during 
a man’s lifetime, or human honour, the lowest; between these 
two extremes came the honour of being made a demi-god—which 
Bacon calls ‘ honour heroical.’ 

1, 26. extirpers, extirpators. 

1, 27. fathers of the people, a title given at Rome to those who 
delivered their country in times of danger. Cicero, after defeat- 
ing the conspiracy of Catiline, was styled ‘the father of his 
country.’ This is an instance of ‘human honour.’ 

eminent persons in civil merit, men who had rendered 
conspicuous services to their country. 


1. 28. worthies, i.e., heroes, or demi-gods. 


1, 29. Hercules, p. 28, 1.17. He freed Greece from a number 
of monsters which infested the country, and destroyed both life 
and a gr Theseus, Minos, and Romulus were the legendary 
founders of the Athenian, Cretan, and Roman states. 

1, 33. Ceres, Bacchus, Mercury, and Apollo were the givers of 
corn, wine, speech, and music. 

Page 48, 1. 2. a latitude of ground where, the extent of ground 
on which, 

1. 6. Divine Presence, referring to a story of God visiting the 

peak g his presence known ‘by a 
I 


rae ¢ 


130 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [pAcEs 


1. 9. which grow from man to man, which men inflict on one 
another before they are softened and civilized by learning. 


l. 11. lively, vividly. It is properly an adjective. When the 
adjective already ends in /y it is often used as an adverb too. 


]. 12. Orpheus, the wonderful musician who, by the magic of 
his lyre, is said to have made even the trees of the forest follow 
him. 


l. 14. game, playfulness. 


]. 15. airs and accords, tunes and harmonies. We still use the 
word ‘air’ in this sense. i 


]. 21. sweetly touched with, 7.e., made pleasant to the ear by. 
The metaphor is from ‘touching’ the strings of a harp. Elo- 
quence will charm man, as music charmed the brutes. 


], 23. instruments, viz., eloquence and persuasion of books, 
etc., but the metaphor from music is still kept up ; for we talk of 
a musical ‘instrument,’ to express anything from which musical 
sounds are produced. 


], 24. that, see note on p. 10, 1. 1. 
1. 28. popular estates, republics. With this paragraph, cf. p. 11. 


1. 30. Then should people, etc. This saying is taken from 
Plato’s Republic. See p. 20, 1. 33. 


1. 35. customs, the Latin translation adds ‘like other men.’ 
illuminate, see on p. 16, 1. 15. : 


Page 49, 1. 1. refrain them, we now use the word ‘refrain’ in- 
transitively. 

]. 2. peremptory, irremediable: or the word may be used in 
its literal sense of destructive. With this passage, cf. Hssay xx. 
“It was truly said, The dead are the best councillors : books will 
speak plain, when councillors blanch (are afraid). Therefore it 
is good to be conversant in them: specially the books of such, as 
themselves have been actors upon the stage.” 


1. 6. men of experience, mere empirics. Cf. ‘‘which are only 
men of practice,” p. 11, 1. 26. 

1. 8. near hand, an adverbial phrase. It means near, or close 
at hand. 

1. 9. agility, we still speak of a ‘ quick,’ i.e, a ready wit. to 
ward, we say to ward of: 1.e., to keep off: to parry. 

1, 12. the age which passed, etc., from A.v. 96 to 180. 


1. 16. for temporal respects, for temporal considerations. The 
Latin translation has, ‘If we look only to temporal prosperity.’ — 
‘ Temporal’ is opposed to spiritual. 


1. 17. which was a model of the world, which may be taken to . 
represent the whole world, since it nearly included it. 


48-50.) NOTES. 131 


l. 21. which came to pass, z.e., which dream was fulfilled. 

1. 24. vulgar, known to all. 

1, 25. infolded, condensed : literally, ‘wrapped up,’ so as to 
occupy little space. 

1, 27, and Apollo, etc., this line of Horace has passed into a 
proverb meaning that ‘every one relaxes occasionally.’ Cf. 
‘ Kase and relaxation are profitable to all studies. The mind is 
like a bow, the stronger by being unbent.”” (Ben Jonson.) 

1, 28. naked, cf. our use of the word ‘ bure,’ in the phrases a 
‘bare assertion,’ and ‘barely to mention,’ 7.e., without any com- 
ment. 

1. 30. a glance, a single remark. A glance isa rapid look. 

1, 36. proceeding upon, caused by. 

Page 50, 1.4. O Phebus, etc. Nerva asks his son, under the 
name of Pheebus, to avenge his father’s wrongs. The line is taken 
from Homer, who describes the priest Chryses as calling upon 
his patron god Apollo to avenge the wrong which he had suffered 
in the abduction of his daughter by Agamemnon. 

l. 5. was for his person not learned, was not himself a learned 
man. 

]. 7. in the name of a prophet, 7.c., because he is a prophet: 
out of respect for his sacred character. Trajan did honour to 
learned men out of respect for their learning, and therefore 
should be honoured equally with the learned, on the principle 
that he that receiveth a prophet, etc. 

1. 13. who were noted, In the Latin Bacon adds that this was 
the more remarkable because he was a warlike emperor. 


1. 17. legend, used as an adj., /egendary. Gregorius Magnus, 
p. 45, 1. 31. 

1. 19. the love, we should say ‘his love.’ 

1. 22. out of hell, the Catholic Church excluded non-Christians 

? from heaven. a caveat, a warning. For the legend, cf. Dante, 
Purg. 10. 73, Paradiso, 20. 106. 

1, 24. the persecutions, see Gibbon, ch. xvi. Pliny was eel 
of Bithynia, and asked Trajan’s advice as to how the Christians 
were to be dealt with. 

1, 26. advanced, promoted. 

1. 27. curious, inquiring. The word now means either ‘in- 
quisitive’ or ‘strange.’ Gibbon, ch. 1, says of Hadrian, “‘ that 
his life was almost a set ory journey : and as he possessed the 
various talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he 
gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty . . . nor was 
there a province of the empire which, in, the course of his reign, 
was not honoured with the presence of the monarch,” es 


132 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [pPaAcEs 


]. 28. it was noted for an error, etc. In the eleventh Essay, 
Bacon gives the following piece of advice to men in great place— 
‘« Preserve the rights of inferior places: and think it more honour 
to direct in chief than to be busy in all.” to comprehend, to take 
into his own hands. 

l. 32. Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. 


over-rule and put down, to contradict and silence: to 
prove him to be in the wrong. Cf. The Interpretation of Nature. 
«Sir (saith a man of art to Philip, king of Macedon, when he 
controlled him in his faculty), God forbid your fortune should be 
such as to know these things better than I, In taxing his ignorance 
in his art he represented to him the perpetual greatness of his 
fortune, leaving him no vacant time for so mean a skill.” For 
the expression would needs, cf. p. 24, 1. 6. 

Page 51, 1]. 1. an inducement to, a means of furthering. 

l. 4. matched with Apollonius, placed side by side with that of 
Apollonius, Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, who lived in 
the first century A.D., was a diviner and a reputed worker of 
miracles. It is said that it was not Hadrian, but Alexander 
Severus, who matched the picture of Christ with that of 
Apollonius, and who actually built a temple in honour of Christ. 
Hadrian, however, had a feeling of respect both for Christ and 
for Apollonius. —E. 

l. 6. it served, the construction is irregular. ‘It’ means the 
admiration of the Emperor for Christ. 

1. 8. civil, opposed to ecclesiastical. 

1. 10. weal, welfare. 

1. 19. re-edifying, used in its literal sense of ‘re-building,’ 
The verb ‘to edify’ now means ‘to instruct,’ or ‘to improve a 
man’s character.’ 

1, 21. passages, roads. policying, regulating. 

1, 22. commonalties, corporations. 

1. 23. granting new franchises and incorporations, investing 
new cities with municipal independence. 

1. 27. subtle wit of a schoolman, see p. 29. 

_l 29. untaxed, uncensured. Cymini sector, cf. Essay 1, “If 
his wit be not apt to distinguish, or find differences, let him study 
the Schoolmen : for they are cymini sectores,” We now talk of 
‘ hair-splitting.’ 

1. 31. settled spirit, determination. . 3 

1. 33. which ... entire, observe the irregular construction. The 
subject properly is mind, but the sentence beginning ‘but having’ 
is applicable only to Antoninus. EN ae 

1. 35. all, for any: a Latinism. 


50-52. ] NOTES. 133 


Page 52, 1. L present and entire, ready and undistracted. 


l. 3. as Agrippa said, the Christian Paul was brought for 

trial before the Roman governor Agrippa, who, on hearing the 
risoner’s defence, said to him, ‘‘ Almost thou persuadest me to 
e a Christian.” 

l. 7. The first divine brothers, for an explanation of ‘divine,’ 
see on p. 47, 1. 20. It was customary for a Roman emperor to 
associate some colleague with him in the government, who re- 
ceived the title of Cesar. Marcus Aurelius took for his colleague 
L. Commodus Verus, who was, like himself, an adopted son of 
Antoninus Pius. This was the first time that the Emperor and 
the Cesar had been brothers. Bacon’s estimate of the virtues of 
the Antonines is a true one: and his opinion of the prosperity of 
the Roman world during the period under discussion is confirmed 
by Gibbon, who says, ‘‘If a man were called to fix the period in 
the history of the world, during which the condition of the 
human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without 
hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian 
to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman 
world was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of 
virtue and wisdom. The labours of these monarchs were over- 

id .... by the exquisite delight of beholding the general 

appiness of which they were the authors.” —Ch. 3. 

1. 15. Julianus, p. 45, 1. 26. For an account of his book, see 
Gibbon, ch. 24. 

1. 16. pasquin, a satire. The word originally signified a cer- 
tain post in Rome to which libels and defamatory verses were 
affixed. —W. 

1. 19. nether, lower. 

1. 20. Marcus Philosophus, Marcus Aurelius, named the philoso- 
pher. He was a strict disciple of the Stoic School. He has left 
a volume of Meditations, for an account of which see Matthew 
Arnold’s EHssays in Criticism. 

1. 21. gravelled, puzzled. out of countenance, taken back. 
Silenus was a drunken companion of the god of wine. 

1. 23. he gave a glance at, he hinted at, cf. p. 49, 1. 30. his 
wife, see on p. 24, 1. 11. 

1, 24. continued with, succeeding to. 

1. 30. Let the name, etc. The name Augustus was originally a 
personal title, assumed by the first emperor: but it was after- 
wards adopted as an official title by all his successors. The 
Senate ieiabed to commemorate the virtues of Antoninus by 
making his name one of the permanent imperial titles. 

1, 34. addition, title. style, official designation. 

1, 35. the Church, it appears on the contrary that the Christians 


134 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [pacus 


suffered somewhat severely under the reign of Marcus. See 
Gibbon, ch. 16. 

Page 53, 1. 1. table, picture. The Latin word ‘tabula’ is used 
in this sense. Cf. tablet, in 1. 3. With painted forth, cf. painted 
out; p. 138; 1,27. 

]. 3. volume, size. The word means properly ‘any thing rolled 
up’: hence it signifies properly ‘a book,’ since books were at first 
scrolls of parchment, rolled round a stick. . 

]. 7. Plutarch, a Greek writer born A.D. 40, wrote biographies 
in pairs: he selected some eminent Greek and Roman, gave an 
account of each, and ended with a comparison of the two. 

1. 9, endued with learning, for the extent of the learning of 
women in the sixteenth century, see Macaulay’s Yssay on Bacon. 

1], 12. humanity, secular learning. 

1. 18. the season, the time. 

I. 19. regiment, government. of, we should now say ‘oz.’ 

1, 22. the prerogative, this word describes such powers as the 
sovereign can exercise without asking the sanction of Parliament. 

1, 23. sortable, suitable. 

1, 24. estate, condition. Bacon’ means to say that wealth was 
equally distributed. 

1. 26. moderation, controlling, quieting. 

1. 29. of herself, by herself, 7.e. unmarried. 

1. 36. civil, opposed to military. We still use the word 
‘civilian’ of all who are not soldiers. temperature, cf. p. 20, 1. 1. 

Page 54, 1. 2. enablement, qualifying men for. 

1. 7. note, account. having been, because they have been. 

1. 8. affections towards, their love of and zeal for learning. 

1. 12. attended with, we should say ‘by.’ Callisthenes was a 
nephew of Aristotle. He is said to have composed an account 
of Alexander’s exploits. 


1, 17, Achilles, the hero of the Iliad, the poem in which Homer 
has described the Trojan war. 


_ 1.19. cabinet, a box used for keeping jewels or other valuables 
in. oA 

1. 23. set forth, published his treatise on physics. Cf. Alex- 
ander -ierate from Aristotle not only moral and. political know- 
ledge, but was also instructed in those more secret and profound 
branches of science, which they call acroamatic.and epoptic, and 
which they did not communicate to every common scholar. For 
when Alexander was in Asia, and received information that 
Aristotle had published some books, in whieh those points were 
discussed, he wrote him a letter in behalf of philosophy, in which 


52-56. ] NOTES. 135 


blamed the course he had taken. The following is a copy 
of it: 

‘* Alexander to Aristotle, prosperity. You did wrong in 
poyrabing the acroamatic parts of science. In what shall we 

iffer from others, if the sublimer knowledge which we gained 
from you be made common to all the world? For my part, I 
had rather excel the bulk of mankind in the superior parts of 
learning than in the extent of power and dominion. Farewell.” 
Plutarch, Life of Alexander, c. 7. Langhorne’s Translation. 

1, 27. what use he had of learning, to what extent he had pro- 
fited by learning. The Latin translation has ‘ How well he had 
cultivated his mind by learning.’ 

1, 29. use of science, application of knowledge. 

1. 31. scholastical, pedantic. 

Page 55, 1. 4. Diogenes, see on p. 24, 1. 9. He is the type of 
those who despise fortune : and Alexander thought, that next to 
himself, Diogenes was the happiest man in the world. Seneca, 
on the other hand, thought that the lot of Diogenes was a happier 
one than that of Alexander. state, determination, solution. 
The question is whether it is better to be able to supply all our 
wants, or to have no wants. 

1. 16. out of the depth, etc., the Latin translation adds, ‘ since 
deficiency and superfluity, which are expressed by weariness and 
intemperance, are, as it were, earnests of mortality.’ 

1. 17. liker, more likely. 

1. 18. Democritus, p. 34, 1. 3. 

1. 19. of humanity, etc., showing a knowledge of human nature 
and of poetry. 

1, 22. this is very blood, the liquid which ran in the veins of 
the gods was called ichor. Alexander said, ‘‘It is mere flattery 
to call me a god ; I do not bleed ichor, when I am wounded.” 

1. 25. logic, i.e., subtlety in argument. In the Latin transla- 
tion it is, ‘skill in turning an objector’s arguments against 
himself.’ 


1. 30. that was the matter, that is just what has encouraged 
them to come. They know that, so far away from home, there 
will be no one to contradict their assertions. 


1. 36. to, we should say ‘ against.’ 

Page 56, 1. 2. moved, proposed. 

1. 5. purpose, plan. The word means literally ‘something 
proposed’: Lat. propositum. 

1, 7.. with so good manner as, in such a good manner that. 


1. 10. turn your style, speak on the opposite side. The ‘style’ 
_ was the instrument with which the Berna Wines on wax. One 


4 


136 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAcEs 


end of it was sharp ; the other end, which was flat, was used. for 
erasing what had been written. So ‘ to turn the style’ meant in 
Latin ‘ to erase.’ 

l. 12. with that sting, with such bitterness. 


1. 14. despite, spite. Alexander showed by this answer that 
he too could ‘take a matter both ways.’ He thought that Callis- 
thenes could find nothing to say against the Macedonians : when 
he found that he could, he accounted for it by saying ‘ that spite 
gave him eloquence.’ 

]. 15. tropes, figures. 

1. 16. translation, this word is the exact Latin equivalent of 
the Greek word ‘metaphor.’ Both words mean a ‘ transference.’ 
A metaphor is ‘a transference’ of a word from its original to a 
figurative sense. ‘A translation,’ in the sense in which we 
ordinarily use the word, is ‘a transference’ of meaning from one 
language to another. taxed, censured. Cf. untaxed, p. 51, 1. 29. 


1. 19. that he did not, in not degenerating. 


i. 22. is all purple within, is full of proud thoughts. Purple, 
in the East, was the colour of the Imperial robes. We still talk 
of a member of a Royal family as ‘ born in the purple.’ Antipater 
was not praised for keeping to the Macedonian dress, but gener- 
ally for the severity of his way of life. Bacon was probably mis- 
led by Erasmus, who took the story from Plutarch without 
understanding it. Alexander compared Antipater to a white- 
striped garment, which on the inside, the stripe being an external 
appendage, showed no trace of white, but was purple throughout. 
Erasmus confounded the name of the garment with the Greek 
word for white, and apparently supposed the remark to refer to 
Antipater’s dress. —E. 

]. 23. Arbela, a city near the Tigris, near which Alexander 
defeated the Persian King Darius, B.c. 330. 


1. 26. as it had been, like. Owing to the number of camp-fires 
they appeared as it were a second starry firmament. 


1, 30. embraced, assented to. 


1. 34. their crown, 7.e., their office. Some men love a king as 
a personal friend ; others love the institution of monarchy, 
though they have no personal regard for the reigning king. 


1. 36. taxation, censure. The point of Alexander’s reply is, 
that conduct, which may be perfectly becoming in a subject, 
may be beneath the dignity of a king. 


Page 57, 1. 2. model, measure. 

1. 9. hope, the story is told inaccurately. When Alexander 
was asked what he kept for himself, he replied not *‘ hope,” but 

what I hope for,” i.e., all the wealth which I expect to get by 
my conguests.—E, Ms A 


56-58. ] NOTES. | 137 


1, 12, his estate, etc., he having spent all his own property in 
making presents to his soldiers. 


1. 14, transported with, carried away by. 


1]. 16. he had turned all his estate into obligations, he had 
spent all his money in securing friends. ‘ Obligations,’ used in its 
literal sense of ‘ binding’ people to him by his liberality. He 
was a usurer, because he expected to get interest on his money, 
in the shape of services from those who had received it. Henry, 
Duke of Guise, was uncle to Mary Queen of Scots. 


], 21. the prints and footsteps, the signs. 


1. 23. not as Alexander, etc., ¢.e., not as a powerful conqueror, 
but as a student. 


1. 26. argued, inferred. company, companions. Cf. the com- 
mon saying ‘‘ A man is known by his friends.” 


1, 28. permanent, equivalent to ‘extant.’ 


1, 33. real passages, vivid descriptions; by ‘real’ is meant 
‘true to the life.’ 


Page 58, 1. 5. congruity of speech, fitness of speech ; i.e., the 
use of words appropriate to describe the things intended. In the 
Latin translation the passage stands thus: ‘ Wherein he did 
labour to make Siu vencicnak speech to become correct speech : 
he wished to substitute an appropriate and correct habit of 
speech for careless speech, and to make words, which are the 
images of things, suit the things themselves, instead of obeying 
simply the will of the multitude.’ 


Words are ‘ the pictures’ of things, because they are the sym- 
bols by which we represent things. Cesar employed such words 
as the exercise of his reason told him were true pictures of what 


he wished to express. 


It appears, then, that the object of the book was to remove the 
errors of vulgar language, and to show that the language of a 
people may be specially adapted toa clear and appropriate expres- 
sion of ideas. We cannot however speak with any certainty 
about the book. Bacon calls it here ‘a philosophy of grammar’ ; 
elsewhere he speaks of it as a mere collection of precepts for 
speaking correctly. . 

1.7. of his power, Cesar completed the regulation of the calen- 
dar, and corrected the erroneous computation of time, agreeably 
to a plan which he had ingeniously contrived, and which proved 
of the greatest utility .... Yet this useful invention furnished 
matter of ridicule to the envious, and to those who could but ill 
brook his power: For Cicero (if I mistake not), when some one 

ed to say ‘‘ Lyra will rise to-morrow,” answered, ‘ Un- 
subtedly, there is an edict for it”: as if the calendar was forced 
upon them as well as other things. (Plutarch.) 


138 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [paces 


1. 9. expressing, showing. Cesar found that the old calendar 
had anticipated the true time by sixty-seven whole days. 

]. 12. Ceesar’s Anti-Cato was a reply to a panegyric which Cicero 
had written on Cato the chief of the republican party, and there- 
fore an opponent of Cesar. See p. 13, L 32. 

1. 18. to make himself but a pair of tables, to turn himself into 
a pair of tablets, z.c., to record. The tablets were the slips of 
wood covered with wax, on which the Romans wrote. They 
were folded, and the writing was preserved by the tablets having 
projecting rims. 

1, 21. as princes pretend, which is the object of vain princes. 
For this use of pretend, cf. p. 33, 1. 4. 

l, 28. delectable, pleasing. 


1. 30. it is reason he be thought, it is reasonable to consider 
him. 


1. 36. cashiered, discharged. We apply the word now to an 
officer dismissed from the army with disgrace. not that they so 
meant, etc., z.¢., not really wishing to be discharged, but hoping 
that, by demanding their discharge, they would induce Cesar to 
come to terms. ‘ Hapostulation’ is no longer used in the literal 
sense of ‘ demand.’ 

Page 59, 1. 7. made it their suit, requested. 

1. 9. did extremely affect, was very desirous of obtaining. 

1. 12. poor, uttered only by a few. 


2 20. of great allurement toward, well calculated to bring 
about. 


1, 22. but for a name, the Latin translation adds—“ for he had 
long been possessed of the power of a king.” whereof mean 
families were vested, the name King was borne by people of 
obscure birth. 


l. 26. after war declared, after he had declared war against 
Pompey and the Senatorial party. The issue of this war was 


that Cesar obtained supreme power in Rome. The idiom is 
a Latin one. 


1, 28. accumulate, see on p. 16, 1. 15. 
1, 29. whereto, to which: viz., the prohibition of Metellus. 
l. 31. taking himself up, checking himself. 


1. 34. terror, used of the fear inspired, and not, as usually, of 
the fear felt. 


1. 36. conclude with him, finish my remarks about him, 
Page 60, 1. 1. took it upon him, assumed. 
1. 3. spake, we should use said. 


Lucius Sylla was elected perpetual dictator B.¢c. 82, but 


58-61.] NOTES. 139 


resigned power B.C. 79. With this passage cf. the 15th Essay : 
‘*T have noted that some witty and sharp speeches, which have 
fallen from princes, have given fire to seditions. Cesar did him- 
self infinite ee in that speech : Syl/a knew nothing of letters, and 
therefore could not dictate: for it did utterly cut off that hope, 
which men had entertained, that he would at one time or other 
give over his dictatorship.” There is a play on the double mean- 
ing of dictate, which means both to read out and to wield the 
power of a dictator. The word fo skil/ in the sense of to under- 
stand occurs also in the English Bible. 


1. 11. particular, instance. 


1. 12. as that which, in this respect that it, etc. It explains 
‘‘rareness of circumstance.” 


1. 13. Xenophon, s.c. 401, the younger Cyrus raised an army, 
largely composed of Greeks, with a view of dethroning his 
brother Artaxerxes, king of Persia. Cyrus was defeated and 
killed at Cunaxa, near Babylon. The Greek generals were 
inveigled into a conference by Artaxerxes, and murdered : and 
Xenophon led the Greek army home. The remark which 
Bacon attributes below to Xenophon was not really made by 
him. 

1], 17. seen the wars, had any experience of war. We still 
speak of ‘‘seeing service.” 

1. 18. a voluntary, a volunteer. 

1. 19. conversation, society. 

1. 20. in message, as the bearer of a message. The great king, 
this title was generally given to the king of Persia. The Greeks 
often called him simply ‘‘ The king.” 

1, 21. after that, see on p. 10, 1. 1, cf. p. 61, 1. 35. 

1, 24, The message imported, the purport of the message was. 

1. 30. virtue, courage. The word properly signifies ‘‘manly 
worth.” 

1. 35. abused, deceived. 

Page 61, 1. 4. high countries, the inland districts—those far 
away from the sea. 

1 8. Jason of Phere had intended to invade Persia, but 
was assassinated before he had put his plan into execution, B.c. 
370. 

1. 9. Agesilaus, the Spartan, ravaged the western satrapies of 
Persia, B.c. 396, but, before he had accomplished much, was 
recalled home. 

Alexander the Macedonian, Alexander the Great, 


‘L120, upon the ground of, we should now say, *‘ on the strength 


140 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [raczs 


of.’ The meaning is, that these three men were all incited by 
the example of Xenophon. 


Pages 61 to end. Bacon now proceeds to demonstrate the 
good effects of knowledge upon the character of the indivi- 
dual. Learning refines and softens the character. Jt produces 
cautiousness in judgment. It removes the fear of death and 
poverty. It provides a remedy for all morbid states of mind. 
It incites men to continual self-improvement. Knowledge and 
goodness go together. Knowledge, too, is power; and it as 
power of the highest kind, for the dignity of power ts propoy- , 
tioned to the dignity of that-over_which it ts exercised, and the 
power which is given by knowledges power over the minds | 
men. The possession of learning is a means of livelihood ; and 
“as for pleasure, intellectual pleasures are the highest of all 
pleasures, for they alone never pall. Lastly, all men are 
anxious to leave behind some memorials of themselves in the 
world; and what memorials are more lasting than books? 
Books, too, are the only memorials which are not barren. It zs 
worthy of notice that even materialistic philosophers have allowed 
immortality to the mind. Bacon concludes by saying that he is 
fully conscious that his arguments will not suffice to give to 
learning the first place in the estimation of the vulgar: still, 
notwithstanding popular prejudices, he is certain that the 
possession of knowledge will always be its own justification. 


1. 12. imperial and military virtue, proficiency in the arts of 
government and war. 


1. 13. to moral, etc., to consider the influence of learning upon 
the character and conduct of individuals. 

1. 24. acquainting, accustoming. 

1, 25. the first offers, the ideas which first present themselves. 
conceits, ideas. 

1. 26. nothing but examined, nothing but what has been ex- 
amined. It is a Latin idiom. With this passage, cf. Pope’s 
Essay on Criticism, v. 215. 

‘A little learning is a dangerous thing ; 
Drink ay or taste not the Pierian spring. 
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
And drinking largely sobers us again.” 

1. 29. For, as regards. 

1. 30. wadeth, ‘‘to wade” is properly to walk in water. “To 
wade thoroughly in learning” is ‘ to study deeply.” 


# 32. There is nothing, etc., ‘There is no new thing under the 
sun.” Zeel. i. 9. Bacon quotes from memory. Neither can, etc., 


dhe ey 
rede lt 


60-62. ] NOTES. 141 


this is given as an illustration of the remark just made. The 
dancing of dolls is a type of the things which excite the wonder 
of the vulgar, but which appear simple enough to those who 
know the means by which they are effected. 


], 34. adviseth, informs himself about. The Latin translation 
explains the meaning: ‘‘ No one will be much astonished at the 
play of puppets, who puts his head behind the curtain, and 
sees the contrivances and the threads by which the puppets 
are moved.” 


Page 62, 1.3. services, battles. We talk of a soldier “going on 
service,” and ‘‘seeing service.” for a passage, viz., over a 
river. 

1. 5. advertised, informed. 


1. 6. went of, told of. We still say—‘ So the story went’ or 
‘So the story ran.’ 


1, 8. the divineness of souls except, the immortality of the soul 
can never be regarded as a trifling subject. Haxcept, for excepted: 
the past participle. 

1, 9. whereas, where. As and that were added probably to 


give a relative meaning to the originally interrogative adverb 
where. Abbott, Sh. Gr., § 135. 


1. 11. to and fro, used here as a preposition. It is generally 
used adverbially, signifying ‘ backwards and forwards.’ ‘ Fro’ 
is the same as ‘ from.’ 

1. 13. impediments of virtue, etc., because men do what is 
wrong or abstain from doing what is right for fear of suffering 
death or misfortune. manners, character. 


1. 20. Yesterday, Epictetus means that the death of a man is 
as natural as the breaking of a clay vessel. In the 2nd Essay, 
Bacon says—‘‘ The fear of death, as a tribute due unto nature, 
is weak.” Epictetus was a Stoic, born at Hierapolis in Phrygia 
about 50 A.D. 


1, 21. Virgil, Georg. 2. 490. Virgil was perhaps thinking of 
Lucretius. 

1. 32. the particular remedies, cf. Yssay 1., ‘‘ Nay there is no 
stond (hindrance) or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought 
out by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have appro- 
priate exercises ... every defect of the mind may have a special 
receipt.” Observe that the diseases of the mind are expressed in 
terms which properly denote bodily diseases. Learning at one 
re removes morbid affections of the mind : sometimes remedies 
defects (see Bk. 2, p. 49): sometimes enables the mind to digest 
knowledge: sometimes makes it hungry for more niwiedge : 
sometimes heals the scars that have been left by passion or 
Sorrows. 1001/07 S 


7 2 


4 
’ ’ Y: 4 , 
\ 4 ’ ) a 


142. OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 


Page 63, 1. 4. thereof, 7.e. in its own defects. Cf. p. 46, 1. 4. 
still, always. 

1. 6. to descend into himself, to examine himself. 

1. 8. that most pleasant life, etc., Bacon gives the words as a 
quotation. Ellis points out that the idea is taken from Xeno- 
phon’s Memorabilia, 1. 6. Cfi.— 


‘¢ And as, by feeling greater delectation, 
A man in doing good from day to day 
Becomes aware his virtue is increasing,” etc. 
Dante, Par. xviii. 58. 
1. 9. the good parts he hath, any virtues that he possesses, 


1. 12. to colour, to excuse, or give a specious appearance to. 
The word is frequently used in the general sense of ‘to make a 
thing appear what it is not.’ 


]. 13. that mows on still, who goes on mowing. For ‘ still,’ 
ef. p. 36, 1. 6. 


1. 19. print, i.e. the impression made by the seal. Goodness 
is to knowledge, as an impression is to the seal: it is knowledge 
which makes men good. 


they be, etc., the Latin translation has—‘‘ While, on the 

other hand, the storms of vice burst forth from the clouds of 
error.” Bacon means to say that, just as knowledge produces 
goodness, so error or ignorance produces vice. What Bacon says 
here is partly, though not altogether, true. In virtue there is 
both an intellectual and a moral element—the perception of what 
is right, and the will to do it. Men do sometimes deliberately 
what they know to be wrong: but vicious actions may, perhaps, 
more often be attributed either to ignorance of what is right, or 
to a want of self-control. Cf. Mssay xxxviii. 

1, 25. commandment, authority. 

1], 27. herdmen, herdsmen. 


1, 30. galley-slaves, ships called galleys were manned with 
condemned criminals. 


1. 32. generosity, the noble feelings. We use the word now in 
the special sense of ‘ liberality.’ It means properly ‘ noble birth,’ 
and so came to signify generally ‘nobility.’ In the Latin trans- 
lation, it is ‘a servile people.’ 

1. 33. free monarchies, those in which the authority of the 
ruler is submitted to voluntarily. 


Page 64, 1. 1. putteth himself forth, strives his utmost. 


1. 12. giveth law to the will itself, 7.e. except when we are 
carried away by passion, our volitions are determined by our 
perceptions of what is reasonable. The only reason why we 
submit our judgment to others is that we believe them to be 
better informed than ourselves. If they really are so, then our 


63-65. ] NOTES. 143 


submission is wise, and is an honour to them. But it is a device 
of the Evil One to lead us into sin, to make us venerate impostors 
as if they were wise. 


1. 19. have a superiority in the faith and conscience, control 
men’s beliefs, and determine their ideas of right and wrong. 


1, 20. great, qualifies ‘ pleasure,’ in 1. 17. 


], 23. revelation, the name of the last book of the Christian 
Scriptures. 


1, 30. as, that. Learning is not so liberal to states, that it 
has nothing left for individuals. 


Page 65, 1. 1. descent, hereditary right. carried away, ob- 
tained. The traditional authority of the Brahman caste is a good 
illustration of Bacon’s remark. 


1. 6. so exceed ...as much as, 7.e., exceed as much as. The 
superiority of a victory to a dinner is the measure of the superiority 
of the pleasures of the affections to those of sense. 


]. 8. of consequence, consequently. ‘The pleasures of the 
intellect are as far above those of the affections as the latter are 
above those of sense. 


1, 10. By the affections are meant the emotions and desires 
distinct from the bodily appetites. 


1. 11. after they be used, when we have experienced them for 
some time. verdure, freshness. 


1, 12. deceits of pleasure, unreal pleasures. 


1. 15. ambitious princes, etc., Alexander sighed for new worlds 
to conquer: and Charles V. resigned the crown of Spain to his 
son and retired into a monastery. Cf. Essay xix.: ‘* We see also 
that kings that have been fortunate conquerors in their first 
years, it being not possible for them to go forward infinitely, but 
that they must have some check or arrest in their fortunes, turn 
in their latter years to be superstitious and melancholy, as did 
Alexander the Great, Dioclesian, and, in our memory, Charles 
the Fifth: and others. For he that is used to go forward, and 
findeth a stop, falleth out of his own favour, and is not the thing 
he was.” 


1. 16. satisfaction, full enjoyment. They never pall: however 
much we have of knowledge, we still wish for more. 


1, 21. Lucretius, a Roman poet, born about B.c. 95. He wrote 
a poem ‘On the Nature of Things,’ expounding and defending 
the atomistic philosophy. Cf. Hssay i. The same idea is 
expressed in the Mahabharata ;— 


** As men who climb a hill behold 
The plain beneath them all unrolled, 
And thence with searching eye survey 


144 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [paces 


The crowds that pass along the way, - 
So those on wisdom’s mount who stand 
A lofty vantage ground command. 
They thence can scan the world below 
Immersed in error, sin, and woe: 

Can mark how mortals vainly grieve, 
The true reject, the false receive, 

The good forsake, the bad embrace, 
The substance flee, the shadows chase. 
But none who have not gained that height 
Can good and ill discern aright.” 


Page 66, 1. 1. to this tendeth, this is the object of. 
1. 2. generation, the begetting of children. 
1. 4. celebration, we should now say celebrity. 


1. 6. the monuments of wit, etc., cf. the boast of the Latin 
poet Horace—‘‘I have raised a monument more lasting than 
brass, and loftier than the kingly structure of the pyramids— 
one which neither piercing rain, nor raging wind, nor lapse of 
time can destroy.” 


]. 9. witnout the loss, Bacon wrote before the days of Homeric 
criticism. 

1. 10. have been decayed, we should now say have decayed. 

1. 16. the wrong, the injury. 


1.18. still, p. 36. 1. 6. With this passage cf. Milton’s 
Areopagitica, pp. 5-6 (Ed. Clarendon Press), ‘‘ Books are not 
absolutely dead things, but do contain a potencie of life in them 
to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are: nay, 
they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction 
of that living intellect that bred them.” . 


1, 22. consociateth, joins. 


1. 28. most immersed in the senses, 7.c., materialistic: explain- 
ing the functions of the mind by the activity of the senses, and 
denying the existence of any divine or immortal part in man. 


1. 30. came to this point that, confessed so much that. The 
Latin translation has‘ were compelled by force of truth to allow 
that.’ Bacon is referring here to the doctrine of Aristotle and 
his followers. Plato had taught the immortality of the individual 
soul, This Aristotle senied All the lower functions of the 
soul, he said, are destroyed. by death ; but the highest function 
of the soul, viz., the creative intellect, is indestructible. There- 
fore though after death the individual ceases to exist, yet the 
creative intellect is not destroyed, but is resumed into the 
universal mind. 


L 33. affections, see on p. 65, 1. 10. 


65-67.] NOTES. 145 


Page 67, 1. 2. do disclaim in, do renounce. These imperfect 
suggestions of Aristotle, says Bacon, are nothing to the Christian, 
for he knows that after death body as well as soul shall be 
eee and enjoy immortality: still I have mentioned them, 

ecause they are a human testimony to the dignity of knowledge. 


1. 4. probation, proof. We use the word now in the sense of 
‘trial.’ 

1. 10. Zsop’s cock, see Phaedrus, iii. 12. Bacon alludes to the 
fable again in Hssay xiii. 

1, 13. judged for plenty, decided in favour of plenty. Midas 
was a king of Phrygia, and it is said that, as a punishment for 
the judgment referred to in the text, Apollo turned his ears into 
those of an ass, 


Paris, Juno the Goddess of Power, Minerva the Goddess 
of Wisdom, and Venus the Goddess of Love and Beauty, all 
claimed the golden apple inscribed ‘ for the fairest,’ which Discord 
threw into heaven. Paris, a Trojan shepherd, was made umpire, 
and gave the prize to Venus. See Tennyson’s Znone. 


1. 14. Agrippina, mother of the Emperor. Many years before 
Agrippina had anticipated this end for herself, and had spurned 
the thought. For when she consulted the astrologers about Nero, 
they replied that he would be Emperor and kill his mother. 
‘‘Let him kill her,” she said, ‘‘ provided he is Emperor,” 
Tacitus, Annals xiv. 9. To please his mistress, the Emperor 
Nero caused his mother Agrippina to be murdered in the year 
59 A.D. 


1. 17. Ulysses, the most crafty Greek who joined the expedition 
against Troy, in the course of his wanderings fell into the hands 
of the enchantress Calypso, who promised him immortality, if he 
would stay with her. He preferred to return to his wife 
Penelope. 

1. 24. Wisdom is justified, etc., i.c., that nothing is better than 
wisdom is shown by the superiority of those who possess wisdom, 
This is one of the sayings of Jesus— Matthew xi. 19. 


INDEX TO THE NOTES. 


The references are to the pages of this volume. 


Abate, to, 
Abuse, to, 
Accept of, to, . 
Accident, an, . 
Accord, an, 
Accumulate, . 
Acquaint, to, . 
Addition, an, . 
Adonis, 
Advance, to, 
Adverbs— 
At a stay, 
At unawares, 
Fast, 
Lively, 
Needs, 
Of consequence, 
Only, . 
Still, 
Uncomely, . 
Whereas,: . 
Whereto, 
Advertise, to, 
Advise, to, 
ZEschines, 


Affection, 
Agesilaus, 
Agrippa, 
Agrippina, 
Air, an, . 


114. 


141, 


133, 
91, 


PAGE 
Albertus, 108 
Alchemy, 109 
Alexander the ‘Great, 133 
136, 1388 
All, for any, . - 87, 131 
Allow, to, : ree 
Allowance, 94 
Amplification, a 
Animadversion, 99 
Antichrist, 107 
Antipater, 135 
Antiques, 95 
Antoninus, 132 
Apollonius, 131 
Application, : coe 
Apply.-toy: 5 . 94, 116 
Apprehension, 93 
Aquinas, 102, 104, 105, 122 
Arabians, the, 108 
Arbela, . 135 
Archimedes, lll 
Argue, to, 136 
Argument, 96 
Aristippus, . 96 
Aristotle, 76, 104, 111, 116 
117, 133, 143 
Arrogancy, . ; ee 
Artillery, 111 
Ascham, Roger, 100 
Aspersion, 98, 123 - 


Astrology, . . 88,108 
Atalanta, ; ; 


INDEX TO THE NOTES. 


B 
PAGE 
Bent, . ‘ ; eo O65 
Blasphemy, . : . 88 
Blemish, to, . F . 99 
Both (plural), . . ie 5: 
Brave, to, : . . 88 
Broken, . ; : Peon y) 
C 
Cesar, Julius, 72,137,,128 
Callisthenes, . 134, 135 
Capable of, . . onan | 
Car, Nicholas, ‘ ramet 
Cardanus, . 109 
Carefulness, . : Spee «3 
Carlyle, . 93, 119 
Carneades, . , ce 


Carriage, , : 94, 95 


Cashier, to, . 138 
Casualty, : 93 
Cato, Marcus, . 86, 92, a 
Caveat, a, : 74 

Cavillation, a, 107 
Cease, to (tr.), 116 
Celebration, 144 
Censure, a, . ; anny. ' 
Challenge, to, : . 82 
Character, a, . : ee 
Charles V., 143 
Cicero, . : . 86 
Circumscribe, to, : . 76 
Civil, . . 91, 132, 134 
Civility, : Ae 
Clean, 101 
Clear, to, 88 
Clement VII : . 85 
Coarctation, . : mee 2 | 

Spee *\s : . 94 
Colour, to 142 
Columbus, 115 


Commenter, a, 
este Agi &. » 90 
Compass, to ; paral 
Complexion, a, , . 83 
Compounder,a, .  . 
Comprehend, to, . ‘yaa 
Concatenation, a Cay 


147 


PAGE 
Conditional mood, use of, 79 
Confections, une 


Confine, to, . : eee |: 
Conjunction, . te 
Conjunctions— 
After that, . . 91, 139 
As, for that, 12; 10 
By reason, . : . 90 
For that, . ; ion 
In that, : : Mee 
That (used redundantly), 82 
Consequence, . P s}i5cae 
Consociate, to, 144 


Construe of, to, 127 
Contend, to, . : Mees 
. Contentation, . , . 84 
Contestation, . . eos 
Continent, a, . P i spe 
Contrariwise, . ‘ . 83 
Contristation, . ; ae 
Converse, to, . 120 


Conversant in, tobe, . 92 


Conversation, . oie es 
Copia, . ; : - 101 
Corroborate, . ; - 92 
Countenance, . : - 
Countenance, to, . te 
Creature, a, 105 
Curiosity, , 100 
Curious, vor, 92, 100, 131 

132 


Cymini sector, a, 


Cynic, . : ; - 


D 
Dante, 105, 106, 131, 142 
Decayed, 
Decent, . . 290 


Delectable, rae : ; 
Delicacy, : : ieee) 
Delicate, 
Democritus, 
Demonstrative, : . 85 


Demosthenes, . e 87, 88 
Depravation, . 83 
Deprave, to, 99 
Derivation, a, . 110 


Designments, . , naiggueyy 


148 


Dictator, 
Difference, a, . 
Digladiation, 
Diogenes, 


Dionysius, the Areopagite, 


‘Disable, to, 
isallow, to, 


Disclaim in, to, 


Discover, to, 
Disesteem, to, 
Distaste, 
Distemper, a, . 
Divine, a, 
Donative, a, 
Doubt, to, 

Du Bartas, 


97, 135 


98, 119 
74, 113 


88, 114 


Embassage, to come in, . 82 


Embrace, to, 136 
Empiric (adj. ), 83 
Enable, to, 83 
Enablement, 134 
Endeavour, to, 80 
Endue, to, 93 
Enigmatical writings, 111 
Entire, 5 95, 133 
Envious, . : 88 
Epaminondas, ‘ 82 
Ephemerides, . 75 
Epictetus, 141 
Epicurus, . 95 
Erasmus, ; - LOTy 136 
Estate, , a 85, 94, 134 
Esteem, to, 93 
Euclides, 112 
Except, 141 
Excusation, 95 
Expect, to, 87 
Expostulation, 138 
Express, to, 122, 127, 138 
Expulse, to, 88 
Exquisite, 95 
Extend, to, 75 
Extenuate, to, 84 
Extirper, an, . 129 


OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


iy 
PAGE 
Falling, a, 101 
Fathers, the, 126 
Form, a,. 123 
G 
Galley-slaves, . . 142 
Gallipot, a, . : ae 
Game, ; ‘ fie 
Generosity, 142 
Genitive, form of, . 119 
Gibbon, 83, 84, 108, 126, 131 
133, 15 
Gilbertus, . as 
Glance, a, 131 
Glance, to, 133 
Gravel, io, .. 133 
Gregory the Gr eat, 126 
Grow to, to, . ‘ . ee 
Guicciardine, . ‘ia eo 
Guise, Duke of, the, 137 
H 
Hadrian, : . I3l 
Heraclitus, . ; ef: 
Hercules, 102, 129 
Herdmen, ; . 142 
Hermes, . ; : Maer 
Hermogenes, . {0k 
Hippocrates, . 112 


Historiographer, a, Res, 
Hold way with, to, OD 
Humanity, : 

Humorous, . ; Be 
Humour, a, 


Hurt, to, . 83 


I 
Icarus, . ; : ema 
Illuminate, 130 
Illustrate, 116 
Imbarred, 124 
Imbased, 112 
Impression, 124 
Incorporal, 123. 


Indifferent, 92 


INDEX TO THE NOTES. 


Induce, to, 79, 113, "29 
Inducement, an, 131 
Infolded, : ; 130 
In hand with, to be, 89 
Inquisition, 74 
Insinuate, to, . 85 
Intellectualists, 116 
Interdict, to, . 125 
Intrinsic, 1i2 
Invocate, to, 116 
Ixion, 85 
J 
Jason, . 138 
Jesuits, the, 91 
Job, ; 79 
Julian, 132 
K 
Knit, to, ; . 114 
Knowledge of, to take, , 123 
L 
Latinisms, 88, 131, 139 
Laudative, a, . ; ee Ot!) 
Law of Poambia a, 75 
Leese, to lll 
Legend (adj. 7 130 
Lex Papia, the, 113 
Like, a likely, 134 
Limned, . 100 
Livy, 87 
Lucian, . 113 
Lucretius, 142 
M 
Machiavelli, 90 
Mag tral, 118 
ity, ; 7 
Mao's, indefinite use of, 94 
le, 87 
Manners, 88, 89, 92, 119, 140 
Marcus Aurelius, 132 
Merely, é 76 
Meriting, 76 
Method, a, 114 


149 
PAGE 
Midas, 144 
Minister, to, 5 
Ministry, 121 
Misgovernment, 90 
Morigeration, . 96 
N 
Naked, 130 
Neighbour (adj. :, 71 
Neo-Platonists, ere 117 
Nerva, 130 
Nether, . 132 
Never so, Peay | 
Newman, Cardinal, 115, 118 
Note, a, . ee |! 
O 
Oblation, an, 69 
Obligation, ee 615) 
Ockham, William of 90, 102 
Ordainment, oe Oe 
Orpheus, 129 
Osorius, . 100 
Out-compass, to, 75 
Over-rule, to, . 131 
P 
Painted forth, 133 
Painted out, 85 
Parasite, a, 95 
Parcel, 75 
Paris, 144 
Part, a, . 100 
Pasquin, ans 132 
Passage, to give to, 114 
Patent, a, ; 100 
Peccant, . 112 
Pedant, a, 83 
Pedantical, 84 
Pensileness, : 123 
Peremptory, 81, 114, 118, 129 
Period, a, : 101 
Pharisees, the, 100 
Philo Judzus, 77 
Phocion, . 85 
Pius V.,. 84 


150 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 


PAGE 

Platform, a, . : aes | 
Plato, 70, 77, 93, 96, 105, 117 
118, 124, 130, 144 


Plausible, P 102 
Pliny, . . ‘ s,.0e 
Plutarch, ‘ . 134, 136 
Police, to, . ; ~ dow 
Policy, . : :) dee 
Politic (adj. . ; . 84 
Position, a, . . 104, 124 
Prefer, to, . . ede 
Prepositions— 

Besides, for beside, . 83 

For, for as regards, . 81 

In regard of, . ee, 


Of, for by, . : « (LB 
Of, for for, . ; «BS 
Of, for from, ; 508 
Of, for on, . , . 134 
Of, for one of, . watee |: 
Of, foi somewhat of, . 143 
Unio, for concerning, . 100 
Upon, for because of, 60, 120 


Upon, for of, - . . 99 
To, for against, . ».. leo 
To and fro, . . . 141 
Withal, / . 94 
Without, Jor beyond, Matas 
Prerogative, : . 134 
Pretend, to, . TAO 138 
Price, to be in, , Mig 1 | 
Print, a, . ‘ ~. “LS tag 
Probation, : 4 le (2) 
Proceed upon, to, 69, 73, 131 
Proclus, . ‘ + OTs 
Profane, . : : aa! b 
Propriety, ar : Aes) 
Province, a, . : . 100 
Psalms, the, . : ae 7) 


Punctual, : : . 96 
Pygmalion, . : ir LOL 


Quicken, to, . ; ramen bs | 
Quickness, . . - 85 
Quintilian, . . rages (i 64 


R 
Receipt, . 
Recompense, to, 
Redargution, . 
Reduce, to, 
Re-edify, to, . 
Refrain, to (tr.), 
Regiment, 
Regular, 
Relation, 


Relative pronoun, irreg- 
ular construction of, 71 
Religion, Bacon’s views 


om, 

Reluctation, 
Reparation, 
Represent, to, 
Respective, 
Revolve, to, 
Round (adj.), . 
Round about, to, 
Rudiment, a, . 
Rule over, to, 


SS) 


Sapience, 

Saracens, the, 
Satisfactory, : 
Scandalize, to, 


Schoolmen, the, 100, 


Scope, 
Scythians, the, 
Seducement, 
Seneca, . ; 84, 
Sensible, 
Septuagenary, 
Sequester, to, . 
Shall, for will, 
Shape, to, 
Sign, to,. 
Signature, a, . 
Silenus, . 


| Sixtus V., 


Socrates, 

Solon, 

Sortable, : 
Sort with, to, . “1 


103, 105 
i's 
127 


85 
107, 114 
102 


Sp ee 


INDEX TO THE NOTES. 151 


PAGE 
Sounding, : , ere (:: 
Sovereign (adj.),_ . ae | 
Speak, to, 108, 115, 138 
Speculative, : og 
Stand upon, Le ; ine | 
State, . : Pees 145) 
Stoics, the, . . . 97 
Straitly, . j ; ee VV 
Sturmius, : : 01 
2 yle, . ; zs Cod 
tg the, to turn, . 135 
ubsistence, . E eoize 
ae ; ol 123 
Sylla, Lucius, ; + oe 
jk 
Table, a, 134, 138 
Tabernacle, a. : + 40 
Tacitus, . : ; Pana i! 
Taint, to, ; : . 99 
Tarasse, . 120 
Tax, to, . 91, 94, 97, 136 
Taxation, ; . 136 
Tedious, . : : fares: Y | 
Temperature, . ; <o OS 
Tender, . : 94, 97 
Themistocles, . : eo oO 
Thirty Tyrants, the, . 88 


Thwart (adj.), ; . 88 
To seek in, to be, . eee «9, 
Touch, to, . ; 123, 190 


Trade, . : , jee 
Tradition, . : gy ( 
Traduce to, . 34, 91, 100 
Traducement, : - Ol 
Trajan, . ; eee 3! 
Tenehstinn, a, p ~ 136 
Travail, : 1. 82 
Treacher, Bes ; 0 «1 OF 
Trope, a ee 136 


Tumble up and down, to 117 


LO) 
PAGE 
Ulysses, . ‘ ‘ . 145 
Uncivilly, : : . 95 
Unclean, : : . 79 
Undervalued, . ; me i) 
Untaxed, ; : »  1ae 
Untried, ; . . 109 
Use, : 85, 134 
Use, to, . 92 
V 
Vaporous, . P 636 
Varnish, . ; ; ae 4 | 
Varro, Marcus, F . 88 
Velleius, : : Pee! 
Ventosity, . : es: 10 
Verdure, ; .' 125, 143 
Vermiculate, . , . 105 
Versatile, , : Pe 
Volume, . : : . 134 
Voluntary, a, . : . 139 
W 
Walk, a, : : . 93 
Ward, to, ‘ : - 130 
Watch-candle, a, . Rae? fj 
Watery, : 101 
Weal, . : ‘ . 132 
Wear, to, . 86 
Well seen in, to be, . 6 
Wind, to, ; ‘ 95 
Wit, ; ‘ ; ee b 
Work, to, . : - 95 
».« 
Xenophon, 83, 119, 139, 140. 


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