to be a profound interpreter and commenter, to be a sharp champion and defender, to be a methodical compounder and abridger. And this is the unfortunate succession of wits which the world hath yet had, whereby the patrimony of all knowledge goeth not on husbanded or improved, but wasted and decayed. For knowledge is like a water, that will never arise again higher than the level from which it fell. And therefore 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. So then, no true succession of wits having been in the world; either we must conclude, that knowledge is but a task for one man's life, and then vain was the complaint, that "life is short, and art is long :" or else, that the knowledge that now is, is but a shrub; and not that tree which is never dangerous, but where it is to the purpose of knowing good and evil; which desire ever riseth upon an appetite to elect, and not to obey, and so containeth in it a manifest defection.

That the pretended succession of wits hath been evil placed, forasmuch as after variety of sects and opinions, the most popular and not the truest prevaileth and weareth out the rest.

Being the VIIth chapter, a fragment.

It is sensible to think, that when men enter first into search and inquiry, according to the several frames and compositions of their understanding, they light upon differing 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, either some one if it be eminent; or some two or three, if they be in some equality; which afterwards are received and carried on, and the rest extinct.

But truth is contrary: and that time is like a river, which carrieth down things which are light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is sad and weighty. For howsoever governments have several forms, sometimes one governing, sometimes few, sometimes the multitude; yet the state of knowledge is ever a democracy, and that prevaileth which is most agreeable to the senses and conceits of people. As for example, there is no great doubt, but he that did put the beginnings of things to be solid, void, and motion to the centre, was in better earnest than he that put matter, form, and shift; or he that put the mind, motion, and matter. For no man shall enter into inquisition of nature, but shall pass by that opinion of Democritus; whereas he shall never come near the other two opinions, but leave them aloof, for the schools and table-talk. Yet those of Aristotle and Plato, because they be both agreeable to popular sense, and the one was uttered with subtilty and the spirit of contradiction, and the other with a style of ornament and majesty, did hold out, and the other give place, &c.

Of the impediments of knowledge, in handling it by parts, and in slipping off particular sciences from the root and stock of universal knowledge. Being the VIIIth chapter, the whole chapter.

Cicero the orator, willing to magnify his own profession, and thereupon spending many words to maintain that eloquence was not a shop of good words and elegancies, but a treasury and receipt of all knowledges, so far forth as may appertain to the handling and moving of the minds and affections of men by speech; maketh great complaint of the school of Socrates; that whereas before his time the same professors of wisdom in Greece did pretend to teach an universal sapience and knowledge both of matter and words, Socrates divorced them, and withdrew philosophy, and left rhetoric to itself, which by that destitution became but a barren and unnoble science. And in particular sciences we see, that if men fall to subdivide their labours, as to be an oculist in physic, or to be perfect in some one title of the law, or the like, they may prove ready and subtile, but not deep or sufficient, no, not in that subject which they do particularly attend, because

of that consent which it hath with the rest. And it is a matter of common discourse, of the chain of sciences, how they are linked together, insomuch as the Grecians, who had terms at will, have fitted it of a name of Circle-Learning. Nevertheless, I that hold it for a great impediment towards the advancement and farther invention of knowledge, that par ticular arts and sciences have been disincorporated from general knowledge, do not understand one and the same thing, which Cicero's discourse and the note and conceit of the Grecians in their word Circle-Learning do intend. For I mean not that use which one science hath of another for ornament or help in practice, as the orator hath of knowledge of affections for moving, or as military science may have use of geometry for fortifications; but I mean it directly of that use by way of supply of light and information, which the particulars and instances of one science do yield and present for the framing or correcting of the axioms of another science in their very truth and notion. And therefore that example of oculists and title lawyers doth come nearer my conceit than the other two; for sciences distinguished have a dependence upon universal knowledge to be augmented and rectified by the superior light thereof; as well as the parts and members of a science have upon the maxims of the same science, and the mutual light and consent which one part receiveth of another. And therefore the opinion of Coperni cus in astronomy, which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the appearances; yet natural philosophy doth correct. On the other side, if some of the ancient philosophers had been perfect in their observations of astronomy, and had called them to counsel when they made their principles and first axioms, they would never have divided their philosophy, as the cosmographers do their descriptions by globes, making one philosophy for heaven, and another for under heaven, as in effect they do.

So if the moral philosophers, that have spent | such an infinite quantity of debate touching good and the highest good, had cast their eye abroad upon nature, and beheld the appetite that is in all things to receive and to give; the one motion affecting preservation, and the other multiplication; which appetites are most evidently seen in living creatures, in the pleasure of nourishment and generation; and in man do make the aptest and most natural division of all his desires, being either of sense of pleasure, or sense of power; and in the universal frame of the world are figured, the one in the beams of heaven which issue forth, and the other in the lap of the earth which takes in: and again, if they had observed the motion of congruity, or situation of the parts in respect of the whole, evident in so many particulars: and lastly, if they had considered the motion, familiar in attraction of things, to approach to that which is higher in the same kind when, by these observations, so easy and concurring in natural philosophy, they should have found out this quaternion of good, in enjoying or fruition, effecting or operation, consenting or proportion, and approach or assumption; they would have saved and abridged much of their long and wandering discourses of pleasure, virtue, duty, and religion. So likewise in this same logic and rhetoric, or acts of argument and grace of speech, if the great masters of them would but have gone a form lower, and looked but into the observations of grammar concerning the kinds of words, their derivations, deflexions, and syntax, specially enriching the same, with the helps of several languages, with their differing proprieties of words, phrases, and tropes; they might have found out more and better footsteps of common reason, help of disputation, and advantages of cavillation, than many of these which they have propounded. So again, a man should be thought to dally, if he did note how the figures of rhetoric and music are many of them the same. The repetitions and traductions in speech, and the reports and hauntmngs of sounds in music, are the very same things. Plutarch hath almost made a book of the Lacedæmonian kind of jesting, which joined every pleasure with distaste. "Sir," said 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. Now in music it is one of the ordinariest flowers to fall from a discord, or hard tune, upon a sweet accord. The figure that Cicero and the rest commend, as one of the best points of elegancy, which is the fine checking of expectation, is no less well known to the musicians, when they have a special grace in flying the close or cadence. And these are no allusions but direct communities, the same delights of the mind being to be found not only in music, rhetoric, but in moral philosophy, policy, and other knowledges, and that obscure in the one, which is more apparent in the other; yea, and that discovered in the one, which is not found at all in the other; and so one science

greatly aiding to the invention and augmentation of another. And therefore, without this intercourse, the axioms of sciences will fall out to be neither full nor true; but will be such opinions, as Aristotle in some places doth wisely censure, when he saith, "These are the opinions of persons that have respect but to a few things." So then we see, that this note leadeth us to an administration of knowledge in some such order and policy, as the king of Spain, in regard of his great dominions, useth in state who, though he hath particular councils for several countries and affairs, yet hath one council of state, or last resort, that receiveth the advertisements and certificates from all the rest. Hitherto of the diversion, succession, and conference of wits.

That the end and scope of knowledge hath been generally mistaken, and that men were never well advised what it was they sought.

Being the IXth chapter, immediately preceding the Inventory, and inducing the same.

It appeareth then how rarely the wits and labours of men have been converted to the severe and original inquisition of knowledge; and in those who have pretended, what hurt hath been done by the affectation of professors, and the distraction of such as were no professors; and how there was never in effect any conjunction or combination of wits in the first and inducing search, but that every man wrought apart, and would either have his own way, or else would go no farther than his guide, having in the one case the honour of a first, and in the other the ease of a second; and lastly, how in the descent and continuance of wits and labours, the succession hath been in the most popular and weak opinions, like unto the weakest natures, which many times have most children; and in them also the condition of succession hath been rather to defend and to adorn, than to add; and if to add, yet that addition to be rather a refining of a part, than an increase of the whole. But the impediments of time and accidents, though they have wrought a general indisposition, yet are they not so peremptory and binding, as the internal impediments and clouds in the mind and spirit of man, whereof it now followeth to speak.

The Scripture, speaking of the worst sort of error, saith, "Errare fecit eos in invio et non in via." For a man may wander in the way, by rounding up and down; but if men have failed in their very direction and address, that error will never by good fortune correct itself. Now it hath fared with men in their

contemplations, as Seneca saith it fareth with them in their actions, "De partibus vitæ quisque deliberat, de summa nemo." A course very ordinary with men who receive for the most part their final ends from the inclination of their nature, or from common example and opinion, never questioning or examining them, or reducing them to any clear certainty; and use only to call themselves to account and deliberation touching the means and second ends, and thereby set themselves in the right way to the wrong place. So likewise upon the natural curiosity and desire to know, they have put themselves in way

For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states, it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so 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 and give him light to new experiences and inventions. And this did Celsus note wisely and truly, how that the causes which are in use, and whereof the knowledges now received do consist, were in time minors and subsequents to the knowledge of the particulars, out of which they were induced and collected and that it was not the light of those causes which discovered particulars, but only the particulars being first found, men did fall on glossing and discoursing of the causes; which is the reason, why the learning that now is hath the curse of barrenness, and is courtesan-like, for pleasure, and not for fruit. Nay, to compare it rightly, 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 upward 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 necessity must be, the end and womb of such knowledge. .

:

But yet, nevertheless, here I may be mistaken, by reason of some which may have much in their pen the referring sciences to action and the use of man, which mean quite another matter than I do. For they mean a contriving of directions, and precepts for readiness of practice, which I discommend not, so it be not occasion that some quantity of the science be lost; for else it will be such a piece of husbandry, as to put away a manor lying somewhat scattered, to buy in a close that lieth handsomely about a dwelling. But my intention contrariwise is to increase and multiply the revenues and possessions of man, and not to trim up only, or order with conveniency the grounds whereof he is already stated. Wherefore the better to make myself understood, that I mean nothing less than words, and directly to demonstrate the point which we are now upon, that is, what is the true end, scope, or office of knowledge, which 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; I have thought good to make, as it were, a kalendar, or inventory of the wealth, furniture, or means of man, according to his present estate, as far as it is known; which I do not to show any universality of sense or knowledge, and much less to make a satire of reprehension in respect of wants and errors, but partly because cogi

cation to make them perceived, and chiefly to the end, that for the time to come, upon the account and state now made and cast up, it may appear what increase this new manner of use and administration of the stock, if it be once planted, shall bring with it hereafter; and for the time present, in case I should be prevented by death to propound and reveal this new light as I purpose, yet I may at the least give some awaking note, both of the wants in man's present condition, and the nature of the supplies to be wished; though for mine own part neither do I much build upon my present anticipations, neither do I think ourselves yet learned or wise enough to wish reasonably; for as it asks some knowledge to demand a question not impertinent; so it asketh some sense, to make a wish not absurd.

The Inventory, or an enumeration and view of inven tions already discovered in use, together with a note of the wants, and the nature of the supplies. Being the Xth chapter; and this a small fragment thereof, being the preface to the Inventory.

The plainest method, and most directly pertinent to this intention, will be to make distribution of sciences, arts, inventions, works, and their portions, according to the use and tribute which they yield and render to the conditions of man's life, and under those several uses, being as several offices of provisions, to charge and tax what may be reasonably exacted or demanded, not guiding ourselves neither by the poverty of experiences and probations, nor according to the vanity of credulous imaginations; and then upon those charges and taxations to distinguish and present, as it were, in several columns, what is extant and already found, and what is defective and farther to be provided. Of which provisions, because in many of them, after the manner of slothful and faulty officers and accomptants, it will be returned, by way of excuse, that no such are to be had, it will be fit to give some light of the nature of the supplies, whereby it will evidently appear, that they are to be compassed and procured. And yet nevertheless on the other side again, it will be as fit to check and control the vain and void assignations and gifts, whereby certain ignorant, extravagant, and abusing wits have pretended to endue the state of man with wonders, differing as much from truth in nature, as Cæsar's Commentaries differeth from the acts of King Arthur, or Huon of Bourdeaux, in story. For it is true that Cæsar did greater things than those idle wits had the audacity to feign their supposed worthies to have done; but he did them not in that monstrous and fabulous manner.

The chapter immediately following the Inventory.

Being the XIth in order, a part thereof.

It appeareth then, what is now in proposition, not by general circumlocution, but by particular note, no former philosophy varied in terms or method; no new placet or speculation upon particulars al