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The Advancement of Learning

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Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING




INTRODUCTION.



"The TVVOO Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and
aduancement of Learning, divine and humane. To the King. At
London. Printed for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop
at Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605." That was the original
title-page of the book now in the reader's hand--a living book that
led the way to a new world of thought. It was the book in which
Bacon, early in the reign of James the First, prepared the way for a
full setting forth of his New Organon, or instrument of knowledge.

The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which Aristotle
had written the doctrine of propositions. Study of these treatises
was a chief occupation of young men when they passed from school to
college, and proceeded from Grammar to Logic, the second of the
Seven Sciences. Francis Bacon as a youth of sixteen, at Trinity
College, Cambridge, felt the unfruitfulness of this method of search
after truth. He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen
Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, and was born at York House, in the Strand,
on the 22nd of January, 1561. His mother was the Lord Keeper's
second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other married Sir
William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh. Sir Nicholas Bacon had six
children by his former marriage, and by his second wife two sons,
Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years the elder.
The family home was at York Place, and at Gorhambury, near St.
Albans, from which town, in its ancient and its modern style, Bacon
afterwards took his titles of Verulam and St. Albans.

Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College,
Cambridge, when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis twelve.
Francis remained at Cambridge only until his sixteenth year; and Dr.
Rawley, his chaplain in after-years, reports of him that "whilst he
was commorant in the University, about sixteen years of age (as his
lordship hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell
into dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the
worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ascribe all high
attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being a
philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for
disputatious and contentions, but barren of the production of works
for the benefit of the life of man; in which mind he continued to
his dying day." Bacon was sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with
the ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet, to begin his training for the
public service; but his father's death, in February, 1579, before he
had completed the provision he was making for his youngest children,
obliged him to return to London, and, at the age of eighteen, to
settle down at Gray's Inn to the study of law as a profession. He
was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582, and about that time, at
the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of his conception of a New
Organon that should lead man to more fruitful knowledge, in a little
Latin tract, which he called "Temporis Partus Maximus" ("The
Greatest Birth of Time").

In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons as
member for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire. In October, 1586, he sat
for Taunton. He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one
of those who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of
Scots. In October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of
Clerk of the Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth 1,600
pounds or 2,000 pounds a year; but for the succession to this office
he had to wait until 1608. It had not yet fallen to him when he
wrote his "Two Books of the Advancement of Learning." In the
Parliament that met in February, 1593, Bacon sat as member for
Middlesex. He raised difficulties of procedure in the way of the
grant of a treble subsidy, by just objection to the joining of the
Lords with the Commons in a money grant, and a desire to extend the
time allowed for payment from three years to six; it was, in fact,
extended to four years. The Queen was offended. Francis Bacon and
his brother Antony had attached themselves to the young Earl of
Essex, who was their friend and patron. The office of Attorney-
General became vacant. Essex asked the Queen to appoint Francis
Bacon. The Queen gave the office to Sir Edward Coke, who was
already Solicitor-General, and by nine years Bacon's senior. The
office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and that was sought
for Francis Bacon. The Queen, after delay and hesitation, gave it,
in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming. The Earl of Essex consoled
his friend by giving him "a piece of land"--Twickenham Park--which
Bacon afterwards sold for 1,800 pounds--equal, say, to 12,000 pounds
in present buying power. In 1597 Bacon was returned to Parliament
as member for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to marry the
rich widow of Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the lady
married, in the next year, Sir Edward Coke. It was in 1597 that
Bacon published the First Edition of his Essays. That was a little
book containing only ten essays in English, with twelve
"Meditationes Sacrae," which were essays in Latin on religious
subjects. From 1597 onward to the end of his life, Bacon's Essays
were subject to continuous addition and revision. The author's
Second Edition, in which the number of the Essays was increased from
ten to thirty-eight, did not appear until November or December,
1612, seven years later than these two books on the "Advancement of
Learning;" and the final edition of the Essays, in which their
number was increased from thirty-eight to fifty-eight, appeared only
in 1625; and Bacon died on the 9th of April, 1626. The edition of
the Essays published in 1597, under Elizabeth, marked only the
beginning of a course of thought that afterwards flowed in one
stream with his teachings in philosophy.

In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex. Francis Bacon
had separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that
was disregarded. Bacon, now Queen's Counsel, not only appeared
against his old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps,
he hoped to win back the Queen's favour, he twice obtruded violent
attacks upon Essex when he was not called upon to speak. On the
25th of February, 1601, Essex was beheaded. The genius of Bacon was
next employed to justify that act by "A Declaration of the Practices
and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late Earle of Essex
and his Complices." But James of Scotland, on whose behalf Essex
had intervened, came to the throne by the death of Elizabeth on the
24th of March, 1603. Bacon was among the crowd of men who were made
knights by James I., and he had to justify himself under the new
order of things by writing "Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie in
certain Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex." He was
returned to the first Parliament of James I. by Ipswich and St.
Albans, and he was confirmed in his office of King's Counsel in
August, 1604; but he was not appointed to the office of Solicitor-
General when it became vacant in that year.

That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published
this work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of
learning from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of
the studies chosen, or the way of dealing with them. This came, he
said, especially by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or
furthest end of knowledge, as if there were sought in it "a couch
whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace 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 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." The rest of the First Book
was given to an argument upon the Dignity of Learning; and the
Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning, is, as Bacon himself
described it, "a general and faithful perambulation of learning,
with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not
improved and converted by the industry of man; to the end that such
a plot made and recorded to memory may both minister light to any
public designation and also serve to excite voluntary endeavours."
Bacon makes, by a sort of exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all
subjects of study, as an intellectual map, helping the right
inquirer in his search for the right path. The right path is that
by which he has the best chance of adding to the stock of knowledge
in the world something worth labouring for; and the true worth is in
labour for "the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's
estate."

H. M.



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 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 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 all 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 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 Scripture 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, 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 instrument 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 Caesar: Augusto profluens, et
quae principem deceret, eloquentia fuit. For if we note it well,
speech that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or speech that
savoureth of the affectation of art and precepts, or speech that is
framed after the imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though
never so excellent; all this hath somewhat 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 inimitable by any. And as in your civil estate
there appeareth to 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 inclination in your neighbour princes
thereunto: so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth
to be no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty's
gifts of 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 Caesar
the Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and Marcus
Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the Emperors of
Graecia, or of the West, and then to the lines of France, Spain,
England, Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judgment 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,
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 ancient Hermes: the power and
fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and
the learning and universality of a philosopher. This propriety
inherent and individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be
expressed 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 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 cogitations to visit the
excellent treasure of your own mind, and thence to extract
particulars for this purpose agreeable to your magnanimity and
wisdom.

I. (1) In the entrance to the former of these--to clear the way and,
as it were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies 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 disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and
jealousy of divines, sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of
politics, and sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned
men themselves.

(2) I hear the former sort say that knowledge is of those things
which are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution; that
the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the 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; that Solomon gives a
censure, "That there is no end of making books, and that much
reading is weariness of the flesh;" and again in another 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 have been arch-heretics, how
learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how the
contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our dependence
upon God, who is the first cause.

(3) 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 him according unto their proprieties, which gave
the occasion to the fall; but it was the proud knowledge of good and
evil, with an intent 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 knowledge, 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 with seeing, nor the ear with hearing;
and if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than the
content: so of knowledge itself and the mind of man, whereto the
senses are but reporters, he defineth likewise in these words,
placed after that calendar or ephemerides which he maketh of the
diversities of times and seasons for all actions and purposes, 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
beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but 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 "the work which 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 man is subject. For that
nothing parcel of the world is denied to man's inquiry and
invention, 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 thereof, hath in it
some nature of venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom,
which is ventosity or swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture
whereof maketh knowledge so 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
deilvereth in another place: "If I spake," saith he, "with the
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
substantial virtue. And as for that censure of Solomon concerning
the excess of writing and reading books, and the anxiety of spirit
which redoundeth from knowledge, and that admonition of St. Paul,
"That we be not seduced by vain philosophy," let those places be
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 knowledge, 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
do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the
mysteries of God." For as touching the first of these, Solomon doth
excellently expound himself in another place of the same book, where
he saith: "I saw well that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance
as light doth from darkness; and that the wise man's eyes keep watch
in his head, whereas this 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
accident; for all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of
knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself; but when men fall
to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it to their
particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak fears or vast
desires, there groweth that carefulness and trouble of mind which is
spoken of; for then knowledge is no more Lumen siccum, whereof
Heraclitus the profound said, Lumen siccum optima anima; but it
becometh Lumen madidum, or maceratum, 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 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 knowledge. 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 terrestrial 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 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 this waxen wings of the
senses. And as for the conceit that too much knowledge should
incline a man 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 lie for another, to
gratify him?" For certain it is that God worketh nothing in Nature
but by second causes; 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 men to atheism, but a further proceeding therein
doth bring the mind back 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 a 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 he
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
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.

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