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The Advancement of Learning

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(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man's
knowledge; that is radius directus, which is referred to nature,
radius refractus, which is referred to God, and cannot report truly
because of the inequality of the medium. There resteth radius
reflexus, whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.

IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the
ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves;
which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth
us more nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of
natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding it is
but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of Nature. And
generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be
accepted rather for lines and veins than for sections and
separations; and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be
preserved. For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to
become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they have not been
nourished and maintained from the common fountain. So we see
Cicero, the orator, complained of Socrates and his school, that he
was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon
rhetoric became an empty and verbal art. So we may see that the
opinion of Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which
astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any
of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy may correct. So we see
also that the science of medicine if it be destituted and forsaken
by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical
practice. With this reservation, therefore, we proceed to human
philosophy or humanity, which hath two parts: the one considereth
man segregate or distributively, the other congregate or in society;
so as human philosophy is either simple and particular, or conjugate
and civil. Humanity particular consisteth of the same parts whereof
man consisteth: that is, of knowledges which respect the body, and
of knowledges that respect the mind. But before we distribute so
far, it is good to constitute. For I do take the consideration in
general, and at large, of human nature to be fit to be emancipate
and made a knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those
delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the
dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like
adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard
of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between
the mind and body, which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to
the sciences of either.

(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and
amities consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this
league of mind and body hath these two parts: how the one
discloseth the other, and how the one worketh upon the other;
discovery and impression. The former of these hath begotten two
arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof the one is honoured
with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of Hippocrates. And
although they have of later time been used to be coupled with
superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged and restored to
their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in Nature,
and a profitable use in life. The first is physiognomy, which
discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the
body. The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which
discovereth the state of the body by the imaginations of the mind.
In the former of these I note a deficience. For Aristotle hath very
ingeniously and diligently handled the factures of the body, but not
the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by art,
and of greater use and advantage. For the lineaments of the body do
disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in general; but
the motions of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do
further disclose the present humour and state of the mind and will.
For as your majesty saith most aptly and elegantly, "As the tongue
speaketh to the ear so the gesture speaketh to the eye." And,
therefore, a number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the
faces and fashions of men, do well know the advantage of this
observation, as being most part of their ability; neither can it be
denied, but that it is a great discovery of dissimulations, and a
great direction in business.

(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected
into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same
relation or antistrophe that the former hath. For the consideration
is double--either how and how far the humours and affects of the
body do alter or work upon the mind, or, again, how and how far the
passions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the
body. The former of these hath been inquired and considered as a
part and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion
or superstition. For the physician prescribeth cures of the mind in
frenzies and melancholy passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit
medicines to exhilarate the mind, to control the courage, to clarify
the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like; but the scruples
and superstitions of diet and other regiment of the body in the sect
of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manichees, and in the law
of Mahomet, do exceed. So likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial
law, interdicting the eating of the blood and the fat,
distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many
and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from all
clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences,
and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real,
and not figurative. The root and life of all which prescripts is
(besides the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which
the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and
disposition of the body. And if any man of weak judgment do
conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth either
question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the
soul, he may be taught, in easy instances, that the infant in the
mother's womb is compatible with the mother, and yet separable; and
the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants, and yet
without subjection. As for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the
operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the body, we
see all wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments to
their patients, do ever consider accidentia animi, as of great force
to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more specially it
is an inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how
and how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for
although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath
the same degree of power to help. No more than a man can conclude,
that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in
health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to
cure a man in sickness. But the inquisition of this part is of
great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, "a Delian diver,"
being difficult and profound. But unto all this knowledge de
communi vinculo, of the concordances between the mind and the body,
that part of inquiry is most necessary which considereth of the
seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take
and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath been
attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
inquired. For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in
the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a
greater mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or
sensuality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less
to be allowed. So, then, we have constituted (as in our own wish
and advice) the inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just
portion of knowledge to be handled apart.

X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man's body is divided as the
good of man's body is divided, unto which it referreth. The good of
man's body is of four kinds--health, beauty, strength, and pleasure:
so the knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration,
which is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic;
and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth eruditus luxus.
This subject of man's body is, of all other things in nature, most
susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of
error; for the same subtlety of the subject doth cause large
possibility and easy failing, and therefore the inquiry ought to be
the more exact.

(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have
said, ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was
microcosmus--an abstract or model of the world--hath been
fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there
were to be found in man's body certain correspondences and
parallels, which should have respect to all varieties of things, as
stars, planets, minerals, which are extant in the great world. But
thus much is evidently true, that of all substances which nature
hath produced, man's body is the most extremely compounded. For we
see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for
the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts,
birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies
before they come to be his food and aliment. Add hereunto that
beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of
affections to work upon their bodies, whereas man in his mansion,
sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations: and it cannot
be denied but that the body of man of all other things is of the
most compounded mass. The soul, on the other side, is the simplest
of substances, as is well expressed:


"Purumque reliquit
AEthereum sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem."


So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if
that principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum,
placidus in loco. But to the purpose. This variable composition of
man's body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and,
therefore, the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in
Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious
harp of man's body and to reduce it to harmony. So, then, the
subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent more
conjectural; and the art being conjectural hath made so much the
more place to be left for imposture. For almost all other arts and
sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and
not by the successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue
of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; this master in
this ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by
the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps this
politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but
is judged most by the event, which is ever but as it is taken: for
who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be
preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And therefore
many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed.
Nay, we see [the] weakness and credulity of men is such, as they
will often refer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician.
And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this
extreme folly when they made AEsculapius and Circe, brother and
sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses -


"Ipse repertorem medicinae talis et artis
Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas."


And again -


"Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos," &c.


For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old
women and impostors, have had a competition with physicians. And
what followeth? Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as
Solomon expresseth it upon a higher occasion, "If it befall to me as
befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?" And
therefore I cannot much blame physicians that they use commonly to
intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their
profession; for you shall have of them antiquaries, poets,
humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these
better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon this ground
that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art maketh no
difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune: for the
weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope,
maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects. But,
nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of are courses
begotten between a little occasion and a great deal of sloth and
default; for if we will excite and awake our observation, we shall
see in familiar instances what a predominant faculty the subtlety of
spirit hath over the variety of matter or form. Nothing more
variable than faces and countenances, yet men can bear in memory the
infinite distinctions of them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of
colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his imagination,
can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be, if they
were brought before him. Nothing more variable than voices, yet men
can likewise discern them personally: nay, you shall have a buffon
or pantomimus will express as many as he pleaseth. Nothing more
variable than the differing sounds of words; yet men have found the
way to reduce them to a few simple letters. So that it is not the
insufficiency or incapacity of man's mind, but it is the remote
standing or placing thereof that breedeth these mazes and
incomprehensions; for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking,
but is exact at hand, so is it of the understanding, the remedy
whereof is, not to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer
to the object; and therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians
will learn and use the true approaches and avenues of nature, they
may assume as much as the poet saith:


"Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;
Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt."


Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve:
well shadowed by the poets, in that they made AEsculapius to be the
son of [the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as
the second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of
our Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as
the soul was the object of His doctrine. For we read not that ever
He vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money (except that
one for giving tribute to Caesar), but only about the preserving,
sustaining, and healing the body of man.

(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more
professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the
labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in
progression. For I find much iteration, but small addition. It
considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions;
the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the
preservations. The deficiences which I think good to note, being a
few of many, and those such as are of a more open and manifest
nature, I will enumerate and not place.

(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious
diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the
special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they
were judged by recovery or death. Therefore having an example
proper in the father of the art, I shall not need to allege an
example foreign, of the wisdom of the lawyers, who are careful to
report new cases and decisions, for the direction of future
judgments. This continuance of medicinal history I find deficient;
which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend to every
common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders: for many
things are new in this manner, which are not new in the kind; and if
men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.

(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience:
for they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and
collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts,
the secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the
humours, nor much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases. The
reason of which omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry
may be satisfied in the view of one or a few anatomies; but the
latter, being comparative and casual, must arise from the view of
many. And as to the diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the
facture or framing of the inward parts is as full of difference as
the outward, and in that is the cause continent of many diseases;
which not being observed, they quarrel many times with the humours,
which are not in fault; the fault being in the very frame and
mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine
alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and
medicines familiar. And for the passages and pores, it is true
which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not
in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies,
though they be open and manifest in life: which being supposed,
though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly
reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this observation, the
inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished
altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but
might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive,
which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may
sufficiently satisfy this inquiry. And for the humours, they are
commonly passed over in anatomies as purgaments; whereas it is most
necessary to observe, what cavities, nests, and receptacles the
humours do find in the parts, with the differing kind of the humour
so lodged and received. And as for the footsteps of diseases, and
their devastations of the inward parts, impostumations,
exulcerations, discontinuations, putrefactions, consumptions,
contractions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations, obstructions,
repletions, together with all preternatural substances, as stones,
carnosities, excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to have
been exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the
contribution of men's several experiences, and carefully set down
both historically according to the appearances, and artificially
with a reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from
them, in case where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas now
upon opening of bodies they are passed over slightly and in silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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