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The Advancement of Learning

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In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant what
it is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own
weakness to sustain my purpose. But my hope is, that if my extreme
love to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of
affection; for that "It is not granted to man to love and to be
wise." But I know well I can use no other liberty of judgment than
I must leave to others; and I for my part shall be indifferently
glad either to perform myself, or accept from another, that duty of
humanity--Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam, &c. I do foresee
likewise that of those things which I shall enter and register as
deficiences and omissions, many will conceive and censure that some
of them are already done and extant; others to be but curiosities,
and things of no great use; and others to be of too great
difficulty, and almost impossibility to be compassed and effected.
But for the two first, I refer myself to the particulars. For the
last, touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held
possible which may be done by some person, though not by every one;
and which may be done by many, though not by any one; and which may
be done in the succession of ages, though not within the hourglass
of one man's life; and which may be done by public designation,
though not by private endeavour. But, notwithstanding, if any man
will take to himself rather that of Solomon, "Dicit piger, Leo est
in via," than that of Virgil, "Possunt quia posse videntur," I shall
be content that my labours be esteemed but as the better sort of
wishes; for as it asketh some knowledge to demand a question not
impertinent, so it requireth some sense to make a wish not absurd.

I. (1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts
of man's understanding, which is the seat of learning: history to
his memory, poesy to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason.
Divine learning receiveth the same distribution; for, the spirit of
man is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be
diverse. So as theology consisteth also of history of the Church;
of parables, which is divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept.
For as for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy,
it is but divine history, which hath that prerogative over human, as
the narration may be before the fact as well as after.

(2) History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary; whereof
the first three I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient.
For no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning
to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done
the works of Nature, and the state, civil and ecclesiastical;
without which the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the
statue of Polyphemus with his eye out, that part being wanting which
doth most show the spirit and life of the person. And yet I am not
ignorant that in divers particular sciences, as of the
jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians, the
philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the
schools, authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations
touching the invention of arts or usages. But a just story of
learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges and
their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their diverse
administrations and managings, their flourishings, their
oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the
causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning
learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be
wanting; the use and end of which work I do not so much design for
curiosity or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning,
but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in
few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and
administration of learning. For it is not Saint Augustine's nor
Saint Ambrose's works that will make so wise a divine as
ecclesiastical history thoroughly read and observed, and the same
reason is of learning.

(3) History of Nature is of three sorts; of Nature in course, of
Nature erring or varying, and of Nature altered or wrought; that is,
history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts. The
first of these no doubt is extant, and that in good perfection; the
two latter are bandied so weakly and unprofitably as I am moved to
note them as deficient. For I find no sufficient or competent
collection of the works of Nature which have a digression and
deflexion from the ordinary course of generations, productions, and
motions; whether they be singularities of place and region, or the
strange events of time and chance, or the effects of yet unknown
properties, or the instances of exception to general kinds. It is
true I find a number of books of fabulous experiments and secrets,
and frivolous impostures for pleasure and strangeness; but a
substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites or irregulars
of Nature, well examined and described, I find not, specially not
with due rejection of fables and popular errors. For as things now
are, if an untruth in Nature be once on foot, what by reason of the
neglect of examination, and countenance of antiquity, and what by
reason of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments of
speech, it is never called down.

(4) The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is
nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and
vain wits, as the manner of Mirabilaries is to do; but for two
reasons, both of great weight: the one to correct the partiality of
axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and
familiar examples; the other because from the wonders of Nature is
the nearest intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art, for
it is no more but by following and, as it were, hounding Nature in
her wanderings, to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place
again. Neither am I of opinion, in this history of marvels, that
superstitious narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams,
divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear
evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded. For it is not yet
known in what cases and how far effects attributed to superstition
do participate of natural causes; and, therefore, howsoever the
practice of such things is to be condemned, yet from the speculation
and consideration of them light may be taken, not only for the
discerning of the offences, but for the further disclosing of
Nature. Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering into these
things for inquisition of truth, as your Majesty hath showed in your
own example, who, with the two clear eyes of religion and natural
philosophy, have looked deeply and wisely into these shadows, and
yet proved yourself to be of the nature of the sun, which passeth
through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before. But this I
hold fit, that these narrations, which have mixture with
superstition, be sorted by themselves, and not to be mingled with
the narrations which are merely and sincerely natural. But as for
the narrations touching the prodigies and miracles of religions,
they are either not true or not natural; and, therefore, impertinent
for the story of Nature.

(5) For history of Nature, wrought or mechanical, I find some
collections made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts; but
commonly with a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar; for it
is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry
or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such as may be
thought secrets, rarities, and special subtleties; which humour of
vain and supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato, where he
brings in Hippias, a vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates, a
true and unfeigned inquisitor of truth; where, the subject being
touching beauty, Socrates, after his wandering manner of inductions,
put first an example of a fair virgin, and then of a fair horse, and
then of a fair pot well glazed, whereat Hippias was offended, and
said, "More than for courtesy's sake, he did think much to dispute
with any that did allege such base and sordid instances." Whereunto
Socrates answereth, "You have reason, and it becomes you well, being
a man so trim in your vestments," &c., and so goeth on in an irony.
But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the
securest information, as may be well expressed in the tale so common
of the philosopher that, while he gazed upwards to the stars, fell
into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the
stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in
the stars. So it cometh often to pass that mean and small things
discover great, better than great can discover the small; and
therefore Aristotle noteth well, "That the nature of everything is
best seen in his smallest portions." And for that cause he
inquireth the nature of a commonwealth, first in a family, and the
simple conjugations of man and wife, parent and child, master and
servant, which are in every cottage. Even so likewise the nature of
this great city of the world, and the policy thereof, must be first
sought in mean concordances and small portions. So we see how that
secret of Nature, of the turning of iron touched with the loadstone
towards the north, was found out in needles of iron, not in bars of
iron.

(6) But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of history
mechanical is of all others the most radical and fundamental towards
natural philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in
the fume of subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as
shall be operative to the endowment and benefit of man's life. For
it will not only minister and suggest for the present many ingenious
practices in all trades, by a connection and transferring of the
observations of one art to the use of another, when the experiences
of several mysteries shall fall under the consideration of one man's
mind; but further, it will give a more true and real illumination
concerning causes and axioms than is hitherto attained. For like as
a man's disposition is never well known till he be crossed, nor
Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and held fast; so
the passages and variations of nature cannot appear so fully in the
liberty of nature as in the trials and vexations of art.

II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be
compared with the three kinds of pictures or images. For of
pictures or images we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and
some are defaced. So of histories we may find three kinds:
memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for memorials are
history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of history; and
antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which
have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts; whereof the
one may be termed commentaries, and the other registers.
Commentaries are they which set down a continuance of the naked
events and actions, without the motives or designs, the counsels,
the speeches, the pretexts, the occasions, and other passages of
action. For this is the true nature of a commentary (though Caesar,
in modesty mixed with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name
of a commentary to the best history of the world). Registers are
collections of public acts, as decrees of council, judicial
proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and the
like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread of
the narration.

(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam
tabula naufragii: when industrious persons, by an exact and
scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names,
words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences,
fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and
the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.

(4) In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign no deficience,
for they are tanquam imperfecte mista; and therefore any deficience
in them is but their nature. As for the corruptions and moths of
history, which are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be
banished, as all men of sound judgment have confessed, as those that
have fretted and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent
histories, and wrought them into base and unprofitable dregs.

(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of
three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or
pretendeth to represent: for it either representeth a time, or a
person, or an action. The first we call chronicles, the second
lives, and the third narrations or relations. Of these, although
the first be the most complete and absolute kind of history, and
hath most estimation and glory, yet the second excelleth it in
profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity. For history
of times representeth the magnitude of actions, and the public faces
and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller
passages and motions of men and matters. But such being the
workmanship of God, as He doth hang the greatest weight upon the
smallest wires, maxima e minimis, suspendens, it comes therefore to
pass, that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of business
than the true and inward resorts thereof. But lives, if they be
well written, propounding to themselves a person to represent, in
whom actions, both greater and smaller, public and private, have a
commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, native, and
lively representation. So again narrations and relations of
actions, as the war of Peloponnesus, the expedition of Cyrus Minor,
the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be more purely and exactly
true than histories of times, because they may choose an argument
comprehensible within the notice and instructions of the writer:
whereas he that undertaketh the story of a time, specially of any
length, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must
be forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.

(6) For the history of times, I mean of civil history, the
providence of God hath made the distribution. For it hath pleased
God to ordain and illustrate two exemplar states of the world for
arms, learning, moral virtue, policy, and laws; the state of Graecia
and the state of Rome; the histories whereof occupying the middle
part of time, have more ancient to them histories which may by one
common name be termed the antiquities of the world; and after them,
histories which may be likewise called by the name of modern
history.

(7) Now to speak of the deficiences. As to the heathen antiquities
of the world it is in vain to note them for deficient. Deficient
they are no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments; but the
deficience cannot be holpen; for antiquity is like fame, caput inter
nubila condit, her head is muffled from our sight. For the history
of the exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection. Not but I
could wish there were a perfect course of history for Graecia, from
Theseus to Philopoemen (what time the affairs of Graecia drowned and
extinguished in the affairs of Rome), and for Rome from Romulus to
Justinianus, who may be truly said to be ultimus Romanorum. In
which sequences of story the text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the
one, and the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, Caesar,
Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other, to be kept entire,
without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied and
continued. But this is a matter of magnificence, rather to be
commended than required; and we speak now of parts of learning
supplemental, and not of supererogation.

(8) But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very
worthy, but the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of
foreign stories to foreign states, because I will not be curiosus in
aliena republica, I cannot fail to represent to your Majesty the
unworthiness of the history of England in the main continuance
thereof, and the partiality and obliquity of that of Scotland in the
latest and largest author that I have seen: supposing that it would
be honour for your Majesty, and a work very memorable, if this
island of Great Britain, as it is now joined in monarchy for the
ages to come, so were joined in one history for the times passed,
after the manner of the sacred history, which draweth down the story
of the ten tribes and of the two tribes as twins together. And if
it shall seem that the greatness of this work may make it less
exactly performed, there is an excellent period of a much smaller
compass of time, as to the story of England; that is to say, from
the uniting of the Roses to the uniting of the kingdoms; a portion
of time wherein, to my understanding, there hath been the rarest
varieties that in like number of successions of any hereditary
monarchy hath been known. For it beginneth with the mixed adoption
of a crown by arms and title; an entry by battle, an establishment
by marriage; and therefore times answerable, like waters after a
tempest, full of working and swelling, though without extremity of
storm; but well passed through by the wisdom of the pilot, being one
of the most sufficient kings of all the number. Then followeth the
reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much
intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining
them variably; in whose time also began that great alteration in the
state ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage.
Then the reign of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it
was but as febris ephemera). Then the reign of a queen matched with
a foreigner; then of a queen that lived solitary and unmarried, and
yet her government so masculine, as it had greater impression and
operation upon the states abroad than it any ways received from
thence. And now last, this most happy and glorious event, that this
island of Britain, divided from all the world, should be united in
itself, and that oracle of rest given to AENeas, antiquam exquirite
matrem, should now be performed and fulfilled upon the nations of
England and Scotland, being now reunited in the ancient mother name
of Britain, as a full period of all instability and peregrinations.
So that as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that they have
certain trepidations and waverings before they fix and settle, so it
seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it was
to settle in your majesty and your generations (in which I hope it
is now established for ever), it had these prelusive changes and
varieties.

(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so little
esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writings of lives
should be no more frequent. For although there be not many
sovereign princes or absolute commanders, and that states are most
collected into monarchies, yet are there many worthy personages that
deserve better than dispersed report or barren eulogies. For herein
the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well
enrich the ancient fiction. For he feigneth that at the end of the
thread or web of every man's life there was a little medal
containing the person's name, and that Time waited upon the shears,
and as soon as the thread was cut caught the medals, and carried
them to the river of Lathe; and about the bank there were many birds
flying up and down, that would get the medals and carry them in
their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the river.
Only there were a few swans, which if they got a name would carry it
to a temple where it was consecrate. And although many men, more
mortal in their affections than in their bodies, do esteem desire of
name and memory but as a vanity and ventosity,


"Animi nil magnae laudis egentes;"


which opinion cometh from that root, Non prius laudes contempsimus,
quam laudanda facere desivimus: yet that will not alter Solomon's
judgment, Memoria justi cum laudibus, at impiorum nomen putrescet:
the one flourisheth, the other either consumeth to present oblivion,
or turneth to an ill odour. And therefore in that style or
addition, which is and hath been long well received and brought in
use, felicis memoriae, piae memoriae, bonae memoriae, we do
acknowledge that which Cicero saith, borrowing it from Demosthenes,
that bona fama propria possessio defunctorum; which possession I
cannot but note that in our times it lieth much waste, and that
therein there is a deficience.

(10) For narrations and relations of particular actions, there were
also to be wished a greater diligence therein; for there is no great
action but hath some good pen which attends it. And because it is
an ability not common to write a good history, as may well appear by
the small number of them; yet if particularity of actions memorable
were but tolerably reported as they pass, the compiling of a
complete history of times might be the better expected, when a
writer should arise that were fit for it: for the collection of
such relations might be as a nursery garden, whereby to plant a fair
and stately garden when time should serve.

(11) There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius
Tacitus maketh, which is not to be forgotten, specially with that
application which he accoupleth it withal, annals and journals:
appropriating to the former matters of estate, and to the latter
acts and accidents of a meaner nature. For giving but a touch of
certain magnificent buildings, he addeth, Cum ex dignitate populi
Romani repertum sit, res illustres annalibus, talia diurnis urbis
actis mandare. So as there is a kind of contemplative heraldry, as
well as civil. And as nothing doth derogate from the dignity of a
state more than confusion of degrees, so it doth not a little imbase
the authority of a history to intermingle matters of triumph, or
matters of ceremony, or matters of novelty, with matters of state.
But the use of a journal hath not only been in the history of time,
but likewise in the history of persons, and chiefly of actions; for
princes in ancient time had, upon point of honour and policy both,
journals kept, what passed day by day. For we see the chronicle
which was read before Ahasuerus, when he could not take rest,
contained matter of affairs, indeed, but such as had passed in his
own time and very lately before. But the journal of Alexander's
house expressed every small particularity, even concerning his
person and court; and it is yet a use well received in enterprises
memorable, as expeditions of war, navigations, and the like, to keep
diaries of that which passeth continually.

(12) I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing which some
grave and wise men have used, containing a scattered history of
those actions which they have thought worthy of memory, with politic
discourse and observation thereupon: not incorporate into the
history, but separately, and as the more principal in their
intention; which kind of ruminated history I think more fit to place
amongst books of policy, whereof we shall hereafter speak, than
amongst books of history. For it is the true office of history to
represent the events themselves together with the counsels, and to
leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and
faculty of every man's judgment. But mixtures are things irregular,
whereof no man can define.

(13) So also is there another kind of history manifoldly mixed, and
that is history of cosmography: being compounded of natural
history, in respect of the regions themselves; of history civil, in
respect of the habitations, regiments, and manners of the people;
and the mathematics, in respect of the climates and configurations
towards the heavens: which part of learning of all others in this
latter time hath obtained most proficience. For it may be truly
affirmed to the honour of these times, and in a virtuous emulation
with antiquity, that this great building of the world had never
through-lights made in it, till the age of us and our fathers. For
although they had knowledge of the antipodes,


"Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper,"


yet that might be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by
travel, it requireth the voyage but of half the globe. But to
circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor
enterprised till these later times: and therefore these times may
justly bear in their word, not only plus ultra, in precedence of the
ancient non ultra, and imitabile fulmen, in precedence of the
ancient non imitabile fulmen,


"Demens qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen," &c.


but likewise imitabile caelum; in respect of the many memorable
voyages after the manner of heaven about the globe of the earth.

(14) And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant
also an expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of
all sciences; because it may seem they are ordained by God to be
coevals, that is, to meet in one age. For so the prophet Daniel
speaking of the latter times foretelleth, Plurimi pertransibunt, et
multiplex erit scientia: as if the openness and through-passage of
the world and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the
same ages; as we see it is already performed in great part: the
learning of these later times not much giving place to the former
two periods or returns of learning, the one of the Grecians, the
other of the Romans.

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