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The Advancement of Learning

F >> Francis Bacon >> The Advancement of Learning





"Felix terrarum praedo, non utile mundo
Editus exemplum, &c."


So,


"Felix doctrinae praedo."


But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth in my
pen to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and
proficience, it seemeth best to keep way with antiquity usque ad
aras; and, therefore, to retain the ancient terms, though I
sometimes alter the uses and definitions, according to the moderate
proceeding in civil government; where, although there be some
alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus wisely noteth, eadem
magistratuum vocabula.

(3) To return, therefore, to the use and acception of the term
metaphysic as I do now understand the word; it appeareth, by that
which hath been already said, that I intend philosophia prima,
summary philosophy and metaphysic, which heretofore have been
confounded as one, to be two distinct things. For the one I have
made as a parent or common ancestor to all knowledge; and the other
I have now brought in as a branch or descendant of natural science.
It appeareth likewise that I have assigned to summary philosophy the
common principles and axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent
to several sciences; I have assigned unto it likewise the inquiry
touching the operation or the relative and adventive characters of
essences, as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility, and the
rest, with this distinction and provision; that they be handled as
they have efficacy in nature, and not logically. It appeareth
likewise that natural theology, which heretofore hath been handled
confusedly with metaphysic, I have enclosed and bounded by itself.
It is therefore now a question what is left remaining for
metaphysic; wherein I may without prejudice preserve thus much of
the conceit of antiquity, that physic should contemplate that which
is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that
which is abstracted and fixed. And again, that physic should handle
that which supposeth in nature only a being and moving; and
metaphysic should handle that which supposeth further in nature a
reason, understanding, and platform. But the difference,
perspicuously expressed, is most familiar and sensible. For as we
divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes and
productions of effects, so that part which concerneth the inquiry of
causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division
of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth
the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is
metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.

(4) Physic (taking it according to the derivation, and not according
to our idiom for medicine) is situate in a middle term or distance
between natural history and metaphysic. For natural history
describeth the variety of things; physic the causes, but variable or
respective causes; and metaphysic the fixed and constant causes.


"Limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit,
Uno eodemque igni."


Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire is the
cause of colliquation, but respective to wax. But fire is no
constant cause either of induration or colliquation; so then the
physical causes are but the efficient and the matter. Physic hath
three parts, whereof two respect nature united or collected, the
third contemplateth nature diffused or distributed. Nature is
collected either into one entire total, or else into the same
principles or seeds. So as the first doctrine is touching the
contexture or configuration of things, as de mundo, de universitate
rerum. The second is the doctrine concerning the principles or
originals of things. The third is the doctrine concerning all
variety and particularity of things; whether it be of the differing
substances, or their differing qualities and natures; whereof there
needeth no enumeration, this part being but as a gloss or paraphrase
that attendeth upon the text of natural history. Of these three I
cannot report any as deficient. In what truth or perfection they
are handled, I make not now any judgment; but they are parts of
knowledge not deserted by the labour of man.

(5) For metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of formal
and final causes; which assignation, as to the former of them, may
seem to be nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate
opinion, that the inquisition of man is not competent to find out
essential forms or true differences; of which opinion we will take
this hold, that the invention of forms is of all other parts of
knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be found.
As for the possibility, they are ill discoverers that think there is
no land, when they can see nothing but sea. But it is manifest that
Plato, in his opinion of ideas, as one that had a wit of elevation
situate as upon a cliff, did descry that forms were the true object
of knowledge; but lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering
of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and
determined by matter; and so turning his opinion upon theology,
wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected. But if any man
shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action,
operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice
what are the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and
important to the state of man. For as to the forms of substances
(man only except, of whom it is said, Formavit hominem de limo
terrae, et spiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vitae, and not as of
all other creatures, Producant aquae, producat terra), the forms of
substances I say (as they are now by compounding and transplanting
multiplied) are so perplexed, as they are not to be inquired; no
more than it were either possible or to purpose to seek in gross the
forms of those sounds which make words, which by composition and
transposition of letters are infinite. But, on the other side, to
inquire the form of those sounds or voices which make simple letters
is easily comprehensible; and being known induceth and manifesteth
the forms of all words, which consist and are compounded of them.
In the same manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of
gold; nay, of water, of air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the
forms of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of
gravity and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and
all other natures and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not
many, and of which the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures
do consist; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these, is that part
of metaphysic which we now define of. Not but that physic doth make
inquiry and take consideration of the same natures; but how? Only
as to the material and efficient causes of them, and not as to the
forms. For example, if the cause of whiteness in snow or froth be
inquired, and it be rendered thus, that the subtle intermixture of
air and water is the cause, it is well rendered; but, nevertheless,
is this the form of whiteness? No; but it is the efficient, which
is ever but vehiculum formae. This part of metaphysic I do not find
laboured and performed; whereat I marvel not; because I hold it not
possible to be invented by that course of invention which hath been
used; in regard that men (which is the root of all error) have made
too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from particulars.

(6) But the use of this part of metaphysic, which I report as
deficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects: the
one, because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge
the infinity of individual experience, as much as the conception of
truth will permit, and to remedy the complaint of vita brevis, ars
longa; which is performed by uniting the notions and conceptions of
sciences. For knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the
basis. So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history; the
stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is
metaphysic. As for the vertical point, opus quod operatur Deus a
principio usque ad finem, the summary law of nature, we know not
whether man's inquiry can attain unto it. But these three be the
true stages of knowledge, and are to them that are depraved no
better than the giants' hills:-


"Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam,
Scilicet atque Ossae frondsum involvere Olympum."


But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as
the three acclamations, Sante, sancte, sancte! holy in the
description or dilatation of His works; holy in the connection or
concatenation of them; and holy in the union of them in a perpetual
and uniform law. And, therefore, the speculation was excellent in
Parmenides and Plato, although but a speculation in them, that all
things by scale did ascend to unity. So then always that knowledge
is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity, which
appeareth to be metaphysic; as that which considereth the simple
forms or differences of things, which are few in number, and the
degrees and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety. The
second respect, which valueth and commendeth this part of
metaphysic, is that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the
greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects. For physic
carrieth men in narrow and restrained ways, subject to many
accidents and impediments, imitating the ordinary flexuous courses
of nature. But latae undique sunt sapientibus viae; to sapience
(which was anciently defined to be rerum divinarum et humanarum
scientia) there is ever a choice of means. For physical causes give
light to new invention in simili materia. But whosoever knoweth any
form, knoweth the utmost possibility of superinducing that nature
upon any variety of matter; and so is less restrained in operation,
either to the basis of the matter, or the condition of the
efficient; which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise, though in a
more divine sense, elegantly describeth: non arctabuntur gressus
tui, et currens non habebis offendiculum. The ways of sapience are
not much liable either to particularity or chance.

(7) The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes,
which I am moved to report not as omitted, but as misplaced. And
yet if it were but a fault in order, I would not speak of it; for
order is matter of illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance
of sciences. But this misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at
least a great improficience in the sciences themselves. For the
handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries,
hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and
physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these
satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice
of further discovery. For this I find done not only by Plato, who
ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others
which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing
causes. For to say that "the hairs of the eyelids are for a
quickset and fence about the sight;" or that "the firmness of the
skins and hides of living creatures is to defend them from the
extremities of heat or cold;" or that "the bones are for the columns
or beams, whereupon the frames of the bodies of living creatures are
built;" or that "the leaves of trees are for protecting of the
fruit;" or that "the clouds are for watering of the earth;" or that
"the solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living
creatures;" and the like, is well inquired and collected in
metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent. Nay, they are,
indeed, but remoras and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from
further sailing; and have brought this to pass, that the search of
the physical causes hath been neglected and passed in silence. And,
therefore, the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who
did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but
attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite
essays or proofs of Nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me
(as far as I can judge by the recital and fragments which remain
unto us) in particularities of physical causes more real and better
inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled
final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part
of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both
those persons; not because those final causes are not true and
worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province, but
because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath
bred a vastness and solitude in that tract. For otherwise, keeping
their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if they
think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between them. For the
cause rendered, that "the hairs about the eyelids are for the
safeguard of the sight," doth not impugn the cause rendered, that
"pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture--muscosi fontes, &c."
Nor the cause rendered, that "the firmness of hides is for the
armour of the body against extremities of heat or cold," doth not
impugn the cause rendered, that "contraction of pores is incident to
the outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or
unlike bodies;" and so of the rest, both causes being true and
compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence
only. Neither doth this call in question or derogate from Divine
Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it. For as in civil
actions he is the greater and deeper politique that can make other
men the instruments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint
them with his purpose, so as they shall do it and yet not know what
they do, than he that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth;
so is the wisdom of God more admirable, when Nature intendeth one
thing and Providence draweth forth another, than if He had
communicated to particular creatures and motions the characters and
impressions of His Providence. And thus much for metaphysic; the
latter part whereof I allow as extant, but wish it confined to his
proper place.

VIII. (1) Nevertheless, there remaineth yet another part of natural
philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth
rank with physic special and metaphysic, which is mathematic; but I
think it more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of
order, to place it as a branch of metaphysic. For the subject of it
being quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative,
and belongeth to philosophia prima (as hath been said), but quantity
determined or proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the
essential forms of things, as that that is causative in Nature of a
number of effects; insomuch as we see in the schools both of
Democritus and of Pythagoras that the one did ascribe figure to the
first seeds of things, and the other did suppose numbers to be the
principles and originals of things. And it is true also that of all
other forms (as we understand forms) it is the most abstracted and
separable from matter, and therefore most proper to metaphysic;
which hath likewise been the cause why it hath been better laboured
and inquired than any of the other forms, which are more immersed in
matter. For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme
prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of
generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of
particularity, the mathematics of all other knowledge were the
goodliest fields to satisfy that appetite. But for the placing of
this science, it is not much material: only we have endeavoured in
these our partitions to observe a kind of perspective, that one part
may cast light upon another.

(2) The mathematics are either pure or mixed. To the pure
mathematics are those sciences belonging which handle quantity
determinate, merely severed from any axioms of natural philosophy;
and these are two, geometry and arithmetic, the one handling
quantity continued, and the other dissevered. Mixed hath for
subject some axioms or parts of natural philosophy, and considereth
quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and incident unto them. For
many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient
subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor
accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and
intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective,
music, astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers
others. In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be
that men do not sufficiently understand this excellent use of the
pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in
the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull,
they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in
the sense, they abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use
in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a
body ready to put itself into all postures, so in the mathematics
that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than
that which is principal and intended. And as for the mixed
mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail
to be more kinds of them as Nature grows further disclosed. Thus
much of natural science, or the part of Nature speculative.

(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural
philosophy, we will divide it into three parts--experimental,
philosophical, and magical; which three parts active have a
correspondence and analogy with the three parts speculative, natural
history, physic, and metaphysic. For many operations have been
invented, sometimes by a casual incidence and occurrence, sometimes
by a purposed experiment; and of those which have been found by an
intentional experiment, some have been found out by varying or
extending the same experiment, some by transferring and compounding
divers experiments the one into the other, which kind of invention
an empiric may manage. Again, by the knowledge of physical causes
there cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of new
particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon use
and practice. But these are but coastings along the shore, premendo
littus iniquum; for it seemeth to me there can hardly be discovered
any radical or fundamental alterations and innovations in Nature,
either by the fortune and essays of experiments, or by the light and
direction of physical causes. If, therefore, we have reported
metaphysic deficient, it must follow that we do the like of natural
magic, which hath relation thereunto. For as for the natural magic
whereof now there is mention in books, containing certain credulous
and superstitious conceits and observations of sympathies and
antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and some frivolous experiments,
strange rather by disguisement than in themselves, it is as far
differing in truth of Nature from such a knowledge as we require as
the story of King Arthur of Britain, or Hugh of Bourdeaux, differs
from Caesar's Commentaries in truth of story; for it is manifest
that Caesar did greater things de vero than those imaginary heroes
were feigned to do. But he did them not in that fabulous manner.
Of this kind of learning the fable of Ixion was a figure, who
designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess of power, and instead of her had
copulation with a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and
chimeras. So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous
imaginations, instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth,
shall beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.
And, therefore, we may note in these sciences which hold so much of
imagination and belief, as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy,
astrology, and the like, that in their propositions the description
of the means is ever more monstrous than the pretence or end. For
it is a thing more probable that he that knoweth well the natures of
weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect of the hammer,
of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the rest, may
superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such
mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures afore
rehearsed, than that some grains of the medicine projected should in
a few moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver or other material
into gold. So it is more probable that he that knoweth the nature
of arefaction, the nature of assimilation of nourishment to the
thing nourished, the manner of increase and clearing of spirits, the
manner of the depredations which spirits make upon the humours and
solid parts, shall by ambages of diets, bathings, anointings,
medicines, motions, and the like, prolong life, or restore some
degree of youth or vivacity, than that it can be done with the use
of a few drops or scruples of a liquor or receipt. To conclude,
therefore, the true natural magic, which is that great liberty and
latitude of operation which dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I
may report deficient, as the relative thereof is. To which part, if
we be serious and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse,
besides the deriving and deducing the operations themselves from
metaphysic, there are pertinent two points of much purpose, the one
by way of preparation, the other by way of caution. The first is,
that there be made a calendar, resembling an inventory of the estate
of man, containing all the inventions (being the works or fruits of
Nature or art) which are now extant, and whereof man is already
possessed; out of which doth naturally result a note what things are
yet held impossible, or not invented, which calendar will be the
more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed impossibility
you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to
that impossibility; to the end that by these optatives and
potentials man's inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction
of works from the speculation of causes. And secondly, that these
experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present
use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence
for invention of other experiments, and those which give most light
to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's
needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for
navigation than the invention of the sails which give the motion.

(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the
deficiences thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient and
received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for my
part, as I affect not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend. If
it be truth,


"Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvae,"


the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.
And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the
French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark
up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better
that entry of truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up
those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that
which cometh with pugnacity and contention.

(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according
to the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or
subject: and that is positive and considerative, when the inquiry
reporteth either an assertion or a doubt. These doubts or non
liquets are of two sorts, particular and total. For the first, we
see a good example thereof in Aristotle's Problems which deserved to
have had a better continuance; but so nevertheless as there is one
point whereof warning is to be given and taken. The registering of
doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy
from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing
is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but
reserved in doubt; the other, that the entry of doubts are as so
many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that
which if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised,
but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation
of doubts is made to be attended and applied. But both these
commodities do scarcely countervail and inconvenience, which will
intrude itself if it be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is
once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than
how to solve it, and accordingly bend their wits. Of this we see
the familiar example in lawyers and scholars, both which, if they
have once admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for a
doubt. But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed, which
laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those which
labour to make certain things doubtful. Therefore these calendars
of doubts I commend as excellent things; so that there he this
caution used, that when they be thoroughly sifted and brought to
resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted, discarded, and not
continued to cherish and encourage men in doubting. To which
calendar of doubts or problems I advise be annexed another calendar,
as much or more material which is a calendar of popular errors: I
mean chiefly in natural history, such as pass in speech and conceit,
and are nevertheless apparently detected and convicted of untruth,
that man's knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and
vanity. As for the doubts or non liquets general or in total, I
understand those differences of opinions touching the principles of
nature, and the fundamental points of the same, which have caused
the diversity of sects, schools, and philosophies, as that of
Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus, Parmenides, and the rest. For
although Aristotle, as though he had been of the race of the
Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first thing he did
he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth and not
magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to see
before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature.
Not for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for
as the same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received
astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the
planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the
theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move, and the
calculations are indifferently agreeable to both, so the ordinary
face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several
theories and philosophies; whereas to find the real truth requireth
another manner of severity and attention. For as Aristotle saith,
that children at the first will call every woman mother, but
afterward they come to distinguish according to truth, so
experience, if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy
mother, but when it cometh to ripeness it will discern the true
mother. So as in the meantime it is good to see the several glosses
and opinions upon Nature, whereof it may be everyone in some one
point hath seen clearer than his fellows, therefore I wish some
collection to be made painfully and understandingly de antiquis
philosophiis, out of all the possible light which remaineth to us of
them: which kind of work I find deficient. But here I must give
warning, that it be done distinctly and severedly; the philosophies
of everyone throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed and
faggoted up together, as hath been done by Plutarch. For it is the
harmony of a philosophy in itself, which giveth it light and
credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more
foreign and dissonant. For as when I read in Tacitus the actions of
Nero or Claudius, with circumstances of times, inducements, and
occasions, I find them not so strange; but when I read them in
Suetonius Tranquillus, gathered into titles and bundles and not in
order of time, they seem more monstrous and incredible: so is it of
any philosophy reported entire, and dismembered by articles.
Neither do I exclude opinions of latter times to be likewise
represented in this calendar of sects of philosophy, as that of
Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into an harmony by the
pen of Severinus the Dane; and that of Tilesius, and his scholar
Donius, being as a pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but of no
great depth; and that of Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not
to make any new philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own
sense upon the old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who
revived, with some alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of
Xenophanes; and any other worthy to be admitted.

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