1. To correct the partiality of axioms. 2. To discover the wonders of art. 187 1. They are the remnant of history. They are as planks saved from the utiuge of time. 2. Epitomes should be abolished. They are as the moths of history that have fretted and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent histories. Perfect History. Division and their relative merits 1. Chronicles. 2. Biography. 3. Relations. Biography. It is, as it were, hounding Nature in her 1. It is the most useful of all history. ..189 wanderings to be able to lead her afterwards 2. It is to be lamented that biography is not more freto the same place again. 4 Different marvels. History of Arts 2............. .... 188 1. It is in general deficient. 2 It is considered not elevating to inquire into matters mechanical 188 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 3. often to pass, that mean and small things discover great, better than great can discover the small. Aristotle noteth well, "that the nature of every thing is best seen in its 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. 190 quent. Impropriety of disregarding posthumous fame 190 189 189 1. Chronicles excel for celebrity.. Relations. The turning of iron touched with the load-1. They excel in verity and sincerity .. 189 stone towards the north, was found out in 2. It is to be lamented that there is not more diligence needles of iron, not in bars of iron. 1 The arrangement of this part is altered in the Treatise 190 in relations... The collection of such relations might be as a nursery garden, whereby to plant a fair and stately garden, when time should serve. 3. Annals and journals. 1. History of the church. 2. History of prophecy. 3. History of providence. History of the Church. ..191 1. Common-the same as in history. 2. Proper division. 1. Narrative or heroical. 2. Representative or dramatical. 3. Allusive or parabolical. Narrative Poesy. Parabolical Poesy. 1. It was never common in ancient times. 2. Its uses. 1. To elucidate truths. 2. To concert truths.2 3. Of the interpretation of mysteries, parabolical poesy. In poesy there is no deficience; for, being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than any other kind: but to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to poets more than to the philosopher's works; and for wit and eloquence, not much less than to orators' harangues. But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now pass on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reveence and attention. PRIMITIVE OR GENERAL PHILOSOPHY. It is a receptacle for all such profitable observa192 tions and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage. 2. Poetry as it refers to words is but a character of style, and is not pertinent to this place. 3. Poetry as it refers to the matter. 1. It is fiction, and relates to the imagination. The imagination not being tied to the laws of malter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined; and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things. Pictoribus atque poetis, Quidlibet audendi, semper fuit æqua potestas. 4. Its use is to satisfy the mind in these points where nature does not satisfy it. It was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind into the nature of things.' Poesy joined with music hath had access and estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded. 1 Sir Philip Sidney says, poesy, the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge, lifts the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying its own divine essence. Is not the precept of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord, or sweet accord, alike true in affection? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric of deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the water? Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus." Because the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, before we enter into the former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, by the name of " Philosophia Prima," primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves. This science is as a common parent, like unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue. "Omnes cœliclas, omnes super alta tenentes.' 2 This is much expanded in the Treatise De Augmentis. 1. Speculative or inquisition of causes. 1951. 2. Plato discovered that forms were the true objects of knowledge. Plato beheld all things as from a cliff. 2. By keeping a watchful and severe eye upon action 4. Physic makes inquiry of the same natures as metaphysic, but only as to efficient causes. 197 5. This part of metaphysic is defective. 6. The use of this part of metaphysic. 1. To abridge the infinity of individual experience. 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. 2. To enfranchise the power of man by facilitating the production of effects. Of Final Causes.. been misplaced. 1. The investigating final causes in physics has intercepted the true inquiry of real physical causes. 2. Operative or production of effects.... 195 1. The inquiry of final causes is not deficient, but has If then, it be true that Democritus said, "That the truth of nature lieth hid in certain deep mines and caves:" and if it be true likewise that the alchymists do so much inculcate, that Vulcan is a second nature, and imitateth that dexterously and compendiously, which nature worketh by ambages and length of time, it were good to divide natural philosophy into the mine and the furnace; and to make two professions or occupations of natural philosophers, some to be pioneers and some smiths; some to dig, and some to refine and hammer. 2. Connection between cause and effect SPECULATIVE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 1. Division. 1. Physic. 2. Metaphysic. 195 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 the 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 hinderances 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. 2. Of the errors in ancient philosophy from mixing formal and final causes.. 198 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 track. There is no repugnance between formal and final causes.. 3. These opinions confirm divine providence Mathematic. 198 198 1. Reason for classing it as a part of metaphysic. 3. There is no difference in mathematics....... 198 1. It is that science which handles quantity deter minate, merely severed from axioms of natural philosophy, and is geometry or arithmetic. 199 N Physiognomy... 201 The invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for 1. The discovery of the mind from the appearance of navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion. 3 Conclusion of natural philosophy, speculative and operative. 2. the body. Aristotle has laboured physiognomy as far as relates to the countenance at rest; but not when in motion. clinations of the mind: the motions its present dispositions. The voice of nature will consent, whether 3. The lineaments of the body disclose the general inthe voice of man do or not. 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, 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. Impression. than that which cometh with pugnacity and 1. It is the science of the relative action of the body and mind upon each other. 2002. Of the action of the body on the mind. 2. Of the evil of continuing doubts. Of a Calendar of Popular Errors. Cieneral doubts, or those differences of opinions, touching the principles of nature which have caused the diversities of sects. 200 Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man's knowledge; that is 1. This has been inquired as a part of medicine. 2. The doctrine that the body acts upon the mind does not derogate from the soul's dignity. The infant in the mother's womb is com patible with the mother and yet separable, and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants and yet without subjection. The action of the mind on the body. 1. Physicians have ever considered "accidentia animi," as of great importance. 2. The power of imagination as well to help as to hurt is a subject neglected, but deserving inquiry. It cannot be concluded that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in 1 See note (P) at the end of this Treatise 1. Man's body is of all things most susceptible of re medy, but this remedy most susceptible of error. 1. It means any ability of body to which the body of 2. No body is so variously compounded as the body 1. The variety in the composition of man's The poets did well to conjoin music and man may be brought. 2. Division. 1. Activity. 1. Strength. 2. Swiftness. 2. Patience. rance. 1. Hardness against want. General receptacle for acts of great bodily endu2. The philosophy of athletics is not much investigated. 2. The variety in the composition of man's 1. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his 3. The quack is often prized before the regular physi cian. 4. Physicians often prefer other pursuits to their own professions. You shall have of them antiquities, 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. 5. Diseases may be subdued. If we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see in familiar instances what a predominant faculty the subtilty of spirit hath over the variety of matter or form. 6. Medicine has been more laboured than advanced. 7. Deficiencies of medicine. 1. Want of medical reports. 2. Defective anatomies. 3. Hasty conclusions that diseases are in- 3. The mediocrity of athletics is for use; the excess Their for ostentation. In the Treatise De Augmentis, this passage is thus altered: Adulterate decoration by painting and cerusse, is well worthy of the imperfections which attend it; being neither fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to please, nor wholesome to use. We read of Jezabel that she painted her face: but there is no such report of Esther or Judith. "In Bacon's Essay on Vicissitude of Things, he says, In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time: in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Lloyd, in his life of Sir Edward Howard, says, almost in the same words, In the youth of this state, as of all others, arms did flourish; in the middle state of it, learning; and in the declining (as covetousness and theft attend old age) mechanic arts and merchandise. Q. 1. Is this observation founded on fact? Q. 2. Supposing it to be founded on fact; what are the causes ?-Does commerce lower the character? Is the service of mammon at variance with the service of God? Q. 3. Supposing the mechanical arts and merchandise hitherto to have accompanied the decline of states, may they not both be traced to excess of civilization, instead of being Sylla and the triumvirs never proscribed supposed to flow from each other? Q. 4. Supposing the opinion to be founded on fact; wit! not the evil now be prevented by the art of printing? |