The ways of sapience are not much liable either that the firmness of hides is for the armour of the to particularity or chance. body against extremities of heat and 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 politician, 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 employ 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 its proper place. 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 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 an-eth; so is the wisdom of God more admirable, choreth 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 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. And therefore the natural philosophy | in nature of a number of effects; insomuch as we 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 For it being the nature of the mind of man, to those final causes are not true, and worthy to be the extreme prejudice of knowledge, to delight inquired, being kept within their own province; in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a but because their excursions into the limits of champaign region, and not in the enclosures of physical causes hath bred a vastness and solitude | particularity; the mathematics of all other knowin that track. For otherwise, keeping their pre- ledge were the goodliest fields to satisfy that cincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if appetite. 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, 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. 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. The Mathematics are either pure or mixed. To the pure mathematics are those sciences belonging which handle quantity determinate, | ral magic, which hath relation thereunto. For merely severed from any axioms of natural phi- as for the natural magic whereof now there is losophy; 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. mention in books, containing certain credulous and superstitious conceits and observations of sympathies and antipathies, and hidden properties, 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 For many parts of nature can neither be in- Arthur of Britain, or Hugh of Bourdeaux, differs vented with sufficient subtilty, nor demonstrated from Cæsar's Commentaries in truth of story. with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto | For it is manifest that Cæsar did greater things use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and "de vero" than those imaginary heroes were intervening of the mathematics: of which sort feigned to do; but he did them not in that fabuOf this kind of learning the fable are perspective, music, astronomy, cosmography, lous manner. architecture, enginery, and divers others. In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men do not sufficiently understand the 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. 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, alchymy, astrology, and the like, that in their propositions the description of the mean 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 belongeth 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 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 he that knoweth the nature of arefaction, the namany 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 natu ture 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 al. the inventions, being the works or fruits of nature not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once or art, which are now extant, and whereof man received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt is already possessed; out of which doth naturally still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend result a note, what things are yet held impossible, their wits. Of this we see familiar example in or not invented: which calendar will be the more lawyers and scholars, both which, if they have artificial and serviceable, if to every reputed im- once admitted a doubt it goeth ever after authorpossibility you add what thing is extant which ized for a doubt. But that use of wit and knowcometh the nearest in degree to that impossibility; ledge is to be allowed, which laboureth to make to the end that by these optatives and potentials doubtful things certain, and not those which laman's inquiry may be the more awake in deduc-bour to make certain things doubtful. Therefore ing direction of works from the speculation of these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent causes: and secondly, that those 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 more 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. things; so that there be 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" gene Thus I have passed through natural philosophy, and the deficiencies 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.ral, or in total, I understand those differences of If it be truth, "Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvæ:" The voice of nature will consent, whether the 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, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention. 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 But there remaineth a division of natural phi- be expected in those theories; for as the same losophy according to the report of the inquiry, and phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by the renothing concerning the matter or subject: and ceived astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the that is positive and considerative; when the in- proper motions of the planets, with their eccenquiry reporteth either an assertion or a doubt. | trics and epicycles, and likewise by the theory of These doubts or "non liquets" are of two sorts, Copernicus who supposed the earth to move, (nd particular and total. For the first, we see a good the calculations are indifferently agreeable to both,) example thereof in Aristotle's Problems, which so the ordinary face and view of experience is deserved to have had a better continuance ; but so, many times satisfied by several theories and phinevertheless, as there is one point whereof warn-losophies; whereas to find the real truth requireth ing is to be given and taken. The registering of another manner of severity and attention. For as doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; every woman mother, but afterwards they come when that which is not fully appearing is not col- to distinguish according to truth; so experience, lected into assertion, whereby error might draw if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy error, but is reserved in doubt: the other, that mother, but when it cometh to ripeness, it will the entry of doubts is as so many suckers or discern the true mother. So as in the mean time sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as it is good to see the several glosses and opinions that which, if doubts had not preceded, a man upon nature, whereof, it may be, every one in should never have advised, but passed it over some one point hath seen clearer than his fellows, without note, is, by the suggestion and solicitation therefore, I wish some collection to be made, of doubts, made to be attended and applied. But painfully and understandingly, "de antiquis phiboth these commodities do scarcely countervail an |losophiis," out of all the possible light which reinconvenience which will intrude itself, if it be maineth to us of them; which kind of work I find deficient. But here I must give warning, that it | science of medicine, if it be destituted and for. be done distinctly and severally; the philosophies of every one throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed and fagoted 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 a 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. 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. 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 saken 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 is human philosophy 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. 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 superstitious 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 features 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 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 of all other things in nature most susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error. For the same subtilty of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing; and therefore the inquiry ought to be more exact. The latter branch, touching impression, hath | body, that part of inquiry is most necessary, not been collected into art, but hath been handled which considereth of the seats and domiciles dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or anti. which the several faculties of the mind do take strophe that the former hath. For the considera- and occupate in the organs of the body; which tion is double: "Either how, and how far the knowledge hath been attempted, and is controhumours and affects of the body do alter or work verted, and deserveth to be much better inquired. upon the mind; or again, how and how far the For the opinion of Plato, who placed the underpassions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or standing in the brain; animosity (which he did work upon the body." The former of these hath unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with been inquired and considered as a part and appen- pride) in the heart; and concupiscence or sendix of medicine, but much more as a part of reli- suality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised; gion or superstition. For the physician pre- but much less to be allowed. So then we have scribeth cures of the mind in phrensies and constituted, as in our own wish and advice, the melancholy passions; and pretendeth also to inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to con- portion of knowledge to be handled apart. firm the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like: but the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regimen of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed. So likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood and fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict. Nay," eruditus luxus." This subject of man's body is the faith itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastings, 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 the wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regimens to their patients, do ever consider "accidentia animi" as of great force to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more especially 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 sick To speak therefore of medicine, and to resume that we have said, ascending a little higher; the ancient opinion that man was microcosinus, an abstract or model of the world, hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchymists, 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 Ethereum sensum atque auraï 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 |