The Advancement of Learning
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.
(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man’s
knowledge; that is _radius directus_, which is referred to nature,
_radius refractus_, which is referred to God, and cannot report truly
because of the inequality of the medium. There resteth _radius
reflexus_, whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.
IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient
oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth
the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This
knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the
intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural
philosophy in the continent of Nature. And generally let this be a rule,
that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins
than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and
entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof hath made
particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they
have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain. So we
see Cicero, the orator, complained of Socrates and his school, that he
was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric
became an empty and verbal art. So we may see that the opinion of
Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself
cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the _phenomena_,
yet natural philosophy may correct. So we see also that the science of
medicine if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is
not much better than an empirical practice. With this reservation,
therefore, we proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two
parts: the one considereth man segregate or distributively, the other
congregate or in society; so as human philosophy is either simple and
particular, or conjugate and civil. Humanity particular consisteth of
the same parts whereof man consisteth: that is, of knowledges which
respect the body, and of knowledges that respect the mind. But before we
distribute so far, it is good to constitute. For I do take the
consideration in general, and at large, of human nature to be fit to be
emancipate and made a knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those
delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of
man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his
common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge
concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body,
which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either.
(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and amities
consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of mind
and body hath these two parts: how the one discloseth the other, and how
the one worketh upon the other; discovery and impression. The former of
these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof
the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of
Hippocrates. And although they have of later time been used to be
coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged and
restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in
Nature, and a profitable use in life. The first is physiognomy, which
discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body.
The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the
state of the body by the imaginations of the mind. In the former of
these I note a deficience. For Aristotle hath very ingeniously and
diligently handled the factures of the body, but not the gestures of the
body, which are no less comprehensible by art, and of greater use and
advantage. For the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition
and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions of the
countenance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose the present
humour and state of the mind and will. For as your majesty saith most
aptly and elegantly, “As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the gesture
speaketh to the eye.” And, therefore, a number of subtle persons, whose
eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions of men, do well know the
advantage of this observation, as being most part of their ability;
neither can it be denied, but that it is a great discovery of
dissimulations, and a great direction in business.
(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected into
art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or
_antistrophe_ that the former hath. For the consideration is
double—either how and how far the humours and affects of the body do
alter or work upon the mind, or, again, how and how far the passions or
apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body. The former of
these hath been inquired and considered as a part and appendix of
medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition. For the
physician prescribeth cures of the mind in frenzies and melancholy
passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the
mind, to control the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the
memory, and the like; but the scruples and superstitions of diet and
other regiment of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy
of the Manichees, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed. So likewise the
ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood
and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat,
are many and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from
all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences,
and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and
not figurative. The root and life of all which prescripts is (besides
the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which the affections
of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition of the
body. And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of
the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate
from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught, in easy instances,
that the infant in the mother’s womb is compatible with the mother, and
yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his
servants, and yet without subjection. As for the reciprocal knowledge,
which is the operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the
body, we see all wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments
to their patients, do ever consider _accidentia animi_, as of great force
to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more specially it is an
inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far
it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for although it hath a
manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power
to help. No more than a man can conclude, that because there be
pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there
should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness. But
the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as
Socrates said, “a Delian diver,” being difficult and profound. But unto
all this knowledge _de communi vinculo_, of the concordances between the
mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary which
considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the
mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath
been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
inquired. For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the
brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater
mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the
liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less to be allowed. So,
then, we have constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry
touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be
handled apart.
X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man’s body is divided as the good of
man’s body is divided, unto which it referreth. The good of man’s body
is of four kinds—health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the
knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which is
called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic; and art
voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth _eruditus luxus_. This subject
of man’s body is, of all other things in nature, most susceptible of
remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error; for the same
subtlety of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing,
and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.
(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said,
ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was
_microcosmus_—an abstract or model of the world—hath been fantastically
strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found
in man’s body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have
respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which
are extant in the great world. But thus much is evidently true, that of
all substances which nature hath produced, man’s body is the most
extremely compounded. For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth
and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh
of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies before
they come to be his food and aliment. Add hereunto that beasts have a
more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon
their bodies, whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath
infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of
all other things is of the most compounded mass. The soul, on the other
side, is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:
“Purumque reliquit
Æthereum sensum atque auraï simplicis ignem.”