The Advancement of Learning
access to the mind by similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams. And
again, in all persuasions that are wrought by eloquence, and other
impressions of like nature, which do paint and disguise the true
appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the
imagination. Nevertheless, because I find not any science that doth
properly or fitly pertain to the imagination, I see no cause to alter the
former division. For as for poesy, it is rather a pleasure or play of
imagination than a work or duty thereof. And if it be a work, we speak
not now of such parts of learning as the imagination produceth, but of
such sciences as handle and consider of the imagination. No more than we
shall speak now of such knowledges as reason produceth (for that
extendeth to all philosophy), but of such knowledges as do handle and
inquire of the faculty of reason: so as poesy had his true place. As for
the power of the imagination in nature, and the manner of fortifying the
same, we have mentioned it in the doctrine _De Anima_, whereunto most
fitly it belongeth. And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative reason,
which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to refer it to the
arts of reason. So therefore we content ourselves with the former
division, that human philosophy, which respecteth the faculties of the
mind of man, hath two parts, rational and moral.
(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all knowledges,
to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of subtlety
and spinosity. For as it was truly said, that knowledge is _pabulum
animi_; so in the nature of men’s appetite to this food most men are of
the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain
have returned _ad ollas carnium_, and were weary of manna; which, though
it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and comfortable. So
generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood,
civil history, morality, policy, about the which men’s affections,
praises, fortunes do turn and are conversant. But this same _lumen
siccum_ doth parch and offend most men’s watery and soft natures. But to
speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the
keys of all other arts, for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, “That
the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of
forms;” so these be truly said to be the art of arts. Neither do they
only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of
shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a
stronger bow.
(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the
ends whereunto they are referred—for man’s labour is to invent that which
is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain
that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained. So as
the arts must be four—art of inquiry or invention; art of examination or
judgment; art of custody or memory; and art of elocution or tradition.
XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing—the one of arts and
sciences, and the other of speech and arguments. The former of these I
do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if,
in the making of an inventory touching the state of a defunct, it should
be set down that there is no ready money. For as money will fetch all
other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all
the rest. And like as the West Indies had never been discovered if the
use of the mariner’s needle had not been first discovered, though the one
be vast regions, and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found
strange if sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of
invention and discovery hath been passed over.
(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth
plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences,
or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a _cuique in sua arte
credendum_. And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the
empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, “That medicines and cures
were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were
discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them
the medicines and cures discovered.” And Plato in his “Theætetus” noteth
well, “That particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no
sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which maketh the
artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in
every particular knowledge are taken from tradition and experience.” And
therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and
originals of things refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather
to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.
“Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab Ida,
Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem
Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris
Gramina, cum tergo volucres hæsere sagittæ.”
So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate
inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples,
but almost all brute:
“Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,
Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c.”
And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the
first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus
first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he
first stroke the flints he expected the spark; and therefore we see the
West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because of
the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion. So as it
should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for
surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of
physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery, or generally to
chance or anything else than to logic for the invention of arts and
sciences. Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much
other:
“Ut varias usus meditande extunderet artes
Paulatim.”
For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that which
brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which is a perpetual
intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute
necessity of conservation of being. For so Cicero saith very truly,
_Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem sæpe vincit_. And therefore if
it be said of men,
“Labor omnia vincit
Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,”
it is likewise said of beasts, _Quis psittaco docuit suum χαιρε_? Who
taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where
she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it?
Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or air, and to find
the way from a field in a flower a great way off to her hive? Who taught
the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it
should take root and grow? Add then the word _extundere_, which
importeth the extreme difficulty, and the word _paulatim_, which
importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even amongst
the Egyptians’ gods; there being little left to the faculty of reason,
and nothing to the duty or art, for matter of invention.
(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which
seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may be
pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation
from the principles; their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious
and incompetent; wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the
duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have
wronged, abused, and traduced nature. For he that shall attentively
observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge, like
unto that which the poet speaketh of, _Aërei mellis cælestia dona_,
distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial,
as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find that the mind of
herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than they
describe it. For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without
instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can
assure (in many subjects) upon those particulars which appear of a side,
that there are not other on the contrary side which appear not? As if
Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought
before him, and failed of David which was in the field. And this form
(to say truth), is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so
subtle as have managed these things to have offered it to the world, but
that they hasted to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious
and scornful toward particulars; which their manner was to use but as
_lictores_ and _viatores_, for sergeants and whifflers, _ad summovendam
turbam_, to make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in
their true use and service. Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with
a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very
same in divine and human truth; for, as in divine truth man cannot endure
to become as a child, so in human, they reputed the attending the
inductions (whereof we speak), as if it were a second infancy or
childhood.
(4) Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet,
nevertheless, certain it is that middle propositions cannot be deduced
from them in subject of nature by syllogism—that is, by touch and
reduction of them to principles in a middle term. It is true that in
sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity
(because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the
simplest), that form may have use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by
way of argument or satisfactory reason, _Quæ assensum parit operis effæta
est_; but the subtlety of nature and operations will not be enchained in
those bonds. For arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of
words, and words are but the current tokens or marks of popular notions
of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably collected out
of particulars, it is not the laborious examination either of
consequences of arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can ever
correct that error, being (as the physicians speak) in the first
digestion. And, therefore, it was not without cause, that so many
excellent philosophers became sceptics and academics, and denied any
certainty of knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion that the
knowledge of man extended only to appearances and probabilities. It is
true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a form of irony,
_Scientiam dissimulando simulavit_; for he used to disable his knowledge,
to the end to enhance his knowledge; like the humour of Tiberius in his
beginnings, that would reign, but would not acknowledge so much. And in
the later academy, which Cicero embraced, this opinion also of
_acatalepsia_ (I doubt) was not held sincerely; for that all those which
excelled in copy of speech seem to have chosen that sect, as that which
was fittest to give glory to their eloquence and variable discourses;
being rather like progresses of pleasure than journeys to an end. But
assuredly many scattered in both academies did hold it in subtlety and
integrity. But here was their chief error: they charged the deceit upon
the senses; which in my judgment (notwithstanding all their cavillations)
are very sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always
immediately, yet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by producing