The Advancement of Learning Page #14

The Advancement of Learning, published by Francis Bacon in 1605, is a foundational text in the history of science and philosophy. In this work, Bacon advocates for empirical research and the systematic organization of knowledge, laying the groundwork for the scientific method. The book critiques existing scholarly practices and proposes a new approach to learning based on observation and experimentation. It marks a significant shift towards modern scientific inquiry.

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shop.  The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative
against unbelief and error.  For our Saviour saith, “You err, not knowing
the Scriptures, nor the power of God;” laying before us two books or
volumes to study, if we will be secured from error: first the Scriptures,
revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing His power;
whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our
understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general
notions of reason and rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, in
drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is
chiefly signed and engraven upon His works.  Thus much therefore for
divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of
learning.

VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a discourse
of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice of those things
which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them.  First,
therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the
highest to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God.  This unto the
Christians is as the forbidden fruit.  But we speak now separately of
human testimony, according to which—that which the Grecians call
apotheosis, and the Latins relatio inter divos—was the supreme honour
which man could attribute unto man, specially when it was given, not by a
formal decree or act of state (as it was used among the Roman Emperors),
but by an inward assent and belief.  Which honour, being so high, had
also a degree or middle term; for there were reckoned above human
honours, honours heroical and divine: in the attribution and distribution
of which honours we see antiquity made this difference; that whereas
founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of
tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit,
were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demigods, such as were
Hercules, Theseus, Minus, Romulus, and the like; on the other side, such
as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities
towards man’s life, were ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves, as
was Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and others.  And justly; for the
merit of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation,
and is like fruitful showers, which though they be profitable and good,
yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where they
fall; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of heaven, which are
permanent and universal.  The former again is mixed with strife and
perturbation, but the latter hath the true character of Divine Presence,
coming in aura leni, without noise or agitation.

(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the
inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former,
of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which merit was
lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus’
theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their
several appetites—some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel—stood all
sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp, the
sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but
every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the
nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed
desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear
to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and
persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and
peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition
and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and
confusion.

(3) But this appeareth more manifestly when kings themselves, or persons
of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular
estates, are endued with learning.  For although he might be thought
partial to his own profession that said “Then should people and estates
be happy when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings;” yet
so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and
governors there have been ever the best times: for howsoever kings may
have their imperfections in their passions and customs, yet, if they be
illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and
morality, which do preserve them and refrain them from all ruinous and
peremptory errors and excesses, whispering evermore in their ears, when
counsellors and servants stand mute and silent.  And senators or
counsellors, likewise, which be learned, to proceed upon more safe and
substantial principles, than counsellors which are only men of
experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other
discover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to the agility
of their wit to ward or avoid them.

(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still the law
of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples) doth best
appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitianus the emperor
until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a succession of six princes,
all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of learning, which age
for temporal respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever the
Roman Empire (which then was a model of the world) enjoyed—a matter
revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was
slain: for he thought there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck
and a head of gold, which came accordingly to pass in those golden times
which succeeded; of which princes we will make some commemoration;
wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter
for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, yet,
because it is pertinent to the point in hand—Neque semper arcum tendit
Apollo—and to name them only were too naked and cursory, I will not omit
it altogether.  The first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose
government is by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life:
Postquam divus Nerva res oluim insociabiles miscuisset, imperium et
libertatem.  And in token of his learning, the last act of his short
reign left to memory was a missive to his adopted son, Trajan, proceeding
upon some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended
in a verse of Homer’s—

    “Telis, Phœbe, tuis, lacrymas ulciscere nostras.”

(5) Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned; but if we will
hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, “He that receiveth a
prophet in the name of a prophet shall have a prophet’s reward,” he
deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes; for there was

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