The Advancement of Learning Page #18

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.

• Essay

								

a voluntary, for the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.  He
was present when Falinus came in message from the great king to the
Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of
men, left to themselves in the midst of the king’s territories, cut off
from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles.  The
message imported that they should deliver up their arms and submit
themselves to the king’s mercy.  To which message, before answer was
made, divers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus; and amongst
the rest Xenophon happened to say, “Why, Falinus, we have now but these
two things left, our arms and our virtue; and if we yield up our arms,
how shall we make use of our virtue?”  Whereto Falinus, smiling on him,
said, “If I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I
believe you study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say; but you are
much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the king’s power.”
Here was the scorn; the wonder followed: which was that this young
scholar or philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by
treason, conducted those ten thousand foot, through the heart of all the
king’s high countries, from Babylon to Græcia in safety, in despite of
all the king’s forces, to the astonishment of the world, and the
encouragement of the Grecians in times succeeding to make invasion upon
the kings of Persia, as was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian,
attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the
Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.

VIII. (1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral and
private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is contained in the
verses:—

    “Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
    Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.”

It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men’s minds;
but indeed the accent had need be upon fideliter; for a little
superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect.  It taketh away
all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts
and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both
sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to
accept of nothing but examined and tried.  It taketh away vain admiration
of anything, which is the root of all weakness.  For all things are
admired, either because they are new, or because they are great.  For
novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly but
will find that printed in his heart, Nil novi super terram.  Neither
can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain,
and adviseth well of the motion.  And for magnitude, as Alexander the
Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of
the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece,
of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a
fort, or some walled town at the most, he said:—“It seemed to him that he
was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the mice, that the old
tales went of.”  So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal
frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls
except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants
carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and
fro a little heap of dust.  It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death or
adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and
imperfections of manners.  For if a man’s mind be deeply seasoned with
the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he
will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman
weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth the next
day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon
said, “Heri vidi fragilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori.”  And,
therefore, Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of
causes and the conquest of all fears together, as concomitantia.

    “Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
    Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
    Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”

(2) It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning
doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes purging the ill
humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion,
sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and
exulcerations thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will conclude with
that which hath rationem totius—which is, that it disposeth the
constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects
thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and
reformation.  For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into
himself, or to call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that
suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem.  The good parts he
hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not
much to increase them.  The faults he hath he will learn how to hide and
colour them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that mows on
still, and never whets his scythe.  Whereas with the learned man it fares
otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his
mind with the use and employment thereof.  Nay, further, in general and
in sum, certain it is that Veritas and Bonitas differ but as the seal
and the print; for truth prints goodness, and they be the clouds of error
which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations.

(3) From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and commandment,
and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable with that
wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man’s nature.  We see the
dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of the commanded;
to have commandment over beasts as herdmen have, is a thing contemptible;
to have commandment over children as schoolmasters have, is a matter of
small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves is a disparagement
rather than an honour.  Neither is the commandment of tyrants much
better, over people which have put off the generosity of their minds;
and, therefore, it was ever holden that honours in free monarchies and
commonwealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the
commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over their
deeds and services.  And therefore, when Virgil putteth himself forth to
attribute to Augustus Cæsar the best of human honours, he doth it in
these words:—

          “Victorque volentes
    Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.”

But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment

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