The Advancement of Learning Page #26

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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meet in one age.  For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times
foretelleth, Plurimi pertransibunt, et multiplex erit scientia: as if
the openness and through-passage of the world and the increase of
knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages; as we see it is already
performed in great part: the learning of these later times not much
giving place to the former two periods or returns of learning, the one of
the Grecians, the other of the Romans.

III. (1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions with history
civil: but further in the propriety thereof may be divided into the
history of the Church, by a general name; history of prophecy; and
history of providence.  The first describeth the times of the militant
Church, whether it be fluctuant, as the ark of Noah, or movable, as the
ark in the wilderness, or at rest, as the ark in the Temple: that is, the
state of the Church in persecution, in remove, and in peace.  This part I
ought in no sort to note as deficient; only I would that the virtue and
sincerity of it were according to the mass and quantity.  But I am not
now in hand with censures, but with omissions.

(2) The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of two
relatives—the prophecy and the accomplishment; and, therefore, the nature
of such a work ought to be, that every prophecy of the Scripture be
sorted with the event fulfilling the same throughout the ages of the
world, both for the better confirmation of faith and for the better
illumination of the Church touching those parts of prophecies which are
yet unfulfilled: allowing, nevertheless, that latitude which is agreeable
and familiar unto divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author,
with whom a thousand years are but as one day, and therefore are not
fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant
accomplishment throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of them
may refer to some one age.  This is a work which I find deficient, but is
to be done with wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.

(3) The third, which is history of Providence, containeth that excellent
correspondence which is between God’s revealed will and His secret will;
which though it be so obscure, as for the most part it is not legible to
the natural man—no, nor many times to those that behold it from the
tabernacle—yet, at some times it pleaseth God, for our better
establishment and the confuting of those which are as without God in the
world, to write it in such text and capital letters, that, as the prophet
saith, “He that runneth by may read it”—that is, mere sensual persons,
which hasten by God’s judgments, and never bend or fix their cogitations
upon them, are nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern
it.  Such are the notable events and examples of God’s judgments,
chastisements, deliverances, and blessings; and this is a work which has
passed through the labour of many, and therefore I cannot present as
omitted.

(4) There are also other parts of learning which are appendices to
history.  For all the exterior proceedings of man consist of words and
deeds, whereof history doth properly receive and retain in memory the
deeds; and if words, yet but as inducements and passages to deeds; so are
there other books and writings which are appropriate to the custody and
receipt of words only, which likewise are of three sorts—orations,
letters, and brief speeches or sayings.  Orations are pleadings, speeches
of counsel, laudatives, invectives, apologies, reprehensions, orations of
formality or ceremony, and the like.  Letters are according to all the
variety of occasions, advertisements, advises, directions, propositions,
petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of compliment, of
pleasure, of discourse, and all other passages of action.  And such as
are written from wise men, are of all the words of man, in my judgment,
the best; for they are more natural than orations and public speeches,
and more advised than conferences or present speeches.  So again letters
of affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them, are of all
others the best instructions for history, and to a diligent reader the
best histories in themselves.  For apophthegms, it is a great loss of
that book of Cæsar’s; for as his history, and those few letters of his
which we have, and those apophthegms which were of his own, excel all
men’s else, so I suppose would his collection of apophthegms have done;
for as for those which are collected by others, either I have no taste in
such matters or else their choice hath not been happy.  But upon these
three kinds of writings I do not insist, because I have no deficiences to
propound concerning them.

(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that part of
learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or offices of
the mind of man, which is that of the memory.

IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for the most
part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth
truly refer to the imagination; which, being not tied to the laws of
matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever
that which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces
of things—Pictoribus atque poetis, &c.  It is taken in two senses in
respect of words or matter.  In the first sense, it is but a character of
style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the
present.  In the latter, it is—as hath been said—one of the principal
portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may
be styled as well in prose as in verse.

(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of
satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of
things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul;
by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample
greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can
be found in the nature of things.  Therefore, because the acts or events
of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man,
poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.  Because true
history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable
to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just
in retribution, and more according to revealed Providence.  Because true
history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less
interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and more
unexpected and alternative variations.  So as it appeareth that poesy
serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality and to delectation.  And
therefore, it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness,
because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of

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