The Advancement of Learning Page #34

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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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

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