The Advancement of Learning Page #35

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

								

it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for although it hath a
manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power
to help.  No more than a man can conclude, that because there be
pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there
should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness.  But
the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as
Socrates said, “a Delian diver,” being difficult and profound.  But unto
all this knowledge de communi vinculo, of the concordances between the
mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary which
considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the
mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath
been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
inquired.  For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the
brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater
mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the
liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less to be allowed.  So,
then, we have constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry
touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be
handled apart.

X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man’s body is divided as the good of
man’s body is divided, unto which it referreth.  The good of man’s body
is of four kinds—health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the
knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which is
called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic; and art
voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth eruditus luxus.  This subject
of man’s body is, of all other things in nature, most susceptible of
remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error; for the same
subtlety of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing,
and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.

(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said,
ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was
microcosmus—an abstract or model of the world—hath been fantastically
strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found
in man’s body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have
respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which
are extant in the great world.  But thus much is evidently true, that of
all substances which nature hath produced, man’s body is the most
extremely compounded.  For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth
and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh
of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold
alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies before
they come to be his food and aliment.  Add hereunto that beasts have a
more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon
their bodies, whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath
infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of
all other things is of the most compounded mass.  The soul, on the other
side, is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:

          “Purumque reliquit
    Æthereum sensum atque auraï simplicis ignem.”

So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that
principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus
in loco.  But to the purpose.  This variable composition of man’s body
hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and, therefore, the
poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the
office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body and to
reduce it to harmony.  So, then, the subject being so variable hath made
the art by consequent more conjectural; and the art being conjectural
hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture.  For almost
all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may
term them, and not by the successes and events.  The lawyer is judged by
the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; this
master in this ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not
by the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps this
politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is
judged most by the event, which is ever but as it is taken: for who can
tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined,
whether it be art or accident?  And therefore many times the impostor is
prized, and the man of virtue taxed.  Nay, we see [the] weakness and
credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a mountebank or witch
before a learned physician.  And therefore the poets were clear-sighted
in discerning this extreme folly when they made Æsculapius and Circe,
brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses—

    “Ipse repertorem medicinæ talis et artis
    Fulmine Phœbigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.”

And again—

    “Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos,” &c.

For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women
and impostors, have had a competition with physicians.  And what
followeth?  Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon
expresseth it upon a higher occasion, “If it befall to me as befalleth to
the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?”  And therefore I cannot
much blame physicians that they use commonly to intend some other art or
practice, which they fancy more than their profession; for you shall have
of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and
in every of these better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon
this ground that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art
maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune: for
the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope,
maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects.  But,
nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of are courses begotten
between a little occasion and a great deal of sloth and default; for if
we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see in familiar
instances what a predominant faculty the subtlety of spirit hath over the
variety of matter or form.  Nothing more variable than faces and
countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of
them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of
his eye, and habit of his imagination, can imitate them all that ever
have been, are, or may be, if they were brought before him.  Nothing more
variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them personally: nay,
you shall have a buffon or pantomimus will express as many as he
pleaseth.  Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words; yet

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