The Advancement of Learning Page #39

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

								

shall speak now of such knowledges as reason produceth (for that
extendeth to all philosophy), but of such knowledges as do handle and
inquire of the faculty of reason: so as poesy had his true place.  As for
the power of the imagination in nature, and the manner of fortifying the
same, we have mentioned it in the doctrine De Anima, whereunto most
fitly it belongeth.  And lastly, for imaginative or insinuative reason,
which is the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to refer it to the
arts of reason.  So therefore we content ourselves with the former
division, that human philosophy, which respecteth the faculties of the
mind of man, hath two parts, rational and moral.

(2) The part of human philosophy which is rational is of all knowledges,
to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of subtlety
and spinosity.  For as it was truly said, that knowledge is pabulum
animi; so in the nature of men’s appetite to this food most men are of
the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain
have returned ad ollas carnium, and were weary of manna; which, though
it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and comfortable.  So
generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood,
civil history, morality, policy, about the which men’s affections,
praises, fortunes do turn and are conversant.  But this same lumen
siccum doth parch and offend most men’s watery and soft natures.  But to
speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the
keys of all other arts, for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, “That
the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of
forms;” so these be truly said to be the art of arts.  Neither do they
only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of
shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a
stronger bow.

(3) The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the
ends whereunto they are referred—for man’s labour is to invent that which
is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain
that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained.  So as
the arts must be four—art of inquiry or invention; art of examination or
judgment; art of custody or memory; and art of elocution or tradition.

XIII. (1) Invention is of two kinds much differing—the one of arts and
sciences, and the other of speech and arguments.  The former of these I
do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if,
in the making of an inventory touching the state of a defunct, it should
be set down that there is no ready money.  For as money will fetch all
other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all
the rest.  And like as the West Indies had never been discovered if the
use of the mariner’s needle had not been first discovered, though the one
be vast regions, and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found
strange if sciences be no further discovered, if the art itself of
invention and discovery hath been passed over.

(2) That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth
plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences,
or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a cuique in sua arte
credendum.  And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the
empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, “That medicines and cures
were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were
discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them
the medicines and cures discovered.”  And Plato in his “Theætetus” noteth
well, “That particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no
sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which maketh the
artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in
every particular knowledge are taken from tradition and experience.”  And
therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and
originals of things refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather
to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.

    “Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab Ida,
    Puberibus caulem foliis et flore camantem
    Purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris
    Gramina, cum tergo volucres hæsere sagittæ.”

So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate
inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples,
but almost all brute:

    “Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,
    Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c.”

And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the
first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus
first stroke the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he
first stroke the flints he expected the spark; and therefore we see the
West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because of
the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion.  So as it
should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for
surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of
physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery, or generally to
chance or anything else than to logic for the invention of arts and
sciences.  Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much
other:

    “Ut varias usus meditande extunderet artes
    Paulatim.”

For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that which
brute beasts are capable of, and do put in ure; which is a perpetual
intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute
necessity of conservation of being.  For so Cicero saith very truly,
Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem sæpe vincit.  And therefore if
it be said of men,

          “Labor omnia vincit
    Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas,”

it is likewise said of beasts, Quis psittaco docuit suum χαιρε?  Who
taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where
she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it?
Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea or air, and to find
the way from a field in a flower a great way off to her hive?  Who taught
the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it
should take root and grow?  Add then the word extundere, which
importeth the extreme difficulty, and the word paulatim, which
importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even amongst
the Egyptians’ gods; there being little left to the faculty of reason,
and nothing to the duty or art, for matter of invention.

(3) Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which
seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may be

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