The Advancement of Learning Page #54

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

								

lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts,
lovers of change, and so forth.  A man shall find in the wisest sort of
these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures
of the several cardinals handsomely and lively painted forth.  A man
shall meet with in every day’s conference the denominations of sensitive,
dry, formal, real, humorous, certain, huomo di prima impressione,
huomo di ultima impressione, and the like; and yet, nevertheless, this
kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.
For the distinctions are found (many of them), but we conclude no
precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both
history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where these
observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our hands, but
no man bringeth them to the confectionary that receipts might be made of
them for use of life.

(5) Of much like kind are those impressions of Nature, which are imposed
upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and
sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and
not extern; and again, those which are caused by extern fortune, as
sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy,
privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune,
rising per saltum, per gradus, and the like.  And, therefore, we see
that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, benignitas
hujis ut adolescentuli est.  Saint Paul concludeth that severity of
discipline was to be used to the Cretans, increpa eos dure, upon the
disposition of their country, Cretensus semper mendaces, malæ bestiæ,
ventres.  Sallust noteth that it is usual with kings to desire
contradictories: Sed plerumque regiæ voluntates, ut vehementes sunt,
sic mobiles, sæpeque ipsæ sibi advers.  Tacitus observeth how rarely
raising of the fortune mendeth the disposition: solus Vespasianus
mutatus in melius.  Pindarus maketh an observation, that great and
sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men qui magnam felicitatem
concoquere non possunt.  So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep a
measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune;
Divitiæ si affluant, nolite cor apponere.  These observations and the
like I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in
his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses; but they
were never incorporate into moral philosophy, to which they do
essentially appertain; as the knowledge of this diversity of grounds and
moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of
complexions and constitutions doth to the physician, except we mean to
follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to
all patients.

(6) Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching the
affections; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to
know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases;
and lastly, the cures: so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of
the divers characters of men’s natures, it followeth in order to know the
diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the
perturbations and distempars of the affections.  For as the ancient
politiques in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea,
and the orators to the winds; because as the sea would of itself be calm
and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would
be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in
working and agitation: so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the
nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as
winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation.  And here again I
find strange, as before, that Aristotle should have written divers
volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections which is the
principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are
considered but collaterally and in a second degree (as they may be moved
by speech), he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the
quantity; but where their true place is he pretermitteth them.  For it is
not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this
inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light
can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to
the particular affections as light is to particular colours.  Better
travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I
can gather by that which we have at second hand.  But yet it is like it
was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions (which in a
subject of this nature are but curiosities), than in active and ample
descriptions and observations.  So likewise I find some particular
writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections: as of
anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance,
and other.  But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors
of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great life, how
affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and
how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose
themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify:
how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and
encounter one with another; and other the like particularities.  Amongst
the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I
say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another;
even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which
otherwise percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation
is erected that excellent use of præmium and pæna, whereby civil
states consist: employing the predominant affections of fear and hope,
for the suppressing and bridling the rest.  For as in the government of
states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so
it is in the government within.

(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command, and
have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite,
and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled custom,
exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company,
friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies: these
as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind
suffereth, and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and
described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate
of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine: of which number we
will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it
were too long to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and

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