The Advancement of Learning Page #66

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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the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their own strength
and their own weakness both; and take, one from the other, light of
invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem of the inquisition
of truth as of an enterprise, and not as of a quality or ornament; and
employ wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to
things vulgar and of popular estimation.  As for my labours, if any man
shall please himself or others in the reprehension of them, they shall
make that ancient and patient request, Verbera, sed audi: let men
reprehend them, so they observe and weigh them.  For the appeal is lawful
(though it may be it shall not be needful) from the first cogitations of
men to their second, and from the nearer times to the times further off.
Now let us come to that learning, which both the former times were not so
blessed as to know, sacred and inspired divinity, the Sabbath and port of
all men’s labours and peregrinations.

XXV. (1) The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as to the
will of man: so that as we are to obey His law, though we find a
reluctation in our will, so we are to believe His word, though we find a
reluctation in our reason.  For if we believe only that which is
agreeable to our sense we give consent to the matter, and not to the
author; which is no more than we would do towards a suspected and
discredited witness; but that faith which was accounted to Abraham for
righteousness was of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein
was an image of natural reason.

(2) Howbeit (if we will truly consider of it) more worthy it is to
believe than to know as we now know.  For in knowledge man’s mind
suffereth from sense: but in belief it suffereth from spirit, such one as
it holdeth for more authorised than itself and so suffereth from the
worthier agent.  Otherwise it is of the state of man glorified; for then
faith shall cease, and we shall know as we are known.

(3) Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology (which in our idiom we
call divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God, and not
upon the light of nature: for it is written, Cæli enarrant gloriam Dei;
but it is not written, Cæli enarrant voluntatem Dei: but of that it is
said, Ad legem et testimonium: si non fecerint secundum verbum istud,
&c.  This holdeth not only in those points of faith which concern the
great mysteries of the Deity, of the creation, of the redemption, but
likewise those which concern the law moral, truly interpreted: “Love your
enemies: do good to them that hate you; be like to your heavenly Father,
that suffereth His rain to fall upon the just and unjust.”  To this it
ought to be applauded, Nec vox hominem sonat: it is a voice beyond the
light of nature.  So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a
libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moralities, as if
they were opposite and malignant to nature: Et quod natura remittit,
invida jura negant.  So said Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander’s
messengers, that he had heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other of
the wise men of Græcia, and that he held them for excellent men: but that
they had a fault, which was that they had in too great reverence and
veneration a thing they called law and manners.  So it must be confessed
that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection whereunto the
light of nature cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have,
by the light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and
vice, justice and wrong, good and evil?  Thus, because the light of
nature is used in two several senses: the one, that which springeth from
reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and
earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an
inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle
of the purity of his first estate: in which latter sense only he is
participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of the
moral law; but how? sufficient to check the vice but not to inform the
duty.  So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral as mystical, is
not to be attained but by inspiration and revelation from God.

(4) The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, and the
latitude thereof, is very great and general: for it is not for nothing
that the apostle calleth religion “our reasonable service of God;”
insomuch as the very ceremonies and figures of the old law were full of
reason and signification, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and
magic, that are full of non-significants and surd characters.  But most
specially the Christian faith, as in all things so in this, deserveth to
be highly magnified; holding and preserving the golden mediocrity in this
point between the law of the heathen and the law of Mahomet, which have
embraced the two extremes.  For the religion of the heathen had no
constant belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of agent; and
the religion of Mahomet on the other side interdicteth argument
altogether: the one having the very face of error, and the other of
imposture; whereas the Faith doth both admit and reject disputation with
difference.

(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the former, in
the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us revealed;
the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction
thereupon.  The former extendeth to the mysteries themselves; but how? by
way of illustration, and not by way of argument.  The latter consisteth
indeed of probation and argument.  In the former we see God vouchsafeth
to descend to our capacity, in the expressing of His mysteries in sort as
may be sensible unto us; and doth graft His revelations and holy doctrine
upon the notions of our reason, and applieth His inspirations to open our
understanding, as the form of the key to the ward of the lock.  For the
latter there is allowed us a use of reason and argument, secondary and
respective, although not original and absolute.  For after the articles
and principles of religion are placed and exempted from examination of
reason, it is then permitted unto us to make derivations and inferences
from and according to the analogy of them, for our better direction.  In
nature this holdeth not; for both the principles are examinable by
induction, though not by a medium or syllogism; and besides, those
principles or first positions have no discordance with that reason which
draweth down and deduceth the inferior positions.  But yet it holdeth not
in religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and smaller
nature, namely, wherein there are not only posita but placita; for in
such there can be no use of absolute reason.  We see it familiarly in
games of wit, as chess, or the like.  The draughts and first laws of the

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