The Advancement of Learning Page #67

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

								

game are positive, but how? merely ad placitum, and not examinable by
reason; but then how to direct our play thereupon with best advantage to
win the game is artificial and rational.  So in human laws there be many
grounds and maxims which are placita juris, positive upon authority,
and not upon reason, and therefore not to be disputed: but what is most
just, not absolutely but relatively, and according to those maxims, that
affordeth a long field of disputation.  Such therefore is that secondary
reason, which hath place in divinity, which is grounded upon the
placets of God.

(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath not been, to
my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the true limits and
use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of divine dialectic: which
for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing usual, by pretext of
true conceiving that which is revealed, to search and mine into that
which is not revealed; and by pretext of enucleating inferences and
contradictories, to examine that which is positive.  The one sort falling
into the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have things made more sensible
than it pleaseth God to reveal them, Quomodo possit homo nasci cum sit
senex?  The other sort into the error of the disciples, which were
scandalised at a show of contradiction, Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis?
Modicum et non videbitis me; et iterum, modicum, et videbitis me,
&c.

(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great and
blessed use thereof; for this point well laboured and defined of would in
my judgment be an opiate to stay and bridle not only the vanity of
curious speculations, wherewith the schools labour, but the fury of
controversies, wherewith the Church laboureth.  For it cannot but open
men’s eyes to see that many controversies do merely pertain to that which
is either not revealed or positive; and that many others do grow upon
weak and obscure inferences or derivations: which latter sort, if men
would revive the blessed style of that great doctor of the Gentiles,
would be carried thus, ego, non dominus; and again, secundum
consilium meum, in opinions and counsels, and not in positions and
oppositions.  But men are now over-ready to usurp the style, non ego,
sed dominus; and not so only, but to bind it with the thunder and
denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the terror of those which have
not sufficiently learned out of Solomon that “The causeless curse shall
not come.”

(8) Divinity hath two principal parts: the matter informed or revealed,
and the nature of the information or revelation; and with the latter we
will begin, because it hath most coherence with that which we have now
last handled.  The nature of the information consisteth of three
branches: the limits of the information, the sufficiency of the
information, and the acquiring or obtaining the information.  Unto the
limits of the information belong these considerations: how far forth
particular persons continue to be inspired; how far forth the Church is
inspired; and how far forth reason may be used; the last point whereof I
have noted as deficient.  Unto the sufficiency of the information belong
two considerations: what points of religion are fundamental, and what
perfective, being matter of further building and perfection upon one and
the same foundation; and again, how the gradations of light according to
the dispensation of times are material to the sufficiency of belief.

(9) Here again I may rather give it in advice than note it as deficient,
that the points fundamental, and the points of further perfection only,
ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished; a subject tending to
much like end as that I noted before; for as that other were likely to
abate the number of controversies, so this is likely to abate the heat of
many of them.  We see Moses when he saw the Israelite and the Egyptian
fight, he did not say, “Why strive you?” but drew his sword and slew the
Egyptian; but when he saw the two Israelites fight, he said, “You are
brethren, why strive you?”  If the point of doctrine be an Egyptian, it
must be slain by the sword of the Spirit, and not reconciled; but if it
be an Israelite, though in the wrong, then, “Why strive you?”  We see of
the fundamental points, our Saviour penneth the league thus, “He that is
not with us is against us;” but of points not fundamental, thus, “He that
is not against us is with us.”  So we see the coat of our Saviour was
entire without seam, and so is the doctrine of the Scriptures in itself;
but the garment of the Church was of divers colours and yet not divided.
We see the chaff may and ought to be severed from the corn in the ear,
but the tares may not be pulled up from the corn in the field.  So as it
is a thing of great use well to define what, and of what latitude, those
points are which do make men mere aliens and disincorporate from the
Church of God.

(10) For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the true and
sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the fountains of the
water of life.  The interpretations of the Scriptures are of two sorts:
methodical, and solute or at large.  For this divine water, which
excelleth so much that of Jacob’s well, is drawn forth much in the same
kind as natural water useth to be out of wells and fountains; either it
is first forced up into a cistern, and from thence fetched and derived
for use; or else it is drawn and received in buckets and vessels
immediately where it springeth.  The former sort whereof, though it seem
to be the more ready, yet in my judgment is more subject to corrupt.
This is that method which hath exhibited unto us the scholastical
divinity; whereby divinity hath been reduced into an art, as into a
cistern, and the streams of doctrine or positions fetched and derived
from thence.

(11) In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity, a compacted
strength, and a complete perfection; whereof the two first they fail to
find, and the last they ought not to seek.  For as to brevity, we see in
all summary methods, while men purpose to abridge, they give cause to
dilate.  For the sum or abridgment by contraction becometh obscure; the
obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is deduced into large
commentaries, or into commonplaces and titles, which grow to be more vast
than the original writings, whence the sum was at first extracted.  So we
see the volumes of the schoolmen are greater much than the first writings
of the fathers, whence the master of the sentences made his sum or
collection.  So in like manner the volumes of the modern doctors of the
civil law exceed those of the ancient jurisconsults, of which Tribonian
compiled the digest.  So as this course of sums and commentaries is that
which doth infallibly make the body of sciences more immense in quantity,

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