The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

202 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. BOOK I1.
The latter branch, touching impression, hath body, that part of inquiry is most necessary,
not been collected into art, but hath been handled which considereth of the seats and domiciles
dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or anti. which the several faculties of the mind do take
strophe that the former hath. For the considera- and occupate in the organs of the body; which
tion is double: " Either how, and how far the knowledge hath been attempted, and is controhumours and affects of the body do alter or work verted, and deserveth to be much better inquired.
upon the mind; or again, how and how far the For the opinion of Plato, who placed the underpassions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or standing in the brain; animosity (which he did
work upon the body." The former of these hath unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with
been inquired and considered as a part and appen- pride) in the heart; and concupiscence or sendix of medicine, but much more as a part of reli- suality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised;
gion or superstition. For the physician pre- but much less to be allowed. So then we have
scribeth cures of the mind in phrensies and constituted, as in our own wish and advice, the
melancholy passions; and pretendeth also to- inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just
exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to con- portion of knowledge to be handled apart.
firm the courage, to clarify the wits, to corrobo- The knowledge that concerneth man's Body is
rate the memory, and the like: but the scruples divided as the good of man's body is divided,
and superstitions of diet and other regimen of the unto which it referreth. The good of man's body
body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy is of four kinds, health, beauty, strength, and
of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet, pleasure: so the knowledges are medicine, or art
do exceed. So likewise the ordinances in the of cure; art of decoration, which is called cosceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the metic; art of activity, which is called athletic;
blood and fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth
and unclean for meat, are many and strict. Nay, " eruditus luxus." This subject of man's body is
the faith itself being clear and serene from all of all other things in nature most susceptible of
clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fast- remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible
ings, abstinences, and other macerations and hu- of error. For the same subtilty of the subject
miliations of the body, as things real, and not doth cause large possibility and easy failing; and
figurative. The root and life of all which pre- therefore the inquiry ought to be more exact.
scripts is, besides the ceremony, the consideration T'o speak therefore of medicine, and to resume
of that dependency which the affections of the that we have said, ascending a little higher; the
mind are submitted unto upon the state and dis- ancient opinion that man was microcosrnus, an
position of the body. And if any man of weak abstract or model of the world, hath been fantasjudgment do conceive that this suffering of the tically strained by Paracelsus and the alchymists,
mind from the body doth either question the im- as if there were to be found in man's body certain
mortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the correspondences and parallels, which should have
soul, he may be taught in easy instances, that the respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets,
infant in the mother's womb is compatible with minerals, which are extant in the great world.
the mother and yet separable; and the most abso- But thus much is evidently true, that of all sublute monarch is sometimes led by his servants, stances which nature hath produced, man's body
and yet without subjection. As for the reciprocal is the most extremely compounded: for we see
knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits herbs and plants are nourished by earth and waand passions of the mind upon the body, we see ter; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits;
all the wise physicians, in the prescriptions of man by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs,
their regimens to their patients, do ever consider grains, fruits, water, and the manifold alterations,,c accidentia animi" as of great force to further dressings, and preparations of these several bodies,
or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more es- before they come to be his food and aliment. Add
pecially it is an inquiry of great depth and worth hereunto, that beasts have a more simple order of
concerning imagination, how and how far it life, and less change of affections to work upon
altereth the body proper of the imaginant. For their bodies: whereas man in his mansion, sleep,
although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it fol- exercise, passions, hath infinite variations: and
loweth not it hath the same degree of power to it cannot be denied but that the body of man of
help; no more than a man can conclude, that be- all other things is of the most compounded mass.
cause there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill The soul on the other side is the simplest of suba man in health, therefore there should be sove- stances, as is well expressed:
reign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sick- " Purumque reliquit
ness But the inquisition of this part is of great Athereum sensum atque auraY simplicis ignem."
use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, "a So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed
Delian diver," being difficult and profound. But enjoy no rest, if that principle be true, that," Motus
unto all, this knowledge ", de communi vinculo," rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco
of the concordances between the mind and the i But to the purpose: this variable composition of