The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS
UPON HUMAN PHILOSOPHY.
MR. BACON IN PRAISE OF KNOWLEDGE.
SILENCE were the best celebration of that, menting, maketh us to stumble upon somewhat
which I mean to commend; for who would not which is new: but all the disputation of the
use silence, where silence is not made. and what learned'ever brought to light one effect of nature
crier can make silence in such a noise and tumult before unknown. When things are known and
of vain and popular opinions t My praise shall found out, then they can descant upon them, they
be dedicated to the mind itself. The mind is the can knit them into certain causes, they can reduce
man, avid the knowledge of the mind. A man is them to their principles. If any instance of ex.
but what he knoweth. The mind itself is but an perience stand against them, they can range it in
accident to knowledge; for knowledge is a double order by some distinctions. But all this is but a
of that which is. The truth of being, and the truth web of the wit, it can work nothing. I do not
of knowing, is all one: and the pleasures of the doubt but that common notions which we call reaaffections greater than the pleasures of the senses. son, and the knitting of them together, which we
And are not the pleasures of the intellect greater call logic, are the art of reason and studies. But
than the pleasures of the affections! Is it not a they rather cast obscurity, than gain light to the
true and only natural pleasure, whereof there is contemplation of nature. All the philosophy of
no satiety! Is it not knowledge that doth alone nature which is now received, is either the philoclear the mind of all perturbations t How many sophy of the Grecians, or that other of the alchethings are there which we imagine not! How mists. That of the Grecians hath the foundations
many things do we esteem and value otherwise in words, in ostentation, in confutation, in sects,
than they are! This ill-proportioned estimation, in schools, in disputations. The Grecians were,
these vain imaginations, these be the clouds of as one of themselves saith, 6 you Grecians, ever
error that turn into the storms of perturbation. Is children." They knew little antiquity; they
there any such happiness as for a man's mind to knew, except fables, not much above five hundred
be raised above the confusion of things; where years before themselves. They knew but a small
he may have the prospect of the order of nature, portion of the world. That of the alchemists
and the error of men t Is this but a vein only of hath the foundation in imposture, in auricular tradelight, and not of discovery! of contentment, and ditions and obscurity. It was catching hold of
not of benefit t Shall we not as well discern the religion, but the principle of it is, ", Populus vult
riches of nature's warehouse, as the benefit of her decipi." So that I know no great difference
shop t Is truth ever barren. Shall he not be between these great philosophers, but that the one
able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to is a loud crying folly, and the other is a whisperendow the life of man with infinite commodities!1 ing folly. The one is gathered out of a few vulBut shall I make this garland to be put upon a gar observations, and the other out of a few exwrong head! Would any body believe me, if I periments of a furnace. The one never faileth to
should verify this, upon the knowledge that is multiply words, and the other ever faileth to mulnow in use! Are we the richer by one poor in- tiply gold. Who would not smile at Aristotle,
vention, by reason of all the learning that hath when he admireth the eternity and invariableness
been these many hundred years! The industry of the heavens, as there were not the like in the
of artificers maketh some small improvement of bowels of the earth! Those be the confines and
things invented; and chance sometimes in experi- borders of these two kingdoms, where the con
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