The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

208 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. BOOK II.
gave the first occasion. So as it should seem, upon those sons of Jesse which were brought
that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild before him, and failed of David, which was in
goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or the field. And this form, to say truth, is so
to the ibis for some part of physic, or to the pot gross, as it had not been possible for wits so
lid that flew open for artillery, or generally to subtile as have managed these things to have
chance, or any thing else, than to logic, for the offered it to the world, but that they hasted to
invention of arts and sciences. Neither is the their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperiform of invention which Virgil describeth much ous and scornful toward particulars; which the:r
other: manner was to use but as ", lictores and viatores,"
"IJt varias usus meditando extunderet artes for sergeants and whifflers, "1 ad summovendam
Paulatim." turbam," to make way and make room for their
For if you observe the words well, it is no other opinions, rather than in their true use and service.
method than that which brute beasts are capable Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with a
of, and do put in use; which is a perpetual in- religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of setending or practising some one thing, urged and ducement are the very same in divine and human
imposed by an absolute necessity of conservation truth: for as in divine truth man cannot endure
of being: for so Cicero saith very truly, 6" Usus to become as a child; so in human, they reputed
uni rei deditus, et naturam et artem swepe vincit." the attending the inductions whereof we speak,
And therefore if it be said of men, as if it were a second infancy or childhood.
"Labor omnia vincit Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were
Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas;" rightly induced, yet nevertheless certain it is that
it is likewise said of beasts, "Quis psittaco do- middle propositions cannot be deduced from them
cuit suum xaipe l" Who taught the raven in a in subject of nature by syllogism, that is, by touch
drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where and reduction of them to principles in a middle
she espied water, that the water might rise so as term. It is true that in sciences popular, as moshe might come to it? Who taught the bee to ralities, laws, and the like, yea and divinity, (besail through such a vast sea of air, and to find the cause it pleaseth God to apply himself to the
svay from a field in flower, a great way off, to her capacity of the simplest,) that form may have
hive. Who taught the ant to bite every grain use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by way
of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it should of argument or satisfactory reason, " Qume assentake root and grow. Add then the word'" extun- sum parit, operis effceta est:" but the subtilty of
dere," which importeth the extreme difficulty, nature and operations will not be enchained in
and the word ",paulatim," which importeth the those bonds: for arguments consist of proposiextreme slowness, and we are where we were, tions, and propositions of words; and words are
even amongst the _Egyptians' gods; there being but the current tokens or marks of popular notions
little left to the faculty of reason, and nothing to of things: which notions, if they be grossly and
the duty of art, for matter of invention. variably collected out of particulars, it is not the
Secondly, the induction which the logicians laborious examination either of consequences of
speak of, and which seemeth familiar with Plato, arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can
(whereby the principles of sciences may be pre- ever correct that error, being, as the physicians
tended to be invented, and so the middle propo- speak, in the first digestion: and therefore it was
sitions by derivation from the principles;) their not without cause, that so many excellent philoform of induction, I say, is utterly vicious and in- sophers became sceptics and academics, and decompetent: wherein their error is the fouler, nied any certainty of knowledge or comprehenbecause it is the duty of art to perfect and exalt sion; and held opinion, that the knowledge of
nature; but they contrariwise have wronged, man extendeth only to appearances and probabiliabused, and traduced nature. For he that shall ties. It is true that in Socrates it was supposed
attentively observe how the mind doth gather this to be but a form of irony, " Scientiam dissimuexcellent dew of knowledge, like unto that which lando simulavit:" for he used to disable his
the poet speaketh of,,, Airei mellis ccelestia knowledge, to the end to enhance his knowledge;
dona," distilling and contriving it out of particu- like the humour of Tiberius in his beginnings,
lars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the that would reign, but would not acknowledge so
field and garden, shall find that the mind of her- much: and in the later Academy, which Cicero emself by nature doth manage and act an induction braced, this opinion also of " acatalepsia," I doubt,
much better than they describe it. For to con- was not held sincerely: for that all those which
elude upon an enumeration of particulars, without excelled in " copia" of speech seem to have
instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a chosen that sect, as that which was fittest to give
f'onjecture; for who can assure, in many subjects glory to their eloquence and variable discourses;
upon those particulars which appear of a side, being rather like progresses of pleasure, than
tnat there are not other on the contrary side which journeys to an end. But assuredly many scatappear notl As ii Samuel should have rested tered in both Academies did hold it in subtilty