*

is nearly the same with what is found in the "Advertisement" and the "Considerations," touching the Church of England, and other theological writings of Bacon's. It will be enough that we transcribe another short passage from the Advancement, the substance of which, though somewhat differently arranged, is also found in the Latin. Two modes of expounding or interpreting Scripture have been mentioned, "which had need be contained within the bounds of sobriety;" the anagogical (or that which is inquisitive after mysteries), and the philosophical.

For the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late time by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalizing and traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane. But there is no such enmity between God's word and his works; neither do they give honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much imbase them. For to seek heaven and earth in the word of God (whereof it is said, "Heaven and earth shall pass, but my word shall not pass ") is to seek temporary things amongst eternal: and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek the living amongst the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead amongst the living neither are the pots or lavers, whose place was in the outward part of the temple, to be sought in the holiest place of all, where the ark of the testimony was seated. And again, the scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to express matters of nature in the Scriptures, otherwise than in passage, and for application to man's capacity, and to matters moral or divine. And it is a true rule, "Auctoris aliua agentis parva auctoritas ;"t for it were a strange conclusion, if a man should use a similitude for ornament or illustration sake, borrowed from nature or history according to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, an unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, an Hydra, or the like, that therefore he must needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof positively to be true.

The Scriptures, being given by inspiration, and not by human reason, do differ from all other books in the author: which, by consequence, doth draw on some difference to be

*See vol. i., pp. 138-159.

The authority of an author travelling out of his subject is small.

used by the expositor. For the inditer of them did know four things which no man attains to know; which are, the mysteries of the kingdom of glory, the perfection of the laws of nature, the secrets of the heart of man, and the future succession of all ages. For, as to the first, it is said, "He that presseth into the light shall be oppressed of the glory." And again, “No man shall see my face and live." To the second, "When he prepared the heavens I was present, when by law and compass he enclosed the deep." To the third, "Neither was it needful that any should bear witness to him of man, for he knew well what was in man " And to the last, "From the beginning are known to the Lord all his works."

It is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were propounded to him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question demanded; the reason whereof is, because not being like man, which knows man's thoughts by his words, but, knowing man's thoughts immediately, he never answered their words, but their thoughts: much in the like inanner it is with the Scriptures, which, being written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the church, yea and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal scope of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the church in every part. And, therefore, as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river; so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the church hath most use. Not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book.

The conclusion of the Advancement is as follows:Thus have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual world, as truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note and description of those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or not well converted by the labour of man. In which, if I have in any point receded from that which is

commonly received, it hath been with a purpose of proceeding in melius,' "* and not in "aliud;" a mind of amendment and proficience, and not of change and difference. For I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing thau to have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions naked aud unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by confutations. For in anything which is well set down I am in good hope that, if the first reading move an objection, the second reading will make an answer. And in those things wherein I have eired, I am sure I have not prejudiced the right by litigious arguments; which certainly have this contrary effect and operation, that they add authority to error, and destroy the authority of that which is well invented: for question is an honour and preferment to falsehood, as on the other side it is a repulse to truth. But the errors I claim and challenge to myself as my own: the good, if any be, is due "tanquam adeps sacrificii,"‡ to be incensed to the honour, first of the Divine Majesty, and next of your majesty, to whom on earth I am most bounden.

In the De Augmentis, for the two last sentences, others to the following effect are substituted :-" Meanwhile there cometh into my mind that answer of Themistocles, who, when an ambassador from an inconsiderable town had made him a speech full of lofty expressions, checked him with the reply: Friend, thy words would require a city.' Assuredly I conceive that it may be most reasonably objected to me, that my words would require an age; a whole age, perhaps, to prove their truth, and many more to bring about their accomplishment. Nevertheless, seeing that even the greatest things are owing to their beginnings, it will be enough for me to have sown to posterity and to the everlasting God, whose divine Majesty I humbly implore through his Son and our Saviour, that these sacrifices of the human understanding, and other such as these, sprinkled with religion as with salt, and offered to his glory, he would graciously vouchsafe to accept."

*To a better object.

To a different object. As the fat of the sacrifice.

Appended to the work is an enumeration, under the title of Novus Orbis Scientiarum, sive Desiderata (The New World of Sciences, or Things Desiderated), of the several branches of knowledge that have in the course of it been declared to be deficient, that is to say, imperfectly cultivated or not at all. This list may be regarded as a summary of the conclusions which it has been the object of the work to establish, and it is further interesting from several new Baconian designations which it contains. The following are enumerated as the Desiderata that have been noticed in Book II. ;-The Errors of Nature (Errores Naturae), or the History of Monsters (Praeter-generationum); the Fetters of Nature (Vincula Naturae), or Mechanical History; Inductive History, or Natural History arranged for the building up of Philosophy; the Eye of Polyphemus (Oculus Polyphemi), or the History of Learning; History for the illustration of Prophecy (Historia ad Prophetias); Philosophy according to ancient Parables. Those in Book III. :— Primary Philosophy (Philosophia Prima), or the axioms common to all the sciences; Living Astronomy (Astronomia Viva); Sound Astrology (Astrologia Sana); Continuation of Natural Problems; Opinions (Placita) of the Ancient Philosophers; the Part of Metaphysic which relates to the Forms of things; Natural Magic, or deduction of Forms to Effects; Inventory of Human Works; Catalogue of things of Multifarious Use (Polychrestorum). Those in Book IV. :-The Triumphs of Man, or the doctrine of the Highest Flights (de Summitatibus) of Human Nature; the Physiognomy of the Body in motion; Medical Narrations; Comparative Anatomy; the Science of the Cure of Diseases held to be incurable; Of Exterior Euthanasia (that is, the means of procuring an easy death so far as regards bodily sensation); Of Medicines of proved virtue (de Medicinis Authenticis) the Imitation of Natural Hot-springs; the Medical Clue (Filum Medicinale, that is, a rule for the guidance of medical practice); the Prolongation of Life; Of the Substance, or Essence, of the sensitive Soul; Of the Efforts of the Spirit in Voluntary Motion; Of the Difference between Perception and Sense; the Root, or

Origin, of Perspective (Radix Perspectivae), or the doctrine of the Form of Light. Those in Book V. :

Learned Experience, or the Chase of Pan (that is, of Nature); the New Instrument (Novum Organum); Particular Topics; Refutations of False Imaginations, or Sophisms (Elenchi Idolorum); Of the Analogy of Demonstrations. Those in Book VI. :-Of the Marks of Things; Philosophical Grammar (Grammatica Philosophans); the Transmission of the Light, or Method of handing down Knowledge to posterity (Traditio Lampadis, sive Methodus ad Filios); Of the Wisdom (Prudentia) of Private Discourse; the Colours of apparent Good and Evil, both simple and comparative; Antithetical Statements of Truths (Antitheta Rerum); the Minor Formulae of Oratory. Those in Book VII. :—Serious Satire, or the doctrine of the insides of things (Satira Seria, sive de Interioribus rerum); the Georgics of the Mind, or the Culture of the Moral nature. Those in Book VIII. :The Amanuensis of Life, or the doctrine of Dispersed Occasions (De Occasionibus Sparsis); the Architect of Fortune, or the doctrine of Rising in Life (Faber Fortunae, sive de Ambitu Vitae); the Military Statesman (Consul Paludutus), or of Extending the bounds of Empire; the Idea of Universal Justice, or the doctrine of the Fountains of Law. Those in Book IX. :-Sophron, or the doctrine of the Right Use of Human Reason in Divinity; Irenaeus, or the doctrine of the degrees of Unity in the City of God; the Celestial Wine-skins (Utres Coelestes), or the Emanations of the Scrip

tures.

Such is the survey of human knowledge, and of the world of possible speculation, which Bacon takes in the "Two Books of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning," and the Nine Books of the treatise "De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum," into which they were afterwards expanded. It is remarkable that the second work, published after so long an interval, should exhibit so little deviation from the first, except only in the way of extension, and here and there of somewhat greater precision of statement. Scarcely any thing to be