The Advancement of Learning

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Changed “considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned

times have been most subject to tumults, seditious, and changes” to

“considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have

been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes”.

CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.

THE

ADVANCEMENT

OF

LEARNING.

BY

FRANCIS BACON.

[Picture: Decorative graphic]

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:

_LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.

1893.

INTRODUCTION.

“THE TVVOO Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and aduancement

of Learning, divine and humane. To the King. At London. Printed for

Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop at Graies Inne Gate in

Holborne. 1605.” That was the original title-page of the book now in

the reader’s hand—a living book that led the way to a new world of

thought. It was the book in which Bacon, early in the reign of James the

First, prepared the way for a full setting forth of his New Organon, or

instrument of knowledge.

The Organon of Aristotle was a set of treatises in which Aristotle had

written the doctrine of propositions. Study of these treatises was a

chief occupation of young men when they passed from school to college,

and proceeded from Grammar to Logic, the second of the Seven Sciences.

Francis Bacon as a youth of sixteen, at Trinity College, Cambridge, felt

the unfruitfulness of this method of search after truth. He was the son

of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Keeper, and was born at

York House, in the Strand, on the 22nd of January, 1561. His mother was

the Lord Keeper’s second wife, one of two sisters, of whom the other

married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh. Sir Nicholas Bacon

had six children by his former marriage, and by his second wife two sons,

Antony and Francis, of whom Antony was about two years the elder. The

family home was at York Place, and at Gorhambury, near St. Albans, from

which town, in its ancient and its modern style, Bacon afterwards took

his titles of Verulam and St. Albans.

Antony and Francis Bacon went together to Trinity College, Cambridge,

when Antony was fourteen years old and Francis twelve. Francis remained

at Cambridge only until his sixteenth year; and Dr. Rawley, his chaplain

in after-years, reports of him that “whilst he was commorant in the

University, about sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been pleased

to impart unto myself), he first fell into dislike of the philosophy of

Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would

ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being

a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputatious

and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of

the life of man; in which mind he continued to his dying day.” Bacon was

sent as a youth of sixteen to Paris with the ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet,

to begin his training for the public service; but his father’s death, in

February, 1579, before he had completed the provision he was making for

his youngest children, obliged him to return to London, and, at the age

of eighteen, to settle down at Gray’s Inn to the study of law as a

profession. He was admitted to the outer bar in June, 1582, and about

that time, at the age of twenty-one, wrote a sketch of his conception of

a New Organon that should lead man to more fruitful knowledge, in a

little Latin tract, which he called “Temporis Partus Maximus” (“The

Greatest Birth of Time”).

In November, 1584, Bacon took his seat in the House of Commons as member

for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire. In October, 1586, he sat for

Taunton. He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one of those

who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of Scots. In

whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or

weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities and

reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the

memory of men.

(11) And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and

opinions, it is likewise of two kinds; either when too much belief is

attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The

sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and confederacy

with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number:

astrology, natural magic, and alchemy; of which sciences, nevertheless,

the ends or pretences are noble. For astrology pretendeth to discover

that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe

and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural

philosophy from variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and

alchemy pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies

which in mixtures of natures are incorporate. But the derivations and

prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the practices,

are full of error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have

sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring

themselves to auricular traditions and such other devices, to save the

credit of impostures. And yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that

it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable; that,

when he died, told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried

underground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground, and

gold they found none; but by reason of their stirring and digging the

mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year

following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to

light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as

well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man’s life.

(12) And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors in

sciences, in making them dictators, that their words should stand, and

not consuls, to give advice; the damage is infinite that sciences have

received thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low at a

stay without growth or advancement. For hence it hath come, that in arts

mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time addeth and

perfecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth furthest, and time

leeseth and corrupteth. So we see artillery, sailing, printing, and the

like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accommodated and

refined; but contrariwise, the philosophies and sciences of Aristotle,

Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes, of most vigour at

the first, and by time degenerate and imbased: whereof the reason is no

other, but that in the former many wits and industries have contributed

in one; and in the latter many wits and industries have been spent about

the wit of some one, whom many times they have rather depraved than

illustrated; for, as water will not ascend higher than the level of the

first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so knowledge derived from

Aristotle, and exempted from liberty of examination, will not rise again

higher than the knowledge of Aristotle. And, therefore, although the

position be good, _Oportet discentem credere_, yet it must be coupled

with this, _Oportet edoctum judicare_; for disciples do owe unto masters

only a temporary belief and a suspension of their own judgment till they

be fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual

captivity; and therefore, to conclude this point, I will say no more, but

so let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of

authors, be not deprived of his due—which is, further and further to

discover truth. Thus have I gone over these three diseases of learning;

predecessors, feigned that they were all invited to a banquet of the

gods, and Silenus the jester sat at the nether end of the table and

bestowed a scoff on everyone as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus

came in, Silenus was gravelled and out of countenance, not knowing where

to carp at him, save at the last he gave a glance at his patience towards

his wife. And the virtue of this prince, continued with that of his

predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the world, that

though it were extremely dishonoured in Commodus, Caracalla, and

Heliogabalus, who all bare the name, yet, when Alexander Severus refused

the name because he was a stranger to the family, the Senate with one

acclamation said, _Quomodo Augustus_, _sic et Antoninus_. In such renown

and veneration was the name of these two princes in those days, that they

would have had it as a perpetual addition in all the emperors’ style. In

this emperor’s time also the Church for the most part was in peace; so as

in this sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning

in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the world.

(9) But for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not presuming to speak

of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment the most excellent is that

of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of Britain; a

prince that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels,

would trouble him, I think, to find for her a parallel amongst women.

This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even

amongst masculine princes—whether we speak of learning, of language, or

of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity—and unto the very

last year of her life she accustomed to appoint set hours for reading,

scarcely any young student in a university more daily or more duly. As

for her government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm)

that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better tines,

and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of

her regiment. For if there be considered, of the one side, the truth of

religion established, the constant peace and security, the good

administration of justice, the temperate use of the prerogative, not

slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable

to so excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means,

both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of

discontents; and there be considered, on the other side, the differences

of religion, the troubles of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain,

and opposition of Rome, and then that she was solitary and of herself;

these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an instance

so recent and so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more

remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is concerning the

conjunction of learning in the prince with felicity in the people.

(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil

merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and

peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy in

enablement towards martial and military virtue and prowess, as may be

notably represented in the examples of Alexander the Great and Cæsar the

Dictator (mentioned before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose

virtues and acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the

wonders of time in that kind; but of their affections towards learning

and perfections in learning it is pertinent to say somewhat.

(11) Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great

philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto him; he