The Advancement of Learning

(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural philosophy, we will divide it into three parts – experimental, philosophical, and magical; which three parts active have a correspondence and analogy with the three parts speculative, natural history, physic, and metaphysic.  For many operations have been invented, sometimes by a casual incidence and occurrence, sometimes by a purposed experiment; and of those which have been found by an intentional experiment, some have been found out by varying or extending the same experiment, some by transferring and compounding divers experiments the one into the other, which kind of invention an empiric may manage.  Again, by the knowledge of physical causes there cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of new particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon use and practice.  But these are but coastings along the shore, premendo littus iniquum; for it seemeth to me there can hardly be discovered any radical or fundamental alterations and innovations in Nature, either by the fortune and essays of experiments, or by the light and direction of physical causes.  If, therefore, we have reported metaphysic deficient, it must follow that we do the like of natural magic, which hath relation thereunto.  For as for the natural magic whereof now there is mention in books, containing certain credulous and superstitious conceits and observations of sympathies and antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and some frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement than in themselves, it is as far differing in truth of Nature from such a knowledge as we require as the story of King Arthur of Britain, or Hugh of Bourdeaux, differs from Cæsar’s Commentaries in truth of story; for it is manifest that Cæsar did greater things de vero than those imaginary heroes were feigned to do.  But he did them not in that fabulous manner.  Of this kind of learning the fable of Ixion was a figure, who designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess of power, and instead of her had copulation with a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and chimeras.  So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.  And, therefore, we may note in these sciences which hold so much of imagination and belief, as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy, astrology, and the like, that in their propositions the description of the means is ever more monstrous than the pretence or end.  For it is a thing more probable that he that knoweth well the natures of weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect of the hammer, of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the rest, may superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures afore rehearsed, than that some grains of the medicine projected should in a few moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver or other material into gold.  So it is more probable that he that knoweth the nature of arefaction, the nature of assimilation of nourishment to the thing nourished, the manner of increase and clearing of spirits, the manner of the depredations which spirits make upon the humours and solid parts, shall by ambages of diets, bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, and the like, prolong life, or restore some degree of youth or vivacity, than that it can be done with the use of a few drops or scruples of a liquor or receipt.  To conclude, therefore, the true natural magic, which is that great liberty and latitude of operation which dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I may report deficient, as the relative thereof is.  To which part, if we be serious and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the deriving and deducing the operations themselves from metaphysic, there are pertinent two points of much purpose, the one by way of preparation, the other by way of caution.  The first is, that there be made a calendar, resembling an inventory of the estate of man, containing all the inventions (being the works or fruits of Nature or art) which are now extant, and whereof man is already possessed; out of which doth naturally result a note what things are yet held impossible, or not invented, which calendar will be the more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed impossibility you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to that impossibility; to the end that by these optatives and potentials man’s inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction of works from the speculation of causes.  And secondly, that these experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give most light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner’s needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails which give the motion.

(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the deficiences thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient and received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for my part, as I affect not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend.  If it be truth,

“Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvæ,”

the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.  And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention.

(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according to the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or subject: and that is positive and considerative, when the inquiry reporteth either an assertion or a doubt.  These doubts or non liquets are of two sorts, particular and total.  For the first, we see a good example thereof in Aristotle’s Problems which deserved to have had a better continuance; but so nevertheless as there is one point whereof warning is to be given and taken.  The registering of doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but reserved in doubt; the other, that the entry of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that which if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised, but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts is made to be attended and applied.  But both these commodities do scarcely countervail and inconvenience, which will intrude itself if it be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it, and accordingly bend their wits.  Of this we see the familiar example in lawyers and scholars, both which, if they have once admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for a doubt.  But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed, which laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those which labour to make certain things doubtful.  Therefore these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent things; so that there he this caution used, that when they be thoroughly sifted and brought to resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted, discarded, and not continued to cherish and encourage men in doubting.  To which calendar of doubts or problems I advise be annexed another calendar, as much or more material which is a calendar of popular errors: I mean chiefly in natural history, such as pass in speech and conceit, and are nevertheless apparently detected and convicted of untruth, that man’s knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and vanity.  As for the doubts or non liquets general or in total, I understand those differences of opinions touching the principles of nature, and the fundamental points of the same, which have caused the diversity of sects, schools, and philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus, Parmenides, and the rest.  For although Aristotle, as though he had been of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first thing he did he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth and not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to see before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature.  Not for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for as the same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move, and the calculations are indifferently agreeable to both, so the ordinary face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several theories and philosophies; whereas to find the real truth requireth another manner of severity and attention.  For as Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call every woman mother, but afterward they come to distinguish according to truth, so experience, if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy mother, but when it cometh to ripeness it will discern the true mother.  So as in the meantime it is good to see the several glosses and opinions upon Nature, whereof it may be everyone in some one point hath seen clearer than his fellows, therefore I wish some collection to be made painfully and understandingly de antiquis philosophiis, out of all the possible light which remaineth to us of them: which kind of work I find deficient.  But here I must give warning, that it be done distinctly and severedly; the philosophies of everyone throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed and faggoted up together, as hath been done by Plutarch.  For it is the harmony of a philosophy in itself, which giveth it light and credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more foreign and dissonant.  For as when I read in Tacitus the actions of Nero or Claudius, with circumstances of times, inducements, and occasions, I find them not so strange; but when I read them in Suetonius Tranquillus, gathered into titles and bundles and not in order of time, they seem more monstrous and incredible: so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and dismembered by articles.  Neither do I exclude opinions of latter times to be likewise represented in this calendar of sects of philosophy, as that of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into an harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane; and that of Tilesius, and his scholar Donius, being as a pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but of no great depth; and that of Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not to make any new philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own sense upon the old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who revived, with some alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes; and any other worthy to be admitted.

(6) Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man’s knowledge; that is radius directus, which is referred to nature, radius refractus, which is referred to God, and cannot report truly because of the inequality of the medium.  There resteth radius reflexus, whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.

IX. (1) We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly.  This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of Nature.  And generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be preserved.  For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain.  So we see Cicero, the orator, complained of Socrates and his school, that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an empty and verbal art.  So we may see that the opinion of Copernicus, touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy may correct.  So we see also that the science of medicine if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical practice.  With this reservation, therefore, we proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two parts: the one considereth man segregate or distributively, the other congregate or in society; so as human philosophy is either simple and particular, or conjugate and civil.  Humanity particular consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth: that is, of knowledges which respect the body, and of knowledges that respect the mind.  But before we distribute so far, it is good to constitute.  For I do take the consideration in general, and at large, of human nature to be fit to be emancipate and made a knowledge by itself, not so much in regard of those delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body, which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either.

(2) This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and amities consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of mind and body hath these two parts: how the one discloseth the other, and how the one worketh upon the other; discovery and impression.  The former of these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of Hippocrates.  And although they have of later time been used to be coupled with superstitions and fantastical arts, yet being purged and restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in Nature, and a profitable use in life.  The first is physiognomy, which discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body.  The second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the state of the body by the imaginations of the mind.  In the former of these I note a deficience.  For Aristotle hath very ingeniously and diligently handled the factures of the body, but not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by art, and of greater use and advantage.  For the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose the present humour and state of the mind and will.  For as your majesty saith most aptly and elegantly, “As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the gesture speaketh to the eye.”  And, therefore, a number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions of men, do well know the advantage of this observation, as being most part of their ability; neither can it be denied, but that it is a great discovery of dissimulations, and a great direction in business.

(3) The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or antistrophe that the former hath.  For the consideration is double – either how and how far the humours and affects of the body do alter or work upon the mind, or, again, how and how far the passions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body.  The former of these hath been inquired and considered as a part and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition.  For the physician prescribeth cures of the mind in frenzies and melancholy passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to control the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like; but the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regiment of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manichees, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed.  So likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences, and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and not figurative.  The root and life of all which prescripts is (besides the ceremony) the consideration of that dependency which the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition of the body.  And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught, in easy instances, that the infant in the mother’s womb is compatible with the mother, and yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants, and yet without subjection.  As for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the body, we see all wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments to their patients, do ever consider accidentia animi, as of great force to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more specially it is an inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant; for although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power to help.  No more than a man can conclude, that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness.  But the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, “a Delian diver,” being difficult and profound.  But unto all this knowledge de communi vinculo, of the concordances between the mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary which considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better inquired.  For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less to be allowed.  So, then, we have constituted (as in our own wish and advice) the inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be handled apart.

X. (1) The knowledge that concerneth man’s body is divided as the good of man’s body is divided, unto which it referreth.  The good of man’s body is of four kinds – health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic; and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth eruditus luxus.  This subject of man’s body is, of all other things in nature, most susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error; for the same subtlety of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing, and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.

(2) To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said, ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was microcosmus – an abstract or model of the world – hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found in man’s body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which are extant in the great world.  But thus much is evidently true, that of all substances which nature hath produced, man’s body is the most extremely compounded.  For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies before they come to be his food and aliment.  Add hereunto that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon their bodies, whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of all other things is of the most compounded mass.  The soul, on the other side, is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:

      “Purumque reliquit

Æthereum sensum atque auraï simplicis ignem.”

So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco.  But to the purpose.  This variable composition of man’s body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and, therefore, the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body and to reduce it to harmony.  So, then, the subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent more conjectural; and the art being conjectural hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture.  For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes and events.  The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; this master in this ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps this politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event, which is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident?  And therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed.  Nay, we see [the] weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician.  And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme folly when they made Æsculapius and Circe, brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses —

“Ipse repertorem medicinæ talis et artis

Fulmine Phœbigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.”

And again —

“Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos,” &c.

For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women and impostors, have had a competition with physicians.  And what followeth?  Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon a higher occasion, “If it befall to me as befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?”  And therefore I cannot much blame physicians that they use commonly to intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their profession; for you shall have of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon this ground that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune: for the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects.  But, nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of are courses begotten between a little occasion and a great deal of sloth and default; for if we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see in familiar instances what a predominant faculty the subtlety of spirit hath over the variety of matter or form.  Nothing more variable than faces and countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of them; nay, a painter, with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his imagination, can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be, if they were brought before him.  Nothing more variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them personally: nay, you shall have a buffon or pantomimus will express as many as he pleaseth.  Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words; yet men have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters.  So that it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man’s mind, but it is the remote standing or placing thereof that breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions; for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so is it of the understanding, the remedy whereof is, not to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and use the true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the poet saith:

“Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;

Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.”

Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve: well shadowed by the poets, in that they made Æsculapius to be the son of [the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of our Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as the soul was the object of His doctrine.  For we read not that ever He vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money (except that one for giving tribute to Cæsar), but only about the preserving, sustaining, and healing the body of man.

(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.  For I find much iteration, but small addition.  It considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.  The deficiences which I think good to note, being a few of many, and those such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate and not place.

(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by recovery or death.  Therefore having an example proper in the father of the art, I shall not need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions, for the direction of future judgments.  This continuance of medicinal history I find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders: for many things are new in this manner, which are not new in the kind; and if men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.

(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience: for they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the humours, nor much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases.  The reason of which omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in the view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative and casual, must arise from the view of many.  And as to the diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward parts is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause continent of many diseases; which not being observed, they quarrel many times with the humours, which are not in fault; the fault being in the very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines familiar.  And for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in life: which being supposed, though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this observation, the inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive, which notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts may sufficiently satisfy this inquiry.  And for the humours, they are commonly passed over in anatomies as purgaments; whereas it is most necessary to observe, what cavities, nests, and receptacles the humours do find in the parts, with the differing kind of the humour so lodged and received.  And as for the footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of the inward parts, impostumations, exulcerations, discontinuations, putrefactions, consumptions, contractions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations, obstructions, repletions, together with all preternatural substances, as stones, carnosities, excrescences, worms, and the like; they ought to have been exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the contribution of men’s several experiences, and carefully set down both historically according to the appearances, and artificially with a reference to the diseases and symptoms which resulted from them, in case where the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas now upon opening of bodies they are passed over slightly and in silence.