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all the advantages of learning; the places of learning, or universities; the books of learning, or libraries; the shrines where all the relicks of the antient saints, without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed; after having thus cleared the way, and, as it were, made silence to have the true nature of learning better heard and understood, he investigates all knowledge relating to the Memory, or every species of

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Being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than any other kind: but to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the expression of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholden to poets more than to the philosophers' works and for wit and eloquence, not much less than to orators' harangues. But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now pass to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach with more reverence and attention."

He then proceeds to all knowledge relating to the understanding or philosophy, and having classed every species of natural philosophy, he thus arranges human philosophy, or the knowledge of man; which we select, because, being more easily detached, it affords a specimen by which his analysis may be most conspicuously exhibited.

MAN.

2. MAN IN SOCIETY.

1. AS AN INDIVIDUAL.

1. Of the undivided State of Man.

1. Of the Person of Man.

1. HUMAN DEPRAVITIES. 2. HUMAN EXCELLENCIES.

1. THE ACTION OF THE BODY ON THE MIND.

1. The Doctrine of Impression.

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12. THE ACTION OF THE MIND ON THE BODY.

1. PHYSIOGNOMY.

2. The Doctrine of Disclosure. 2. THE EXPOSITION OF DREAMS.

(1. THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH.

2. THE CURE OF DISEASES.

3. THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE.

INVE

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3. THE ART OF GOVERNMENT. Of universal Justice.

1. INVENTION.

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4. TRADITION. 1. Grammar

2. Eloquence.

1. Literary.
2. Philosophical.

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1. THE IMAGE OF GOOD.
2. Public Good.
THE CULTURE OF THE MIND.

STRUCTION.

Such is the outline. It is not, however, the mere outline to which the Advancement of Learning is indebted for its ascendency. It includes a system minutely arranged and adorned with all the beauties of composition, the happiness of familiar illustration, the power of words, and the splendour of imagina

tion.

When speaking of the truth which is elicited from the pursuit of error, he says:

"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 under ground 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."

says:

When speaking of the proper ascendency of intellect, he

"The honest and just bounds of observation, by one person upon another, extend no farther, but to understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution, in respect of a man's self: but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous."

says:

When speaking of one of the advantages of learning, he

"Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferiour to the former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature, which merit was lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus's theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, listening to the airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained: but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion."

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says:

And, when speaking of one of the errors of learning, he

"But the greatest errour of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of man: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch, whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terras, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect, or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale, and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate."

Such is the extent of the outline, such the symmetry in the arrangement, such the beauty of the style. They have been, as Bacon foresaw they would be, causes, and only temporary causes, of the preference which has been given to the Advancement of Learning. He was too well acquainted with what he terms the idols of the mind, to be diverted from the truth either by the love of order or by the love of beauty. He knew the charms of theories and systems, and the necessity of adopting them to insure a favorable reception for abstruse works, but he was not misled by them. It did not require his sagacity to predict such observations as, two centuries after his death, have been made upon his classification by the philosophers of our times. The scaffolding which he raised may, without danger, now be removed.

Professor Stewart, after various observations upon the arrangements of Bacon and D'Alembert, says, "If the foregoing strictures be well founded, it seems to follow, that not only the endeavours of Bacon and D'Alembert to classify the sciences and arts according to a logical division of our faculties, is altogether unsatisfactory, but that every future attempt of the same kind may be expected to be liable to similar objections."Bentham in his Chrestomathia, speaking of Bacon's arrangement, says, "Of the sketch given by D'Alembert the leading principles are, as he himself has been careful to declare, taken from that given by Lord Bacon. Had it been entirely his own, it would have been, beyond comparison, a better one. For the age of Bacon, Bacon's was a precocious and precious fruit of the union of learning with science for the age of D'Alembert, it will, it is believed, be found but a poor production, below the

author as well as the age."-The Chrestomathia then contains various objections to these systems of arrangement, and suggests another system which, perhaps, after the lapse of two more centuries, will share the same fate.

No man was, for his own sake, less attached to system or ornament than Lord Bacon. A plain, unadorned style in aphorisms, in which the Novum Organum is written, is, he invariably states, the proper style for philosophy. In the midst of his own arrangement, in the Advancement of Learning, he says:

"The worst and most absurd sort of triflers are those who have pent the whole art into strict methods and narrow systems, which men commonly cry up for the sake of their regularity and style."

In another part, he says:

"It is of great consequence to consider whether sciences should be delivered by way of aphorism or of method. For it is a thing worthy to be precisely noted, that it hath been often taken into custom, that men, out of a few axioms and observations upon any subject, have made a compleat and solemn art, filling it with some discourses of wit, illustrating it with examples, and knitting it together by some method. But that other way of delivery by aphorisms brings with it many advantages whereto delivery by method doth not approach. For first, it tries the writer whether he be superficial or solid in knowledge: for aphorisms, except they should be altogether ridiculous, cannot be made but out of the pyth and heart of sciences: for illustration and excussion are cut off; variety of examples is cut off; deduction and connexion are cut off; description of practice is cut off; so there remaineth nothing to fill the aphorisms, but a good quantity of observations. And therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt to write aphorisms, who is not copiously furnished and solidly grounded. But in methods,

Tantum series, juncturaque pollet:

Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris.

As oftentimes they make a great shew of I know not what singular art, which if they were disjointed, separated, and laid open, would come to little or nothing. Secondly, methodical delivery is more fit to win consent or belief; but less fit to point to action; for they carry a shew of demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another; and therefore do more satisfy the understanding; but being that actions in common course of life are dispersed, and not orderly digested, they do best agree with dispersed directions. Lastly, aphorisms representing certain portions only, and as it were fragments of sciences, invite others to contribute, and add something; whereas methodical delivery carrying shew of a total and perfect knowledge forthwith secureth men as if they were at the furthest."

And again :

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