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claimed defires of profit, of luft, of revenge; which, as long as they give ear to Precepts, to Laws, to Religion, fweetly touched with eloquence and perfuafion of books, of sermons, of harangues, fo long is Society and peace maintained; but if these inftruments be filent, or fedition and tumult make them not audible, all things diffolve into anarchy and confusion.

So when explaining, amidst the advantages of Knowledge, its excellency in diffusing Happiness through fucceeding ages, he says, Let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of Knowledge and Learning in that whereunto man's Nature doth moft afpire, which is, immortality or continuance: for to this tendeth generation, and raising of houses and families; to this buildings, foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the defire of memory, fame, and celebration, and in effect the strength of all other human defires. We fee then how far the monuments of Wit and Learning are more durable than the monuments of Power or of the Hands. For have not the verfes of Homer continued twentyfive hundred years, or more, without the loss of a Syllable or Letter; during which time infinite Palaces, Temples, Caftles, Cities, have been decayed and destroyed? It is not possible to have the true pictures or ftatues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæfar; no, nor of the Kings or great perfonages of much later years; for the originals cannot laft, and the copies cannot but leefe of the life and Truth: but the images of men's Wits and Knowledges remain in

books exempted from the wrong of Time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate ftill, and caft their feeds in the Minds of hers, provoking and caufing infinite actions and opinions in fucceeding ages; fo that if the invention of the Ship was thought fo noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and confociateth the most remote Regions in participation of their Fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as Ships, pass through the vast seas of Time, and make Ages fo diftant to participate of the Wisdom, Illuminations and Inventions, the one of the other?

After having thus explained fome of the bleffings attendant upon Knowledge, he concludes the first book with lamenting that these bleffings are not more generally preferred.

The second book, after various preliminary observations, and particularly upon the defects of universities, of which, from the fuppofition that they are formed rather for the discovery of new Knowledge than for diffufing the Knowledge of our predeceffors, he, through life, seems to have formed too high an eftimate, he arranges and adorns every fpecies of Hiftory, which he includes within the province of Memory,—and every species of Poetry, by which Imagination can elevate the Mind from the dungeon of the Body to the enjoying its own divine essence:—and, paffing from Poetry by saying, but it is not good to stay too long in the Theatre: let us now pass on to the judicial

place or palace of the Mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and attention, he proceeds to the investigation of every species of Philofophy, divine, natural, and human, of which, from his analysis of human Philosophy, or the Science of Man, fome conception may be formed of the extent and perfection of the different parts of the work.

These different fubjects, exhibited with this perfpicuity, are adorned with beautiful illustration and imagery: as, when explaining the doctrine of the will, divided into the image of good or the exhibition of truth, and the culture or Georgics of the mind, which is its husbandry or tillage, fo as to love the Truth which it fees, he says, The neglecting thefe Georgics feemeth to me no better than to exhibit a fair image or ftatue, beautiful to behold, but without life or motion.

Having thus made a small globe of the intellectual world, he, looking at the work he had made, and hoping that it was good, thus concludes: And being now at fome pause, looking back into that I have passed through, this writing feemeth to me, fi nunquam fallit imago, (as far as a man can judge of his own work) not much better than the noise or found which Muficians make while they are tuning their Inftruments, which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a caufe why the Mufic is fweeter afterwards: fo have I been content to tune the Inftruments of the Mufes, that they may play that have better hands. And furely, when I fet before me the

condition of these times, in which Learning hath made her third vifitation or circuit in all the qualities thereof: as the excellency and vivacity of the Wits of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of Ancient Writers; the art of Printing which communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of Experiments, and a mass of Natural History; the leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men fo generally in civil business as the states of Græcia did, in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of their Monarchy; the prefent difpofition of these times at this inftant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be faid in controverfies of Religion, which have so much diverted men from other Sciences; and the inseparable property of time, which is ever more and more to difclofe Truth,-I cannot but be raised to this perfuafion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman Learning; only if men will know their own strength, and their own weakness both; and take, one from the other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem of the inquifition of Truth, as of any enterprize, and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ Wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of popular eftimation.

The Advancement of Learning was published in the year 1605. Lord Bacon afterwards greatly enlarged it; and having divided it into nine books,

and fubdivided each book into chapters, he caused it to be tranflated into Latin, by Mr. George Herbert and fome other friends, under the title of De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum; and was published in folio in 1623. The enlarged work was afterwards re-tranflated into English by Dr. Gilbert Watts, and published at Oxford in 1640; but, according to Dr. Tenison, the tranflation is too much defective. See the Life of Lord Bacon, p. 409.

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