is "pabulum animi;" so in the nature of men's appetite to this food, most men are of the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain have returned "ad ollas carnium," and were weary of manna; which, though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and comfortable. So generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about the which men's affections, praises, fortunes do turn and are conversant; but this same "lumen siccum" doth parch and offend most men's watery and soft natures. But, to speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the keys of all other arts; for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, "That the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms :" so these be truly said to be the art of arts: neither do they only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen: even as the habit of shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a stronger bow.

The arts intellectual are four in number; divided according to the ends whereunto they are referred : for man's labour is to invent that which is sought or propounded: or to judge that which is invented; or to retain that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained. So as the arts must be four; art of inquiry or invention: art of examination or judgment: art of custody or memory;

and art of elocution or tradition.

:

Invention is of two kinds, much differing the one of arts and sciences; and the other, of speech and arguments. The former of these I do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if, in the making of an inventory touching the estate of a defunct, it should be set down, that there is no ready money. For as money will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all the rest. And like as the West Indies had never been discovered if the use of the mariner's needle had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions, and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found strange if sciences be no farther discovered, if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed

over.

That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth plainly confessed; for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a "cuique in sua arte credendum." And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, "That medicines and cures were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them the medicines and cures discovered." And Plato, in his Theætetus, noteth well, "That particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences,

which maketh the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in every particular knowledge are taken from tradition and experience." And therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and originals of things, refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men.

"Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab Ida,
Puberibus caulem foliis et flore comantem
Purpureo: non illa feris incognita capris
Gramina, cum tergo volucres hæsere sagittæ."

So that it was no marvel, the manner of antiquity being to consecrate inventors, that the Ægyptians had so few human idols in their temples, but almost all brute.

"Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis, Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam," &c. And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the first inventions to men; yet you will rather believe that Prometheus first struck the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he first struck the flints he expected the spark : and therefore we see the West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because of the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion. So as it should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of physic, or to the pot lid that flew open for

artillery, or generally to chance, or any thing else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences. Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much other:

"Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artes
Paulatim."

For if
you observe the words well, it is no other
method than that which brute beasts are capable of,
and do put in use; which is a perpetual intending
or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by
an absolute necessity of conservation of being: for
so Cicero saith very truly, "Usus uni rei deditus
et naturam et artem sæpe vincit." And therefore
if it be said of men,

"Labor omnia vincit

Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas!"

it is likewise said of beasts, "Quis psittaco docuit suum xaipe?" Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find the way from a field in flower, a great way off, to her hive? Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow? Add then the word "extundere,' which importeth the extreme difficulty, and the word "paulatim," which importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even amongst

the Ægyptians' gods; there being little left to the faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty of art, for matter of invention.

Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which seemeth familiar with Plato, (whereby the principles of sciences may be pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation from the principles ;) their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incompetent: wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have wronged, abused, and traduced nature. For he that shall attentively observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge, like unto that which the poet speaketh of," Aërei mellis coelestia dona," distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than they describe it. For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can assure, in many subjects upon those particulars which appear of a side, that there are any other on the contrary side which appear not? As if Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought before him, and failed of David, which was in the field. And this form, to say truth, is so gross, as it had not been possible