68 Bacon 



which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents 

 of the enchanters. 1 



The removing of all the defects formerly enumerated, 

 except the last, and of the active part also of the last 

 (which is the designation of writers), are opera basilica; 

 towards which the endeavours of a private man may be 

 but as an image in a crossway, that may point at the way, 

 but cannot go it : but the inducing part of the latter, which 

 is the survey of learning, may be set forward by private 

 travail. Wherefore I will now attempt to make a general 

 and faithful perambulation of learning, with an inquiry 

 what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved 

 and converted by the industry of man ; to the end that such 

 a plot made and recorded to memory, may both minister 

 light to any public designation, and also serve to excite 

 voluntary endeavours: wherein, nevertheless, my purpose 

 is at this time to note only omissions and deficiencies, and 

 not to make any redargution of errors or incomplete prose 

 cutions; for it is one thing to set forth what ground lieth 

 unmanured, and another thing to correct ill husbandry in 

 that which is manured. 



In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not 

 ignorant what it is that I do now move and attempt, nor 

 insensible of mine own weakness to sustain my purpose; 

 but my hope is, that if my extreme love to learning carry 

 me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection ; for that It 

 is not granted to man to love and to be wise? But I know well 

 I can use no other liberty of judgment than I must leave to 

 others ; and I for my part shall be indifferently glad either 

 to perform myself, or accept from another, that duty of 

 humanity; Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam, etc. 3 I 

 do foresee likewise that of those things which I shall enter 

 and register as deficiencies and omissions, many will con 

 ceive and censure that some of them are already done and 

 extant ; others to be but curiosities, and things of no great 

 use; and others to be of too great difficulty, and almost 

 impossibility to be compassed and effected. But for the 

 two first, I refer myself to the particulars; for the last, 

 touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held 



1 Exod. vii. 10. It was Aaron s rod that became a serpent. 

 8 Publ. Syr. Sentent. 166: Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur. 

 4 Ennuis, quoted by Cic. de Off. i. 16 (5). 



