Advancement of Learning 85 



In this third 1 part of learning, which is poesy, I can 

 report no deficience, For 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 expressing of affec 

 tions, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholding 

 to poets more than to the philosophers works; and for wit 

 and eloquence, not much less than to orators harangue. 

 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. 



The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending 

 from above, and some springing from beneath; the one 

 informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine 

 revelation. The light of nature consisteth in the notions of 

 the mind and the reports of the senses : for as for knowledge 

 which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not 

 original; as in a water that besides his own spring-head is 

 fed with other springs and streams. So then, according to 

 these two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge is 

 first of all divided into divinity and philosophy. 



In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either 

 penetrate unto God, or are circumf erred to nature, or 

 are reflected or reverted upon himself. Out of which 

 several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, divine 

 philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy or 

 humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with 

 this triple character of the power of God, the difference of 

 nature and the use of man. But because the distributions 

 and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that 

 meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point ; but are like 

 branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimen 

 sion and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it 

 come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs : 

 therefore it is good, before we enter into the former distribu 

 tion, to erect and constitute one universal science, by the 

 name of philosophia prima, primitive or summary philosophy, 

 as the main and common way, before we come where the 

 ways part and divide themselves ; which science whether I 



1 Rather the second than the third part of learning History, 

 Poesy, Philosophy. 



