Advancement of Learning 105 



time, they seem more monstrous and incredible: so is it 

 of any philosophy reported entire, and dismembered by 

 articles. Neither do I exclude opinions of latter times to 

 be likewise represented in this kalendar of sects of philo 

 sophy, as that of Theophrastus Paracelsus, 1 eloquently 

 reduced into a harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane : 2 

 and that of Telesius 3 and his scholar Donius, being as a 

 pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but of no great depth; 

 and that of Fracastorius, 4 who, though he pretended not to 

 make any new philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of 

 his own sense upon the old; and that of Gilbertus our 

 countryman, 5 who revived, with some alterations and 

 demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes : and any other 

 worthy to be admitted. 



Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams 

 of man s knowledge; that is, radius directus, which is 

 referred to nature; radius refractus, which is referred to 

 God, and cannot report truly because of the inequality of 

 the medium. There resteth radius reflexus, whereby man 

 beholdeth and contemplateth himself. 



We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the 

 ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of our 

 selves ; 6 which deserveth the more accurate handling, by 

 how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge, as 

 it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention 

 of man, so nothwithstanding it is but a portion of natural 

 philosophy in the continent of nature: and generally let 

 this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted ; 

 rather for lines and veins than for sections and separations ; 

 and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be 



1 Paracelsus (von Hohenheim), enthusiast and alchemist, born 

 A.D. 1493, died A.D. 1541. He, though in a purposely obscure way, 

 did much service to experimental philosophy. 



2 Severinus, a Danish physician, died in 1602. 



3 Telesius, born in 1509 at Cosenza; who, as Bacon adds in the 

 Latin, revived the philosophy of Parmenides. 



4 Fracastorius, born in 1483 at Verona; a man of greatest worth, 

 disinterestedness, and capacity; whether as Poet, Philosopher, 

 Physician, Astronomer, or Mathematician. But of course Bacon 

 has no good word for him. 



6 Gilbertus, Court Physician to Elizabeth and James I., a great 

 experimentalist and discoverer in Magnetism. Bacon seems to 

 have regarded him with especial ill-will. 



6 Plat. A Icib. Pr. ii. 1 24. 



