Advancement of Learning 125 



so the middle propositions by derivation from the Principles; 

 their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incom 

 petent : wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the 

 duty of Art to perfect and exalt Nature ; but they contrari 

 wise 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, 



Aerei mellis coelestia dona, 1 



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 not other on the con 

 trary side which appear not? As if Samuel should have 

 rested upon those sons of Jesse 2 which were brought before 

 him, and failed of David, which was in the field. 3 And this 

 form, to say truth, is so gross, as it had not been possible for 

 wits so subtile as have managed these things to have offered 

 it to the world, but that they hasted to their theories and 

 dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful towards 

 particulars; which their manner was to use but as lictores 

 and viatores, for sergeants and whifflers, ad summovendam 

 turbam, to make way and make room for their opinions, 

 rather than in their true use and service. Certainly it is a 

 thing may touch a man with a religious wonder, to see how 

 the footsteps of seducement are the very same in divine and 

 human truth : for as in divine truth man cannot endure to 

 become as a child; so in human, they reputed the attending 

 the inductions whereof we speak, as if it were a second 

 infancy or childhood. 



Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly 

 induced, yet nevertheless certain it is that middle proposi 

 tions cannot be deduced from them in subject of nature 4 



1 Virg. Georg. iv. i. 



* All the old editions spell the word Issay, and the De Augm. 

 (as a genitive) Isai. 3 i Sam. xvi. 



4 In the Latin, in rebus naturalibus. 



