Advancement of Learning 145 



the truth and substance of it, that makes it solid,) to have 

 a longitude and a latitude ; accounting the latitude towards 

 other sciences, and the longitude towards action ; that is, 

 from the greatest generality to the most particular precept. 

 The one giveth rule how far one knowledge ought to inter 

 meddle within the province of another, which is the rule they 

 call KaOavTo; l the other giveth rule unto what degree of 

 particularity a knowledge should descend: which latter 

 I find passed over in silence, being in my judgment the 

 more material; for certainly there must be somewhat left 

 to practice ; but how much is worthy the inquiry. We see 

 remote and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge 

 to scorn of practical men ; and are no more aiding to prac 

 tice than an Ortelius 2 universal map is to direct the way 

 between London and York. The better sort of rules have 

 been not unfitly compared to glasses of steel unpolished, 

 where you may see the images of things, but first they 

 must be filed : so the rules will help, if they be laboured and 

 polished by practice. But how crystalline they may be 

 made at the first, and how far forth they may be polished 

 aforehand, is the question; the inquiry whereof seemeth 

 to me deficient. 



There hath been also laboured and put in practice a 

 method, which is not a lawful method, but a method of 

 imposture ; which is to deliver knowledges in such manner, 

 as men may speedily come to make a show of learning 

 who have it not: such was the travail of Raymundus 

 Lullius, in making that art which bears his name : 3 not 

 unlike to some books of typocosmy, which have been 

 made since ; being nothing but a mass of words of all arts, 

 to give men countenance, that those which use the terms 

 might be thought to understand the art ; which collections 

 are much like a fripper s or broker s shop, that hath ends 

 of everything, but nothing of worth. 



Now we descend to that part which concerneth the 



1 Viz. that Propositions should be true essentially. 



2 Ortelius was an Antwerper, died 1598, styled the &quot; Ptolemaeus 

 sui saeculi.&quot; 



3 Raymundus Lully, &quot; the Enlightened Doctor,&quot; was born in 

 Majorca in 1225, studied Arabian philosophy, chemistry, physic, 

 and divinity. He was stoned to death at the age of eighty in Maure- 

 tania, for preaching the gospel. For a brief account of his Method, 

 see note to Ellis and Spedding s De Augm. vi. 2 (p. 669). 



