82 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



are in nature the one in appearance, the other in existence ; 

 but I find this difference better made than pursued. For H 

 they had considered quantity, similitude, diversity and the 

 rest of those extern characters of things, as philosophers, and 

 in nature, their inquiries must of force have been of a far 

 other kind than they are. For doth any of them, in handling 

 quantity speak of the force of union, how and how far it 

 multiplieth virtue? Doth any give the reason why some 

 things in nature are so common, and in so great mass, and 

 others so rare, and in so small quantity? Doth any, in hand 

 ling similitude and diversity, assign the cause why iron should 

 not move to iron, which is more like, but move to the load 

 stone which is less like? Why in all diversities of things 

 there should be certain participles in nature which are almost 

 ambiguous to which kind they should be referred? But there 

 is a mere and deep silence touching the nature and operation 

 of those common adjuncts of things, as in nature ; and- only a 

 resuming and repeating of the force and use of them in speech 

 or argument. Therefore, because in a writing of this nature I 

 avoid all subtlety, my meaning touching this original or uni 

 versal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by 

 negative &quot; That it be a receptacle for all such profitable ob 

 servations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of 

 the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more 

 common and of a higher stage.&quot; 



(3) Now that there are many of that kind need not be 

 doubted. For example : Is not the rule, Si inaquahbus (equaha 

 addas, omnia erunt incequalia, an axiom as well of justice as 

 of the mathematics? and is there not a true coincidence be 

 tween commutative and distributive justice, and arithmetical 

 and geometrical proportion? Is not that other rule, Quce in 

 eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se convenient, a rule taken 

 from the mathematics, but so potent in logic as all syllogisms 

 are built upon it? Is not the observation, Omnia mutantur, 

 nil intent, a contemplation in philosophy thus, that the quan 

 tum of nature is eternal? in natural theology thus, that it 

 requircth the same omnipotency to make somewhat nothing, 

 which at the first made nothing somewhat ? according to the 

 Scripture, Didici quod omnia opera, quce fecit Deus, perse- 

 went in perpetuum ; non possumus eis quicquam addere nee 

 auferre. Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and 

 largely discourseth concerning governments, that the way to 

 establish and preserve them is to reduce them ad principiaa, 

 rule in religion and nature, as well as in civil administration. 

 Was not the Persian magic a reduction or correspondence 



