L16 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



Into causes hath to make a good impression, had ready framed 

 a number of prefaces for orations and speeches. All which 

 authorities and precedents may overweigh Aristotle s opinion, 

 that would have us change a rich wardrobe for a pair of 

 shears. 



(8) But the nature of the collection of this provision or pre 

 paratory store, though it be common both to logic and rhetoric, 

 yet having made an entry of it here, where it came first to be 

 spoken of, I think fit to refer over the further handling of it 

 to rhetoric. 



(9) The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, 

 doth assign and direct us to certain marks, or places, which 

 may excite our mind to return and produce such knowledge as 

 it hath formerly collected, to the end we may make use 

 thereof. Neither is this use (truly taken) only to furnish ar 

 gument to dispute probably with others, but likewise to 

 minister unto our judgment to conclude aright within our 

 selves. Neither may these places serve only to apprompt our 

 invention, but also to direct our inquiry. For a faculty of 

 wise interrogating is half a knowledge. For as Plato saith, 

 &quot;Whosoever seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for in a 

 general notion ; else how shall he know it when he hath found 

 it ? &quot; And, therefore, the larger your anticipation is, the more 

 direct and compendious is your search. But the same places 

 which will help us what to produce of that which we know 

 already, will also help us, if a man of experience were before 

 us, what questions to ask ; or, if we have books and authors to 

 instruct us, what points to search and revolve ; so as I cannot 

 report that this part of invention, which is that which the 

 schools call topics, is deficient. 



(10) Nevertheless, topics are of two sorts, general and 

 special. The general we have spoken to ; but the par 

 ticular hath been touched by some, but rejected generally 

 as inartificial and variable. But leaving the humour which 

 hath reigned too much in the schools (which is, to be vainly 

 subtle in a few things which are within their command, and 

 to reject the rest), I do receive particular topics ; that is, places 

 or directions of invention and inquiry in every particular 

 knowledge, as things of great use, being mixtures of logic with 

 the matter of sciences. For in these it holdeth ars inveniendi 

 adolescit cum inventis ; for as in going of a way, we do not 

 only gain that part of the way which is passed, but we gain 

 the better sight of that part of the way which remaineth, so 

 every degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light to that 

 which followeth ; which light, if we strengthen by drawing it 



