LETTER TO BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. CCclxXXl 



work, such as beyond which I could not expect at the first 

 in so abstruse an argument, yet, nevertheless, I have just 

 cause to doubt that it flies too high over men s heads. I 

 have a purpose, therefore, though I break the order of time, 

 to draw it down to the sense by some patterns of a natural 

 story and inquisition. And again, for that my book of 

 Advancement of Learning may be some preparative or key 

 for the better opening of the Instauration, because it 

 exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old ; whereas the 

 Instauration gives the new unmixed, otherwise than with 

 some little aspersion of the old, for taste s sake, I have 

 thought good to procure a translation of that book into 

 the general language, not without great and ample addi 

 tions and enrichment thereof, especially in the second 

 book, which handleth the partition of sciences, in such 

 sort, as I hold it may serve in lieu of the first part of the 

 Instauration, and acquit my promise in that part. 



&quot; Again, because I cannot altogether desert the civil 

 person that I have born, which if I should forget, enough 

 would remember. I have also entered into a work touching 

 laws, propounding a character of justice in a middle term, 

 between the speculative and reverend discourses of phi 

 losophers and the writings of lawyers, which are tied, and 

 obnoxious to their particular laws ; and although it be 

 true that I had a purpose to make a particular digest, or 

 recompilement of the laws of mine own nation, yet because 

 it is a work of assistance, and that I cannot master by my 

 own forces and pen, I have laid it aside. Now having in 

 the work of my Instauration had in contemplation the 

 general good of men in their very being, and the dowries 

 of nature ; and in my work of laws, the general good of 

 men likewise in society, and the dowries of government : I 

 thought in duty I owed somewhat to my country, which I 

 ever loved ; insomuch, as although my place hath been far 



