ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 93 



will be much censured, some as being already completed, 

 and others as too difficult to be effected. For the first ob 

 jection I must refer to the details of my subject; with re 

 gard to the last, I take it for granted that those works are 

 possible which may be accomplished by some person, though 

 not by every one; which may be done by many, though not 

 by one; which may be completed in the succession of ages, 

 though not within the hour-glass of one man s life; and 

 which may be reached by public effort, though not by private 

 endeavor. Nevertheless, if any man prefer the sentence of 

 Solomon &quot;Dicit piger, Leo est in via&quot;; 11 to that of Virgil, 

 &quot;possunt, quia posse videntur&quot; 12 I shall be content to have 

 my labors received but as the better kind of wishes. For as 

 it requires some knowledge to ask an apposite question, he 

 also cannot be deemed foolish who entertains sensible desires. 



The justest division of human learning is that derived 

 from the three different faculties of the soul, the seat of t. 

 learning: history being relative to the memory, poetry to 

 the imagination, and philosophy to the reason. By poetry 

 we understand no more than feigned history or fable, with 

 out regard at present to the poetical style. History is prop- ^s 

 erly concerned about individuals, circumscribed by time and / 

 place; so likewise is poetry, with this difference, that its in- \^. 

 dividuals are feigned, with a resemblance to true history, I 

 yet like painting, so as frequently to exceed it. But phi- I 

 losophy, forsaking individuals, fixes upon notions abstracted \ 

 from them, and is employed in compounding and separat- ) 

 ing these notions according to the laws of nature and the / 

 evidence of things themselves. 



Any one will easily perceive the justness of this divi 

 sion that recurs to the origin of our ideas. Individuals 

 first strike the sense, which is as it were the port or en 

 trance of the understanding. Then the understanding 

 ruminates upon these images or impressions received 

 from the sense, either simply reviewing them, or wan- 



11 Prov. xxii. 13. 12 Virg. MK. v. 231. 



