212 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



the fleshpots: thus generally those sciences relish best that 

 are subjective, and nearer related to flesh and blood; as civil 

 history, morality, politics, whereon men s affections, praises, 

 and fortunes turn, and are employed, while the other dry 

 light offends, and dries up the soft and humid capacities of 

 most men. But if we would rate things according to their 

 real worth, the rational sciences are the keys to all the rest; 

 for as the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the 

 mind the form of forms, so the rational sciences are to be 

 esteemed the art of arts. Nor do they direct only, but also 

 strengthen and confirm; as the use and habit of shooting 

 not only enables one to shoot nearer the mark, but likewise 

 to draw a stronger bow. 



The logical arts are four, being divided according to the 

 ends they lead to: for in rational knowledge man endeavors, 

 1, either to find what he seeks; 2, to judge of what he finds; 

 3, to retain what he has approved ; or 4, to deliver what he 

 has retained: whence there are as many rational arts; viz., 

 1, the art of inquiry or invention; 2, the art of examination 

 or judging; 3, the art of custody or memory; and 4, the art 

 of elocution or delivery. 



CHAPTER II 



I Division of Invention into the Invention of Arts and Arguments. The 

 former, though the more important of them, is wanting. Division of 

 the Invention of Arts into Literate (Instructed) Experience and a New 

 Method (Novum Organum). An Illustration of Literate Experience. 



INVENTION is of two very different kinds: the one 

 of arts and sciences, the other of arguments and dis 

 course. The former I set down as absolutely deficient. 

 And this deficiency appears like that, when, in taking the 

 inventory of an estate, there is set down, in cash, nothing: 

 for as ready money will purchase all other commodities, so 

 this art, if extant, would procure all other arts. And as the 

 immense regions of the West Indies had never been dis- 



