324 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



is not hitherto reduced to a body of doctrine, which we are 

 obliged to note as deficient; and shall therefore give some 

 sketch for supplying it. 



And first, as in all cases of practice, we must here dis 

 tinguish the things in our power, and those that are not: 

 for the one may be altered, while the other can only be ap 

 plied. Thus the farmer has no command over the nature 

 of the soil, or the seasons of the year; nor the physician 

 over the constitution of the patient, or the variety of acci 

 dents. In the cultivation of the mind, and the cure of its 

 diseases, there are three things to be considered; viz., 1, the 

 different dispositions; 2, the affections; and 3, the remedies: 

 answering in physic to the constitution, the distemper, and 

 the medicines. And of these three, only the last is in our 

 power. Yet we ought as carefully to inquire into the things 

 that are not in our power, as into those that are; because 

 a clear and exact knowledge thereof is to be made the 

 foundation of the doctrine of remedies, in order to their 

 more commodious and successful application. For clothes 

 cannot be made to fit, unless measure of the body be first 

 taken. 



The first article, therefore, of the culture of the mind, 

 will regard the different natures or dispositions of men. 

 But here we speak not of the vulgar propensities to virtues 

 and vices, or perturbations and passions, but of such as are 

 more internal and radical. And I cannot sometimes but 

 wonder that this particular should be so generally neglected 

 by the writers both of morality and politics; whereas it 

 might afford great light to both these sciences. In astro 

 logical traditions, the natures and dispositions of men are 

 tolerably distinguished according to the influences of the 

 planets; whence some are said to be by nature formed for 

 contemplation, others for politics, others for war, etc. So, 

 likewise, among the poets of all kinds, we everywhere find 

 characters of natures, though commonly drawn with excess, 

 and exceeding the limits of nature. And this subject of the 

 different characters of dispositions is one of those things 



