76 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



to the three parts of man s understanding, which is 

 the seat of learning : history to his memory, poesy to 

 his imagination, and philosophy to his reason. Divine 

 learning receive th the same distribution ; for the 

 spirit of man is the same, though the revelation of 

 oracle and sense be diverse. So as theology consisteth 

 also of history of the church ; of parables, which is 

 divine poesy ; and of holy doctrine or precept. For as 

 for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is 

 prophecy, it is but divine history ; which hath that 

 prerogative over human, as the narration may be before 

 the fact as well as after. 



2. History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary ; 



TT . whereof the three first I allow as extant, 



Literarum the fourfch l note as deficient. For no 

 man hath propounded to himself the 

 general state of learning to be described and represented 

 from age to age, as many have done the works of 

 nature, and the state civil and ecclesiastical ; without 

 which the history of the world seemeth to me to be 

 as the statua of Polyphemus with his eye out ; that 

 part being wanting which doth most show the spirit 

 and life of the person. And yet I am not ignorant that 

 in divers particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, 

 the mathematicians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers, 

 there are set down some small memorials of the schools, 

 authors, and books ; and so likewise some barren 

 relations touching the invention of arts or usages. 

 But a just story of learning, containing the antiquities 

 and originals of knowledges and their sects, their in 

 ventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations 

 and managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, 

 decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes 

 and occasions of them, and all other events concerning 

 learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may truly 

 affirm to be wanting. The use and end of which work 

 I do not so much design for curiosity or satisfaction 

 of those that are the lovers of learning, but chiefly for 

 a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in few 

 words, that it will make learned men wise in the use 



