132 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



ment : art of custody or memory : and art of elocution 

 or tradition. 



XIII. 1. Invention is of two kinds much differing : 

 the one of arts and sciences, and the other of speech 

 and arguments. The former of these I do report 

 deficient ; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience 

 as if, in the making of an inventory touching the state 

 of a defunct, it should be set down that there is no 

 ready money. For as money will fetch all other com 

 modities, so this knowledge is that which should pur 

 chase all the rest. And like as the West Indies had never 

 been discovered if the use of the mariner s needle had not 

 been first discovered, though the one be vast regions, 

 and the other a small motion ; so it cannot be found 

 strange if sciences be no further discovered, if the art 

 itself of invention and discovery hath been passed over. 



2. That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my 

 judgement standeth plainly confessed ; for first, logic 

 doth not pretend to invent sciences, or the axioms of 

 sciences, but passeth it over with a cuique in sua arte 

 credendum. And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, 

 speaking of the empirical and dogmatical sects of 

 physicians, * That medicines and cures were first found 

 out, and then after the reasons and causes were dis 

 coursed ; and not the causes first found out, and by 

 light from them the medicines and cures discovered. 

 And Plato in his Theaetetus noteth well, That par 

 ticulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give 

 no sufficient direction : and that the pith of all sciences, 

 which maketh the artsman differ from the inexpert, is 

 in the middle propositions, which in every particular 

 knowledge are taken from tradition and experience. 

 And therefore we see, that they which discourse of the 

 inventions and originals of things refer them rather to 

 chance than to art, and rather to beasts, birds, fishes, 

 serpents, than to men. 



Dictamnum genetrix Cretaea carpit ab Ida, 

 Puberibus caulem foliis et flore comantem 

 Purpureo ; non ilia feris incognita capris 

 Gramina, cum tergo volucres haesere sagittae. 



