98 ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. [DOOR. II. 



solemn sacred thing, which religion itself generally makes 

 use of, to preserve an intercourse between divine and human 

 things ; yet this, also, is corrupted by a levity and indulgence 

 of genius towards allegory. Its use is ambiguous, and made 

 to serve contrary purposes ; for it envelops as well as illus 

 trates, the first seeming to endeavour at an art of conceal 

 ment, and the other at a method of instructing, much used 

 by the ancients. For when the discoveries and conclusions 

 of reason, though now common, were new, and first known, 

 the human capacity could scarce admit them in their subtile 

 state, or till they were brought nearer to sense, by such kind 

 of imagery and examples ; whence ancient times are full of 

 their fables, their allegories, and their similes. From this 

 source arise the symbol of Pythagoras, the enigmas of 

 Sphinx, and the fables of ^Esop. Nay, the apophthegms of 

 the ancient sages were usually demonstrated by similitudes. 

 And as hieroglyphics preceded letters, so parables preceded 

 arguments ; and the force of parables ever was and will bo 

 great, as being clearer than arguments, and more apposite 

 than real examples. 



The other use of allegorical poetry is to envelop things, 

 whose dignity deserves a veil ; as when the secrets and 

 mysteries of religion, policy, and philosophy, are wrapped up 

 in fables and parables. But though some may doubt whether 

 there be any mystical sense concealed in the ancient fables 

 of the poets, we cannot but think there is a latent mystery 

 intended in some of them : for we do not, therefore, judge 

 contemptibly of them, because they are commonly left to 

 children and grammarians ; but as the writings that relate 

 these fables are, next to the sacred ones, the most ancient, 

 and the fables themselves much older still, being not deli 

 vered as the inventions of the writers, but as things before 

 believed and received, they appear like a soft whisper from 

 the traditions of more ancient nations, conveyed through the 

 flutes of the Grecians. But all hitherto attempted towards 

 the interpretation of these parables proving unsatisfactory to 

 us, as having proceeded from men of but common-placa 

 learning, we set down the philosophy of ancient fables as the 

 only deficiency in poetry. But lest any person should ima 

 gine that any of these deficiencies are rather notional than 

 teal, and that we, like augurs, only measure countr^ in 



