116 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. [PAGES 



professing to contain an exhaustive exposition of a subject, as 

 opposed to the exposition of a subject in aphorisms, which are 

 professedly imperfect, and valuable rather as suggestions than as 

 dogmas. See Nov. Ory., 1, 86. 



1. 25. illustrate, for this form of the participle, cf. accumulate, 

 p. 16, 1. 15, demonstrate, p. 36, 1. 1, etc. 



1. 31. cease, used transitively. For an explanation of this 

 paragraph, see Bk. 2, pp. 31-3 and p. 40. Bacon frequently and 

 wisely emphasizes the danger of excessive specialization. The 

 world is so vast that we are obliged to study it in parts.^ The 

 specialization of inquiry is only an application of the principle of 

 what economists call the division of labour to intellectual industry. 

 But there are no absolute divisions in nature corresponding to 

 the divisions of the sciences. If, therefore, we study a subject 

 in isolation, we must remember that our conclusions will have to 

 be modified in virtue of the relation in which the subject really 

 stands to the rest of nature. Each science, in other words, gives 

 an imperfect view of its object. Thejirst philosophy of Bacon is 

 intended to correct the errors of specialized inquiry. It was to 

 determine the principles common to all or many sciences, i.e., it 

 was to show how nature works according to the same laws in 

 different spheres : and secondly it was to answer certain general 

 questions about nature which it is not the business of any special 

 science to solve. Cf. " All knowledge forms one whole, because 

 its subject-matter is one : for the universe in its length and 

 breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot separate 

 off portion from portion, and operation from operation, except by 

 mental abstraction .... Sciences are the result of that mental 

 abstraction, which I have spoken of, being the logical record 

 of this or that aspect of the whole subject-matter of knowledge. 

 As they all belong to one and the same circle of objects, they are 

 one and all connected together: as they are but aspects of things, 

 they are severally incomplete in their relation to the things 

 themselves, though complete in their own idea and for their own 

 respective purposes ; on both accounts they at once need and 

 subserve each other. And further, the comprehension of the 

 bearings of one science on another, and the use of each to each, 

 and the location and limitation and adjustment and due apprecia 

 tion of them all, one with another, this belongs, I conceive, to a 

 sort of science distinct from all of them, and in some sense a 

 science of sciences, which is my own conception of what is meant 

 by philosophy, in the true sense of the word, and of a philosophi 

 cal habit of mind." Cardinal Newman's Idea of a University, 

 Discourse iii. 4. 



1. 32. for no perfect discovery, etc. In the Latin translation 

 it is "Extensive views can be obtained only from towers, or high 

 places": and after the words " to a higher science," 1. 36, the 





