ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 61 



and using other devices to cloak imposture. Yet alchemy 

 may be compared to the man who told his sons, he had left 

 them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they, 

 by digging, found no gold, but by turning up the mould 

 about the roots of the vines, procured a plentiful vintage. 

 So the search and endeavors to make gold have brought 

 many useful inventions and instructive experiments to 

 light. 61 



Credulity in respect of certain authors, and making 

 them dictators instead of consuls, is a principal cause 

 that the sciences are no further advanced. For hence, 

 though in mechanical arts, the first inventor falls short, 

 time adds perfection; while in the sciences, the first au 

 thor goes furthest, and time only abates or corrupts. Thus 

 artillery, sailing, and printing, were grossly managed at the 

 first, but received improvement by time; while the philos 

 ophy and the sciences of Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, Hip 

 pocrates, Euclid, and Archimedes, flourished most in the 

 original authors, and degenerated with time. The reason 

 is, that in the mechanic arts, the capacities and industry 

 of many are collected together; whereas in sciences, the 

 capacities and industry of many have been spent upon 

 the invention of some one man, who has commonly been 

 thereby rather obscured than illustrated. For as water as 

 cends no higher than the level of the first spring, so knowl 

 edge derived from Aristotle will at most rise no higher again 

 than the knowledge of Aristotle. And therefore, though a 

 scholar must have faith in his master, yet a man well in 

 structed must judge for himself; for learners owe to their 



61 As among the Egyptians, the Chinese, and the Arabians, if their histories, 

 are to be credited. In later times, they make copper out of iron, at Newsohl, 

 in Germany. See Agricola &quot;De Re Metallica,&quot; Morhof, Fr. Hoffman, etc. 

 &quot;While Brand of Hamburg was working upon urine, in order to find the phi 

 losopher s stone, he stumbled upon that called Kunckel s burning phosphorus, 

 in the year 1669. See Mem. de 1 Acad. Royal, des Sciences, an 1692. And 

 M. Homberg operating upon human excrement, for an oil to convert quicksilver 

 into silver, accidentally produced what we now call the black phosphorus, a 

 powder which readily takes fire and burns like a coal in the open air. See 

 Mem. de 1 Acad. an 1711. To give all the instances of this kind were almost 

 endless. Ed. 



