ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 95 



We form our division of natural history upon the three 

 fold state and condition of nature; which is, 1, either free, 

 proceeding in her ordinary course, without molestation; or 

 2, obstructed by some stubborn and less common matters, 

 and thence put out of her course, as in the production of 

 monsters ; or 3, bound and wrought upon by human means, 

 for the production of things artificial. Let all natural his 

 tory, therefore, be divided into the history of generations, 

 praeter-generations, and arts ; the first to consider nature at 

 liberty; the second, nature in her errors; and the third, na 

 ture in constraint. 



The history of arts should the rather make a species of 

 natural history, because of the prevalent opinion, as if art 

 were a different thing from nature, and things natural dif 

 ferent from things artificial: whence many writers of nat 

 ural history think they perform notably, if they give us the 

 history of animals, plants, or minerals, without a word of 

 the mechanic arts. A further mischief is to have art es 

 teemed no more than an assistant to nature, so as to help 

 her forward, correct or set her free, and not to bend, 

 change, and radically affect her; whence an untimely de 

 spair has crept upon mankind; who should rather be as 

 sured that artificial things differ not from natural in form 

 or essence, but only in the efficient: for man has no power 

 over nature in anything but motion, whereby he either puts 

 bodies together, or separates them. And therefore, so far as 

 natural bodies may be separated or conjoined, man may do 

 anything. Nor matters it, if things are put in order for 

 producing effects, whether it be done by human means 

 or otherwise. Gold is sometimes purged by the fire, and 

 sometimes found naturally pure: the rainbow is produced 

 after a natural way, in a cloud above ; or made artificially, 

 by the sprinkling of water below. As nature, therefore, 

 governs all things by means 1, of her general course; 2, 

 her excursion ; and 3, by means of human assistance ; these 

 three parts must be received into natural history, as in some 

 measure they are by Pliny. 



