ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 19 



a belief of history and matter of fact, or else matter of art and 

 opinion. We see the inconvenience of the former in ecclesiasti- 

 cal history, which has too easily received and registered re- 

 lations of miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, monks, and 

 their relics, shrines, chapels, and images. So in natural history, 

 there has not been much judgment employed, as appears from 

 the writings of Pliny, Carban, Albertus, and many of the 

 Arabians ; which are full of fabulous matters : many of them not 

 only untried, but notoriously false, to the great discredit of 

 natural philosophy with grave and sober minds. But the pro- 

 duce and integrity of Aristotle are here worthy our observa- 

 tion, who, having compiled an exact history of animals, dashed 

 it very sparingly with fable or fiction, throwing all strange re- 

 ports which he thought worth recording in a book by them- 

 selves,* thus wisely intimating, that matter of truth which is 

 the basis of solid experience, philosophy, and the sciences, 

 should not be mixed with matter of doubtful credit ; and yet 

 that curiosities or prodigies, though seemingly incredible, are 

 not to be suppressed or denied the registering. 



Credulity in arts and opinions, is likewise of two kinds ; viz., 

 when men give too much belief to arts themselves, or to certain 

 authors in any art. The sciences that sway the imagination more 

 than the reason, are principally three; viz., astrology, natural 

 magic, and alchemy ; the ends of pretensions whereof are how- 

 ever noble. For astrology pretends to discover the influence of 

 the superior upon the inferior bodies ; natural magic pretends 

 to reduce natural philosophy from speculation to works; and 

 chemistry pretends to separate the dissimilar parts, incorporated 

 in natural mixtures, and to cleanse such bodies as are impure, 

 throw out the heterogeneous parts, and perfect such as are 

 immature. But the means supposed to produce these effects 

 are, both in theory and practice, full of error and vanity, and be- 

 sides, are seldom delivered with candor, but generally concealed 

 by artifice and enigmatical expressions, referring to tradition, 

 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 en- 

 deavors to make gold have brought many useful inventions and 

 instructive experiments to light. 



