24 BACON 



to the use and benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both 

 philosophies, to separate and reject vain and empty speculations, 

 and preserve and increase all that is solid and fruitful. 



We have now laid open by a kind of dissection the chief of 

 those peccant humors which have not only retarded the advance- 

 ment of learning, but tended to its traducement. If we have 

 cut too deeply, it must be remembered, " Fidelia vulnera 

 amantis, dolosa oscula malignantis." o However, we will gain 

 credit for our commendations, as we have been severe in our 

 censures. It is, notwithstanding, far from our purpose to enter 

 into fulsome laudations of learning, or to make a hymn to the 

 muses, though we are of opinion that it is long since their rites 

 were celebrated; but our intent is to balance the dignity of 

 knowledge in the scale with other things, and to estimate their 

 true values according to universal testimony. 



Next, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in its 

 original ; that is, in the attributes and acts of God, so far as they 

 are revealed to man, and may be observed with sobriety. But 

 here we are not to seek it by the name of learning ; for all learn- 

 ing is knowledge acquired, but all knowledge in God is original : 

 we must, therefore, look for it under the name of wisdom or 

 sapience, as the Scriptures call it. 



In the work of creation we see a double emanation of virtue 

 from God ; the one relating more properly to power, the other 

 to wisdom ; the one expressed in making the matter, and the 

 other in disposing the form. This being supposed, we may 

 observe that, for anything mentioned in the history of the 

 creation, the confused mass of the heavens and earth was made 

 in a moment ; whereas the order and disposition of it was the 

 work of six days : such a mark of difference seems put betwixt 

 the works of power and the works of wisdom ; whence, it is not 

 written that God said, " Let there be heaven and earth," as it is 

 of the subsequent works ; but actually, that " God made heaven 

 and earth''; the one carrying the style of a manufacture, the 

 other that of a law, decree, or counsel. 



To proceed from God to spirits. We find, as far as credit 

 may be given to the celestial hierarchy of the supposed Dio- 

 nysius the Areopagite, the first place is given to the angels 

 of love, termed Seraphim ; the second, to the angels of light, 

 called Cherubim ; and the third and following places to thrones, 

 principalities, and the rest, which are all angels of power and 



