ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 45 



ity : " nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam."* I, indeed, 

 foresee that many of the defects and omissions I shall point out 

 will be much censured, some as being already completed, and 

 others as too difficult to be effected. For the first objection I 

 must refer to the details of my subject ; with regard to the last, 

 I take it for granted that those works are possible which may 

 be accomplished by some person, though not by every one ; 

 which may be done by many, though not by one ; which may be 

 completed in the succession of ages, though not within the hour- 

 glass of one man's life ; and which may be reached by public 

 effort, though not by private endeavor. Nevertheless, if any 

 man prefer the sentence of Solomon " Dicit piger, Leo est in 

 via;"* to that of Virgil, " possunt, quia posse videntur " I 

 shall be content to have my labors received but as the better 

 kind of wishes. For as it requires some knowledge to ask an 

 apposite question, he also cannot be deemed foolish who enter- 

 tains sensible desires. 



The justest division of human learning is that derived from 

 the three different faculties of the soul, the seat of learning: 

 history being relative to the memory, poetry to the imagination, 

 and philosophy to the reason. By poetry we understand no 

 more than feigned history or fable, without regard at present 

 to the poetical style. History is properly concerned about in- 

 dividuals, circumscribed by time and place; so likewise is 

 poetry, with this difference, that its individuals are feigned, with 

 a resemblance to true history, yet like painting, so as frequently 

 to exceed it. But philosophy, forsaking individuals, fixes upon 

 notions abstracted from them, and is employed in compounding 

 and separating these notions according to the laws of nature 

 and the evidence of things themselves. 



Any one will easily perceive the justness of this division that 

 recurs to the origin of our ideas. Individuals first strike the 

 sense, which is as it were the port or entrance of the under- 

 standing. Then the understanding ruminates upon these 

 images or impressions received from the sense, either simply 

 reviewing them, or wantonly counterfeiting and imitating them, 

 or forming them into certain classes by composition or separa- 

 tion. Thus it is clearly manifest that history, poetry, and phi- 

 losophy flow from the three distinct fountains of the mind, viz., 

 the memory, the imagination, ai,d the reason ; without any pos- 

 r il)ility of increasing their number. For history and experi- 



