ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 137 



et artem saepe vincit."* And therefore, if it may be said with 

 regard to men, that continued labor and cogent necessity mas- 

 ter everything, 



" Labor omnia vincit 



Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas;" k 



so it may be asked with regard to brutes, who taught them in- 

 stinct, 



" Quis expedivit Psittaco suum Xalpt ?" t 



Who taught the raven, in a drought, to drop pebbles into a hol- 

 low tree, where she chanced to spy water, that the water might 

 rise for her to drink ? Who taught the bee to sail through the 

 vast ocean of air, to distant fields, and find the way back to her 

 hive ?* Who taught the ant to gnaw every grain of corn that 

 she hoards, to prevent its sprouting ? And if we observe in Vir- 

 gil the word extundere, which implies difficulty, and the word 

 paulatim, which imports slowness, this brings us back to the 

 case of the Egyptian gods ; since men have hitherto made little 

 use of their rational faculties, and none at all of art, in the inves- 

 tigation of things. 



And this assertion, if carefully attended to, is proved from 

 the form of logical induction, for finding and examining the 

 principles of the sciences ; which form being absolutely defec- 

 tive and insufficient, is so far from perfecting nature, that it per- 

 verts and distorts her. For whoever attentively observes how 

 the ethereal dew of the sciences, like that of which the poet 



speaks, 



" Aerii mellis coelestia dona," / 



is gathered (the sciences being extracted from particular exam- 

 ples, whether natural or artificial, as from so many flowers), will 

 find that the mind of its own natural motion makes a better in- 

 duction than that described by logicians. From a bare enu- 

 meration of particulars in the logical manner, where there is no 

 contradictory instance, follows a false conclusion; nor does 

 such an induction infer anything more than probable conjec- 

 ture. For who will undertake, when the particulars of a man's 

 own knowledge or memory appear only on one side, that some- 

 thing directly opposite shall not lie concealed on the other ? 

 as if Samuel should have taken up with the sons of Jesse 

 brought before him, and not have sought David, who was in the 

 field. And to say the truth, as this form of induction is so gross 



