33 8 BACON 



selves, and every species of assistance was abundantly supplied, 

 and the study of which was the principal occupation of the west- 

 ern European nations during the third epoch; the rather be- 

 cause literature flourished about the very time when controver- 

 sies concerning religion first began to bud forth. 2. In the 

 preceding age, during the second epoch (that of the Romans), 

 philosophical meditation and labor were chiefly occupied and 

 wasted in moral philosophy (the theology of the heathens) : be- 

 sides, the greatest minds in these times applied themselves to 

 civil affairs, on account of the magnitude of the Roman empire, 

 which required the labor of many. 3. The age during which 

 the natural philosophy appeared principally to flourish among 

 the Greeks, was but a short period, since in the more ancient 

 times the seven sages (with the exception of Thales) applied 

 themselves to moral philosophy and politics, and at a later pe- 

 riod, after Socrates had brought down philosophy from heaven 

 to earth, moral philosophy became more prevalent, and di- 

 verted men's attention from natural. Nay, the very period 

 during which physical inquiries flourished, was corrupted and 

 rendered useless by contradictions, and the ambition of' new 

 opinions. Since, therefore, during these three epochs, natural 

 philosophy has been materially neglected or impeded, it is not 

 at all surprising that men should have made but little progress 

 in it, seeing they were attending to an entirely different matter. 



80. Add to this that natural philosophy, especially of late, has 

 seldom gained exclusive possession of an individual free from 

 all other pursuits, even among those who have applied them- 

 selves to it, unless there may be an example or two of some 

 monk studying in his cell, or some nobleman in his villa. She 

 has rather been made a passage and bridge to other pursuits. 



Thus has this great mother of the sciences been degraded 

 most unworthily to the situation of a handmaid, and made to 

 wait upon medicine or mathematical operations, and to wash 

 the immature minds of youth, and imbue them with a first dye, 

 that they may afterwards be more ready to receive and retain 

 another. In the mean time, let no one expect any great prog- 

 ress in the sciences (especially their operative part), unless 

 natural philosophy be applied to particular sciences, and partic- 

 ular sciences again referred back to natural philosophy. For 

 want of this, astronomy, optics, music, many mechanical arts, 

 medicine itself, and (what perhaps is more wonderful) moral 

 and political philosophy, and the logical sciences have no depth, 

 but only glide over the surface and variety of things ; because 

 these sciences, when they have been once partitioned out and 

 established, are no longer nourished by natural philosophy, 

 which would have imparted fresh vigor and growth to them 

 from the sources and genuine contemplation of motion, rays, 



