PREFACE 



TO THE 



DESCRIPT10 GLOBI INTELLECTUALIS. 



THIS tract, published by Gruter in 1653, must have 

 been written about 1612. This follows from what is 

 said of the new star in Cygnus, 1 which w^as first ob- 

 served in 1600. It is therefore intermediate in date 

 between the Advancement of Learning and the DeAug- 

 mentis ; and though on a larger scale than either, it is 

 to be referred to the same division of Bacon's writings. 

 The design of all three is the same, namely, a survey 

 of the existing state of knowledge. The commenda- 

 tion of learning which forms the first book of the other 

 two works being in this one omitted, it commences 

 with the tripartite division of knowledge which Bacon 

 founded on the corresponding division of the faculties 

 of man memory, imagination, and reason. History, 

 which corresponds to memory, is here as in the De 

 4 primarily divided into natural and civil, 

 whereas in the Advancement the primary division of his- 

 tory is quadripartite, literary and ecclesiastical history 

 being made co-ordinate with civil history, instead of 

 being as here subordinated to it. 



1 Stella nova in pectore Cygni . . jam per duodecim annos integros 

 dumvit. 



