The 



First Book of Francis Bacon 



of the proficience and 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



DIVINE AND HUMAN 



To the King 



1. There were under the law, excellent King, both daily Sacri- 

 fices and free-will offerings; the one proceeding upon 

 ordinary Observance, the other upon a devout cheerfulness : 

 in like manner there belongeth to Kings from their servants 

 both tribute of duty and presents of affection. In the 

 former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting, accord- 

 ing to my most humble duty, and the good pleasure of your 

 Majesty's employments: for the latter, I thought it more 

 respective to make choice of some oblation, which might 

 rather refer to the propriety and excellency of your indivi- 

 dual person, than to the business of your crown and state. 



2. Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto 

 my mind, and beholding you, not with the inquisitive eye of 

 presumption, to discover that which the Scripture telleth 

 me is inscrutable,^ but with the observant eye of duty and 

 admiration ; leaving aside the other parts of your virtue and 

 fortune, I have been touched, yea, and possessed with an 

 extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which 

 the Philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of your 

 capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of 

 your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, and 

 the facility and order of your elocution : and I have often 

 thought that of all the persons hving that I have known, 

 your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of 

 Plato's opinion ,2 that all knowledge is but remembrance, 

 and that the mind of man by nature knoweth all things, and 

 hath but her own native and original notions ' (which by 

 the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the body 



* Prov. XXV. 3. *Phcsdo, i. 72. 



• The edition 1605 has motions, a word which misses the point — 

 editions 1629 and 1633 read notions. 



