The First Book 35 



enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most 

 times for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give 

 a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use 

 of men : as if there were sought in knowledge a couch where- 

 upon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a tarrasse, for 

 a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with 

 a fair prospect ; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise 

 itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and 

 contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich 

 storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the rehef of 

 man's estate. But this is that which will indeed dignify 

 and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be 

 more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together 

 than they have been; a conjunction hke unto that of the 

 two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contem- 

 plation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action : 

 howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and action, 

 that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge 

 to lucre and profession; for I am not ignorant how much 

 that diverteth and interrupt eth the prosecution and advance- 

 ment of knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before 

 Atalanta, which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take 

 up, the race is hindered; 



Declinat cursus, aunimque volubile tollit.' 



Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, 

 to call philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the 

 earth ; ^ that is, to leave natural philosophy aside, and to 

 apply knowledge only to manners and policy. But as both 

 heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and 

 benefit of man ; so the end ought to be, from both philo- 

 sophies to separate and reject vain speculations, and what- 

 soever is empty and void, and to preserve and augment 

 whatsoever is solid and fruitful: that knowledge may not 

 be, as a curtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond- 

 woman, to acquire and gain to her master's use ; but as a 

 spouse, for generation, fruit, and comfort. ) 



12. Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissec- 

 tion, those peccant humours, (the principal of them,) which 

 hath ^ not only given impediment to the proficience of 



' Ovid, Metam. x. 667. • Cic. Tusc. Disp. v. 4, 10. 



' Iq all editions hath. For in Bacon's time the verb singular wa» 



