240 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and wife, 

 parent and child, master and servant, which are in every 

 cottage : even so likewise the nature of this great city of 

 the world and the policy thereof must be first sought in 

 mean concordances and small portions. So we see how 

 that secret of nature, of the turning of iron touched with 

 the loadstone towards the north, was found out in needles 

 of iron, not in bars of iron. 



But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of 

 History Mechanical is of all others the most radical and 

 fundamental towards natural philosophy ; such natural 

 philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtle, 

 sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall be 

 operative to the endowment and benefit of man's life : for 

 it will not only minister and suggest for the present many 

 ingenious practices in all trades, by a connexion and trans- 

 ferring of the observations of one art to the use of another, 

 when the experiences of several mysteries shall fall under 

 the consideration of one man's mind ; but further it will 

 give a more true and real illumination concerning causes and 

 axioms than is hitherto attained. For like as a man's dis- 

 position is never well known till he be crossed, nor Proteus 

 ever changed shapes till he was straitened and held fast ; so 

 the passages and variations of nature cannot appear so fully 

 in the liberty of nature, as in the trials and vexations of art. 



For Civil History, it is of three kinds ; not unfitly to 

 be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images. 

 For of pictures or images, we see some are unfinished, 

 some are perfect, and some are defaced. So- of histories 

 we may find three kinds, Memorials, Perfect Histories, 

 and Antiquities ; for Memorials are history unfinished, or 

 the first or rough draughts of history, and Antiquities are 

 history defaced, or some remnants of history which have 

 casually escaped the shipwrack of time. 



Memorials, or Preparatory History, are of two sorts ; 

 whereof the one may be termed Commentaries, and the 

 other Registers. Commentaries are they which set down a 

 continuance of the naked events and actions, without the 



