262 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential 

 forms or true differences : of which opinion we will take 

 this hold ; that the invention of Forms is of all other parts 

 of knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible 

 to be found. As for the possibility, they are ill discoverers 

 that think there is no land when they can see nothing but 

 sea. But it is manifest that Plato in his opinion of Ideas, 

 as one that had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, 

 did descry that forms were the true object of knowledge ; 

 but lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering of 

 forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not con- 

 fined and determined by matter ; and so turning his 

 opinion upon Theology, wherewith all his natural philo- 

 sophy is infected. But if any man shall keep a continual 

 watchful and severe eye upon action, operation, and the 

 use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice what 

 are the Forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and 

 important to the state of man. For as to the Forms of 

 substances Man only except, of whom it is said, Formavit 

 hominem de limo terrae et spiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum 

 vitae, and not as of all other creatures, Producant aquae, 

 producat terra, the Forms of Substances I say (as they are 

 now by compounding and transplanting multiplied) are 

 so perplexed, as they are not to be enquired ; no more 

 than it were either possible or to purpose to seek in 

 gross the forms of those sounds which make words, which 

 by composition and transposition of letters are infinite. 

 But on the other side, to enquire the form of those sounds 

 or voices which make simple letters is easily comprehen- 

 sible, and being known, induceth and manifesteth the forms 

 of all words, which consist and are compounded of them. 

 In the same manner to enquire the Form of a lion, of 

 an oak, of gold, nay of water, of air, is a vain pursuit : but 

 to enquire the Forms of sense, of voluntary motion, of 

 vegetation, of colours, of gravity and levity, of density, 

 of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other natures and 

 qualities, which like an alphabet are not many, and of 

 which the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures do 

 consist ; to enquire I say the true forms of these, is that 



