276 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be 

 taught in easy instances, that the infant in the mother's 

 womb is compatible with the mother and yet separable; 

 and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his 

 servants and yet without subjection. As for the reciprocal 

 knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits and 

 passions of the mind upon the body, we see all wise 

 physicians in the prescriptions of their regiments to their 

 patients do ever consider accidentia animi, as of great force 

 to further or hinder remedies or recoveries ; and more 

 specially it is an inquiry of great depth and worth con- 

 cerning Imagination, how and how far it altereth the body 

 proper of the imaginant. For although it hath a manifest 

 power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of 

 power to help ; no more than a man can conclude, that 

 because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man 

 in health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able 

 suddenly to cure a man in sickness. But the inquisition 

 of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as Socrates 

 said, a Delian diver, being difficult and profound. But 

 unto all this knowledge de communi vinculo, of the concord- 

 ances between the mind and the body, that part of inquiry 

 is most necessary, which considereth of the seats and 

 domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take 

 and occupate in the organs of the body ; which knowledge 

 hath been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to 

 be much better enquired. For the opinion of Plato, who 

 placed the understanding in the brain, animosity (which he 

 did unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with pride) 

 in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the liver, 

 deserveth not to be despised ; but much less to be allowed. 

 So then we have constituted (as in our own wish and 

 advice) the inquiry, touching human nature entire, as a 

 just portion of knowledge to be handled apart. 



The knowledge that concerneth man's body is divided 

 as the good of man's body is divided, unto which it re- 

 ferreth. The good of man's body is of four kinds, Health, 

 Beauty, Strength, and Pleasure : so the knowledges are 

 Medicine, or art of Cure ; art of Decoration, which is 



