290 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



according to the ends whereunto they are referred : for 

 man's labour is to invent that which is sought or pro- 

 pounded ; or to judge that which is invented ; or to retain 

 that which is judged ; or to deliver over that which is 

 retained. So as the arts must be four ; Art of Inquiry 

 or Invention : Art of Examination or Judgment ; Art 

 of Custody or Memory; and Art of Elocution or 

 Tradition. 



Invention is of two kinds, much differing ; the one, of 

 Arts and Sciences ; and the other, of Speech and Argu- 

 ments. The former of these I do report deficient ; which 

 seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if in the making 

 of an inventory touching the estate of a defunct it should 

 be set down that there is no ready money. For as money 

 will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is that 

 which should purchase all the rest. And like as the West- 

 Indies had never been discovered if the use of the mariner's 

 needle had not been first discovered, though the one be 

 vast regions and the other a small motion ; so it cannot 

 be found strange if sciences be no further discovered, if 

 the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed 

 over. 



That this part of knowledge is wanting,*to my judgment 

 standeth plainly confessed : for first, JLogic doth not 

 pretend to invent Sciences or the Axioms of Sciences, but 

 passeth it ovegwith a cuique in sua arte credendum. And 

 Celsus acknowledged! it gravely, speaking of the empirical 

 and dogmatical sects of physicians, f That medicines and 

 cures were first found out, and then after the reasons and 

 causes were discoursed ; and not the causes first found out, 

 and by light from them the medicines and cures discovered.' 

 And Plato in his Theaetetus noteth well, ' That particulars 

 are infinite, and the higher generalities give no sufficient 

 direction ; and! that the pith of all sciences, which maketh 

 the arts-man flifFer from the inexpert, is in the middle 

 propositions, which in every particular knowledge are 

 taken from tradition and experience.' I And therefore 

 we see that they which discourse of the inventions and 

 originals of things, refer them rather to chance than to 



