292 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



it is likewise said of beasts, hiis psittaco docuit suum x"/ e ? 

 Who taught the raven in a drowth to throw pebbles into 

 an hollow tree where she spied water, that the water might 

 rise so as she might come to it ? Who taught the bee to sail 

 through such a vast sea of air, and to find the way from a 

 field in flower a great way off to her hive ? Who taught 

 the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her 

 hill, lest it should take root and grow? Add then the word 

 extundcrCy which importeth the extreme difficulty, and the 

 word paulatim, which importeth the extreme slowness, 

 and we are where we were, even amongst the Aegyptians' 

 gods ; there being little left to the faculty of Reason, and 

 nothing to the duty of Art, for matter of invention. 



Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and 

 which seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the Principles 

 of sciences may be pretended to be invented, and so the 

 middle propositions by derivation from the principles, 

 their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incom- 

 petent : wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the 

 duty of Art to perfect and exalt Nature ; but they con- 

 trariwise have wronged, abused, and traduced nature. For 

 he that shall attentively observe how the mind doth gather 

 this excellent dew of knowledge, like unto that which the 

 poet speaketh of, Aerei mellis coelestia dona, distilling and 

 contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial, as the 

 flowers of the field and garden, shall find that the mind of 

 herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much 

 better than they describe it. For to conclude upon an 

 enumeration of particulars without instance contradictory 

 is no conclusion, but a conjecture ; for who can assure (in 

 many subjects) upon those particulars which appear of a 

 side, that there are not other on the contrary side which 

 appear not ? As if Samuel should have rested upon those 

 sons of Issay which were brought before him, and failed of 

 David, which was in the field. And this form (to say truth) 

 is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so subtle as 

 have managed these things to have offered it to the world, 

 but that they hasted to their theories and dogmaticals, and 

 were imperious and scornful toward particulars; which 



