296 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



But the nature of the collection of this provision or 

 preparatory store, though it be common both to logic and 

 rhetoric, yet having made an entry of it here, where it 

 came first to be spoken of, I think fit to refer over the 

 further handling of it to Rhetoric. 



The other part of Invention, which I term Suggestion, 

 doth assign and direct us to certain marks or places, 

 which may excite our mind to return and produce such 

 knowledge as it hath formerly collected, to the end we 

 may make use thereof. Neither is this use (truly taken) 

 only to furnish argument to dispute probably with others, 

 but likewise to minister unto our judgment to conclude 

 aright within ourselves. Neither may these Places serve 

 only to apprompt our invention, but also to direct our 

 inquiry. For a faculty of wise interrogating is half a 

 knowledge. For as Plato saith, i Whosoever seeketh, 

 knoweth that which he seeketh for in a general notion ; 

 else how shall he know it when he hath found it ? ' And 

 therefore the larger your Anticipation is, the more direct 

 and compendious is your search. But the same Places 

 which will help us what to produce of that which we know 

 already, will also help us, if a man of experience were 

 before us, what questions to ask ; or if we have books and 

 authors to instruct us, what points to search and revolve : 

 so as I cannot report that this part of invention, which 

 is that which the schools call Topics, is deficient. 



Nevertheless Topics are of two sorts, general and 

 special. The general we have spoken to; but the par- 

 ticular hath been touched by some, but rejected generally 

 as inartificial and variable. But leaving the humour which 

 hath reigned too much in the schools, (which is to be vainly 

 subtle in a few things which are within their command, 

 and to reject the rest,) I do receive particular Topics, 

 that is places or directions of invention and inquiry 

 in every particular knowledge, as things of great use; 

 being mixtures of Logic with the matter of sciences ; for 

 in these it holdeth, Ars inveniendi adolescit cum inventis, 

 for as in going of a way we do not only gain that 

 part of the way which is passed, but we gain the better 



