320 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



secretary of state should sort his papers, it is like in his 

 study or general cabinet he would sort together things of 

 a nature, as treaties, instructions, etc. but in his boxes or 

 particular cabinet he would sort together those that he 

 were like to use together, though of several natures ; so in 

 this general cabinet of knowledge it was necessary for me 

 to follow the divisions of the nature of things ; whereas if 

 myself had been to handle any particular knowledge, I 

 would have respected the divisions fittest for use. The 

 other, because the bringing in of the deficiences did by 

 consequence alter the partitions of the rest : for let the 

 knowledge extant (for demonstration sake) be fifteen ; let 

 the knowledge with the deficiences be twenty ; the parts of 

 fifteen are not the parts of twenty ; for the parts of fifteen 

 are three and five ; the parts of twenty are two, four, five, 

 and ten. So as these things are without contradiction, 

 and could not otherwise be. 



We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth 

 of the Appetite and Will of Man ; whereof Solomon saith, 

 Ante omnia, fili, custodi cor tuum; nam inde procedunt actiones 

 vitae. In the handling of this science, those which have 

 written seem to me to have done as if a man that pro- 

 fesseth to teach to write did only exhibit fair copies of 

 alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts 

 or directions for the carriage of the hand and framing of 

 the letters. So have they made good and fair exemplars 

 and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of 

 Good, Virtue, Duty, Felicity; propounding them well 

 described as the true objects and scopes of man's will and 

 desires ; but how to attain these excellent marks, and how 

 to frame and subdue the will of man to become true and 

 conformable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether, 

 or slightly and unprofitably. For it is not the disputing 

 that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and 

 not by nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits 

 are won by doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort 

 by reward and punishment, and the like scattered glances 

 and touches, that can excuse the absence of this part. 



