II.1 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. M7 



mide of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts, but commonly with 

 a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar. 



For it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning, to descend to 

 inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such 

 a* may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtiltics ; which hu 

 mour of vain and supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato ; 

 where he brings in Hippias, a vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates, 

 a true and unfeigned inquisitor of truth ; where the subject being 

 touching beauty, Socrates, after his wandering manner of inductions, 

 put first an example of a fair virgin, and then of a fair horse, and then 

 of a fair pot well glazed, whereat Hippias was offended ; and said, 

 &quot; More than for courtesy s sake, he did not think much to dispute with 

 any that did allcdge such base and sordid instances : whereunto 

 Socrates answered, You have reason, and it becomes you well, being a 

 man so trim in your vestments,&quot; etc. And so goeth on in an irony. 



But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the 

 securest information ; as may be well expressed in the tale so common 

 of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars fell into 

 the water ; for if he had looked down he might have seen the stars in 

 the water, but looking aloft, he could not see the water in the stars. 

 So it comcth often to pass, that mean and small things discover great, 

 better than great can discover the small ; and therefore Aristotle 

 notcth well, &quot; that the nature of every thing is best seen in his smallest 

 portions.&quot; And for that cause he inquireth the nature of a common 

 wealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and wife, 

 parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage. 

 Even so likewise the nature of this great city of the world, and the 

 policy thereof, must be first sought in mean concordances and small 

 portions. So we see how that secret of nature, of the turning of iron, 

 touched with the loadstone, towards the north was found out in needles 

 of iron, not in bars of iron. 



But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of History Mechani 

 cal is, of all others, the most radical and fundamental towards natural 

 philosophy ; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume 

 oi subtile, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall be 

 operative to the endowment and benefit of man s life : for it will not 

 oi^.ly minister and suggest for the present many ingenious practices in 

 all trades, by a connexion and transferring of the observations of one 

 art to the use of another, when the experiences of several mysteries 

 shall fall under the consideration of one man s mind ; but farther, it 

 will ^ivc a more true and real illumination concerning causes and 

 axioms than is hitherto attained. 



For like as a man s disposition is never well known till he be 

 crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and 

 held fast ; so the passages and variations of nature cannot appear so 

 fully in the liberty of nature, as in the trials and vexations of art. 



FOR Civil History, it is of three kinds, not unfitly to be compared 

 with the three kinds of pictures or images : for of pictures or images, 



