ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



fasten the assertion of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient 

 poets ; but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but 

 pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion. 



Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself, 

 notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by the latter schools 

 of the Grecians, yet I should without any difficulty pronounce, that his 

 fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning ; but what they 

 might have, upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm, for 

 he was not the inventor of many of them. 



In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can report no defi- 

 cience. For being as a plant that comcth of the lust of the earth, with 

 out a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than 

 any other kind : but to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the ex 

 pression of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are 

 beholden to poets more than to the philosopher s works ; and for wit and 

 eloquence, not much less than to orators and harangues. But it is not good 

 to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now pass on to the judicial 

 place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and view with 

 more reverence and attention. 



THE knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from 

 above, and some springing from beneath ; the one informed by the 

 light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation. 



The light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind, and the 

 reports of the senses ; for as for knowledge which man receiveth by 

 teaching, it is cumulative, and not original, as in a water, that, besides 

 his own spring-head, is fed with other springs and streams. So then, 

 according to these two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge 

 is first of all divided into Divinity and Philosophy. 



In philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto 

 God, or are circumferred unto nature, or are reflected or reverted upon 

 himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three know 

 ledges, Divine philosophy, Natural philosophy, and Human philosophy 

 or humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple 

 character, of the power of God, the difference of nature, and the use 

 of man. But because the distributions and partitions of knowledge 

 are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a 

 point ; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath 

 a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it 

 come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs ; therefore 

 it is good, before we enter into the former distribution, to erect and 

 constitute one universal science, by the name of Philosophia prima, 

 primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before 

 we come where the ways part and divide themselves ; which science, 

 whether I should report as deficient or no, I stand doubtful. 



For I find a certain rhapsody of natural theology, and of divers 

 parts of logic ; and of that other part of natural philosophy, which con- 



eth the principles ; and of that other part of natural philosophy, 

 which concerncth the soul or spirit ; all these strangely commixed and 



