II.] ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 15? 



confused : but being examined, is scemcth to me rather a depredation 

 of other sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms, 

 than anything solid or substantive of itself. 



Nevertheless I cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is current, 

 that the same things are handled but in several respects. As for 

 example, that logic considcrcth of many things as they are in notion ; 

 and this philosophy, as they arc in nature ; the one in appearance, the 

 other in existence : but I find this difference better made than pursued. 

 For if they had considered quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest 

 of those external characters of things, as philosophers, and in nature ; 

 their inquiries must of force have been of a far other kind than they arc. 



For doth any of them, in handling quantity, speak of the force of 

 union, how, and how far it multiplicth virtue? Doth any give the 

 reason, why some things in nature are so common and in so great 

 mass, and others so rare, and in so small quantity? Doth any, in 

 handling similitude and diversity, assign the cause why iron should 

 not move to iron, which is more like, but move to the loadstone, which 

 is less like ? Why, in all diversities of things, there should be certain 

 participles in nature, which are almost ambiguous, to which kind they 

 should be referred ? But there is a mere and deep silence touching 

 the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in 

 nature ; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of 

 them, in speech or argument. 



Therefore because in a writing of this nature I avoid ail subtilty, 

 my meaning touching this original or universal philosophy is thus, in 

 :: plain and gross description by negative ; &quot; That it be a receptacle 

 for all such profitable observations and axioms, as fall not within the 

 compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are 

 more common and of a higher stage.&quot; 



Now that there are many of that kind, need not to be doubted. 

 For example : is not the rule, &quot; Si imuqualibus a_ qualia addas, omnia 

 crunt inicqualia,&quot; an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics? 

 And is there not a true coincidence between commutative and distri 

 butive justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion? Is not 

 that other rule, &quot;Quas in codem tcrtio conveniunt, et inter sc conve- 

 niunt/ a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent in logic, as 

 all syllogisms arc built upon it ? Is not the observation, &quot; Omnia 

 mutantur, nil interit,&quot; a contemplation in philosophy thus, that the 

 quantum of nature is eternal ? in natural theology thus ; that it 

 rcquireth the same omnipotence to make somewhat nothing, which 

 at the first made nothing somewhat ? according to the Scripture, 

 &quot; Didici quod omnia opera, qiue fecit Dcus, persevcrcnt in pcrpetuum; 

 non possumus cis quicquam addcrc, ncc auferre.&quot; 



.Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely discourscth 

 concerning governments, that the way to establish and preserve them, 

 is to reduce them ad principia; a rule in religion and nature, as well 

 as in civil administration ? Was not the Persian magic a reduction or 

 correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature, to the 

 rules and policy of governments ? Is not the precept of a musician, 



