158 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet accord, 

 alike true in affection ? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide 

 from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric, of 

 deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a 

 stop in music, the same with the playing of light upon tho water ? 

 Splendct trcmulo sub lumine pontus. 



Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of reflec 

 tion, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or strait determined 

 and bounded ? Neither are these only similitudes, as men of narrow 

 observation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of nature, 

 treading or printing upon several subjects or matters. 



This science therefore, as I understand it, I may justly report as 

 deficient ; for I see sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling 

 some particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water 

 out of this well for their present use ; but the springhead thereof 

 seemcth to me not to have been visited ; being of so excellent use, 

 both for the disclosing of nature, and the abridgment of art. 



This science being therefore first placed as a common parent, like 

 unto Berecynthia, which had so much heavenly issue, &quot; Omnes cceli- 

 colas, omnes supera alta tenentes,&quot; we may return to the former 

 distribution of the three philosophies, divine, natural, and human. 



And as concerning divine philosophy, or Natural Theology, it is 

 that knowledge or rudiment of knowledge concerning God, which may 

 be obtained by the contemplation of his creatures ; which knowledge 

 may be truly termed divine, in respect of the object, and natural in 

 respect of the light. 



The bounds of this knowledge are, that it sufficed! to convince 

 atheism, but not to inform religion : and therefore there was never 

 miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of 

 nature might have led him to confess a God : but miracles have been 

 wrought to convert idolaters and the superstitious, because no light 

 of nature extended! to declare the will and true worship of God. 



For as all works do show forth the power and skill of the workman, 

 and not his image, so it is of the works of God, which do show the 

 omnipotcncy and wisdom of the Maker, but not his image: and there 

 fore therein the heathen opinion differed! from the sacred truth ; for 

 they supposed the world to be the image of God, and man to be an 

 extract. or compendious image of the world ; but the Scriptures never 

 vouchsafe to attribute to the world that honour, as to be the image 

 of God, but only the work of his hands; neither do they speak of any 

 other image of God, but man : wherefore by the contemplation of 

 nature, to induce and enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to 

 demonstrate his power, providence, and goodness, is an excellent 

 argument, and hath been excellently handled by divers. 



But on the other side, out of the contemplation of nature or ground 



of human knowledges, to induce any verity or persuasion concerning 



ie points of faith, is in my judgment not safe : &quot; Da fidei, quas fidei 



sum.&quot; For the heathen themselves conclude as much in that excellent 



