II.] ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 167 



frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement, than in them 

 selves : it is as far differing in truth of nature from such a knowledge 

 as we require, as the story of King Arthur of Britain, or Hugh of 

 Bourdeaux, differs from Caesar s commentaries in truth of story. For 

 it is manifest that Cicsar did greater things de vero, than those imagi 

 nary heroes were feigned to do ; but he did them not in that fabulous 

 manner. Of this kind of learning the fable of Ixion was a figure, 

 who designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess of power ; and instead of her 

 had copulation with a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs 

 and chimeras. 



So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, 

 instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes 

 and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes. And therefore we may 

 note in these sciences, which hold so much of imagination and belief, 

 as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy, astrology, and the like, that, 

 in their propositions, the description of the means is ever more 

 monstrous than t nc pretence or end. 



For it is a thing more probable, that he that knoweth well the 

 natures of weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect of the 

 hammer, of volatile and fixed in respect of the tire, and the rest, may 

 superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such 

 mechanic as longcth to the production of the natures afore rehearsed, 

 Jian that some grains of the medicine projected should in a few 

 moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver, or other material, into gold : 

 so it is more probable, that he, that knoweth the nature of arefaction, 

 the nature of assimilation, of nourishment to the thing nourished, 

 *he manner of increase and clearing of spirits, the manner of the 

 depredations which spirits make upon the humours and solid parts ; 

 shall, by ambages of diets, bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, 

 and the like, prolong life, or restore some degree of youth or vivacity, 

 than that it can be done with the use of a few drops, or scruples of a 

 liquor or receipt. To conclude therefore, the true natural magic, 

 which is that great liberty and latitude of operation which dcpcndeth 

 upon the knowledge of forms, I may report deficient, as the relative 

 thereof is ; to which part, if we be serious, and incline not to vanities 

 and plausible discourse, besides the deriving and deducing the opera 

 tions themselves from metaphysic, tncre are pertinent two points of 

 much purpose, the one by way of preparation, the other by way of 

 caution : the first is, that there be made a kalcndar resembling an 

 inventory of the estate of man, containing all the inventions, being the 

 works or fruits of nature or art, which arc now extant, and whereof 

 man is already possessed, out of which doth naturally result a notc^ 

 what things are yet held impossible or not invented : which kalendar 

 will be the more artificial and serviceable, if to every reputed impossi 

 bility you add what thing is extant, which comcth the nearest in degree 

 to that impossibility ; to the end, that by these optatives and poten 

 tials man s inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction o! 

 woiks from the speculation of causes ; and secondly, that those experi 

 ments be net only esteemed which have an immediate and present 



