II.] ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 181 



manna ; which though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and 

 comfortable. So generally men taste well knowledges that are 

 drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about the 

 which men s affections, praises, fortunes, do turn and are conversant ; 

 but this same &quot;lumen siccum&quot; doth parch and offend most men s 

 watery and soft natures. But to speak truly of things as they arc in 

 worth, &quot;rational knowledges&quot; are the keys of all other arts; for as 

 Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, &quot; that the hand is the instrument 

 of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms ;&quot; 59 these be truly 

 said to be the art of arts ; neither do they only direct, but likewise 

 confirm and strengthen : even as the habit of shooting doth not only 

 enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a stronger bow. 



The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the 

 ends whcreunto they are referred ; for man s labour is to invent that 

 which is sought or propounded ; or to judge that which is invented ; 

 or to retain that which is judged ; or to deliver over that which is 

 retained. So as the arts must be four ; art of inquiry or inven 

 tion ; art of examination or judgment ; art of custody or memory ; and 

 art of elocution or tradition. 



Invention is of two kinds, much differing ; the one of arts and 

 sciences, and the other of speech and arguments. The former of 

 these I do report deficient ; which seemcth to me to be such a dcfi- 

 cicnce, as if in the making of an inventory, touching the state of a 

 defunct, it should be set down, that there is no ready money. For as 

 money will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is that which 

 should purchase all the rest. And like as the West Indies had never 

 been discovered, if the use of the mariner s needle had not been first 

 discovered, though the one be vast regions, and the other a small 

 motion; so it cannot be found strange, if sciences be no farther dis 

 covered, if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed over. 



That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment, standcth 

 plainly confessed : for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences, 

 or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a cniqnc in sun arle 

 credcndum. And Celsus acknowledged! it gravely, speaking of the 

 empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, &quot;That medicines and 

 cures were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were 

 discoursed ; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them 

 the medicines and cures discovered.&quot; And Plato, in his Tlieertetns^ 

 notcth well, &quot; That particulars arc infinite, and the higher generalities 

 give no sufficient direction ; and that the pith of all sciences, which 

 maketh the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propo 

 sitions, which in every particular knowledge are taken from tradition 

 and experience.&quot; And therefore we see, that they which discourse of 

 the inventions and originals of things, refer them rather to chance 

 than to art, and rather to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men. 



Dictamnum genctrix Crctoea carpit ab Ida, 

 Fubenbus caulem foliis, ct flore comantem 

 L urpurco : non ilia feris incognita capiis, 

 amina cum tcrgo volucres hxscrc sagitUB. 



