436 WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 



all sides, as is usual on the tops of mountains. Science is said to beset 

 the highways, because through all the journey and peregrination oi 

 human life there is matter and occasion offered of contemplation. 



Sphinx is said to propose various difficult questions and riddles to 

 men, which she received from the Muses; and these questions, so long 

 as they remain with the Muses, may very well be unaccompanied with 

 severity, for while there is no other end of contemplation and inquiry, 

 but that of knowledge alone, the understanding is not oppressed, or 

 driven tc straits and difficulties, but expatiates and ranges at large, 

 and even receives a degree of pleasure from doubt and variety ; but 

 after the Muses have given over their riddles to Sphinx, that is., io 

 practice, which urges and impels to action, choice, and tlctcrmiraiior. 

 then it is that they become torturing, severe, and trying, and, unleL -., 

 solved and interpreted, strangely perplex and harass the human mind 

 rend it every way, and perfectly tear it to pieces. All the riddles ot 

 Sphinx, therefore, have two conditions annexed, viz., dilaceration to 

 those who do not solve them, and empire to those that do. For he who 

 understands the thing proposed obtains his end, and every artifr^ 

 rules over his work.* 



Sphinx has no more than two kinds of riddles, one relating tc the 

 nature of things, the other to the nature of man ; and correspondent 

 to these, the prizes of the solution are two kinds of empire, the empi v &amp;lt;: 

 over nature, and the empire over man. For the true and ultimate en J 

 of natural philosophy is dominion over natural things, natural be die?, 

 remedies, machines, and numberless other particulars, though the 

 schools, contented with what spontaneously offers, and swollen with 

 their own discourses, neglect, and in a manner despise, both thing?- 

 and works. 



But the riddle proposed to CEdipus, the solution whereof acquired 

 him the Theban kingdom, regarded the nature of man ; for he who 

 has thoroughly looked into and examined human nature, may in a 

 manner command his own fortune, and seems born to acquire dominion 

 and rule. Accordingly, Virgil properly makes the arts of government 

 to be the arts of the Romans.f It was, therefore, extremely apposite 

 in Augustus Caesar to use the image of Sphinx in his signet, whether 

 this happened by accident or by design ; for he, of all men, was deeply 

 versed in politics, and through the course of his life very happily 

 solved abundance of new riddles with regard to the nature of man ; 

 and unless he had done this with great dexterity and ready address, 

 he would frequently have been involved in imminent danger, if not 

 destruction. 



It is with the utmost elegance added in the fable, that when Sphinx 



* This is what the author so frequently inculcates In the Novnm Organum, 

 viz., that knowledge and power are reciprocal ; so that to improve in knowledge is 

 to improve in the power of commanding nature, by introducing new arts, and 

 producing works and effects. 



t &quot;Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento: 

 Hae tibi erunt artes.&quot; ALn. vi. 852. 



