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Non abs re fuerit admonere quod, cum necesse sit multa ex experimentis sub duobus titulis vel pluribus cadere (veluti Historia Plantarum, et Historia Artis Hortulanæ multa habebunt fere communia), commodior sit Inquisitio per Artes, Dispositio vero per Corpora. Parum enim nobis curæ est de artibus ipsis mechanicis, sed tantum de iis quæ afferunt ad instruendam Philosophiam. Verum hæc e re nata melius regentur.

FINIS.

DE

AUGMENTIS SCIENTIARUM.

PREFACE.

IN a letter dated June 30, 1622, Bacon speaks of the De Augmentis Scientiarum as a work already in the hands of translators, and likely to be finished by the end of the summer. “Librum meum de progressu Scientiarum traducendum commisi. Illa translatio, volente Deo, sub finem æstatis perficietur."1 Therefore, though it was not published till the autumn of 1623, it may be considered as coming, in order of composition, next among the Philosophical works to the Novum Organum and Parasceve.

It was intended to serve for the first part of the Instauratio Magna, according to the plan laid out in the Distributio Operis, -the part which is there entitled Partitiones Scientiarum, and described as exhibiting a complete survey of the world of human knowledge as it then was," Scientiæ ejus sive doctrinæ in cujus possessione humanum genus hactenus versatur summam sive descriptionem universalem." The relation which it bears to the rest of the work is best explained in the dedicatory letter prefixed to the Dialogue of a Holy War. "And again, for that my book of Advancement of Learning may be some preparative or key for the better opening of the Instauration, because it exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old, whereas the Instauration gives the new unmixed, otherwise than with some aspersion of the old for taste's sake, I have thought good to procure a translation of that book into the general language, not without great and ample additions and enrichment thereof, especially in the second book, which handleth the partition of sciences; in such sort as I hold it may

Letter to Father Redempt. Baranzan.

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2 That is, the second book; as appears more clearly from the Latin version of this letter, which was written later. Idque ita cumulate præstiti ut judicem librum illum jam in plures divisum, pro primâ Instaurationis parte haberi posse, quam Partitionum Scientiarum nomine antea insignivi."

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