The ways of sapience are not much liable either that the firmness of hides is for the armour of the to particularity or chance. body against extremities of heat and cold, doth not impugn the cause rendered, that contraction of pores is incident to the outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or unlike bodies; and so of the rest: both causes being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence only.

The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes, which I am moved to report not as omitted, but as misplaced; and yet if it were but a fault in order, I would not speak of it: for order is matter of illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance of sciences. But this misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great impro- Neither doth this call in question, or derogate ficience in the sciences themselves. For the from divine providence, but highly confirm and handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in exalt it. For as in civil actions he is the greater physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and deeper politician, that can make other men and diligent inquiry of all real and physical the instruments of his will and ends, and yet causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon never acquaint them with his purpose, so as they these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great shall do it, and yet not know what they do, than arrest and prejudice of further discovery. For he that imparteth his meaning to those he employthis I find done not only by Plato, who ever an-eth; so is the wisdom of God more admirable, choreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, when nature intendeth one thing, and providence and others which do usually likewise fall upon draweth forth another, than if he had communithese flats of discoursing causes. For to say that cated to particular creatures and motions the the hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and characters and impressions of his providence. fence about the sight; or that the firmness of the And thus much for metaphysic; the latter part skins and hides of living creatures is to defend whereof I allow as extant, but wish it confined them from the extremities of heat or cold; or that to its proper place. the bones are for the columns or beams, whereupon the frames of the bodies of living creatures are built; or that the leaves of trees are for protecting of the fruit; or that the clouds are for the watering of the earth; or that the solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living creatures, and the like, is well inquired and collected in metaphysic; but in physic they are impertinent. Nay, they are indeed but remoras and hinderances to stay and slug the ship from further sailing; and have brought this to pass, that the search of the physical causes hath been neglected, and passed in silence. And therefore the natural philosophy | in nature of a number of effects; insomuch as we of Democritus and some others, (who did not see, in the schools both of Democritus and of suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, Pythagoras, that the one did ascribe figure to the but attributed the form thereof, able to maintain first seeds of things, and the other did suppose itself, to infinite essays or proofs of nature, which numbers to be the principles and originals of they term fortune,) seemeth to me, as far as I can things: and it is true also, that of all other forms, judge by the recital and fragments which remain as we understand forms, it is the most abstracted unto us, in particularities of physical causes, more and separable from matter, and therefore most real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and proper to metaphysic: which hath likewise been Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the cause why it hath been better laboured and the one as a part of theology, and the other as a inquired than any of the other forms, which are part of logic, which were the favourite studies more immersed in matter. respectively of both those persons. Not because those final causes are not true, and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province; but because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath bred a vastness and solitude | particularity; the mathematics of all other knowin that track. For otherwise, keeping their pre- ledge were the goodliest fields to satisfy that cincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if appetite. they think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between them. For the cause rendered, that the hairs about the eyelids are for the safeguard of the sight, doth not impugn the cause rendered, that pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture;

Nevertheless there remaineth yet another part of natural philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth rank with physic special and metaphysic, which is Mathematic; but I think it more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order, to place it as a branch of metaphysic: for the subject of it being quantity, (not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth to "philosophia prima,” as hath been said, but quantity determined or proportionable,) it appeareth to be one of the essential forms of things; as that that is causative

For it being the nature of the mind of man, to the extreme prejudice of knowledge, to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the enclosures of

Muscosi fontes," &c. Nor the cause rendered,

But for the placing of this science, it is not much material: only we have endeavoured, in these our partitions, to observe a kind of perspective, that one part may cast light upon another.

The Mathematics are either pure or mixed. To the pure mathematics are those sciences

belonging which handle quantity determinate, | ral magic, which hath relation thereunto. For merely severed from any axioms of natural phi- as for the natural magic whereof now there is losophy; and these are two, Geometry and mention in books, containing certain credulous Arithmetic; the one handling quantity continued, and superstitious conceits and observations of sympathies and antipathies, and hidden properand the other dissevered. ties, and some frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement than in themselves, 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 Cæsar's Commentaries in truth of story.

Mixed hath for subject some axioms or parts of natural philosophy, and considereth quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and incident unto them.

For many parts of nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtilty, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto | For it is manifest that Cæsar did greater things use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and "de vero" than those imaginary heroes were intervening of the mathematics: of which sort feigned to do; but he did them not in that fabuOf this kind of learning the fable are perspective, music, astronomy, cosmography, lous manner. of Ixion was a figure, who designed to enjoy architecture, enginery, and divers others. Juno, the goddess of power; and instead of her had copulation with a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and chimeras.

In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense they abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all postures; so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended. And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed. Thus much of natural science, or the part of nature speculative.

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, alchymy, astrology, and the like, that in their propositions the description of the mean is ever more monstrous than the 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 fire and the rest, may superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such For Natural Prudence, or the part operative of mechanic as belongeth to the production of the natural philosophy, we will divide it into three natures afore rehearsed, than that some grains parts, experimental, philosophical, and magical; of the medicine projected should in a few mowhich three parts active have a correspondence ments of time turn a sea of quicksilver or other and analogy with the three parts speculative, material into gold: so it is more probable, that natural history, physic, and metaphysic: for he that knoweth the nature of arefaction, the namany operations have been invented, sometimes ture of assimilation of nourishment to the thing by a casual incidence and occurrence, sometimes nourished, the manner of increase and clearing by a purposed experiment: and of those which of spirits, the manner of the depredations which have been found by an intentional experiment, spirits make upon the humours and solid parts, some have been found out by varying or extend- shall by ambages of diets, bathings, anointings, ing the same experiment, some by transferring medicines, motions, and the like, prolong life, or and compounding divers experiments the one into restore some degree of youth or vivacity, than the other, which kind of invention an empiric 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 dependeth upon the knowledge of forms, I may report deficient, as the relative thereof is.

may manage.

To which part, if we be serious, and incline not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the deriving and deducing the operations themselves from metaphysic, there 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 calendar, resembling an inventory of the estate of man, containing al.

Again, by the knowledge of physical causes there cannot fail to follow many indications and designations of new particulars, if men in their speculation will keep one eye upon use and practice. But these are but coastings along the shore, "premendo littus iniquum:" for, it seemeth to me there can hardly be discovered any radical or fundamental alterations and innovations in nature, either by the fortune and essays of experiments, or by the light and direction of physical causes. If therefore we have reported metaphysic deficient, it must follow that we do the like of natu

not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits. Of this we see familiar example in lawyers and scholars, both which, if they have once admitted a doubt it goeth ever after authorized for a doubt. But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed, which laboureth to make

the inventions, being the works or fruits of nature or art, which are now extant, and whereof man is already possessed; out of which doth naturally result a note, what things are yet held impossible, or not invented: which calendar will be the more artificial and serviceable, if to every reputed impossibility you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to that impossibility; to the end that by these optatives and potentials doubtful things certain, and not those which laman's inquiry may be the more awake in deduc-bour to make certain things doubtful. Therefore ing direction of works from the speculation of these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent causes: and secondly, that those experiments be things; so that there be this caution used, that not only esteemed which have an immediate and when they be thoroughly sifted and brought to present use, but those principally which are of resolution, they be from thenceforth omitted, dismost universal consequence for invention of other carded, and not continued to cherish and encouexperiments, and those which give more light to rage men in doubting. To which calendar of the invention of causes; for the invention of the doubts or problems, I advise be annexed another mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of calendar, as much or more material, which is a no less benefit for navigation than the invention calendar of popular errors: I mean chiefly in of the sails, which give the motion. natural history, such as pass in speech and conceit, and are nevertheless apparently detected and convicted of untruth; that man's knowledge be not weakened nor embased by such dross and vanity. As for the doubts or" non liquets" gene

Thus I have passed through natural philosophy, and the deficiencies thereof: wherein if I have differed from the ancient and received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction; for my part, as I affect not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend.ral, or in total, I understand those differences of If it be truth, opinions touching the principles of nature, and the fundamental points of the same, which have caused the diversity of sects, schools, and philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus, Parmenides, and the rest. For although Aristotle, as though he had been of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first thing he did he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth and not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to see before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature: not for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for as the same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by the received astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the theory of

But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according to the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or subject: and that is positive and considerative; when the inquiry reporteth either an assertion or a doubt. | These doubts or "non liquets" are of two sorts, Copernicus who supposed the earth to move, (nd particular and total. For the first, we see a good the calculations are indifferently agreeable to both,) example thereof in Aristotle's Problems, which so the ordinary face and view of experience is deserved to have had a better continuance ; but so, many times satisfied by several theories and phinevertheless, as there is one point whereof warn-losophies; whereas to find the real truth requireth ing is to be given and taken. The registering of another manner of severity and attention. For as doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that Aristotle saith, that children at the first will call it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; every woman mother, but afterwards they come when that which is not fully appearing is not col- to distinguish according to truth; so experience, lected into assertion, whereby error might draw if it be in childhood, will call every philosophy error, but is reserved in doubt: the other, that mother, but when it cometh to ripeness, it will the entry of doubts is as so many suckers or discern the true mother. So as in the mean time sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as it is good to see the several glosses and opinions that which, if doubts had not preceded, a man upon nature, whereof, it may be, every one in should never have advised, but passed it over some one point hath seen clearer than his fellows, without note, is, by the suggestion and solicitation therefore, I wish some collection to be made, of doubts, made to be attended and applied. But painfully and understandingly, "de antiquis phiboth these commodities do scarcely countervail an |losophiis," out of all the possible light which reinconvenience which will intrude itself, if it be maineth to us of them; which kind of work I find

"Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvæ:" The voice of nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or not. And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably, with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention.

deficient. But here I must give warning, that it | science of medicine, if it be destituted and for. be done distinctly and severally; the philosophies saken by natural philosophy, it is not much betof every one throughout by themselves, and not ter than an empirical practice. With this reserby titles packed and fagoted up together, as hath vation, therefore, we proceed to Human Philosobeen done by Plutarch. For it is the harmony of phy, or Humanity, which hath two parts: the a philosophy in itself which giveth it light and one considereth man segregate, or distributively; credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it the other congregate, or in society. So is human will seem more foreign and dissonant. For as philosophy either simple and particular, or conjuwhen I read in Tacitus the actions of Nero, or gate and civil. Humanity particular consisteth Claudius, with circumstances of times, induce- of the same parts whereof man consisteth; that ments, and occasions, I find them not so strange; is, of knowledges which respect the body, and of but when I read them in Suetonius Tranquillus, knowledges that respect the mind; but before we gathered into titles and bundles, and not in order distribute so far, it is good to constitute. For I of time, they seem more monstrous and incredible: do take the consideration in general, and at large, so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and dis- of human nature to be fit to be emancipate and membered by articles. Neither do I exclude made a knowledge by itself: not so much in reopinions of latter times to be likewise represented gard of those delightful and elegant discourses in this calendar of sects of philosophy, as that of which have been made of the dignity of man, of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into his miseries, of his state and life, and the like ada harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane; juncts of his common and undivided nature; but and that of Tilesius, and his scholar Donius, chiefly in regard of the knowledge concerning the being as a pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but sympathies and concordances between the mind of no great depth; and that of Fracastorius, who, and body, which being mixed cannot be properly though he pretended not to make any new phi- assigned to the sciences of either. losophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own sense upon the old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who revived, with some alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes; and any other worthy to be admitted.

Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man's knowledge; that is, "radius directus," which is referred to nature; "radius refractus,” which is referred to God; and cannot report truly because of the inequality of the medium: there resteth radius reflexus," whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.

We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding, it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of nature: and generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins, than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain. So we see Cicero the orator complained of Socrates and his school, that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an empty and verbal So we may see that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy mav correct. So we see also that the Vol. 1.-26

art.

This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and amities consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of mind and body hath these two parts; how the one discloseth the other, and how the one worketh upon the other; Discovery, and Impression. The former of these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of Hippocrates. And although they have of later time been used to be coupled with superstitious and fantastical arts, yet being purged and restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in nature, and a profitable use in life. The first is physiognomy, which discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body: the second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the state of the body by the imaginations of the mind. In the former of these I note a deficience. For Aristotle hath very ingeniously and diligently handled the features of the body, but not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by art, and of greater use and advantage. For the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose the present humour and state of the mind and will. For as your majesty saith most aptly and elegantly, "As the tongue speaketh to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye." And therefore a number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions of men, do well know the advantage of this observation, as being most part of their ability; neither can it be denied, but that it is a great discovery of dissimulations, and a great direction in business

The knowledge that concerneth man's Body is divided as the good of man's body is divided, unto which it referreth. The good of man's body is of four kinds, health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic; and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth

The latter branch, touching impression, hath | body, that part of inquiry is most necessary, not been collected into art, but hath been handled which considereth of the seats and domiciles dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or anti. which the several faculties of the mind do take strophe that the former hath. For the considera- and occupate in the organs of the body; which tion is double: "Either how, and how far the knowledge hath been attempted, and is controhumours and affects of the body do alter or work verted, and deserveth to be much better inquired. upon the mind; or again, how and how far the For the opinion of Plato, who placed the underpassions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or standing in the brain; animosity (which he did work upon the body." The former of these hath unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with been inquired and considered as a part and appen- pride) in the heart; and concupiscence or sendix of medicine, but much more as a part of reli- suality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised; gion or superstition. For the physician pre- but much less to be allowed. So then we have scribeth cures of the mind in phrensies and constituted, as in our own wish and advice, the melancholy passions; and pretendeth also to inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to con- portion of knowledge to be handled apart. firm the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like: but the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regimen of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed. So likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood and fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict. Nay," eruditus luxus." This subject of man's body is the faith itself being clear and serene from all of all other things in nature most susceptible of clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fast- remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible ings, abstinences, and other macerations and hu- of error. For the same subtilty of the subject miliations of the body, as things real, and not doth cause large possibility and easy failing; and figurative. The root and life of all which pre- therefore the inquiry ought to be more exact. scripts is, besides the ceremony, the consideration of that dependency which the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition of the body. And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught in easy instances, that the infant in the mother's womb is compatible with the mother and yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants, and yet without subjection. As for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the body, we see all the wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regimens to their patients, do ever consider "accidentia animi" as of great force to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more especially it is an inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant. For although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power to help; no more than a man can conclude, that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickBut the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, "a Delian diver," being difficult and profound. But unto all this knowledge "de communi vinculo," of the concordances between the mind and the

To speak therefore of medicine, and to resume that we have said, ascending a little higher; the ancient opinion that man was microcosinus, an abstract or model of the world, hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchymists, as if there were to be found in man's body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which are extant in the great world. But thus much is evidently true, that of all substances which nature hath produced, man's body is the most extremely compounded: for we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies, before they come to be his food and aliment. Add hereunto, that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon their bodies: whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of all other things is of the most compounded mass. The soul on the other side is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:

..

ness

Purumque reliquit Ethereum sensum atque auraï simplicis ignem." So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that principle be true, that "Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco But to the purpose: this variable composition of