Advancement of Learning and the New Atlantis by Sir Francis Bacon

^'?^??"^c^':^>-^-vV-> the'

wom^

eiASSICS >^VJMam.,.

^

^

'^^^

*^^;?r^!^I^

^^

VY^^t^.

\-T~:=^

MMHMMMMh

'

"

'^^^

Zbc Morl5's Classics

XCIII

BACON'S

ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNINGAND

THE NEW ATLANTIS

n-A-r

f

' i

i

t

rr.^

FRANCIS BACON-illCdui'i

"^"amomim

Bacon's

Advancement of Learningand

The NewTHOMAS

Atlantis

WITH A PREFACE BY

CASE, M.A.

PRESIDENT OP CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD WAYNFLKTK PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND

METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY

HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, NEW YORK AND TORONTO

Francis BaconBorn Died.

..... .

London, Januaiy 22, 1560-1 Highgate, April 9, 1626''

lished in 1605,'

The ^Advancement of Learning' was first puband the New Atlantis in 1627. Jn Hie World's Classics'" they were first publishedtogether in 19.6.

,B

-^.If

JAN

4^^

1036688oxford: horack hartPlilNTBU TO

TUB U.NIVERSIJT

PREFACELike all great philosophical works, the Advancement of Learning is constructed on a systematic plan, of which the analysis is as follows:

Book

I.

The Dignity of LEARNiNa.:

To the King

introductory

(p. 3).

A. Negative part : (pp. 6-40). 1. from divines2.3.

the(p. 6).

discredits

of

learning

politics from learned (p. 11). men themselves (p.ll

from

18).

from their fortune (p. 18). 2) from their mannere (p. 21). 3) from their studies (p. 26), including(1)

errors

three diseases of learning

(p. 26).

(2) its

peccant(p. 35).

humours

or

B. Positive part: the dignity of 66).1.

knowledge

(pp.

40-

Divine evidences

2.

HumanBook

(p. 40).

proofs (p. 47).

II.

The Survey op Learning.

To the King:for the

Three parts of human learningA. History (p. 76). 1. Natural.2.

acts performed by Kings and others advancement of learning (p. 67).(p. 75):

Civil.

vi3. Ecclesiastical. 4.

PREFACELiteraiy.

B. Poetry (p. 89).1.

Narrative.

2.

3.

Representative. Allusive or parabolical.[scientia] (pp.

C.

KnowledgeI.

93234).philosophia

Philosophy (pp. 93-221).Primitive or

summary philosophy,philosophy,

prima1.

(p. 93).

Divine

natural

theology

(pp. 96-8).2.

Natural philosophy (pp. 98-114).1)

Speculative(p. 99).

:

inquisition

of

causes

(1) Physic, which inquireth efficient causes (p. 101).

material and

(2)

Metaphysic, which inquireth formal and final causes (p. 102j. Mathematic, a branch of Metaphysio(p. 107).

2) Operative(1)

production of effects (p, 1081. with Experimental, corresponding Natural history. with (2) Philosophical, corresponding:

Physic.(3)

Magical,physic.

corresponding

with Meta-

3.

Human1)

Simple

philosophy (pp. 114-219). and particular knowledgenature in general(p. 115).

(pp. 115-90).

Human(1)b.

Knowledge of body

(pp. 118-27).

a.

Medicine for health. Cosmetic for beauty.

PREFACEc.

Tii

Athletic for strength. d. Arts voluptuary for pleasure.

(2)a.6.

Knowledge of mind (pp. 127-90). The soul (pp. 127-9).Faculties (pp. 129-90).(a)

Rational

faculties:

Logic

(pp. 131-63).i.

(i),^

Invention (p. 132). of arts and

sciences

(p. 132).

(u)

of speech and argumentshuman mind (p. 139). Memory (p. 144).(p. 146).

(p. 136).ii.

Judgement, including also Idolsof the

iii.

Custody orfi)

iv.

Tradition or deliveryIts Its

organ

(p. 146).

(ii)(iii)

inethod

Its

(p. 149). Rhetoric illustration :

(p. 155).

Appendices to Tradition(i)(ii)

(p.

160):

Critical,

Pedantical.:

(6)

Moral faculties Moral philosophy (pp. 163-90). i. Exemplar, or Nature of Good(pp. 165-77).

The double nature.

of

Good

(p. 166).

(i)

Private, active and passive(p. 169).

(ii)

Communicative(p. 173).

:

Dutymind

ii.

Regiment,

or culture of

(pp. 177-89).

*ia2)

PREFACEConjugate and219).(1)

civil

knowledge

(pp.

190-

(2)

Conversation or Behaviour (p. 191). Negotiation or Business, including also Architecture of Fortune (p. 192).

(3)11,

Government

(p. 217).

sacred and inspired [as distinct from Divine philosophy or Natural theology]Divinity,(pp. 221-34).all

Like

great philosophers. Bacon took long to

mature his works. From his youth upwards he had been thinking about philosophy, knowledge, learning. When, at the age of 16, he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, he became dissatisfied with the philosophy of Aristotle, for the unfruitfulness of the way ^ and as a young man of 25 he had commenced a philosophy of his own, styled Temporis Partus Maximtis. In 1592 (aet. 32) he wrote to Burghley, I have taken all knowledge to be my province,' and in that year the Praise of Knowledge in a Triumph given by Essex before the Court bears the stamp of Bacons mind and style. In 1597 (aet. 37j appeared his Essays, of which there were only ten in the first edition while half of those namely, on Studies, Discourse, Regiment of Health, Factions, and Negotiating were, as it were, notes for the larger work on all learning which was to follow eight years later. After many''

;

'

'

'

'

'

;

years, therefore, of preparation, at length in 1605 (aet. 45), in the prime of his life, and in the first

sunshine of the patronage of King James I, Bacon published the Advancement of Learning. It is indeed a work which is not merely the expression of a mature mind, but also a kind of summing-up of the Revival of Learning in the sixteenth century. Large as is its scope, the Advancement was itself destined, if not designed, to form the first part of an even larger scheme the regeneration of all the

*

Rawley's

Life of Bacon.

PREFACE

ix

sciences by a new method of the interpretation of This scheme again Bacon took long to nature. mature. In the Advancement he has got so far as to contemplate a separate work containing Interpretatio Naturae 'concerning the invention of sciences'^;

and about the same time he was writing such a work, the Valerius Terminus, Of the Interpretation of Nature and posthumously published by (left unfinished, Stephens in 1734), in which he also contemplates a discourse on Knowledge, roughly in idea corresponding to the Advancement, as an introduction to the Interpretatio Naturae. The Advancement and the Valerius Terminus therefore imply one another, and show that in 1605 Bacon was already meditating both a survey of knowledge and a logic of its method. In the course of the next two years he went on to conceive the whole scheme of regeneration, or Instatiratio, as he now began to call it, in a work called Partis Instaurationis Secundae Delineatio et Argumentum (written in 1606-7, but left unfinished, and posthumously published by Gruter in 1653), wherein he distributed the Instauratio into six parts, of which the survey of the sciences was to be the first, and began the treatment of the method of the sciences as the second part. Finally, in 1620 (aet. 60), he published his great work entitled Instauratio Magna. But in reality it was only an instalment beginning with the division into six parts, called Distrihutio Operis, Bacon next refers his readers to the Advancement as to some extent representing the first part on the classification of sciences, and then proceeds in the rest of the work to elaborate the second part on the Intetpretatio Naturae, or scientific method of induction, under the title by which the work is now best known;

Novum Organum.

Bacon did not rest content with referring to the Advancement of Leai'ning as the first part of the Instauratio. He went on to have it translated into

Post, p. 136.

XLatin

PREFACE;

under the title De DignHate et Augmentis Scientiarum, which he published in 1623 (aet. 63) and he took advantage of this edition in Latin to amplify the Second Book into eight, as well as to make important alterations. History was now doubly divided into natural and civil, of which literary and Natural philoecclesiastical became subdivisions^. sophy was not only enlarged, but also its operative part was diflFerently subdivided into Mechanica, depending on Physica, and Magia, depending on Metaphysica"^. The voluptuary arts received the welcome addition of painting and music *. The soul, again, in the Advancement had been regarded simply as inspired from God but in the De Augmentis, in accordance with the views of Lucretius and Telesio, a sensible soul is introduced, common to animals and derived from matter, as distinct from the rational soul, inspired into man from heaven *. Finally, Bacon took care that his work, in passing from English into the universal language should become as general,;

'

',

and

Hence, generally acceptable, as possible. under History he curtailed his pa