The Proficience and Advancement of Learning | Page 3

a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich
storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate."
The rest of the First Book was given to an argument upon the Dignity
of Learning; and the Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning, is,
as Bacon himself described it, "a general and faithful perambulation of

learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not
improved and converted by the industry of man; to the end that such a
plot made and recorded to memory may both minister light to any
public designation and also serve to excite voluntary endeavours."
Bacon makes, by a sort of exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all
subjects of study, as an intellectual map, helping the right inquirer in
his search for the right path. The right path is that by which he has the
best chance of adding to the stock of knowledge in the world something
worth labouring for; and the true worth is in labour for "the glory of the
Creator and the relief of man's estate."
H. M.

THE FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON; OF THE PROFICIENCE
AND ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, DIVINE AND HUMAN.

To the King.

There were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and
freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon ordinary observance, the
other upon a devout cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth to
kings from their servants both tribute of duty and presents of affection.
In the former of these I hope I shall not live to be wanting, according to
my most humble duty and the good pleasure of your Majesty's
employments: for the latter, I thought it more respective to make choice
of some oblation which might rather refer to the propriety and
excellency of your individual person, than to the business of your
crown and state.
Wherefore, representing your Majesty many times unto my mind, and
beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to discover
that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but with the observant
eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the other parts of your virtue
and fortune, I have been touched--yea, and possessed--with an extreme

wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the philosophers call
intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of your
memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration of your
judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution: and I have often
thought that of all the persons living that I have known, your Majesty
were the best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all
knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by Nature
knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original notions
(which by the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the body
are sequestered) again revived and restored: such a light of Nature I
have observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and
blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark of another's
knowledge delivered. And as the Scripture saith of the wisest king,
"That his heart was as the sands of the sea;" which, though it be one of
the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest portions;
so hath God given your Majesty a composition of understanding
admirable, being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters,
and nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least; whereas it should
seem an impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to make itself
fit for great and small works. And for your gift of speech, I call to mind
what Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Caesar: Augusto profluens, et
quae principem deceret, eloquentia fuit. For if we note it well, speech
that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or speech that savoureth of the
affectation of art and precepts, or speech that is framed after the
imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though never so excellent; all
this hath somewhat servile, and holding of the subject. But your
Majesty's manner of speech is, indeed, prince-like, flowing as from a
fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into Nature's order, full
of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any. And as in
your civil estate there appeareth to be an emulation and contention of
your Majesty's virtue with your fortune; a virtuous disposition with a
fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time was) of your
greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the due time; a
virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with most blessed and
happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and most Christian desire of peace,
with a fortunate inclination in your neighbour princes thereunto: so
likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be