Valerius Terminus | Page 8

that fragment.

VALERIUS TERMINUS: OF THE INTERPRETATION OF
NATURE
(by Sir Francis Bacon)

CAP. 1.
OF THE LIMITS AND END OF KNOWLEDGE.
In the divine nature both religion and philosophy hath acknowledged
goodness in perfection, science or providence comprehending all things,
and absolute sovereignty or kingdom. In aspiring to the throne of power
the angels transgressed and fell, in presuming to come within the oracle
of knowledge man transgressed and fell; but in pursuit towards the
similitude of God's goodness or love (which is one thing, for love is
nothing else but goodness put in motion or applied) neither man or
spirit ever hath transgressed, or shall transgress.
The angel of light that was, when he presumed before his fall, said
within himself, I WILL ASCEND AND BE LIKE UNTO THE
HIGHEST; not God, but the highest. To be like to God in goodness,
was no part of his emulation; knowledge, being in creation an angel of

light, was not the want which did most solicit him; only because he was
a minister he aimed at a supremacy; therefore his climbing or ascension
was turned into a throwing down or precipitation.
Man on the other side, when he was tempted before he fell, had offered
unto him this suggestion, THAT HE SHOULD BE LIKE UNTO GOD.
But how? Not simply, but in this part, KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL.
For being in his creation invested with sovereignty of all inferior
creatures, he was not needy of power or dominion; but again, being a
spirit newly inclosed in a body of earth, he was fittest to be allured with
appetite of light and liberty of knowledge; therefore this approaching
and intruding into God's secrets and mysteries was rewarded with a
further removing and estranging from God's presence. But as to the
goodness of God, there is no danger in contending or advancing
towards a similitude thereof, as that which is open and propounded to
our imitation. For that voice (whereof the heathen and all other errors
of religion have ever confessed that it sounds not like man), LOVE
YOUR ENEMIES; BE YOU LIKE UNTO YOUR HEAVENLY
FATHER, THAT SUFFERETH HIS RAIN TO FALL BOTH UPON
THE JUST AND THE UNJUST, doth well declare, that we can in that
point commit no excess; so again we find it often repeated in the old
law, BE YOU HOLY AS I AM HOLY; and what is holiness else but
goodness, as we consider it separate and guarded from all mixture and
all access of evil?
Wherefore seeing that knowledge is of the number of those things
which are to be accepted of with caution and distinction; being now to
open a fountain, such as it is not easy to discern where the issues and
streams thereof will take and fall; I thought it good and necessary in the
first place to make a strong and sound head or bank to rule and guide
the course of the waters; by setting down this position or firmament,
namely, THAT ALL KNOWLEDGE IS TO BE LIMITED BY
RELIGION, AND TO BE REFERRED TO USE AND ACTION.
For if any man shall think by view and inquiry into these sensible and
material things, to attain to any light for the revealing of the nature or
will of God, he shall dangerously abuse himself. It is true that the

contemplation of the creatures of God hath for end (as to the natures of
the creatures themselves) knowledge, but as to the nature of God, no
knowledge, but wonder; which is nothing else but contemplation
broken off; or losing itself. Nay further, as it was aptly said by one of
Plato's school THE SENSE OF MAN RESEMBLES THE SUN,
WHICH OPENETH AND REVEALETH THE TERRESTRIAL
GLOBE, BUT OBSCURETH AND CONCEALETH THE
CELESTIAL; so doth the sense discover natural things, but darken and
shut up divine. And this appeareth sufficiently in that there is no
proceeding in invention of knowledge but by similitude; and God is
only self-like, having nothing in common with any creature, otherwise
than as in shadow and trope. Therefore attend his will as himself
openeth it, and give unto faith that which unto faith belongeth; for more
worthy it is to believe than to think or know, considering that in
knowledge (as we now are capable of it) the mind suffereth from
inferior natures; but in all belief it suffereth from a spirit which it
holdeth superior and more authorised than itself.
To conclude, the prejudice hath been infinite that both divine and
human knowledge hath received by the intermingling and tempering of
the one with the other; as that which hath filled the one full of heresies,
and the other full of speculative fictions and vanities.
But now there are again which in a contrary extremity to