In 1605, Francis Bacon published ‘Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human’. It is a survey of all the known fields of human knowledge and striving, with an assessment of their states of achievement and the impediments to further advances.

Whilst this is the first major statement of Bacon's ‘empirical method’, he saw knowledge as not purely a function of the intellect, but rather an expansion of human experience to embrace a multi-sensory observation (experience) of nature — intellect and logic being but two of the tools available for exploration.

The work itself is a good example of how ideas can become lost inside dense tomes and tortuous grammatical constructions: tables of contents that do not contain page numbers; latin and Greek quotations given without translation; etc.

Following are some quotes from an edition of 1861 edited by G. W. Kitchin and reprinted by J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London. 1915 A facsimile pdf is available at: Internet Archive

p.7 [Preoccupation with the physical senses weakens spiritual perception.]
And therefore it was most aptly said by one of Plato's school,³ That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which, as we see, openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then again it obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up divine. And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the secrets of the Deity by the waxen wings of the senses.
³ Philo Jud. de Somn.

p.7-8 [God works via the laws of nature, not by supernatural or miraculous forces.]
For certain it is that God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes: and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards God; and nothing else but to offer to the Author of Truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. But farther, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of Philosophy may incline the mind of man to Atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to Religion: for in the entrance of Philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence of causes, and the works of Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's Chair. ¹
... but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both [divinity or philosophy] only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.
¹ Hom. Il. viii. 19.

p.24-25 [When men study words and not matter.]
Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter; whereof, though I have represented an example of late times, yet it hath been and will be secundum majus et minus [more or less (adverbially)] in all time. And how is it possible but this should have an operation to discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned men’s works like the first letter of a patent, or limned book; which though it hath large flourishes, yet is but a letter? It seems to me that Pygmalion’s frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity:¹ for words are but the images of matter and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture.
¹ Ovid, Metam. x. 243.

p.31 [Antiquity and novelty.]
(a) The first of these [peccant humours that formed diseases] is the extreme affecting of two extremities; the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice of the father. For as he devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the other; while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and novelty cannot be content to add but it must deface. Surely the advice of the prophet is the true direction in this matter, State super vias antiquas, et videte quænam fit via recta et bona et ambulate in ea.¹ [Stand ye in the ancient ways and see which is the straight and good way, and walk therein.] Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression. And to speak truly, Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi.² [The antiquity of the age is the youth of the world.] These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrogrado [retrograde order], by a computation backward from ourselves.
¹ Jerem. vi. 16
² See Nov. Org. i. 84.

p.31-32 [The error of thinking that all important things were fully realised in early times.]
Another error induced by the former is a distrust that anything should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed and passed over so long time; as if the same objection were to be made to time, that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen gods; of which he wondereth that they begot so many children in old time, and begot none in his time; and asketh whether they were become septuagenary, or whether the law Papia, made against old men’s marriages, had restrained them. So it seemeth men doubt lest time is become past children and generation; wherein, contrariwise, we see commonly the levity and inconstancy of men’s judgments, which till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and as soon as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done: as we see in the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as a vast and impossible enterprise; and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more of it than this: Nil aliud qualm bene ausus vana contemnere¹ [Nothing other than having dared to devise vain things.] and the same happened to Columbus in the western navigation. But in intellectual matters it is much more common; as may be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid; which till they be demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent; but being demonstrate, our mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation (as the lawyers speak), as if we had known them before.
¹ Liv. ix. 17.

p.32 [The error of believing the best ideas have been preserved and handed down from the past.]
3. Another error, that hath also some affinity with the former, is a conceit that of former opinions or sects, after variety and examination, the best hath still prevailed and suppressed the rest; so as, if a man should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion: as if the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude’s sake, were not ready to give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial than to that which is substantial and profound; for the truth is that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid.

p.32 [The preserving the original imagery associated with knowledge is a safeguard against mistaken taxonomy and conclusions.]
4. Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the over early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods; from which time commonly sciences receive small or no augmentation. But as young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a further stature; so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations, it is in growth: but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance be further polished and illustrate² and accommodated for use and practice; but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.
² So in edition 1605.

p.32-33 [Give due regard to universality, to ensure continued progression.]
5. Another error, which doth succeed that which we last mentioned, is that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have abandoned universality, or philosophia prima; which cannot but cease and stop all progression. For no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level: neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.

p.33 [Intellectual comprehension should not be mistaken for true observation and experience of nature.]
6. Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means whereof men have withdrawn themselves too much from the contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits. Upon these intellectualists, which are notwithstanding commonly taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying, Men sought truth in their own little worlds, and not in the great and common world;¹ for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of God’s works: and contrariwise by continual meditation and agitation of wit do urge and as it were invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles unto them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.
¹ Sext. Erapit. adv. Math. vii. 133.

p.59 [The written monuments of wit and learning are capable of perpetual renovation.]
... the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the lands. ... But the images of men’s wits and knowledges remain in books, exempt from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages: ...

p.63 [Philosophy and universality are essential for the progression of all other learning.]
...amongst so many great foundations of colleges in Europe, I find it strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large. For if men judge that learning should be referred to action, they judge well; but in this they fall into the error described in the ancient fable,³ in which the other parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle because it neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head doth; but yet, notwithstanding, it is the stomach that digesteth and distributeth to all the rest: so if any man think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence served and supplied. And this I take to be a great cause that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage.
³ Liv ii 32.

p.68 [Definition of 'possibility'.]
... touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held possible which may be done by some person, though not by everyone; and which may be done by many, though not by any one; and which may be done in the succession of ages, though not within the hour-glass of one man’s life; and which may be done by public designation, though not by private endeavour.

p.70 [The study of natural 'miracles' is wanting.]
History of nature is of three sorts; of nature in course, of nature erring or varying, and of nature altered or wrought; that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts. The first of these, no doubt, is extant, and that in good perfection; the two latter are handled so weakly and unprofitably, as I am moved to note them as deficient. For I find no sufficient or competent collection of the works of nature which have a digression and deflection from the ordinary course of generations, productions and motions ..

p.71
[such a work would be useful for] two reasons, both of great weight; the one to correct the partiality of axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar examples; the other because from the wonders of nature is the nearest intelligence and passage towards the wonders of are: for it is no more but by following, and as it were bounding nature in her wanderings, to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.

p.72 [Small details reveal the large picture.]
So it cometh often to pass, that the mean and small things discover great, better than great can discover small: and therefore Aristotle noteth well, That the nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions.

p.83 [The importance of imagery — parables exceed reason in sensibility.]
Poesy ... [the kind that is] Allusive or Parabolical is a Narrative applied only to express some special purpose or conceit ... [which] was much more in use in the ancient times ... for that it was then of necessity to express any point of reason which was more sharp or subtle than the vulgar in that manner, because men in those times wanted both variety of examples and subtility of conceit ... parables were before arguments: and nevertheless now, and at all times, they do retain much life and vigour; because reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit.

p.85 [Philosophia prima, the necessary origin and binder of the diverse arts & sciences.]
... the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs: therefore it is good ... to erect and constitute one universal science, by the id of philosophia prima, primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves; [IB goes on to lost archetypal similarities (forms) that exist between the arts and sciences.]

p.86 [Philosophia prima]
... it seemeth to me rather a depredation of other sciences, advanced and exalted into some height of terms, than anything solid or substantive of itself.

For doth any of them, in handling quantity speak of the force of union, how and how far it multiplieth virtue? [IB 1 + 1 = more than 2] [philosophia prima] ...That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage.

p.87 [On music and the senses.]
Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric of deceiving expectation?

Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the water?

Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of reflection, the eye with the glass, the ear with the cave or strait determined and bounded? Neither are these only simulated, as men of narrow observation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon several subjects or matters.

p.88 [The image of God hidden to our reason.]
... no light of nature extendeth to declare the will and true worship of God. For as all works do show forth the power and skill of the workman, and not his image; so it is of the works of God, which do show the omnipotency and wisdom of the Maker, but not His image ...

p.89
But on the other side, out of the contemplation of nature, or ground of human knowledge, to induce any verity or persuasion concerning the points of faith, is in my judgement not safe: Da fidei quae fidei sunt [Leave to faith the things that are of faith Luke xx 25] ... so as we ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God to our reason; but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason to the divine truth.

p.90 [Natural Philosophy]
... these be the two parts of natural philosophy, — the inquisition of causes, and the production of effects; ... natural science and natural prudence ... for the latter, or at least for a part thereof, I may revive and reintegrate the misapplied and abused id of natural magic (see Nov. Org ii. 9 & 51, De Augm. iii 5)

p.91 [physique and metaphysique.]
Natural science or theory is divided into physique and metaphysique: wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the word mataphysique in a differing sense from that that is received: ... I intend philosophia prima, Summary Philosophy, and Metaphysique, which heretofore have been confounded as one, to be two distinct things ... Physique should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and therefor transitory; and Metaphysique that which is abstracted and fixed. And again, that Physique should handle that which supposeth in nature only a being and moving; and Metaphysique should handle that which supposeth further, in nature a reason, understanding, and platform.

p.91 [Criticism of Aristotle.]
... Aristotle, that did proceed in such a spirit of difference and contradiction towards all antiquity: undertaking not only to frame new words of science at pleasure, but to confound and extinquish all ancient wisdom insomuch as he never nameth or mentioneth an ancient author or opinion, but to confute and reprove;¹ wherein for glory, and drawing followers and disciples, he took the right course.
¹ Cf. Nov. Org. i. 63, 67, where he likens him to the Turks, whose Sultans on ascending the throne murder all the seed royal. Cf. Ar. Eth. Nic. I. 6, i., where Aristotle declares that it is sometimes needful for truth's sake.

p.93 [Efficient causes and final causes.]
... we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and production of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and found division of causes; the one part which is Physique, inquireth and handeleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is Metaphysique, handleth the formal and final causes. (See Mills Logic Bk iii ch5)

p.94 [Plato's theory of forms.]
Plato ... lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering of Forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected.

p.95 [Structure of knowledge.]
... knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history; the stage next the basis is physique; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysique. As for the vertical point, opus quod operatur Deus a principio usque ad finem,³ [The work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end], the summary law of nature, we know not whether man’s inquiry can attain unto it. But these three be the true stages of knowledge.
³ Hippoc. Aph. i.

p.105 [For the integration between sciences.]
... 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 that have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain. ...
So we see also that the science of medicine, if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical paractice.

p.107 [The importance of physiognomy.]
the first is physiognomy, which descovereth 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 factures of the body, but not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by act, 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.

p.108 [Importance of concordances between mind and body.]
but unto all this knowledge de communi vinculo [common bond], of the concordances between the mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary, which considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better inquired.

p.110 [Medicine and music.]
the poets did well to conjoin Music and Medicine in Apollo, (Ovid Metam. 1 521) because the office of Medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body and to reduce it to harmony.

p.113 [On Medicine.]
As for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be oped and manifest in live.

p.114-115 [Advocates for euthanasia.]
Nay, further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dours; and not only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair and easy passage: for it is no small felicity which Augustus Caesar was wont to wish to himself, that same Euthanasia;¹ and which was especially noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the fashion and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sleep. So it is written of Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate, he drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of wine; whereupon the epigram was made, Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas² [Drunk he lapped thence the Stygian waters.]; he was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water. But the physicians contrariwise do make a kind of scruple and religion to stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas, in my judgment, they ought both to inquire the skill and to give the attendances for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies of death.
¹Suet. Vit. Aug. c. 99
²Diog. Laert. x. 15 (Vit. Epic. )

p.117 [Human knowledge.]
For Human Knowledge which concerns the Mind, it hath two parts; the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul or mind, the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions thereof.

p.118 [Knowledge of the soul.]
...yet I hold that in the end it [considerations of the substance or nature of the soul or mind] must be bounded by religion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delusion: for as the substance of the soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven and earth by the benediction of a producat but was immediately inspired from God: so it is not possible that it should be (otherwise than by accident) subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which are the subject of philosophy; and therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state of the soul must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance.

p.123 [Logic and the sciences.]
Logic doth not pretend to invent sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a Cuique in sua arte crendendum [One should trust every artist within the limits of his own particular art]

p.124-125 [On induction.]
... the Induction which the Logicians speak of, ... (whereby the Principles of Sciences may be pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation from the Principles), their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incompetent: wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the duty of Art to perfect and exalt Nature; but they contrariwise have wronged, abused, and traduced Nature. For he that shall attentively observe how the mind doth gather this excellent knowledge ... distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial ... shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than they describe it. For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can assure, in many subjects, upon those particulars which appear of a side, that there are not others on the contrary side which appear not? And this form ... is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so subtle as have managed these things to have offered it to the world, but that they hasted to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful towards particulars; which their manner was to use ... to make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in their true use and service.

p.125
... the footsteps of seducement are the very same in divine and human truth: for as in divine truth man cannot endure to become as a child; so in human, they reputed the attending the inductions whereof we speak, as if it were a second infancy or childhood.

p.125-126 [Logic incapable of achieving the subtlties of nature.]
Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet nevertheless certain it is that middle propositions cannot be deduced from them in subject of nature⁴ by syllogism, that is, by touch and reduction of them to principles in a middle term. It is true that in sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity, (because it pleaseth God to apply himself to the capacity of the simplest,) that form may have use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by way of argument or satisfactory reason, Quæ assensum parit, operis effœta est:¹ [That which produces assent need labour no more] but the subtlety of nature and operations will not be enchained in those bonds. For arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of words; and words are but the current tokens or marks² of popular notions of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably collected out of particulars, it is not the laborious examination either of consequence of arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can ever correct that error, being (as the physicians speak) in the first digestion. And therefore it was not without cause, that so many excellent philosophers became Sceptics and Academics, and denied any certainty of knowledge or comprehension; and held opinion that the knowledge of man extended only to appearances and probabilities. ⁴In the Latin, in rebus naturalibus [in the things of nature.].
¹This quotation is omitted in the Latin, nor can I find whence it comes; could it be a saying of Bacon's own?
² Tesseræ. Arist. Interp. I. i. 2

p.127 [The question of whether the senses can report truth.]
But they ought to have charged the deceit upon the weakness of the intellectual powers, and upon the manner of collecting and concluding upon the reports of the senses.

p.132 [The presence of fundamental perceptual biases.]
But lastly, there is yet a much more important and profound kind of fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not observed or inquired at all,² and think good to place here, as that which of all others appertaineth most to rectify judgment: the force whereof is such, as it doth not dazzle or snare the understanding in some particulars, but doth more generally and inwardly infect and corrupt the state thereof. For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.
² This is the doctrine of “Idols,” expanded in the Latin, and still more in the Nov. Org. i. 39-68.

p.132 [Elenches.]
... the true and fruitful use (of elenches] are but wise cautions against the ambiguities of speech. [IB not proofs]

p.133 [Further perceptual bias.]
That the spirit of man, being of an equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in truth.

p.134 [Pre-existing definition of words inhibit thought and argument.]
And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort: and although we think we govern our words, and prescribe it well, loquendum ut vulgus, sentiendum ut sapientes; [One should speak like ordinary folk, but think like wise men.] yet certain it is that words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgment. So as it is almost necessary in all controversies and disputations to imitate the wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting down in the very beginning the definitions of our words and terms that others may know how we accept and understand them, and whether they concur with us or no. For it cometh to pass for want of this that we are sure to end there where we ought to have begun, which is, in questions and differences about words.

p.135 [Natures of logical demonstration.]
... there being but four kinds of demonstrations, that is, by the immediate consent of the mind or sense, by induction, by syllogism and by congruity.

p.135 [Fashions of knowledge vs true inquiry.]
But this is true, that of the methods of common-places that I have seen, there is none of any sufficient worth; all of them carrying merely the face of a school, and not of the world; and referring to vulgar matters and pedantical divisions, without all life or respect to action.

p.138 [Words are the footsteps and prints of reason.]
The duty of it is of two natures; the one popular, which is for the speedy and perfect attaining languages as well for intercourse of speech as for understanding of authors; the other philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as they are the footsteps and prints of reason: which kind of analogy between words and reason is handled sparsim, brokenly, though not entirely; and therefore I cannot report it deficient, though I think it very worthy to be reduced into a science by itself.

p.138 [The importance of suprasegmental aspects of spoken language.]
Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the consideration of the accidents of words; which are measure, sound, and elevation or accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them;

p.143-144 [The use for imagery in communicating new insights.]
For those whose conceits are seated in popular opinions, need only but to prove or dispute; but those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate: so that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and translations to express themselves. And therefore in the infancy of learning, and in rude times, when those conceits which are now trivial were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for paradoxes, that which was offered, before they had understood or judged. So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are: for it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not consonant to presuppositions, must pray in aid of similitudes.

p.146 [Wisdom vs eloquence.]
... profoundness of wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence that prevaileth in an active life.

p.147 The use of imagery.
And therefor as Plato said elegantly, That virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection; [Plat. Phaedr 250] so seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the next degree is to show her to the imagination in lively representation:

p.147 [Reason, imagination, rhetoric.]
... for the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good, as reason doth. The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time. And therefore the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion [rhetoric] hath made things future and remote appear as present, then upon the revolt of the imagination reason prevaileth.

p.148 [Use of rhetoric.]
... logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions and manners.

p.148 [Subjectivity of rhetoric.]
... the proofs and demonstrations of logic are towards all men indifferent and the same; but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric ought to differ according to the auditors.

p.155 [Nature of good.]
There is formed in everything a double nature of good: the one, as everything is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general form.

p.157 [Imposition on society of private religious inclinations.]
But for contemplation which should be finished in itself, without casting beans upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not.

p.158 [Value of good conscience.]
... a good conscience is a continual feast; (Prov. xv 15) showing plainly that the conscience of good intentions, howsoever succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature, than all the provision which can be made for security and repose.

p.165 [Value of keeping an open mind.]
For, as Salomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction: Quaerenti derisori scientiam ipsa se abscondit; sed studioso fit obviam.¹ [Wisdom hideth herself from a scornful seeker, but comes easily to one who is zealous for her.]
[King James: A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not : but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth.]
[Google Translate: As I searched for scorners, and hid him in the knowledge that he can; but with a studious, it happens to meet.]
[Revised Standard Version: A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.]
¹ Prov. xiv. 6.

p.165 [You need to know evil to preserve virtue.]
For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency,² except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent ... that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.
² Matt. x. 16.

p.168 [In the culture and cure of the mind of man]
Now the wisdom of application resteth principally in the exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which we do apply: for we cannot fit a garment, except we first take measure of the body.

p.168-169 [The differing capacities of men's minds.] So then the first article of this knowledge is to set down sound and true distributions and descriptions of the several characters and tempers of men’s natures and dispositions; especially having regard to those differences which are most radical in being the fountains and causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture; wherein it is not the handling of a few of them in passage, the better to describe the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention. For if it deserve to be considered, that there are minds which are proportioned to great matters, and others to small.

p.169 [A recommendation of astronomy.]
A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men’s natures, according to the predominances of the planets; lovers of quiet, lovers of action, lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts, lovers of change, and so forth.

p.171 [Criticism of empirics.]
... except we mean to follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to all patients.

p.176 [Moral philosophy.]
... all good moral philosophy, as was said, is but a handmaid to religion.

p.176 [God, vice and virtue.]
... if a man set before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute, constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould himself into all virtue at once. And this indeed is like the work of nature; whereas the other course is like the work of the hand. For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereupon he worketh, (as if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude stone still, till such time as he comes to it;) but, contrariwise, when nature makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudiments of all the parts at one time: so in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man parctiseth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude, nor the like: but when he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look, what virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth commend unto him, he is invested of a precedent disposition to conform himself thereunto. . . . Nam ut ferce neque vitium neque virtus est, sic neque Dei : sed hie quidem status altiiis quiddam virtute est, ille aliud quiddam a vitio.¹ [For as neither vice nor virtue are found in a wild beast, nor are they in God; the divine nature is something superior to virtue, the bestial nature something different to vice.]
¹ Arist. Eth. Nic. vii I, I.

p.177 [Love. Charity admits of no excess.]
Nay further, as Xenophon observed truly, that all other affections, though they raise the mind, yet they do it by distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or excesses; but only love doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same instant doth settle and compose it;³ So in all other excellencies, though they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess; only charity admitteth no excess.
³ Xen. Symph. ad init.

p.177 [Aspire to goodness or love.]
... aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell; Ascendam, et ero similis altissimo:⁴ [I will ascend and be like unto God] ... aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; Eritis sicut Dii, scientis bonum et malum:⁵ [Ye shall be like unto gods, knowing good and evil.]; but by aspiring to a similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever transgressed, or shall transgress.
⁴ Isai. xiv. 14.
³ Gen. iii. 5.

p.179 [Human Philosophy Congregate (Civil Knowledge)]
... this knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary actions of society; which are conversation, negotiation, and government ... For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection ... wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.

p.184 [Prov xxii 24]
Noli esse amicus homini iracundo, nee ambulato cum homine furioso.⁶ [Be not the friend of a man given to anger.]
⁶ Prov. xxii. 24.

p.190 [Wisdom.]
... the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and distrust; that more trust be given to countenances and deeds than to words: and in words rather to sudden passages and surprised words than to set and purposed words.

p.202 [Quote]
Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus, et odi tanquam amaturus;² [Love as a future enemy, and hate like a future lover.
² Arist. Rhet. ii, 13, 4.

p.205 [Nature of secret.]
Concerning Government, it is a part of knowledge secret and retired, in both these respects in which things are deemed secret; for some things are secret because they are hard to know, and some because they are not fit to utter.

p.206 [Openness of governors.]
... in the governors toward the governed, all things ought, as far as the frailty of man permitteth, to be manifest and revealed.

p.209 [Prerogative of God.]
The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as to the will of man; so that as we are to obey His law, though we find a reluctation in our will, so we are to believe His word, though we find a relaxation in our reason. For if we believe only that which is agreeable to our sense, we give consent to the matter, and not to the author; which is no more that we would do towards a suspected and discredited witness; but that faith which was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed,² who therein was an image of natural reason.
²vid. Gen. xviii.

p.209
... sacred theology (...divinity) is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God, and not upon the light of nature: ... This holdeth not only in those points of faith which concern the mysteries of the Deity, of the Creation, of the Redemption, but likewise those which concern the moral law truly interpreted.

p.210 [Conscience.]
... a great part of the law moral is of that perfection, whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire: ... the light of nature is used in two several senses; the one, that which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of his first estate; in which latter sense only he is participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of the moral law ... sufficient to check the vice, but not to inform the duty.

p.210 [Christianity, heathenism and Islam.]
The use, not withstanding, of reason in spiritual things, and the latitude thereof, is very great and general ... the Christian faith, as in all things, so this deserveth to be highly magnified; holding and preserving the golden mediocrity in this point between the law of the heathen and the law of Mahomet, which have embraced the two extremes. For the religion of the heathen hath no constant belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of argument; and the religion of Mahomet, on the other side, interdicteth argument altogether: the one having the very face of error, and the other of imposture: whereas the faith doth both admit and reject disputation with difference.

p.217 [Philosophy and divinity.]
For to seek heaven and earth in the word of God ... is to seek temporary things amongst eternal and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek the living amongst the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead amongst the living.

p.217 [The manner of exposition of the Scriptures.]
... an observation ... upon the answers of ... Christ to many of the questions propounded to him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question demanded; the reason whereof is, because, not being like man, which knows man’s thoughts by his words, but knowing man’s thoughts immediately, he never answered their words, but their thoughts. [goes on to describe the correct manner of interpreting scripture.]

p.218
... thoughts: much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the church, yea and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were uttered [etc.]: but have in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the church in every part. And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river; so the moral senses chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the church hath most use.