Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/135

 of his opinions upon this important subject. The sentiments and the very words are similar. In the Meditation, he says, "This I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism; but on the other side, much natural philosophy and wading deep into it will bring about men's minds to religion; wherefore atheism every way seems to be joined and combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools, than this, There is no God." In the Advancement of Learning, he says, "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 further 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."

This tract was published by Lord Bacon in 1597, and has been repeatedly published by different editors. It was incorporated in the treatise on rhetoric, in the Advancement of Learning, and more extensively in the treatise "De Augmentis." The dedication, of which there is a MS. in the British Museum, to the Lord Mountjoye, is copied from "The Remains," published by Stephens.

This tract "In Praise of Knowledge," of which there is a MSS. in the British Museum, is a rudiment both of the "Advancement of Learning," and of the "Novum Orgauum." This will appear from the following extracts:

"The truth of being, and the truth of knowing, is all one: and the pleasures of the affections greater than the pleasures of the senses. And are not the pleasures of the intellect greater than the pleasures of the affections! Is it not a true and only natural pleasure, whereof there is no satiety? Is it not knowledge that doth alone clear the mind of all perturbations?"

"The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpasseth all other in nature; for, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections! We see in all other pleasures there is a satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which sheweth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality: and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable."

"Printing, a gross invention; artillery, a thing that lay not far out of the way; the needle, a thing partly known before: what a change have these three things made in the world in these times; the one in state of learning, the other in state of the war, the third in the state of treasure, commodities, and navigation?"

"Rursus, vim et virtutem et consequentias Rerum inventarum notare juvat: quæ non in aliis manifestius occurrunt, quam in illis tribus, quæ Antiquis incognitæ, et quarum primordia, licet recentia, obscura et ingloria sunt: Artis nimirum Imprimendi, Pulveris Tormentarii, et Acus