Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/272

 144 ANALYSIS OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. Mixed History 191 . A mixture of selected pieces of history. 54. Cosmography. Ecclesiastical History 191 . It has a common division analogous to the division of common civil history. . Ecclesiastical chronicles. . Lives of the fathers. . 3. Relations of synods. . Proper division 191 . History of the church. . History of prophecy. . History of providence. History of the Church. . It describes the state of the church in persecution, in remove, and in peace. The ark in the deluge : the ark in the wil derness .- and the ark in the temple. . It is more wanting in sincerity than in quantity. History of Prophecy. . It is the history of the prophecy and of the accom plishment. . Every prophecy should be sorted with the event. . It is deficient. History of Providence. . It is the history of the correspondence between God s revealed will and his secret will. . It is not deficient. Appendices to History. . Different sorts. . Orations. . Epistles. . Apophthegms. . Relative advantages of orations, epistles, and apoph thegms. . They are not deficient. Poesy 192 . Division. . As it refers to words. . As it refers to matter. . Poetry as it refers to words is but a character of style, and is not pertinent to this place. . Poetry as it refers to the mattrr. . It is fiction, and relates to the imagination. . It is in words restrained : in matter un licensed. The imagination not being tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which na ture hath joined,- and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things. Pictoribus atque poetis, Qniillibet audendi, semper fuit aequa polestas. . Its use is to satisfy the mind in these points where nature does not satisfy it. It was ever thought to have some partici pation of divinenesft, because it doth raise and ertct the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind, whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind into the nature of things.* Pesy joined with music hath had access and estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded. iSir Philip Sidney s&amp;gt;s, poesy, the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowli djie, lifts the mind from the dungeon of the boUy to the enjoying its own divine essence. . Division of poesy. . Common the same as in history. . Proper division. . Narrative or heroical. . Representative or dramatical. . Allusive or parabolical. Narrative Poesy. Parabolical Poesy. . It was never common in ancient times. . Its uses. . To elucidate truths. . To concert truths. 2 . Of the interpretation of mysteries, paraboli cal poesy. In poesy there is no drfcience, fur, being as a plant that Cometh of the lust of the earth, without a fir mal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than any other kind : but to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to poets more than to the philosopher s works ; and for wit and eloquence, not much less than to orators harangues. But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now puss on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reve- ence and attention. Philosophy 193 . Division. . From the light of nature. . Divine, or natural religion. . Natural, the knowledge of nature. . Human, the knowledge of man. . From divine inspiration or revealed religion. PRIMITIVE On GKVK11U. PHILOSOPHY. It is a receptacle for all such profitable observa tions and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but arc nore common and of a higher stage. Is not the precept of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord, or sweet accord, alike true in affection ? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide from th. close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric nf deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the. water ? &quot; Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus.&quot; Because the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but 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, there fore it is good, before we enter into the former distribution, to erect and constitute one uni versal science, by the name of &quot; PhUosophia Prima,&quot; primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves. This science is as a common parent, like unto Berecynlhia, which had so much heavenly issue. &quot; Omnes cwliclas, omnes super alta tenentes.&quot; This is much expam .ed in the Treatise De Augment!*.