Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/275

 ANALYSIS OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. hrnlth, therefore there should tte sovereign airs, u/ilf xitflili iili/ In run: n mini in mr/fiir**. 3. There should he an inquiry of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind occupy in the body and the organs thereof. The divided State of Man 202 Dmsion. . The body. . The mind. OF THE BODT. iVvigion. . Health. . Beauty. . Strength. . Pleasure. Health. . Man s body ia of all things most susceptible of re medy, but this remedy most susceptible of error. . No body is so variously compounded as the body of man. . The variety in the composition of man s body is the cause of its being frequently distempered. The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo : because the office of me dicine is but to tune this curious harp of man s bud i/ n nd to reduce it to harmony. . The variety in the composition of man s body has made the art of medicine more conjectural; and so given scope to error and imposture. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the iasue of the cause. The matter of Ike ship is judged by the di recting his course aright, and not by the for tune of the voyage. But the physician, and perhaps the politician, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his abiLty, but is judged most, liy the event. . The quack is often prized before the regular physi cian. . Physicians often prefer other pursuits to their own professions. You shall have of them antiquities, poef.t, htimanixts, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen (him in their pro fession, and no dou it upon this ground, that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art maketh n/&amp;gt; difference in profit or re putation towards their fortune , for the weak ness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects. . Diseases may be subdued. If we will excite and awake our observa tion, we shall xes in familiar instances what a predominant faculty the subtilty of spirit hath over the variety of matter or form. . Medicine has been more laboured than advanced. . Deficiencies of medicine. . Want of medical reports. . Defective anatomies. . Hasty conclusions that diseases are in curable. Sylla and the triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die, as they do by their igno rant edicts. . A neglect to mitigate the pains of death. . A neglect of acknowledged medi- cin 204 . A neglect of artificial mineral baths. . The prescripts in use are loo compen dious to attain their end. It were a strange, ttpeech, which, spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vicr to which he were by nature subject. it is order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, which is mighty in nature. Beauty 205 . Cleanliness was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God. to society, and to our selves. . Artificial decoration is neither fine enough to de ceive, nor handsome to please, nor wholesome to use. 1 Strength 205 . It means any ability of body to which the body of man may be brought. . Division. . Activity. . Strength. . Swiftness. . Patience. . Hardness against want . Endurance of pain. . General receptacle for acts of great bodily endu rance. . The philosophy of athletics is not much investi gated. . The mediocrity of athletics is for use; the excess for ostentation. Pleasure 205 Their chief deficience is in laws to repress them. It hath bten well observed, that the arts which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military ,- and while virtue is in slate, are liberal, and while virtue is in de clination, are voluptuary. 2 In the Treatise De Augmentis, this passage is tnud al tered : Adulterate decoration by painting and cerusse, u tr ell worthy &amp;lt;if the imperfections which, attend it ; being neither fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to please, nor wholesome to use. We read of Jeiabel that she painted her face: but there is no such report of Ksther or Judith. 4 In Bacon s Essay on Vicissitude of Things, he says, In the youth of a state, arms do flourish ; in liu middle age of a state, learning ; and then both of them together for a time : in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Move), in his life of Sir Edward Howard, says, almost in the same words, In the youth of this state, as of all others, arms did flourish; in the middle slate of it, learning; and in the declining (as covetousncas and theft attend old tge) mechanic arts and merchandise. Q. 1. Is this observation founded on fact? Q. 2. Supposing it to be founded on fart; what are tli* vice of mammon at variance with the service of God? Q. 3. Supposing the mechanical arts and merchandise hitherto tr have accompanied the decline of states, may they not both he traced to excess of civilization, instead u oeirig supposed to flow from each other 1 Q. 4. Supposing the opinion to be founded on fact ; will not the evil now be prevented by the art of printing?