Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/552

 424 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. and satisfaction, or for profit and professional emo lument, or for support and ornament of the reputa tion : and if these are proposed as the ends of sciences, so far will men be from wishing that the mass of knowledge receive an increase, that, in that stock which is at hand, they will seek no more than what they can turn to use in the matter before them. And if any one among so many seeks knowledge with an honest zeal and for its own sake, yet he will be found to hunt rather after variety than truth. And if he be a severer inqui sitor of truth, yet that very truth will be such as will rather explain more subtly things already uttered, than kindle any new light. And if his heart is so large, that he propounds to himself further discovery, he will doubtless be most taken with that light which displays in the distance specious contemplations, not that which shows important works and inventions close at hand. So he saw plainly that we return to this point, that it is by no means wonderful that the course is not finished, when men turn aside to these les ser matters : and much more when, as far as he can see, the mark itself has never been set up and fixed for any man. But the mark is no other, than that mankind be continually enriched with new works and powers. He thought also, that among these difficulties of the sciences, Ihe case of natural philosophy has been the hardest of all : inasmuch as it has had but a trifling share of men s labour, has been read ily deserted, and never cultivated and matured in any high degree. For since the Christian faith has grown up and been received, the greatest number of wits have been employed upon divinity, and in this subject the highest rewards have been offered to men s studies, and aids of every kind most plentifully supplied. And before-time, like wise, the greatest of the labours of philosophers was consumed in moral philosophy, which was almost in the place of divinity to the heathens. And in both times a great part of the best wits betook themselves to public business, especially in the time of the greatness of the Romans, who by reason of their large empire needed the service of the most. But the time among the Grecians, in which natural philosophy seemed most to flourish, was out a short space, and that also abused and thrown away in disputing, and affecting new opinions. But from that time to this, no one can be named, who has made it his business to cultivate natural philosophy, and consumed his life in its pursuit ; so that this science has not for ages pos sessed any whole man, unless perchance one may instance some monk studying in a cloister, or some gentleman in the country, and that will be found very rare. But it has become a kind of passage and bridge to other arts, and this venerable mother of the sciences is turned into their handmaid, and made to serve physic and practical mathematics, or to season a little, young and unripe wits, like a kind of priming, that they may take a second wash in a kindlier and better manner. So he saw plainly, that, from the small number, and hurry, and rawness of its followers, natural philosophy is left destitute. And soon after, he saw also that this had a very great influence on the general state of knowledge : for all the arts and sciences, when torn up from this root, may perhaps be polished and moulded to use, but will grow no further. He thought also, how prejudicial and every way hard an adversary natural philosophy has in su perstition and the immoderate and blind zeal of religion. For he found that some of the Grecians who first propounded the natural causes of thun der and storm, to men unused to such specula tions, were condemned, on that ground, for impie ty : and that the cosmographers, who, by most certain proofs, which no man in his senses would now dispute, asserted the spherical figure of the earth, and consequently the existence of anti podes ; were not much better treated, but included in the same sentence, not indeed affecting life, but character, on the accusation of some of the ancient fathers of the Christian church. And the case of natural history is now much worse, in regard of the boldness of the schoolmen and their depen dencies, who having, as far as they can, reduced divinity into method, and given it the form of an art ; having attempted moreover to incorporate the contentions and turbulent philosophy of Aristotle into the body of their religion. And it has the same tendency that, in our time, no opinions or arguments are found to have more success, than those which celebrate with great pomp and so lemnity the union, as if it were a lawful one, be tween divinity and philosophy, that is, faith and sense ; and while they tickle men s minds with an agreeable variety, are meantime making an unhallowed conjunction of divine and human matters. And, truly, if one observes carefully, as great danger threatens natural philosophy from this kind of hollow and ill assorted league, as from avowed hostility. For, in a treaty and confede ration of this nature, only the received maxims of philosophy are included ; but every thing of ad vancement or improvement is most rigorously and obstinately shut out. In fine, with respect to augmentations, and what may be called the new shores and tracts of philosophy, all from the side of religion is full of grovelling suspicion, and im potent disdain. Thus, some in their simplicity fear that my deeper inquisition into nature may penetrate perchance beyond the allowed and sanc tioned limit of sobriety, improperly applying what is said of the secrets of God, many of which re main closed under the divine signet, to the se crets of nature which are guarded by no interdict. Others, with greater cunning, conceive that if men are ignorant of second causes, each particular may be more easily referred to the wand of the deity which they think is of the highest interest