Part 3

An annotated version compiled and edited by Dr. Gisela Engel (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt am Main with the assistance of Dr. Harvey Wheeler (Ret. USC, Martha Boas Distinguished Research Professor at USC) and aided by Melek Hasgün, Simone Wirthmann, Antje Peters, Martina Glebocki, Carsten Jägler, Katja Morawek, Cora Hartmann (students at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt am Main).

Orignal Text | Annotations | Valerius Terminus: | Of the Interpretation{1} of Nature | 1A. | The word "interpretation" occurs | also e.g. in the title of the essay | DE INTERPRETATIONE NATURAE PROEMIUM | (1603; in Spedding vol. III) and in | his definition of man as "the servant | and interpreter of Nature" (IV,47). | This definition of man is the same | definition that we find in the | magico-alchemical tradition which is | in general refuted by Bacon. Paolo | Rossi ("Bacon's idea of science", in: | THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO BACON, ed. | by Markku Peltonen , 25-46) | gives the following comment: | | "Bacon condemned magic and alchemy on | ethical grounds. He accused them of | imposture and of megalomania. He | refuted their non-participatory | method and their intentional | unintelligibility, their attempt to | replace human sweat by a few drops of | elixir. But he borrows from the | magico-alchemical tradition the idea | that man can attempt to make himself | the master of nature. Bacon | understands knowledge not as | contemplation or recognition, but as | VENATIO, a hunt, an exploration of | unknown lands, a discovery of the | unknown. Nature can be transformed | from its foundations. Bacon's | definition of man as "the servant and | interpreter of Nature" is the same | definition we find in the magico- | alchemical tradition, for instance in | the texts of Cornelius Agrippa von | Nettesheim. | | But for all the exponents of magic | and alchemistic culture, the texts of | ancient wisdom take the form of | sacred texts which indude secrets | that only a few men can decipher The | truth is hidden in the past and in | the profound. Like when dealing with | sacred texts, it is necessary | continuously to go BEYOND THE LETTER, | in search of a message which is more | and more hidden.The secret message | expresses a Truth which is at the | Origins and which is always the same. | | In the Hermetic tradition, as in the | tradition of Platonism, the natural | world is conceived as the image or | living manifestation of God. | Understanding nature can reveal the | presence in the world of divine ideas | and archetypes. Bacon's rejection of | any natural philosophy founded on | allegorical interpretations of | Scriptures meant a withdrawal from | exemplarism and symbolism, both | common features of mediaeval | philosophy and still flourishing in | the seventeenth century. As all works | --says Bacon--show the power and | ability of their maker, but not his | image, so God's works "do shew the | omnipotency and wisdom of the maker | but not his image" (III, 350). The | distinction between the will and | power of God, so fully and subtly | present in Baconian texts, is very | important. "The heavens declare the | glory of God, and the firmament | showeth his handworks": this verse | from the Psalms (18,2) is quoted by | Bacon several times. The image of the | world, immediately after the Word, is | a sign of the divine wisdom and | power, and yet the Scriptures do not | call the world ,"the image of God," | but regard it only as "the work of | his hands," neither do they speak of | any image of God other than man. | Theology is concerned with knowing | the book of the word of God, natural | philosophy studies the book of God's | works. The book of Scripture reveals | the will of God, the book of nature, | his power. The study of nature has | nothing to say about God's essence or | his will (IV; 340-3). | | Bacon proposed to the European | culture an alternative view of | science. For him science had a | public, democratic, and collaborative | character, individual efforts | contributing to its general success. | In science, as Bacon conceives it, | truly effective results (not the | illusory achievements of magicians | and alchemists) can be attained only | through collaboration among | researchers, circulation of results, | and clarity of language. Scientific | understanding is not an individual | undertaking. The extension of man's | power over nature is never the work | of a single investigator who keeps | his results secret, but is the fruit | of an organized community financed by | the state or by public bodies. Every | reform of learning is always a reform | also of cultural institutions and | universities. | | Not only a new image of science, but | also a new portrait of the "natural | philosopher" took shape in Bacon's | writings. This portrait differed both | from that of the ancient philosopher | or sage and from the image of the | saint, the monk, the university | professor, the courtier, the perfect | prince, the magus. The values and the | ends theorized for the composite | groups of intellectuals and artisans | who contributed in the early | seventeenth century to the | development of science were different | from the goals of individual sanctity | or literary immortality and from the | aims of an exceptional and "demonic" | personality. | | A chaste patience, a natural modesty, | grave and composed manners, a smiling | pity are the characteristics of the | man of science in Bacon's portrait of | him. In the REDARGUTIO PHILOSOPHIARUM | Bacon wrote: | | Then he told me that in Paris a | friend had taken him along and | introduced him to a gathering, 'the | sight of which', he said, 'would | rejoice your eyes. lt was the | happiest experience of my life'. | There were some fifty men there, all | of mature years, not a young man | among them, all bearing the stamp of | dignity and probity... At his entry | they were chatting easily among | themselves but sitting in rows as if | expecting somebody. Not long after | there entered to them a man of | peaceful and serene air, save that | his face had become habituated to the | expression of pity... he took his | seat, not on a platform or pulpit, | but on level with the rest and | delivered the following address... | (III, 559; Farrington's translation). | | Bacon's portrait doubtless resembles | Galileo or Einstein more than it does | the turbulent Paracelsus or the | unquiet and skittish Cornelius | Agrippa. The titanic bearing of the | Renaissance magus is now supplanted | by a classical composure similar to | that of the "conversations" of the | earliest Humanists. Also in Galileo's | DIALOGO and in Descartes's RECHERCHE | DE LA VERITÉ we find the same | familiar tone and style of | conversation in which [Descartes | wrote] "several friends, frankly and | without ceremony, disclose the best | of their thoughts to each other." But | there is besides, in Bacon, the quiet | confidence that comes from knowing | the new powers made available to man | by technology and collaboration.The | new kind of learning, for which Bacon | is searching, must get away from | touches of genius, arbitrary | conclusions, chance, hasty summaries. | The emphasis Iaid by Bacon on the | social factor in scientific research | and in determining its ends, places | his philosophy on a radically | different plane from that of the | followers of Hermetic tradition." | | In DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM Bacon | describes Orpheus as the mythical | prototype of the philosopher ("Orpheus | sive Philosophia", VI, 646-649). | | 1B. | Bacon gives the following | definition of "interpretation: "that | reason which is elicited from facts | by a just and methodological process, | I call INTERPRETATION OF NATURE" (IV, | 51). Now, this definition means a | harsh critique of Aristotelianism, | Scholasticism and Ramism. Michel | Malherbe comments on this: | | "The main and most characteristic | feature of Bacon's epistemology is | that it rests upon a single method, | which is INDUCTION... It must help | the understanding on its way toward | truth... Thus, true knowledge will go | from a lower certainty to a higher | liberty and from a lower liberty to a | higher certainty, and so on. This | rule is the basic principle of | Bacon's theory of science; prepared | in the natural and experimental | history, determining the relationship | between the tables of presence, it | governs the induction of axioms and | the abstraction of notions and | ordains the divisions of sciences | within the general system of | knowledge. lt is well known that this | rule of invention originates in | Ramus's methodology and, more | formerly, in Aristotle's POSTERIOR | ANALYTICS. To characterize the nature | of the premises required for the | foundation of true demonstrations, | Aristotle had set down three | criteria: the predicate must be true | in every instance of its subject; it | must be part of the essential nature | of the subject; and it must be | universal, that is, related to the | subject by itself and QUA itself. | Aristotle was defining first | propositions as being essential | propositions; and he referred | universality to necessity and | extension to comprehension These | three criteria were much commented | upon during the whole scholastic | period, and were transformed, or | rather extended, by Ramus and others | in the sixteenth century. Whereas in | Aristotle they had expressed the | initial conditions of any conclusive | syllogism, in Ramus they became the | conditions of every systematic art: | within a system, methodically | organized for the exhibiting of | knowledge, any statement must be | taken in its full extension, it must | join things which are necessarily | related and it must be equivalent to | a definition. But these rules for | syllogistic or dialectic art in | Aristotle or Ramus become rules for | inductive invention in Bacon: and | their meaning is quite different. | With the rule of certainty and | liberty, Bacon aims at directiy | opposing the old logic, infected by | syllogistic or rhetoric formalism. | | By its title, the NOVUM ORGANUM makes | Bacon's ambition clear: to replace | the Aristotelian organon, which has | governed all knowledge until the end | of the sixteenth century with an | entirely new logical instrument, a | new method for the progress and | profit of human science. And the | Chancellor proclaims that he has | achieved his aim, if posterity | acknowledges that, even if he has | failed to discover new truths or | produce new works, he will have built | the means to discover such truths or | to produce such works (III, 520). He | insists that his method has nothing | to do with the old one nor does it | try to improve it. And he puts out | the choice in these terms: | | There are and can be only two ways of | searching into and discovering truth. | The one flies from the senses and | particulars to the most general | axioms, and from these principles, | the truth of which it takes tor | settled and immoveable, proceeds to | judgment and to the discovery of | middle axioms. And this way is now in | fashion. The other derives axioms | from the senses and particulars, | rising by a gradual and unbroken | ascent, so that it arrives at the | most general axioms last of all. This | is the true way, but as yet untried. | (IV, 50) | | When it is left to itself, the | understanding follows the first way, | hastily applies itself to reality and | generates ANTICIPATIONS OF NATURE. | But "that reason which is elicited | from facts by a just and | methodological process, I call | INTERPRETATION OF NATURE" (IV, 51). | | Taken as a whole, Bacon's critique | comes to this: from a formal point of | view, Aristotle's syllogism is | essentially a logic for deductive | reasoning, which goes from the | principles to the consequences, from | the premises to the conclusions. And, | of course, in this kind of reasoning, | the truth of the conclusions is | necessarily derived from the truth of | the premises, so that knowledge will | start with primary truths that are | supposed to be necessary and | universal, that is, essential. Now, | Bacon asks, how does the mind acquire | the knowledge of these primary | truths, since, as it is allowed by | Aristotle himself, all knowledge | starts with experience, which | experience is always contingent and | particular? How does the mind go from | the empirical knowledge of facts or | sensible effects (phenomena) to the | knowledge of the very nature of | things? The formal necessity of the | syllogism (or deductive reasoning) | makes the old logic forget the pre- | judicial question of how we set up | first principles. Therefore, any | attempt to define the valid form of | theories must go through the inquiry | upon how we establish truth. | | From this general critique, it is | easy to understand Bacon's various | comments on the old organon. First, | since such a logic induces a kind of | double start, the empirical one and | the rational one, and since it | confuses the origin of knowledge with | its foundation, the mind is condemned | to jump immediately from empirical | particulars to first principles (or | axioms, in Bacon's terms) and to | render superfluous the required | induction which would gradually lead | from one point to the other. This | instantaneous slip from empirical | data to rational and essential dogmas | is made possible by the very nature | of the human mind. Left to itself, | the mind hurries toward certainty; it | is prone to gain assent and consent; | it fills the imagination with idols, | untested generalities. And it is this | natural haste and prejudice which | gives mental activity its | anticipative form. By themselves, | anticipations draw the most general | principles from immediate experience, | in order to proceed, as quickly as | possible, to the formal deduction of | consequences. Therefore, however | paradoxical it may appear, the old | logic is unduly empirical and unduly | logical. And the critique of | formalism [formalism draws the | conclusions from the premises without | inquiring upon the truth of the | premises] must be attended by the | critique of the nature of the human | mind. | | The human mind is so disposed that it | relies on the senses, which provide | it with the rudiments of all | knowledge. Of course, Bacon argues, | we cannot get any information about | things except with the senses, and | skeptics are wrong when, questioning | them, they plunge the mind into | despair. "But by far the greatest | hindrance and aberration of the human | understanding proceeds from the | dulness, incompetency, and deceptions | of the senses" (IV, 58). On the one | hand, they are too dull and too | gross, and let the more subtle parts | of nature escape our observation: | their range is limited to the most | conspicuous information. On the other | hand, they are misleading, by a | fundamental illusion: they offer | things to the mind according to the | measure of human nature. "For it is a | false assertion that the sense of man | is the measure of things. On the | contrary, all perceptions as well of | the sense as of the mind are | according to the measure of the | individual and not according to the | measure of the universe" (IV, 54). In | order to have access to reality, we | have to rectify their information and | reduce a double delusion: the | illusion that the sensible qualities | offered by them are the real | determinations of things and the | illusion that things are divided | according to our human sensibility | (IV, 194 et sq.). | | Thus we can understand a third | critique against the old method: the | Aristotelian logic rests upon a | metaphysics which believes that | sensible experience gives the human | mind the things as they are, with | their essential qualities, and that | philosophy can be satisfied with | taking empirical phenomena for the | true reality of nature, thanks to a | mere generalization that erases the | particular circumstances of | existence. Nevertheless, empirically | qualified existences are not to be | mistaken for the things themselves. | So far, Bacon is undoubtedly a | modern, since he claims that the | object of knowledge is reality and | that reality, if it can be | inductively known from empirical | data, cannot be reduced to the matter | of experience. | | Bacon's fourth censure of the old | logic follows from this. He agrees | with the sixteenth-century | dialecticians that Aristotle was | wrong when he thought that | understanding could skip, without the | hard work of induction, from what is | immediately given to the senses to | what is posed in the first principles | of science. Aristotle wanted to know | the truth, but did not explain the | method of invention. On the other | hand, the dialecticians, giving up | the attempt to set up the first | principles (and thereby the | traditional Aristotelian | demonstrative science), gave up any | attempt to reach the truth. They only | retained the deductive and systematic | form of discourse to introduce order | into men's opinions, and maintained | that invention could be reduced to | the mere search for arguments, that | is, for probable reasons invented to | persuade or convince. | | Bacon, however, wants to promote the | idea of an inductive science and | argues that Aristotle's mistake | affects the syllogistic form. In the | fourth chapter of the fifth book of | the DE AUGMENTIS, Bacon develops a | remarkable critique of the syllogism | and is partly responsible for the | widespread disregard of formal logic | in the seventeenth and eighteenth | centuries. | | According to Bacon, "in all | inductions, whether in good or | vicious form the same action of the | mind which inventeth, judgeth" (III, | 392). One cannot find without | proving, nor prove without finding. | But this is not the case in the | syllogism: "for the proof being not | immediate but by mean, the invention | of the mean is one thing, and the | judgement of the consequence is | another, the one exciting only, the | other examining" (III, 392). The | syllogism needs the means (the middle | term) so that the derived conclusion | amounts to a proof. But since the | syllogism is incapable of inventing | the middle term, it must have been | known before. In other words, | syllogistic form leaves the invention | of the middle term to the natural | shrewdness of the mind or to good | fortune. Thus, it is because of its | own demonstrative form that the | syllogism is unable to provide a | method of truth and is useless for | science. | | By now it is clear why the old logic | and the knowledge which is built on it | are unable to produce works or why the | extant works "are due to chance and | experience rather than to sciences" | (IV, 48). To deduce practical effects, | the mind must know real causes or laws | of nature. Since the old method does | not supply the mind with the means of | inventing causes and does not set up | the scale of the intermediate | propositions that are needed to reduce | sensible experience and reach the real | science, or to derive rightly and by | degrees the consequences from the | principles, it is not surprising that | invented works are too few and not | very useful for men's lives. Thus, | from the start in sensible experience | to the end in practical deduction, | this old method is of no use. And an | entirely new one must be proposed, | which will be able to carry the human | mind from empirical data to the real | causes, to supply it with the means of | invention, to justify the position of | first truths and to manage a secure | deduction of practical consequences. | And, as the critique of the old logic | has to be understood as a whole, so | the interpretation of nature has to be | conceived as a continuous attempt, | proceeding by degrees, by successive | stages, to invent truth and to derive | works. ("Bacon's method of science", | in: THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO BACON. | ed. by Markku Peltonen , 76-82). | | 1C. | Harvey Wheeler comments: | | Most historians of the philosophy of science | are unfamiliar with Bacon's transformation | of his innovative theory of juridical | lawfinding into scientific empiricist | lawfinding. Baconian law-finding is not to | be confused with cause-finding in modern | "classical" physics. | | Bacon's quest changed as he matured. In | VALERIUS TERMINUS he is writing in | English, trying to lay the groundwork for | the validity of the co-existence of Religion | and Science. | | Bacon’s early experimental treatises--like | Dense and Rare--are experimental and of | limited value. Historians of the philosophy | of science have little trouble in disposing | these early experimentalist efforts of Bacon. | | His work on sound was somewhat better-- | experimental-theoretical. It is a | post-pythagorean theory of harmonics and | still not appropriately analyzed. | Contemproary musicologists like to quote | the passages on sound in NEW ATLANTIS | for being compatible with today’s approach | to music. | | By the time of the Novum Organum Bacon | was seeking a more "general theory of | science." Its 'logic machine' (Hooke) was | designed to be relevant to all | non-theological domains. | | However, most Bacon interpreters evaluate | his science in contrast to the prior | Aristotelian approaches and in comparison | to the Ramist approaches of Bacon’s day. | He rejected them both. | | Scholars then look beyond Bacon and | evaluate his logic machine in contrast to the | "classical mechanics" of Newtonian Optics | (physics): linear time-sequence prediction. | | Bacon was not seeking that type of | "cause/prediction"science. He was seeking | hidden, "unwritten" "laws" of nature, | more on the model of Pasteur than of | Newton. | | Any treatment that tries to interpret | Bacon's Logic Machine in the light of what | classical physics called "science" will | distort Bacon's meaning and achievement. | | Note: if a scholar's interpretation of | Bacon's Science does not square with the | detailed description of the application of | Bacon's science in "Salomon's House" in | NEW ATLANTIS, it should be viewed with | scepticism. | | Bacon's science is more applicable to what | we call post-modern neo-hermeutics than to | Newtonian mechanics. (Patrick Heelan is | good on post-modern neo-hermeneutics.) | | Consider: why did Bacon conclude that his | New Logic Machine would produce | scientific knowledge in the form of | aphorisms and apothegms--not linear | time-sequence predictions? | | To summarize the above:: Most | contemporary interpreters of Bacon | evaluate his science by comparison with | Newtonian mechanics. If one interprets | Bacon on the basis of classical mechanics, | the result will not truly reflect Bacon's | science. | | A more fruitful modern model is the | Watson-Crick type of "science" illustrated | by their discovery of the double helix. Their | process, as described carefully in Watson's | book, could have been lifted from Bacon. It | was not. But the point is that it tells of a | highly successful, highly empiricist (in | Bacon's and Kant's meaning of | phenomenological empiricism) approach to | the "understanding" of the "unwritten | laws" of cell theory and genetics. | | NOTE: It is very instructive to study why | Linus Pauling failed to dsiscover the genetic | code. He was an expert in the physics of | biochemistry and applied quantum theory | to molecular biology. His theory of the | molecular bond won a Nobel Laureate. | | Read Watson's explanation of why Pauling | failed to crack the genetic code. | | Guenther Stent, the molecular biologist of | U.C. Berkeley is an avowed Kantian | who narrowly missed cracking the genetic | code, His philosophy of science is | highly relevant to the application of | neo-hermeneutics to contemporary biology. | | Today's philosophy of physics, as developed | by John Wheeler and David Bohm | describes a "Baconian" idea of the | "participant-observer universe" to account | "scientifically" and empirically for the | evidence produced in post-modern physics. | | I hold to two points that may not persuade | others. The first is the relevance of | "law-finding" to the phenemonological | empiricism at the heart of Bacon's Nov Org | logic machine--as contrasted with his early | experimentalism. The second is the | standard for us to use in evaluating Bacon's | science. Those who apply the model of | science widespread in the social sciences | and humanities during the 19th and mid | 20th centuries--essentially a model based | upon pre-Einsteinian physics--argue that | Bacon's science is not "science." | | In the last half of the 20th century | "science" in both the "hard" and "soft" | sciences underwent the so-called "second | scientific revolution." The results, in | physics and biology, produced a | phenomenology and an empiricism | that were both quite compatible with the | pre-Newtonian science of Bacon. | | About 80% of the actual research in | laboratories done today by scientists of | all fields, (unaware) follows remarkably | closely to the process explained by | Bacon in Novum Organum and described in | New Atlantis--except that taskforce | research is not today quite as well | organized as was described by Bacon in | New Atlantis. | | In thinking of Bacon's philosophy of science | remember the three features in the Latin of | Novum Organum: Schematismus, | Processus, Form. These operations, which | have counterparts in the "case method" of | searching for the implicit unwritten law | behind a series of judge rulings, cannot be | understood from a reading of the Ellis | translation. Nobody who works from that | version can understand, nor do justice to, | Bacon's science. with the Annotations of | Hermes Stella{2} | 2. Franz Trägfer sums up the Harley MSS.6463 | discussion on "Hermes Stella" | and "Valerius Terminus" "Der Titel des | Fragments wurde zweimal entscheidend | interpretiert. Ellis (Vorwort, | 201/2): | | "It is impossible to ascertain | the motive which determined | Bacon to give the supposed | author the name of Valerius | Terminus, or to his | commentator, of whose | annotations we have no remains, | that of Hermes Stella. It may | be conjectured that by the name | Terminus he intended to | intimate that the new | philosophy would put an end to | the wandering of mankind in | search of truth, that it would | be the TERMINUS AD QAEM in | which when it was once attained | the mind would finally | acquiesce. | | Again the obscurity of the text | was to be in some measure | removed by the annotations of | Stella; not however wholly, for | Bacon in the epitome of the | eighteenth chapter commends the | manner of publishing knowledge | 'whereby it shall not be to the | capacity nor taste of all, but | shall as it were single and | adopt his reader.' Stella was | therefore to throw a kind of | starlight on the subject, | enough to prevent the student's | losing his way, but not much | more." | | Die andere klassische | Interpretation gibt Anderson | (op.cit.16/17): | | "The word 'terminus' probably | indicates the 'limits and end' | to which investigation may | proceed. The ANNOTATIONS, of | which 'none are set down in | this fragments'--to quote a | statement written on the | manuscript by Bacon's hand, are | to throw a light as by a star | (STELLA). Now 'star' is the | symbol used by Bacon in the | GESTA GRAYORUM, the ADVANCEMENT | OF LEARNING, and the DE | AUGMENTIS to represent the | sovereign. And the significance | which he attaches to the word | 'Hermes' is evident from his | address to King James in the | Introduction to the ADVANCEMENT | OF LEARNING. 'There is met in | your Majesty, says Bacon, 'a | rare conjunction as well of | divine and sacred literature as | of profane and human; so as | your Majesty standeth invested | of that triplicity which in | great veneration was ascribed | to the ancient Hermes; the | power and fortune of a King, | the knowledge and illumination | of a Priest, and the learning | and the universality of a | Philosopher.' Bacon is, or | pretended to be, greatly | impressed by James's learning: | 'To drink indeed', he says, 'of | the true fountains of learning, | nay to have such a fountain of | learning in himself, in a king, | and in a king born, is always a | miracle.' And it would appear | that he hopes at the beginning | of James's reign--long before | he suffers disillusionment | respecting his sovereign's | interest in the advance of | 'solid' knowledge--that, | whether or not he can obtain a | greater position of state | beyond that alloted to him by | Elizabeth, he may be enabled to | have the modern Hermes, king of | the realm and head of the | church, and a literary man of | no mean fame and importance, | annote a subject's work on the | new science. James, when he has | done this, may well be | prevailed upon to make | provision for the operation of | the new method of knowledge | either by subsidizing helpers | or by placing at the author's | disposal old or new foundations | of learning (Works, II, 175, | 180; VI, 90, 172; VIII, 396, | 401)." | | Brandt (op.cit., 54) Iehnt | diese Interpretation ab: | "1. findet sich keine klare | Bezeichnung des Königs als | eines Sterns, es läßt sich den | von Anderson angegebenen Texten | nicht entnehmen, daß Stella als | Symbol für Jakob I. zu gelten | hat. 2. kann nur ein König als | Hermes-Trismegistos | angesprochen werden (so VIII, | 335 und I, 432, nicht in der | englischen Fassung III, 263), | weil im Namen die Einheit von | Priester, Philosoph und König | liegt, aber im Titel unserer | Schrift steht nur Hermes, und | die Figur des Hermes hat eme | vielfältige Bedeutung; Hermes | ist der Grenzgott, auf ihn wird | schon in dem Wort 'Terminus' | des Titels angespielt; weiter | ist Hermes der Götterbote, der | 'hermeneus' oder Interpret-- | die Hermesmythologie ist | hineingesponnen in die | interpretatio naturae, die sich | Bacon zur Aufgabe stellt und in | seine Rolle als 'keryx´ und | `buccinator', als Bote des | Friedens (I, 580-581). Man wird | also lieber Hermes Stella eine | der vielen Masken Bacons sein | lassen und sich damit zugleich | von der peinlichen Vorstellung | befreien, Bacon künde im Titel | seines Werkes an, daß der König | die Fußnoten dazu verfaßt (eben | das folgt aus der Annahme von | Anderson)." | | Dieser Auseinandersetzung urn | die Bedeutung des Titels eine | neue Erklärung anzufügen, halte | ich, solange keine neuen | Dokumente gefunden werden, für | wenig sinnvoll. Allein, es sei | angemerkt, wollten wir uns mit | Brandt von dieser peinlichen | Vorstellung bezüglich Bacons | Denken und Trachten befreien, | so blieben noch genug | Peinlichkeiten der Hybris | Bacons." | | Franz Träger (Hg.), Valerius | Terminus. Von der | Interpretation der Natur | Würzburg: Königshausen und | Neumann, 1984,25-26. | in: The Works of Francis Bacon. Faksimile- | Neudruck der Ausgabe von Spedding, Ellis | und Heath, London 1857-1874, in vierzehn | Bänden (Stuttgart/Bad Cannstadt: Friedrich | Fromann, Verlag Günther Holzboog, 1963), | vol. 3.{3} | 3. Franz Träger discovered that the | Spedding & Ellis as MS6462 is not | correct, in fact it is MS6463. In | his opinion Valerius Terminus was | written before The Advancement of | Learning. Anderson, Farrington | and Rossi also have the opinion | that it was written in 1603. | Stephens in his edition of 1734 | uses the same order as the | handwritten copy of Bacon's text. | Later editors, including Spedding | and Ellis, choose an order which | corresponds to Bacon's new order | of chapters given in his index. | Franz Träger compared the | translation of the 11th chapter | with the translation of Guiseppe | Furlani, DIE ENTSTEHUNG UND DAS | WESEN DER BACONISCHEN METHODE in: | Archiv für Geschichte der | Philosophie, ed. L. Stein, 33. | Bd., Berlin, 1921, S.23-47. (1. | Teil, 32. Bd., S. 189 ff). | Träger has also checked the | following Bacon translations: | | ESSAYS, übers. von Elisabeth | Schücking, Stuttgart, 1970; | | NEUES ORGANON DER WISSENSCHAFTEN, | übers. von Anton Theobald Brück, | Darmstadt, 1981 (Nachdruck der | Ausgabe, Leipzig, 1830); | | NOVUM ORGANON, übers. von Rudolf | Hoffmann, bearb. von Gertraud Korf, | hrsg. von Manfred Buhr, Berlin (DDR), | 1982. | | | | | | OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. | | | CAP. 1. | Of the limits and end of knowledge. | | In the divine nature both religion and | philosophy hath acknowledged goodness in | perfection, science or providence | comprehending all things, and absolute | sovereignty or kingdom. In aspiring to the | throne of power the angels transgressed | and fell{4}, in presuming to come within | 4. Antje Peters checked the Old the oracle of knowledge man transgressed | Testament and the New Testament on the and | fall of the angels: | | Jesaja 14, 14 | Das Judentum ist geprägt von der | antithetisch parallelen Vorstellung | von Dämonen und Engeln als Schädiger | bzw. Helfer des Menschen. Sie wird in | der Erzählung vom Engelfall entfaltet. | | Das Buch Jesaja (Jes 14,12ff)14:12 | Ach, du bist vom Himmel gefallen, du | strahlender Sohn der Morgenröte. Zu | Boden bist du geschmettert, du | Bezwinger der Völker. | | 14:13 Du aber hattest in deinem | Herzen gedacht: Ich ersteige den | Himmel; dort oben stelle ich meinen | Thron auf, über den Sternen Gottes; | auf den Berg der (Götter)versammlung | setze ich mich, im äußersten Norden. | | 14:14 Ich steige weit über die Wolken | hinauf, um dem Höchsten zu gleichen. | | 14:15 Doch in die Unterwelt wirst du | hinabgeworfen, in die äußerste Tiefe. | | Im AT gehörte Satan zu den "Söhnen | Gottes" im himmlischen Hofstaat, wie | die wohl alte Vorstellung Ijob 1,6 | zeigt. | | Das Buch Ijob (Ijob 1,6)1:6 Nun | geschah es eines Tages, da kamen die | Gottessöhne, um vor den Herrn | hinzutreten; unter ihnen kam auch der | Satan. | | Er gilt als Diener Gottes und | verkörpert eine ursprünglich Gott | zugeschriebene Funktion. | Der von dann von Gott abgefallene und | mit seinem Diener aus dem Himmel | gestürzte Engelsfürst wird zum Gegner | Gottes und Verführer der Menschen. | | Auch im NT findet der Teufel als ein | oder der Fürst der gefallenen bösen | Engel Erwähnung. | | Das Evangelium nach Lukas (Lk | 10,18)10:18 Da sagte er zu ihnen: Ich | sah den Satan wie einen Blitz vom | Himmel fallen. | | Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (2 | Kor 11,14)11:14 Kein Wunder, denn auch | der Satan tarnt sich als Engel des | Lichts. | | | Neben den Bibeltexten wird Bacon auch | "De Civitate Dei" (Der Gottesstaat) | von Aurelius Augustinus, dem größten | lateinischen Kirchenlehrer des | christlichen Altertums, vorgelegen | haben, in der das Thema Engelfall | mehrfach unter verschiedenen | Gesichtspunkten erwähnt wird. | So wird im elften Buch die Situation | der Engel besonders beleuchtet. | | Buch XI, 11 | ... Von dieser Erleuchtung haben sich | gewisse Engel abgewendet und sich die | Auszeichnung eines weisen und seligen | Lebens nicht bewahrt, das zweifellos | nur das ewige, seiner Ewigkeit sichere | und vergewisserte Leben sein kann. Sie | besitzen nur noch ein Vernunftleben, | wenn auch ein einsichtsloses und | derart, daß sie es, selbst wenn sie | wollen, nicht verlieren können. ... | | Buch XI, 13 | ... Die sündigen Engel, die durch ihre | Schlechtigkeit jenes Lichtes verlustig | gingen, haben sie (die | Glückseligkeit), wie wir schlüssig | folgern müssen, auch bevor sie fielen, | nicht gehabt. ... | | Buch XI, 19 | ... Denn diese Scheidung (zwischen | Licht und Finsteris) konnte nur er | allein treffen, der auch, bevor sie | fielen, ihren künftigen Fall | vorauswissen kont, und daß sie, des | Lichtes der Wahrheit verlustig, im | finsteren Hochmut verharren würden. | | Buch XI, 33 | Daß es aber Engel gibt, die gesündigt | haben und in die tiefste Tiefe dieser | Welt verstoßen sind, die ihnen zu | einer Art von Kerker wurde, darin sie | bis zur bevorstehenden letzten | Verurteilung am Tage des Gerichtes zu | bleiben haben: das offenbart ganz | deutlich der Apostel Petrus. Er sagt, | daß Gott die sündigen Engel nicht | geschont, sondern sie in die finsteren | Abgründe der Hölle hinabgestoßen hat, | wo die bis zur Bestrafung im Gerichte | gefangengehalten werden. ... | ... Und da ja Gott, wie geschrieben | steht, "den Stolzen widersteht, den | Demütigen aber Gnade gibt" (Jak 4,6; 1 | Petr 5,5), wohnt die eine | (Engelsgenossenschaft) im Himmel der | Himmel und ist die andre von dort | hinabgestürzt in diesen untersten | Lufthimmel, um hier ruhelos in und her | zu schwirren. | | Buch XXII,1 | Gott ist es, der mit dem freiwilligen | Sturz der Engel die völlig gerechte | Strafe ewiger Unseligkeit verknüpft | hat und den übrigen Engeln, die im | höchsten Gut verblieben sind, als Lohn | für ihr Verbleiben die Sicherheit | gewährt hat, daß dieses Verbleiben | kein Ende haben wird. | | Aufgrund dieser Erkenntnisse zieht | Augustin Parallelen zum Leben der | Menschen, besonders im 12. Buch: | | Buch XII,1 | ... Während die einen standhaft in dem | allen gemeinsamen Gut, das für sie | Gott selbst ist, und in seiner | Ewigkeit, Wahrheit und Liebe | verharren, sind die anderen, von ihrer | eigenen Macht berauscht, als wären sie | sich selbst ihr Gut , vom höheren, | allen gemeinsamen, beseligenden Gut | zum eigenen Selbst abgefallen. ... fell{5}: but in pursuit towards the | 5. Spedding's footnote:This clause is similitude of God's goodness or love | repeated in the margin, in the (which is one thing, for love is nothing | transcriber's hand. else but goodness put in motion or | applied) neither man or spirit ever | hath transgressed, or shall transgress.{6} | 6. similarly in: : I.M. Praefatio Sp. | I,132, 19-22; AL Sp. III, 12 seq. The angel of light that was, when he | (D.A. Sp. I, 742, 1 9 seq. (footnote presumed before his fall, said within | taken from the French translation of himself, I WILL ASCEND AND BE LIKE UNTO | Valerius Terminus by Francois Vert, | Meridiens Klincksieck, 1986) THE HIGHEST{7}; not God, but the highest. | 7. Isaiah 14, 14: To be like to God in goodness, was no part | Authorized Version: I will ascend of his emulation; knowledge, being in | above the heights of the clouds; I creation an angel of light, was not the | will be like the most high. want which did most solicit him; only | because he was a minister he aimed at a | supremacy; therefore his climbing or | ascension was turned into a throwing down | or precipitation. | | Man on the other side, when he was tempted | before he fell, had offered unto him this | suggestion, THAT HE SHOULD BE LIKE | UNTO GOD{8}. But how? Not simply, but in | 8. Genesis 3, 5: this part, KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL. For | Authorized Version: For God does know being in his creation invested with | that in the day ye eat thereof, then sovereignty of all inferior | your eyes shall be opened, and ye | shall be as gods, knowing good and | evil. | | For Bacon's alleged use of the Geneva | Bible see Henri Durel-Leon in | Transactions of the Cambridge | Bibliographical Society, XI:2 (1997), | p. 160 and n. 74, modified in the | direction of AV by, probably, Lancelot | Andrewes in AL. (Thanks to Dr. | Leedham-Green) | | Geneva Bible: The First Boke of Moses, | called Genesis, Chap 3,4+5: Then the | serpent said to the woman, Ye shal not | dye at all, But God doeth knowe, that | when ye shall eat thereof, your eyes | shalbe opened, & ye shalbe as gods | knowing good and evil. [footnote c: As | thogh he shulde say, God doeth not | forbid you to eat of the frute, save | that he knoweth that if you shulde eat | thereof, you shulde be like to him] | | Authorized Version: And the serpent | said unto the woman, Ye shall not | surely die: For God doth know that in | the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes | shall be opened, and ye shall be as | gods, knowing good and evil. | | Vulgata: dixit autem serpens ad | mulierem nequaquam morte moriemini / | scit enim Deus quod in quocumque die | comederitis ex eo aperientur oculi | vestri et eritis sicut dii scientes | bonum et malum creatures{9}, he was not needy of power or | 9. Genesis I, 1,26 dominion; but again, being a spirit newly | Geneva Bible: Furthermore God said, inclosed in a body of earth, he was | Let us make man in our image according fittest to be allured with appetite of | to our lickeness, and let them rule light and liberty of knowledge; therefore | over the fish of the sea, and over the this approaching and intruding into God's | foule of the heaven, and over the secrets and mysteries was rewarded with a | beastes, & over all the earth, and further removing and estranging from God's | over everiething that crepeth & moveth presence. But as to the goodness of God, | on earth. there is no danger in contending or | advancing towards a similitude thereof, as | Authorized Version: And God said, Let that which is open and propounded to our | us make man in our image, after our imagination. For that voice (whereof the | likeness: and let them have dominion heathen and all other errors of religion | over the fish of the sea, and over the have ever confessed that it sounds not | fowl of the air, and over the cattle, like man), LOVE YOUR ENEMIES; BE YOU LIKE | and over all the earth, and over every UNTO YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER, THAT SUFFERETH | creeping thing that creepeth upon the HIS RAIN TO FALL BOTH UPON | earth. | | Vulgata: Et ait faciamus hominem ad | imaginem et similitudinem nostram et | praesit piscibus maris et volatilibus | caeli et bestiis universaeque terrae | omnique reptili quod movetur in terra THE JUST AND THE UNJUST{10}, doth well | 10. Matthew 5, 44-45 declare, that we can in that point commit | Geneva Bible: Love your enemies... no excess; so again we find it often | That you may be the children of your repeated in the old law, BE YOU HOLY AS I | Father that is in heaven: for he AM | maketh his sunne to arise on the | evil, and the good, and he sendeth | raine on the iuste, & unjuste. | | Authorized Version: Love your | enemies:... That you may be the | children of your father which is in | heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise | on the evil and on the good, and | sendeth rain on the just and on the | unjust. | Vulgata: Ego autem dico vobis diligite | inimicos vestros ... ut sitis filii | Patris vestri qui in caelis est qui | solem suum oriri facit super bonos et | malos et pluit super iustos et | iniustos. HOLY{11}; and what is holiness else but | 11. Leviticus 11,44: goodness, as we consider it separate and | Authorized Version: For I am the Lord guarded from all mixture and all access of | your God: ye shall therefore sanctify evil? | yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for | I am holy: neither shall ye defile Wherefore seeing that knowledge is of the | yourself with any manner of creeping number of those things which are to be | thing that creepeth upon the earth. accepted of with caution and | 1 Peter 1, 16: | | Authorized Version: For it is written, | Be ye holy; for I am holy. | see also Leviticus 20,7 and 20,26 distinction{12}; being now to open a | 12. cf. A.L. Sp.III, 264, 1.18 (D.A. fountain, such as it is not easy to | Sp. I, 433, I. 29,30) discern where the issues and streams | thereof will take and fall; I thought it | good and necessary in the first place to | make a strong and sound head or bank to | rule and guide the course of the waters; | by setting down this position or | firmament{13}, namely, THAT ALL KNOWLEDGE | 13. Melek Hasgün comments: IS TO BE LIMITED BY RELIGION, AND TO BE | ‘Firmament’ means, apart from the arch REFERRED | or vault of heaven overhead, in which | the clouds and the stars appear, in | the literal etymological sense a firm | support or foundation. At the | beginning of his text Bacon sets | the basis for his further theories. | According to Bacon it is important not | to try to find out the secrets and | mysteries of God or to desire to be | like God, as was the case in the Fall | of Man and the Fall of Angels. Thus it | is forbidden to exceed these limits, | but to inquire into nature and its | creatures is legitimate, because God | has "...let man have dominion over | (...) all the earth..."(Gen.I, 1,26). | He maintains that all knowledge is | limited by religion and by this | statement he also avoids any suspicion | on heresy, which could arise because | of his desire for progress and | knowledge. TO USE AND ACTION{14}. | 14. "Ad meritum et usus vitae", Works, | vol. I, p. 132 ; Italics in order to For if any man shall think by view and | stress the importance; probably not a inquiry into these sensible and material | quotation. things, to attain to any light for the | revealing of the nature or will of God, he | shall dangerously abuse himself. It is | true that the contemplation of the | creatures of God hath for end (as to the | natures of the creatures themselves) | knowledge, but as to the nature of God, no | knowledge, but wonder; which is nothing | else but contemplation broken off, or | losing itself. Nay further, as it was | aptly said by one of Plato's school THE | SENSE OF MAN RESEMBLES THE SUN, WHICH | OPENETH AND REVEALETH THE TERRESTRIAL | GLOBE, BUT OBSCURETH AND CONCEALETH THE | CELESTIAL{15}; so doth the sense discover | 15. Philo d'Alexandrie, Des Songes, natural things, but darken and shut up | Livre I, 83-4 (footnote taken from the divine. And this appeareth sufficiently in | Vert translation) that there is no proceeding in invention | of knowledge but by similitude; and God is | only self-like, having nothing in common | with any creature, otherwise than as in | shadow and trope. Therefore attend his | will as himself openeth it, and give unto | faith that which unto faith belongeth{16}; | 16. St. Matthew 22, 21: for more worthy it is to believe than to | Authorized Version: ... Then saith he think or know, considering that in | unto them, Render therefore unto knowledge (as we now are capable of it) | Caesar the things which are Caesar's; the mind suffereth from inferior natures; | and unto God the things that are but in all belief it suffereth from a | God's. spirit which it holdeth superior and | more authorised than itself.{17} | 17. cf. A.L. Sp. III,478,1.8 sq. (D.A. | Sp. I, 830, I. 24 seq. To conclude, the prejudice hath been | infinite that both divine and human | knowledge hath received by the | intermingling and tempering of the one | with the other; as that which hath filled | the one full of heresies, and the other | full of speculative fictions and | 18. similarly: A.L. Sp.III, 350,I.24 Vanities{18}. | seq. (D.A. Sp. I, 545, I.35 swq.) | John Channing Briggs (""Bacon's But now there are again which in a | science and religion", in: THE contrary extremity to those which give to | CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO BACON, ed. by contemplation an over-large scope, do | Markku Peltonen, Cambridge 1996) offer too great a restraint to natural and | comments on Bacon's separation of lawful knowledge, being unjustly jealous | divinity and natural philosophy that every reach and depth of knowledge | (quotations in Briggs' text are from wherewith their conceits have not been | THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING): acquainted, should be too high an | elevation of man's wit, and a searching | A longstanding commonplace in Bacon and ravelling too far into God's secrets; | scholarship has been the notion that an opinion that ariseth either of envy | the Baconian advancement of learning (which is proud weakness and to be | depends upon a strict separation of censured and not confuted), or else of a | divinity and natural philosophy. In deceitful simplicity. For if they mean | a number of memorable passages Bacon that the ignorance of a second cause doth | indeed warns his readers of the dire make men more devoutly to depend upon the | consequences of confusing divinity providence of God, as supposing the | with natural science: to combine effects to come immediately from his hand, | them, he says, is to confound them. I demand of them, as Job demanded of his | This is supposedly what Plato and the friends, WILL YOU LIE FOR GOD AS MAN WILL | scholastics did, and what Bacon FOR MAN TO | explicitly designs the new learning | to overcome. Even the acceptable | hybrid "divine philosophy," when it | is "commixed together" with natural | philosophy, leads to "an heretical | religion, and an imaginary and | fabulous philosophy" (III, 350). | According to this emphatic strand of | Baconian doctrine, religion that | joins with the study of nature is in | danger of becoming atheistic, or an | enthusiastic rival of the true | church. Natural philosophy that | traffics unwisely with divinity | collapses into idolatry or fakery. | | Bacon's exemplum of these abuses in a | modern proto-science is the divine | philosophy of the Paracelsian school, | which seeks "the truth of all natural | philosophy in the Scriptures." The | Paracelsians mirror and reverse the | heresies of pagan pantheism by | seeking what is "dead" (mortal or | natural) from among the "living" | (eternal) truths of divinity, when | "the scope or purpose of the Spirit | of God is not to express matters of | nature in the Scriptures, otherwise | than in passage, and for application | to man's capacity and to matters | moral or divine" (ut 485-6). If we | take Thomas Sprat at his word, the | Royal Society was founded on | generally similar principles. The | first corruption of knowledge, he | argues, resulted from the Egyptians' | concealment of wisdom "as sacred | Mysteries." The current age of | inquiry benefitted from "the | dissolution of the ABBYES, whereby | their Libraries came forth into the | light, and fell into industrious Mens | hands." Surrounded by the warring | forces of contrary religions (the | society's rooms at Gresham College, | London, were occupied by soldiers in | 1658), the founders of the Royal | Society--according to Sprat's | account--were "invincibly arm'd" not | only against scholastic Catholicism, | but against the "inchantments of | ENTHUSIASM" and "spiritual Frensies" | that sometimes characterized the | Protestant revolutionaries. | | In Bacon's project, there is an | explicit, delineated role for the | study of divinity, which he carefully | separates from his own work. Reason | is at work "in the conception and | apprehension of the mysteries of God | to us revealed" and in "the inferring | and deriving of doctrine and | direction thereupon" (III, 479). In | the first instance reason stirs | itself only to grasp and illustrate | revelation; it does not inquire. This | is the foundation of Bacon's | distinction between true natural | philosophy, which inquires into the | world as God's manifestation of his | GLORY or power, and true theology, | which piously interprets the | scripturally revealed meaning of | God's inscrutable will. The natural | world declares God's glory but not | his will (III, 478). Reason's power | in theology therefore "consisteth of | probation and argument." lt | formulates doctrine only insofar as | God's revelation, largely or wholly | through Scripture, makes it possible. | The Lord "doth grift [graft) his | revelations and holy doctrine upon | the notions of our reason, and | applieth his inspirations to open our | understanding" (III, 480). (pp. 172- | 173) GRATIFY HIM?{19} But if any man without | 19. Job 13, 7-9: any sinister humour doth indeed make doubt | Authorized Version: Will ye speak that this digging further and further into | wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully | for him? Will ye accept his person? | will ye contend for God? Is it good | that he should search you out? as one | man mocketh another, do ye so mock | him? the mine of natural knowledge{20} is a | 20. This image is also used in A.L. Sp. thing without example and uncommended in | III, 351, I, 16 where Bacon refers to the Scriptures, or fruitless; let him | Democritus (Vert's footnote) remember and be instructed; for behold it | was not that pure light of natural | knowledge, whereby man in paradise was | able to give unto every living creature a | name according to his propriety{21}, which | 21. Genesis 2,19-20 gave occasion to the fall; but it was an | Geneva Bible: So the Lord God formed aspiring desire to attain to that part of | of the earth everie beast of the moral knowledge which defineth of good and | field, and everie foule of the heaven, evil, whereby to dispute God's | & broght them unto the man to se how commandments and not to depend upon the | he wolde call them: for howsoever the revelation of his will, which was the | man named the living creature, so was original temptation. And the first holy | the name thereof.The man therefore records, which within those brief | gave names unto all cattle, and to the memorials of things which passed before | foule of the heaven, and to everie the flood entered few things as worthy to | beast of the field: but for Adam found be registered but only | he not an help mete for him. | | Authorized Version: And out of the | ground the Lord God formed every beast | of the field, and every fowl of the | air; and brought THEM unto Adam to see | what he would call them: and | whatsoever Adam called every living | creature, that WAS the name thereof. | And Adam gave names to all cattle, and | to the fowl of the air, and to every | beast of the field; but for Adam there | was not found an help meet for him. | | Vulgata:Igitur Dominus Deus de humo | cunctis animantibus terrae et | universis volatilibus caeli adduxit ea | ad Adam ut videret quid vocaret ea / | omne enim quod vovavit Adam animae | viventis ipsum est nomen eius / | appelavitque Adam nominibus suis | cuncat animantia / et universa | volatilia et omnes bestias terrae / | Adam vero non inveniebatur adiutor | similis eius lineages{22} and propagations, yet | 22. Spedding's footnote: LINAGES in nevertheless honour the remembrance | original. See note 3, p. 148 of the inventor both of music{23} and | 23. Genesis 4,21: | Authorized Version: And his brother's | name was Jubal: he was the father of | all such as handle the harp and organ. | | Vulgata: et nomen fratris eius Iuabal | ipse fuit pater canentium cithara et | organo works in metal{24}. Moses again (who was | 24. Genesis, 4,22: the reporter) is said to have been seen in | Authorized Version: And Zillah, she all | also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of | every artificer in brass and iron... | | Vulgata: Sella quoque genuit | Thubalcain qui fuitmalleator et faber | in cuncta opera aeris et ferri... the Egyptian learning{25}, which nation | 25. The Acts 7,22: was early and leading in matter of | Authorized Version: And Moses was | learned in all the wisdom of the | Egyptians, and was mighty in words and | deeds. knowledge. And Salomon the king,{26} as | 26. cf. A.L. Sp.III, 298,I.38; N.A. Sp. out of a branch of his wisdom | III, 145, I seq. extraordinarily petitioned and granted | from God, is said to have written a | natural history of all that is green from | the cedar to the moss{27}, (which is but a | 27. 1 Kings 4, 29-34 rudiment between putrefaction and | Geneva Bible: And God gave Salomon | wisdome, und understanding exceeding | muche, and a large heart, even as the | sand that is on the sea shore. And | Salomons wisdome excelled the wisdome | of all the children of the East and | all the wisdome of Egypt. For he was | wiser than anie man.... and he was | famous throughout all nacions rounde | about. And Salomon spake thre thousand | proverbes: and his songs were a | thousand and five. And he spake of | trees, from the cedar tre that is in | Lebanon, even unto the hyssope that | springeth out of the wall: he spake | also of beastes, and of foules, and of | creping things, and of fishes. And | there came all the people to heare the | wisdome of Salomon, from all Kings of | the earth, which had heard of his | wisdome. | | Authorized Version:And God gave | Salomon wisdom and understanding | exceeding much, and largeness of | heart, even as the sand that is on the | sea shore. And Salomon's wisdom | excelled the wisdom of all the | children of the east country, and all | the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser | than all men...and his fame was in all | nations round about. And he spake | three thousands proverbs; and his | songs were a thousand and five. And he | spake of trees, from the cedar tree | that is in Lebanon even unto the | hyssop that springeth out of the wall: | he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, | and of creeping things, and of fishes. | And there came all people to hear the | wisdom of Salomon. From all kings of | the earth, which had heard of his | wisdom. | | Vulgata: Liber Malachim 4, 29-34: | Dedit quoque Deus sapientiam Salomoni | et prudentiam multam nimis et | latitudinem cordis quasi harenam quae | est in litore maris / et praecedebat | sapientia Salomonis sapientiam omnium | orientalium et Aegyoptorum / et erat | sapientia cunctis hominibus.. Et erat | nominatus inuniversis gentibus per | cicuitum / locutus est quoque Salomon | tria milia parabolas et fuerunt | carmina eius quinque et mille / et | disputavit super lignis a cedro quae | est in Libano usque ad hysopum quae | egreditur de pariete et disseuit de | iumentis et volucribus et reptilibus | et piscibus / et veniebant de cunctis | populis ad audiendam sapientiam | Salomonis et ab universis regibus | terrae qui audiebant sapientiam eius | | Luther Bible: 1. Könige 5, 9-14 | | Melek Hasgün comments: The hyssop is | mentioned in Shakespeare’s OTHELLO | I,3: "Sow lettuce, set hyssop and | weed up thyme". Hyssop and thyme were | believed to aid the growth of each | other, one being moist and the other | dry. The reason why Bacon used moss | instead of hyssop could be that moss | is also a moist plant and he chose an | expression which is more general or | known. an herb{28},) and also of all that liveth | 28. The plant mentioned in the Bible is and moveth. And if the book of Job be | not "moss", but HYSOPPUS OFFICINALIS turned over; it will be found to have much | [in German: JOSEFSKRAUT, KIRCHENSEPPL, aspersion of natural | EISOP, YSOP)]. "The Greek plant name | HÝSSOOPOS is probably derived from | Hebrew ESOB (mentioned in the | Bible...), although it is not clear | whether ESOB referred to the plant | called hyssop today. Another | explanation gives Arabic AZZOF "holy | herb" as the source of the name (cf. | French HERBE SACRÉ) (Gernot Katzer | Website on Spices). Gernot Katzer in | his entry on the pomegranate | (http://www- | ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/germ/index | .html) considers the problem of the | names of plants in the Bible: | | "The pomegranate tree is an ancient | cultigen in Western Asia; it is | mentioned in the oldest part of the | Old Testament (the Pentateuch). | Although the Old Testament is not a | collection of cooking recipes, it | names many plants of everyday or | cultic usage in ancient Israel; the | New Testament, though, has less | descriptive character, and plants are, | consequently, named much less | frequently. | | If one wants to set up a "collection | of biblical spices", one must not | forget that there are three millennia | between the language of the Old | Testament and ours; therefore, exact | translations are sometimes impossible. | The following quote (Isaiah 28,27) may | illustrate the difficulties of | translation: | | 'QETSACH is not threshed with a | sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over | KAMMON; QETSACH is beaten out with a | rod, and KAMMON with a stick.' | | Because of the dialectic structure, we | may infer that the two plants are | similar, but differ in details of | their harvest. The term KAMMON | obviously is related to Greek KÝMINON | (cumin), but also lies behind English | CARAWAY; QETSACH is more difficult to | analyze. Probably it means NIGELLA, | sometimes also called BLACK CUMIN, | whose seeds ripen in a closed capsule, | which must first be opened. | | Yet in translating the Bible, botanic | accuracy is less an aim than general | matters of style. "Black cumin" is | less elegant than "cumin", and | "nigella" is not an English word at | all. Therefore, English Bible | translations render QETSACH as DILL, | CARAWAY or "fitches", a word that is | missing from every modern dictionary. | German translators, on the other hand, | who don't have a traditional, elegant | word for CUMIN, commonly translate | KAMMON as CARAWAY (which is almost | certainly wrong), and have to resort | to DILL for QETSACH. | | Comparing different translations of | the Old Testament, one find some or | all of the following (Hebrew terms are | given in parenthesis): garlic (shuwm), | onion (b@tsel), nigella (qetsach, also | rendered as caraway oder dill, quite | obscure), cumin (kammon, also | caraway), coriander (gad), caper | (abiyownah, also translated "desire"), | cinnamon (qinnamown), cassia (qiddah, | also interpreted as a synonym of | cinnamon or cassia buds), hyssop | (ezowb, frequent but very obscure), | myrtle (hadac), olive (shemen and | zayith, very frequent), juniper | (b@rowsh, also given as "fir" or | "pine"), almond (shaqed), pomegranate | (rimmown or rimmon), rose | (chabatstseleth, very obscure) and | saffron (karkom). | | Similarly, the New Testament has not | been translated by biologists--the | latter had not suspected birds to live | in mustard plants (sínapi). Other | plant names from the New Testament | include the following (Greek given in | parenthesis): mint (heedýosmon, this | is not the common name of mint in | Greek), cumin (kýminon, also | translated caraway), anis (áneethon, | also rendered dill), rue (peéganon, | not the common term), cinnamon | (kinnámoomon), hyssop (hýssoopos, | referring to the obscure word in the | Old Testament) and olive (agriélaios | "olive tree" and elaíon "olive oil"). | | The DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE (ed. by | James Hastings and John A. Selbie, | Edinburgh, 3rd ed.1914) says about the | HYSSOP: "It was used for sprinkling | blood (Ex. 12,22) and in the ritual of | the cleansing of lepers (Lv 14,4, Nu | 19,6); it was an insignificant plant | growing out of the wall (1 K 4,33); it | could afford a branch strong enough to | support a wet sponge (Jn 19,29). It is | possible that all these references are | not to a single species. Among many | suggested plants the most probable is | either a species of majoran, e.g., | ORIGANUM MARU, or the common caper- | plant (CAPPARIS SPINOSA), which may be | seen growing out of crevices in walls | all over Palestine" (E.W.G.Masterman). | | For the German traditions about the | hyssop Jacob and Wilhem Grimm in | DEUTSCHES WÖRTERBUCH (1854 seq.) give | the following information: | YSOP, isop, ispe(n), eisop; hysop, m. | (F.),HYSSOPUS OFFICINALIS L., KLEINER | BUSCH MIT STARK DUFTENDEN BLÄTTERN und | VIOLETTEN BLÜTEN. GELEGENTLICH WIRD | DER NAME AUF VERWANDTE PFLANZEN | ÜBERTRAGEN, VOR ALLEM AUF SATUREJA | HORTENSIS L., VGL. MARZELL WB. D. DT. | PFLANZENN. 2, 966 ff.; PRITZEL-JESSEN | PFLANZEN (1882) 363 f.; FISCHER | SCHWÄB. 4, 53. | | HERKUNFT UND form. | | ASS. zûpu; SYR.-ARAB. züfä; HEBR. .; | GRIECH. ; ; LAT. hysspus F., hysspum | N.; GOT. hwssopon (DAT. SG.); AGS. | ysope f.; AHD. hysop ST. M. NEBEN | SPÄTEREM ISOPO, isipo 5W. M.; MHD. | ysope M. (NOCH BEI LUTHER MEIST | SCHWACH FLEKTIERT: EXOD. 12, 22; | LEVIT. 14, 52; PS. 51, 9; HEBR. 9, | 19); SPÄTAHD.-FRÜHNHD. AUCH ALS FEM. | (YSOPUS îspa [12. JH.] AH. GL. 3, 264, | 53 ST.-S.; DE ISOPO von der ispen | [12.JH.] EBDA 4, 365, 46; von der | ispen [UM 1350] KONRAD V. MEGENBEEG | BUCH D. NATUR 405 PF.; VGL. 420; | yspen, die nit felt LIEDERBUCH D. | HÄTZLERIN 234 HALTAUS). NHD. (h)ysop, | isop, WEITERES S.U. | | AUF DER BIBELSPRACHLICHEN TRADITION | (1) UND AUF DER FRÜHEN EINFÜHRUNG DES | ORIENTALISCH-SÜDEUROPÄISCHEN YSOPS ALS | HEIL- UND GEWÜRZPFLANZE (2) BERUHT | SEINE REICHE BEZEUGUNG IN NAHEZU | ALLEN EUROPÄISCHEN SPRACHEN. NEUER- | DINGS WIRD DIE IDENTITÄT DES | BIBLISCHEN ysop MIT HYSSOPUS | OF/ICINALIS WIEDER BEZWEIFELT MARZELL | A. A. 0. (ZUR DISKUSSION UM JOAN. 19, | 29 VGL. BAUER GRIECH.-DT. WB. ZUM | NEUEN TESTAM. [4 1952] 1541). DER NAME | ERSCHEINT BIBEL-SPRACHLICH DURCHWEG | ALS MASK., GELEGENTLICH BIS INS 14. | JH. IN LAT. FLEXIONSFORM (S. U. | DAT. SG. isupo NOTKER, ysopo TRIERER | PS., ysopo PASSIONAL; AKK. SG.. ysopum | WERNHER MARIENLEBEN) UND AUCH SPÄTER | NOCH MIT SPIRANTISCHEM ANLAUT: hyssop | ABR. A S. CLARA etw. f. alle (1699) 1, | 98; hysop BRENNER ERZ. U. SCHR. (1864) | 1, 20; hyssop TILLMANN NEUES TEST. | (LPZ. 6 1958) 625. WEITER | EINGEDEUTSCHT IST DAS WORT IN SEINER | VOLKSSPRACHLICHEN VERWENDUNG (2): | SYNKOPE DES MITTELSILBENVOKALS S.. OB. | SOWIE isp (12. JH.) AHD. GL. 4, 235, | 38 ST.-S.; yspe (14. JH.) EBDA 3, 542, | 25; ispe (U. Ä.) 14./16. JH. | DIEFENBACH GL. 310b ; isp(e) FISCHER | SCHWÄB. 4, 53 (STÄRKER ABWEICHENDE | MISCHFORMEN zispe EBDA, zwispe 6, | 1472), SCHMELLER-FR. BAYER. 1, 168. | NICHT SELTEN DIPHTHONGIERT | garteneisop, zwibeleisop ALBERTUS | dict. (1540) FF la ; eisop FÄBRICUS | RER. MISNIAC. (1569) 246; eysopwein | ZEHNER NOMENCL. (1643) 365; eisop M. | BÖHME VIEHARTZNEY (1682) 31. DIE | ZAHLREICHEN MUNDARTLICHEN NEBENFORMEN | S. IM ÜBRIGEN BEI MARZELL A. A. O.; | VGL. NOCH eisop TEIL 3, SP. 380, | eisewig 3, 377, hispe F., 4, 2, 1579 | SOWIE isop 4, 2, 2182. | | GEBRAUCH. | 1)BIBELSPRACHLICH. EXOD. 12, 22; | LEVIT. 14, 4 U. 6; 14, 49fl.; num. 19, | 6 u. 18; PS. 50 9 U. HEBR. 9, 19 | ERWÄHNEN DEN YSOP IM ZUSAMMENHANG | KULTISCHER REINIGUNGSZEREMONIEN. 3. | REG. 4, 33 DIENT ER EINEM VERGLEICH | ZUR VERANSCHAUIICHUNG DER WEISHEIT | SALOMOS (S.U.). JOAN. 19, 29 WIRD DEM | GEKREUZIGTEN DER ESSIGSCHWAMM UM EINEN | YSOP GEWICKELT GEREICHT (HIERZU VGL. | BAUER GRIECH.-DT. WB. ZUM NEUEN | TESTAM. [4 1952] 1541). AN DIESEN | STELLEN IST DAS WORT IN ALLEN | DEUTSCHEN BIBELÜBERSETZUNGEN BIS IN | DIE GEGENWART IN FESTEM GEBRAUCH: | afaruh þan ÞO in wato wairpandans | hrain jah hwssopon jah wullai raudai | ufartrusnjandans (SKEIREINS 3, 16) | GOT. BIBEL 21 , 461 STREITBERG; | FASCICULUM HYSOPI uuadal hysopes | (EXODUS 12, 22) (8./9. JH.) AHD. GL. | 1, 335, 38 ST.-S.; so er chumet, so | besprenget er mih mit isopo (ASPERGES | ME YSOPO, PS. 50, 9) also die | miselsuhtigen, unde danne uuirdo ih | gereinet; uuunda so ist gepoten in | demo puoche, daz die miselsuhtigen | siben stunt besprenget uurten mit | gedunchetemo isopo in demo opferpluote | (VGL. LEV. 14, 4ff.; 49ff.) NOTKER 3, | 172 PIPER (VGL. 2, 195f.); du | besprenges mih, herro, mit dem isipen | unde ih wirde gereinet (12. JH., | WINDBERGER INTERLINEARVERSION), du | solt besprengen mich mit demo ysopo | unde ih wirde gereinet (13. JH., | TRIERER INTERLINEARVERSION) (PS. 50, | 9) DT. INTERLINEARVERSIONEN D. PSALMEN | (1839) 232 GRAFF; wann sy fulten ein | schwamp mit essig sy vmbgaben in mit | ysopp: sy brachten in seinen mund | (JOAN. 19, 29) ERSTE DT. BIBEL 1, 415 | KURR.; vnd er (SALOMO) redet | dreytausent spruch, vnd seyner liede | waren tausent vnd funffe. vnd er redet | von bewmen, vom ceder an zu Libanon | bis an den isop, der aus der wand | wechst (3. REG. 4, 33) LUTHER DT. | BIBEL 1, 150 W., VGL. 9, 1, 408f. AUS | BIBELSPRACHLICHER TRADITION ERWACHSEN | FOLGENDE BELEGE, ZU PS. 50, 8: | | Maria sunderinne, | du bist in gutem sinne | vf einen burnen alda kumen | ... | betouche dich zv male | des du macht Immer wesen vro | der besprenget dich mit ysopo | des bistu wiz ob alleme sne | (UM 1300) PASSIONAL 371, 22 HAHN; | | nun spreng mich herr mit ysop gut, | so wird all sünd verderbet | SPEE GÜLD. TUGENDBUCH (1649) 35; | | und so, meint der meister ferner, | werde ich auch bald gewaschen werden, | und mit hysop besprengt, der ich über | so viele das miserere gesungen BRENNER | ERZ. U. SCHR. (1864) 1, 20. ZU JOAN. | 19, 29: | | 'mich durstet', sprach er och dar na. | do stûnd ain vas mit essich da, | dar in lait ainer ysopum | und fuitent sin ainen schwum: | den bot er zû der selben stunt | mit ainem sper an sinen munt | (HS. 1182) WERNHER MARIENIEBEN | 10 607 PÄPKE-HÜBNER. | | IN NEGATIVIERENDER UMDEUTUNG DER | HILFREICHEN TRÄNKUNG AUS JOAN. 19, 29 | (VGL. MATTH. 27, 34): wie . . dem | volk...der ysop der furcht vor den | ewigen strafen dargereicht würde | SCHLEIERMACHER S. W. (1834) 1 5, 98; | | nur gift und galle war, o pabst, | was du vom pol bis zu den tropen | der welt mit deinem scepter gabst, | mit deinem scepter von ysopen | HERWEGH GED. E. LEBENDIGEN (21841) 116. | | ZU 3. REG. 4, 31 von der zeder bis zum | ysop (S 0. LUTHERS ÜBERSETZUNG), | ZUNÄCHST NUR VON DER GRÖSZE DER | WEISHEIT SALOMOS: Salomon ... von dem | ceder baum, so auf dem berg Libano | ist, bisz auf den hyssop, so aus der | wand wächst, disputieret ABR. A S. | CLARA ETWAS F. ALLE (1699) 1, 48; | (ÜBERSCHRIFT:) Salomons königs van | Israel und Juda güldne worte von der | ceder biss zum issop GÖTHE 1 37, 295 | W.; AUF ANDERE PERSONEN ÜBERTRAGEN: | weil du (RÜBEZAHL) aber der kräuter | und pflanzen kundig bist, vom ysop an, | der auf der mauer wächst, bis auf die | ceder zu Libanon MUSÄUS VOLKSMÄRCHEN | 1, 34 HEMPEL, VGL. DERS., PHYSIOGN. | REISEN (1778) 1, 171; ich habe die | ehre, ihnen einen gelehrten zu | präsentieren, dar alles weiss und | kennt, van der ceder bis zum ysop | KOTZEBUE SÄMMTL. DRAM. W. (1827) 1, | 314. SCHLIESZLICH DIE WEITE DER | SCHÖPFUNG ÜBERHAUPT BEZEICHNEND: jedes | gewäche von der ceder bis zum ysop | hängt an erde und sonnenschein HERDER | 20, 73 S.; VGL. 22, 237; der nahme | meines helden ist kurz und gut: ABC | bis XYZ, ... ritter vieler orden | trauriger und fröhlicher gestalt, von | der ceder auf Libanon bis zum ysop | HIPPEL KREUZ- U. QUERZUGC (1793) 1, 3; | die menschengattung ist die erste von | alless diesen einheiten; die andern, | vom elephanten bis zur milbe, von der | ceder bis an den ysop, sind in dar | zweiten und dritten linie J. G. | FORSTER S. SCHR. (1843) 4, 319. | | 2) ALS GEWÜRZ- UND HEIL PFLANZE. IN | DEN VERSCHIEDENSTEN REZEPTEN SEIT DEM | 11./12. JH. SEHR REICH BEZEUGT; DIE | BLÄTTER WERDEN VEREINZELT BIS IN DIE | GEGENWART ALS SOSZENWÜRZE UND ZUM | GURGELN GEGEN HALSBESCHWERDEN BENUTZT; | DARÜBER HINAUS IST DIE PFLANZE 'VOR | ALLEM IN DER SCHWEIZ EIN BESTANDTEIL | DER IN DIE KIRCHE (BESONDERS VON | ÄLTEREN FRAUEN) MITGENOMMENEN | RIECHSTRÄUSZLEIN' MARZELL WB. D. | DT. PFLANZENN. 2, 069: isopo ist gt | chrût, obe diu gebrt stirbet in demo | wîbe; trinche iz mit warmem wazzer, SÔ | vert iz vone ire. er ist gt vur den | stenken vnte hilfet och den der mage | swirt (11./12. JH.) GERMANIA 8, 300; | ÄHNLICH (13. JH.) MENHARDT VERZ. D. | ALTDT. LIT. HSS. 1 (1960) 46; von der | ispen. isopus haizt isp...wenn man | ispen kocht mit honig, daz ist der | lungel guot . und genuog ander | tugent hât si an ir (UM 1350) KONRAD | V. MEGENBERG BUCH der NATUR 405 PF.; | vgl 420; der ysope . . . ist bitter | und idoch gesnt dem herzen und der | Ingen und der brst die da siech ist | (14 JH.) ALTDT.PRED. | | SCHÖNBACH SO WEME dat hoven sweret . . | de scal nemen eyn bunt ysopen unde | seden de (Bremen 1352) »MND. ARZNEIB. | des A. DONELDEY 14 Windler vgl. 3, 10, | 19, 26, 49; und alz ist gefügett daz | pinlin z.B. dem honge, der ysop z.B. dem | balsam, dú nahtegal z.B. der harpfen (so | wie DIE seele ZU CHRISTUS) (HS. von | 1357 NACH VORLAGE VON 1303) , ST. | GEORGENER PRED. 287 RIEDER, VGL. 294; | | saluay, rawtten vnd polay, | der krautt stünd pogen vnd | gezindelt; | dryment, yspen, die nit felt, | grunten da in reicher wunn | LIEDERBUCH DER HÄTZLERIN | 234 HALTAUS: | | dem rind den husten zu vertreiben, | pflegt man jnen...ysop.. .einzugeben | SEBIZ feldbau (1579) 128; | mit lavendel, isop, majoran, poley und | anderen geringeres wehrtes, gewächsen | und blurnenwerke ausgeziehret NEUMARK | newspross. teut. palmb. (1668) 171; | unter wild wachsenden pflanzen sah ich | die dunkelrote scabiose unter gärten | und ein ganzes feld mit ysop bewachsen | STOLBERG | GES.W. (1820) 8, 360. | | 3) ZU BEIDEN ANWENDUNGSGRUPPEN | STELLEN SICH ZUSAMMENSETZUNGEN: | ysopbitter: | | dieweil der königliche zecher | umsonst nach ihren zügen gafft. | leert sie den ysopbittren becher | zurückgewiesener leidenschaft | FONTANE GED. 7176 (VGL.. | JOAN. 19, 29 u. ysop 1); | | --busch: | | nimm einen ysoppusch, | entsündige mein Leben | FLEMING, dt. ged. 1,8 | lit.ver.; | | VGL. ysopbüschel (NURN. 19, 18) | ZÜRCHER BIBEL (BERLIN 1956) 1, 165; - | kraut: nimm rosinlin ein | handvoll...salbeyblätter, hissopkraut, | jedes 1 hand voll GÄBELKOVER ARTZNCYB. | (1595) 1, 182; -saft: ysop safft | getruncken mit oximel, waychet den | verstopften bauch DAS KREÜTERBUCH OD. | HERBARIOS (AUGSB. 1534) 144b ; -sirup: | \STAUB-TOBLER 7, 1270; -stengel: sie | steckten nun einen mit essig gefüllten | schwamm auf einen ysopstengel (JOAN | 19,29). ZÜRCHER BIBEL (BERLIN 1956) | 2,148; hysopstengel (J. 19,29) | TILLMANN NEUES TESTAM. (LPZ. 6-1959) | 325; -strauch, | s. isopstrauch TEIL 4,2, SP. 2182; - | wasser: hysopwasser soll man allwegen | in heysser aeschen disti1liren: | welches (U. A.) trefflich gut für den | grausamen schmertzen der zän ist SEBIZ | feldbau (1580) 413; zerschmeltz den | zucker in brandlattich oder | issopwasser GÄBELKOVER artzneybuch | (1595) 1, 193, GEBUCHT bei RÄDLEIN T.- | IT.-FRZ.(1711) 1080;b; -wein, . VGL. | isopwein TEIL 4. 2. sp. 2182 SOWIE: | von ysopwein. ysopwein ist warm, | reiniget die brust, machet gute däwung | vnd weicht den bauch M. HERR FELDBAU | (1551) 112a; eysop wein ZEHNER | NOMENCL. (1645) 365; KIRSCH CORNU | COPIAE 2 (1775), 908. | | Why then did Bacon translate "hyssop" | as "moss"? The hyssop was known and | used in England (compare OED; e.g. | Skakespeare OTHELLO I,3 etc.). What | appears from all the dictionaries | consulted is, however, that it is not | so very clear which plant was meant by | the name. What led Bacon to use the | word "moss" for "hyssop" is probably | the sense of 1 K 4,33: Salomon knows | every plant from the noblest (=cedar | tree) to the meanest (=hyssop), "moss" | obviously signifying a mean plant | "which is but a rudiment between | putrefaction and an herb". This does | obviously leave out of consideration | the holiness of the hyssop tested in | various other contexts of the Old and | the New Testament (see above). philosophy{29}. Nay, the same Salomon the | 29. cf. A.L. Sp. III, 298, I.5 (D.A. king affirmeth directly that the glory of | Sp.I,467, I.1) ; Cf. also N.O. I, 65 God IS TO CONCEAL A THING, BUT THE GLORY | OF THE KING IS TO FIND IT OUT{30}, as if | 30. Proverbs 25,2 according to the innocent play of children | Geneva Bible: The glorie of God is to the divine Majesty took delight to hide | conceile a thing secret: but the Kings his works, to the end to have them found | honour is to searche out a thing. out; for in naming the king he intendeth | man, taking such a condition of man as | Authorized Version: It is the glory of hath most excellency and greatest | God to conceal a thing: but the honour commandment of wits and means, alluding | of kings is to search out a matter. also to his own person, being truly one of | those clearest burning lamps, whereof | Vulgata: Gloria Dei celare verbum et himself speaketh in another place, when he | gloria regum investigare sermonem saith THE SPIRIT OF MAN IS AS THE LAMP OF | GOD, WHEREWITH HE SEARCHETH ALL | INWARDNESS{31}; which nature of the soul | 31. Proverbs 20,27 the same Salomon holding precious and | Geneva Bible: The light of the Lord is inestimable, and therein conspiring with | the breth of man, and sercheth all the the affection of Socrates who scorned the | bowels of the bellie. pretended learned men of his time for | Authorized Version: The spirit of man raising great benefit of their learning | is the candle of the Lord,searching (whereas Anaxagoras contrariwise and | all the inward parts of the belly. divers others being born to ample | Vulgata: lucerna Dominis spiraculum patrimonies decayed them in | homninis quae investigat omnia secreta | ventris | Luther: Eine Leuchte des Herrn ist des | Menschen Geist; die geht durch alle | Kammern des Leibes. contemplation){32}, delivereth it in | 32. see Platon, Hippias Major. 282 b - precept yet remaining, BUY THE TRUTH, AND | 283 b SELL IT NOT; | AND SO OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE{33}. | 33. Proverbs 23, 23 | Geneva Bible: Bye the trueth, but sel And lest any man should retain a scruple | it not: likewise wisdome, and as if this thirst of | instruction, and understanding. knowledge were rather an humour of the | mind than an emptiness or want in nature | Authorized Version: Buy the truth and and an instinct from God, the same author | sell it not; also wisdom, and defineth of it fully, saying, GOD HATH | instruction, and understanding. MADE EVERY THING IN BEAUTY ACCORDING TO | SEASON; ALSO HE HATH SET THE WORLD IN | Vulgata: veritatem eme et noli vendere MAN'S HEART, YET CAN HE NOT FIND OUT THE | sapientiam et doctrinam et WORK WHICH GOD WORKETH FROM THE | intelligentiam | | Luther: Kaufe Wahrheit und verkaufe | sie nicht, Weisheit, Zucht und | Verstand. | | on the mercantilist spirit in Bacon | see: Julie Robin Salomon, Objectivity | in the Making. The John Hopkins | University Press, 1998. BEGINNING TO THE END{34}: declaring not | 34. Ecclesiastes 3,11 obscurely that God hath framed the mind of | Authorized Version: He hath made every man as a glass capable of the image of the | thing beautiful in his time: also he universal world, joying to receive the | hath set the world in their heart, so signature thereof as the eye is of light | that no man can find out the work that yea not only satisfied in beholding the | God maketh from the beginning to the variety of things and vicissitude of | end. times, but raised also to find out and | discern those ordinances and decrees which | Vulgata: cuncta fecit bona in tempore throughout all these changes are | suo et mundum tradidit disputioni infallibly observed. And although the | eorum / ut non inveniat homo opus quod highest generality of motion or summary | operatus est Deus ab initio usque ad law of nature God should still reserve | finem. within his own curtain, yet many and noble | are the inferior and secondary operations | Luther Bible: Prediger Salomo 3,11: which are within man's sounding. This is a | Er aber tut alles fein zu seiner Zeit thing which I cannot tell whether I may so | und läßt ihr Herz sich ängstigen, wie plainly speak as truly conceive, that as | es gehen solle in der Welt; denn der all knowledge appeareth to be a plant of | Mensch kann doch nicht treffen das God's own planting, so it may seem the | Werk, das Gott tut, weder Anfang noch spreading and flourishing or at least the | Ende. bearing and fructifying of this plant, by | a providence of God, nay not only by a | general providence but by a special | prophecy, was appointed to this autumn | of the world{35}: for to my understanding | 35. Melek Hasgün comments: Bacon sees it is not violent to the letter, and safe | his time as "...autumn of the now after the event, so to interpret that | world...". As in Shakespeare’s King place in the prophecy of Daniel where | Lear (IV/6) ‘autumn’ implies the time speaking of the latter times it is said, | shortly before the end of the world, MANY SHALL PASS TO AND FRO, AND SCIENCE | this can also be applied to Bacon. The | Apocalypse is preceded by the increase | of knowledge (Daniel 12,4) and again | Bacon uses the Bible to legitimate | progress in science. SHALL BE INCREASED{36}; as if the opening | 36. Daniel 12, 4; of the world by navigation and commerce | Geneva Bible: But thou, o Daniel, shut and the further discovery of knowledge | up the wordes, and seale the boke til should meet in one time or age. | the end of the time: many shal runne | to and fro, and knowledge shalbe But howsoever that be, there are besides | increased [explanation f ("til the end the authorities or Scriptures before | of the time"): Til the time that God recited, two reasons of exceeding great | hathe appointed for the ful revelation weight and force why religion should | of these things: and then many shal dearly protect all increase of natural | runne to and fro to search the knowledge: the one, because it leadeth to | knowledge of these mysteries, which the greater exaltation of the glory of | things they obteine now by the light God; for as the | of the Gospel] | | Authorized Version: But thou, O | Daniel, shut up the words, and seal | the book, EVEN to the time of the end: | many shall run to and fro, and | knowledge shall be increased. | | Vulgata: Tu autem Danihel clude | sermones et signa librum usque ad | tempus statutum / pertransibunt | plurimi et multiplex erit scientia | | This quotation is repeated on the | title page of NOVUM ORGANUM. Together | with the allegorical content of the | pillars of Hercules, this passage | clearly is to be interpreted in an | apocalyptical sense: The time has come | and is ripe for a re-construction of | Adams's paradisical dominion over the | world.--The pillars of Hercules can | also be understood as a typological | allusion to the two pillars of | Salomo's temple (cf. Charles Whitney): | In 1 Kings 7, 21 the names of the | pillars are given as "Jachin" and | "Boas". The Jew's name in NOVA | ATLANTIS, Joabin, can be explained as | the result of playing around with | these names and contracting them into | one. In NOVA ATLANTIS Salomo's Temple | is resurrected and is the centre of | knowledge and power. Psalms{37} and other Scriptures do often | 37. for example Psalms 19,1 invite us to consider and to magnify the | great and wonderful works of God, so if we | should rest only in the contemplation of | those shews which first offer themselves | to our senses, we should do a like injury | to the majesty of God, as if we should | judge of the store of some excellent | jeweller by that only which is set out to | the street in his shop. The other reason | is, because it is a singular help and a | preservative against unbelief and error; | for, saith our Saviour, YOU ERR, NOT | KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES NOR THE | POWER OF GOD;{38} laying before us two | 38. St. Matthew 22, 29: books or volumes to study if we will be | Authorized Version: Jesus answered and secured from error; first the Scriptures | said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing revealing the will of God, and then the | the Scriptures, not the power of God. creatures expressing his power; for that | see also St Mark 12, 24 latter book will certify us that nothing | which the first teacheth shall be thought | impossible. And most sure it is, and a | true conclusion of experience, that a | little natural philosophy inclineth the | mind to atheism, but a further proceeding | bringeth the mind back to religion. | | To conclude then, let no man presume to | check the liberality of God's gifts, who, | as was said, | HATH SET THE WORLD IN MAN'S HEART. So | as whatsoever is not God but parcel of the | world, he hath fitted it to the | comprehension of man's mind, if man will | open and dilate the powers of | his understanding as he may.{39} | 39. Compare to "mind of glass" above | But yet evermore it must be remembered | that the least part of knowledge passed to | man by this so large a charter from God | must be subject to that use for which God | hath granted it; which is the benefit and | relief of the state and society or man; | for otherwise all manner of knowledge | becometh malign and serpentine, and | therefore as carrying the quality of the | serpent's sting and malice it maketh the | mind of man to swell; as the Scripture | saith excellently, KNOWLEDGE BLOWETH UP, | BUT CHARITY BUILDETH UP{40}. And again the | 40. 1 Corinthians 8, 1 same author doth notably disavow both | Authorized Version: Now as touching power and knowledge such as is not | things offered unto idols, we know dedicated to goodness or love, for saith | that we all have knowledge. Knowledge he, IF I HAVE ALL FAITH SO AS I COULD | puffeth up, but charity edifieth. REMOVE MOUNTAINS, (there is power active,) | IF I RENDER MY BODY TO THE FIRE, (there is | power passive,) IF I SPEAK WITH THE | TONGUES OF MEN AND ANGELS, (there is | knowledge, for language is but the | conveyance of knowledge,) | ALL WERE NOTHING{41}. | 41. 1 Corinthians 13, 1-3: | Authorized Version: Though I speak And therefore it is not the pleasure of | with the tongues of men and of angels, | and have not charity, I am become as | sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. | And though I have the gift of | prophecy, and understand all | mysteries, and all knowledge; and | though I have all faith, so that I | could remove mountains, and have not | charity, I am nothing. And though I | bestow all my goods to feed the poor, | and though I give my body to be | burned, and have not charity, it | profiteth me nothing. curiosity{42}, nor the quiet of | 42. Bacon here contrasts "curiosity" resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, | with "thirst of knowledge" (p. 220). nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech, | "Curiosity" is used in a traditional nor lucre of profession, nor ambition of | sense (see St. Augustine on curiositas honour or fame, nor inablement for | in Confessiones X,35). He speaks of business, that are the true ends of | curiositas also in "Actaeon et knowledge; some of these being more worthy | Pentheus, sive Curiositas" in: De than other, though all inferior and | sapentia veterum", VI: The Theban king degenerate: but it is a restitution and | Pentheus is punished with madness reinvesting (in great part) of man to the | because out of curiosity he has dared sovereignty and power (for whensoever he | to observe certain mysteries which are shall be able to call the creatures by | dedicated to Dionysos, that is: he their true names be shall again command | applied (scientific) observation to them) which he had | divine things, he did not respect the | division between LUMEN NATURALE and | LUMEN DIVINUM.--Bacon draws the same | conclusions from the myth of | Prometheus ("Prometheus, sive Status | hominis"). | on curiosity see Hans Blumenberg, "Der | Prozeß der theoretischen Neugierde", | in: DIE LEGITIMITÄT DER NEUZEIT | (Frankfurt, 1966). in his first state of creation{43}. And | 43. compare with Milton's Paradise Lost to speak plainly and clearly, it is a | Book XII discovery of all operations and pos- | sibilities of operations from immortality | (if it were possible) to the meanest | mechanical practice. And therefore | knowledge that tendeth but to satisfaction | is but as a courtesan, which is for | pleasure and not for fruit or generation. | And knowledge that tendeth to profit or | profession or glory is but as the golden | ball thrown before Atalanta{44}, which | 44. The Atalanta myth is treated by while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take | Bacon in DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM (Works, up she hindereth the | vol. VI) | This is the German translation by | Marina Münkler in: Weisheit der Alten, | hrsg. von Philipp Rippel (Frankfurt | a.M: Fischer, 1991): | XXV. Atalanta oder die Gewinnsucht | Atalanta, die für ihre Schnelligkeit | berühmt war, forderte Hippomenes mit | dem Versprechen zum Wettlauf heraus, | daß er sie im Falle seines Sieges zur | Frau nehmen dürfe, im Falle seiner | Niederlage aber sein Leben verwirke. | An Atalantas Sieg schien es keinen | Zweifel geben zu können, da ihre | unübertreffliche Schnelligkeit bereits | durch den Tod zahlreicher Freier unter | Beweis gestellt worden war. Hippomenes | griff deshalb zu einer List. Er | beschaffte sich drei goldene Äpfel, | die er mit sich führte. Das Rennen | begann, Atalanta ging in Führung. Als | Hippomenes sah, daß er zurückfiel, | griff er auf seine List zurück und | warf einen seiner Äpfel so vor sie | hin, daß sie ihn sehen mußte. Er warf | ihn aber nicht direkt vor sie, sondern | ein wenig abseits, damit sie sich | nicht nur bücken, sondern auch ihre | Bahn verlassen mußte. Erfüllt von | weiblicher Gier und angezogen von der | Schönheit der Frucht, verließ sie ihre | Bahn, lief dem Apfel nach und hielt | an, um ihn aufzuheben. In der | Zwischenzeit lief Hippomenes weiter | und ging in Führung. Aufgrund ihrer | natürlichen Schnelligkeit machte | Atalanta den Rückstand jedoch bald | wieder wett und überholte ihn erneut. | Nachdem Hippomenes sie jedoch in | derselben Weise noch ein zweites und | ein drittes Mal vom Weg abbrachte, | gewann er schließlich den Wett!auf, | freilich nicht durch seine Fähigkeit, | sondern durch seine List. | | Diese Sage scheint eine hervorragende | Allegorie über den Wettstreit von | Kunst und Natur zu sein. Denn die | Kunst, die von Atalanta repräsentiert | wird, ist an sich, wenn ihr nichts im | Wege steht, sehr viel schneller als | die Natur, sie ist, wie man sagen | könnte, der bessere Läufer und | erreicht ihr Ziel schneller. Das zeigt | sich an nahezu allen Dingen: Man | sieht, daß sich Obstbäume nur langsam | aus dem Kern, aber sehr viel schneller | durch das Aufpfropfen von Zweigen | entwickeln, daß Lehm sehr langsam zu | Stein wird, während er sehr schnell zu | Stein gebrannt werden kann. Auch die | Sitten betreffend kann man beobachten, | daß es sehr lange dauert, bis durch | die Wohltaten der Natur ein Schmerz | vergessen und Trost gefunden werden | kann, während die Philosophie (die | gleichsam die Kunst zu leben ist), den | Tag nicht abwartet, sondern ihn | vorhersieht und vor Augen führt. Dann | aber wird dieser Vorsprung und die | Fähigkeit der Kunst zum unendlichen | Nachteil der Menschheit, durch jene | goldenen Äpfel behindert. Denn es gibt | keine Wissenschaft oder Kunst, die | ihren wahren und richtigen Weg bis zum | Ziel unbeirrt beibehält. Vielmehr | geschieht es fortwährend, daß die | Künste ihre Unternehmungen auf halbem | Wege unterbrechen, vom Pfad abweichen | und sich wie Atalanta Gewinn und | Nutzen zuwenden: | | "Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile | tollit" (Ovid, Metamorphosen X, 667). | | Und deshalb ist es nicht | verwunderlich, daß es der Kunst nicht | gegeben ist, den Sieg über die Natur | zu erringen und sie nach den | Bedingungen und Regeln des Wettkampfs | zu töten und zu zerstören, sondern sie | im Gegenteil der Natur unterworfen | bleibt, wie das Weib dem Ehemann. | | Charles W. Lemmi (THE CLASSICAL | DEITIES IN BACON. A STUDY IN | MYTHOLOGICAL SYMBOLISM, Baltimore | 1933, repr. New York 1971) says that | Bacon draws on Natalis Comes (Conti) | MYTHOLOGIAE SIVE EXPLICATIONUM | FABULARUM LIBRI X (1551) and on | Boccaccios DE GENEALOGIA DEORUM | (1472). | | Simone Wirthmann comments: | Treatises on classical mythology had a | wide circulation during the | Renaissance because it has been | thought that one might discover in the | stories of the gods and goddesses the | wisdom of the ancients. | It was in Italy, in the sixteenth | century that the Renaissance produced | the most widely known works on the | classic deities. | | One of the most popular books was | Natalis Conti's "MYTHOLOGY", which was | fully as learned as any of its | competitors, pleasanter to read and | incomparably easier to use as a | referencebook. Furthermore, it | systematically interprets every myth | it relates according to a multitude of | authorities. It provides a list of | authorities, an excellent index and | synopses of the interpretations | divided into ethical and physical. | Despite all these new books, which | largely superseded Boccaccio's famous | "DE GENEALOGIIS DEORUM", they were far | from causing it to be forgotten. | | For that reason it is to presume that | Bacon draws on Natalis Comes (Conti) | "MYTHOLOGIAE SIVE EXPLICATIONEM | FABULARUM LIBRI X" (1551) and on | "Boccaccio's De Genealogia | Deorum"(1472) (see Charles W. Lemmi | THE CLASSICAL DEITIES IN BACON. A | STUDY IN MYTHOLOGICAL SYMBOLISM | (Baltimore 1933, repr. New York 1971). race{45}. And knowledge referred to some | 45. Ovid, Metamorphosen, Buch X, 665- particular point of use is but | 680 as Harmodius{46} which putteth down one | 46. see Herodot, Histories, V, 55 and tyrant, and not like | VI, 109 and 123 | The Oxford Classical Dictionary says: | Aristogiton (6th c. B.C.), Athenian | tyrannicide. He and Harmodius, both of | noble family, planned to kill the | tyrant Hippias and his younger brother | Hipparchus, in consequence of a | private quarrel (514 B.C.). The plot | miscarried: only Hipparchus was | killed. Harmodius was at one cut down | by Hippias' guards, Aristogiton | arrested and executed (after torture, | it is said). As the tyranny was | overthrown three years later, the two | were popularly supposed to have made | this possible, and were ever after | called the Liberators. Simonides wrote | a poem in their honour, statues of | them were set up in the agora (and new | ones erected when these were carried | off by Xerxes in 480), and their | descendants for all time honoured with | the right to meals in the Prytaneum. Hercules{47} who did perambulate the world | 47. Hercules is not a Baconian hero. to suppress tyrants and giants and | The real hero is Orpheus as he is monsters in every | interpreted in "Orpheus, sive | Philosophia" in DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM. | Orpheus is the Baconian philosopher, | and the myth of Orpheus is about the | opera scientiae. The works of Orpheus | are superior to the works of Hercules | as the "works of wisdom" (opera | sapientiae) are superior to the "works | of strength" (opera fortitudinis) (VI, | 720). | | Simone Wirthmann comments: | Hercules (gr. Heracles), (lit. "having | or showing the glory of Hera"; Hera, | wife of Zeus) Hercules, the son of | Zeus and of the mortal Alkmene was a | celebrated hero of Greek and Roman | mythology, who after death was ranked | among the gods and received divine | honours. He is represented as | possessed of prodigious strength, | whereby he was enabled to perform | twelve extraordinary tasks or | "labours" imposed upon him by Hera. | One of these tasks was to capture the | cattles of the three-headed giant | Geryoneus. It is said, that on this | journey Hercules set up the rocks | Calpé (now Gibraltar) and Abyla | (Ceuta) / THE PILLARS OF HERCULES on | either side of the Strait of | Gibraltar, as a sign for his longest | journey. THE PILLARS where seen by the | ancients to be the supports of the | western boundary of the world. | | Bacon uses the myth of Hercules and | Harmodius in a methaphorical way, to | elucidate the real contents of | knowledge by comparing the two | "heroes". Hercules impersonates | strength and justice, throughout his | life he tried to free people from | tyranny, fought against giants and | monsters without thinking of his own | benefit. Harmodius in comparison tried | to kill the tyrants Hippias and | Hipparchus in consequence of a private | quarrel and not primarily to free | people. | | This shows, that for Bacon knowledge | must be of general existence and not | only refer to some particular point. | | Nevertheless, in one of his later | works, DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM (1609), | Hercules is not the Baconian hero | anymore. The real hero is Orpheus, the | philosopher. His works are superior to | the works of Hercules as the "works of | wisdom" (opera sapientiae) are | superior to the "works of strength" | (opera fortitudinis) (VI, 729). | | Orpheus was a legendary poet, a famous | musician and singer of ancient Greece, | who had the power of charming all | animate and inanimate objects (he | could move rocks and trees) by the | sweet strains of his lyre. He | descended living into Hades, to bring | back to life his wife Eurydice, and | perished, torn to pieces by infuriated | Thracian maenads (see THE OXFORD | CLASSICAL DICTIONARY; THE CENTURY | DICTIONARY, VOL. 4) part.{48} It is true, that in two points | 48. Spedding's note: The words "that the curse is peremptory and not to be | is, man's miseries and necessities," removed; the one that vanity must be the | which followed in the transcript, have end in all human effects, eternity being | a line drawn through them. resumed, though the revolutions and | periods may he delayed{49}. The other that | 49. Melek Hasgün comments: the consent of the creature being now | "...eternity being resumed...".: In turned into reluctation, this power cannot | Henry VIII (..) and King Lear (I/4) otherwise be exercised and administered | ‘resume’ means: to take back but with labour, as well in inventing as | something previously given or in executing; yet nevertheless chiefly | granted. The fact that it is written that labour and travel which is described | in the passive form without an object by the sweat of the brows more than of the | implies that eternity has been taken body; that is such travel as is joined | back by God, referring to the Fall of with the working and discursion of the | Man and Paradise Lost. spirits in the brain: for as Salomon saith | excellently, THE FOOL PUTTETH TO MORE | ‘Revolution’ is the action or fact, STRENGTH, BUT THE WISE MAN CONSIDERETH | on the part of celestial bodies, of WHICH | moving round in an orbit or circular | course. The time in which a planet or | other heavenly body completes a full | circuit or course. (OED) A look at the | complete works and consequences of his | work, namely the foundation of | scientific or academic institutions | after his death that were the | precursors of the Royal Society | (1660), ‘revolution’ can also be | understood in the modern sense. In | fact, NEW ATLANTIS and NOVUM ORGANUM | set the foundation for the | "intellectual revolution" (Harvey | Wheeler's essay on Nova Atlantis; to | be obtained from the author: | | verulan@mindspring.com), which implies | the complete overthrow of established | state of affairs. (OED) WAY{50}, signifying the election of the | 50. Ecclesiastes 10, 12: mean to be more material than the | Authorized Version: The words of a multiplication of endeavour. It is true | wise man's mouth are gracious; but the also that there is a limitation rather | lips of a fool will swallow up potential than actual, which is when the | himself. effect is possible, but the time or place | yieldeth not the matter or basis whereupon | for a commentary see A.L. Sp.III,322, man should work. But notwithstanding these | I.14 seq. (D.A. Sp. I, 486, I, 11 precincts and bounds, let it be believed, | seq.) and appeal thereof made to TIME, (with | renunciation nevertheless to all the vain | and abusing promises of Alchemists and | Magicians, and such like light, idle, | ignorant, credulous, and fantastical wits | and sects,) that the new-found world of | land was not greater addition to the | ancient continent than there remaineth at | this day a world of inventions and | sciences unknown, having respect to those | that are known, with this difference, that | the ancient regions of knowledge will seem | as barbarous compared with the new, as the | new regions of people seem barbarous | compared to many of the old. | | The dignity of this end (of endowment of | man's life with new commodities) | appeareth by the estimation that | antiquity made of such as guided | thereunto. For whereas founders of states, | lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers | of the people, were honoured but with the | titles of Worthies or Demigods, inventors | were ever consecrated amongst the Gods | themselves. And if the ordinary ambitions | of men lead them to seek the amplification | of their own power in their countries, and | a better ambition than that hath moved men | to seek the amplification of the power of | their own countries amongst other nations, | better again and more worthy must that | aspiring be which seeketh the | amplification of the power and kingdom of | mankind over the world; the rather because | the other two prosecutions are ever | culpable of much perturbation and | injustice; but this is a work, truly | divine which cometh IN AURA LENI {51} | 51. 1 Kings 19,12 (Vulgata) without noise or observation{52}. | 52. St Luke 17,20: | Authorized Version: And when he was The access also to this work hath been by | demanded of the Pharisees, when the that port or passage, which the divine | kingdom of God should come, he Majesty (who is unchangeable in his ways) | answered them and said, The kingdom doth infallibly continue and observe; that | of God cometh not with observation. is the felicity wherewith he hath blessed | an humility of mind, such as rather | see Novum Organum. I, 93; A.L. Sp. laboureth to spell and so by degrees to | III, 301,I, 29-302; also N.O. I, 129 read in the volumes of his creatures, than | (Sp. I,222,I.16 seq.) to solicit and urge and as it were to | invocate a man's own spirit to divine and | give oracles unto him. For as in the | inquiry of divine truth, the pride of man | hath ever inclined to leave the oracles of | God's word and to vanish in the mixture of | their own inventions; so in the self-same | manner, in inquisition of nature they have | ever left the oracles of God's works, and | adored the deceiving and deformed imagery | which the unequal mirrors of their own | minds have represented unto them{53}. Nay | 53. compare this with the later idea of it is a point fit and necessary in the | Idols front and beginning of this work without | hesitation or reservation to be professed, | that it is no less true in this human | kingdom of knowledge than in God's kingdom | of heaven, that no man shall enter into it | EXCEPT HE BECOME FIRST AS A LITTLE CHILD. | | 54. Spedding's note: This chapter ends | at the top of a new page. The rest is | left blank. | | 55. In NO Bacon says that entrance into | the new sciences depends upon their | followers' imitating the little | children favoured by Christ, children | whose lack of vanity gives them | privileged access to the kingdom of | heaven (IV, 69). cf. John Channing | Briggs, "Bacon's science and | religion", in: THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION | TO BACON, ed. by Markku Peltonen | (Cambridge, 1966), 172-199. | St Mark, 10,15: | | Authorized Version: Verily I say unto | you, Whosoever shall not receive the | kingdom of God as a little child, he | shall not enter therein.

CAP. 4.

OF THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE, BEING THE 4TH CHAPTER, THE PREFACE ONLY OF IT.

In some things it is more hard to attempt than to achieve, which falleth out when the difficulty is not so much in the matter or subject, as it is in the crossness and indisposition of the mind of man to think of any such thing, to will or to resolve it. And therefore Titus Livius in his declamatory digression wherein he doth depress and extenuate the honour of Alexander's conquests saith, NIHIL ALIUD QUAM BENE AUSUS VANA CONTEMNERE: in which sort of things it is the manner of men first to wonder that any such thing should be possible, and after it is found out to wonder again how the world should miss it so long. Of this nature I take to be the invention and discovery of knowledge, etc.

THE IMPEDIMENTS WHICH HAVE BEEN IN THE TIMES, AND IN DIVERSION OF WITS, BEING THE 5TH CHAPTER, A SMALL FRAGMENT IN THE BEGINNING OF THAT CHAPTER.

The encounters of the times have been nothing favourable and prosperous for the invention of knowledge; so as it is not only the daintiness of the seed to take, and the ill mixture and unliking of the ground to nourish or raise this plant, but the ill season also of the weather by which it hath been checked and blasted. Especially in that the seasons have been proper to bring up and set forward other more hasty and indifferent plants, whereby this of knowledge bath been starved and overgrown; for in the descent of times always there hath been somewhat else in reign and reputation, which hath generally aliened and diverted wits and labours from that employment.

For as for the uttermost antiquity which is like fame that muffles her head and tells tales, I cannot presume much of it; for I would not willingly imitate the manner of those that describe maps, which when they come to some far countries whereof they have no knowledge, set down how there be great wastes and deserts there: so I am not apt to affirm that they knew little, because what they knew is little known to us. But if you will judge of them by the last traces that remain to us, you will conclude, though not so scornfully as Aristotle doth, that saith our ancestors were extreme gross, as those that came newly from being moulded out of the clay or some earthly substance; yet reasonably and probably thus, that it was with them in matter of knowledge but as the dawning or break of day. For at that time the world was altogether home-bred, every nation looked little beyond their own confines or territories, and the world had no through lights then, as it hath had since by commerce and navigation, whereby there could neither be that contribution of wits one to help another, nor that variety of particulars for the correcting of customary conceits.

And as there could be no great collection of wits of several parts or nations, so neither could there be any succession of wits of several times, whereby one might refine the other, in regard they had not history to any purpose. And the manner of their traditions was utterly unfit and unproper for amplification of knowledge. And again the studies of those times, you shall find, besides wars, incursions, and rapines, which were then almost every where betwixt states adjoining (the use of leagues and confederacies being not then known), were to populate by multitude of wives and generation, a thing at this day in the waster part of the West-Indies principally affected; and to build sometimes for habitation towns and cities, sometimes for fame and memory monuments, pyramids, colosses, and the like. And if there happened to rise up any more civil wits; then would he found and erect some new laws, customs, and usages, such as now of late years, when the world was revolute almost to the like rudeness and obscurity, we see both in our own nation and abroad many examples of, as well in a number of tenures reserved upon men's lands, as in divers customs of towns and manors, being the devices that such wits wrought upon in such times of deep ignorance, etc.

THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE FOR WANT OF A TRUE SUCCESSION OF WITS, AND THAT HITHERTO THE LENGTH OF ONE MAN'S LIFE HATH BEEN THE GREATEST MEASURE OF KNOWLEDGE, BEING THE 6TH CHAPTER, THE WHOLE CHAPTER.

In arts mechanical the first device comes shortest and time addeth and perfecteth. But in sciences of conceit the first author goeth furthest and time leeseth and corrupteth. Painting, artillery, sailing, and the like, grossly managed at first, by time accommodate and refined. The philosophies and sciences of Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, of most vigour at first, by time degenerated and imbased. In the former many wits and industries contributed in one: In the latter many men's wits spent to deprave the wit of one.

The error is both in the deliverer and in the receiver. He that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such form as may be soonest believed, and not as may be easiliest examined. He that receiveth knowledge desireth rather present satisfaction than expectant search, and so rather not to doubt than not to err. Glory maketh the author not to lay open his weakness, and sloth maketh the disciple not to know his strength.

Then begin men to aspire to the second prizes; to be a profound interpreter and commenter, to be a sharp champion and defender, to be a methodical compounder and abridger. And this is the unfortunate succession of wits which the world hath yet had, whereby the patrimony of all knowledge goeth not on husbanded or improved, but wasted and decayed. For knowledge is like a water that will never arise again higher than the level from which it fell; and therefore to go beyond Aristotle by the light of Aristotle is to think that a borrowed light can increase the original light from whom it is taken. So then no true succession of wits having been in the world, either we must conclude that knowledge is but a task for one man's life, and then vain was the complaint that LIFE IS SHORT, AND ART IS LONG: or else, that the knowledge that now is, is but a shrub, and not that tree which is never dangerous, but where it is to the purpose of knowing Good and Evil; which desire ever riseth upon an appetite to elect and not to obey, and so containeth in it a manifest defection.

CAP. 7.

THAT THE PRETENDED SUCCESSION OF WITS HATH BEEN EVIL PLACED, FOR ASMUCH AS AFTER VARIETY OF SECTS AND OPINIONS, THE MOST POPULAR AND NOT THE TRUEST PREVAILETH AND WEARETH OUT THE REST; BEING THE 7TH CHAPTER; A FRAGMENT.

It is sensible to think that when men enter first into search and inquiry, according to the several frames and compositions of their understanding they light upon different conceits, and so all opinions and doubts are beaten over, and then men having made a taste of all wax weary of variety, and so reject the worst and hold themselves to the best, either some one if it be eminent, or some two or three if they be in some equality, which afterwards are received and carried on, and the rest extinct.

But truth is contrary, and that time is like a river which carrieth down things which are light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is sad and weighty. For howsoever governments have several forms, sometimes one governing, sometimes few, sometimes the multitude; yet the state of knowledge is ever a DEMOCRATIE, and that prevaileth which is most agreeable to the senses and conceits of people. As for example there is no great doubt but he that did put the beginnings of things to be SOLID, VOID, AND MOTION TO THE CENTRE, was in better earnest than he that put MATTER, FORM, AND SHIFT; or he that put the MIND, MOTION, AND MATTER. For no man shall enter into inquisition of nature, but shall pass by that opinion of Democritus, whereas he shall never come near the other two opinions, but leave them aloof for the schools and table-talk. Yet those of Aristotle and Plato, because they be both agreeable to popular sense, and the one was uttered with subtilty and the spirit of contradiction, and the other with a stile of ornament and majesty, did hold out, and the other gave place, etc.

CAP. 8.

OF THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE IN HANDLING IT BY PARTS, AND IN SLIPPING OFF PARTICULAR SCIENCES FROM THE ROOT AND STOCK OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE, BEING THE 8TH CHAPTER, THE WHOLE CHAPTER.

Cicero, the orator, willing to magnify his own profession, and thereupon spending many words to maintain that eloquence was not a shop of good words and elegancies but a treasury and receipt of all knowledges, so far forth as may appertain to the handling and moving of the minds and affections of men by speech, maketh great complaint of the school of Socrates; that whereas before his time the same professors of wisdom in Greece did pretend to teach an universal SAPIENCE and knowledge both of matter and words, Socrates divorced them and withdrew philosophy and left rhetoric to itself, which by that destitution became but a barren and unnoble science. And in particular sciences we see that if men fall to subdivide their labours, as to be an oculist in physic, or to be perfect in some one title of the law, or the like, they may prove ready and subtile, but not deep or sufficient, no not in that subject which they do particularly attend, because of that consent which it hath with the rest. And it is a matter of common discourse of the chain of sciences how they are linked together, insomuch as the Grecians, who had terms at will, have fitted it of a name of CIRCLE LEARNING. Nevertheless I that hold it for a great impediment towards the advancement and further invention of knowledge, that particular arts and sciences have been disincorporated from general knowledge, do not understand one and the same thing which Cicero's discourse and the note and conceit of the Grecians in their word CIRCLE LEARNING do intend. For I mean not that use which one science hath of another for ornament or help in practice, as the orator hath of knowledge of affections for moving, or as military science may have use of geometry for fortifications; but I mean it directly of that use by way of supply of light and information which the particulars and instances of one science do yield and present for the framing or correcting of the axioms of another science in their very truth and notion. And therefore that example of OCULISTS and TITLE LAWYERS doth come nearer my conceit than the other two; for sciences distinguished have a dependence upon universal knowledge to be augmented and rectified by the superior light thereof, as well as the parts and members of a science have upon the MAXIMS of the same science, and the mutual light and consent which one part receiveth of another. And therefore the opinion of Copernicus in astronomy, which astronomy itself cannot correct because it is not repugnant to any of the appearances, yet natural philosophy doth correct. On the other side if some of the ancient philosophers had been perfect in the observations of astronomy, and had called them to counsel when they made their principles and first axioms, they would never have divided their philosophy as the Cosmographers do their descriptions by globes, making one philosophy for heaven and another for under heaven, as in effect they do.

So if the moral philosophers that have spent such an infinite quantity of debate touching Good and the highest good, had cast their eye abroad upon nature and beheld the appetite that is in all things to receive and to give; the one motion affecting preservation and the other multiplication; which appetites are most evidently seen in living creatures in the pleasure of nourishment and generation; and in man do make the aptest and most natural division of all his desires, being either of sense of pleasure or sense of power; and in the universal frame of the world are figured, the one in the beams of heaven which issue forth, and the other in the lap of the earth which takes in: and again if they had observed the motion of congruity or situation of the parts in respect of the whole, evident in so many particulars; and lastly if they had considered the motion (familiar in attraction of things) to approach to that which is higher in the same kind; when by these observations so easy and concurring in natural philosophy, they should have found out this quaternion of good, in enjoying or fruition, effecting or operation, consenting or proportion, and approach or assumption; they would have saved and abridged much of their long and wandering discourses of pleasure, virtue, duty, and religion. So likewise in this same logic and rhetoric, or arts of argument and grace of speech, if the great masters of them would but have gone a form lower, and looked but into the observations of Grammar concerning the kinds of words, their derivations, deflexions, and syntax; specially enriching the same with the helps of several languages, with their differing proprieties of words, phrases, and tropes; they might have found out more and better footsteps of common reason, help of disputation, and advantages of cavillation, than many of these which they have propounded. So again a man should be thought to dally, if he did note how the figures of rhetoric and music are many of them the same. The repetitions and traductions in speech and the reports and hauntings of sounds in music are the very same things. Plutarch hath almost made a book of the Lacedaemonian kind of jesting, which joined ever pleasure with distaste. SIR, (saith a man of art to Philip king of Macedon when he controlled him in his faculty,) GOD FORBID YOUR FORTUNE SHOULD BE SUCH AS TO KNOW THESE THINGS BETTER THAN I. In taxing his ignorance in his art he represented to him the perpetual greatness of his fortune, leaving him no vacant time for so mean a skill. Now in music it is one of the ordinariest flowers to fall from a discord or hard tune upon a sweet accord. The figure that Cicero and the rest commend as one of the best points of elegancy, which is the fine checking of expectation, is no less well known to the musicians when they have a special grace in flying the close or cadence. And these are no allusions but direct communities, the same delights of the mind being to be found not only in music, rhetoric, but in moral philosophy, policy, and other knowledges, and that obscure in the one, which is more apparent in the other, yea and that discovered in the one which is not found at all in the other, and so one science greatly aiding to the invention and augmentation of another. And therefore without this intercourse the axioms of sciences will fall out to be neither full nor true; but will be such opinions as Aristotle in some places doth wisely censure, when he saith THESE ARE THE OPINIONS OF PERSONS THAT HAVE RESPECT BUT TO A FEW THINGS. So then we see that this note leadeth us to an administration of knowledge in some such order and policy as the king of Spain in regard of his great dominions useth in state; who though he hath particular councils for several countries and affairs, yet hath one council of State or last resort, that receiveth the advertisements and certificates from all the rest. Hitherto of the diversion, succession, and conference of wits.

CAP. 9.

THAT THE END AND SCOPE OF KNOWLEDGE HATH BEEN GENERALLY MISTAKEN, AND THAT MEN WERE NEVER WELL ADVISED WHAT IT WAS THEY SOUGHT; BEING THE 9TH CHAPTER, WHEREOF A FRAGMENT (WHICH IS THE END OF THE SAME CHAPTER) IS BEFORE.

It appeareth then how rarely the wits and labours of men have been converted to the severe and original inquisition of knowledge; and in those who have pretended, what hurt hath been done by the affectation of professors and the distraction of such as were no professors; and how there was never in effect any conjunction or combination of wits in the first and inducing search, but that every man wrought apart, and would either have his own way or else would go no further than his guide, having in the one case the honour of a first, and in the other the ease of a second; and lastly how in the descent and continuance of wits and labours the succession hath been in the most popular and weak opinions, like unto the weakest natures which many times have most children, and in them also the condition of succession hath been rather to defend and to adorn than to add; and if to add, yet that addition to be rather a refining of a part than an increase of the whole. But the impediments of time and accidents, though they have wrought a general indisposition, yet are they not so peremptory and binding as the internal impediments and clouds in the mind and spirit of man, whereof it now followeth to speak.

The Scripture speaking of the worst sort of error saith, ERRARE FECIT COS IN INVIO ET NON IN VIA. For a man may wander in the way, by rounding up and down. But if men have failed in their very direction and address that error will never by good fortune correct itself. Now it hath fared with men in their contemplations as Seneca saith it fareth with them in their actions, DE PARTIBUS VITAE QUISQUE DELIBERAT, DE SUMMA NEMO. A course very ordinary with men who receive for the most part their final ends from the inclination of their nature, or from common example and opinion, never questioning or examining them, nor reducing them to any clear certainty; and use only to call themselves to account and deliberation touching the means and second ends, and thereby set themselves in the right way to the wrong place. So likewise upon the natural curiosity and desire to know, they have put themselves in way without foresight or consideration of their journey's end.

For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself, and not for benefit or ostentation or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely satisfaction (which men call truth) and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions. And this did Celsus note wisely and truly, how that the causes which are in use and whereof the knowledges now received do consist, were in time minors and subsequents to the knowledge of the particulars out of which they were induced and collected; and that it was not the light of those causes which discovered particulars, but only the particulars being first found, men did fall on glossing and discoursing of the causes; which is the reason why the learning that now is hath the curse of barrenness, and is courtesanlike, for pleasure, and not for fruit. Nay to compare it rightly, the strange fiction of the poets of the transformation of Scylla seemeth to be a lively emblem of this philosophy and knowledge; a fair woman upwards in the parts of show, but when you come to the parts of use and generation, Barking Monsters; for no better are the endless distorted questions, which ever have been, and of necessity must be, the end and womb of such knowledge.

But yet nevertheless here I may be mistaken, by reason of some which have much in their pen the referring sciences to action and the use of man, which mean quite another matter than I do. For they mean a contriving of directions and precepts for readiness of practice, which I discommend not, so it be not occasion that some quantity of the science be lost; for else it will be such a piece of husbandry as to put away a manor lying somewhat scattered, to buy in a close that lieth handsomely about a dwelling. But my intention contrariwise is to increase and multiply the revenues and possessions of man, and not to trim up only or order with conveniency the grounds whereof he is already stated. Wherefore the better to make myself understood that I mean nothing less than words, and directly to demonstrate the point which we are now upon, that is, what is the true end, scope, or office of knowledge, which I have set down to consist not in any plausible, delectable, reverend, or admired discourse, or any satisfactory arguments, but in effecting and working, and in discovery of particulars not revealed before for the better endowment and help of man's life; I have thought good to make as it were a Kalendar or Inventory of the wealth, furniture, or means of man according to his present estate, as far as it is known; which I do not to shew any universality of sense or knowledge, and much less to make a satire of reprehension in respect of wants and errors, but partly because cogitations new had need of some grossness and inculcation to make them perceived; and chiefly to the end that for the time to come (upon the account and state now made and cast up) it may appear what increase this new manner of use and administration of the stock (if it be once planted) shall bring with it hereafter; and for the time present (in case I should be prevented by death to propound and reveal this new light as I purpose) yet I may at the least give some awaking note both of the wants in man's present condition and the nature of the supplies to be wished; though for mine own part neither do I much build upon my present anticipations, neither do I think ourselves yet learned or wise enough to wish reasonably: for as it asks some knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it asketh some sense to make a wish not absurd.

CAP. 10.