thereupon the fable framed. For I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the assertions of the Stoics upon fictions of the ancient poets; but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion.

Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself, notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by the later schools of the Grecians, yet I should without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning; but what they might have upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm; for he was not the inventor of many of them.

In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can report/no deficience. For being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than any other kind: but to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to poets more than to philosophers' works; and for wit and eloquence, not much less than to orators' harangues. But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now pass on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and attention.

The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.

The light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses: for as for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not original; as in a water that, besides his own spring-head, is fed with other springs and streams. So then, according to these two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of all divided into Divinity and Philosophy. In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God,-or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself.

Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine philosophy, Natural philosophy, and Human philosophy or Humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character, of the power of God, the difference of nature, and the use of man.

But because the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself

into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, before we enter into the former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, by the name of "Philosophia prima," primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves; which science whether I should report as deficient or no, I stand doubtful.

For I find a certain rhapsody of natural theology, and of divers parts of logic; and of that part of natural philosophy which concerneth the principles; and of that other part of natural philosophy which concerneth the soul or spirit; all these strangely commixed and confused: but being examined, it seemeth to me rather a depredation of other sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms, than any thing solid or substantive of itself.

Nevertheless I cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is current, that the same things are handled but in several respects. As for example, that logic considereth of many things as they are in notion, and this philosophy as they are in nature; the one in appearance, the other in existence: but I find this difference better made than pursued. For if they had considered quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest of those external characters of things, as philosophers, and in nature, their in

quiries must of force have been of a far other kind than they are.

For doth any of them, in handling quantity, speak of the force of union, how and how far it multiplieth virtue? Doth any give the reason, why some things in nature are so common, and in so great mass, and others so rare, and in so small quantity? Doth any, in handling similitude and diversity, assign the cause why iron should not move to iron, which is more like, but move to the loadstone, which is less like? Why in all diversities of things there should be certain participles in nature, which are almost ambiguous to which kind they should be referred? But there is a mere and deep silence touching the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of them in speech or argument.

Therefore, because in a writing of this nature I avoid all subtilty, my meaning touching this original or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by negative: "That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage."

Now that there are many of that kind, need not

to be doubted. For example; is not the rule, "Si inæqualibus æqualia addas, omnia erunt inæqualia” (if to unequals you add equals, all will be unequal), an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics? And is there not a true coincidence between commutative and distributive justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion? Is not that other rule, "Quæ in eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se conveniunt" (things which are equal to a third thing, are equal to one another), a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent in logic as all syllogisms are built upon it? Is not the observation, "Omnia mutantur, nil interit" (all things are changed, nothing perishes), a contemplation, in philosophy thus, that the quantum of nature is eternal? in natural theology thus, that it requireth the same omnipotence to make somewhat nothing, which at the first made nothing somewhat? according to the Scripture," Didici quòd omnia opera, quæ fecit Deus, perseverent in perpetuum; non possumus eis quicquam addere nec auferre" (I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it).

Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely discourseth concerning governments, that the way to establish and preserve them, is to reduce them" ad principia" (to first principles), a rule in