Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

The Two Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning Divine and Humane

1605, 1640

"For it is in knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots--but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter."

But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method wherein it was invented: and so is it possible of knowledge induced. But in this same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man knoweth how he came to the knowledge which he hath obtained. But yet, nevertheless, secundum majus et minus, a man may revisit and descend unto the foundations of his knowledge and consent; and so transplant it into another, as it grew in his own mind. For it is in knowledges as it is in plants: if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots--but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots. Of which kind of delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in inquisition, and therefore note it for deficient. (II.xvii.4, p. 304 in Modern Library edition)

Plant::Plant Plant::Root Plant::Cultivation::Transplant Plant::Tree

Reading

See Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning; or, the Partitions of Sciences. Nine Books. Written in Latin by the Most Eminent, Illustrious, and Famous Lord Francis Bacon Baron of Verulam, Vicount St. Alban, Councellor of Estate, and Lord Chancellor of England. Interpreted by Gilbert Watts. (Oxford: printed by Leon Lichfield printer to the University, for Robert Young and Edward Forrest, 1640). <Link to EEBO-TCP>

Some text drawn from EEBO-TCP; some from 1893 edition, from ebooks@Adelaide <Link>

Reading Francis Bacon, Selected Writings, introd. Hugh G. Dick (New York: Modern Library, 1955); and Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed. Michael Kiernan. The Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. iv (Oxford: OUP, 2000).

10/23/2003

10/09/2010