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most requisite that these two parts be severally considered and handled.'

With respect to that part of Natural Philosophy which concerns the inquiry of causes, he suggests a new subdivision, grounded on the received distribution of causes, viz., Physique, which regards the material and efficient causes; and Metaphysique, which handles the formal and final causes.'*

As to the operative part of natural philosophy, or Natural Prudence, as Bacon calls it, he divides it into three parts, experimental, philosophical, and magical; censuring the last, (natural magic,) as it then

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Physique, taking it according to the derivation, and not according to our idiom for medicine, is situate in a middle term or distance between Natural history and Metaphysique. For Natural history describeth the variety of things; Physique, the causes, but variable or respective causes; and Metaphysique, the fixed and constant.'-Advancement of Learning, Works, vol. 2.

p. 135.

existed, as frivolous, full of superstitious conceits, and differing in truth of nature from such a knowledge as we require, as the story of king Arthur of Britain, or Hugh of Bordeaux, differs from Cæsar's Commentaries in truth of story.

Thus,' says Bacon, in concluding his observations on the second principal branch of Philosophy, 'have I passed through natural philosophy, and the deficiencies thereof; wherein if I have differed from the ancient and received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction,-for my part, as I affect not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend. If it be truth,

"Non canimus surdis: respondent omnia sylvæ."*

The voice of nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or not. And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expe

* Bucol. Ecl. X, 1.

dition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably, with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention.'*

Human Philosophy is divided by Bacon into two parts: the one considering man as an individual; the other, as living in society. The former embraces those sciences and arts which relate either to the body or the mind; and the latter comprehends all civil knowledge. Having suggested that human nature is itself deserving of being studied as a science, principally with the view of obtaining a knowledge of the influence which the mind and body exercise over each other, Bacon then proceeds to survey that department of knowledge which regard man's body, class

* See ante, p. 95, note.

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ing under this head those arts which relate to health, beauty, strength, and pleasure :— viz., medicine, cosmetique, athletique, and the voluptuary art.

9 *

His observations on Medicine deserve particular attention. In habits of intimacy with the illustrious author of the 'Circuitus Sanguinis,' (for Dr. Harvey was lord Bacon's friend and physician,) it is not improbable that this subject had formed with them a common topic of conversation; for

* I have heard Dr. Harvey say,' remarks Aubrey, 'that after his book of the Circulation of the Blood came out, he fell mightily in his practice; and it was believed by the vulgar that he was crack-brained; and all the physicians were against his opinion, and envyed him. With much ado, at last, in about twenty or thirty years time, it was received in all the Universities in the world; and, as Mr. Hobbes says in his book "De Corpore," "he is the only man, perhaps, that ever lived to see his own doctrine established in his lifetime.' Letters from the Bodleian Library, &c., vol. 2, p. 383. It is remarkable, that, though Harvey esteemed Bacon for his wit and knowledge, yet he would not allow him to be a great philosopher, saying to Aubrey, he writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor,' Ib. p. 381.

both were communicative, delighting, above all things, in an intercourse of thought. "The variable composition of man's body,' says Bacon, hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and, therefore, the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo; because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body, and to reduce it to harmony.' Owing to the difficulties of this art, much is left to conjecture; and thus it is that imposture, aided by the weakness and credulity of mankind, is enabled to maintain its ground. 'A mountebank or witch,' says Bacon, will sometimes be preferred to a learned physician.' And what is the consequence? Even this,' he adds, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon an higher occasion, "If it befal to me as befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?""

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Among other judicious observations on this head, we may notice that he insists upon

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