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EXTRACTS

FLOM

BLAUEBOURNE'S FOLIO EDITION

OF THE WORKS OF

LORD BACON.

TOL. I.

Extract from Dr. Rowley's Life of Lord Barcz. p. 14.

IT hath been desired, that something should be signified touching his diet and the regimen of his health; of which, in regard of his universal insight into nature, he may per haps be to some an example. For his diet, it was rather a plentiful and liberal diet, as his stomach would bear it, than a restrained; which he also commended in his book of the History of Life and Death. In his younger years, he was much given to the finer and lighter sorts of meats. as of fowls, and such like; but afterward, when he grew more judicious, he preferred the stronger meats, such as the shambles afforded, as those meats which bred the more firm and substantial juices of the body, and less dissipable: upon which he would often make his meal, though he had other meats upon the table. You may be sure he would not neglect that himself, which he so much extolled in his writings, and that was the use of nitre, whereof he took

in the quantity of about three grains in thin warm broth every morning, for thirty years together next before his death. And for physic, he did indeed live physically, but not miserably; for he took only a maceration of rhubarb, infused into a draught of white-wine and beer mingled together for the space of half an hour, once in six or seven days, immediately before his meal, whether dinner or supper, that it might dry the body less, which (as he said) did carry away frequently the grosser humours of the body, and not diminish or carry away any of the spirits, as sweating doth; and this was no grievous thing to take. As for other physic in an ordinary way, (whatsoever hath been vulgarly spoken), he took not. His receipt for the gout, which did constantly ease him of his pain within two hours, is set down in the end of the Natural History, Vol. III. p. 233.

; It may seem the moon had some principal place in the figure of his nativity; for the moon was never in her passion, or eclipsed, but he was surprised with a sudden fit cf fainting; and that, though he observed not, nor took any previous knowledge of the eclipse thereof; and as soon as the eclipse ceased, he was restored to his former streng again.

VOL. II.

Extract from the Advancement of Learning. P. 40,

THE knowledge that concerneth man's body, is divided as the good of man's body is divided, unto which it referreth. The good of man's body is of four kinds; health,

beauty,

beauty, strengri, and pleasure: So the karaleiges re, medicine, or art of care; art of decormca, which is called cosmetic; art of activity, which is called athletic; and art voluptuary, which Tains truly calleth, Ēratitas denar. This subject of man's body is, of all other things in nature, most susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error. For the same subtility of the subject doth cause large possibility, and easy falling; and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.

To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said, ascending a line higher; the ancient opinion, that man was microcomar, an abstract or model of the world, hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchymists, as if there were to be found in man's body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which are extant in the great world. But thus much is evidently true, that of all substances which nature bath produced, man's body is the most extremely corpounded: For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts, for the most part, by herbs and fruits; man, by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies, before they come to be his food and aliment. Add hereunto, that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon their bodies; whereas man, in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations; and it cannot be denied, but that the body of man, of all other things, is of the mast compounded mass. The soul, on the other side, is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:

Purumque reliquit

Ethereum sensum, atque aurai simplicis ignem.

So that it is no marvel, though the soul, so placed, enjoy no rest, if that principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco. But to the purpose: this variable composition of man's body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper, and therefore the poets did well to conjoin musick and medicine in Apollo; because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man's body, and to reduce it to harmony. So, then, the subject being so variable, hath made the art, by conséquence, more conjectural; and art, being conjectural, hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture. For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or master-pieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause. The master in the ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortuné of the voyage. But the physician, and perhaps the politician, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event; which is ever but as it is taken for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And therefore, many times, the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed. Nay, we see the weakness and crelulity of men is such, as they will often prefer a mountebank, or witch, before a learned physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme folly, when they made Esculapius and Circe brother and sister, both children of the Sun, as in the verses, Æn. vii.

772.

Ipse repertorem medicinæ talis et artis,

Fulmine Phabigenam stygias detrusit ad undas.

And again,

Dives inaccessos ubi solis filia lucos, &c.

Æn. vii. 11.

For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches, and old women, and impostors, have had a competition with physicians. And what followeth? Even this, 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? And therefore I cannot much blame physicians, that they use commonly to intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their profession. For you shall have of them, antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen than in their profession; and, no doubt, upon this ground, that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art, maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune; for the weakness of patients and sweetness of life, and nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects. But nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of, are courses begotten between a little occasion and a great deal of sloth and default; for if we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see in familiar instances, what a predominant faculty the subtilty of spirit hath over the variety of matter or form:-nothing more variable than faces and countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of them. Nay, a painter, with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his imagination, can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be, if they were brought before him. Nothing more variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them personally; nay, you shall have a buffoon, or pantomimus, will express as many as he pleas

eth.

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