evacuated and gets no start, but there behoveth perpetua inceptio; as in the common form, Non progredi est regredi; Qui non proficit deficit: [Not to go forward is to go back he that does not get on, falls off:] running against the hill, rowing against the stream, &c. For if it be with the stream or with the hill, then the degree of inception is more than all the rest. Fourthly, this colour is to be understood of gradus inceptionis a potentia ad actum, comparatus cum gradu ab actu ad incrementum: [the step from power to act compared with the step from act to increase.] For otherwise major videtur gradus ab impotentia ad potentiam, quam a potentia ad actum: [from impotence to power appears to be a greater step than from power to act.] PREFACE. The THIS fragment might perhaps have been placed more properly among the philosophical works. subject of it is touched, though very briefly, in the fourth chapter of the sixth book of the De Augmentis, under the head of Ars Pædagogica; which, had it been completed, would apparently have been its proper place. And considering that Bacon had taken the subject so far into consideration, found that there was much to be said about it, and proceeded so short a way with it himself, it is rather strange to me that he did not set down these Georgica Intellectus in his catalogue of Desiderata. It forms no part however of his Philosophy properly so called; and may take its place here among the Civilia et Moralia without any impropriety; what there is of it being very welcome, and only making one wish that there were more. It was first printed by Dr. Rawley in the Resuscitatio (1657); and appears to have been written some time between 1596 and 1604: not before 1596, because it was in that year that Savill became Provost of Eton; not later than 1604, because in the two most authentic manuscripts which I have met with the letter begins "Mr. Savill ;" and it was in 1604 that he became Sir Henry. One of these manuscripts is in a collection o Bacon's letters transcribed in the hand of one of his servants, and bearing in one page traces of his own. I take it to be a copy of the "Register of letters" which he speaks of in his will, and from which Rawley professes to have taken the collection in the Resusci tatio. At any rate it is a good manuscript, and of good authority: as I can myself testify, having had occasion to compare a great number of the letters with the original draughts and corrected copies (now in the Lambeth Library) from which the transcript was no doubt made. This volume is now in the British Museum (Additional MSS. 5503.); and contains a copy of the "Letter to Mr. Savill" which accompanied the "Discourse," though not the Discourse itself. The other manuscript (Additional MSS. 629. fo. 274.) is in a hand of the time, and probably belonged to Dr. Rawley; and though not a perfectly accurate transcript originally, it has been corrected from a better copy, I think by Tenison. It contains both the Letter and the Discourse; for which last I take it to be the best authority now extant. |