"FrancisBacon-ValeriusTerminus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bacon Francis)

10. "That the pretended succession of wits hath been evil placed,
forasmuch as after variety of sects and opinions the most popular and
not the truest prevaileth and weareth out the rest; being the sixth
chapter."

11. "Of the impediments of knowledge in handling it by parts, and in
slipping off particular sciences from the root and stock of universal
knowledge; being the seventh chapter."

12. "That the end and scope of knowledge hath been generally mistaken,
and that men were never well advised what it was they sought" (part
of a chapter not numbered).

13. "An abridgment of divers chapters of the first book;" namely, the
l2th, 13th, and 14th, (over which is a running title "Of active
knowledge;") and (without any running title) the 15th, 16th, 17th,
18th], 19th, 21st, 22nd, 25th, and 26th. These abridgments have no
headings; and at the end is written, "The end of the Abridgment of
the first book of the Interpretation of Nature."


Such was the arrangement of the manuscript as the transcriber left it;
which I have thought worth preserving, because I seem to see traces
in it of two separate stages in the developement of the work; the
order of the chapters as they are transcribed being probably the same
in which Bacon wrote them; and the numbers inserted at the end of the
headings indicating the order in which, when he placed them in the
transcriber's hands, it was his intention to arrange them; and
because it proves at any rate that at that time the design of the
whole book was clearly laid out in his mind.

There is nothing, unfortunately, to fix the DATE of the transcript,
unless it be implied in certain astronomical or astrological symbols
written on the blank outside of the volume; in which the figures 1603
occur. This may possibly be the transcriber's note of the time when
he finished his work; for which (but for one circumstance which I
shall mention presently) I should think the year 1603 is likely a
date as any; for we know from a letter of Bacon's, dated 3rd July
1603, that he had at that time resolved "to meddle as little as
possible in the King's causes," and to "put his ambition wholly upon
his pen;" and we know from the ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING that in 1605
he was engaged upon a work entitled "The Interpretation of Nature:"
to which I may add that there is in the Lambeth Library a copy of a
letter from Bacon to Lord Kinlosse, dated 25th March, 1603, and
written in the same hand as this manuscript.

Bacon's corrections, if I may judge from the character of the
handwriting, were inserted a little later; for it is a fact that
about the beginning of James's reign his writing underwent a
remarkable change, from the hurried Saxon hand full of large sweeping