Chapter II (1)

History divided into Natural and Civil; Civil subdivided into Ecclesiastical and Literary. The Division of Natural History according to the subject matter, into the History of Generations, of Præter-Generations, and the Arts

HISTORY is either natural or civil: the natural records the works and acts of nature; the civil, the works and acts of men. Divine interposition is unquestionably seen in both, particularly in the affairs of men, so far as to constitute a different species of history, which we call sacred or ecclesiastical. But such is the dignity of letters and arts, that they deserve a separate history, which, as well as the ecclesiastical, we comprehend under civil history.

We form our division of natural history upon the three-fold state and condition of nature; which is, 1, either free, proceeding in her ordinary course, without molestation; or 2, obstructed by some stubborn and less common matters, and thence put out of her course, as in the production of monsters; or 3, bound and wrought upon by human means, for the production of things artificial. Let all natural history, therefore, be divided into the history of generations, præter-generations, and arts; the first to consider nature at liberty; the second, nature in her errors; and the third, nature in constraint.

The history of arts should the rather make a species of natural history, because of the prevalent opinion, as if art were a different thing from nature, and things natural different from things artificial: whence many writers of natural history think they perform notably, if they give us the history of animals, plants, or minerals, without a word of the mechanic arts. A further mischief is to have art esteemed no more than an assistant to nature, so as to help her forward, correct or set her free, and not to bend, change, and radically affect her; whence an untimely despair has crept upon mankind; who should rather be assured that artificial things differ not from natural in form or essence, but only in the efficient: for man has no power over nature in anything but motion, whereby he either puts bodies together, or separates them. And therefore, so far as natural bodies may be separated or conjoined, man may do anything. Nor matters it, if things are put in order for producing effects, whether it be done by human means or otherwise. Gold is sometimes purged by the fire, and sometimes found naturally pure: the rainbow is produced after a natural way, in a cloud above; or made artificially, by the sprinkling of water below. As nature, therefore, governs all things by means—1, of her general course; 2, her excursion; and 3, by means of human assistance; these three parts must be received into natural history, as in some measure they are by Pliny.

The first of these parts, the history of creatures, is extant in tolerable perfection; but the two others, the history of monsters and the history of arts, may be noted as deficient. For I find no competent collection of the works of nature digressing from the ordinary course of generations, productions, and motions; whether they be singularities of place and region, or strange events of time and chance; effects of unknown properties, or instances of exceptions to general rules. We have indeed many books of fabulous experiments, secrets, and frivolous impostures, for pleasure and strangeness; but a substantial and well-purged collection of heteroclites, or irregularities of nature, carefully examined and described, especially with a due rejection of fable and popular error, is wanting: for as things now stand, if false facts in nature be once on foot, through the neglect of examination, the countenance of antiquity, and the use made of them in discourse, they are scarce ever retracted.

The design of such a work, of which we have a precedent in Aristotle, is not to content curious and vain minds, but—1, to correct the depravity of axioms and opinions, founded upon common and familiar examples; and 2, to show the wonders of nature, which give the shortest passage to the wonders of art; for by carefully tracing nature in her wanderings, we may be enabled to lead or compel her to the same again. Nor would we in this history of wonders have superstitious narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams, divinations, etc., totally excluded, where there is full evidence of the fact; because it is not yet known in what cases, and how far effects attributed to superstition, depend upon natural causes. And, therefore, though the practice of such things is to be condemned; yet the consideration of them may afford light, not only in judging criminals, but in a deeper disclosure of nature. Nor should men scruple examining into these things, in order to discover truth: the sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before. Those narrations, however, which have a tincture of superstition, should be kept separate, and unmixed with others, that are merely natural. But the relations of religious prodigies and miracles, as being either false or supernatural, are unfit to enter into a history of nature.

As for the history of nature wrought or formed, we have some collections of agriculture and manual arts, but commonly with a rejection of familiar and vulgar experiments, which yet are of more service in the interpretation of nature than the uncommon ones: an inquiry into mechanical matters being reputed a dishonor to learning; unless such as appear secrets, rarities, and subtilties. This supercilious arrogance, Plato justly derides in his representation of the dispute between Hippias and Socrates touching beauty. Socrates is represented, in his careless manner, citing first an example of a fair virgin, then a fine horse, then a smooth pot curiously glazed. This last instance moved Hippias’ choler, who said, “Were it not for politeness’ sake, I would disdain to dispute with any that alleged such low and sordid examples.” Whereupon Socrates replied, “You have reason, and it becomes you well, being a man so sprucely attired, and so trim in your shoes.” And certainly the truth is, that they are not the highest instances that always afford the securest information; as is not unaptly expressed in the tale so common of the philosopher, who, while he gazed upward to the stars, fell into the water. For had he looked down, he might have discovered the stars in the water; but looking up to heaven, he could not see the water in the stars; for mean and small things often discover great ones, better than great can discover the small; and therefore Aristotle observes, “That the nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions.” Whence he seeks the nature of a commonwealth, first in a family; and so the nature of the world, and the policy thereof must be sought in mean relations and small portions. The magnetic virtue of iron was not first discovered in bars, but in needles.

But in my judgment the use of mechanical history is of all others, the most fundamental toward such a natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtile, sublime, or pleasing speculations; but be operative to the endowment and benefit of human life; as not only suggesting, for the present, many ingenious practices in all trades, by connecting and transferring the observations of one art to the uses of another, when the experience of several arts shall fall under the consideration of one man; but as giving a more true and real illumination with regard to causes and axioms, than has hitherto appeared. For as a man’s temper is never well known until he is crossed; in like manner the turns and changes of nature cannot appear so fully, when she is left at her liberty, as in the trials and tortures of art.

We add, that the body of this experimental history should not only be formed from the mechanic arts, but also from the operative and effective part of the liberal sciences, together with numerous practices, not hitherto brought into arts; so that nothing may be omitted which has a tendency to inform the understanding.