940J Francis Bacon
Of The Advancement And Proficience Of Learning or the Partitions Of Sciences ix Bookes Written in Latin by the Most Eminent Illustrious & Famous Lord Francis Bacon Baron of Verulam Vicont St Alban Counsilour of Estate and Lord Chancellor of England. Interpreted by Gilbert Wats.
Oxford: Printed by Leon: Lichfield, Printer to the University, for Rob: Young, & Ed: Forrest, 1640 [colophon dated 1640] Price $6,500
Small Folio 26 x 17.5 cm. Signatures: ¶4, ¶¶2, ¶¶¶1, A2, B-C4, aa-gg4, hh2, †4, ††2, †1, A-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Qqq4, Rrr2.
A very good copy in its original calf binding. The paper remains crisp and clean throughout, with only the light scattered foxing and minor oxidation commonly encountered in seventeenth-century books. The impressions are sharp and strong, preserving the richness of the original presswork. The original binding has been expertly rebacked and sympathetically conserved, retaining its period character while providing excellent structural stability. Housed in a custom red morocco-backed clamshell case.
Among Bacon’s writings, the De Augmentis Scientiarum is the closest thing to a map of the intellectual world as he believed it existed and as he hoped it would become. More than any single scientific treatise, it represents the conceptual foundation of the Baconian project: the reorganization of knowledge for the improvement of human life.
First English edition of Bacon’s De Augmentis Scientiarum, his greatly expanded Latin reworking of The Advancement of Learning (1605) and one of the foundational texts of modern intellectual history.
Bacon sought nothing less than a comprehensive survey of human knowledge and a plan for its future advancement. The work divides learning according to the faculties of the mind—memory, imagination, and reason—and identifies both the achievements and deficiencies of existing disciplines. In Bacon’s view, the greatest task of philosophy was not the contemplation of truth for its own sake but the systematic enlargement of human knowledge through observation, experiment, and useful inquiry. The De Augmentis became one of the principal statements of the intellectual program that would later inspire the scientific culture of the seventeenth century and the founders of the Royal Society.
The engraved title page is adapted from Thomas Cecill’s important design for the Instauratio Magna. The ship passing between the Pillars of Hercules visualizes Bacon’s famous motto, Plus Ultra (“Further Beyond”), symbolizing the passage beyond the limits of ancient learning into unexplored realms of knowledge. Above, the visible and intellectual worlds are joined together, while the entire composition serves as a visual representation of Bacon’s ambition to unite learning, experiment, and practical knowledge in a universal reform of the sciences.
This Oxford edition, translated by Gilbert Wats, made Bacon’s mature philosophy accessible to English readers and remains the most important seventeenth-century English edition of the work. An engraved portrait of Bacon, dated 1626, is bound before the title.
“And even the title page [the engraved title page found in this copy], it now becomes clear, announces this figure, for the Pillars of Hercules there also represent the temple of the world through which the ship of apocalyptic exploration passes, just as one passes through the twin pillars before Solomon’s Temple. Thus when discussing the Great Instauration’s motto, plus ultra, and Daniel’s prophecy in The Advancement of Learning, Bacon says, ‘For it may be truly affirmed to the honor of these times, and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of the world had never through–lights made in it, till the age of us and our fathers.’ The engraver Thomas Cecill [who engraved the image for the 1620 edition. The engraver here is W. Marshall, after Cecill] saw this great building as Solomon’s Temple.” (quoted from Francis Bacon and Modernity, by Charles Whitney, page 33) An engraved portrait of Bacon is bound before the title. It is dated 1626. “Partitiones Scientiarum, a survey of the sciences, either such as then existed or such as required to be constructed afresh—in fact, an inventory of all the possessions of the human mind. The famous classification on which this survey proceeds is based upon an analysis of the faculties and objects of human knowledge. This division is represent by the De Augmentis Scientiarum [The Advancement of Learning].” “Bacon’s grand motive in his attempt to found the sciences anew was the intense conviction that the knowledge man possessed was of little service to him. ‘The knowledge whereof the world is now possessed, especially that of nature, extendeth not to magnitude and certainty of works.’ Man’s sovereignty over nature, which is founded on knowledge alone, had been lost, and instead of the free relation between things and the human mind, there was nothing but vain notions and blind experiments. … Philosophy is not the science of things divine and human; it is not the search after truth. ‘I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself, and not for benefit or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction (which men call Truth) and not operation.’ ‘Is there any such happiness as for a man’s mind to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and error of man? But is this a view of delight only and not of discovery? of contentment and not of benefit? Shall he not as well discern the riches of nature’s warehouse as the beauty of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?’ Philosophy is altogether practical; it is of little matter to the fortunes of humanity what abstract notions one may entertain concerning the nature and the principles of things. This truth, however, has never yet been recognized; it has not yet been seen that the true aim of all science is ‘to endow the condition and life of man with new powers or works,’ or ‘to extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness of man.’” (quoted from the Encyclopedia Britannica, eleventh edition, vol. 3, page 145.)
“Partitiones Scientiarum, a survey of the sciences, either such as then existed or such as required to be constructed afresh—in fact, an inventory of all the possessions of the human mind. The famous classification on which this survey proceeds is based upon an analysis of the faculties and objects of human knowledge. This division is represent by the De Augmentis Scientiarum [The Advancement of Learning].”
“Bacon’s grand motive in his attempt to found the sciences anew was the intense conviction that the knowledge man possessed was of little service to him. ‘The knowledge whereof the world is now possessed, especially that of nature, extendeth not to magnitude and certainty of works.’ Man’s sovereignty over nature, which is founded on knowledge alone, had been lost, and instead of the free relation between things and the human mind, there was nothing but vain notions and blind experiments. … Philosophy is not the science of things divine and human; it is not the search after truth. ‘I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself, and not for benefit or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction (which men call Truth) and not operation.’ ‘Is there any such happiness as for a man’s mind to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and error of man? But is this a view of delight only and not of discovery? of contentment and not of benefit? Shall he not as well discern the riches of nature’s warehouse as the beauty of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?’ Philosophy is altogether practical; it is of little matter to the fortunes of humanity what abstract notions one may entertain concerning the nature and the principles of things. This truth, however, has never yet been recognized; it has not yet been seen that the true aim of all science is ‘to endow the condition and life of man with new powers or works,’ or ‘to extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness of man.’” (quoted from the Encyclopedia Britannica, eleventh edition, vol. 3, page 145.)
STC 1167, F. FBL. HD. LC. PML. Gibson 141B
Leave a Reply