Francis Bacon

The Advancement of Learning - (1605) Francis Bacon

Bacon's purpose in writing The Advancement of Learning was, he declared, '. to clear the way, and as it were to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning the dignity of Learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit objections, I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces which it hath received all from ignorance but ignorance severally disguised, appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of Divines sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of Politiques and sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned men themselves... To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word divinity or philosophy: but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both.' This is a work of immense purpose, the influence of which is still at work even now in our time, for its aim was no less than to define the limits of human knowledge as they stood in Bacon's own day, and to teach people the use of that knowledge