Addressed to King James I, Bacon's first great manifesto surveys the whole of human knowledge — arguing in Book I against the disgraces and discredits heaped on learning by politicians, divines, and scholars themselves, then in Book II mapping the entire territory of the sciences, from natural and civil history through poesy and philosophy to the knowledge of the human mind and will, naming at every turn the deficiencies still waiting to be filled. It is Bacon's first public case for reorganising knowledge on empirical foundations, three decades before the Royal Society took up the project.
6 chapters · Public domain
1
Book I — In Praise and Defence of Learning
~113 min · 54 pages
›2
Book II — The Advancement of Learning, and the History of Nature and of Man
~39 min · 20 pages
›3
Book II — Of Poesy and Philosophy
~50 min · 25 pages
›4
Book II — Of Human Knowledge: The Body and the Mind
~80 min · 38 pages
›5
Book II — Of Moral and Civil Knowledge
~101 min · 47 pages
›6
Book II — Of Sacred and Inspired Theology
~28 min · 13 pages
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