The subscribers whose names are of interest to this country or this catalogue include: James Abercromby Esq; Attorney-General
of South-Carolina; Robert Dinwiddie Esq; Surveyor-General of his Majesty’s Customs in North-America; Mr. Robert Foulis; The
Honourable James Gordon Esq; Chief Judge of St. Christopher’s; James Glen Esq; Governour of South Carolina; The Reverend Mr.
Samuel Hunter, of South-Carolina; James Logan of Pennsylvania Esq; Richard Mead, M. D.; Mr. Samuel Richardson, Printer; George
Sinclair of Ulbster Esq; The Right Honourable the Earl of Wilmington, and many others.
[4915]
28
Bacon’s advancement of learning.
p. fol.
Eng.
1815 Catalogue, page 169, no. 38, Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, Eng. fol.
BACON,
Sir Francis, Viscount St. Albans.
Of the Advancement and Proficiencie of Learning: or the Partitions of Sciences Nine Books. Written in
Latin by the most Eminent, Illustrious and Famous Lord Francis Bacon Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, Counsellour of Estate and Lord Chancellor of England. Interpreted by Gilbert Wats.
London: Printed for
Thomas Williams at the Golden Ball in Osier-Lane,
1674.
B1173 .E5 W3 1674
Sm. Folio. 214 leaves, engraved portrait frontispiece; on sig. [I]
4 is the half-title for Francisci de Verulamio Architectura Scientiarum. The General Idea and Project of the Lord Verulam’s Instauratio Magna. Represented in the Platform of the Design Of the First Part thereof, As it was conceiv’d in the Mind
of the Author and is expressed in the Model of the Work . . . followed by the table showing The Emanation of Sciences from
the Intellectual Faculties of Memory, Imagination, Reason, on which Jefferson’s classification scheme was founded. [See the
illustration and the illustration of Jefferson’s scheme at the beginning of Volume I.]
Lowndes I, 95.
Hazlitt II, 23.
STC B312.
Gibson, no. 142.
In a letter to George Watterston, the newly appointed Librarian of Congress, dated from Monticello May 7, 1815, in which he
explained his preference for a library arrangement under subject rather than alphabet, Jefferson wrote: “
. . . on this principle the arrangement of my library was formed, and I took the basis of it’s distribution from L
d. Bacon’s table of science, modifying it to the changes in scientific pursuits which have taken place since his time, and
to the greater or less extent of reading in the several sciences which I proposed to myself. thus the law having been my profession,
and politics the occupation to which the circumstances of the times in which I have lived called my particular attention,
my provision of books in these lines, and in those most nearly connected with them was more copious, and required in particular
instances subdivisions into sections and paragraphs, while other subjects, of which general views only were contemplated,
are thrown into masses. a physician or theologist would have modified differently the chapters sections and paragraphs of
a library adapted to their particular pursuits. . . .
”
Jefferson expressed his later views on Bacon’s work in a letter to Augustus B. Woodward, dated from Monticello March 24, 1824
in thanking him for a a copy of his
System of Universal Science:
“
. . . these Analytical views indeed must always be ramified according to their object. yours is on the great scale of a Methodical
Encyclopedia of all human sciences, taking, for the basis of their distribution, Matter, Mind, and the union of both. L
d. Bacon founded his 1
st. great division on the faculties of the mind which have cognisance of these sciences. it does not seem to have been observed
by any one that the origination of this division was not with him. it had been proposed by Charron, more than 20. years before
in his book de la Sagesse. B. 1. c.14. and an imperfect ascription of the sciences to these respective faculties was there
attempted. this excellent moral work was published in 1600. L
d. Bacon is said not to have entered on his great works until his retirement from public office in 1621. Where sciences are
to be arranged in accomodation to the schools of an University, they will be grouped to coincide with the kindred qualifications
of Professors in ordinary. for
”
