And who that looks on the world as it is at this hour, with all our boasted aids and instrumentalities,--who that hears that cry of sorrow which goes up from it day and night,--who that looks at these masses of men as they are,--who that dares to look at all this vice and ignorance and suffering which no instrumentality, mighty to relieve, has yet reached, shall think to put back,--as if we had no need of it,--this great gift of light and healing,--this gift of _power_, which the scientific ages are bringing in; this gift which the ages of 'anticipation,' the ages of inspiration and spontaneous affirmation, could only divinely--diviningly--foresee and promise;--this gift which the knowledge of the creative laws, the historic laws, the laws of kind, as they are actual in the human nature and the human life, puts into our hands? Who shall think himself competent to oppose this benefaction? Alas for such an one! let us take up a lamentation for him. He has stayed too long. The constitution of things, the universal laws of being, and the Providence of this world are against him. The track of the advancing ages goes over him. He is at variance with that which was and shall be. The world's wheel goes over him. And whosoever falls on that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it falls it shall grind him to powder. It is by means of the scientific Art of Delivery and Tradition, that this doctrine of the scientific Culture and Cure of the Mind, which is the doctrine of the scientific ages, has been made over to us in the abstract; and it is by means of the rule of interpretation, which this Art of Delivery prescribes, it is by means of the secret of an Illustrated Tradition, or Poetic Tradition of this science, that we are now enabled to unlock at last those magnificent collections in it--those inexhaustible treasures and mines of it--which the Discoverer, in spite of the time, has contrived to leave us, in that form of Fable and Parable in which the advancing truth has always been left,--in that form of Poesy in which the highest truth has, from of old, been uttered. For over all this ground lay extended, then, in watchful strength all safe and unespied, the basilisk of whom the Fable goes, if he sees you first, you die for it,--_but_ if YOU SEE HIM FIRST, HE DIES. And this is the Bishop who fought with a _mace_, because he would _kill_ his enemy and not _wound_ him. BOOK II. ELIZABETHAN 'SECRETS OF MORALITY AND POLICY'; OR, THE FABLES OF THE NEW LEARNING. Reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit. _Advancement of Learning._ INTRODUCTORY. CHAPTER I. THE DESIGN. The object of this Volume is merely to open _as a study_, and a study of primary consequence, those great Works of the Modern Learning which have passed among us hitherto, for lack of the historical and scientific key to them, as Works of Amusement, merely.