[Translation Of The Descriptio Globi Intellectualis.]

This tract, published by Gruter in 1653, must have been written about 1612. This follows from what is said of the new star in Cygnus ¹ , which was first observed in 1600. It is therefore intermediate in date between the Advancement of Learning and the De Augmentis; and though on a larger scale than either, it is to be referred to the same division of Bacon's writings. The design of all three is the same, namely, a survey of the existing state of knowledge. The commendation of learning which forms the first book of the other two works being in this one omitted, it commences with the tripartite division of knowledge which Bacon founded on the corresponding division of the faculties of man—memory, imagination, and reason. History, which corresponds to memory, is here as in the De Augmentis primarily divided into natural and civil, whereas in the Advancement the primary division of history is quadripartite, literary and ecclesiastical history being made co-ordinate with civil history, instead of being as here subordinated to it.