Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 16

of this kind, and it has four famous parts which are called Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Geometry From the Greek "geo" (earth) and "metron" (measure). In the Middle Ages, this included the study of shapes and the properties of space. deals with lines, surfaces, and bodies. Arithmetic The study of numbers and their properties. deals with numbers. Astronomy deals with the magnitude of the stars and other
5 celestial things, as well as certain related terrestrial matters. Music For Bacon, music was a mathematical science of proportions, not just an art of performance. teaches about the proportions found in the sound of the voice and of instruments, and in gestures shaped by sound through similar movements and
folio 72 verso, column 2 suitable rhythmic divisions | as will be clarified below. Certain principles indeed are common to all four of these. It is a known path for us to move from common principles to specific ones, as Aristotle says in the first book of the
10 Physics. For this reason, in the first book of this volume, I will treat these common principles. In the second, I will treat geometric matters. In the third, arithmetic. In the fourth and fifth, astrological and astronomical matters. In the sixth, I will explain those things regarding music which I see as necessary.
15 Let the reader seek the justification for this order in my Metaphysics. However, something of this will be explained in this first book.

Chapter two, reciting first the universal causes of human error; second, it enumerates the vices and harms

20 which happen from those causes in mathematics; third, it touches upon the universal way in which remedies are possible, with a promise of those remedies in this treatise.

The universal causes of human error must first be considered in every pursuit of study, life, and duty.
25 Therefore, in the beginning of my Metaphysics, which organizes all wisdom, I demonstrated the malice of these causes. I did this by gathering the authorities, reasons, and examples of wise men. I showed that these causes confound the whole of study and, consequently, everything else. For the way a person behaves in the study of wisdom is the same way they are proven to behave in
30 life and religion. The first cause of error is a zeal for one's own opinion. By this, a person is incited to reject everything they do not know. They do this as a vile and dangerous consolation for their own lack of skill. Like a person drunk with their own pride, they seek to magnify and extol themselves before
35 God, all the saints, and all wise men. They boast of the little they know, which is unworthy, or they boast of things they think they know better than they actually do. The second cause is weak and fragile authority, which abounds far too much in many people who presume to teach every subject...