August, 1604; but he was not appointed to the office of Solicitor-
General when it became vacant in that year.

That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published
this work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of
learning from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of
the studies chosen, or the way of dealing with them. This came, he
said, especially by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or
furthest end of knowledge, as if there were sought in it "a couch
whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for
a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair
prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon;
or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop
for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the
Creator and the relief of man's estate." The rest of the First Book
was given to an argument upon the Dignity of Learning; and the
Second Book, on the Advancement of Learning, is, as Bacon himself
described it, "a general and faithful perambulation of learning,
with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not
improved and converted by the industry of man; to the end that such
a plot made and recorded to memory may both minister light to any
public designation and also serve to excite voluntary endeavours."
Bacon makes, by a sort of exhaustive analysis, a ground-plan of all
subjects of study, as an intellectual map, helping the right
inquirer in his search for the right path. The right path is that
by which he has the best chance of adding to the stock of knowledge
in the world something worth labouring for; and the true worth is in
labour for "the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's
estate."