In the De augmentis, Bacon divides the kinds of learning into three primary categories - history, poetry, and philosophy - which correspond to the three faculties of the rational soul - memory, imagination, and reason. He then divides history into two kinds - civil and natural - each of which is further subdivided into subcategories (IV, 292-300). History is not only given a very wide domain in Bacon's division of knowledges, but because he identifies historia with experientia, its role in his inductive philosophy is also fundamental: of the reconstruction of the sciences, he claims, “the foundation must be laid in natural history” (IV, 28). As for civil history, Bacon claims that its “dignity and authority are pre-eminent among human writings. For to its fidelity are entrusted the examples of our ancestors, the vicissitudes of things, the foundations of civil policy, and the name and reputation of men” (IV, 302).