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HANDBOUND
AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS

THE

LONDON SERIES OF ENGLISH CLASSICS

EDITED BY

J. W. HALES, M.A. AND C. S. JERRAM, M.A.

£ AGON'S ESSAYS

ABBOTT

VOL. I.

LONDON : PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

BACON'S ESSAYS

WITH

INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND INDEX
BY

EDWIN A. ABBOTT, D.D.

HEAD MASTER OF THE CITY OF LONDON SCHOOL

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

FOURTH EDITION

?>&*

& •

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1881

v.r .
t

PREFACE.

THE object of the present edition of Bacon's Essays
s to illustrate them as far as possible, not merely by
disconnected notes, but by a continuous Introduction,
bringing to bear upon the Essays such knowledge of
Bacon's thoughts, as can be derived from his life and
tvorks. The basis of this Introduction is, of course,
the edition of Bacon's Works issued by Mr. Ellis
ind Mr. Spedding ; and the ' Letters and Life ' re
cently completed by Mr. Spedding. Allusions and
textual difficulties are explained by notes; but the
writer's experience, while reading the Essays with a
class of advanced pupils, led him to the conviction
that, for the proper understanding of the Essays, more
is wanted than mere annotation, however accurate
and judicious. Bacon's Essays can hardly be under
stood without reference to Bacon's life.

The text adopted is generally that of the accurate
and scholar-like edition of Mr. Aldis Wright ; but I
have ventured to depart from his example in the
matter of spelling and punctuation. As regards

spelling, the principle adopted in the following pages
is this : whatever quotations or extracts are made for
critical or antiquarian purposes are printed with the
old spelling, but the Essays themselves are placed on
the same footing as the Bible and Shakespeare ; and,
as being not for an age but for all ages, they are spelt
with the spelling of this age. Still less scruple has
been felt in departing from the old punctuation ; it
has no right to be considered Bacon's ; it often makes
absolute nonsense of a passage ; it sometimes pro
duces ambiguities that may well cause perplexity even
to intelligent readers ; and its retention can only be
valuable to archaeologists as showing how little import-
ance should be attached to the commas and colons-
scattered at random through their pages by the Eliza
bethan compositors.

By way of illustrating Bacon's style and method,
the ten Essays of 1597 are printed (and, in accordance
with the principle stated above, in their original
spelling) below the corresponding Essays of A.IX
1625. The comparison of these may furnish a useful
exercise in composition ; but it has not been thought
necessary to add in full the edition of A.D. 1612, some
account of which will, however, be found in the Notes,
and in the Appendix in the second volume.

It is hoped that this edition may be of some use
in the highest classes of schools ; but the object has
been, not the compilation of a book adapted for the
use of persons desiring to pass examinations, but of

work that may enable readers of all ages and classes

0 read Bacon's Essays easily and intelligently.

I am indebted to Dr. Kuno Fischer's 'Francis of
ferulam ' for some valuable hints, which will be found
icknowledged severally where they occur. Of Mr.
spedding's work I have made so much use that the
vords ' debt ' and « obligation ' carmot sufficiently ex
press what I owe to it Though (as I regret to learn
rom Mr. Spedding, who most kindly and laboriously
:riticised my proofs) my interpretation of Bacon's
character differs widely from his, yet it is founded
Llmost entirely upon the evidence that he has himself
collected. I have endeavoured to throw a little
additional light on Bacon through Machiavelli.

In the notes, I have gained much from Mr. Aldis
Wright's edition, and especially from his references.

1 regret that I did not see Mr. Gardiner's History of
England from the Accession of James /., &c., in time

o do more than add a few foot-notes from it I find
myself in complete accord with almost every word
referring to Bacon in those valuable volumes.

In the Second Edition some misprints have been
corrected, and an alteration of some importance has
been made in the last sentence of the Introduction.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST VOLUME.

PAGE

PREFACE iii

PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN BACON'S LIFE AND TIMES . ix

INTRODUCTION-
CHAP.

I. WHAT BACON WAS HIMSELF xvii

II. BACON AS A PHILOSOPHER Ixv

III. BACON AS A THEOLOGIAN AND ECCLESIASTICAL

POLITICIAN ........ xcviii

IV. BACON AS A POLITICIAN cxvi

V. BACON AS A MORALIST cxxxiv

DEDICATION OF THE ESSAYS . . , . . . clxi

TABLE OF CONTENTS clxiii

ESSAYS , i-na

PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN BACON'S LIFE,
AND TIMES.

A.D.

Born (youngest of eight children, six of whom were by a

former marriage). Son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Jan. 22 1560-1*

The Council of Trent breaks up 1563

Revolt of the Netherlands ; Execution of Counts Egmont

and Horn 1566-7

Elizabeth is excommunicated 157°

The Turks are defeated off Lepanto .... 1571

Massacre of St. Bartholomew I572

Bacon goes to Trinity College, Cambridge . . . 1573
Union of Utrecht between the seven northern provinces of

the Netherlands . . I57S

He is admitted ' de societate magistrorum ' at Gray's Inn 1576

In France with Sir Amias Paulet 1576-8

His father dies, and he returns to England . . . 1579

Admitted ' Utter Barrister" 1582

Conspiracies against Elizabeth ; The Parliament sanctions
the Voluntary Association formed in defence of the

Queen ; Severe laws passed against Priests and Jesuits 1583-4

Represents Melcombe Regis in the House of Commons . 1584

William of Orange assassinated 1584

Writes Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth^ . . . 1584

About this time was written the Greatest Birth of Time% 1585

Becomes a Bencher of Gray's Inn. 1586

Execution of Mary Stuart 1587

Destruction of the Spanish Armada 1588

Assassination of the Duke of Guise .... 1588

* This is our 1561. But in Bacon's time the ' civil ' year began with
March 25, the 'historical' year with January i. The dates that follow will
be given according to the modern reckoning.

t Mr. Spedding inclines to think this letter was written by Bacon.

t Writing in 1625, Bacon says: 'It being now forty years, as I remember,
since I composed a juvenile work on this subject, which, with great confi
dence and a magnificent title, I named "The Greatest Birth of Time.'"—
Life, Vol. vii. p. 533.

x CBbtnts m baton's Ufft

Asks the Earl of Leicester to further a suit urged in his

behalf by Essex * ; death of Leicester . . . . 1588

Assassination of Henry III. by Friar Clement . . 1589

Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of

England 1589

Elizabeth adopts as her favourite the Earl of Essex . 1589

The clerkship of the Council in the Star Chamber is

granted to Bacon in reversion 1589

A Conference of Pleasure containing ' the Praise of Forti
tude,' 'the Praise of Love,' ' the Praise of Knowledge,'
' the Praise of the Queen.' 1593

Certain Observations made upon a Libel \ published this

present year 1593

Some Members of Parliament are imprisoned for present
ing a Petition touching the succession . . . . 1593

Bacon opposes the Government in a speech on a motion
for a grant of three subsidies payable in four years % :
he is consequently forbidden to come into the Queen's
presence 1593

A true Report of the detestable treason intended by Dr.
Roderigo Lopez, a physician attending upon the person
of the Queen's Majesty 1594

Sues unsuccessfully for the place of Attorney and th«n for
that of Solicitor-General

Gesta Grayorum, a Device represented at Gray's Inn.

Rebellion of Tyrone ; End of Religious Wars in France .

Essex makes a present of an estate to Bacon to console
him for his disappointment ; Bacon's Device, written
for Essex 1595

Alliance between Elizabeth and Henry IV. . . . 1596

Essays (first edition) with Colours of Good and Evil and

Meditationes Sacrce . ~ 1597

* Mr. Spedding informs me that this letter, which fixes the acquaintance
of Bacon with Essex a little earlier than was supposed, was mentioned to
him by Mr. Bruce, after the publication of his earlier volumes.

\ The ' Libel ' is described by Mr. Spedding as ' a laboured invective
against the government, charging upon the Queen and her advisers all the
evils of England and all the disturbances of Christendom."

t 'The gentlemen,' he says in his speech, ' must sell their plate, and the
farmers their brass pots, ere this will be paid.'

©bents to Bacon's Htfe xi

A.D.

Speaks in Parliament against Enclosures .... 1597

Quarrel between Essex and the Queen 1598

Edict of Nantes 1598

Death of Lord Burghley 1598

Victory of Tyrone in Ireland .... . 1599

Essex goes over to Ireland 1599

Essex suddenly makes truce with Tyrone, and returns,

against orders, to England 1599

Essex placed under restraint, and not restored to favour,

though set at liberty 1600

Outbreak of Essex : his arraignment (in which Bacon

takes part) and execution 1601

Speaks against Repeal of ' Statute of Tillage'' . . . 1601
A declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and
committed by Robert, late Earl of Essex, and his Com
plices 1601

Death of Bacon's brother Anthony . .^ . . . 1601

Bacon mortgages Twickenham Park 1601

Death of Elizabeth 1603

Accession of James 1 1603

Bacon seeks to get himself recommended to the King's

favour 1603

About this time comes Valerius Terminus, written before

the Advancement of Learning 1603

The First book of the Advancement of Learning probably

written during this year 1603

Bacon is knighted • 1603

A brief discourse touching the happy Union of the King
doms of England and Scotland 1603

He desires 'to meddle as little as he can in the King's
causes,' and to 'put his ambition wholly upon his pen.'
He is engaged on a work concerning the ' Invention of
Sciences,' which he has digested in two parts, one being
entitled Interpretatio Naturce. At this time he pro
bably writes theZte Interpretation Natures Proxmium 1603
Certain considerations touching the better pacification and

edification of the Church of England .... 1603
Conference at Hampton Court ; Translation of the Bible
into the Authorised Version ; Proclamation of the Act
of Uniformity 1604

xii OBbcnts m Bacon's lUfe

A.D.

Sir Francis Bacon his Apology in certain imputations con
cerning the late Earl of Essex, first printed copy is dated 1604

Bacon repeatedly chosen to be spokesman for Committees
of the House of Commons in Conference with the

Lords

1604

Draft by Bacon of An Act for the better grounding of a
further Union to ensue between the Kingdoms of England

and Scotland I^o.

Appointed an 'ordinary member of the Learned Counsel' 1604
Certain Articles or considerations touching the Union of

the Kingdoms of England and Scotland . . . jgc^
Draft of a Proclamation touching his Majesty's Stile. Pre
pared, not used 1604

The most humble Certificate or Return of the Commis
sioners of England and Scotland, authorised to treat of
an union for the -weal of both realms. 2 Jac. i. Pre
pared but altered ( jg,., .

Publication of the Advancement of Learning . . 1605

The Gunpowder Plot 160$

Marriage of Bacon to Alice Barnham . I6O6

Bacon requests Dr. Playfair to translate the Advancement

of Learning into Latin _ jggg

Bacon made Solicitor-General jg™

Colonisation of Virginia jg™

Bacon shows Sir Thomas Bodley the Cogitata et Visa de

Interpretatione Natures jgo-

Conversion of Toby Matthew (one of Bacon's most inti
mate friends) to the Romish Church . . . jgoS
Matthew imprisoned and banished ; writes In felicem
memoriam Elizabeths; Calor et Frigus ; Historia

Soni et Auditus

1608

Begins Of the true Greatness of the kingdom of Britain ;

The Clerkship of the Star-Chamber falls in '. X6o8

Certain considerations touching the Plantation in Ireland

presented to his Majesty jgoq

Bacon sends to Toby Matthew a part of Instauratio

Magna (the part is supposed to be the Redargutio Phi-

losophiarum) l6o9

Bacon sends to Bishop Andrewes a copy of Cogitata et Visa,

with the last additions and amendments . . . jfo

CBbcnts in baton's Htft xiii

He also sends to Toby Matthew his De Sapient-ia Veterum 1609
Twelve years' truce between Spain and Holland . . 1609
Bacon is chosen by the Commons as their spokesman for

presenting a Petition of Grievances . . . . 1609

Sends -to Toby Matthew a MS. supposed to be the Redar-

gntio Philosophiarum ....... 1609

Assassination of Henry IV. by Ravaillac .... 1610

Newfoundland is colonised 1610

The thermometer invented 1610

Death of Bacon's mother 1610

Writes a fragment entitled The Beginning of the History

of Great Britain 1610

Disputes between King and Parliament . . . . 1610
Publication of the Authorised Version of the Bible . . 1611

Death of Salisbury (Cecil) 1612

The first English settlement in India is founded at Surat . 1612
Death of the Prince of Wales . . . . . . 1612

Second Edition of the Essays 1612

Writes Descriptio Globi Intettectualis and Thema Cceli . 1612

Bacon made Attorney-General 1613

The Princess Elizabeth marries the Elector Palatine . . 1613
Michael III. founds the dynasty of the Romanoffs in

Russia 1613

Bacon returned for Cambridge University . . . . 1614

Napier invents Logarithms 1614

Prosecution and examination (with torture) of Peacham . 1614
The ' Addled Parliament ' meets April 5, and is dissolved

June 7 1614

Prosecution of Oliver St. John for a seditious libel concern
ing the Benevolence 1615

The last Assembly of the States-General in France . . 1615
Discovery of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury . . 1615
Commencement of Bacon's acquaintance with George

Villiers 1615

Bacon appointed Privy Councillor 1616

Coke suspended from his office of Chief Justice of King's

Bench 1616

A letter of advice written by Sir Francis Bacon to the
Duke of Buckingham when he became favourite to King
James 1616

xiv CBbents fa bacon's Hife

A.D.

Bacon made Lord Keeper ....... 1617

Episcopacy introduced into Scotland .... 1617

Buckingham alienated by Bacon's opposition to the mar
riage of Buckingham's brother with Coke's daughter . 1617

Buckingham made a Marquis 1618

Bacon Lord Chancellor ....... 1618

Commencement of the Thirty Years' War . . . . 1618

Bacon created Baron Verulam of Verulam . . . 1618

Execution of Ralegh 1618

Official declaration concerning Sir W. Ralegh, which is

supposed to have been, in part, composed by Bacon . 1618

Bacon's 'great sickness' 1619

The Bohemians offer the crown to the Elector Palatine . 1619

Arminius is condemned by the Synod of Dort . . . 1619

Preparations in Germany to attack the Palatinate . . 1620

Volunteers levied by Frederick's agents in England . . 1620

Movement of the Spanish forces against the Palatinate . 1620

The King resolves to defend it and to call a Parliament . 1620
Publication of the Novum Organum and the Parasceue.
To the Novum Organum he prefixed a Proeemium
beginning with the words Franciscus de Verulamio sic
cogitavit ; a dedication to King James ; a general Pre
face ; and an account (entitled Distributio Operis) of
the parts of which the Instauratio was to consist. Of
these the Novum Organum is the second ; the De
Augmentis, which was not then published, occupying

the place of the first 1620

Bacon created Viscount St. Alban ..... 1620
Bacon charged by a disappointed suitor with taking money

for the dispatch of his suit . . . . . . 1620

The charge investigated 1620

Bacon's illness 1620

Makes his will 1620

The confession and humble submission of me the Lord

Chancellor 1621

Bacon is imprisoned in the Tower, but almost immediately

released . . 1621

Retires to Gorhambury 1621

Begins his History of Henry VII. ..... 1621

CBbcnts m 33acon's Htfc xv

A.D.

Alienates Buckingham by his refusal to sell York House . 1621
His pardon is stayed at the seal . . . 1621

Consents to part with York House to Cranfield, a creature
of Buckingham's, and thereupon obtains Buckingham's
help in his suit for leave to come within the verge . . 1621
The Commons make a Protestation of their Rights, the

entry of which is torn from their Journal by the King . 1621
Publishes Henry VII. ; speaks of the De Augmentis as a
work in the hands of the translators, likely to be pub
lished by the end of the summer ; writes Historia Na-
turalis, &c. , containing Historia Ventorum, with titles
of five similar Histories, proposed to be published
month by month ; writes the Advertisement touching a

Holy War 1622

Parliament is dissolved 1622

Writes Historia Vitce et Mortis ; sues in vain for the Pro-
vostship of Eton ; publishes the De Augmentis ; writes
a few lines of the History of Henry VIII. . . . 1623
Prince Charles visits Spain to negotiate a marriage with

the Infanta 1623

War is proclaimed against Spain and Austria . . . 1624
The New Atlantis is supposed to have been written about

this time ; The Apophthegms 1624

Extinction of hopes of being enabled to live out of want ;

his anxiety now is to die out of ignominy . . . 1624-6

Third edition of the fissays 1625

Dies, April 9 1626

The following is a description given by Bacon himself, in the
year 1625, of his intentions with regard to his writings : —

Most reverend Father Fulgentio,

/ -wish to make known to your Reverence my intentions

•with regard to the writings which I meditate and have in hand;
not hoping to perfect them, but desiring to try ; and because I work
for posterity ; these things requiring ages for their accomplishment.
I have thought it best, then, to have all of them translated into Latin
and divided into volumes. The first volume consists of the books
I. a

xvi Bacon's Account of &

concerning the ' Advancement of Learning' ; and this, as youknow
is already finished and published, and includes the Partitions ofthA
Sciences; -which is the first part of my Instauration. The Novutn
Organum should have followed ; but I interposed my moral ant.
political writings, as being nearer ready. These are: first, th
History of the reign of Henry the Seventh, king of England, 'after*
which will follow the little book which in your language you have]
called Saggi Morali. But I give it a weightier name, entitling
it Faithful Discourses, or the Inwards of Things. But these dis
courses will be both increased in number and much enlarged in the
treatment. The same volume will contain also my little book on the
Visdom of the Ancients. And this volume is (as I said) interposed
not being a part of the Instauration. After this will follow the ':-
Novum Organum, to which there is still a second fart to be added:
but I have already compassed and planned it out in my mind. And
in this manner the Second Part of the Instauration will be com-
pleted. As for the Third Part, namely, the Natural History, that '.
is plainly a work for a. king or a Pope, or some college or order ; •
and it cannot be done as it should be by a private man's industry.
And those portions which I have published, concerning Winds and
concerning Life and Death, are not history pure, because of the
axioms and greater observations that are interposed: but they are a
kind of writing mixed of natural history, and a rude and imperfect
form of that intellectual machinery which properly belongs to the
Fourth Part of the Instauration. Next therefore will come the
Fourth Part itself; wherein will be shewn many examples of the
Machine, more exact and more applied to the rules of Induction
In the Fifth Place -will follow the book which I have entitled the
Precursors of the Second Philosophy,' which will contain my dis
coveries concerning new axioms, suggested by the experiments them
selves, that they may be raised as it were and set up, like fallen
pillars : and this I have set down as the Fifth Part of my Instaura-
tton. Last comes the Second Philosophy itself, the Sixth Part of
the Instauration, of which I have given up all hope; but it may
be that the ages and Posterity will make it flourish. Nevertheless
in the Precursors— I speak only of those which almost touch on the
Universalities of Nature— no slight foundations will be laid for the
Second Philosophy. *

* Life, Vol. vii. pp. 531-2.

INTR OD UCTION.

CHAPTER I.

WHAT BACON WAS HIMSELF.

: I NEVER LOOK,' says Montaigne, ' upon an author be
:hey such as write of virtue and of actions, but I curiously
endeavour to find out what he was himself.'1 This hint,-
aseful for the students of any book, is especially useful
or those that want to understand Bacon's Essays, for
they spring directly out of Bacon's life. They are not
the results of his reading, nor the dreams or theories of
his philosophy ; they are the brief jottings of his expe
rience of men and things. On this ground he tells the
Prince he can commend them : he has endeavoured to
make them, not vulgar, but of a nature whereof a man
shall find much in experience, little in books, so as they
are neither repetitions nor fancies. Moreover, the expe
rience of the author's old age, as well as that of his youth,
finds condensed expression in the little volume of the
Essays : for, besides the fact that they embody the
Antitheta, which he is known to have collected during his
youth or early manhood, the first edition was published i
when he was thirty-six, the second when he was fifty-
two, the third when he was sixty-four, so that the different .(
editions cover the whole period of his active life. Nor l
again need we suspect that in the Essays we have, not

1 Florio's Montaigne, p. 411.

a 2

xviii EtttrotfUCtfOtt

the true Bacon, but an artificial essayist, wishing to found!

a licerary reputation, or a reputation for morality 01

statesmanship. Such a suspicion might attach to some

of his more formal compositions ; but it is out of place

here, and it is disproved by internal evidence. For the

Essays are strewn thick with Bacon's household words,

with maxims, arguments and illustrations, to be found

elsewhere in letters to friends, in charges to judges, in

parliamentary or legal speeches, in diaries and the like,

as well as in his formal philosophic works. Sometimes,

though rarely, we find here a notion in its germ developed

and matured in Bacon's later works ; more often these

terse pages give us a condensation of some old familiar,

oft-repeated thought, abridged here almost to the excess

of obscurity, because the writer has repeated it so often.

that he thinks we must be, by this time, in his confidence,

able to catch his meaning from a bare hint. But whether

pruned or germinating, the thoughts are the thoughts of

Bacon; hints of his life's experience, certain brief notes

of it, set down rather significantly than curiously— that is,

thinking of meaning more than of style. Of no other of

Bacon's works can it be said so truly that what he was,

they are. Bacon's habit of thinking with a pen in his

hand has been kind to us : for it has photographed his

portrait for us. Perhaps no man ever made such a

confidant of paper as he did. He might have said with

Montaigne, ' 1 speak unto paper as to the first man I

meet.' Not that he ever rambles or chats colloquially or

egotistically on paper as Montaigne does : the difference

between the two is very striking. Montaigne lets us into

all his foibles: Bacon either describes, his character as that

of a Prophet of Science, or suppresses the description on

second thoughts with a — de nobis ipsis silemus. ' My

thoughts,' says the genial rambler, ' slip from me with as

little care as they are of small worth': but the philo-

33acon foas ftfmttlf xix

sopher has no thoughts ' of small worth' : With me it is
thus, and, I think, with all men in my case; if I bind
myself to an argument, it loadeth my mind, but if I rid
myself of the present cogitation, it is rather a recreation.
Some counsellor he must have to whom he may dis- "
burden his thoughts. He often speaks, and with some
thing like pathos, of the value of a friend in helping one
to clear one's thoughts, and of his own friendless and
solitary condition in his arduous search after truth. A
man were better relate himself to a statua than to let his
thoughts pass in smother, and Bacon's statua was pen
and paper. Perhaps some dim sense cf his own principal
deficiency was one reason why Bacon so systematically
related himself to paper. Writing, he said, maketh an
exact man; and exactness, as he knew,, was not a strong
point with him. He was singularly inexact, and by
nature indifferent to details ; and however strenuously he
may have laboured to remedy this defect, yet a defect it
always remained, seriously influencing his philosophic
investigations, his statesmanship, and his morals. ' De
minimis non curat lex,' said King James good-humouredly
of his great Chancellor; and the Chancellor good-
humouredly admits the justice of the charge. He was
by nature indifferent to small things ; but he strove to
remove this inexactness, and one of his remedies was the
abundant use of writing. Writing seemed to Bacon pro
fitable for all things. No course of invention, he said,
can be satisfactory unless it be carried on in writing?-
But it was not for great inventions merely : for every
kind of work, philosophic, political, private, be it an
onslaught on the ancient philosophy, or a speech in
parliament, or a Council meeting, or an interview with
some great lord or lady, Bacon in each case begins by
relating himself to paper. Even if his object was no

1 Novvm Organtan, Aphorism CI.

xx Introduction

more than to win credit at the expense of some legal
rival by being more round or resolute, or to exchan-e his
shy and nervous manner for a more confident carriage—
for each and all of these things Bacon did not think it
amiss to take counsel with paper.1

Hence it comes to pass that, though throughout the
whole of the Essays one can scarcely find a word about
the writer, yet they really make up a kind of auto
biography. The very names, and perhaps the order of
the Essays, in the earlier and later editions, tell the story
of youth passing into age, and the student making way
for the statesman. In the edition of 1597 the student is
predominant. Studies lead the way, and the few essays
that follow m that short edition turn almost all upon the
subjects that would interest an ordinary student or
gentleman leadings private lite-Discourse, Followers,
Suitors, Expence, Health, Honour. The only two that
have any savour of the politician, Faction and Negotia
ting, come last in order, and they are short and incom-
ete. Passing to the edition of 1612, we find the first
dace occupied ty Religion; but it is religion treated from
he statesman's point of view, as the most interesting
subject in the politics of the day. But in 1625 the old
man, drawing near his grave while the work of his life is
yet unaccomplished, is driven back on that which he had
made the object of the fresh ambitions of his hopeful
youth. Death comes near the beginning, but not first :
! first place is given to Truth. And so the final edition of
J Essays of the author of the Instauratio Magna will

£££ vT£l 3,T • 'Xpenment;.in ' a sP-< °f contemptuous invecfive,'

i3acon foas fjunsett

begin for all posterity with the indignant protest against the
indolence of mankind, who question Nature in jest, and
will not believe that the Truth— Nature's answer— is at
tainable, if they will but wait to be taught. What is Truth ?
said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.

Thus, then, the Essays contain an abridgment ot
Bacon's life, the essence of his manners, his morals, and
his politics, tinged throughout with his philosophy : and,
in order thoroughly to understand the Essays, we must
endeavour to understand their author as a philosopher, a
politician, and a moralist, or— to return to Montaigne,
with whom we set out—' we must curiously endeavour to
find out what he was himself.'

Multum incola : my soul hath long dwelt with those
that are enemies unto peace— this is the text that Bacon
himself has given us as the key-note of his life.1 No other
words are so often on his lips as these. He is a pilgrim
in an unfriendly land, a stranger to his work ; his occu
pations are alien to his nature. He was intended to be a
Prophet of Science, mouthpiece of the discoveries of
Time, and fate has diverted him to the petty details of a
lawyer's, or a courtier's, or a statesman's life. Whether
engaged in writing the histories of monarchs, or pre
paring devices for the royal pleasure, in legal practice, in
parliamentary business, in drawing up royal proclama
tions, in giving judgments from the bench, in discussing
the highest matters of national policy, or defending the
pettiest rights of the royal prerogative, it is always the
same ; Bacon is still multum incola, not at home in his
work, a Prophet who has missed his vocation. / think
no man may more truly say with the Psalmist, Multum
incola fuit anima mea, than myself: for I do confess,
since I was of any understanding, my mind hath been in

1 Bacon never uses these words in their full force. He means that he
dwells amid alien occupations.

xxii Intro&uctfon

effect absent from that I have done} The history of
Bacon's life is a record of the temptations by which he
was allured from philosophy, of struggles, penitences,
relapses, and final failure.

We cannot definitely say how soon Bacon conceived
the idea of his philosophic mission. However much he
may have been endowed— as his biographer Rawley tells
us he was— even in 'his first and childish years with
pregnancy and towardness of wit,' yet it would be absurd
to suppose that, when he went up to Trinity College,
Cambridge, a boy between twelve and thirteen years of
age, ' at the ordinary years of ripeness for the University
or something earlier'— he had the Instauratio Mama
already in his mind. Yet, we are informed that while
11 a resident at the University, he had already con-
ceived a dislike for the philosophy of the schools.
Jistotle's philosophy was then, as always, his aversion
•t merely for its barren logic and puerile induction,
it also as embodying the evil Spirit of Authority
barring the way to improvement and thus retarding
lence. Already the young student had noted the
unfruitfulness of a philosophy only strong for disputa
tions and contentions, but barren of the production of
works for the benefit of the life of man.' * Such is the
testimony of his biographer, speaking of what had been
imparted from his lordship ' ; and we have Bacon's own
confession that the ardour and constancy of his mind in
his pursuit of truth had been protracted over a long time
it being now forty years (te is writing thus in his sixty-
fth year) since I composed a juvenile work on this subject
ivhtch, with great confidence and a magnificent title I
named the Greatest Birth of Time. 3 ' '

Between his fortieth and fiftieth year, looking back

* r-f tr0,' "!'. P' 233° Works, Vol. i. p. 4.

* Life, Vol. vii. p. 533.

foas &t

upon and justifying his past life, he speaks as one who had
from the first recognised that he was born to be useful to
mankind and specially moulded by nature for the contem
plation of the truth. He justifies his divergence into
law and politics on the ground that his country had
claimed such a sacrifice at his hands. But he Jbund no
•work so meritorious as the discovery and development of
the arts and inventions that tend to civilize the life of
man. I found in myself-^ thus continues-a mind at
once versatile enough for that most important object the
recognition of similarities, and at the same time steady
and concentrated enough for the observation of subtle
shades of difference. I possessed an earnestness of research,
a power of suspending judgment with patience, of medi
tating with pleasure, of asserting with caiition, of cor
recting false impressions with readiness, and of arranging
my thoughts with careful pains : I had no passion for
novelty, no fond admiration for antiquity; imposture in ^
every shape I utterly hated. And, thus endowed, I con
sidered myself as it were a relation and kinsman of truth.1
There was no exaggeration in this self-painted por
trait. One at least of the qualities here enumerated he
possessed even to excess, that most dangerous faculty of
recognising similarities. It is. curiously characteristic of
Bacon that he lays more stress upon that most .important
object the recognition of similarities, than upon the
observation of subtle shades of difference. Yet the latter
is pre-eminently the philosopher's faculty, while the former
is the poet's. But Bacon was a poet, the poet of Science.
His eye, like the poet's—

in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven

« Works Vol. iii. p.^19. He aho tpcaki of him»elf d59») " ™"Sng ' to
serve Her Majesty,' but ' not a, a man born under Sol, that loveth honour :
nor under Jupiter.tbat lovethbusiness(>-^««/«»//«ft^/*"«"«^rf*
seaway -wholly).' Life, Vol. i. p. 108. See also pp. lui, ban.

Introduction

—catching at similarities and analogies invisible to un
inspired eyes, giving them names and shapes, investing
them with substantial reality, and mapping out the whole
realm of knowledge in ordered beauty. Well have Bacon's
analogies been described as 'attractive points of view
affording a rich and fertile prospect' * over the Promised
Land of Science. But though they are natural to Bacon,
they are not natural to his philosophy : they are examples
to show that 'the mind of Bacon extended beyond his
method.' 2 He himself says of them that they sometimes
lead us as if by the hand to sublime and noble axioms:
but they also led him into error. They afford rich and
fertile prospects ; but the richness and fertility are often
a mere mirage.

Put aside this dangerous excess of the poetic faculty,
and we must recognise in Bacon many faculties fitting
him for his scientific mission. Above all he had— when
ever the unity and harmony of things, or the honour
F Science was not called in question— that cool, dis
passionate, impartial way of looking at things which a
man of science should have. He knew the necessity of
obeying Nature if he would command her : and he had a
supple and compliant nature3 convenient for obeying He
was aware of the scientific danger of ignoring incon
venient facts and constructing convenient facts : and he
had something of the scientific simplicity, taking things
as they are and not as he would have liked them to be
Above all he had a sanguine confidence, not so much in
his own powers as in the divine order of the Universe,
and in the adaptation of the human mind to the special
purpose of finding what that order is.

Believing himself therefore to be born to be useful to
mankind, the young philosopher looks round the world

* Dr. Fischer's Francis of Verulam, p. 13,
Ib., p. 139. > Ib>

33acon foas fjtmsdf xxv

to see what special work he is to do. He finds that the
dominating influences around him appear to be the in
ventions of men. Gunpowder, printing, the compass,
had shaped the destinies of mankind : no empire, sect or
star, seems to have exercised greater power or influence
upon human affairs than these mechanical inventions.
But most of these and other great inventions have been
discovered in a manner most discreditable to mankind.
They have stumbled upon them, as by accident ; some
times even beasts — deservedly worshipped as gods by the
ancient Egyptians — have led the way to them, surpassing
with their brute instincts the reasoning faculties of men.
This was not meant to be. God hath set the world in
the mind of men, that men may find it out. All know
ledge is divine ; but to enter the Kingdom of Knowledge
we must become as little children, and learn to read with
a simple eye the world, the Second Scripture of God.
All the world being made according to Law, all true know
ledge consists of knowing the Laws and Causes of things.
But if we know the Causes, we shall be able to cause.
As by mastering the alphabet we can make words, so by
mastering the first principles or causes of things, we
shall be able to construct. Hence, all knowledge should
result in invention.

' Thoughts without good acts are poor things.'

The contemplative life of the Greek philosophers is a
despicable affair, and good thoughts, though God accept
them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams,
except they be put in act ; and that cannot be without
Power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground.
Merit and good works is the end of man's motion, and
conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's

1 Essay xi. 11. 35-40.

xxvi Entroijuction

Power and place were necessary then to Bacon, or at
least to him seemed necessary. Let us remember this,
throughout his life. The path of his philosophy, he tells
us, was of such a kind that no man could pass over it
alone. It was to be a social work, employing hosts of
workers in different ways, observers, experimenters,
supervisors, and the like. The accumulation of the facts
that were to form his Natural History was a stupendous
work,y£//0r a King or a Pope. No recluse, how self-deny
ing and industrious soever, pore though he might upon
the musty books of old philosophy, cotild ever charm out
the secret of Nature. Merlin has exactly described for
us that kind of student which Bacon could never be, if
he meant to be faithful to his own Induction, — ' the hair
less man '

Who lived alone in a great wild on grass,
Read but one book, and ever reading grew
So grated down and filed away with thought,
So lean, his eyes were monstrous ; while the skin
Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and spine.
And, since he kept his mind on one sole aim,
Nor ever touch'd fierce wine, nor tasted flesh,
Nor owned a sensual wish, to him the wall
That sunders ghosts, and shadow-casting men,
Became a crystal, and he saw them through it,
And heard their voices talk behind the wall,
And learnt their elemental secrets, powers
And forces.

The part Bacon had to play and set himself to play was
harder : he had to be in the world but not of the world,
to keep his mind on one sole aim, and yet to take up other
by-aims and by-works as tending to the one aim on which
his mind was fixed. Instead of 'living alone in a great
wiltl,' proclaiming in the wilderness the news of the King
dom of Man over Nature, he had to bring himself to wear
'soft clothing' and enter 'kings' houses' as a sleek courtier,
because the new knowledge was to be thought put in

23acon foas ijtmself xxvii

act ; and that cannot be without power and place as the
vantage and commanding ground,

Circumstances combined with the suggestions of his
philosophy to divert Bacon from a contemplative to a
public life. The death of Sir Nicholas Bacon occurring
before he had been able to make any provision for
Francis, the younger son of a second marriage, threw the
youth at the age of eighteen on his own resources.
Returning from France, where he had been placed by his
father with Sir Amias Paulet, the Queen's Ambassador,
he found himself obliged, sorely against his will, to de
vote himself to the law for the purpose of earning his
living. Had he been able to secure a competency he
would gladly have devoted himself to philosophic study :
and he applies to Lord Burghley with this view in his
twentieth year. But it is not till his twenty-ninth year that
his applications are in any way successful, and even then
their only result is the reversion of an office, valuable, it
is true, but it did not fall in for twenty years. Meantime
he had been admitted as a barrister, and in his twenty-
fourth year had been elected Member of Parliament.

In his thirtieth year, still unrewarded by place of any
kind, he made the acquaintance of Essex. / held at that ,
time my Lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the
State, and therefore I applied myself to him in a manner ;
•which I think rarely happeneth among men : l such is the ,
account given by Bacon fourteen years afterwards of the j
commencement of their friendship. It is no doubt true,
but probably not the whole truth. The State, high as
it stood in Bacon's mind, was subordinate to Science.
We shall find him afterwards in his diary noting down

1 Life, Vol. i. p. 106. This deliberate and cold-blooded friendship seems
inconsistent with expressions of affection such as 'my affection to your
Lordship hath made mine own contentment inseparable from your satisfac
tion." Life, Vol. i. p. 235. But there is no reason to doubt that Bacon
really liked Essex, though he hardly loved him.

xxviii Introlmctfon

the names of lords and bishops, and other eminent men,
who are to be drawn in for the purposes of Science.
Rich people, sickly people, medical men, scientific men,
all who can by wit or money help the good cause, are to
be made friends of, or, as he expresses it, drawn in. Add
Science to State above, and we have the full account of
the origin of Bacon's friendship for Essex. The young
nobleman appeared to him more likely to forward high
plans of science and of policy than the cautious, jealous
Cecils, in whose time able men were suppressed of purpose.
Essex, by advancing his client Bacon, would advance
alike the State and Science : it was as the ministers or
tools of Science that Bacon regarded his friends. Not
that Bacon had no affection for Essex ; but it was affec
tion of a subdued kind, kept well under control, and duly
subordinated to the interests of the Kingdom of Man.
Bacon could not easily love friends or hate enemies
though he himself was loved by many of his inferiors
with the true love of friendship. But his scientific pas
sionless disposition, taking men as they are and not as
they ought to be, was fatal to true love ; and his scientific
compliance with circumstances was no less fatal to con
stancy. The precept of Bias commends itself to his
scientific mind, always provided that it be not construed
to any purposes of perfidy : Love as if you were sometime
to hate, and hate as if you were sometime to love. Bacon
could not help liking Essex : indeed, he liked almost
everybody with whom he was brought into close inter
course ; he liked James, he liked Villiers, but he loved
and could love no one.

Meantime, Bacon was running into debt. Partly for
himself, and partly for his brother Anthony, just returning
from a long course of foreign travels, he had been obliged
to borrow. Anthony's knowledge of foreign politics and
foreign connections enabled him to procure for the

33acon toas fn'msdf xxix

D Queen secret information of importance, duly valued by
[Elizabeth. But to procure this information money was
Agoing out, and meantime money was not coming in.
| Voluntary imdoing may be as well for a man's country as
\for the Kingdom of Heaven : so runs the Essay on
lExpence; and both Bacon and his brother exemplified
this voluntary undoing. More than once he was
I threatened with arrest for debt ; and all this while place
I and office were still withheld. The Queen, he says, con
descended to call him her watch-candle : and yet she
suffered him to waste.

At this crisis Bacon lost the favour of the Queen, and
I with it all hope of office, by an independent speech in the
House of Commons. Even in the days when he was, as
he describes himself, a peremptory Royalist, under King
James, his mind always recoiled against the haggling and
chaffering by which the courtiers thought it necessary to
secure subsidies : and it is possible that on the present
occasion Bacon sincerely believed that the influence of
the crown was in danger of being weakened by an undue
insistance on an unpopular and excessive imposition. At
all events, he protested in no measured terms against it.
The protest was unsuccessful, and the subsidy appears to
have been raised without difficulty ; but the Queen was
seriously displeased, and banished Bacon from her pre
sence. It is worthy of note that, among the many
expressions of regret at the royal displeasure, there is no
record of any apology tendered by Bacon for his speech:
but all that he could do to obtain access to the royal ear
he did assiduously. He was strenuously backed by his
friend Essex, who for two or three years urged Bacon's
claims for the place of Attorney, and then for that of
Solicitor- General, in both cases unsuccessfully. To con
sole his disappointment Essex presented Bacon with an
estate, which he afterwards sold for i,8oo/. and thought

xxx Ihitro&uction

was more worth. But to the end of the Queen's life!
office was withheld. He was restored to the royal favour,]
but still suffered to waste.

It was now ten years since Bacon had composed the
juvenile work which with great confidence and a mag
nificent title he had named the Greatest Birth of Time :
and he was still as far off as ever from obtaining that
place and power which he thought he needed to convert
his thoughts into acts. Conscious of high powers, poli
tical as well as philosophical, he chafed under the
deliberate suppression to which he was subjected by his
kinsmen. As Machiavelli piteously petitioned to become
the servant of the Prince by whom his country had been
deprived of her liberties and he himself had been tor
tured, so Bacon asked nothing better than to be employed
by the Queen who had neglected and rebuked him : and
in both these two great men it was not avarice or the
lust of power that dictated the request. It was the sense
of high faculties rusting unused, and a restless desire to
do something, even though they could not do what they
wished — the intolerable disgust at seeing mediocrity pre
ferred to genius :

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled ;
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
Aud simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.

In the sanguine confidence of youth, Bacon had dreamed
that knowledge was power, not only in the immaterial
world, but also in the world of men. But now at last,
weary of the exquisite disgrace of continual suing and
continual rejection, and sick of asser-viling himself to
every man's charity, the Apostle of the New Logic and
herald of the Kingdom of Man began to learn, after

<3Bi)flt 23acon ioas Dimsdf xxxi

years of degradation, that it is one matter to be perfect
in things, and quite another to be perfect in the drifts of
men. He begins to see that, if he is to succeed in the
world, he must do as the world does. It is not enough
to know what is best, it is necessary to be able to persuade
others that it is best. Hence the knowledge of the art of
advancement in life must include careful observance of
the humours and weaknesses of the great. Clear and
round dealing is undoubtedly the honour of human na
ture : but when human bodies are diseased, physic must
not be despised ; and when society is diseased, the physic
of society is falsehood. There are different degrees of
falsehood ; there is reserve, there is dissimulation, there is
simulation : the latter is not to be used except there be
no remedy, but it is not always to be rejected. Thus is
Bacon gradually breaking himself to obey the rules of the
Architect of Fortune, not for his own sake — so he would
have said — but for the sake of his mistress Science.

Yet hisnobler nature rebels against the hard apprentice
ship to which he is training himself. Among the other
literary trifles with which he endeavoured to solace the
anxieties of this unhappy period of his life, we have a
Device prepared by him for his friend Essex, and ex
hibited to Elizabeth in 1595 A.D. ; and in this there is
introduced the character of a hollow statesman who,
instead of serving the true Queen Gloriana, devotes him
self to the false Queen Philautia or Selfishness. With
bitter irony the writer lays down fit precepts for the con
duct of such an impostor : Let him not trouble himself
too laboriously to sound into any matter deeply, or to
execute anything exactly ; but let him make himself cun
ning rather in the humours and drifts of persons, than in
the nature of business and affairs. Of that it sufficeth
him to know only so much as may make him able to make
use of other men's wits and to make again a smooth and
I. b

xxxii Introduction

pleasing report. And ever rather let him take the side
which is likeliest to be followed, than that which if
soundest and best, that everything may seem to be
carried by his direction. l This was an apt description
of the hand-to-mouth policy too common among the
Queen's ministers, which Bacon contrasts with true fore-
sighted policy, and stigmatizes by the name Q{ fiddling: but
whoever may have been alluded to by the words, the irony
of fate has made them recoil with special force upon the
writer. They predict with startling exactness the policy
to which Bacon was hereafter to degrade himself, making
himself cunning in the humours and drifts of a pedant
king and a fickle favourite.

. It was hard for Bacon to learn the seven rules of the
Architect of Fortune : he was not meant by nature for
flattery and the tricks of courtiers. He had deliberately
made up his mind that a philosopher ought to study
Advancement in Life, and that pragmatical men should be
taught that the philosopher was not always like the lark
soaring heavenwards without object, but could sometimes
imitate the hawk and strike down upon an earthly prey ;
and for this purpose he had drawn up appropriate pre
cepts. But he did not find it easy to stoop to them.
When he stoops he has to prepare himself for his degra
dation with art and deliberation, often on paper. His
health and physical constitution were against him here.
He was not only an invalid from his youth, but also by
nature shy, retiring, and nervous. He includes himself
among the class of persons that are of nature bashful, as
myself is, who are often jnistaken for proud. He gasped
and spoke with panting in public, as nervous men are
apt to do. His mother holds up his student meditative
way of living as a warning to Anthony, showing him
what to avoid. I verily think your brother's weak stomach

1 Life, Vol. i. p. 382.

51(3|)at 23acon foas ijimsclf xxxiii

to digest hath been much caused and confirmed by untimely
going to bed, and then musing nescio quid when he should
sleep, and then in consequent by late rising and long
lying in bed, whereby his men are tnade slothful and him
self continueth sickly. One of his brother's friends is so
deeply offended at his reserve as to complain of it
to Anthony. We shall soon find him recognising
this defect in his note-book and preparing himself (on
paper) to grapple with it ; but years afterwards, when he
rides to court as Lord Chancellor, with three hundred
gallants attending him, he writes that this matter of pomp,
which is heaven to some men, is hell to me, or purgatory
at least. His manner of life and meditative habits
seriously interfere with the arrangement of his household,
but he cannot shake them off. In vain his precise strict
mother lectures him on his unthrifty ways, and declares
that she will contribute nothing to his support so long as
he persists in keeping his dissolute servants preying upon
him. To the end of his life, with all his parade of account-
books and note- books, his servants remained uncontrolled
and his household laxly supervised. De minimis non
curat lex : such petty details were beneath the attention
of one who was born for the service of mankind.

To the obstacles of a retiring and nervous nature,
sensitive and unconventional, was added that greatest of
all obstacles, at least in the way of Advancement in Life —
ill-health. His diary is full of recipes for medicines and
notes of their effect : and his mother's letters often refer
to his weakness and sensitiveness : ' I am sorry/ she writes
to Anthony, 'your brother with inward secret grief
hindereth his health ; everybody saith he looketh thin
and pale.' As the newly-appointed Chancellor, he is pro
nounced by public opinion to have ' so tender a constitu
tion of body and mind that he will hardly be able
to undergo the burden of so much business as his

XXXIV

Introduction

place requires.' l Nothing but his perpetual hopeful-
ness and the sense of a noble purpose, and the excite
ment of aspiring action, could have enabled Bacon to pro
tract for more than sixty years ' that long disease, his
life.' His mother's intuition guided her rightly when she
attributed his bad health to ' inward grief : and Bacon
himself gives us the secret of his ailments, as well as an
insight into his character, in the following curious passage
written a few years later, and extracted from his diary :
I have found now twice, upon amendment of my fortune,
disposition to melancholy and distaste, specially the same
happening against the long vacation, when company
failed and business both. For upon my solicitor's place
I grew indisposed and inclined to superstition. Now,
upon MilFs place, 2 I find a relapse unto my old symptoms,
as I was wont to have it many years ago. Prosperity,
without something to hope and strive for, did not suit
Bacon : nor did he need or enjoy rest. He throve on
work, as long as he could work in hope. When indeed
the fatal blow fell on him, and he who was born for the
service of mankind had been convicted of corruption,
then the fear that he expresses lest continual attendance
and business, together with these cares, and want of time
to do my weak body right this spring by diet and physic,
will cast me down, was fully realised, and health and hope
gave way together.

Besides these disadvantages, Bacon was weighted in
the practice of the Arts of Advancement by what we may
call the magnificence of his character. Supple and cool
and compliant though he was, he was altogether too vast
and grand for a successful and easy flatterer. His philo
sophy and his policy were all on a scale too magnificent

* Life, Vol. vi. p. 200.

' The Clerkship of the Star Chamber, of which Bacon had held the
reversion since 1589. He received it in 1609. Its value is reckoned by him
at 2ooo/. a year

SSMjat 23acon foas fjimself xxxv

for the court of James I. His Novum Organum was
I described by the king as being ' like the peace of God
[ which passeth all understanding ' ; as for his high dreams
of a warlike Western Monarchy uniting all the Protestant
powers, they must have seemed intolerable to the monarch
who detested the sight of a drawn sword. Even his
language was likely to be displeasing in its exuberant
vigour : on one occasion, at least, we are told that Bacon,
while attempting to explain the desires of the House of
Commons, was interrupted by the king because he spoke
in a style more extravagant than His Majesty delighted to
tear, and Sir Henry Neville was requested to take his
place. If Bacon was, as indeed he tells us he was,
multum incola, a stranger amid his work, he must have
been most of all a stranger amid the alien servility im
posed upon him by the court of James I.

Yet in spite of all these obstacles, ill-health, natural
aversion to petty things, and a retiring disposition, Bacon
deliberately sat down to build his fortunes upon the ap
proved precepts of art, and, as we shall see, succeeded.
He was resolved to gain advancement, because advance-
ment was necessary — so he persuaded himself — to secure
scientific success : and in the true practical spirit he
despises those who desire an object and will not work for
it : it is the solecism of power to think to command the end
and yet not to endure the mean. J Writing between his
fortieth and fiftieth year, at a time when he had resolved
to give up politics and to devote himself to philosophy,
he thus justifies his temporary desertion of the latter. He
acknowledges that he was born for the Truth, but, he adds,
being imbued with politics by birth and breeding, finding
myself moreover shaken at times in my opinions 2 as young

' Essay xix. 1. 56.

* Works, Vol. iii. p. 519. He does not say whether the ' opinions '
refer to philosophy or not : but the context implies that they do. If so, this
would be an additional excuse of no little weight.

Emro&uctfon

men are apt to be, conceiving myself to be indebted to my
country in a debt special and peculiar and not extending
to other relations, and lastly, hoping that, if I could ob
tain some honour able place in the State, I might accomplish
my objects with greater helps to back my own ability and
industry, I not only studied law and policy, but also en
deavoured, with all due modesty and by such methods as
were consistent with my honour, to commend myself to my
influential friends. This is the way then in which we
must be prepared to find Bacon regarding his influential
friends, even such benefactors as Essex : they are to him
not much more than stepping-stones to knowledge.

Commonplace people will never believe that Bacon
sought power for the sake of Science : naturally, because
they care greatly for power and little for Science. Nor
will they readily understand the confidence with which
Bacon anticipated scientific success. It seems at first
sight to be mere self-conceit. But no correct notion can
be formed of Bacon's character till this suspicion of self-
conceit is scattered to the winds and his love of Science
is, if not sympathized with, at least understood.
First then for self-conceit. If the question is asked
t was the ground of Bacon's unflagging scientific
nndence, it would be quite a mistake to reply 'A sense
his own powers.' True, he knew his own powers, but
ie did not trust to them : there never was a Prophet who
trusted less to himself. Even in his youthful effer
vescence, when he began to write his Greatest Offspring
of Time, he always bore in mind what that title indicates
[t was great, yes Greatest, but still the Child of Time
Speaking of his own discoveries, he says, certainly they
are new, quite new, totally new in their -very kind, and
yet they are copied from a -very ancient model, even the
•world itself, and the nature of things, and of the mind.
And, to say truth, I am wont for my part to regard this

<fcJacon foas fn'msdf xxxvii

i «/<?r/£ <2.r a Oz7dT of Time rather than as a Child of Wit.1
The New Logic is expressly declared to be of a nature to
level all understandings. And besides, the very grandeur
and novelty of his discoveries, so far from stimulating,
are antidotes against conceit. A Prophet does not speak
or think about himself; and Bacon is the Prophet of the
New Logic.

What therefore gave Bacon his great confidence, un-
tired by forty-five years of philosophic work, was not his
sense of his own powers, but his insight into the unity o
nature. The sense of the simplicity of the universal
order had so taken hold of him that it inspired him with
such certainty as might be felt by one who had seen and
touched the very springs of the machinery of Creation.
We have seen above what importance he attached to his
possession of a mind versatile enough for the recogni
of the similitudes of things. This versatile mind, blend
ing itself compliantly with the phenomena of earth and
heaven, giving to its owner a Filum Labyrinthi, a clue to/f
thread the mazes of Nature, and enabling him to trace
unity and similitude where others could see nothing but
dissimilitude and confusion — this is the secret at once of
Bacon's scientific successes and moral failures, and it is
an essential part of his nature, peeping out of his versa
tile style, his versatile handwriting, and many other
trifling traits in his character. For example, it is the
sense of likeness, the recognition of similitudes, that is
the source of wit and playing upon words : and that
Bacon was given to this kind of word-playing, although
he disliked it and suppressed it on paper, is clear from the
suggestive exception made by his eulogist Ben Jonson,
when speaking of his eloquence : ' his language (where
he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious.'
Again, it is the recognition of similitudes that originates

1 Works, Vol. iii. p. 519.

o his
ition
lend- /

xxxviii Introduction

' the rich exuberance of metaphor, and the picturesque
names with which Bacon maps out the Provinces ofi
Science before subduing them. Even in music (and
perhaps in colour) the same power of recognition of
similitudes appears in his dislike of complications and
love of simple effects. In music, he says, / ever loved
easy airs that go full, all the parts together, and not these
strange points of accord or discord. As it was with
Bacon in music, so was it in his views of nature : he
loved easy airs that go full, all the parts together, not the
accords and discords that make up the Universal Har
mony. In many cases this faculty guided him right, as
when it taught him that the rainbow is made in the sky
out of a dripping-cloud ; it is also made here below with
a jet of 'water. Still, therefore, it is nature •which
governs everything;^ or when he protests against the
doctrine that the heat of the sun and fire differ in kind,
as being the useless fruit of that philosophy which is now
in vogue, the purpose of which is to persuade men that
nothing difficult, nothing by which nature may be, com
manded and siibdued, can be expected from art or human
labour — which things tend wholly to the unfair circum
scription of human power, and to a deliberate and

factitious despair? But in other cases this faculty led
him wrong, inducing him to expect to arrive too easily at
the underlying causes of phenomena, and, in this ex
pectation, to ignore slight differences and points of
detail apparently unimportant, but really essential to the
formation of a just conclusion. It is the singular pre
dominance of this faculty in Bacon that justifies the
saying3 that his character is a prominent instance of the
rule that ' the will produces the understanding.' In de
spite of all his aphorisms, Bacon's philosophy sprang from

1 Works, Vol. iv. p. 294. " Ib. p. 87.

' Fischer's Frauds of Verulam, p. 29.

23ncon tons fjimsclf xxxix

his will, and from the same source came perhaps his
: imperfect morality. He saw unity in the Universe, the
. Great Common World, as he was fond of calling it,
because he willed to see it ; and there he was often
right : he saw unity and consistency in his own tortuous
morality, in his own Little World, because he willed to
see it ; and there he was often wrong. Few men were
so self-deceived as he was, or did such bad deeds as he
did without being hypocrites. But this dangerous power
of seeing what he willed to see was the secret source of
that confidence which enabled him amid the pressure of
debt, and the cares of place-hunting, and the anxieties of
fruitless expectations, and the distractions of legal prac
tice and parliamentary business, and, in later years,
amid the duties of office and the necessities of flattery,
to maintain, still unimpaired, his zeal for philosophic
Truth.

Of this he never despairs. A stranger in all other
occupations, he is always longing to return to his true
home, philosophy, to all knowledge which he has taken as
his province. Grant him but life and leisure, and he is
certain of success. It is the hope of his life, and he
offers up earnest prayers to God for it. But, when he
prays, it is not so much that he may succeed, as that
success may not make him vain, presumptuous, and faith
less : that, not failure, is the danger. His fear is not for
science but for religion ; not that he may fail of gaining
scientific light, but that scientific light may blind the mind
to celestial mysteries. Nothing can be more sublimely
confident, and yet free from all suspicion of self-conceit,
than his prayer that men confine the sense within the
limits of duty in respect of things divine : for the sense is
like the sun, which reveals the face of earth, but seals and
shuts up the face of heaven.

In the next place, as to Bacon's love of Science, we

xl Introduction

shall best express it by saying that he was enamoured of
it. This is the only subject on which his passionless
nature can express itself passionately. Science is his
substitute for love, for friendship, we may almost say for
religion itself. Indeed, it is Science that makes him in
any sense a religious man. Non-religious in conduct, he
rises nearest to the language of prophetic ecstacy when
he speaks of his great Mission to reunite in wedlock
the Universe and the Mind of Man. He believes in a
God, it is true ; he would rather believe all the fables in
the Legend and the Talmud than that this universal
frame is without a Mind. But this belief in the exist
ence of a Mind of the Universe does not materially affect
his advice upon conduct or matters of morals. So far as
it influences him at all, his belief in a God influences him
rather scientifically than morally, strengthening his san
guine trust that all nature is based, by one divine Mind,
upon one divinely simple order, which it is the highest
privilege of man to discover and proclaim. That God is
in any sense a Person, that is to say, a Being capable of
loving and of being loved, or that He is a Father con
forming His human children more and more nearly,
century by century, to the divine image — this, the
Christian theory — seems to form no perceptible part of
Bacon's moral system. What he needs, and feels sure of,
is the existence, not of a Person, but of a Mind. Even in
the Essay where he condemns Atheism as destroying
magnanimity and the raising of human nature, it is
obvious that he attaches no special importance to the
Christian faith. Some god, or Melior JVafura, is useful
as a point to draw towards itself the aspirations of
humanity ; without it, the pyramid is incomplete ; there is
a sense of something missing and unfinished. But any Me
lior Natura will answer the purpose : and, as his example
of its utility, he chooses the magnanimity derived from

<$acon foas himself xli

their religion by the ancient Romans. Whatever pas
sages may be quoted to the contrary from the formal
I philosophical works, it is an undoubted fact that in the
Essays — a far more trustworthy guide to Bacon's real
thoughts on such a subject — the Christian religion is ^
seldom recognised as a powerful influence on conduct,
except in the perverted form of Superstition.

We are dealing at present with what Bacon was in
himself, not with what he taught as a theologian, or as a
moralist ; but it is important, even for the appreciation of his
conduct, to note how. his views of human nature were "
affected by his too sharp distinction between theology
and philosophy. He will not, like Plato, intermingle his
philosophy -with theology,1 and therefore he accepts
human nature and life as they are, without taking account
of tendencies, aspirations, and impossible ideals. Hence
his hopelessness in morals as compared with his hope
fulness in science : hence his preference of youth as
being, morally at all events, superior to old age ; hence
his deficiency in the Christian Enthusiasm of Humanity,
so that his nearest approximation to it is a pity for the
miseries of mankind ; hence his want of the virtue of
resentment, that righteous recoil from injustice and
oppression ; hence his general distrust of human nature,
and his low standard of conduct for himself and others.
If any man should do wrong merely out of ill nature,
why yet it is but like the thorn or briar which prick and
scratch because they can do no other ; hence his coldness
in friendship ; hence his tolerance of falsehood, not as
being pleasant, but as being necessary, like physic for a
frame diseased.

If philosophy was Bacon's religion, it was also his
love, his first love and his last. Human love finds small
space in his writings. He had no children to teach him

* Works, Vol. iii. p. 293.

xlii EntroUuctton

a father's love. As for marriage, at the ripe age of
forty-six he married, as he tells Cecil, an alderman's
daughter, a handsome maiden whom he had found to his
liking, with whom, his biographer adds, he received a
sufficiently ample and liberal portion in marriage. In a
codicil to his will he revoked, for just and grave causes,
the bequests made to his wife in the former part of the
will ; and shortly after his death she married her gentleman
usher. Whatever may have been the relations between
them, thus much is certain, that of the love between
husband and wife Bacon has no more to say than that
nuptial love maketh mankind : the love that perfecteth
mankind is the love of friends. Of friendship he has
more to say, and it cannot be denied that among his
inferiors (who were not influential persons, and therefore
could not be regarded as stepping-stones to scientific
objects) he made many friends, whom he attached to
himself indissolubly by his genial, placid, bright, and
unvarying goodness. Yet even in the Essay on Friend
ship, it is characteristic that he entirely discredits the
ancient ideal of friendship as the bond between two
differing equals : there is little friendship in the world,
and least of all between equals, which was wont to be mag
nified. That that is, is between superior and inferior,
whose fortunes may comprehend the one the other. His
notion of friendship therefore appears to be little moreN
than kindness answered by gratitude : and even this has
to be tempered by the ancient precept of Bias, warning
men not to be friends as though they could be friends for
ever.

Of the other natural outlets for human energy we find
little mention in Bacon's works. Of war he speaks with
spirit, but as a statesman, not as a warrior. There is
nothing of the ring of the trumpet in the persistence
with which he recommends external conflict as the natural

23acon foas fjimsclf xliii

• exercise for the energies of a. healthy nation. As for

I hunting, or other field sports, omit an allusion or two to

I the game of bowls, and there is scarcely a trace in the

I Essays that Bacon cared for them. He seems to have

I no liking or care for birds or beasts, wild or tame. The

I torture of a long-billed fowl by a waggish 1 Christian, who

I called down on himself the resentment of the Turks by

I his cruelty, inspires him with no deeper feeling than

I amusement ; and, though he objects to experimenting

I upon men, he has not a word to say, nor dreams that a

word can be said, against the vivisection of animals for

scientific purposes. Such petty matters dwelt not in the

Philosopher's thoughts. What are they to him compared

with the one great object of life ? Amusements, interests,

occupations, friendship, wife, children, religion, he finds

them all in the pursuit of Truth, and the furtherance of

the Kingdom of Man.

To a man of this nature, versatile, supple, passionless
except where science is concerned, born for the service
of all men collectively, and thinking himself justified in.
using each man individually as a tool and instrument for.
so high an object, what must have been the feelings sug
gested by the increasing restlessness and final outbreak
of a patron such as Essex ? Even before any serious
symptoms of such a grave calamity had appeared, Bacon
seems to have felt uneasy about the future. He tells his
benefactor significantly that he regards himself as a com
mon (not popular but common], and as much as is lawful
io be enclosed of a common so much your Lordship shall
be sure to have. He had long warned his too blunt and
impulsive patron against his neglect of the Queen's
humours. He had entreated him to study Her Majesty's
nature more closely and to flatter her, or, as he expresses
it, to do Her Majesty right, not in a dry and formal manner,

1 Essay xiii. 1. 20. See note there.

xliv Introduction

but orationefida, with face as well as words.1 He had in
structed him how to imitate Leicester in taking up plans
never seriously intended to be carried into effect, but pro
posed for the mere purpose of appearing to yield to the
Queen by dropping them at her desire. Among other
arts of a politician, he had written a letter to himself in
the «iame of Essex for the express purpose of showing it
to the Queen, so as to conciliate her to her fallen favourite ;
nay, to make the forgery more complete, he had added a
postscript (as from Essex) requesting Bacon to burn the
letter. All this and more Bacon had done : the three
degrees of falsehood — reserve, dissimulation, and simula
tion — all had been tried ; none of the precepts of the
Architect of Fortune had been forgotten ; but all had
failed. This being the case, what was to be done ? Was
he to allow his opening career to be shut for ever by a
false and foolish sentiment ? Surely not ; the interests
of Science forbade, and the precept of Bias condemned
it. He had no sympathy with the plot of Essex ; on
the contrary, his sympathies were with England against
all who would divide or weaken England, and with the
Queen as representing the unity of England.. But if he
could no longer defend his former benefactor, might he
not at least have avoided prosecuting him? Even if
urged to such a task, might he not have excused himself
on grounds intelligible to all ? Yes, he might have done
this ; and most commonplace people, obeying common
place instincts, would have done this, and would have
avoided Bacon's fatal error. But the Prophet of Science,
not being a commonplace person, acted very differently.
Looking at the matter in the dry light of reason, he saw
no cause why he should not take such part in the pro-

1 When at any time your Lordship upon occasion happen in speeches to
do her Majesty right (for there is no such matter as flattery amongst you,
all), I fear, &C, Life, i. p. 42.

23acon tons fnmsdf xlv

Isecution as might naturally devolve upon him. To avoid

• such a duty might engender suspicion ; to court it could
I do his former friend no harm, and might advance his own
H fortunes. He therefore wrote, volunteering his services
| in the prosecution ; he performed the petty part en-
I trusted to him with a vigour approaching acrimony, and
I as the Queen took delight in his pen, he afterwards drew
I up a narrative detailing the ruin of his unhappy friend,

• entitled A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons at-
I tempted and committed by Robert, late Earl of Essex.
I Defence or justification of such conduct can never be
I satisfactory. But at least it is well to recognise that we
U are dealing with an extraordinary man, who did not bind
I himself by ordinary rules. Bacon's desertion of Essex
; was not the result of a sudden or unusual impulse : it
t was the natural result of some of those qualities that
| contributed to his scientific greatness. It was a sin, but
j not a sin of weakness, or pusillanimity, or inconsistency :
'! it was of a piece with his whole nature, not to be justified,
I nor excused, nor extenuated, but to be stored up by pos-
I terity as an eternal admonition how easy it is for a
| gigantic soul, conscious of gigantic purposes, to make
| shipwreck upon indifference to details, and how morally
I dangerous it is to be so imbued and penetrated with the

3 notion that one is born for the service of mankind as to I
\ be rendered absolutely blind to all the claims of com-
j monplace morality, and to the vulgar ties that connect

individuals.

A reactionary feeling seems to have seized Bacon

soon after the death of Essex. Regained no promotion

by his desertion of his friend, so that he had in no way
! furthered Science by it ; moreover, he had created an
; unfavourable impression which, injuring him, might so
: far injure the cause of Science. We have no proof that

he even felt a touch of remorse for his conduct to his

xlvi Entro&uctfon

benefactor : but circumstances seem to show that he felt
uneasy under the construction put upon his actions.
Possibly the death of his brother Anthony at this time
— and Anthony was an avowed and faithful friend to
Essex— may have increased this feeling of uneasiness.
At all events we find him resolving, about two years after
the death of Essex, to have done with politics and to de
vote himself wholly to philosophy. He gives several
reasons for this resolution,1 and the first is, that his
zeal had been set down as ambition. But his great
reason is philosophy. I found my zeal set down as ambi
tion, my life past the prime, my weak health chiding me
for delay, and my conscience warning me that I was in
no way doing my duty in omitting such services as I could
myself unaided perform for men, while I was applying
myself to tasks that depended upon the will of others :
and therefore I at once tore myself away from all those
thoughts, and in accordance with my former resolution I
devoted my whole energies to this work — i.e. the Art of
Interpreting Nature. Writing thus in 1603, he also tells
Cecil that he and politics have shaken hands. / desire
to meddle as little as I can in the King's causes, His
Majesty now abounding in counsel, and to follow my pri
vate thrift and practice. For as for any ambition, I do
assure your Honour mine is qttenched. My ambition now
I shall only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be able
to maintain memory and merit of the times succeeding.

It was in this year that the Advancement of Learning
was probably written ; and the Apology in certain impu
tations concerning the late Earl of Essex (of which the
first printed copy is dated the following year, 1604) may
have been at the same time receiving his attention.
Probably therefore Bacon, immersed in his favourite
literary work, was sincere in his disavowals of all poli-

1 Worki, Vol. iii. p. 519.

23aom fans Stmself xlvii

I tical ambition. But even at this time, only three or four
I months before thus renouncing politics, he does not think
I it amiss to practise some of the precepts of the Architect
I of Fortune. Among the courses enjoined by that art is
I morigeration, or applying oneself to one's superiors.
I Bacon justified morigeration on principle. To apply one-
I self to others is good : but he adds an important qualifica-
I tion, so it be with demonstration that a man doth it upon
D regard, and not upon facility. Yet in practice Bacon
I disregards this qualification, and carries his flattery to
I an unscientific excess of which a master of the art would
I have been ashamed. When the Queen died, and new
ri favourites were expected to come into power, it was
I perhaps natural that he should wish to strengthen his
I connection with Cecil, and to conciliate a few Scotchmen
I of influence. But was it like a scientific Architect of
I Fortune to exaggerate his liking for Cecil — between whom
I and himself there was probably a physical antipathy 1 —
I so far as to write to Cecil's secretary, Let him know that
!| he is the personage in this State which I love most ; and
|j this, as you may easily judge, proceedeth not out of any
| straits of my occasions, as might be thought in times past,
I but merely out of the largeness and fulness of my affec-
ij tions ? 2 And again, in writing to the Earl of Northumber-
I land, who was at first expected to have great influence with
| the new King, there is something quite naive in the simpli-
I city with which Bacon suddenly discovers that there hath
been covered in my mind, a long time, a seed of affection
\ and zeal towards your Lordship.3 In such morigeration

1 Life, Vol. iv. p. 52. Yet (Ib. p. 12) he can say to Cecil : / do esteem
I whatsoever I have or may have in the -world as trash, in comparison of
I having the honour and happiness to be a near and •well-accepted kinsman
to so rare and worthy a counsellor, governor, and patriot. For having
I been a studious, if not curious observer, as well of antiquities of virtue as
\ of late pieces, I forbear to say to your Lordship what I find and conceive,
' Ib. Vol. iii. p. 57. ' Ib. Vol. iii. p. 58..

I. C

xlviii JntroiJuction

as this, there is little demonstration that it is done upon
regard. It is refreshing to find Bacon, in spite of all his
study, such a child in the art of flattery ; but these and
other letters seem to indicate that, although he had re
solved to give up politics for philosophy, yet he wished
so far to keep his footing in the political world as to
make his retirement not irrevocable.

Accordingly, he is soon called back to politics. The
very year after his ambition was quenched, he was ap
pointed an ordinary member of the King's Counsel, and
is found drawing up an Act for the better grounding of a
further union to ensue between the Kingdoms of England
and Scotland; and three years afterwards he is made
Solicitor-General. Thus in 1607 we find him drawn
once more away from Philosophy. And now in the
following year, at the beginning of a vacation, Bacon sits
down in his practical scientific way to review his prospects.
After his fashion he relates himself to a note-book, and
the note-book has been preserved. During four consecu
tive days in July, 1608, he jots down entries as they occur to
him, about money matters, health, politics, moral maxims,
tricks of rhetoric, forms of compliment, great men to be
conciliated, philosophy, farming, building, and what not,
all unarranged. It is not too much to say that no
account of Bacon, however brief and incomplete, can
afford to pass over this Diary ; for, if we bear in mind
steadily, throughout the perusal of it, Bacon's peculiar
nature and his entire concentration on science, we shall
gain more knowledge of him from these few pages than
from any other of his works. The following is a summary
of the entries.

Beginning with a determination to make a stock of
2,ooo/. always in readiness for bargains and occasions,
he proceeds to touch next on the means of obtaining
access to the King, and the names of the Scotchmen who

33acon foas in'msclf xlix

can help him here ; he makes notes of the notions and
likings of the King and of Salisbury ; he reminds
himself to have ever in readiness matter to minister talk
•with every of the great counsellors respective, both fj
induce familiarity, and for countenance in public place ;
also, to win credit comparate to the Attorney in being
more short, round, and resolute. (All this is nothing
except} (there is more);'1 and again, a few lines lower
down, to have in mind and -use the Attorney's weakness.
It must be remembered that Bacon wishes to succeed the
Attorney, and then this will explain the following notes
of the Attorney's weak points, to be used as occasion
should arise — The coldest examiner, weak in Outlier's cause,
weak with the Judges, Arbe (Arabella) cause, too full of
cases and distinctions, nibbling solemnly , he distinguisheth
but apprehends not. Salisbury's friendship seemed most
important to him at this time, and accordingly he makes
a note : to insinuate myself to become privy to my Lord
of Salisbury's estate, and again, to correspond with
Salisbury in a habit of natural but noways perilous
boldness, so as to get rid of the obstruction ; or, to quote
Bacon's words, to free the stands in his cousin's suspicious
nature. Soon afterwards follows a detailed account of
the effect of certain medicines upon his constitution, and
then — to think of matters against next Parliament for
satisfaction of King and people in my particular (and}
otherwise with respect to policy e gemino — i.e., the double
policy of replenishing the exchequer and also of content
ing the people. Then follow some notes about letting
lands and houses, and building. Then he reminds himself
to send message of compliments to my Lady Dorset the
widow, and jots down a .form appropriate to the occasion:
Death comes to yoiing men, and old men go to death, that

1 The bracketed words are, I suppose, the phrases in which Bacon in
tended to correct the Attorney's inadequacies.

i Introduction

ts all the difference. Then follow more forms, then
another note about his health, then legal notes, then the
titles of his different literary works, and plans for the ar
rangement of future note-books, and thus he comes
round at last to his own subject, Science, and to the
business of securing allies for scientific works. Making
much of Russell that depends upon Sir David Murray,
and by that means drawing Sir David, and by him and
Sir Thomas Chaloner, in time, the Prince. Getting from
Russell a collection of phainomena, of surgery, distilla
tions, mineral trials, the setting on work my Lord of
North™1 and Ralegh, and therefore Harriot, themselves
being already inclined to experiments. Acquainting
myself with Poe, as for my health, and by him learning
the experiments which he hath of physic, and gaining
entrance into the inner of some great persons. Seeing
and trying whether the Archbishop of Canterbury may
not be affected in it, being single and glorious and
believing the sense, not desisting to draw in the Bishop
Andrews? being single, rich, and sickly, a professor to
some experiments. . . . Query, of physicians to be
gained, the likest is Paddy, Dr. Hammond. Query, of
learned men beyond the seas to be made, and hearkening
who they be that may be so inclined. Then follow great
plans of literary works, after which comes this note :
Laying for a place to command wits and pens, West
minster, Eton, Winchester, specially Trinity College in
Cambridge, St. Johris in Cambridge, Magdalene College
in Oxford, and bespeaking this betimes with the King,
my Lord Archbishop, my Lord Treasurer. Then follow
notes as to the proposed College of Science, its order and
discipline, its travelling fellows, vaults, furnaces, terraces

1 Life, Vol. iv. p. 63. Mr. Spedding says, ' The reading here is doubtful,
but I think Launcelot Andrews must be meant. He was at this time
Bishop of Chichester.'

23acon foas inmself H

Jor insulation j after which he passes into a Scheme of
Legitimate Investigation, and proceeds, in accordance
with the scheme, to investigate the nature of motion.
Close upon this follow some notes on high politics,
beginning with the bringing of the King low by poverty
and empty coffers, and passing on to Bacon's favourite
suggestion of a Monarchy in the West formed by Great
Britain together with a civilized Ireland and the Low
Countries annexed. Next come notes on Recusants,
plans for building and landscape-gardening, practising
to be inward with my Lady Dorset per Champners ad
utilit. testam. — i.e.,by means of Champners for testamen
tary purposes.1 Then follow copious memorial notes of
health and lists of his rents, jewels, debts, improvements.
Then more notes about the Recusants, and a second
edition of the notes against the Attorney, entitled
Hubbard's Disadvantage. The entries conclude with a
list of creditors and debts owing to them, preceded by
a note of Services on foot, and another of customs fit for
me individually (custumtz apttz ad individuunf). Our
extracts shall conclude with these : — To furnish my Lord
of Suffolk with ornaments for public speeches. To make
him think how he should be reverenced by a Lord
Chancellor, if I were ; prince-like . . . To have
particular occasions, fit and grateful and continual, to
maintain private speech with every the great persons,
and sometimes drawing more than one of them together.
Query, for credit ; but so as to save time; and to this end
not many things at once, but to draw in length . . .At

1 It is not necessary to suppose that Bacon hoped to derive any personal
advantage from Lady Dorset any more than from the Archbishop of Canter
bury and Bishop Andrews mentioned above, one as being single and
glorious, and the other as single and sickly. But science might profit by
legacies, and science was in Bacon's mind.

In Essay xxxiv. 1. 98, Bacon expressly blames fishing for testaments :
but there he is blaming Jishing for one's own sake. Bacon would fith for
the sake of science.

lii Entrotmctton

council-table chiefly to make good my Lord of Salisbury 's
motions and speeches, and for the rest sometimes one,
sometimes another ; chiefly his that is most earnest and in
affection.

Is it possible to read these notes without feeling that
they betoken a mind unique and extraordinary, worldly,
it is true, but not after the common fashion of worldliness :
say rather an unworldly mind of superhuman magnani
mity, gradually becoming enslaved by the world, while
professing to use the world as a mere tool? It was a
maxim of Bacon in Science that one can only become
master of Nature by first obeying Nature : and with fatal
consequences Bacon transfers his aphorism from Science
to Morality : he will place all the arts of worldliness at
the feet of Truth, and will master them by first obeying
them. But, as he himself asks in the Essays, how can a
man comprehend great matters that oreaketh his mind to
small observations ? And how could a man hope to be
the discoverer of a new world of scientific discovery, or
to inaugurate a new national policy, who had to break
his mind to the observance of Cecil's cold suspicions, or
Suffolk's pompous self-conceit, or the tedious bookishness
of James ? Admit that Bacon, in thus winding himself
into the ways of influential men, was acting, or thought
he was acting, for Science, or for the Nation, not for
himself; yet in these degenerate arts and shifts what kind
of apprenticeship was there for the task of a Prophet of
Science, a founder of the Monarchy of the West ? Nay
more, was it not inevitable that this great mind, while
bent on outwitting Mammon for the interests of Science,
would gradually find itself outwitted, entangled, and
enslaved ?

It was inevitable : and the rest of Bacon's life con
tains little but the record of his gradual acquiescence in
defeat and servitude. But at least, before we proceed

23acon tuns ijtmsclf liii

further in that degrading history, we may reiterate with
advantage that Bacon was no vulgar schemer or common
miser. It is so easy to disbelieve all his protestations of
desire for leisure, and of passionate allegiance to science,
so natural, especially for coarse, sensual, malignant
minds, to explain his conduct as the result of ambition,
avarice, and hypocrisy ; and such an explanation is so
fatal to the right understanding of his nature, that we
may, even at the risk of some repetition, be justified in
briefly describing the standpoint from which Bacon was
reviewing his fortunes in July, 1608.

He had early made up his mind that he was to lead ,
the life of a philosopher, and that philosophers must not
shrink from action. Pragmatical men must be taught
not to despise learning as unpractical; they must be
made to see that learning is not like a lark which can mount
and sing, and please itself and nothing else; but it par
takes of the nature of a hawk, which can soar aloft and
can also descend and strike upon its prey at leisure? It
is a fault incident to learned men that they fail sometimes
in applying themselves to particular persons? Bacon
blames the tenderness and want of compliance in some of
the most ancient and revered philosophers, who retired too
easily from civil business that they might avoid indigni
ties and perturbations, and live (as they thought] more
pure and saint-like? By serving Mammon he will be
better able, he thinks, to serve the cause of Truth. In
seeking wealth and place, he is thinking, in part at least,
of the favour that wealth and place will procure for the
Great Instauration. It is of no little importance to the
dignity of literature that a man, naturally fitted rather
for literature than for anything else, and borne by some
destiny against the inclination of his genius into the
business of active life, should have risen to such high and

' Works, Vol. vi. p. 58. ' Ib., Vol. iii. p. 279. ' Ib.( Vol. v. p. 10.

liv Entrotmcticn

honourable appointments, under so wise a king. It is
for this he serves Essex ; for this he courts the rising
Villiers ; for this he cringes to the powerful Buckingham.
When he plans in his Diary the drawing in of this lord or
that bishop, it is always with a view to the advancement
of learning. Avarice is a vice quite foreign to his nature.
As a young man he is censured by his mother for his
unthrifty habits and his prodigal indulgence to his servants.
And his later life contains evidence of the same free
expenditure and the same want of control over his
household, but no indications at all of the deliberate
accumulation of money for its own sake apart from the
power it would give. In the History of Henry VII. no
fault of that monarch is more keenly satirised than his
greed for money, and the attraction exercised on him by
the glimmerings of a confiscation.^ Read in this light,
the testamentary notes in the Diary are harmless : they
simply show that Bacon was on the alert, as he was in
the case of Sutton's bequest, to divert such legacies as he
could from almsgiving, school-founding, and the like, to
scientific purposes. His heart's desire is that he may
save time and promote the truth by conciliating authority
and disarming opposition. As the French in Italy found
no need to fight, but only to chalk up quarters for their
troops, so he, to quote his constant metaphor, hopes to
find chalked-up quarters for his philosophy in the hearts
of men. Such is the prize that he will gain by his
worldliness. Thus will he hallow the name of the one
True Logic by bowing in the house of Rimmon.

In justice to Bacon we must also repeat that his
philosophy was in its nature social, and absolutely required
companionship. The path of his science, he expressly
tells us, is not a way over which only one man can pass
at a time? His science depends upon facts, and facts

1 Works, Vol. vi. p. 150. * Works, Vol. iv. p. 102.

23acon foas ttmself Iv

can only be obtained by observations, and observations,
to be numerous, require numerous observers. One -must
employ factors and merchants for facts, he says,1 and the
mere work of compiling the Natural History, which was
to form the Third Part of the Great Instauration, is
described as a work for a King, or Pope, or some College
or Order. It clearly necessitated co-operation on a
large scale, and how could he obtain such co-operation
better than by appealing to the titled and powerful among
his countrymen ? And how could he appeal to them
with better chance of success than by making himself
a name among statesmen, and a place among the coun
sellors of the realm ? Thus, step by step, he was diverted
from the purer ambition of his youth under the pretext
of attaining the height of that ambition by a shorter
path. More than once did he resolve to tear himself
from politics and place-hunting, to retire with two men
to Cambridge, or, at all events, to put his ambition wholly
upon his pen. But circumstances (aided by his own
restless craving for action) were too strong for him : his
father's sudden death, his domestic necessities, his birth,
training, and connections, and his power of grave
weighty speech stamping him as a born servant of the
State — everything seemed to conspire to tempt him from
philosophy, and the temptation was too strong. Riches
and honour, and the reputation of a statesman, these in
themselves he might have resisted ; but when they
presented themselves . under the mask of friends and
servants of the Truth, as instruments to prepare the way
for the Kingdom of Man over Nature, it was not in
Bacon's power to hold out. It was Satan tempting as an
angel of light.

And surely no story of unhappy wretches bartering away
their immortal souls to the Evil One for a hollow pretence

* Works, Vol. iv. p. 252.

Ivi Entrofcuttton

of present happiness, and afterwards beating themselves
idly against the narrowing net that presses them towards
the inevitable pit, is much sadder than the record of the
retribution, artistic if ever retribution was, that befell the
Traitor to Truth. Mammon bestowed his gifts, but they
are found to be no gifts, and he takes full wages in return.
Bacon wins the credit he desires to win comparate to the
Attorney, and becomes Attorney in his place ; but it is
for the purpose of prosecuting St. John, torturing
Peacham,1 and holding up to posterity for ever the con
trast between his courtier-like servility and Coke's manly
independence. By making great people think how they
should be reverenced by a Lord Chancellor if I -were, he
at last takes his seat on the woolsack : but it is to
reverence indeed ; to cringe, to work or be worked like
a tool, in carrying out not his own but another's policy; to
receive the orders of Villiers, and to fawn and grovel
when the favourite is offended ; to reverse illegally a just
decision 2 upon the favourite's intercession ; and finally to
be degraded from his high post, without having intro
duced a single measure for the permanent benefit of the
nation, but with the result of having tarnished the reputa
tion of the bench and shaken men's confidence in
humanity. It is pitiable to see the persistent advocate
of external war helplessly lamenting his royal Master's
pacific policy — -pray God we surfeit not of it; protesting
that security 3 is an ill guard for a kingdom ; in due time
penning a royal proclamation, in which he dilates on the
advantages of peace,' as in our princely judgment we
hold nothing more worthy of a Christian monarch tlian
the conservation of peace at home and abroad ; and

1 That Bacon approved of the torture of Peacham is implied by his re
commending torture for Peacock in the words, If it may not be done other
wise, it is fit Peacock be put to torture. He deserveth it as well as
Peacham did. Life, Vol. vii. p. 77.
' Life, Vol. vii. Appendix. ' i.e. Carelessness, unguardedness.

2Sacon foas fjimsdf Ivii

surging, as one of the advantages of the Spanish match,
•that by the same conjunction there will be erected a
• tribunal or prcetorian power to decide the controversies
\vihich may arise amongst the princes and estates of
Christendom without effusion of Christian blood.

Part of the retribution visited on Bacon seems to
: have been a blindness to the distinction between what
i is great and petty as well as between what is good and
j bad. Among other infatuations he appears to have con
ceived a genuine respect, if not admiration, for James I.
i The King was not quite the contemptible buffoon that he
has been popularly supposed to be : but he was not the
Solomon that he was supposed by Bacon.1 The truth is,
admiration for place and power had dazzled his intellect
and confounded his judgment. His sanguine spirit tinged
the new reign and his own prospects in it with the same
false glow of hopefulness with which it tinged the realm
of Science. James was to be a Solomon, Bacon was to
be Solomon's chief counsellor and inspirer, and Villiers
was the young and rising spirit, who would look up to
Bacon as to a father and give the shape of action to the
high visions of the philosophic statesman. The impend
ing clouds between Kingand Commons were to be cleared
away by the breezes of wholesome war ; the nation was
further to be pacified and contented by improved laws
and institutions without detriment to the royal prerogative.
Scotland was to be colonised, Ireland to be pacified and
civilised, the Low Countries to be annexed. Such was
Bacon's policy ; and had he not been blinded by the
close brightness of the throne he might have gone some
way to the attainment of it. For the peremptory royalist,
who was nevertheless repeatedly selected by the Com
mons as their representative, and never one hour out of

1 Without flattery I think your Majesty the best of Kings, and tny
noble Lord of Buckingliam the best of persons favoured. Life, Vol. vii. p. 78.

Iviii Introduction

credit with the lower house, had advantages possessed by:
few for bridging the widening gulf between the Commons
and the Crown.1 As it was, he did nothing but harm to the
royal cause by the ' new doctrine, but now broached,' in
which he exaggerated the King's prerogative, and by his
attempts to restrict and fetter, as far as in him lay, the
independence of the judges.

Yet nothing at first could be less courtier-like and
more sententiously parental than the tone in which Bacon
lectures the young Villiers, just on the threshold of his
career as favourite, upon the duties of his new life : // is1
now time that you should refer your actions chiefly to the
good of your sovereign and your country. It is the life
of an ox or beast always to eat and never to exercise ; bui
men are born (and especially Christian men) not to cram
intheir fortunes, but to exercise their virtues. . . . Above
all, depend wholly (next to God) ripon the King ; and be
ruled (as hitherto you have been) by his instructions, for
that is best for yourself. 2 But all this is mere waste paper,:
the romantic effusion of a dreamer, whose understanding
is made by his will, and who has brought himself to this,:
that he can believe whatever is pleasant to believe.
Compare the advice given the same year — By no means'
be you persuaded to interfere yourself by word or letter?
in any cause depending, or like to be depending, in any
court of justice — with the actual practice of Buckingham
and Bacon, the former continually recommending, and
the latter (without one remonstrance on record) acknow
ledging recommendations of parties engaged in causes
depending or like to be depending. It is not in the least

1 Life, Vol. vi. p. 134. But Mr. Gardiner (History of England front,
tJie Accession of James I. &c., Vol. i. p. 181) is probably nearer the truth
in saying, ' If James had been other than he was, the name of Bacon would
have come down to us as great in politics as it is in science.' James being
what he was, nothing could be done.

1 Life, Vol. vi. p. 6.

aUacon foas fnmsdf lix

•urprising that Bacon failed to acquire the influence he
Bought over the royal favourite. The two men moved in
•ifferent worlds ; and Bacon was weighted, not only by his
•uppleness, his too easy temper, and his excessive desire
jo please, but also by the very force and height of his
Jntellect. All the dreams of the study vanished when the
philosopher entered the royal presence and was con-
ronted with the practical needs of the moment, the in-
:imidation of the judges, the disgracing of Coke, the
jpholding of benevolences and monopolies, and of the
royal prerogative generally. Instead of Bacon's lifting up
[ames to the heights of the philosophic world, James
irew Bacon down to the royal world. But to work in
hat grosser atmosphere at those degenerate arts and
shifts, which Bacon was wont to call fiddling, the author
Df the Instauratio Magna was not by nature fitted. The
difference between him and Buckingham was so vast that
of two things was inevitable : either Buckingham
must dictate to Bacon, or Bacon to Buckingham ; for a
natural consent of thought between the two was out of
:he question. Naturally, Bacon thought himself best
qualified to dictate, and at first he did so. But when the
barental tone had been bitterly resented by Buckingham
and reproved by the King, it might have been supposed
that Bacon's eyes would have been opened to his own
insignificance and nothingness in all affairs of State, and
that he might have perceived the worthlessness of office
held under such conditions.

But it was not so. Mammon, it would seem, had
'been in his heart, deposed his intellect.' Beyond an
occasional hint of vexation at the King's pacific policy
we have no traces of irritation, no evidence that Bacon
resented the King's misappreciation. The fact is, he had
by this time so broken himself to the task of studying
the humours of great people as the stepping-stone tc

Ix Entrotmctton

higher objects, that he had drifted into the habit of acting I
as though he believed that such an obsequious parody of I
statesmanship was a fit goal for a great man's life. We
have read above, Bacon's ironical description of the ideal
Statesman of Selfishness, written in the days of his earlier
and purer manhood, how he is to make himself cunning
rather in the humours and drifts of persons than in the
nature of business and affairs. . . And ever rather let him
take the side which is likeliest to be followed than that
which is soundest and best. And this is what Bacon had
brought himself to do and to do naturally. It is precisely
what he deliberately sets down in his Diary above : At
council table chiefly to make good my Lord of Salisbury's
motions and speeches, and for the rest sometimes one,
sometimes another; chiefly his that is most earnest and in
affection. When a nature so sanguine, so colossal in its
plans and hopes, so indifferent to details, so dispas
sionately careless of individual interests, and so wholly
devoted to a mere intellectual object, once begins to
deviate from the path of conventional morality, it is not
easy to predict where the deviations will end. Bacon
began, no doubt, by determining not to be influenced on
the bench by any recommendations of parties engaged
in cases pending, except so far as he might show them
some personal attention not affecting his legal decisions.
But he must have known that this was seldom possible,
and even where possible, it was not what was meant by
the recommender. Little by little he extends his personal
attentions, till at last he ventured in one case, that of
Dr. Steward, to reverse his own just decision by a
subsequent unjust decision, in which to the injustice
of the judgment was added irregularity of procedure.1

1 See Life, Vol. vii. p. 585 where Mr. Heath emphatically decides against
Bacon. But I understand from Mr. Spedding that he demurs to this decision
on the ground that 'modern Chancery lawyers know the modern rules of
proceeding .... but I have no reason to think that they know what was

23acon tons Ijimself Ixi

I And in the same way, as regards the habit of receiving

I presents, there is no sufficient reason to doubt that he

I began by determining to receive none except from parties

I whose cases had been decided ; but here again his indif-

I ference to detail, his habit of taking for granted the most

[.' favourable aspect of things, and perhaps his gradually

I increasing sense of the power of money, all combine to

c make him believe, against belief, in the probity of ser-

B vants who were taking bribes before -his eyes. To quote

R one example, a valuable cabinet is brought to his house.

/ said to him that brought it, that I came to view it, and

not to receive it; and gave commandment that it should

be carried back, and was offended when I heard it was

not. A year and a half afterwards the cabinet is still in

his possession, claimed by a creditor of the donor, and

by the donor's request Bacon retains it, and is retaining

it at the time when he is accused of corruption. Now,

in many men such conduct would be undoubtedly

and rightly considered a proof of dishonesty : and it is

very easy to ridicule in an epigram any attempt to

maintain that what in common men would have been

dishonesty was not dishonesty in Bacon. But take all

Bacon's antecedents into account, and it will not seem so

ridiculous that he may have been honest ; add also the

clumsiness of such dishonesty, if it had really been

dishonest, and Bacon's honesty may seem by no means

improbable : consider, lastly, Bacon's utter and evident

ignorance of any danger from charges about to be

the practice in James I.'s time, or what were the limits of the discretionary
power reserved by a Lord Chancellor for exceptional cases. It is true that
Mr. Heath quotes Bacon's own rules. But if they were rules made by
himself, I do not know that they were binding for better or worse. When I
( lay down a rule for myself in dealing with my neighbours, if I find that on
some occasion a rigorous adherence to it will cause mischief, I release myself
from the obligation. So it may have been with Bacon in this case for any
thing I know.' Many admirers of Bacon will wish they could be satisfied
with this argument.

\J Ixii Entrotmctton

brought against him, his unfeigned pleasure at the pros
pect of the meeting of that very Parliament which was to
prove his ruin, and then, when the charges were stated,
his astonishment, his tone of innocence, gradually ex
changed, for perplexity, for shame, for remorse — and I
believe a careful student of Bacon's life will come to
no other conclusion than the paradox arrived at by
Mr. Spedding, that Bacon took money from suitors whose
cases were before him, that he did this repeatedly, and
yet that he did it without feeling that he was laying
himself open to a charge of what in law would be called
bribery, and without any consciousness that he had
secrets to conceal of which the disclosure would be fatal
to his reputation. In the notes prepared by him for an
interview with the King there is a significant erasure,
which seems to indicate the unsettled perplexity which,
when he reviews his past conduct, makes him almost
unable to say definitely what he has done and what he
has not done. After stating the three degrees of bribery,
and the first and most serious as being of bargain or
contract for reward to pervert justice pendente lite, he
thus meets the first : for the first of them I take myself to
be as innocent as any born ufon St. Innocents-day, in my
heart. Note the in my heari; as though he could answer
for his heart but not for his actions. And that this is his
meaning is borne out by the following sentence, written,
J\-- but afterwards crossed out: And yet perhaps, in some two
or three of them, the proofs may stand pregnant to the
contrary. These words can scarcely bear any other
meaning than this, that the writer is conscious of having
acted in such a way that, although his heart has been
kept pure and single, the world will never believe it, nor
can be reasonably expected to believe it, in the face of
the pregnant proofs to the contrary. Explain it how we
may, it is certain that, in spite of all his confes§ions,

SSJfmt 23acon tons Ijtmself Ixiii

I Bacon believed himself to be morally innocent, innocent

I in his heart. Preserved in cipher by his biographer, but

I not published, there has been discovered Bacon's own

1 verdict on himself in these words : / was the justest judge

I) that was in England these fifty years, but it -was the

I jus test censure in Parliament that was these two hundred

\years. Was this true? Probably not ; but it was certainly

I true that he believed it to be true : and the explanation of it is

tobelookedforpartly,no doubt, in his kindliness to inferiors

and desire to conciliate superiors, doing the best for all

alike, but above all in his unique nature, contemptuous of

individual interests, and bent on benefiting mankind on a

stupendous scale, conscious of noble ends and divine

purposes ; conscious, in a word, of that grandiose kind of

goodness to which in his magnificent style he gives the

name of Philanthropia,1 which would have made the

Priest of the Kingdom of Man laugh to scorn the bare

supposition that it was possible for him to be guilty of

corruption. And this explains how it was that he re

tained his self-respect, even after his fall and to the very-

last. The gossips of the day were startled by his erect

carriage and confident bearing : to them he seemed to

have no feeling of his situation. ' Do what we will,'

said the Prince of Wales, ' this man scorns to go out

like a snuff.' Not indeed that the fallen Chancellor had

not his moments of contrition ; not that he did not pour

out his soul in bitter heartfelt penitence to the Mind of the

Universe ; but the cause of his remorse and subject

his penitence was not the receiving of presents from

suitors, not the recollection of gifts of 50 gold buttons,

or a cabinet, or no pounds of plate received pendent?.

lite. All this was nothing, or at least not worth par

ticularising, in his secret confession to the Searcher of

Souls. He groans under the burden of a greater sin,

' Essay xiii., L 3.

i. d

Ixiv Introduction

his neglect of his Mission,his treason to the Truth : besides
my innumerable sins I confess before Thee that I am debtor
to Thee for the gracious talent of Thy gifts and graces,
which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it, as
I ought, to exchangers, where it might have made best
profit, but misspent it in things for which I was least fit,
so as I may truly say my soul hath been a stranger in the
course of my pilgrimaged It is the old text again,
multum incola. With this Bacon's life begins, and with
this it ends.

1 Life, Vol. vii. p. 231. In 1605-6 (Life, Vol. iii. p. 253) he had made a
similar confession that, in his alienation from his occupations, there had
been many errors which I do willingly acknowledge ; and amongst the
rest this great one that led the rest ; that knowing myself by inward call
ing to be fitter to hold a book than to flay a part, I have led my life in
civil causes ; for which I •was not very fit by nature, and more unfit fy
the preoccv batten of my mind.

33acon as a

CHAPTER II.

BACON AS A PHILOSOPHER.

THE belief in a. God, a Mind of the Universe, is at the
(root of Bacon's philosophy, and is the ground of his con
fidence in the human power of attaining truth. The
study of nature is appointed men by God, who hath set
the world in the heart of men. These words he interprets
as* declaring not obscurely that God hath framed the
mind of man as a glass capable of the image of tlie
universal world (joying to receive the signature thereof),
as the eye is of light. 1 It is strange to see how Bacon,
who blames Plato for intermingling theology with his
philosophy, falls naturally himself into theological lan
guage when inculcating the study of nature. Non-re
ligious in discoursing of conduct, when he touches on
science he breathes the very spirit of an Evangelist. He
speaks of entering the Kingdom of Man as Christian
writers speak of entering the Kingdom of God ; and in
both cases the condition is the same — we must become
as little children. The word of God, audible and legible
in nature, is that sound and language which went forth
into all lands and did not incur the confusion of Babel :
this should men study to be perfect in, and, becoming again
as little children, condescend to take the alphabet of it into
their own hands? As there is no concord between God
and Mammon, so there is a great difference between tJie

1 Works, Vol. iii. p. 220. * Works, Vol. v. p. 132.

Ixvi Introduction

Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine :
as, in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven, we have to
renounce the world, the flesh and the Devil, so, in order
to enter the kingdom of Man, the Idols must be renounced
and put away with a fixed and solemn determination, and
the understanding must be thoroughly freed and cleansed. J
The atomic theory, in Bacon's judgment, rather favours
than assails the belief in the existence of a God ; for it
is a thousand times more credible that four mutable
elements and one immutable fifth essence, duly and
eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite
small portions or seeds unplaced should have produced
this order and beauty without a Divine Marshal; 2 and
again, the -wisdom of God shines out more brightly
when nature does one thing, while Providence does quite
another consequence, than if single schemes and natural
motions were impressed with the stamp of Providence. *

The rapturous language in which the Poets and
Prophets of Israel described the wedlock that united
Jehovah to his chosen people, is selected by Bacon as
fittest to describe the future union between the Mind of
.Man and the Universe. We have prepared, he says,
the Bride chamber of the Mind and Universe, speaking
of the work he has achieved in the Advancement of
Learning : and again, in the Essays, he declares that
the inquiry of Truth, which is the love-making or
wooinr of it ; the knowledge of Truth, which is the
presence of it; • and the belief of Truth, which is the
enjoying of it — is the sovereign good of human nature. *

1 It is true that Bacon generally uses the word Idols, without any refer
ence to false gods, and merely as 'inania placita,' mere empty dogmas as
opposed to divine ideas. But here the context indicates some tinge of thn
former meaning.

" Essay xvi. 1. 15.

• De Augmentis, iii. 4, quoted in Works, Vol. i. p. 57

* Essay i. 1. 37-41.

as a ftilosoijcr Ixvii

He seems to believe that in some happier original
condition of Mankind, the Mind and Nature were
once wedded, but are now divorced. He aims at
restoring to its perfect and original condition that
commerce between the Mind of Man and the Nature of
things which is more precious than anything on earth^
and claims to have established for ever lawful marriage
between the empirical and the rational faculty, the unkind
and ill-starred divorce and separation of which has
thrown into confusion all the affairs of the human family.
We have here, not the prosaic realisable schemes of
a low utilitarianism aiming at nothing more, as Lord
Macaulay would have us believe, than the ' supply of our
vulgar wants,' but rather the prophetic raptures of a
Poet. Wordsworth himself can soar no higher, and
(consciously or not) finds no words but Bacon's to de
scribe the glorious fruit that shall spring from —

— the discerning intellect of man
When wedded to this goodly Universe.

Yet the great popular Essayist of our century sees
no sense of Mission in Bacon, nothing that savours
of the divine in Bacon's philosophy — nothing but the
application of the reasoning powers to the comforts and
conveniences of man. Lord Macaulay contrasts the
utilitarian Bacon with Plato and Seneca, the enthusiasts
for truth, as though the former took for his sole objec-
that which the two latter utterly despised. Plato's good-
humoured depreciation of astronomy, regarded as a mere
auxiliary to agriculture and navigation, is placed in sharp
antithesis to Bacon's practical preference of profitable
pursuits. It cannot be denied that scattered through
Bacon's works there may be found expressions that may
appear, on a superficial view, to justify this contrast.

1 Works, Vol. iv. p. 7.

Ixviii Introduction

Fruit unquestionably was the main object of Bacon's
philosophy, and against a barren philosophy he wages
implacable war. But Bacon's fruit means more than
Lord Macaulay supposes, more than the mere ' supply
of the vulgar wants of men ' : it includes the discovery
of all the secret laws of nature, and its object is to make
man the Lord of the World, wielding at his absolute com
mand all the natural forces of the Universe. The attain
ment of such an object could not but bring with it some
elevation of man's intellectual nature, some new and
wider possibilities of moral development.

Bacon at all events would have disavowed Lord
Macaulay's defence of him against his ancient rivals.
The mere discovery of a few isolated truths — however
conducive to man's comfort — was as contemptible to
Bacon as to Seneca or Plato. He blames those who have
been diverted from the philosophic path by the tempta
tion of early unripe fruit, the wandering inquiry ....
that has sotight experiments of Fruit and not of Light?-
It is true he avows that he is not raising a capital or
pyramid for the pride of man. But, on the other hand,
neither is he building a shop What he is doing is, lay
ing a foundation in the human understanding for a holy
temple after the model of the world. 2 He deprecates the
* divorce between utility and truth. Truth and utility, he
says, are here the very same things, and -works themselves
are of greater value as pledges of truth than as contribut
ing to the comforts of life ; 3 and again, I care little about
the mechanical arts themselves, only aboiit those things
•which they contribute to the equipment of philosophy. 4
In astronomy it is the same ; / want, not predictions of
eclipses, he says, but the truth. 5 Plato could have said
no more.

1 Works, Vol. iv. p. 17. ' Ib. p. no : see also p. 115.

1 Ib. p. 107. * Ib. p. 271. ' Works, Vol. v. p. 511.

33acon as a ^pfjtlosopijer Ixix

An important part of Bacon's philosophy is negative
and preventive. Like Machiavelli in morals, so Bacon
in Science, will begin by describing what men do, before
he comes to speak of what they ought to do. And, look
ing at the history of philosophy, he finds that men have
erred, are erring, and are in danger of erring, through
haste and indolence, through presumption and despair.
The world is a volume of God, a kind of Second Scripture ;
I and as the words or terms of all languages in an immense
variety are composed of a few simple letters, so all the
actions and powers of things are formed by a few natures
and original elements of simple motions, J It follows
therefore that the right method to study the volume is
first to master the Alphabet, the original elements of
simple motions, and then to proceed to the study
of complex phenomena arising out of them. But men
in their presumptuous haste suppose that they can
jump at the meaning of Nature, just as boys will
jump at the meaning of sentences without undergoing
the preliminary labour of mastering the elements of
the language : men put their own ideas into nature, as
slovenly readers will impute their own meaning to their
author. Upon such sciolists Heraclitus gave a just
censure, saying, Men sought wisdom in their own little
worlds and not in the great and common world : for they
disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of
God's works. First therefore men must be taught to
put away their own hastily conceived prejudices, and to ^
look with simple eyes upon the great and common world.
Nothing can be expected in the way of fruit till this is
done : when this is done, the Mind and the Universe, at
present divorced, will be for ever reunited.

Now of all the enemies that have contributed to the

1 Works. Vol. V., p. 426.

Ixx Entrotmctton

divorce between the intellect and the world, Authority is
the most formidable. Authority has substituted the little
•world of this or that philosopher for the great and com
mon world; it has encouraged indolence and has sup
pressed inquiry. Authority therefore must be first pulled
down from her throne before Truth can reign supreme in
the realm of philosophy. But Authority is incarnate in
Aristotle, and therefore against Aristotle Bacon wages
incessant war, not so much as being Aristotle, but as
representing the ostentatious Greek philosophy. Ostenta
tious is the epithet applied by Bacon to the philosophy of
the great Greek writers, Plato, Aristotle, and the rest, to
distinguish it from the quiet, philosophic study of nature
practised by their predecessors, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus,
and others. Even Socrates is ostentatious. Bacon speaks
respectfully of the old times before tJie Greeks, when natural
science was perhaps more flourishing though it made less
noise, not having yet passed into the pipes and trumpets
of the Greeks j ' and declares that that wisdom which we
have derived principally from the Greeks is but like the
boyhood of Knowledge ; it can talk, but it cannot generate ;
for it is fruitful of controversies and barren of works."1
Time, he says, is like a river which brings down to us on
its surface the light frivolities of the past, while solid dis
coveries — those of the Egyptians or of the older Greek
philosophers, whose writings have been lost — have been
allowed to sink into oblivion. People have been from
time to time seduced from the true path of patient re
search by some man of bold disposition, famous for methods
and short ways, which people like? Such a one is Aris
totle, who is also to be censured for his boldness, his spirit
of difference and contradictions* springing from his self-
will, and also because, after the Ottoman fashion, he thought

' Works, Vol. iv. p. 108. ' Ib. p. 15.

• Ib. p. 14. • Ib. p. 344.

as a i)tIosoi)Er Ixxi

that he could not reign with safety unless he put all his
brethren to death. l

1 Aristotle is alco hateful to Bacon, not only as the
representative of authority, but also as identified with the
Logic of the Schools, in which deduction was everything
and induction nothing. Besides subverting authority, it
is therefore necessary to subvert the established Logic.
To such lengths does Bacon carry his hostility to Logic
and to the barren uses of the Syllogism, that he speaks
sometimes of rejecting syllogistic Logic altogether. The
deductive logicians are compared to spiders, spinning
cobwebs out of their own entrails, whereas they ought
rather to imitate the bees gathering the stores of the
flowers before they use their art to transmute what they
have collected into honey. Not that Bacon would have
seriously rejected the syllogism — which can no more be
rejected than reasoning itself— but he perceived, what
will hardly be denied, that there is little use for anything
more than the syllogisms of common sense in the in
vestigations of Natural Science. The syllogism is use
less till you have exactly denned your terms. But the
more important problems of Natural Science mostly de
pend upon the definitions of terms. When you have
obtained your adequate names or definitions of heat and
light, for example, you have obtained in great measure
what you want. So important were names, the right
names, indicating the essential natures of the things
named, that to Bacon there seemed a natural connection
between Adam the namer, and Adam the ruler of crea
tures. When fallen man should be restored to his pris
tine blessedness, he would regain the power of ruling by
regainingthe power of naming : whensoever he shall beable
to call the creatures by their names he shall again command

1 Works, Vol. iv. p. 358.

Ixxii Introtmcu'on

them. Considering the absurd and harmful importance
attached to the syllogism in the Middle Ages, we have
probably no right to blame Bacon for the contempt he
pours on deductive Logic, at all events when applied to
Natural Science.

But besides these obstacles arising from authority, and
from false methods encouraged by authority, Bacon lays
great stress on others, on those preconceived shadowy
notions which he called Idols — i.e., images — in opposition
to the divine ideas or realities. Some of these are in
herent in the human mind, as for example the general
prejudice in favour of symmetry and order, or the prejudice
that opens men's minds to instances favourable to their
own opinion, and closes their eyes against unfavourable
instances : such prejudices extend to the whole tribe of
men, and may therefore be called Idols of the Tribe.
Again, individual men, circumscribed within the narrow
and dark limits of their individuality, as shaped by their
country, their age, their own physical and mental pecu
liarities, find themselves as it were fettered in a cave,
lighted by the fire of their own little world, and not by
the sunlight of the great common world, so that, instead
of discerning realities, they only see the shadows of
realities, the shadows cast by their own fire on the sur
face of their own cave : such individual misconceptions
or Idols may be called Idols of the Cave. Language is
a third imposture, almost inherent in human nature, pre
tending to supply nothing but the expression of thoughts,
but, under the mask of this pretence, tyrannizing over
and moulding thoughts. It is the Idol of intercourse,
deriving its influence from all meetings of men, and may
therefore be called the Idol of the Market-place. Lastly,
Authority itself, though not strictly speaking on the same
footing as the other three Idols, as not being internal but
rather external to the human mind, may nevertheless,

iSacon as a ipjilosopljer Ixxiii

on account of its baneful influence, be conveniently
classed with the Idols. In the place of the unobtrusive
worship of the Truth, Authority substitutes the mere
fictions and theatrical stage-plays (for they are no better)
of the ostentatious philosophers. It may therefore be
called the Idol of the Theatre. These four Idols are to
be solemnly renounced by all who desire to enter the
Kingdom of Man over Nature.

Hitherto we have been dealing with what men do and
ought not to do: now we pass to the question, what ought
men to do ? After a preliminary mapping out and par
tition of the provinces of knowledge, showing which
are already in part or wholly subdued, and which remain
to be subdued, the answer is given to this question as
follows : Man is to obtain his kingdom over Nature by
mastering her language so as to make her speak with it
as man wills, and by obeying her laws so as to make
her work his own will in accordance with her own laws.
The laws of nature are to be ascertained by observation
of particular instances ; instance after instance is to be
brought in (or induced], and from the study of these
particular instances we are to ascend to a general
rule or law. This method, depending upon the bringing
in, or inducing, of instances, is called Induction : but by
the term induction Bacon does not mean the old induc
tion of which the logicians speak, which proceeds by
simple enumeration, and which he justly calls a puerile
thing. ^ To the immediate and proper perceptions of the
Senses he does not attach much weight.2 He therefore
seeks to provide helps for the sense, substitutes to supply
its deficiencies, rectifications to correct its errors ; and this
he seeks to accomplish not so much by instruments as by
experiments. One important characteristic, then, of the
[ New Induction is experiment.

1 Works, Vol. iv. p. 25. * Ib. p. 26.

Ixxiv Introduction

But there is an art of conducting experiments. Some
empirical philosophers are content to rest in Empiricism
others ascend too hastily to first principles : both ex
tremes must be avoided. Bacon therefore will teach
this Art of Experiments ; and the art shall be so com
pletely taught in all the details of its precepts, that by
means of it subordinate observers and experimenters
shall be able to work in the right direction under the
general control of a superintendent, who may be called
the Architect. Now of this art of experiments the
secret and basis is this, that Cupid sprang out of the egg
hatched by Night, that all light arises out of darkness,
all positive knowledge from negative knowledge : or, to
quit metaphor, no phenomenon can have the cause of its
presence ascertained till there have been observed a
number of cases where the phenomenon is absent.

Commenting upon Bacon's analysis of Induction,
Lord Macaulay complains that it is no more than 'an
analysis of that which we are all doing from morning to
night ;' and he proceeds to give a homely instance of it :
' A plain man finds his stomach out of order. He never
heard Lord Bacon's name ; but he proceeds in the
strictest conformity with the rules laid down in the
second book of the Novum Organum, and satisfies
himself that mincepies have done the mischief. " I ate
mincepies on Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept
awake by indigestion all night." This is the comparentia
ad intellectum instantiarum convenientium. " I did not
eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well."
This is the comparentia instantiarum in proximo qua
natura data privantur. " I ate very sparingly of them on
Sunday, and was very slightly indisposed in the evening.
But on Christmas-day I almost dined on them, and was
so ill that I was in great danger." This is the com
parentia instantiarum secundum magis et minus. " It

33acon as a ^fjtlosopfjcr Ixxv

cannot have been the brandy which I took with them : for I
have drunk brandy daily for years without being the
worse for it." This is the rejectio naturarum. Our in
valid then proceeds to what is termed by Bacon the
Vindemiatio, and pronounces that mincepies do not
agree with him.' Lord Macaulay goes on to express
his opinion that Bacon greatly overrated the utility of
his method, and that the inductive process, like many
other processes, is not likely to be better performed
merely because men know how they perform it.

In answer to this it must be said, in the first place,

that the Essayist has scarcely done justice to the

strictness and elaborateness of the Baconian Induction,

and to the necessity for such strictness, if it is to be

worth anything ; and, in the second place, that he has

exaggerated the inductive activity of average people

when he speaks of even such an induction as he describes

as being ' what we are all doing from morning to night.'

The Inductive process of Lord Macaulay's 'plain man'

is far above the level of most ' plain men.' : but, even as

it is, it is far below the level of the Baconian Induction.

If one is to follow up Lord Macaulay's illustration, other

causes besides the brandy may have been at work to

produce the indigestion which the invalid attributes to

the mincepies — cucumber, for example, or salmon ; or the

dinner may have been badly cooked ; or the invalid may

have dined under the depressing influence of bad news,

or in a hurry. Therefore it will be necessary for the

Baconian inductor to perform two classes of quite distinct

experiments. In the first of these he will continue to

eat mincepies, but on each occasion will reject some one

kind of food that might be suspected of having produced

the indigestion : on Monday, for instance, he will dine as

before, only no salmon ; on Tuesday as before, only no

cucumber ; on Wednesday as before, only no brandy ; and

Ixxvi Introduction

so on. If in each case he still feels indigestion after
dinner, he will be led to the belief that salmon alone was
not the cause of it, nor was cucumber, nor was brandy.
But, although no one of these three things in itself may
produce indigestion, the combination of any one with
any other may. Therefore, continuing this class of ex
periments, he must, while always continuing to eat mince-
pies, discontinue the combination of those other three things
taken two and two together : and then, if he still feels ill,
he must admit that there is some other cause for his
illness beside the combinations of these things in pairs.
Lastly, although these three things taken singly and
taken in pairs, do not disagree with him, yet taken all
together, they may : he must therefore, while continuing
to eat mincepies, discontinue the other three things, and
then, if he still feels ill, he is led to infer that these three
things have nothing to do with his illness : and by an
anticipation of the mind, as Bacon called it, the experi
menter may perhaps leap to the conclusion that the
mincepies are the cause of his indigestion.

But it is but a leap, not a regular ascent. The
Inductor is by no means certain yet that he has arrived
at the real cause. For beside those three prominent
claimants mentioned in the last paragraph, there may be
a host of other latent antecedents, any one of which, or
combination of which, may have made him ill. There
fore now he must try a second and quite distinct class
of experiments, in each of which he must omit the
mincepies. With this omission, he must dine in all
respects, as far as possible, as he dined on the days
when he was ill. To make sure that he is not omitting
some latent antecedent, he must try several of these
dinners : he must dine after walking home and after
riding home, after good news and after bad news, in a
hurry and at leisure, and with many other varying cir-

iftacon a* a pbtlosopfjcr Ixxvii

I cumstances, but always omitting mincepies. This class
I of experiments is the Night's egg out of which Cupid is
I to spring. And now indeed, after several experiments of
I this second class, assimilating his dining in all respects
I to the dining on the days when he was ill, with the single
I exception that he eats no mincepies, if he finds that in
no case does he suffer indigestion, this will be a strong
proof that the mincepies were the cause : and, if he
could be certain that he had reproduced all the ante
cedents of those invalid days — all, that is, except the
mincepies — and yet no indigestion followed, then the
proof would not be strong but certain. He would
absolutely know that the mincepies, and nothing else,
had caused his indigestion. And this positive knowledge
would have proceeded out of negative knowledge. It
would be light out of darkness, Cupid springing from
Night's egg.

Now to maintain, as Lord Macaulay does, that 'plain
men ' reason in this way, and that there is nothing un
common in this kind of Induction, is to assume a very
high standard of intelligence indeed. True, as soon as
the New Induction is described, we feel it to be natural
and obvious. Like the spiteful friars crying down the
discovery of Columbus, any one of us can make the egg
stand on its end when Columbus has shown us the way.
But if it be true that this complete kind of Induction has
not been described by Aristotle, nor by later authors,
then it seems hard to deny to Bacon the credit of having
given shape and living force to the Logic of Common
Sense, simply because it was the Logic at which Common
Sense had been for many ages blindly aiming \\ithout
coming very near the mark. Because Bacon and Aristotle
use the same term ' Induction/ therefore it has been
most unfairly assumed that Bacon has invented nothing
new. But the two inductions are, for practical purposes,

Ixxviii Introduction

entirely different. The Old Induction was content with
observation, the New encourages experiment ; the Old
Induction by Enumeration is notoriously as a rule useless,
sometimes misleading ; the New Induction often leads
easily right, and, if cautiously and scientifically used,
cannot lead wrong ; the Old encouraged indolence and
servile deference to authority, the New stimulates inde
pendent thought and research ; the two methods differ
in nature, differ in results : why then should they be
called the same, in defiance of Bacon's protest that they
are entirely different ? But, in fact, to accuse the rules of
the New Induction of being old, as old as the existence
of the human mind, is the highest compliment that its
author could desire, and amounts in reality to no more
than saying with him, Certainly they are quite new,
totally new in their very kind, and yet they are copied
from a very ancient model, even the world itself and the
nature of things.1

Another consideration never to be lost sight of in
speaking of Bacon's system, is that he did not live to
complete it. Before speaking of his Prerogative In
stances it may be well to mention, as a hint of the incom
pleteness of his system, that out of the nine following
sections of his subject only one is discussed by him. I pro
pose, he says, to treat in the first place of Prerogative In
stances. The discussion of these alone constitutes a trea
tise : but he goes on to mention — and the titles are worth
setting down (though there is no space to explain or comment
on them) simply to show the elaborateness of the system
as it was intended to be — 2nd, Supports of Induction ;
3rd, the Rectification of Induction; 4th, of Varying the
Investigation according to the nature of the subject j 5th,
of Prerogative Natures with respect to Investigation, or

• Works, Vol. iv. p. ii

23acon as a ^Inlosopfjer Ixxix

of what should be inquired first and what last ; 6th, of
the Limits of Investigation, or a Synopsis of all the
Natures in the Universe ; 7th, of the Application to
Practice, or of things in their relation to Man ; 8th, of
Preparations for Investigations; Qth, of the Ascending
and Descending Scale of Axioms. Of all these titles
none but the Prerogative Instances are discussed, and
these alone take up three-quarters of the Second Book of
the Novum Organum. Had Bacon lived to complete
the other Sections, he might perhaps have shown still
better cause for calling his Induction new.

By Prerogative Instances Bacon means those instances
that are entitled to priority of consideration. Obviously,
in the search after causes, much will depend upon a
judicious selection of the phenomena that should first be
studied. Into this question Bacon enters with great care,
and gives twenty-seven names of classes of Prerogative
Instances. For example, Solitary Instances are of great
importance : these are instances that exhibit the nature
under consideration in subjects having nothing in common
except that nature. Thus, suppose you are investigating
the nature of colour il self by investigating it in various sub
jects, in flowers, stones, metals, woods, prisms, crystals,
and dews. Prisms, crystals, and dews have nothing in
common with flowers, stones, and metals, except that all
are coloured, from ii>hich,sa.ys Bacon, we easily gather that
colour is nothing more than a modification of the image of
light received upon the object, resulting in the former case
from the different degrees of incidence, in the latter from
the various textures and configurations of the body.1 Of
such instances, he says, that // is clear that they make the
way short, and accelerate and strengthen the process of
exclusion, so that a few of them are as good as many.
Again, another important or Prerogative Instance is a
Migratory Instance, where the nature in question is seen

1 Works, Vol. iv. p. 156.

I. e

Ixxx Imro&uetton

just beginning or just vanishing. Others again are
called Striking Instances, where the nature is seen un
mistakably and strikingly manifested. Then there are
Ultimate Instances, where the nature is seen in an
extreme form, as expansiveness is seen in the explosion
of gunpowder. There are also the Instances of the
Finger-post (commonly known as Instantice Crucis, or
Crucial Instances), which are described as follows : When
in the investigation of any nature the understanding is so
balanced as to be uncertain to which of two or more natures
the cause of the nature in question should be assigned,
Instances of the Finger-post shew the union of one of the
natures with the nature in question to be sure and
indissoluble, of the other to be -varied and separable.
With no less quaint, picturesque names, and with the
same care and amplitude, Bacon discusses the whole of
the twenty-seven classes of Prerogative Instances.

A brief illustration of Bacon's whole method may now
be given. We have, suppose, to investigate the nature
of heat. We shall have done this then, and only then,
when we have ascertained not only the efficient causes
that produce heat in this or that concrete body, but also
the ultimate Cause, or Form, or Law,1 that produces heat
in all bodies. We must begin by making a table of
instances where heat is found, each instance containing
different circumstances or antecedents — e.g. sun-rays, fire,
living bodies, &c. This must be done without bias ; we
must take each case impartially, whether it be for or
against our preconceived notions. This first table will
be the table Essentia et Prasentia — i.e. of Existence and
Presence. Next, we must make a second table of
instances, where sun-rays, fire, living bodies, &c., are

' Earn auiem legctn ejusqve paragraphos Formarum nomine intclli-
gitHus. Bacon recognises that Forms and Laws do not give existence ;
but still the Law is the basis of knowledge as -well as of action. Workt,
Vol. L p. «z£.

i3acon as a philosopher Ixxxi

found without heat. This is the table of Departure or
Absence in the Corresponding Case (Absentia et Declina-
tionis in proximo?) Then a third table must be made
of Degrees (Graduum), where the instances of heat are
arranged according to the greater or less degree in which
heat is found. On these three Tables of Appearance
(Comparentice], the Induction must work.

Great importance is attached to these Tables, con
stituting as they do a kind of prepared Natural History.
In Bacon's time a Natural History meant often nothing
but a collection of Lusus Naturce, a chaotic mass of
monstrosities and inexplicable wonders, the more in
explicable and wonderful, the better. On such ill-digested
histories of Nature, even where they were accurate and
trustworthy, Bacon set little store. They bewildered and
distracted as much as they helped. They were like the
unprepared stores of the ants : heaped together just as
they came to hand without the transforming touch of
art : but the pupils of the New Logic are to be bees,
gathering stores from many sources, but transmuting and
preparing them for their special object with the aid of
reason. Well-arranged facts are even more important
than the rule of Interpretation, than Induction itself :
for in truth Induction has been already at work in
preparing the Three Tables of Appearance. It is all-
important, if we are to do justice to Bacon against the
attacks of modern assailants, to remember that he
himself declares that men, with a sufficient supply of
facts, would be able, by the native genius and force of the
mind, to fall into my form of interpretation.1 Indeed,
although no safe conclusion can yet be attained, yet the
laborious worker in the Vineyard of Logic may be
allowed as it were the premature luxury of a First

1 JfVr.tt, Vol. iv. p. 115.

C 2

Ixxxii Entrotmctton

Vintage ( Vindemiatio Prima} extracted directly from the
Three Tables. It is a kind of Licence to the roving
Intellect (Permissio Intellectus), or it may be called an
Anticipation of the Mind (Anticipatio Mentis) — what we
should call now-a-days a working hypothesis. But
afterwards, on these Tables of sufficient facts, the New
Induction is to work, and it is to work by the Method of
Exclusions. That is to say, having limited the number
of possible causes of heat, we can try a variety of
experiments with each of these possible causes as ante
cedents ; and wherever heat is absent, we shall know that
it is not caused by that antecedent. That antecedent
having been rejected, we can reject others in turn till we
have rejected all but the actual efficient cause.

For a time we are to be content with efficient causes,
and with the Science that deals with them, Physics.
But ultimately we are to proceed from them to higher
causes or Laws, and the Science that deals with these is
Metaphysics. Metaphysics in the old sense of the term —
i.e. supernatural nature — there will be henceforth none, no
monstrosities, no anomalies in nature:1 but, in Bacon's
sense, Metaphysics will be a branch or descendant of
Natural Science? the Science next above Physics,
teaching us not only that heat is a mode of motion, but
also leading us on to see the nature of motion in itself,
and showing us how motion ramifies into its different
offshoots, such as generation, corruption, heat, light, and
the rest — a Science that supposeth in nature a reason^
understanding, and platform, and that handleth Final
Causes.

Lastly, Bacon's sense of the unity and simplicity of
things leads him still further upward to see above Physics
and above Metaphysics a Science that is the highest of

* Life, Vol. vii. p. 377. * Works, Vol. iii. p. 353.

23acon as a ^Uosopfjer Ixxxiii

all, parent and stem of all sciences, a science whose
axioms are equally true in Mathematics, in Logic, in
Medicine, in Politics. Some of the axioms of this highest
Philosophy, or Prima Philosophia, are given by him.
Thus the axiom that the nature of everything is best seen
in its smallest portions, serves Democritus in Physics, and
Aristotle in Politics. Things are preserved from de
struction by bringing them back to their first principles, is
a rule that holds good both in Physics and in Politics.
The rule, if equals be added to unequals the wholes -will
be unequal, is a rule of mathematics ; but it is also an
axiom of justice. Other axioms of the Prima Philoso
phia are — things move violently to their place, but easily in
their place ; putrefaction is more contagious before than
after maturity (true both in Physics and in Morals) ; a
discord ending immediately in a concord sets off the har
mony (true no less in Ethics than in Music). The autho
rity of Heraclitus is alleged to prove the affinity between
the rules of nature and the rules of policy ; and it is in
politics more especially that Bacon gives the reins to this
Philosophy of imagination. The knowledge of making
the government of the world a mirror for the government
of a State is, according to Bacon, a wisdom almost lost ;
and the Prima Philosophia has originated some of the
pithiest and most suggestive sentences in the Essays :
As the births of living creatures at first are ill shapen, so
are all innovations which are the births of Time : All
things that have affinity with the heavens (and therefore
kings) move upon the centre of another which they benefit :
It is a secret both in nature and in state that it is safer to
change many things than one. We are to imitate Time,
which innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees
scarce to be perceived, and we are to remember that Time
moveth so round that a froward retention of custom is as
turbulent a thing as an innovation

Ixxxiv Intvofcuctton

Ilt will appear almost incredible to modern readers
that Bacon should have contemplated the possibility of
ever constructing a genuine Science dealing with maxims
so general. It may seem a very suggestive aspect of
things, but no science. Yet unquestionably Bacon ex
pected that it would eventually prove its claim to be
called a Science. Illustrating it by application to the
attraction of iron towards the loadstone, he says that the
Prima Philosophia will not touch the mere physical phe
nomenon, but, handling Similitude and Diversity, it will
assign the cause why diversity should encourage union.
The similarity or analogy between different sciences is,
according to Bacon, not accidental ; it is as natural and
as inevitable as the resemblance between the rippling
surface of the sea, the ripple-marked clouds in the sky,
the rippling lines on the sea-sand, and the hilly ripples
of a sea-shaped undulating land — all of which are but
Nature's footprints as she treads in one fashion on her
various elements : for these are not only similitudes, as
men of narrow observation may conceive them to be, but
the same footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon
several subjects or matters. After so distinct a statement,
it is clear that no sketch of Bacon's philosophy can afford
to pass by that which he himself evidently regarded as
the apex of his pyramid. Yet Dr. Fischer1 is no doubt
right in saying that here ' the mind of Bacon extends
beyond his method.' The analogies of Bacon are often
singularly suggestive, opening up to the view long ave
nues of truth, where before one saw nothing but a tangled
forest ; but they cannot be called legitimate parts of his
system. The general analogy traced by him between
the organs of sense and reflecting bodies, for example,
between the eye and the mirror, or between the ear and
the echoing roof; the similitude between the bright fil-

1 Francis of Verulam, p. 139.

23acon as a ^frilosop&tr Ixxxv

trations that issue in gems, and the other bright nitrations
that exude in beautiful colours, formed by the juices of
birds filtered delicately through quills ; the comparison
between roots and earth-tending branches, between fins
and feet, teeth and beak, these and many others, as often
false as true, are frequently, even when false, extremely
suggestive. But however suggestive, they are not induc
tive, and therefore not Baconian. In one sense they may
be indeed said to be characteristic of Bacon, for they are
the results of his personal character, that mind not keen
and steady, but lofty and discursive, that glance not truly
philosophic, but poetic, which will find similitudes every
where, in heaven and earth. We have seen that Bacon laid
special stress upon his possessing a mind versatile enough
for that most important object, the recognition of simili
tudes. It is this versatility that is the parent of Prima
Philosophia, and there are many reasons why we should
be thankful for it. The Essays gain more from it than
the scientific works lose. And although it must always
be regarded as an excrescence on his philosophy — at least
in the incomplete form in which that philosophy is handed
down to us — it is part and parcel of himself. Baconian
it is not ; but it is pre-eminently Bacon's.

Passing from the Prima Philosophia, we are led to
ask what is the weak point in Bacon's system ? The
system, as we have found, ascertains Causes by ascertain
ing what Antecedents are not Causes, and by continuing
to exclude Antecedent after Antecedent, till at last none
is left but the Antecedent Cause. The weak point is this,
the impossibility of ascertaining that the Exclusion has
been complete. There is always a possibility that some
fictitious and apparent cause may conceal behind itself
the real and latent cause so cunningly, that no experi
ment may detect the latter. And therefore we can hardly
acquit Bacon of exaggeration when he speaks of the abso-

Ixxxvi -Entrofcuctt'on

lute certainty attainable by his method. Yet we are
bound to recollect that he himself was aware of the danger
inherent in the method of Exclusion. Hence he supple
ments Exclusion with Helps to Induction, Rectification*
of Induction, and the other seven auxiliaries mentioned
above on page Ixxviii. Possibly his system thus elaborated
might have approximated more closely to certainty than
the system as we have it, incomplete. Yet few will deny
that here we have the heel of our Achilles. Bacon's faith
in the simplicity of Nature, which enables him to for«:e
his way invulnerable through a host of obstacles, leaves
him vulnerable here. He seems to have thought that
everything, gold for instance, contains but some six or
seven qualities, and that, when these qualities had once
been mastered, the thing in question could be con
structed ; and therefore the right course would be to in
vestigate not gold, but the qualities of gold. Now to sav
that no one thing should be investigated in itself is reason
able, and to have said that gold would be profitably in
vestigated in company with other metals would have been
also reasonable ; but to say that the surest way to make
gold is to know the Causes of its natures, viz., greatness
of weight, closeness of parts, fixation, pliantness or soft
ness, immunity from rust, colour or tincture of yellow^
together with the axioms that concern these causes — this
advice is at all events not in conformity with the method
that has been practically adopted by progressive sciences.
Quite naive is the confidence with which Bacon adds, If
a man can make a metal that has all these properties, let
men dispute as they please -whether it be gold or no. So
certain is he that he has exhausted all the essential Qua
lities of gold.

It would not be difficult to show that here, as in the
Pfima Philosophia, he is inconsistent with himself. As
in morality, so in philosophy, he has laid down rules

33acon as a philosopher Ixxxvii

that he himself does not obey. His lofty and discursive
spirit will not bear in mind its own warning that the
human understanding is of its own nature prone to sup
pose the existence of more order and regularity in the
•world than it finds. Quite against his own system, for
example, is the assumption that everything tangible that
we are acquainted with contains an invisible and intan
gible spirit, which it works and clothes as with a garment?
and that we imist inquire what amount of spirit there is
in every body, what of tangible essence.9 There are many
other instances of similar erroneous assumptions. That he
should assume (in the absence of such testimony to the
contrary as is apparent to the senses unaided by in
struments or experiments) that the moon's rays give no
warmth, and that iron does not expand with heat, is
unphilosophical but excusable. But the same high gran
diose nature that renders him indifferent to petty moral
details, renders him also culpably careless about many
scientific details, and allowed him to rest in ignorance of
many important scientific discoveries made by his con
temporaries or predecessors, and lying ready to his
hand.

Lord Macaulay speaks in admiration of the ver
satility of Bacon's mind, as equally well adapted for ex
ploring the heights of philosophy or for the minute
inspection of the pettiest detail. But he has been im
posed on by Bacon's parade of detail. Aware of his
deficiency, Bacon is always on his guard against it,
always striving to make himself what he was not by
nature — an exact man: and, in his efforts to be exact,
ostentatiously accumulating details in writing, and often
very trifling details, he has imposed on the Essayist,

1 Works, Vol. iv. p. 195 ; and again Vol. v. p. 224, Let it be admitted
as is most certain.

1 Works, VoL iv. p. 125

Ixxxviii Introduction

whose forte was not science. Mr. Ellis has pointed out
instances of Bacon's inexactness or ignorance, and, as
collected by Mr. Spedding, they make a heavy list. At the
time when Bacon wrote the De Augmentis, 'he appears
to have been utterly ignorant of the discoveries which
had been made by Keppler's calculations. Though he
complained in 1623 of the want of compendious methods
for facilitating arithmetical computations, especially with
regard to the doctrine of series, and fully recognised the
importance of them as an aid to physical inquiries, he
does not say a word about Napier's logarithms, which
had been published only nine years before, and reprinted .
more than once in the interval. He complained that no
considerable advance had been made in Geometry
beyond Euclid, without taking any notice of what had
been done by Archimedes. He saw the importance of
determining accurately the specific gravities of different
substances, and himself attempted to form a table of
them by a rude process of his own, without knowing of the
more scientific though still imperfect methods previously

employed by Archimedes, Ghetaldus, and Porta

He observes that a ball of one pound weight will fall nearly
as fast through the air as a ball of two, without alluding to
the theory of the acceleration of falling bodies, which
had been made by Galileo more than thirty years before.
He proposes an inquiry with regard to the lever — namely,
whether in a balance with arms of different lengths but
equal weight the distance from the fulcrum has any
effect upon the inclination — though the theory of the lever
was as well understood in his own time as it is now. In
making an experiment of his own to ascertain the cause
of the motion of a windmill, he overlooks an obvious
circumstance which makes the experiment inconclusive,
and an equally obvious variation of the same experiment,
which would have shown him that his theory was false.

33acon ns a $I)tIoscip!)cr Ixxxix

He speaks of the poles of the earth as fixed in a manner
which seems to imply that he was not acquainted with the
precession of the equinoxes, and, in another place, of the
north pole being above, and the south pole below, as a
reason why in our hemisphere the north winds predomi
nate over the south.' After this we shall not be
surprised to find a practical man like William Harvey
speaking very lightly of Bacon as a scientific philosopher.
' He writes philosophy,' says Harvey, 'like a Lord y^
Chancellor.' 1

But practical scientific men, though unimpeachable
judges of the accuracy of scientific details, may perhaps
be by no means the best critics of large schemes of scien
tific discovery. A successful discoverer, one to whom
nature and long experience have given a knack of hitting
on the right experiment and deducing from it its right
lesson, one whose native genius stands him in the place
of a technical Filum Labyrinthi or Interpretatio Natures
—is the man of all men most likely to see in the New
Induction but a mere paper-philosophy. He has never
used it, he says ; his discoveries have never been made
In that way ; and consequently it is useless. But, in
fact, he has used it, or has used his abridgment of it,
without knowing it. If he is indeed a scientific man,
worthy of the name, and not a mere stumbler upon truth
— like the beasts, the gods of the Egyptians, coming upon
medicinal plants by chance — he has renounced his Idols,
he has collected and arranged his sufficient facts, his
Three Tables of Appearance, he has selected his Prero
gative Instances, he has employed the New Induction,
and has worked by the Method of Exclusions. Only he
has done it all by the light of Nature. What then ? Is
Bacon to have less credit because he set forth the

1 Quoted, Works, Vol. iii. p. 515.

xc IntroOuctton

method that is dictated by nature, the method that must
be consciously or unconsciously pursued by every success
ful investigator ? Bacon himself, at all events, counted
it no discredit that he owed his method to Nature. The
Interpretation, he says, is the true and natural . process
of the mind when all obstacles are removed ; and again,
•we do not consider the art of Interpretation indispensable
or perfect as though nothing could be done without it.1
He does not deny that improvement may be made, in his
particular investigations on his method ; On the contrary,
I that regard the human mind not only in its own faculties,
but in its connection with things, must needs hold that the
art of discovery may advance as discoveries advance? The
discoverer who so ungratefully decries Bacon's system is
really claimed by the philosopher as an adherent, as one
of those unconscious pupils who are able by the native and
genuine force of the mind, without any other art, to .fall
into my form of interpretation?

' But,' it may be asked, ' if the great discoverers of
scientific truth have not employed, and do not see their
way to employing, the elaborate technicalities of Bacon's
method, why should they be grateful ? Would not dis
coveries have gone on just as well without Bacon's aid ? '
Probably not quite so well. Probably Bacon has done
much to raise the general level of scientific thought ;
and in this general rise the great scientific discoverers
have, though unconsciously, shared. Rules of harmony
may be useless, directly, for Mozarts and Mendelssohns :
but the statement of such rules must have been beneficial
to music as a whole, and, indirectly, to them. The
standard of science throughout the world has been raised
by the Novum Orgamim. Put aside the details of its
complicated machinery as useless, yet the spirit of it

1 Works, Vol. i. p. 84. » Works, VoL iv. p, 115.

23acon as a ^fttlosop^er xci

must be confessed to diffuse in all readers the love of
Truth, and the sense of Law ; and these two make up the
very atmosphere of Science.

And even for this complicated machinery excuse may
be found in the special aspect in which Bacon regarded
the work of research. It was to be social work. There
was to be a college of truth- seekers of different grades,
such as are described in the New Atlantis ; * there were
to be Pioneers, Compilers, Lamps, Inventors, and Inter
preters of Nature, Such a college Bacon seems to have
regarded as an attainable object, if he could but interest
the King sufficiently in it. On Eton or Westminster, St.
John's College, Cambridge, or Magdalene College, Oxford,
he cast wistful eyes, seeing in them the College of Truth-
seekers almost made to his hand. But now, if there was
to be such a college in fact and not in dream-land, it be
came necessary to lay down rules to guide the different
grades of Truth-seekers. It seemed to Bacon that this
could be done so minutely as to dispense with individual
judgment. Our method of discovering knowledge, he
says, is of such a kind that it leaves very little to keen
ness and strength of intellect, but almost levels all intellects
and abilities. The Architect might dispense with his
rules, but the bricklayer and mason would need them.
In the freer and fuller interchange of thought in modern
times, in which the scientific men of Europe now recog
nise that they are not working each by himself, but
that one discoverer helps on another ; in the recognition
that now no one man can take all science to be his pro
vince, but that the different provinces and departments of
science must be assigned to several different workers —
there is something of the spirit of Bacon's College. How
far it might be possible to do more than this, how far men

1 Works, Vol. iii. p. 164.

xcii IntroUuctfon

of ordinary ability might, as subordinate investigators,
conduct experiments in Bacon's method in such a way as
to be practically useful to the Architectural genius of
some supervising Interpreter of Nature — this is an ex
periment, as far as I know, never yet systematically tried.
Possibly, even under such circumstances, many details of
Bacon's machinery might be found unnecessary and
hampering. But, at all events, Bacon's technicalities
ought not to be condemned by those who have not under
stood their purpose : and they will not be authoritatively
and finally condemned till the experiment for which they
were intended has been fairly tried and authoritatively
pronounced a failure.

But it is for his neglect of the astronomical discoveries
of his age that Bacon has been most severely censured.
Unquestionably, Bacon knew little of mathematics, and
did not quite see, or at least sufficiently realise, that a
mathematician can dispense with induction ; with a sheet
of paper and pen he can observe the peculiarities, and
experiment upon the peculiarities of ellipses and hyperbolas
as certainly and far more easily than by watching the
planets or comets moving in their celestial ellipses and
hyperbolas. And not seeing this, as a mathematician-in
grain would have seen it, he was rather prejudiced against
a science that seemed to be daring to progress without
the aid of his New Induction, He wishes therefore to
see set on foot a History of celestial bodies pure and
simple, and without any infusion of dogmas . . . a his
tory, in short, setting forth a simple narrative of the facts,
just as if nothing had been settled by the arts of astronomy
and geology, and only experiments and observations had
been accurately collected and described with perspicuity. x
Such a History, especially if containing such facts as
Bacon himself laid stress upon, giving one as a specimen,

1 Works, Vol. v. p. 510.

33acon as a philosopher xciii

would have been of little or no value ; and Bacon cannot
escape blame for his neglect of the discoveries of the
mathematician. But he has been blamed by many
who have not in the least understood why Bacon was so
suspicious of astronomy. For, in fact, there was some
thing highly creditable to him as a philosopher in the
reason he himself alleges for suspecting the new carmen
who drive the earth about — as he styles the new astrono
mers. It is his sense of the law and unity of Nature
that inspires him with distrust, and makes him hold aloof.
' For why,' he asked, ' should celestial bodies move in
ellipses, and terrestrial bodies not ? Whence this divorce
between earth and heaven ? Newton had not yet arisen,
to connect the motions of the planets with the fall of the
apple, and thus bind heaven and earth together in the
unity of one simple law of attraction. Consequently the
new discoveries, true though they might be, seemed to
Bacon propped upon unsound hypotheses, upon the old
arbitrary, fictitious, and disorderly distinctions between
things celestial and terrestrial. Though Bacon hoped for
some results from his History, yet he looked still
more hopefully to another source ; and Newton himself
might have agreed with him here : / rest that hope much
more upon observation of the common passions and desire*
of matter in both globes. For these supposed divorces
between ethereal and sublunary things seem to me but fig
ments, superstitions mixed with rashness ; seeing that it
is most certain that very many effects, as of expansion,
contraction, impression, cession, collection into masses,
attraction, repulsion, assimilation, union, and the like,
have place not only here with us, but also in the heights
of the heaven and the depths of the earth.

On the whole, we cannot accept the truth of Harvey's
epigram that Bacon 'wrote about science like a Lord
Chancellor.' At least we cannot accept it as h stands.

xciv Introduction

That he sometimes experimented like a Lord Chancellor,
or that he sometimes wrote on scientific details like a
Lord Chancellor — either of these statements we might
accept. But neither inadequate experiments, nor errors
in scientific detail, should induce us to ignore the genuine
service that he wrought for scientific Truth. To break
down for ever the authority of the School Philosophy ;
to reveal the inherent infirmities and the pitfalls that
beset the human mind in its journey towards knowledge ;
to hold up to deserved contempt the barrenness of the
unaided Syllogism and the old puerile Induction ; to trace
and formulate (though perhaps with excessive detail and
with too sanguine expectations) the natural steps of the
rightly-guided mind, and to give to each step substance
and a name — this in itself was no mean achievement, but
it is not the largest debt we owe to Bacon. No man who
has ever been touched with the spirit of the Novum
Organum can easily relapse into the belief that the world
is a collection of accidents, or that its ways are past find
ing out. To have imbued and permeated mankind with
a sense of the divine order and oneness of the Universe
and of its adaptation to the human mind ; to have turned
men's thoughts to science as to a divine pursuit, sanc
tioned by H im who hath set the world in the heart of men,
and worthy to be called the study of the Second Scripture
of God ; to have proclaimed in undying words that all
men shall learn that volume of God's works if they will
but condescend to spell before they read ; that all may be
admitted into the Kingdom of Man over Nature by be
coming as little children, and by learning to obey Nature
that they may command her, and to understand her
language that they may compel her to speak it— this
Gospel to have proclaimed, and thus to have prepared the
way for the scientific redemption of mankind, entitles
Bacon to claim something more than that he ' wrote

23acon as a

about science like a Lord Chancellor ' — say rather, like a
Priest, like a Prophet of Science, whose Mission he him
self describes as being to prepare and adorn the bride
chamber of the Mind and the Universe.

More than once in the course of this chapter it has
been necessary to point out that Bacon's philosophic
system is incomplete, not even half finished ; and one
can scarcely quit the subject without regretting that
Bacon's deviation into the busy paths of office cut short
his labours in philosophy. It has been suggested,
indeed, that we have no cause to deplore Bacon's
preference of politics. It is admitted that Bacon himself
mourned in after-life over his misspent talents ; but it is
said that ' if Bacon had carried out his early threat and
retired with a couple of men to Cambridge, and spent
his life in exploring the one true path by which man
might attain to be master of Nature, and followed it out
far enough to find (as he must have done) that it led to
impassable places — and had at the same time seen from
his retirement the political condition of the country going
from bad to worse for want of better advice and more
faithful service, would he not in like manner have
accused himself of having misspent his talents in things
for which he was less fit than he had fancied, and
forsaken a vocation in which he might have helped to
save a country from a civil war ? '

But the answer seems to be first that, even though
the ' life with two men at Cambridge ' had been a blank
of disappointment, yet even that blank would have been
better than such a life of political action as Bacon was
condemned to lead. He contributed nothing of the
'better advice' or 'faithful service' that might have
averted the coming civil war. He did worse than
nothing. He degraded himself, he injured his country
and posterity by tarnishing the honourable traditions of
I. f

xcvi Introduction

the Bench ; he lowered morality and shook the faith of
human kind in human nature by making himself
an ever-memorable warning of the compatibility of
greatness and weakness. Surely, rather than this it
would have been preferable even to have done nothing
with two men at Cambridge. But, in the next place, it is
almost a matter of certainty that his abstention from
politics would have resulted in a large increase of
literary and scientific work. If we turn to the records of
his life, we shall find that the periods when he is free
from office are those in which his pen is most active.
In 1603, for example, at the time when he desires to
meddle as little as he can in the King's causes, he writes
the First Book of the Advancement of Learning j but, as
business increases, his pen becomes more idle, and from
the time he was appointed Attorney-General to the year
after his being appointed Lord Chancellor — 1613-161 9 — he
publishes nothing whatever. On the other hand, after
his disgrace and enforced retirement in 1621, work after
work issues from his pen — the History of Henry VII., the
Historia Ventorum, with five similar Histories. The/te
Augmentis is published in 1623, and the New Atlantis
is written in 1624. If Bacon had remained Lord
Chancellor till his death we should never have had the
New Atlantis: and we are probably right in adding, if
Bacon had never been Lord Chancellor we should have
had the New Atlantis complete, and many works beside.
Grant that a persistent working out of his system would
have led Bacon in time to ' impassable places ' : yet
surely that would have been a consummation not to be
deplored. An active and versatile mind like Bacon's
following his philosophy into impassable places, and
forced either to retrace his steps and to mark out the
impassable places for posterity, or else to add modifi
cations, qualifications, and supplements to his philosophy,

23acon as a p&tloscp&er xcvii

would surely have left some memorial of its labours
worthy of the attention of posterity. Independently of
their scientific value, his works might have been valuable
in a literary aspect. On the whole, we must admit that
it would have been better alike for Bacon and for
posterity that he should have lost his way in the im
passable places of science than in the impassable places
of morality. To have had even the New Atlantis
complete, much more the Instauratio Magna, we could
well have spared the Confession and humble submission
of me the Lord Chancellor.

xcviii Jnuofcuctton

CHAPTER III.

BACON AS A THEOLOGIAN AND ECCLESIASTICAL
POLITICIAN.

BACON'S theology is far less theological than his science.
Perfectly orthodox, definite, and precise, it seems in
gaining definiteness to have lost vitality. In his anxiety
to prove that Religion need not dread any encroachments
from Science, he comes near divorcing Faith and Reason.
Faith cannot be jostled by Reason, he urges, for they
move in different spheres. If they do come into collision,
Reason must give way : we must believe in the mysteries
of the Faith, even though it be against the reluctation of
Reason. The principles of Religion ought no more to be
discussed than the rules of chess. What inferences are
to be deduced from these principles — this may be handled
by reason ; but not the principles themselves. Here and
there Bacon speaks as though moral science might be
the servant and handmaid of Religion ; but that the
progress of our knowledge of the works of the Creator,
revealing more and more of order and development,
should add to new knowledge of His will as the ages
pass on, does not seem to have occurred to him : nor
does he speak with any hopefulness or sanguineness of
any revelation to be anticipated from the growing history
of mankind, and from the experiences of the household
and the State, purified century by century. Yet this is
what we might have expected from him as the natural
completion of his method. No one delighted more to

33acon as a theologian xcjx

repeat that God had set the world in the heart of men
that men might search it out. Now from ' the world ' to
exclude men, while including irrational creatures, ought to
have seemed a paradox. Men therefore, as well as beasts
and stones, ought to have seemed to be intended to be
mirrors of God's nature. Yet Bacon did not see that any- /
thing new might be learned of the Divine Image from its
reflection on humanity. His low views of human nature
stood in his way here. All human things are full, he
says, of ingratitude and treachery. For the purpose of
guarding oneseif against evil, and of training and
strengthening the human mind, it might be worth while
to study human nature, partly in the writers on moral
philosophy, but especially (and here he is truly wise) in
the poets and historians. Such knowledge is useful for
the Art of Advancement. But that by studying the
brother whom we have seen, we may expect to learn
anything of Him whom we have not seen — this is not
taught in Bacon's theology.

It is evident that Bacon has no enthusiasm for formal j
theology. He states tersely but precisely the propositions
generally received by Christians ; but he appears to
state them, rather to clear them out of the way, than for
the purpose of basing on them any practical results.
With a characteristic sanguineness unhappily not justified
by facts, he regards as one of the present circumstances
favourable to Science, the consumption of all that can ever
be said in controversies of religion, which have so much
diverted men from other sciences. Weary of the petty
ecclesiastical differences that distracted the English
Church, he desires nothing better than some general con
vention to restore concord to the State, and to save future
waste of precious time that might be devoted to Truth.
For such a purpose the best plan will be, he thinks, to
lay down certain first principles that shall be above dis-

c Introduction

cussion. As these cannot be deduced from Nature by
Reason, they must come from some other source ; and he
sees no other source but the Scriptures. Not being sub
ject to induction and experiment, such first principles or
aphorisms must needs be independent of Reason. To
discuss them is like discussing the rules of a game, which
admit of rejection or acceptance, but of discussion never.
Bacon sees a singular advantage in that the Christian re
ligion excludeth and interdicteth human reason, whether
by interpretation or anticipation, from examining or dis
cussing of the mysteries and principles of faith.1 For he
adds, if any man shall think by view and inquiry into
these sensible and material things, to attain to any light
for the revealing of the nature or will of God, he shall
dangerously abuse himself. 2 What nature is, as compared
with the vain imaginations of men's minds, that the Bible
is, as compared with the empty inventions of mankind.
The heavens are said to declare God's glory, but they do
not declare His will. Under the appearance of magnify
ing the Scriptures, Bacon gives dangerous encourage
ment to the practice of deducing from them anything that
any one chooses to put into them. The literal sense, it is
true, is as it were the main stream or river, but the
moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical,
are they whereof the church hath most use ; not that I
wish men to be bold in allegories or light in allusions;
but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the
Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to
interpret a profane book?

But irrepressibly sometimes peeps out the love of scien
tific truth veiled under this deference to. religion and to the
Scriptures. Science is unclean, and must not venture to
touch her purer sister ; but Bacon's fear is not so much
that Religion may be defiled as lest Science should be

1 Works, Vol. iii. p. 3;i. ' Ib. p. 218. ' Ib. 487.

33acon ns a ^fjtologtan ci

consumed in the fiery arms of the spiritual embrace. He
is alarmed and anxious lest Science should seek sup
port in the Bible instead of in the Sacred Scripture of
Nature. No depreciation of his dear pursuit is too strong
to prevent so terrible a miscarriage as this. To seek
philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead among the liv
ing, to hope to find the pots or lavers in the Holiest place
of all. In his anxiety to avoid such a danger he some
times ventures on language more consonant than most of
his sayings on the Scriptures with the thoughts of modern
times. The Scriptures, he suggests, are probably fitted
to our limited and imperfect understandings, just as the
form of the key is fitted to the ward of the lock. Hence,
if the Bible illustrates its spiritual truths by human
imagery, we need not take the illustration for absolute
truth, any more than an illustration in common conver
sation from a basilisk or unicorn should be taken as a
token that the speaker believes that unicorns and basilisks
have a real existence.

Yet we should be wrong in assuming that Bacon was a
hypocrite, or that (as we read of Galileo and others) he
was consciously paying an affected deference to religion
with the mere purpose of preventing opposition to his
beloved science. He had a firm belief in a Mind of
the Universe, and in Love as the highest of the divine
attributes, and as the saving characteristic of humanity,
without which men are no better than a sort of vermin.1
But with much of the petty polemics and ecclesiastical
squabbles of the day he had no sympathy ; and, if he
was at all interested in them, it was as a politician, not
as a theologian. Like a large number of modern Chris
tians, he did not disbelieve in any of the complicated i
dogmas that make up modern Christianity ; but, on the '

* Essay xiii. 1. 8.

cii Introduction

I other hand, he did not believe in them in the highest
sense of the word belief. They were not necessary to
him ; they were not part of his spiritual frame, but hung
loosely on him, and he did not move easily in them.
And therefore, when he comes to write familiarly in the
Essays about daily conduct, and such matters as come
home to the hearts and bosoms of men, he finds no place
for his formal theology. He writes like a philosopher, or
1 like a courtier, or like a statesman, but rarely or never
I like an orthodox Anglican. And even in the Advance
ment of Learning, where he is compelled to speak formally
and precisely, there is something significant in the in-
suppressible earnestness with which the philosophic and
real self of the writer occasionally forces its way out ; as
when he warns theologians against a course of artificial
divinity, and tells them that, as for perfection or complete
ness in divinity, it is not to be sought} And the main
spring of the Christian faith is touched when he empha
tically declares that, if a man's mind be truly inflamed
with charity, it doth work him suddenly into greater
perfection than all the doctrine of morality can do.
\ But still it is as a politician and a statesman that
\ Bacon is most interested in religion. Religion is a prop
to good government; and Bacon no doubt appreciated the
saying of Machiavelli, that ' those princes and common
wealths who would keep their governments entire and
incorrupt, are above all things to have a care of religion
and its ceremonies, and preserve them in due veneration ;
for in the whole world there is not a greater sign of immi
nent ruin than when God and his worship are despised.'2
Schisms are the precursors of sedition, and, as such, not
to be overlooked by statesmen.

1 Works, Vol. iii. p. 484.

* Discourses i. 12. This and the following extracts are taken from the
English translation published in London in 1 680.

33acon as a ^^eolsgian ciii

But Bacon is very far from taking the purely passion
less, mechanical, and external view that Machiavelli takes
of religion. In Machiavelli's eyes religion is a mere po
litical machinery, and has no other interest. As for its
truth or falsehood, that is not the statesman's concern.
That a well-founded religion in Machiavelli's State need
not be true, appears from the following proposition : ' A
Prince or Commonwealth ought most accurately to regard
that his religion be well-founded, and then his govern
ment will last, for there is no surer way to keep that good
and united. Whatever therefore occurs that may any
way be extended to the advantage and reputation of the
religion which they desire to establish (how uncertain or
frivolous soever it may seem to themselves), yet by all
means it is to be propagated and encouraged ; and the
wiser the prince, the more sure it is to be done. This
course having been observed by wise men, has produced
the opinion of miracles, which are celebrated even in
those religions which are false. For, let their original be
as idle as they please, a wise prince will be sure to set
them forward, and the Prince's authority recommends
them to everybody else.' However Bacon in practical
politics or State trials may occasionally condescend to
recommend a false fame, yet it is not in this spirit that
he thinks or writes on religion. Machiavelli writes as a
sceptic and an alien from the Church, Bacon as a reli
gious man and a loyal member of a National Church.
To Machiavelli religion seemed no friend to Italy, rather
a foe : to Bacon religion seemed associated with a great
national uprising against foreign domination, and unity of
religion appeared essential at home, if England was to
be great abroad.

It must be admitted that Machiavelli himself could
not have felt a much greater contempt than Bacon felt
for the pettiness of some of the points of the ecclesiastical

civ Introduction

discussions of. the time, and the pettiness in the manner
of discussing them. But there is nothing cynical in his
grave and weighty censure of this pettiness. Thus muck,
he says, we all know and confess that they be not of the
highest nature . . . we contend about ceremonies and things
indifferent. He gladly passes from these to dwell on the
magnitude of the truths received by all, and on the im
portance of marking out the broad boundaries of the
league amongst Christians that is penned by our Saviour,
' he that is not against us is with us;' remembering that
the ancient and true bonds of Unity are one faith, one
baptism, and not one ceremony, one policy.* Very similar
is the tenour of the following passage at the end of the
Ninth Book of the De Augmentis : It is of extreme import
ance to the peace of the Church that the Christian covenant
ordained by our Saviour be properly and clearly explained
in these two heads, which appear somewhat discordant ;
whereof the one lays down ' he that is not with us is
against us,' and the other, ' he that is not against us is
with us.' For the bonds of Christian communion are set
down, ' One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism ;' not ' one Cere
mony, one Opinion;' after which he sets down, as a de
ficiency in theology, a treatise on the Degrees of Unity in
the Church. This way of viewing Religion grows on him
with years ; and in the Essays of 1625 he still harps on
the necessity of soundly and plainly expounding the two
cross clauses in the league of Christianity penned by our
Saviour himself. Not without a touch of bitter sadness
he adds, This is a thing may seem to many trivial and
done already j but if it were done less partially it would
be embraced more generally. There is nothing ignoble
nor unworthy in the engrossing interest this side of reli
gion had for Bacon. He views it as a Christian, but as

1 Life, Vol. i. p. 75, On t/te Controversies of the Church, written in
1589.

33acon as a ^eologt'an cv

an English Christian, seeing danger and imminent sedi
tion for England in the lowering and gathering clouds of
ecclesiastical discord. It is not without significance that
the title of Religion, given to the Essay in 1612, gives
place in 1625 to the Unity of Religion. To Bacon dis
union in religion implied a disunited England, a helpless
prey to foreign despotism and foreign superstition.

Between the two contending parties in the Church,
the Reformers or Puritans and the Conservatives or High
Churchmen, Bacon arbitrates with a grave impartiality.
He censures both sides for the unchristian and unchari
table temper of their polemics, and points out the incon
sistency of both in declaring matters that a few years ago
were by both sides left open and unessential, to be now
essential and vital. The Puritans, he sa'ys, objected at first
to nothing but a few superstitious ceremonies, abuses in
patronage, and the like : from this they rose to an assault
upon Episcopacy, and other institutions of the Church ;
and now, lastly, they are advanced to define of an only
and perpetual form of policy in the Church, which (with
out consideration of possibility or foresight of peril and
perturbation of the Church and State} must be erected and
planted by the magistrate;1 while an extreme section
maintain that this must be done at once by the people,
without attending of the establishment of authority, and
in the meantime they refuse to communicate with us, re
puting us to have no church. On the other hand, the
High Churchmen, he says, were once content to call
many ceremonies indifferent, and to acknowledge many
imperfections in the church ; afterwards they grew stiffly
to hold that nothing was to be innovated (partly because
it needed not, partly because it would make a breach upon
the rest}. Thence (exasperate through contentions'] they

1 Life, Vol. i. p. 86.

cvi Introduction

are fallen to a direct condemnation of the contrary part,
as of a sect. Yea, and some indiscreet persons have been
bold, in open preaching, to use dishonourable and deroga- '
tive speech, and censure of the churches abroad ; and that
so far, as some of our men (as I have heard) ordained in
foreign parts, have been pronounced to be no lawful
ministers*

; The good of the nation is, in Bacon's opinion, to be
the basis upon which such indifferent matters are to be
decided. The question is not what is best, but what is
best for England. Not that he admits that the foreign
Reformed churches are superior to the Church of England
in their constitution; but even if they are, he blames the
partial (i.e. biassed) affectation and imitation of foreign
churches . . . Our church is not now to plant. It is settled
and established. It may be, in civil States, a republic is
a better policy than a kingdom; yet God forbid that
lawful kingdoms should be tied to innovate and make
alterations. And to the same drift he writes in 1603: /
could never find but that Cod hath left the like liberty
to the Church government as He hath done to the civil
government, to be varied according to time, and place,
and accidents, which nevertheless His high and divine pro
vidence doth order and dispose? So far, he is against the
Puritans. He further blames their indiscriminate censure
of the virtuous men of past or present times who may not
happen to agree with them, their captiousness and blind
fanaticism, their want of sobriety and thoughtfumess, the
vague generality of their preaching, and their occasionally
forced interpretations of the Scriptures. But against the
High Churchmen he has no less to urge. They have
been unbrotherly, suspicious, hard, oppressive, too ready
to use bad names, too swift to receive accusations, too

1 Life, vol. i. p. 87. * Ib. Vol. iii. p. 107

<J3acon as a ^Tfjeologfan cvii

strait in examinations and inquisitions, in swearing men
to blanks and generalities, a thing captious and strain-
\ able. They think to silence their opponents by forbid
ding them to preach; but, in such great scarcity of
preachers, this is to punish the people, and not them.
Instead of fixing both eyes on the supposed evil done by
these preachers, ought they not (I mean the bishops') to
keep one eye open upon the good that these men do ? And
when he comes to speak further in detail of the petty
molestations and oppressions to which tender spirits had
been subjected, a noble spirit of indignation bursts out in
the protest, Ira -viri non operatur justitiam Dei — The
wrath of man ivorketh not the righteousness of God.

On the whole, Bacon's verdict leans clearly to the side \
of the Puritans. Some may find an explanation of this
in Bacon's predilections, and in a puritanical spirit
inherited by him from his mother. But this is hardly
necessary or probable. Bacon's religious ways by no
means satisfied his mother. He was far too remiss for
her in the performance of his religious duties, and she
finds herself obliged to warn her son Anthony against
his brother's general laxity in these matters. Nor is
Bacon's love of fervid and powerful preaching sufficient
to account for his preference of the Puritan claims, though
he unquestionably did respect some of the abler preachers
on that side, and even had a good word to say for the
inhibited practice of prophesying. But the one sufficient
explanation is found in the nature of the dispute, and in
his views as a statesman. Here was the great English
nation, but newly freed from Roman domination, raised
up by Providence to be a bulwark against the despotism
of superstition, the natural centre and refuge of all the
smaller Protestant States — yet unhappily divided against
itself upon points indifferent and trifling, such as the use
of gown or surplice, use or disuse of the ring in marriage,
the use of music in worship, the rite of confirmation, the

cviii Introduction

use of the word Priest or Minister, the use of the General
Absolution, and the like. In some of these matters the
Puritans seemed to Bacon to have reason on their side :
but even in others, since the one party held them to be
superstitious while the other party could not maintain
them to be essential, it seemed to him that they fell
within the compass of the Apostle's rule, which is that the
stronger do descend unto the weaker. Nor was it an un
important consideration that to incline to the side of the
Puritans, and to assimilate the Church of England to the
Reformed churches abroad, seemed likely to be a means
of increasing England's political influence ; thus might
the Church help the State in founding that great Protes
tant Monarchy of the West which was one of Bacon's
constant dreams. For the purpose of gaining an enforced
uniformity in such petty matters, to break up the English
nation into two hostile religious camps, seemed to Bacon,
and must have seemed to many others, not only un-
brotherly, but also a grave political error.

Church reform, quite apart from the polemics of the day,
seemed to Bacon a natural and desirable thing. That
the Church should continue for fifty years in all respects
unaltered, so far from seeming to him cause for congratu
lation, rather gave ground for the gravest apprehension.
Time, as his master Machiavelli had taught him, bringeth
ever new good and new evil, and is always innovating, so
that nothing can remain as it was, except by innovations
made to suit the innovations of time. And he continues,
putting a question that may well be repeated in modern
times, / -would only ask why the Civil State should be
purged and restored by good and wholesome laws, made
every third or fourth year in parliaments assembled,
devising remedies as fast as time breedeth mischiefs, and
contrariwise the Ecclesiastical State should still continue
upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration now for
these five-and-forty years and more f If any man shall

23acon as a ^fjeolocuan cix

I object that, if the like intermission had been used in civil
cases also, the error had not been great, surely the wisdom
of the kingdom hath been otherwise in experience for three
I hundred years' space at the least. But if it be said to me
that there is a difference between civil causes and ecclesias
tical, they may as well tell me that churches and chapels
need no reparations, though houses and castles do: whereas
commonly, to speak truth, dilapidations of the inward
and spiritual edification of the Church of God are in alt
times as great as the outward and material}- To the
bishops themselves he appeals in the year 1589 to take
up the task of Church reform. To my lords the bishops, I
say that it is hard for them to avoid blame (in the opinion
of an indifferent person) in standing so precisely upon
altering nothing. Leges novis legibus non recreate
acescunt : laws not refreshed with new laws wax sour.
Qui mala non permutat in bonis non perseverat : without
change of the ill, a man cannot continue the good. To
take away abuses, supplanteth not good orders, but establish-
eth them. Morosa marts retentio res turbulenta est ceque
ac novitas : a contentious retaining of custom is a turbu
lent thing, as well as innovation. . . . We have heard of
no offers of the bishops of bills in parliament. . . . I pray
God to inspire the bishops with a fervent love and care for
the people, and that they may not so much urge things in
controversy as things out of controversy, which all men
confess to be gracious and good?

In later days Bacon had become less hopeful or less
desirous of Church reform ; and among the Means of
procuring Unity, described in the Essay of 1625, 3 Reform
finds no place. The Essay on Superstition may indeed
be quoted as warning us against over-great reverence of

1 Life, Vol. iii. p. 105. * Life, Vol. i. p. 87.

* Essay iii. Mt. Gardiner (Vol. ii. p. 258) thinks that Bacon in later
years objected to change because, if it had come at all then, it would have
come from the High Churchmen.

ex Entrotmctfon

traditions which cannot but load the Church ; and as re
minding us that, as whole meat corrupteth to little worms,
so good forms and orders corrupt into a number of petty
observances ; but, more closely viewed, this Essay ex
hibits conservative tendencies. For whereas in 1612 it
ends with a warning against conservatism, in 1625 it is
made to end with a warning against excessive reform.
And indeed throughout the Essays there are to be found
few or no enforcements of Bacon's favourite maxim that
in Church as well as in State a contentious retaining of
custom isa turbulent thing. In the impossibility of securing
any popular changes in the Church so as to create a real
unity, it seemed best to secure the appearance of unity
by rousing a fear common to all, and by putting promi
nently forward the danger threatening England from
Roman superstition, as the great cause why the nation
should rally round the National Church. It is probable
that Bacon also foresaw the reluctance of the King to any
effectual reform, the impossibility of satisfying either
party in the Church, and the unpopularity awaiting the
Reformer, whoever he might be.1 We have seen above
- that he deprecated the waste of time and energy over
theological disputes : he had gladly believed that the
material for such controversies had been now quite ex
hausted, so that Science might secure her share of atten
tion. With these feelings, it is not surprising that as
Bacon, out of deference to the King, gave up his dreams
of war and colonisation, and an aggressive Protestant
Policy, so also he dropped his advocacy of Church reform.
It was so much easier to let the Church alone than to
sow the seeds of her future amplitude and greatness.
There is certainly a noticeable increase in the bitter-

* Mr. Gardiner (History from the Accession &c., Vol. L p. 183) thinks
Bacon may have slightly alienated the King at first by his proposals for the
pacification of the Church, which ' were too statesmanlike for James.'

23acon as a theologian cxi

ness with which Bacon speaks of the Church of Rome.
In 1589 he is able to censure those of the Puritan party
who think it the true touch-stone to try what is good and
holy by measuring what is more or less opposite to the
institutions of the Church of Rome. ... // is very
meet that men be aware how they be abused by this opinion,
and that they know that it is a consideration of much
greater wisdom and sobriety to be well advised whether,
in the general demolition of the Church of Rome, there
were not (as men's actions are imperfect) some good purged
with the bad, rather than to purge the Church, as they
pretend, every day anew. Not again in later years can
Bacon say a word for the Roman Church. The Essay
on Religion, in 1612, is nothing but a protest against the /
crimes perpetrated in the name of the Roman Superstition ;
and even in the ampler and graver Essay of 1625, on the
Unity of Religion, Bacon can suggest no means for procur
ing Unity except the damning and sending to hell for ever
those facts and opinions that tend to the support of such
crimes as Rome had encouraged. It is true that in the
Essay on Superstition he finds space for a few additional/
censures on the Puritanical superstition in avoiding
superstition. But all words that might be construed
into approval of the Church of Rome, all warnings against
excessive recoil from Rome, are carefully avoided. Com
pare the passage quoted above with the following passage
written in 1625 ; the same thought is expressed, but
Superstition is substituted for Rome, lest Rome should
seem to be approved : There is a superstition in avoiding
superstitions, when men think to do best if they go furthest
from the superstition formerly received. 7'herefore care j
would be had tliat (as it fareth in ill purgings] the good
be not taken away with the bad ; which commonly is done
when the people is the reformer, ,'

1 Essay xvii. 11. 50-55.

cxii Introduction

The genuine and intense hatred felt by Bacon for
Romanism is well illustrated by the letter he wrote to
Toby Matthew on hearing that the latter had been con
verted to the Church of Rome. Toby Matthew was his
best friend, the sharer of his literary secrets, devoted to
him in adversity no less than in prosperity. It was to
Matthew's request that we owe the Essay on Friendship,
which was written as a memorial of their intimacy. If
Bacon could not trust this man, he could trust no one.
Yet so closely connected was Romanism, in Bacon's mind,
with treason, so certain did it seem that superstition must
be followed by sedition, so logical and inevitable that the
loyal servant of the Pope must become disloyal to his
country, that Bacon (1607-8) writes in the tone of one
who can see no hope for the preservation of his friend's
honour and loyalty save in the supernatural providence
of God, who alone understands the inexplicable perversi
ties of mankind : / myself am out of doubt that you have
been miserably abused when you were first seduced ; but
that which I take in compassion others may take in
severity. I pray God, that understandeth us all better than
we understand one another, contain you (even as I hope
He will] at the least within the bounds of loyalty to his
Majesty, and natural piety towards your country. And
I entreat y OIL much sometimes to meditate upon the ex
treme effects of superstition in this last Powder Treason,
fit to be tabled and pictured in the chambers of meditation
as another hell above the ground, and well justifying the
censure of the heathen that superstition is worse than
atheism ; by how much ' it is less evil to have no opinion
of Cod at all than such as is impious towards his
divine majesty and goodness? Good Mr. Matthew, re
ceive yourself from these courses of perdition. The
words near the 'end of the extract, in inverted commas,
are almost identical with the opening lines of the Essay

23acon as a ®j)*ologian cxiii

on Superstition published in 1612 ; and while they reveal
to us the profound and lasting dread of Rome caused by
the Gunpowder Plot, they also show how completely
Bacon identified the great Babylon with all the evils of
distorted religion. What Duessa is in the Faery Queene,
that is Rome in Bacon's policy. Wherever in the Essays
he writes the word ' Superstition,' we may take it for
granted that he is thinking of Rome.

Hence Bacon went heart and soul with the laws
against recusants, and was an unflinching advocate of
Elizabeth's policy towards them. He justified such laws,
as he would have justified a war against the Turks, not
because they were Turks, but because Turks were the
natural enemies of Christendom. He admits that we
may not propagate religion by wars or by sanguinary
persecutions to force consciences, except it be in cases of
overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice
against the State. But then all English members of the
Roman Church seemed to Bacon pledged by their re
ligion to practice against the State. He would probably
have found no fault with Italians professing the Roman
faith, nor with Frenchmen or Spaniards, whose govern
ments and nations were not committed to war with Rome.
But with Englishmen it was different. All nations had
their national church assigned to them by Providence in
accordance with their political circumstances ; and to
England Providence had assigned a church fitted for her
external relations no less than her internal condition, a
church that represented the political as well as the moral
and religious freedom of the people. To this church
therefore every lover of England owed loyal allegiance,
not so much for what the church was, as for what the
church represented.

For Elizabeth therefore Bacon stands forth as an
eulogist, not an apologist. It was not the Queen, he

cxiv Intro&uctum

says, that persecuted ; it was Rome that brought per
secution on itself. Up to the twenty-third year of her
reign she sheltered the recusants with a gracious con
nivancy. But, he continues,/^/ thenthe ambitious and -vast
design of Spain for the subjugation of the kingdom came
gradually to light. Of this, a principal part was the
raising up within the bowels of the realm of a disaffected
and revolutionary party which should join with the
invading enemy, and t)ie hope of this lay in our religious

dissensions And, as the mischief increased, the

origin of it being traced to the seminary priests, who were
bred in foreign parts . . . there was no remedy for it
but that men of this class should be prohibited, upon
pain of death, from coming into the kingdom at all.
King James was for dealing with the recusants more
mildly. P&na ad paucos — punishment for few, was his
motto. But it is by no means clear that Bacon approved
of the change. In the same passage of the Diary in
which he records the King's wish, he notes that it was
inquired what priests were in jail in every circuit, and
reported scarce half a dozen in all, which showeth no
tuatch or search. Lord Salisbury hints in council that
the Pope's object may be, by driving the King to the use
of harsh measures, to set the nation at discord, and so to
make England a prey to foreign conquest. But to this,
says Bacon, the Archbishop replied that, by that argu
ment, ' the more furiously the Pope proceeds, the more
remiss are we to be,' to which Bacon adds a mark of
emphatic approval, Quod nota — mark this.

To the last Bacon seems to have retained his belief
in repressive measures and his hatred of Roman super
stition. In his Essay on Custom and Education,
published in 1612, he has a passage retained in the
Edition of 1625, in which he bitterly complains that
Machiavelli, when recommending the employment of

i3acon as a ^fttoloaian cxv

professed and hardened murderers for the purposes of
assassination, was not aware how far Superstition can
make up for deficiency in hardness of heart and in
experience of crime. Machiavel knew not of a Friar
Clement, nor a Ravaillac, nor a Jaureguy, nor a Baltazar
Gerard. Yet his rule holdeth still that nature, nor the
engagement of words, are not so forcible as custom.
Only Superstition is now so well advanced that men of
tfte first blood are as firm as butchers by occupation.*
Bacon's whole nature revolted from such crimes, per
petrated in such a cause, not merely because they were
crimes, but also because they were anomalies, breaking
all expected order, dislocating the machinery of govern
ment, and making all premeditated policy futile. And if
he was wrong in supposing that a religion could be
permanently kept down by moderately repressive laws,
that at least was an error that could only be detected by
experiment. His contemporaries believed it to be no
error : and to this day some great men share their belief.
Nor was Bacon's theology so pure and spiritual as to
render it a matter of surprise that on this point he was
no wiser than others.

1 Essay xxxiz. 11. 19-19.

cxvi Introduction

CHAPTER IV

BACON AS A POLITICIAN.

IN civil, as in ecclesiastical policy, Bacon had one main
object, the preservation of the national unity. What was
his ideal, form of government there is little evidence to
determine. He speaks, it is true, with some contempt of
a monarchy -where there is no nobility, associating it with
the hated name of Turks, and calling it a pure and
absolute tyranny* Elsewhere he admits that a republic
may be (not is) a better form of government than a
kingdom. But with such abstract questions as these he
is not concerned : they are idle in comparison with
practical politics. God has appointed different forms of
government, signiories, kingdoms, republics, and the like.
In different forms of government different policies are
needed, and England, being what it is, requires an
English policy. Bacon is not writing (as Machiavelli
writes) a disinterested and passionless treatise upon
mechanical politics (as one may write on the game of
chess), giving rules by which a would-be despot may
acquire power, and retain power, whether rightly or
wrongly. He writes as an English Statesman, recognising,
as essential parts of England, King, Lords, Commons,
and Clergy, and having for his object the preservation or
harmonious development of all members of the body
politic in England.

* Essay xiv. 1. a

2Sacon as a politician cxvii

Bacon therefore was not an upholder of despotism,
nor did he — at least consciously and deliberately — desire
to aggrandise the Crown to the detriment of the other
• Estates of the realm. If he did so occasionally in
practice, it was at all events against his theory and his
own personal nature. It was like his moral slips and
failures — an exception, not the rule. Against any such
aggrandisement, destructive of the symmetry of the
English Constitution, his own Prima Philosophia pro
tested. England was a kingdom, and a kingdom with
nobles and commons is like the starry skies in which the
Primum Mobile moves all things, while yet each planet
has also its private and separate motion ; or again, the
King is a heavenly body, and as such must, like the sun,
move round some centre which it benefits. And, to
stoop from Prima Philosophia to facts and probabilities,
it would be difficult to show that Bacon — whatever may
have been his conduct on one or two occasions —
systematically attempted to make the King independent
of Parliament.

On the contrary, of all the King's servants no one
was more earnest and sanguine in recommending and
almost obtruding Parliaments, even at times when such
recommendations seemed sure to be distasteful to the
King. No number of failures could make Bacon dis
believe in the utility and fitness of frequent convening of
Parliaments. If they failed, it was always, he thought,
because they were not treated rightly. The very Par
liament that caused his fall was summoned with his good
will, and in accordance with his repeated advice. For
to Bacon the Parliament seemed to be the natural
Council for the Crown, appointed by that Providence
which had shaped the national growth. It was to be a
Council ; not a shop, where the King was to barter away
chips and rags of his royal prerogative for his people's

cxviii Introduction

money. Such mercenary notions were no less in
expedient than undignified. Everything that suggested
such notions was to be carefully avoided : the very word
supply was objectionable to Bacon on account of its
undignified associations ; it was better to speak of the
King's need of treasure. The right theory of Parliament
was that all estates of the realm, Clergy, Lords, and
Commons, should be summoned at often recurring
periods by the Sovereign, in order to hear and discuss
his gracious plans and propositions for the welfare of the
realm, and themselves to suggest plans and propositions
of their own. We have seen how Bacon blames the
Bishops for having no bills to offer in Parliament; and
he himself in the Commons went almost out of his way
sometimes to interlace the chaffering and haggling
between Crown and people with bills for the public
service. In the course of the Parliamentary discussions
it would naturally occur, he said, that some honest and
independent member would move a contribution to be
made to the King's treasure : but such matters of routine,
affecting the Crown particularly, ought not to take pre
cedence of the common interests of the realm. The
imperial dictum, what touches us ourself shall be last
served, was to be the model and pattern for the royal
dealings with Parliament : the King ought not to put
himself before his Subjects. Still less ought questions of
supply to be fought about, or made favours of, by any
royal pleadings, or by gifts that were but transparent
veils of bribes.

Here, as elsewhere, it will be both interesting and
useful to compare Machiavelli's views with Bacon's ; and
on this point they seem to be at variance. Looking back
to the old strifes and compromises between Patricians and
Plebeians in the Roman Republic, Machiavelli sees
nothing to be regretted or dreaded (except by superficial

33ncon as a politician cxix

people) in the 'tumultuations' of the different orders of the
Roman people. The excitement, the concourse, the
violent language, and even occasionally the outbreak
into violent action — all this was but the natural friction
between class and class, between interest and interest ;
and, if not essential, it was at least useful for the pro
duction of good laws. The stir of the forum was the
best practical debate : such was Machiavelli's opinion.
But Machiavelli was writing of a republic, Bacon, of a
kingdom. The disorder that was admissible and perhaps
useful for the former, was intolerable in the latter. A
kingdom, let us remember, is to Bacon a model of
heaven : and how can conflict and friction be allowable
in a system where there is established one only source
of motion, the Primum Mobile, to which all other
motions must be subordinate ? Conflict and strife may
be fit for the atomic chaos, not for the cosmic order
shaped by the Mind of the Universe.1

Outside as well as inside the council-hall there was a
place and work for each estate of the realm. A great and
potent nobility addeth majesty to a monarch, but
diminisheth power ; and putteth life and spirit into the
people, but presseth their fortune. Bacon does not join in
Machiavelli's sweeping condemnation of gentlemen. ' I
call those gentlemen,' says the Italian, ' who live idly
and plentifully upon their estates without any care or
employment ; and they are very pernicious wherever they
are.' 2 That might be true in the Italian republics, but
was not true, in Bacon's judgment, as respects the
English kingdom. In a kingdom a little idleness seemed

* Mr. Gardiner (Vol. ii. p. 117) well brings out Bacon's dread of 'an
incoherent mass ' of patriotic legislators, such as might have been looked
for in a supreme House of Commons.

1 Discourses, Book ii. chap. 55. Elsewhere, however, he regrets the
exclusion of the element of tVe nobility by the predominance of the com
mercial element in Florence, as tending to military weakness.

cxx Introduction

advantageous to the military spirit, and, provided they
were not so numerous as to impoverish the nation,
gentlemen were an advantage. Out of all question, the
splendour and magnificence and great retinues and
hospitality of noblemen and gentlemen, received into
custom, doth much conduce unto martial greatness;*
and again, Kings that have able men of their nobility
shall find ease in employing them, and a better slide
into their business ; for people naturally bend to them,
as born in some sort to command? Besides, the nobility
form a kind of breakwater, sheltering the King from
sudden storms of popular fury. A monarchy without
nobility is an institution unworthy of civilised Europe, -
and fit for none but Turks.

As for the middle classes, that is, the merchants and
yeomen, their use and function is still more obvious.
The merchants are the conducting veins that keep up the
circulation of the body of the realm. The yeomen are
the staple of the national armies. Both are to be che
rished. Conversion of arable land to pasturage by rich
landowners must be so limited that the class of yeomen
may not be too much diminished ; for the infantry are the
nerves and sinews of an army, and the infantry are sup
plied by the yeomen. For the same reason States must
take heed how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply too
fast, for that changes the English yeoman into the French
serf : it maketh the common subject to grow to be a peasant
and base swain driven out of heart, and, in effect, but tfie
gentleman's labourer? For this reason also, the nation
must not be too heavily taxed, not only because taxes
may restrict production and trade, but also because it
cannot be that a people overlaid with taxes should ever
become valiant and martial.*

1 Essay xxix. 1. 135. " Essay xxix. 1. 105.

" Essay xiv. 1. 49. 4 Ib. 1. 91.

i3acon as a politician cxxi

It will have been apparent by this time what is the
basis upon which Bacon's national policy is mainly
founded. It is the army. War is regarded by him as
essential to national life. The line of ^Eschylus em
bodying the blessing pronounced by Athene upon her
chosen people, may be taken as the text of Bacon's
political discourses : —

Let there be foreign wars, not scantly coming.

No body, writes Bacon in the Essays, can be healthful
without exercise, neither natural body nor politic : and
certainly to a kingdom or an estate a just and honourable
war is the true exercise. A civil war indeed is like the
heat of a fever ; but a foreign war is like the heat of
exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health; for in a
slothful peace both courages will effeminate and manners
corrupt.^

Here again Machiavelli and Bacon differ, but here
again they differ more in appearance than in reality. To
the Italian, sick with the sight of foreign mercenaries
playing at war with one another through the cities and
dukedoms of his distracted country, and fattening on her
miseries, war seemed less praiseworthy than to Bacon,
and he especially reprobates the professed soldier : ' for
he will never be thought a good man who takes upon him
an employment by which, if he would reap any profit at
anytime, he is obliged to be false and rapacious and cruel.'
But Bacon, to whom a soldier means not a hireling but
an Englishman in arms for his country, speaks even of
a professed soldier with favour : The following by certain
estates of men answerable to that which a great person
himself professeth (as of soldiers to him that hath been
employed in the wars and the like"), hath ever bem a thing

1 Essay xxix. 1. 260.

cxxii Introduction

civil and well taken even in monarchies. Bacon's love
of war, or rather his sense of the necessity of war for
England, pervades all his speeches and treaties, and
influences all his policy. Speaking in 1606-7 x of the
apprehended influx of Scots into England, and deriding
the danger of over population, after mentioning as one
remedy at hand that desolate and wasted kingdom of
Ireland, which doth as it were continually call unto us for
our colonies and plantations, he adds, or to take the worst
effect, look into all stories, you shall find the remedy none
other than some honourable war for the enlargement of
their borders which find themselves bent upon foreign
parts ; which inconvenience in a valorous and warlike
nation I know not whether I should term an inconveni
ence or no ; for the saying is most true, though in another
sense, ' omne solum forti patrza.' And certainly (Mr.
Speaker) I hope I may speak it without offence that, if
we did hold ourselves worthy whensoever just cause
should be given, either to recover our ancient rights or to
revenge our late wrongs, or to attain the honour of our
ancestors, or to enlarge the patrimony of our posterity, we
would never in this manner forget the considerations of
amplitude and greatness, and fall at variance about profit
and reckonings, fitter a great deal for private persons
than for Parliaments and Kingdoms. No passage that
I know of, expresses that multiplicity in unity, that iden
tity of object amid diversity of agents and means, which
was to characterize Bacon's ideal English nation, so
aptly as the well-known extract from the council scene in
Henry V :—

Exeter — For government, though high and low and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close
Like music.

1 Life, VoL iiL p. 314.

i3acon as a ^Bolttictan cxxiii

Canterbury — Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion,
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience : for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent royal of their Emperor.

And with Bacon, as with Henry's councillors, the
natural sequel to such a description of a well-ordered
kingdom appeared to be a summons to war ; ' therefore
to France, my liege.'

Bacon then was not enamoured of despotism ; it was I
a form of government that he despised, as fit for none
but Turks. If he upheld the royal prerogative, he upheld
it (in theory at least) only as part of the body politic, only
as he would have upheld the rights of the Nobility or the
Commons. In practice, no doubt, he went further than
this. His closeness to the throne, his dependence upon
court favour, his eagerness for office, his suppleness of
temper, and his undoubted respect for James and desire
to retain the royal esteem, biassed him unduly to the
side of the crown. But he certainly had no desire to
mine the liberties of England, or prepare the way for a
despotism. As well might it be said that the Liberal
party at that time deliberately desired to bring about a
democracy. In the ample debatable ground that lay
between the royal prerogative and the people's rights,
there were many points over which both honest lawyers
and wise politicians might well contend. If both parties
claimed the disputed territory, and both insisted on a

cxxiv Introduction

definite line of demarcation, it was important that neither
side should gain so complete a victory as to shift the
balance of power. Now the Crown had suffered, and
was clearly likely to suffer more and more, from want of
means. Even under the economical Elizabeth, subsidies
had increased in frequency and amount, and yet had
been found barely sufficient for the purposes of her par
simonious government. Moreover she had recently given
up one source of profit, in surrendering the disputed
monopolies. In these circumstances it wa.s becoming a
serious question whether the control of the purse by the
House of Commons might not gradually subordinate and
weaken the royal power so far as ultimately to dislocate
the machinery of government. To us this danger seems
visionary, or rather it seems not visionary, but not a
danger. But to those who, like Bacon, regarded the
royal power as the Primum Mobile of the political system,
the danger must have seemed very serious indeed.1 The
late Queen who was, in Bacon's eyes, a pattern of
administrative ability by her dignity, her tact, and her
timely concessions, had preserved her prerogative unim
paired. But there seemed a danger lest James might be
less successful, might barter away his prerogative piece
by piece for temporary relief in the shape of subsidies,
thus dangerously revolutionizing the constitution of the
country. To the King himself Bacon plainly hints the
impolicy of his conduct : he entreats his Majesty not to
descend below himself; reminds him pretty plainly of his
promise not to make long speeches to the House ; and,
while he suggests a systematic partition and assignment
of the revenue to its different objects, he urges him at the
same time not to be afraid of his debts, but to be confident
that all will be well if the King will but assume the fitting

1 See note on page cxix.

23acon as a ^politician cxxv

tone of a Prince, the voice of a Common Parent. Bacon
has no faith in any of the wretched expedients by which
Cecil had hoped to render the Crown so wealthy as to be
independent of the Commons. Such independence was
not to be thought of ; King and Parliament ought to be
inseparable, 'high and low and lower congreeing in a full
and natural close.' But then, on the other hand, recogni
tion of the rights of the Commons did not prevent recog
nition of the Royal Prerogative. The time was a critical
one ; a struggle between Crown and People seemed in
the nature of things inevitable. If a treaty was to be
arranged between the two contending powers, it was of
importance that the Crown should come to the conference
without impairing by its own action the advantage secured
to it by the precedents of antiquity.

It was not therefore as a mere courtier, still less as an
enemy to the liberties of England, that Bacon, in sharp
opposition to Coke, stood forward, as he himself says, in
the character of a peremptory royalist? magnifying to the
utmost the royal privileges. In the very passage where
he assumes this title, he prides himself on never having
been for a single hour out of favour with the lower House.
Yet to such extent did he afterwards carry his advocacy,
that his contemporaries spoke in wonder of ' the new
doctrine but now broached ' 2 by the Lord Chancellor,
when he ' took occasion to enlarge himself much upon
the prerogative . . . saying further (whatsoever some
unlearned lawyers might prattle to the contrary) that it
was the accomplishment and perfection of the common
law.' Above all, such are his instructions to the judges,
you ought to maintain the King's prerogative ; and again,
the King's prerogative is law, the principal part of law.
Judges are reminded that they are planets, while the

1 Life, Vol. iv. p. 280. * Ib. Vol vi. p. 118.

cxxvi Introduction

King is Primum Mobile, that first and highest motion
which all the planets or great persons of a kingdom are
to obey, carried swiftly by the highest motions and softly
by their own motion. Do as the planets do, says the
Lord Chancellor to the judges, move always and be carried
with the motion of your first mover, which is your
Sovereign. The same deference inspires the Essay on
Judicature, wherein the judges are instructed to remember
that Salomon's throne was supported by lions on both
sides ; let them be lions, but yet lions under tJte throne,
being circumspect that they do not check or oppose any
points of sovereignty.1 James himself is reminded of his
participation in the celestial nature : If you are heavenly,
you must have influence (i.e. the astral stream supposed
to flow down on mortals from the heavenly bodies). He
is addressed by Bacon as one able to make of him
a vessel of honour or dishonour. Reverence is that where
with princes are girt from God, and no misgovernment
can divest them of their sovereignty ; howsoever Henry
IV.'s act by a secret providence of God prevailed, yet it was
but an usurpation? There are few modern Englishmen
that will not rather sympathize with the sturdy opposition
of Coke, who stoutly refused to give an official opinion to
the Crown on the merits of a case not yet brought before
him, than with the courtly and convenient compliance of
Bacon, however it may have been based upon Prima
Philosophia and dictated by high policy. But it is at
least something to feel that Bacon's political conduct
does not oblige us to regard him either as a hypocrite or
as a covert and deliberate enemy to the liberties of
England.

As regards internal policy, Bacon went with his own
times against the experience of later times in advocating

' Essay xvi. 1. n7. " Life, Vol. v. p. 145.

23acon as a politician cxxvii

what we should now call an excess of the interfering, fos
tering, or paternal element in government. As remedies
for the discontent arising from poverty, he recommends
not only the opening, but also the balancing of trade, and
the cherishing of manufactures. For example, a company
of merchants is to receive a charter for the exportation of
cloths, but only on condition of their being dyed and
dressed in England, so as to keep that trade in English
hands.1 Furthermore, laws are to be made for the banish
ing of idleness, the repressing of waste, the improvement
and husbanding of the soil, the regulating of prices of
things vendible, the moderation of taxes and tributes, and
the like? Wealth is to be diffused; for money is like
muck, not good except it be spread. This is to be done,
chiefly by snpprp^ir^ nr at the least keeping a straight
hand upon the devouring trades of usury, engrossing, great
pasturages, and the like? To govern a country by split
ting it into factions Ts folly ; nevertheless the Commons
ought so far to be maintained and attached to the Crown
that, if ever the giants, or nobles, assail Jupiter, there may
be a ready ally for the sovereign in the multitude, Bria-
reus with the hundred hands. Moderate liberty is to be
allowed for griefs and discontentments, lest the wound
bleed inwards. The higher nobles are to be kept at a
distance, but not to be depressed. The second nobles, *
or gentry, are to be encouraged, for they are a counter
poise to the high nobility: besides, being the most imme
diate in authority with the common people, they do best
temper popular commotions.* Merchants are to be left
untaxed as far as possible; for what one gains directly
by taxing them, one loses indirectly in the diminution of
the wealth of the realm. The King is to beware of med-

Life, Vol. v. p. 171. " Ib. xv. 1. 155.

* Essay xv. 11. 120-6. * Ib. xv. 1. 155.

I. h

cxxviii Introduction

dling with the religion, customs, or means of life of the
Commons. Bacon sees, as Machiavelli saw, that it is not
the occasional acts of despotic outrage that alienate the
subjects from the Prince; it is the ever-present galling
restrictions that worry the tradesman in his shop, the
farmer at his plough, or all men in their households ;
these are the seeds of revolutions and the ruins of States.
Give the Commons assurance in these matters, and there
will be no danger from them. As for men of war, or pro
fessed soldiers, they are not to remain too long together,
nor to be trained in too large masses, nor ought they to
receive pay; but unpaid military bands, trained in small
numbers and at different places, are things of defence and
no danger. To the continuous training of the English
militia, even in times of peace, Machiavelli attributed
their immediate superiority over the trained soldiers of
France ; and Bacon not only recommends the training of
militia, but would also in some measure subordinate even
the industrial pursuits of the kingdom to the purposes of
war. Above all, he says, for empire or greatness it im-
porteth most that a nation do profess arms as their prin
cipal honour, study, and occupation. For this purpose
agriculture must be encouraged, rather than sedentary
and ivithin-door arts and delicate manufactures, which
have in their nature a contrariety to a military disposition.
Military reasons are also given for encouraging naturali
zation : colonies also are regarded as subserving military
ends. Thus, partly by including new subjects, partly by
establishing plantations (not at hazard, nor in knots of
private adventurers, nor for base, present and mechanical
profit, but systematically, as public enterprises, after the
manner of the Greeks or Romans, and for the ultimate
benefit of the whole empire) the Great State that is to be,
is not so much to grow upon the world, as rather the
world is to grow upon the State : that is the sure way of
greatness.

23aton as a politician cxxix

It is noteworthy how naturally, from the internal poli
tics of Bacon's Great State, one is led back again to ex
ternal and military policy. War, we have seen, was in
Bacon's judgment the legitimate exercise for every nation.
But further, it seemed to him the special, need of England
in those days. In his Preface to the Interpretation of
Nature, he speaks of civil wars as a danger impending
upon Europe. In his Diary he twice makes mention of
the inclination of the times to popularity, and of the dis
position to popular Estates creeping on the ground in
many countries. The growing differences between Crown
and Commons in England must have seemed to threaten
that his own country would be first exposed to this visita
tion. Naturally therefore, in order to avert the fever of
civil war, he turns to his favourite remedy, external war.
In his notes on Policy, entered in his Diary during the
year 1608, his first entry refers to the bringing the King
low by poverty and empty coffers?- Then (after propheti
cally glancing at the prospect of revolt or trouble first in
Scotland ; for, till that be, no danger of English discon
tent : in doubt of a war from thence, and after a few other
matters of detail) he makes the following note, Persuade
the King in glory — Aurea condet scecula. The meaning
of these words is clear enough : Bacon is to divert the
King's mind from petty internal disputes to a great and
grand policy; the King is to found a golden age for Eng
land. A few lines further bring us to the secret of this
golden age : the fairest, without disorder or peril, is the
general persuading to king and people, and course of in
fusing everywhere the foundation in this isle of a Mo- ~
narchy in the West, as an apt seat, state, people for it ; so
civilising Ireland, further colonising the wilds of Scot
land, annexing the Low Countries.

1 Life, Vol. iv. p. y3

cxxx Introduction

Video solem orientem in Occidents — I see the sun rising
in the West. Such are the words in which Bacon pro
claims to the King his vision of the great Western
Monarchy that was to be, the champion of liberty and
the bulwark against Roman superstition. It is the
vision of Spenser, the ideal England of Shakspeare and
of Milton. No one of these great poets shrank from
war, or dreamed that England could fulfil her destiny, or
even maintain her position without conflict. The
island of Gloriana was pledged to perpetual war against
Duessa : England's breed of heroes was to be 'famous
and feared,' and the English nation was to be, as it always
had been —

An old and haughty nation proud in arms.

Plf therefore Bacon erred in advocating a warlike
policy for England, he erred in company with no mean
names. It is possible that he was not in error. A policy
that Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton concurred
in feeling to be accordant with the national character —
most modern Englishmen will be slow to impugn. At
least it may be remembered that the war he advocated
was of no ignoble kind, not a war for mere aggrandise
ment, not for mere glory, but for Liberty and Truth.
Here again Bacon would quote an axiom of Prima
Philosophia in defence of his policy : Things move
violently to their place, but easily in their place. When
therefore England had assumed her rightful place as
Head of the Great Protestant Confederacy in Europe,
then she might more easily : till then, it could not be
but that she must move violently.

In later days Bacon was driven from his grand war
like policy. Servants must suit their policy to their
masters, and Bacon served a master who shrank from
war even more than he clung to peace. Accordingly, we

33acon ns a ^politician cxxxi

shall find the versatile pen of the former advocate of war
now inditing royal discourses on the advantages of peace ;
suggesting, for example, as one of the advantages of the
Spanish match, that_it may result in the establishment
of a tribunal of arbitration powerfuTenough to put down
wars in Europe. But not even in those degenerate days"
can Bacon bring himself to give up all thoughts of war.
War against the Turks was still possible ; and in his later
years he resorts to this as his last hope, in his Dialogue
on a Holy War, discussing its possibility and lawfulness.
The treatise is incomplete, and from its nature gives ex
pression to various opinions ; but there is little doubt
that the decision of the completed Dialogue would have
been for war against the Turks, not as the enemies of the
Church but as the enemies of Christendom.1 To the
last therefore Bacon upheld a policy of wan

Such then was Bacon as a politician, no less grand
and lofty in theory, no less supple and compliant in
practice, than Bacon as a philosopher. None will refuse
to his theoretical policy the merit of grandeur and con
sistency. His proposed annexing of the Low Countries
might have engaged England in unnecessary quarrels :
but it might, under a different Sovereign, have facilitated
an understanding between the Crown and the people, and
might have spared England a civil war. But, as we have
seen above, the sanguine self-deception and excessive
flexibility of his nature rendered his theoretical policy of
no practical importance. With perfect ease and without
the slightest sense of degradation, he could turn his lofty
but versatile and discursive mind from the high dreams
of the Monarchy in the West to the prosecution of a

1 Works, Vol. vii. p. 24. Bacon antedated by some centuries the great
event that even now we are only anticipating. There cannot but ensue, he
says, a dissolution in the state of the Turk, whereof the time seemeth to

cxxxii Introduction

patriot who dared to attack Benevolences, from the
golden age of James I. to the disgracing of an inde
pendent judge, and the torturing of a wretched school
master for 'practising to have infatuated the King's
judgment by sorcery,' and while pluming himself upon
his zeal for one who is, without flattery , the best of Kings,
he can add a modest hope that for my honest and true
intentions to state and justice, and my love to my master,
I am not the worst of Chancellors.^

Turn to the Antitheta on Truth,2 and you will there
find two opposite propositions, the one favouring a life of
philosophic study, the other a life of active politics.
There can be no doubt to which side the writer inclined.
The defence of politics runs thus, God cares for the Uni
verse; do you care for your country. A narrow sentiment
utterly unworthy of, and unlike, the character of him who
described himself as born for the service of mankind.
But of philosophy he writes, How blessed it is to have the
orb of the mind concentric with the orb of the Universe.
Here speaks Bacon himself, from his own heart, exactly
describing the pursuit for which he was best fitted, and
in which he would have attained the highest happiness.
This saying can hardly fail to recall to our minds the very
similar epigram written by Goldsmith upon the great
statesman —

Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind,
. And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.

Burke's epigram applies also to Bacon. He too, no less
than Burke, was ' born for the Universe ' ; and, though
he has bequeathed to the Universe , rich and enduring
legacies, yet he too ' narrowed his mind,' first from the
wide expanse of philosophy to the narrower limits of
national politics, and then again from that comparatively

1 Life, Vol. vii. p. 78. ' See Essays, Vol. ii. p. 107.

<J3acon as a ^politician cxxxhi

ample space to the hampering restraints of a petty place-
hunting and time-serving, unworthy of the name of states
manship, ' giving up ' to the defence of the Royal Pre
rogative and to the service of the English Solomon all
that was meant for England, and much that was ' meant
for mankind.'

cxxxir Entrotmctton

CHAPTER V.

BACON AS A MORALIST.

BACON'S moral teaching is greatly influenced by two
teachers, Plutarch (taken as the type of the historians of
Greece and Rome) and Machiavelli. From the last
chapter it will be seen that the morality of his foreign
policy differs little from that of the ancients. Nor will this
be a matter for surprise ; for, until this century, Christian
morality has exercised little influence upon the inter
course of nations. Bacon seems to have followed
I Machiavelli in believing that a State might act towards
I other States without regard to the rules that regulate the
relations of individuals. In part this feeling — which is
shared by many in modern times — may be accounted for
by the absence of any rules for foreign policy in the New
Testament. Christians have, too often, gladly adopted
the belief that they may do as they like, provided what
they like to do is not expressly forbidden in the Scriptures :
and naturally the Scriptures, or at least the Christian
Scriptures, say very little or nothing about the rules of
intercourse between nations. In the absence of any
Christian code, Plutarch and Livy have supplied Rules
to most Christian statesmen, among others to Bacon.
A nation therefore that is to be great, has the example of
Rome held up to it for imitation. A State is not indeed
to make war without pretext ; but, on the other hand, it is

33acon as a Jfloralist cxxxv

to be ready and prest for a quarrel, and not to stand too
nicely upon occasions of war. And as we have seen
above, so far from being an evil to be avoided or a remedy
not to be resorted to but in the last extremity, war is re
garded by Bacon as the natural exercise for every healthy
nation.

The influence of the ancient morality on Bacon is
well illustrated by his treatment of duelling — a habit
common in Christian nations, and very uncommon, or
rather unheard of, in Greece and Rome. Irrespective of the
condemnation pronounced on it by the ancient morality,
duelling was in itself and in its consequences hateful
and abominable in Bacon's eyes. Not bold himself, he
despises and dreads boldness for its vulgar successes, and
because, though it is a child of ignorance and baseness,
far inferior to other parts, nevertheless it doth fascinate
and bind hand and foot those that are either shallow in
judgment or weak in courage, which are the greatest
part. J Further, the scientific side of Bacon's nature,
rejoicing in law and order, was repelled by lawlessness in
every shape. When therefore boldness and lawlessness
combined to encourage a habit so injurious to the military
efficiency of the nation as duelling, Bacon has no words
to express his contempt for it, a contempt that was
doubtless increased by his own passionless disposition,
and by his low sense of human moral nature and its petty
squabbles, coupled with his high sense of the greatness
of the human intellect and its grand mission. But all
these causes of aversion together, even when combined
with the horror felt for duelling by the King — who, to use
his own words, saw himself royally attended every morn-
ning, but did not know how many of his train would be alive
by sunset — scarcely affected him so much as the feeling

1 Essay xii. 1. 16.

cxxxvi Introduction

that Greece and Rome were the true models for all time in
matters of warfare, and that the Greeks and Romans did
not fight duels. A man's life, he says, is not to be
trifled away ; it is to be offered up and sacrificed to
honourable services, public merits, good causes, and noble
adventures. 1 This none will dispute : but there is some
thing not English and not practical in the philosophic
contempt with which Bacon can despise reproaches,
insults, and even blows. As for -words of reproach and
contumely (whereof the He was esteemed none], it is not
credible (but that the orations themselves are extant}
what extreme and exquisite reproaches were tossed up and
down in the Senate of Rome and the places of assembly
and the like in Grcecia, and yet no man took himself
fouled by them, but took them for breath and the style of
an enemy, and either despised them or returned them ;
but no blood spilt about them. So of every touch or light
blow of the person, they are not in themselves considerable ;
save that they have got upon them the stamp of a disgrace,
which maketh these light things pass for great matters.
Th'is is of a piece with his Essay on Anger. As a virtue,
Anger is not recognised by Bacon, and with the Teutonic
or Northern sense of honour he has no sympathy.

(But it is through Machiavelli most of all, that we
arrive at a clear understanding of Bacon's moral system.
For, however Bacon may disavow his master and rebel
against some of the blunt and logical Machiavellian
dicta, yet Machiavelli was unquestionably Bacon's guide,
if not in theoretical, at all events in practical morality.
Protests and recalcitrations are not wanting in Bacon's
more formal and artificial treatises, such as the passage
in which he maintains that it is necessary for men to be
fully imbued with pious and moral knowledge before they

1 Life, Vol. iv. p. 406.

t3acon as a JWoralist cxxxvii

take any part in politics : but the morality of the Essays, \
which are eminently practical, and intended as the Author i
says to come into the business and bosoms of men — is the I
pure and simple morality of Machiavelli. The new art </
of ' policy ' had superseded the old reign of force, and
Machiavelli was the recognised master of the mysteries
of policy. It fell in with Bacon's nature readily to admit
that in politics, no less than in science, knowledge is
power; and the politician must base action on knowledge.
But knowledge in politics seemed to mean knowledge of
men, and that, not knowledge of what men ought to be,
but of men as men are. Moreover, the dangers besetting
a politician arise, not from the virtues, but from the vices
and weaknesses of men. These therefore it seemed that
the politician must take as his special study — human
weaknesses and human vices ; and what man was likely
to know these so well as the historian and politician who
had sounded all the depths of Italian villainy? Some
men might find fault with Machiavelli for undertaking so
odious a task as that of describing the dark side of
human nature : not so Bacon. As in science a man
must take things as they are, not as though they were
what he would like them to be ; so in politics the scien
tific politician must take men as they are, ignoring none
of their faults, however inconvenient and disagreeable ; so
that we are much beholden to Machiavelli and other
writers of that class, who openly and unfeignedly declare
and describe what men do and not what they ought to do
.... for, without this, virtue is open and unfenced. *
f~Tn one respect the morality of Bacon is inferior to that
of Machiavelli'.- The latter is writing for States and
Commonwealths, not for individuals ; or, if for indivi
duals, for individuals regarded as Princes, as public

1 Works, Vol. v. p. 17.

CXXXV111

Introduction

characters. Now, as we have seen above, States and
individuals are regarded as dwelling in different spheres
of morality : consequently Machiavelli's morality is en
tirely unaffected by Christianity. On the morality of
individuals or private morality he rarely touches, except
to deplore the general treachery, falsehood, self-seeking,
and insubordination of modern times as compared with
the truthfulness, the religious reverence, the unselfish
patriotism, and the strict discipline of the old Roman Re
public. Clearly, had Machiavelli written on the morality
of an Italian citizen, he would not have written as he
wrote for his Italian prince. Princes are above laws, and
have no conscience (or rarely can afford to have one) ;
but citizens are on a different footing. In justice to Ma
chiavelli, we are to remember that, when he speaks of
right or wrong, of ' cruelty,' for example, ' well or ill
applied/ he has in his mind either a State or a ruler who
is bound to act like a State, and whose mind is to be so full
of his duty towards his country that he can spare no time
to think of his duty towards himself or towards indivi
duals. Now the rules that Machiavelli has laid down for
Princes and Commonwealths Bacon transfers to private
life, or tries to transfer, not always successfully. The pano
ply of the Machiavellian morality is sometimes too mas
sive and weighty, and hampers the free English nature. It
is the simple shepherd boy unable to move easily in the
royal armour which he has not proved! The native
English sense of the power of truth and righteousness
will at times rebel against and discard the rigid logic of
the morality of selfishness. The divine power of good
ness betrays the student of Machiavellian policy at times
into language not strictly Machiavellian. But, in spite
of these righteous inconsistencies, it is scarcely possible
to read the Discourses and the Essays together without
feeling that the latter stand on the lower level of morality.

23acon as a J&oralist cxxxix

Machiavelli delineates with an unflinching hand the
Art of Advancement for an Empire or a Prince ; Bacon
applies these rules to the mere vulgar object of Advance
ment in Life for individuals, but applies them neither
thoroughly nor consistently. Machiavelli has always in
the background of his Prince the hopes of a redeemed
and united Italy ; in the background of the Essays there
is nothing but Self.

^Through Macfiiavelli we shall arrive at so clear an
understanding of the relation between Bacon's morality
and Bacon's religion, that it is quite worth while to spend
a few moments in considering the attitude of the Author
of the Discourses towards the Christianity of his time.
Both Christianity and Papacy seem to Machiavelli re
sponsible for much evil. The Italian patriot has a keen
sense of the evils brought upon ' poor Italy ' by the Papal
Court, ' by the corruption of which Italy has lost all its
religion and all its devotion ... so that we Italians have
this obligation to the Church and its ministers, that by
their means we are become heathenish and irreligious.'
But it is not the Papal Court alone that is to blame. Chris
tianity itself, or at all events the current form of Chris
tianity, is accused of encouraging effeminacy, of alienating
the choice spirits of the age from active political duties,
of giving prominence to the wicked and unscrupulous,
and of unfitting the whole nation for military service.
' In our religion the meek and humble, and such as devote
themselves to the contemplation of divine things, are
esteemed more happy than the greatest tyrant and the
greatest conqueror upon earth ; and the summum bonum
which the others placed in the greatness of the mind, the
strength of the body, and whatever else contributed to
make men 'active, we have determined to consist in
humility and abjection and contempt of the world ; and
if our religion requires any fortitude, it is rather to enable

cxl Intro&uctfon

us to suffer than to act. So that it seems to me this way
of living, so contrary to the ancients, has rendered the
Christians more weak and effeminate, and left them
as a prey to those who are more wicked and may order
them as they believe ; the most part thinking of Paradise
than of preferment, and of enduring rather than reveng
ing of injuries, as if heaven was to be won rather by idle
ness than by arms.' Justly wroth with 'the poor and
pusillanimous people more given to their ease than to-
anything that was great,5 he indignantly declares that ' if
the Christian religion allows us to defend and exalt our
country, it allows us certainly to love it and honour it, and
prepare ourselves so as we may be able to defend it.' M

In this earnest protest against the parody of
Christianity afforded by the religious life of his day many
sincere Christians will heartily concur with Machiavelli.
But his inferences are more open to objection when he
proceeds to discuss the source whence men are to expect
the Redemption of Italy. Goodness being, as he says,
' ineffectual,' force, mechanical force is the only hope of
salvation : not brute force, it is true, but force directed
and controlled by reason : still, for all that, force. Force
has . ruled the world in past ages : so at least it seems
to him as he turns the pages of history. The flash of
the armour of the Roman legions dazzles his eyes to the
purer brightness of the Star of Israel. Even the history
of the Chosen People, as read by the light of Roman
history, presents itself to him in strange distortions.
' The Scripture shows us that those of the Prophets
whose arms were in their hands and had power to
compel, succeeded better in the reformation which they
designed, whereas those who came only with exhortation
and good language suffered martyrdom and banishment

1 Discourses ii. 2.

t3acon as a Jfloraltst cxli

... . as in our day it happened to Friar Jerome
Savonarola, who ruined himself by his new institutions
as soon as the people of Florence began to desert him.
For he had no means to confirm those who had been of
his opinion, nor to constrain such as dissented.' What
then must that Prince do who desires a prosperous
reign ? He must take the ways of the world.1 ' Those
ways are cruel and contrary, not only to all civil, but to
Christian and indeed human conversation ; for which
reason they are to be rejected by everybody : for cer
tainly 'tis better to remain a private person than to make
oneself king by the calamity and destruction of one's
people. Nevertheless, he who neglects to take the first
good way, if he will preserve himself, must make use of
the bad ; for though many Princes take a middle way
betwixt both, yet they find it extreme, difficult, and
dangerous. For being neither good nor bad, they are
neither feared nor beloved, and so, unlikely to prosper.'
And, as ' the first good way ' is very seldom adopted, the
conclusion at which Machiavelli at last arrives, and
which embodies the practical morality of Bacon's Essays,
is expressed in these memorable words : ' The present
manner of living is so different from the way that ought
to be taken, that he who neglects what is done to follow
what ought to be done, will sooner learn how to ruin
than how to preserve himself. For a tender man and one
that desires to be honest in everything, must needs run a
great hazard among so many of a contrary principle.
Wherefore it is necessary for a Prince that is willing to
subsist, to harden himself and learn to be good or
otherwise, according to the exigence of his affairs.' 2
This is a summary of Machiavelli's morality for Princes,
and what Machiavelli meant for Princes Bacon transfers
to individuals.

1 Discourses \. 26. ' The Prince, xv.

cxlii Imrotwcttott

It is true that, as we have said, Bacon seldom speakb
out quite so straightforwardly as this. The Machiavellian
thoroughness somewhat repels him, and drives him into
inconsistency. He even censures his teacher for teaching
Evil Arts. We must remember, he says, that all virtue
is most rewarded, and all wickedness most punished in
itself. To be freed from all the restraints of virtue may
open a short straight path to fortune : but it is in life as
it is in ways ; the shortest way is commonly the foulest
and tmtddiest, and surely the fairer way is not much
about. Such maxims as these of Machiavelli that, ' the
surest way is to waive all moderation, and either to
caress or extinguish ;' or again, ' when the injury extends
to blood, threatening is very dangerous and much more
so than downright execution ; for when a man is killed,
he is past thinking of revenge, and those who are alive
will quickly forget him ; but when a man is threatened
and finds himself under a necessity of suffering, or doing
something extraordinary, he becomes immediately dan
gerous'1 — are revolting to Bacon's sense of goodness
and pity. He will have none of Machiavelli's Evil Arts
of ' cruelty well applied.' But yet he is too well aware of
the fatal disadvantages besetting 'a tender man, and one
that desires to be honest in everything.' Therefore he
will go some way, though he cannot go all lengths, with
his teacher. A man is above all things — so much
Bacon admits — not to show himself disarmed and exposed
to scorn and injury by too much goodness and sweetness
of nature.'* A little dissimulation is almost necessary to
secrecy, simulation must be allowed where there is no
remedy : and, though some persons of weaker judgment,
and perhaps too scrupulous morality, may disapprove of
it, yet the Art of Ostentation, or showing oneself off to

1 Discounts iii. 6. ' Works, Vol. v. p. 69.

£3aton as a JWoraltst cxliii

the best advantage, is not to be despised. He will not
imitate Machiavelli in recommending Evil Arts, but
these are none : these he calls Good Arts. It is no Evil
Art, for example, but mere praiseworthy prudence, in the
matter of friendship, to bear in mind that ancient precept
of Bias, not construed to any point of perfidiousness, but
only to caution and moderation. Love as if you were
sometime to hate, and hate as if you were sometime to
love. For it utterly betrays and destroys all utility for
men to embark themselves too far in unfortunate friend
ships, troublesome and turbulent quarrels, and foolish and
childish jealousies and emulations. Bacon then, as well
as Machiavelli, is aware of the necessity that ' one must
harden oneself if one is to subsist.' In his Essays on
Conduct he holds up no ideal of life : he is even less of
an idealist here than in his formal treatises ; for he is
writing things of a nature whereof a man shall find much
in experience, little in books. The Volume of Essays is
what Bacon called the Architect of Fortune, or the
Knowledge of Advancement in Life, set forth in a shape
fit to come home to men's business and bosoms.

I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate
civil enfls : so Bacon wrote in his youth. In his later
life he might, with as great or greater truth, have con
trasted his vast contemplative ends with his moderate
moral ends. Very melancholy is the contrast between
his unflagging hopes of the intellectual Kingdom of Man
and the dreary hopelessness with which he regards old
age. To believe him, human life is a lesson in evil, and
men are the worse for having lived : with such a deliberate
sadness does he prefer youth to age. To be serious, he
says, youth has modesty and a sense of shame, old age is
somewhat hardened; a young man has kindness and mercy,
an old man has become pitiless and callous; youth has a
praiseworthy emulation, old age ill-natured envy ; youth
i. i

cxliv Introduction

is inclined to religion and devotion by reason of its fervency
and inexperience of evil, in old age piety cools throtigh
the lukewarmness of charity and long intercourse with
evil, together with the difficulty of believing ; a young
man's wishes are vehement, an old man's moderate ;
youth is fickle and unstable, old age more grave and con
stant', youth is liberal, generous, and philanthropic, old
age is covetous, wise for itself, and self-seeking ; youth is
confident and hopeful, old age diffident and distrustful ; a
young man is easy and obliging, an old man churlish and
peevish ; youth is f tank and sincere, old age cautious and
reserved ; youth desires great things, old age regards
those that are necessary ; a young man thinks well of the
present, an old man prefers the past; a young man
reverences his superiors, an old man finds out their faults}-
In his Essays the same verdict is more generally but no
less distinctly pronounced : Age doth profit rather in the
powers of understanding than in the virtues of the will
and affections ; 8 and again, though here less emphatically,
for the moral part perhaps youth will have the pre
eminence, as a%e hath for the politic? A confession of
this kind strikes at the root of the hopes of moral im
provement It is as though the general had despaired
of the Republic before going forth to fight her battles.
It is not thus that the victories of Science have been
won.

The secret of the Christian morality is the creed ex
pressed by Shakspeare, that —

There is a soul of goodness in things evil
If one had power to distil it out.

But Bacon had not this faith, and therefore not this
power. He had not realised, inherent in men's hearts,
the divine faculty of calling out goodness in the bad by

1 Workt, Vol. v. p. 380. * Essay xiii. 1. 54. * Essay xlii. 1. ^rr

<J3acon as a .Ploraltst cxlv

believing that goodness is there, and that no bad man is
altogether bad. With his would-be scientific eye he
looked on things as they were, not as they ought to be, and
what he saw was, in his own words, all things full of
treachery and ingratitude. Nay, he did not do humanity
even the justice to look at it scientifically : for his glance
was too superficial to give him scientific insight. Much
that is noble in humanity was ignored by him because
it was not on the surface. Just as, in physical science,
he pronounces that the moon's light gives no warmth
because he 'cannot feel it, and that heated iron has no ex
pansion because he cannot see it ; so, in morals, he ignores
the purifying influence of age, and trials, and the love of
wife and children, and the death of friends and parents,
because he himself has not experienced this influence.
Being himself cold and unimpassioned (except in scientific"1
matters) and unsympathetic, and in a word so devoted
to the interests of mankind at large that he had no time
to think of individuals — he was too short-sighted to dis
cern in others those purifying results of which he was not
conscious in himself. Hence it was that he showed him
self inferior to Aristotle in allowing himself to be imposed
upon by the superficial goodness of childhood and youth —
those raw and unripe virtues which can only be called
virtues by hopeful anticipation. In his own life he had
realised the hardening and corrupting effects of the
politics of his time upon his developed manhood ; and
he speaks from experience when he prefers youth to old
age. He had not to look back, as many have, upon a
youth dissolute or wasted, but upon early days of high
hopes, pure ambitions, and unremitting labours. To him
old age had brought no amendment of past errors, no
exemption from excesses or frivolities ; but it had trifled
away the faculties and preparations of his youth, diverted
him from the work for which he was fit to a work for

cxlvi Introduction

which he was unfit, and, in return for this, it had dulled
his conscience and taught him nothing but how to ' harden
himself in order to subsist.'

Therefore, however much he may laud Truth and
Goodness, he lauds them as ideals, and as ideals to which
not only none can approximate, but also none must en-
j deavour to approach too close if they wish to study
'..Advancement in Life. Of all virtues and dignities of
the mind, Goodness, he admits, is the greatest, being
the character of the Deity ; and without it- man is a busy,
mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of
vermin. But, on the other hand, extreme lovers of their
country or masters -were never fortunate, neither can they
be. In the same way, clear and round dealing is the
honour of man's nature ; but, on the other hand, no man
can be secret except he give himself a little scope of dis
simulation. As for politicians, in thejn, tortuosity and
deceit, and indeed envy and malignity, are almost matters
of necessity : such (envious) dispositions are the very
errors of human nature, and yet they are the fittest timber
to make great Politiqties of, like to knee-timber that is good
for ships, that are ordained to be tossed, but not for build
ing houses that shall stand firm. It is true that he adds
that it is the weaker sort of politics that are the great
dissemblers ; and he shows at times a high moral and
intellectual contempt for the small wares of cunning
politicians. Nothing, he says, doth more hurt in a State
I than that cunning men pass for wise. But, in his Essay
on Truth, he is obliged to admit that mixture of false-

\ hood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may
make the metal work the better, though the metal is de
based by it. And in practice Bacon found it necessary

' to use this alloy.

Pity therefore is the most prominent feeling in Bacon's
views of mankind — a pity that never degenerates into

as a JWornlist cxlvii

scorn or contempt, but never quite rises into love. He
is no Timon ; he has no quarrel against mankind ; he
does not accuse them of any great crimes or foul innate
depravities —simply of weakness, folly, and ignorance, re
sulting in general inability to resist the temptations of
selfishness. There is in human nature generally more of
the fool than of the wise.1 Yet from this folly there in
evitably issues immorality : pity in the common people, if
it run in a strong stream, doth ever cast up scandal and
envy? At the best, the morality of the masses must be
very low; most people understand not many excellent
"virtues ; the lowest virtues draw praise from them ; the
middle virtues work in them astonishment or admira
tion ; but of the highest virtues they have no sense or per
ceiving at all. Towards such poor creatures anger is out
of place. Like the Wise Man in the New Atlantis, who
had an aspect as though he pitied men, so Bacon pities
men partly for their physical and bodily pains, partly for
their intellectual blindness, but partly also for their mean
nesses, their spiteful ways, their envious jealousies, their
petty and unprofitable selfishness. But he pities their
morality, without much hope of amendment. For their
physical and intellectual bondage he has his remedies,
can hold out hopes of a complete Redemption offered by
his Gospel of the Kingdom of Man; but to cure our
moral diseases, he refers us almost exclusively to religion;
and unfortunately religion is carefully excluded from the
treatise that is to pass into the bitsiness and bosoms of
men. The Unity of Religion, as a subject of political in
terest, has, it is true, a whole Essay devoted to it ; but
Religion, as a practical influence on conduct, is scarcely
mentioned. Even Atheism is regarded rather as an in
tellectual and political, than as a moral disadvantage : it

1 Essay xii. 1. 12.

' Works, Vol. vi. p. 203 ; Life, Vol. iii. p. 137.

cxlviii Introduction

destroys magnanimity and the raising of man's nature,
we are told ; and then the Romans are held up as a spe
cimen to show how political greatness can be furthered
by devoutness in religion. In the De Augmentis there
are several passages that plainly recognise Christian love
as a powerful reforming influence; but such passages are
rarely to be found in the Essays. Nowhere is the hope
lessness of pity more prominent than in the Essays on
Anger and on Revenge. Anger, according to Bacon, is
an irremediable baseness of human nature. To seek to
extinguish it is a mere folly, a boast or bravery of the
Stoics. It is natural and incurable, but still a baseness, a
thing to be pitied in others, and to be ashamed of in one
self. That in certain circumstances it is right to be
angry, and that anger in these circumstances is a virtue,
a just tribute payable to one's faith in human goodness,
does not seem to have occurred to Bacon. Men are born,
he thinks, to be selfish, sometimes born to be malevolent.
What then? They cannot help themselves, and why
should a man be angry with them for what they cannot
help ? Why, he asks, should I be angry with a man for
loving himself better than me? And if any man should
do wrong merely out of ill nature, why yet it is but like
the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch because they
can do no other ? . . . What would men have f Do they
not think they will have their own ends, and be truer to
themselves than to them ? And with the same leniency
with which he judges others he judges himself. To be a
little ostentatious, a little cunning, and a little selfish ; to
scatter a false fame, so that it may slide for politic ends,
to gain credit easily by gaining it at the expense of rivals;
to study the ways and weaknesses of one's neighbours,
so as to use them for one's own purposes — all these are
venial faults, say rather not faults at all, but Good Arts,
commendable in men who desire to avoid the base and

23acon as a JWoraltst cxlix

useless life of contemplation foolishly preferred by Aris
totle, and who have resolved to make themselves the
Architects of their own Fortunes by learning the science
of Advancement in Life.

Surely Montaigne is wiser in obeying his instinct as a
French gentleman, than Bacon in following his Seven
Precepts of the Architect of Fortune. Montaigne, as well
as Bacon, has a strong sense of the imperfections of
humanity, and of the apparent necessity of meeting false
hood with falsehood in politics ; but let others bow in the
house of Rimmon, he will not. ' In matters of policy,' he
says, ' some functions are not only base, but faulty; vices
find therein a seat, and employ themselves in the stitch
ing up of our frame, as poisons for the preservation of
our health. If they become excusable, because we have
need of them, and that common necessity effaceth their
true property, let us resign the acting of this part to hardy
citizens, who stick not to sacrifice their honours and con
sciences, as these of old their lives, for their country's
avail and safety. We that are more weak had best
assume tasks of more ease and less hazard. The com
monwealth requireth some to betray, some to lie, and
some to massacre : leave we that commission to people
more obedient and more pliable.' 1

Of the reform and amendment of human nature Bacon
treats in the De Augmentis? He there deals with the
Culture of the Mind, mapping out the subject into three de
partments. First, the different characters of natures and
dispositions ; second, the knowledge touching the affections
and perturbations ; third, the remedies or cures. Under
the third head, custom and habit come prominently for
ward ; and precepts are given for the formation of habits.
Mention is also made of a different kind of culture, con-

* Florio's Montaigne, p. 476. • Works, Vol. v. p. 29.

el Introduction

sisting of the cherishing of the good hours of the mind, and
the obliteration of the bad. Here Religion steps in, and the
discussion ends with that remedy which is of all others
the most compendious, nobh and effectual, which is, the
electing and propounding unto a man's self good and
•virtuous ends of his life and actions, such as may be in a
reasonable sort -within his compass to attain. This
remedy is the only natural one, for it alone works as
Nature works, making the whole man grow in all his parts,
whereas the hand of art makes the statue grow limb by
limb. To take an instance, applying ourselves to virtue
by the method of habit we improve ourselves, say in
temperance, but not in fortitude ; or in fortitude, but not
in justice : but applying ourselves to Goodness as the
object of life, we grow in all our faculties together, in
every virtue that goodness suggests. Above all other
religions the Christian faith, he says, imprints upon men's
souls this Goodness or Charity, which includes all other
virtues, and is so good a teacher, that if a man's mind be
truly inflamed with charity it raises him to greater
perfection than all the doctrines of morality can do. Of
all virtues Charity alone admits of no excess ; for by
aspiring to a similitude of God in goodness or love,
neither angel nor man ever transgressed or shall
transgress.

In the Essays1 we find the same praise of Charity or
Goodness, but not the same power attributed to it.
Cautions are given against the errors of an habit so
excellent, for an excess of goodness may be a man's ruin
in this evil world. The love of self, Bacon reminds us,
is made by divinity the pattern of the love of our neigh
bour, and he warns us against sacrificing the former to
the latter : beware how in making the portraiture thou

* Essay xiii. 1. 33.

33acon as a Jttoraltst cli

Weakest the pattern^ But the power of Custom as a
moral agent is repeatedly and emphatically recognised,
as well as the powerlessness of mere force, or of doctrine
and discourse. Both in the Essays and in the De
Augmentis too little importance is attached to the.
influence of great leaders of thought upon the common
people. Even in the De Augmentis, where religion is
touched upon, it is not recognised that the motive force
of Christianity is of the nature of an allegiance, a loyal
and loving devotion towards a Leader ; and in the
Essays, as we have seen, Religion is scarcely recognised
as an influence upon conduct, except in the form of
Superstition, where it is bitterly assailed as the great
enemy of nations. We may look also in vain through
the Essays for any recognition that the purity of family
life is the only permanent basis for national greatness.
Love is, in his pages, nothing but the child of folly, to be
kept at a distance, and, if it cannot be wholly excluded,
at least to be severed wholly from serious affairs and
from actions of life. Friendly love, it is true, perfecteth
mankind ; but of nuptial love he can say no more than
that it maketh mankind. As for the hopes and fears of a
second life they are as completely absent from these
pages as they are from the Pentateuch. Even the
sceptical, philosophic Hamlet cannot talk of death
without the thought of the dreams that may come after
it : but of all such thoughts, and all their influence on
mankind, Bacon has no more to say than that the con
templation of death as a passage to another existence is
holy and religious. After this preliminary tribute to
convention, Bacon passes into himself again, and has
nothing to utter on death that might not have been
written by Plutarch, or Seneca, or even Pliny. The

1 Essay xiii. 1. 44.

clii Introduction

same sharp contrast between Bacon using the con
ventional language of religion and Bacon speaking in his
own person, is noticeable in his Preface to the History of
Life and Death, where almost in the same breath he
speaks of the preservation of life as a subject of pre
eminent importance, and yet apologizes for undertaking
so slight a task on the plea that, although we Christians
ever aspire and pant after the land of promise, yet
meanwhile it will be a mark of God's favour if, in our
pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world, these
our shoes and garments (I mean our frail bodies} are as
little worn out as possible. And again, a few lines further
on, though the life of man is only a mass and accumula
tion of sins and sorrows, and they who aspire to eternity
set little value on life, yet even we Christians should not
despise the continuance of works of charity. There is no
evidence to prove, but much to disprove, that Bacon set
little value on life, or that he considered life as being
only a mass and accumulation of sins and sorrows.
When he was dangerously ill, we know that he was very
glad to recover. But it would not be fair to infer that
he was a hypocrite. If he was, ninety-nine out of a
hundred Christians are hypocrites now. But these
passages have been brought forward not to show that he
was insincere (which he was not), but to show that no
stress must be laid upon set and formal religious expres
sions used by Bacon in accordance with conventional
thought. All the tributes paid to religion, all the direct
and laboured recognitions of its power and utility, that
can be strung together out of his formal and elaborate
compositions on lofty philosophic theories, cannot out
weigh the indirect evidence of neglect and indifference
that is derived from the conspicuous absence of religion
recognised as a motive power in this little volume that
was to come into the business and bosoms of men.

23acon as a JWoralist cliii

Yet, in a vague way, both Machiavelli and Bacon do
discern a certain regenerating influence, that of the many
on the one ; the spirit of self-sacrifice developed among
individuals working together in bodies for common ob
jects. More than once Machiavelli speaks as though a
commonwealth were not only superior to a Prince in
wisdom and constancy, but also endowed with some
supernatural power of engendering virtue. Give him
but a well-governed commonwealth, and all virtue seems
to him ' not difficult to be introduced.' In answer to
the question, ' What are those things that you would
introduce according to the example of our ancestors ?'
the reply made by Machiavelli is, 'to honour and
reward virtue ; not to despise poverty ; to value order
and discipline of war ; to constrain citizens to love
one another ; to live without factions ; to postpone
all private interest to the public welfare ; and several
other things that may be easily accommodate with our
times. And these things are not difficult to be intro
duced, provided it be done deliberately and by right
means, because in these the truth is so manifest and
apparent that the commonest capacity may apprehend
it ;' 1 thus speaks Machiavelli, having in his mind the
small Greek cities of antiquity, and contemplating the
erection of other similar cities in Italy, little republics
where each citizen might preserve his own individuality
as judge and counsellor, and yet in the common contest
against surrounding enemies the whole mass might be
one, man bound to man by ties almost as strong as those
of the ideal Christian Church. But Bacon has before
him a different prospect. Writing, as he always writes
on politics, with England in his mind, and perceiving that
great kingdoms, though they may preserve, cannot en-

1 Art of War, Book i. Machiavelli speaks in the person of Fabritio, a.
character in the dialogue.

ciiv Introduction

gender, that social spirit of self-sacrifice which thrives on
neighbourhood, he turns elsewhere for the school of
custom. He sees it dimly in some smaller societies or
corporations. He could wish to see such institutions as
the Monastic orders, now perverted to superstitious ends,
turned to their lawful end, the introduction of Goodness,
the ' constraining ' of citizens to love one another. Col
legiate custom is to be a great reforming influence ; for
if the force of custom simple and separate be great, the
force of custom copulate and conjoined is far greater. For
there, example teacheth, company comforteth, emtilation
quickeneth, glory raiseth; so as, in such places, the force
of custom is in its exaltation. Certainly the great multipli
cation of -virtues upon human nature resteth upon societies
•well ordained and disciplined. For commonwealths and
good governments do nourish virtue grown, but do not
much mend the seeds. But the misery is that the most
effectual means are now applied to the ends least to be
desired. *

It is to be regretted that Bacon has not entered more
into detail as to the places and the means by which Col
legiate Custom might be brought to bear upon men.
In schools, if anywhere, such custom is in its exaltation ;
yet of schools the Essays contain no mention. Indeed,
Bacon seems to have attached little importance to the
sowing of the educational seed broad-cast through Eng
land as it had been sown in Scotland. Writing on
the bequest of Sutton, which originated Charterhouse
School, he says that Grammar-schools are too numerous
already, and no more are needed. In part, his indiffer
ence to schools may have arisen from his dislike of the
narrow and barren routine of the school-learning of those
days ; but it would be quite characteristic of that indiffer-

1 Essay xxxix. 1. 53.

23acon as a Jttoraltst civ

ence to details which we have recognised as part of his
nature, that with his gaze fixed on the loftier secrets of
science, he should have no eyes for the petty matters of
children and childish training. He looks to men and to
the training of men, and to endowed Professors at the
Universities, and to immediate fruit from the tree of
Science. But, if he had not chosen to draw the line so
sharply between religion and conduct, he, with his broad
and unbiassed views of church government, might have
found ready to his hands a grand instrument for Colle
giate Custom in the Christian congregation utilised for
the purposes of philanthropic action. Such colleges fur
nish us our nearest approach to the corporate action of
the old Greek cities, and, without some such supplement,
the influence of the nation is insufficient for the develop
ment of the individual.

Both Bacon and Machiavelli seem to me to prove
that the ablest men must work under great disadvantages
in endeavouring to teach morality without reference to
Christianity. Both try to work like practical men, like men
of science, taking men as they are, and facts as they are,
observing everything, ignoring nothing : but, in spite of
all their efforts, both are eminently unscientific and un
practical. They leave out of account a thousand latent
things ; they ignore the subtler side of human nature ;
they are ignorant of the rudiments of the passions ; they
have not even learned the meaning of love, which is
the alphabet of morality. Hence both teacher and
pupil underrate the difficulties of the problem before
them. Men are regarded by them as machines, and
we have found Machiavelli actually speaking of ' con
straining citizens to love one another.' Both are far
too scientific to encourage aspirations, or to hold up
ideals. If they cannot attain the best, they will not
strive after it, nor trouble themselves with the thought of

clvi Introtmctfon

it, but they will aim at the best possible, at ' things easy
to be introduced,' says the Teacher : or, as the Pupil
puts it somewhat less confidently, at good and virtuous
ends, such as may be in a reasonable sort within a man's
compass to attain. To aim at the unattainable, and to
make success consist in failures more and more ap
proximating to successes — this was not a course that
commended itself to either of these mechanical moralists.
Machiavelli holds up by way of warning the failures of
Savonarola, who ruined himself by his new institutions,
and perished because he would not resort to violence to
enforce them ; and Bacon also censures those too scrupu
lous persons who dislike the arts of morigeration and
ostentation, and who prefer to lead retired lives rather
than study the Architect of Fortune : yet Savonarola
did more than Machiavelli for Italian morality and
therefore for Italian freedom ; and, if we could see into
the invisible causes of national greatness, if we could but
weigh, for example, the influence of Bacon's life and
character upon the court of James the First ; could we
trace the influence of the supple, versatile, dissimulating
and simulating Chancellor upon the plastic mind of the
young Prince who afterwards rent England asunder by
his falseness, we might not find it impossible to believe
that England owes less to Bacon than to Sir Thomas
More.

Yet for the Universe he was, and will always remain,
a colossal benefactor. His influence on the search after
Truth may be more easily felt than described ; but it will
never cease to be felt as long as the De Augmentis and
the Novum Organum continue to inspire their readers
with their sublime hopes and aspirations. The Universe
cannot — must not, in justice to Truth — ignore the moral
defects of its benefactor ; but it will learn to recognise
beneath them, a childlike hopefulness and simplicity ren-

33acon as a Jtfloraltst civil

dering him happily blind to difficulties as well as un
happily blind to inconvenient distinctions ; a genuine
kindliness to inferiors ; a desire to think well of superiors ;
towards all a vast, serene, yet pitying philanthropy ; and,
lastly, a high unselfish and deliberate purpose, long ad
hered to in spite of many temptations, left for a time but
never utterly deserted, and in the end returned to, after a
chastening retribution, with such a heartfelt penitence
that, in spite of all shortcomings, the human heart is
drawn towards him rightly or wrongly as towards a man
not only great, but also, in a manner, good.

THE

ESSAYS

COVNSELS

CIVIL AND

MORAL,
OF

FRANCIS LORD VERULAM,
VISCOUNT 5'. ALBAN.

— - —

Newly enlarged.

LONDON,

Printed by IOHN HAVILAND for

HANNA BARRET, and RICHARD

WH I TAKER, and are to be sold

at the sign of the Kings head in

Pauls Church-yard. 1625.

clxi

To
The Rig/lt Honourable my very good Lord the DUKE

EXCELLENT LORD,

SALOMON says, A good name is as a precious ointment •
and i assur e myself such will your Grace's name be with
posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been

ZThi^ you£ave planted things like to la" ™°

>ow publish my Essays, which, .of all my works have

toemen'°SStbCUrrent' V^ M ft —' th^ co- home
mens business and bosoms. I have enlarged them

nmb

new orth,'

new work. I thought it therefore agreeable t

umversa language) may last as long as books laft My
Instauration I dedicated to the King; my Historv of

-nteonL^SeVrth (Whl'Ch I haVe — alJo transited
Prin Latm)/1?d ^ P°rtions of Natural History, to the
nnce; and these I dedicate to your Grace, being of he
best fru,ts that, by the good increase which God

' ""

Your Grace's most obliged and faithful servant,

Fr. ST. ALBAN.

clxiii

tfumiers marked * refer to the pages in tht second valumr.

PAGE

Of Trave^

PACK
60

' 2

Of Death .

Of Empire . . .

<y Unity in Religion .

Of Counsel.

Of Revenge . . .

Of Delays . . .

Of Adversity

Of Cunning

Of Simulation and

Of Wisdom for a

Dissimulation . .

Man's Self . . .

Of Parents and Chil

Of Innovations .

dren

Of Dispatch '. . .

Of Marriage and

Of Seeming- Wise

Single Life

/°7

Of Friendship . .

Of Envy . . .

Of Expense

Of Love

Of the true Greatness

•

Of Great Place . .

of Kingdoms and Es

Of Boldness .

tates . . . .

102

Of Goodness, and Good

Of Regiment of Health

ness of Nature . .

Of Suspicion

Of Nobility .

Of Discourse . . .

Of Seditions and Trou

Of Plantations .

10*

bles . . . .

Of Riches . . .

14*

-16

Of Atheism

Of Prophecies

18*

Of Superstition . .

Of Ambition . . .

22*

clxiv

• 37

Of Masks and Tri

vjtwa

Of Suitors

umphs . . .

25*

.X
yS°

Of Studies .

. 38

Of Nature in Men

28*^

Of Faction

Of Custom and Edu

Of Ceremonies

and

cation

31*

Respects

. 40

Of Fortune

34*

Of Praise .

Of Usury-.. .
Of Youth and Age .
Of Beauty . . .

37*
42*

45*

54 Of Vain-Glory . .
j£ Of Honour and Repu
tation

Of Deformity .

47*

Of Judicature

Of Building . . .

49*

Of Anger .

Of Gardens

54*

Of Vicissitudes

Of Negotiating . .

62*

Things

Of Followers and

Friends .

65*

87*

99*

Of Fame, a fragment.

ESSAYS

WHAT_i^Tritt2il said jesting Pilate ; and would not stay
foTaiianswen Certainly there be that delight in giddi
ness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief ; affecting
IreeTwill in thinking, as well as in acting, And, though
the sects^of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there s
remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same
veins ; though there be not so much blood in them as
was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the
difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of
truth— nor, again, that, when it is found, it imposeth upon 10
men's thoughts— that doth bring lies in favour ; but a J
natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the
later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and
is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men
should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, 15
as with poets, nor with advantage, as with the merchant,
but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell : this same truth
Is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the
masques and mummeries, and triumphs of the world,
half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may 20

I. B

perhaps come to the pr/ce of a' pearl, that sheweth best
by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or
carbuncle that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture
of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt,

25 that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions,
flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one
would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a
number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy
and indisposition, and unpieasing to themselves ? One

30 of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum^ dee-
monum, because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but
with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth
through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth
in it, that doth the hurt such as we spake of before. But

35 howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judg
ments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge
/itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth (which is the
love-making, or wooing of it) the knowledge of truth
(which is the presence of it) and the belief of truth

uo (which is the enjoying of it) is the sovereign good of
human nature. The first crgatag of God, in the works
of the days, was the light of the sense ; the last was the
light of reason ; and his Sabbath work, ever since, is the
illumination of his spirit. First he breathed light upon

45 the face of the matter, or chaos ; then he breathed light
into the face of man; and jtill he breatheth and inspireth
light into the face of his chosen. The poet, that beauti
fied the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith
yet excellently well, It is a pleasure to stand upon the

50 shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea ; a pleasure to
stand in the window of a castle, and to see the battle,
and the adventiires thereof below ; but no pleasure is com
parable to the standing upon the -vantage ground of truth
(a hill not! to be commanded, and where the air is always

55 clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings.

Essay i] ©f {Tfrttt& 3

and mists, and tempests, in the -vale below ; so always
that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or
pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's
mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon
the poles of truth. 60

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to
the truth of civil business, it will be acknowledged, even
by those that practise it not, that clear and round deal-
ing is the honour of man's nature, and that mixture oft
falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which p
may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it.\
For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of
the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly, and not
upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a
man with shame as to be found false and perfidious ; ?°
and therefore ^lontaigne saith prettily, when he inquired
the reason why the word of the lie should be such a dis
grace and such an odious charge — saith he If it be well
weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say
that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards ^s
man ; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely
the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot
possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the
last peal to call the judgments of God upon the genera
tions of men : it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, 80
He shall not find faiih^ttpon the earth.

MEN fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and
as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so
is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the
wages of sin and passage to another world, is holy and
religious ; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature,
. { Jj,is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes
i A \ v mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall ^read in

^ some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man
should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but

10 his finger's end pressed or tortured, and thereby imagine
what the pains of death are when the whole body is cor
rupted and dissolved ; when many times death passeth
with less pain than the torture of a limb. For the most
vital parts are not the quickest of sense : and by him

is that spake only as a philosopher ajidnatm^iljpiaB* it was
Well said, Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa.
Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and
friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like,
shew death terrible.

It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in

Essay 2] ®

the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the
fear of death : and therefore Death Is no such terrible
enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him
that can win the combat j)f him. Revenge triumphs^
over death ; love slights it ; honour aspireth to it ; griefjas
flieth to it ; fear preoccupateth it ; nay, we read, after\
Otho the Emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the
tenderest of affections) provoked many to die out of mere
compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of
followers. Nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety : 30
Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris ; mori velle, non tantum
fortis, atit miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest. A man
would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable,
only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over
and over. It is no less worthy to, observe, how little 35
alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make;
for they appear to be the same men up to the last instant.
Augustus Caesar died in a compliment : Lima, conjugii\
nostri memor vive, et vale. Tiberius in dissimulation, as
Tacitus saith of him, fam Tiberium -vires et corpus, non -
dissimulatio, deserebant. Vespasian in a jest, sitting
upon the stool, Ut puto Deusfio. Galba with a sentence,
Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani, holding forth his neck.
Septimius Severus in dispatch, Adeste, si quid mihi restat
agendum. And the like. 45

Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon
death, and by their great preparations made it appear
more fearful. Better saith he Qui finem vitcs extremum
inter munera ponat Natures. It is as natural to die as to
be born : and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as 30
painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit,
is like one that is wounded in hot blood : who, for the
time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed
and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the
dolours of death. But, above all, believe it, the sweetest

6 <SH IBeatf) [Essay 2

canticle is, Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained
worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also,
that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth
envy:

— Extinctus amalitur idem.

Ill
fn

RELIGION being the chief band of human society, it is a
happy thing when itself is well contained within the true
band of unity. The quarrels and divisions about religion
were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was,
because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in $
rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief. For
you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when
the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the
poets. But the true God had this attribute that he is
a-jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion to
will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore
speak a few words concerning the Unity of the Church ;
what are the Fruits thereof ; what the Bounds ; and what
the Means.

The Fruits of Unity (next unto the well-pleasing of 15
God which is all in all) are two ; the one towards those
that are without the Church, the other towards those
that are within. For the former ; it is certain, that
heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest
scandals, yea, more than corruption of manners. For 20
as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity
is worse than a corrupt humour, so in the spiritual. So
that nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church,

*'-'

8 <©f SEnttg in Mtltgton [Essay 3

and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.

25 And, therefore, whensoever it cometh to that pass that
one saith, Ecce in deserto, another saith, Ecce in pene-
tralibus, — that is, when some men seek Christ in the
conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face
of a Church — that voice had need continually to sound

3o in men's ears, Nolite exire. The Doctor of the Gentiles
(the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a
special care of those without) saith, If a heathen come
in, and hear you speak with several tongues, will he not
say that you are mad? And certainly it is little better

35 when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many
discordant and contrary opinions in religion ; it doth
avert them from the Church, and maketh them to sit
down in the chair of the scorners. It is but a light thing
to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth
% 40 well the deformity ; there is a Master of scoffing, that in
his catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down

,. this title of a book, The Morris Dance of Heretics.
For, indeed, every sect of them have a diverse posture,
or cringe, by themselves ; which cannot but move deri-

45 sion in worldlings and depraved politics, who are apt to
contemn holy things.

As for the Fruit towards those that are within, it is
peace, which containeth infinite blessings. It establish-
eth faith ; it kindleth charity ; the outward peace of the

50 Church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth
the labours of writing and reading controversies into
treatises of mortification and devotion.

Concerning the Bounds of Unity, the true placing of
them importeth exceedingly. There appear to be two

55 extremes ; for to certain zelants all speech of pacification
is odious. Is it peace, Jehu ? What hast thou to do
with peace ? turn thee behind me. Peace is not
the matter, but following and party. Contrariwise,

Essay 3] ©f ^m'ty in Hdtgton 9

certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they
may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, 60
and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, as if
they would make an arbitrement between God and man.
Both these extremes are to be avoided ; which will be
done if the league of Christians, penned by our Saviour
Himself, were in the two cross clauses thereof soundly 65
and plainly expounded : He that is not with us is against
us ; and again, He that is not against us is with us ;
that is, if the points fundamental, and of substance in
religion, were truly discerned and distinguished from
points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good 70
intention. This is a thing may seem to many a matter
trivial, and done already ; but if it were done less par
tially, it would be embraced more generally.

Of this I may give only this advice, according to my
small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God's 75
Church by two kinds of controversies. The one is,
when the matter of the point controverted is too small
and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled
only by contradiction. For, as it is noted by one of the 5? IT
fathers, Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the Church's So
vesture was of divers colours ; whereupon he saith, In
veste varietas sit, scissura non sit ; they be two things,
Unity and Uniformity. The other is, when the matter
of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an
over-great subtilty and obscurity, so that it becometh a 85
thing rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is
of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear
ignorant men differ, and know well within himself that
those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they
themselves would never agree. And if it come so to 90
pass in that distance of judgment which is between man
and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows
the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of

io (^t '(Kmtii tn Religion [Essay 3

their contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth

95 of both ? The nature of such controversies is excellently
expressed by St. Paul in the warning and precept that he
giveth concerning the same, Devita profanas vocum novi-
tates et oppositiones falsi nominis scientice. Men create
oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms so

too fixed as, whereas the meaning ought to govern the term,
the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also
two false Peaces, or Unities, the one, when the peace is
grounded but upon an implicit ignorance (for all colours
will agree in the dark) ; the other when it is pieced up

105 upon a direct admission of contraries in fundamental

points. For truth and falsehood in such things are

like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's

image : they may cleave but they will not incorporate.

Concerning the Means of procuring Unity, men must

tio beware, that in the procuring or muniting of religious
unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity
and of human society. There be two swords amongst
Christians, the spiritual and the temporal, and both have
their due office and place in the maintenance of religion.

us But we may not take up the third sword, which is
Mahomet's sword, or like unto it — that is, to propagate
religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force
consciences (except it be in cases of overt scandal,
blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state),

120 much less to nourish seditions, to authorise conspiracies
and rebellions, to put the sword into the people's hands,
and the like, tending to the subversion of all government,
which is the ordinance of God. For this is but to dash
the first table against the second ; and so to consider

las men as Christians, as we forget that they are men.
Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Aga
memnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own
daughter, exclaimed : —

Essay 3] ©f 2ftmtg fn <CUltgtott 1 1

Tanlum religio potuit suadere malorum.

What would he have said, if he had known of the
massacre in France, or the powder treason of England ? 13°
He would have been seven times more Epicure and
atheist than he was. For as the temporal sword is to
be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion,
so it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the
common people. Let that be left to the Anabaptists and 135
other furies. It was a great blasphemy when the devil
said, / -will ascend and be like the Highest; but it is
greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in
saying, / will descend and be like the prince of darkness.
And what is it better, to make the cause of religion to 140
descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering
princes, butchery of people, and subversion of states and
governments ? Surely this is to bring down the Holy
Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of
a vulture or raven ; and to set out of the bark of a MS
Christian Church a flag of a bark of pirates and assas
sins. Therefore it is most necessary that the Church
by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and all
learnings — both Christian and moral — as by their Mer
cury rod, do damn and send to hell for ever those facts 150
and opinions tending to the support of the same, as hath
been already in good part done. Surely in councils con
cerning religion, that counsel of the Apostle would be
prefixed, Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei. And
it was a notable observation of a wise father and no 153
less ingenuously confessed, that those which held and
persuaded pressure of consciences, were commonly inter-
essed therein themselves for their own ends.

REVENGE is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's
nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For
as for the first wrong, it does but offend the law ; but the
revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Cer-

s tainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his
enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior ; for it is a
prince's part to pardon : and Salomon, I am sure, saith,
// is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.

That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and

xo wise men have enough to do with things present and to
come ; therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that
labour in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong
for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself
profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like ; therefore why

15 should I be angry with a man for loving himself better

than me ? And if any man should do wrong, merely out

of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like -the thorn or briar,

which prick and scratch, because they can do no other.

The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs

20 which there is no law to remedy : but then, let a man

Essay 4]

take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to
punish ; else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is
two for one.

Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party
should know whence it cometh. This is the more 25
generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so much in
doing the hurt, as in making the party repent. But base
and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the
dark.

Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying 30
against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs
were unpardonable. You shall read (saith he) that we
are commanded to forgive our enemies ; but you never
read that we are commanded to forgive our friends. But
yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune : Shall we 35
^saith he) take good at God's hands, and not be content to
take evil also ? And so of friends in a proportion. This
is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own
wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
Public revenges are for the most part fortunate ; as that 40
for the death of Caesar ; for the death of Pertinax ; for
the death of Henry the Third of France; and many
more. But in private revenges it is not so. Nay rather,
vindicative persons live the life of witches, who, as they
axe mischievous, so end they infortunate. 45

IT was an high speech of Seneca (after the manner of
the Stoics), that the good things which belong to Pros
perity are to be -wished, but the good things that belong to
Adversity are to be admired. Bona rerum secundarum
5 optabilia, adversarum mirabilia. Certainly, if miracles
be the command over nature, they appear most in Ad
versity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other
(much too high for a heathen), It is true greatness to
have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a

io God, Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securi-
tatem Dei. This would have done better in poesy, where
transcendencies are more allowed ; and the poets, indeed,
have been busy with it. For it is in effect the thing
which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient

15 poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery, nay, and
to have some approach to the state of a Christian : that
Hercules, when he went to iinbind Prometheus (by whom
human nature is represented), sailed the length of the
great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher ; lively describing

jo Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the
flesh thorough the waves of the world.

Essay 5] <©

But to speak in a mean. The virtue of Prosperity is
temperance ; the virtue of Adversity is fortitude : which
in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the
blessing of the Old Testament ; adversity is the blessing 25
of the New : which carrieth the greater benediction, and
the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the
Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall
hear as many hearse like airs as carols ; and the pencil
of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the 30
afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Pros
perity is not without many fears and distastes ; and
Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see
in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to
have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than 35
to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome
ground. Judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by
the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious
odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed ;
for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity dtoth 40
best discover virtue.

Simulation antr

DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom.
For it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know
when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the
weaker sort of politicians that are the greatest dis-
5 semblers.

Tacitus saith, Lima sorted well with the arts of her
husband and dissimulation of her son ; attributing arts of
policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius. And
again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take

10 arms against Vitellius, he saith, We rise not against the
piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution
or closeness of Tiberius. These properties of arts or
policy, and dissimulation and closeness, are indeed
habits and faculties several, and to be distinguished.

is For if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can
discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be
secreted, and what to be shewed at half-lights, and to
whom and when (which indeed are arts of state, and
arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them"), to him a habit

20 of dissimulation is a hindrance and a poorness. But if a

Essay 6] ©f Simulation anfc Dissimulation 17

man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to
him generally to be close, and a dissembler. For where
a man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is
good to take the safest and wariest way in general, like
the going softly by one that cannot well see. Certainly 25
the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness
and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and
veracity. But then they were like horses well managed ;
for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn : and
at such times when they thought the case indeed required 3°
dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that
the former opinion, spread abroad, of their good faith
and clearness of dealing, made them almost invisible.

There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a '
man's self : the first, Closeness, Reservation, and Secrecy, '35
— when a man leaveth himself without observation, or;
without hold to be taken, what he is ; the second, Dis
simulation, in the negative, — when a man lets fall signs
and arguments that he is not that he is ; and the third, ',
Simulation, in the affirmative, — when a man industriously ko j
and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

For the first of these, Secrecy ; it is indeed the virtue
of a confessor. And assuredly the secret man heareth
many confessions ; for who will open himself to a blab
or a babbler ? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth 45
discovery, as the more close air sucketh in the more
open. And, as in confession the revealing is not for
worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so, secret
men come to the knowledge of many things in that kind,
while men rather discharge their minds than impart their 50
minds. In few words, mysteries are due to Secrecy.
Besides (to say truth) nakedness is uncomely as well in
mind as in body ; and it addeth no small reverence to
men's manners and actions, if they be not altogether
open. As for talkers, and futile persons, they are com- 55
I. C

1 3 Of Simulation anfc Dissimulation [Essay 6

monly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh
what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not.
Therefore set it down, that an habit of secrecy is both
politic and moral. And in this part it is good that a

60 man's face give his tongue leave to speak. For the dis •
covery of a man's self, by the tracts of his countenance,
is a great weakness and betraying ; by how much it is
many times more marked and believed than a man's
words.

65 For the second, which is Dissimulation, it followeth
many times upon Secrecy, by a necessity. So that he
that will be secret, must be a dissembler in some degree.
For men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an in
different carriage between both, and to be secret, without

70 swaying the balance on either side. They will so beset
a man with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out
of him, that, without an absurd silence, he must show an
inclination one way ; or if he do not, they will gather as
much by his silence as by his speech. As for equivoca-

75 tions, or oraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long.
So that no man can be secret, except he give himself a
little scope of dissimulation ; which is, as it were, but the
skirts or train of secrecy.

But for the third degree, which is Simulation and

BO false profession, that I hold more culpable, and less
politic ; except it be in great and rare matters. And,
therefore, a general custom of Simulation (which is this
last degree) is a vice rising either of a natural falseness,
or fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults,

8s which because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him
practise simulation in other things, lest his hand should
be out of ure.

The great advantages of Simulation and Dissimula
tion are three. First, to lay asleep opposition, and to

90 surprise ; for where a man's intentions are published, it

Essay 6] ©f Simulation anfc Dissimulation 19

is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The
second is, to reserve to a man's self a fair retreat ; for if
a man engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must
go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to
discover the mind of another ; for to him that opens him- 95
self men will hardly show themselves adverse, but will
(fair) let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to
freedom of thought. And therefore it is a good shrewd
proverb of the Spaniard, tell a lie and find a troth : as if
there were no way of discovery but by Simulation. There 100
be also three disadvantages to set it even. The first,
that Simulation and Dissimulation commonly carry with
them a show of fearfulness, which, in any business, doth
spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark. The
second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of 105
many, that perhaps would otherwise co-operate with him,
and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends.
The third, and greatest, is, that it depriveth a man of
one of the most principal instruments for action ; which
is trust and belief. The best composition and tempera- no
ture is to have openness in fame and opinion ; secrecy in
habit ; dissimulation in seasonable use ; and a power to
feign, if there be no remedy.

VII

parents aitfc Cfttftren

THE joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs
and fears. They cannot utter the one, nor they will not
utter the other. Children sweeten labours, but they
make misfortunes more bitter ; they increase the cares

s of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death.
The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts ; but
memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men.
And surely a man shall see the noblest works and
foundations have proceeded from childless men, which

10 have sought to express the images of their minds, where
those of their bodies have failed. So the care of pos
terity is most in them that have no posterity. They
that are the first raisers of their houses are most in
dulgent towards their children, beholding them as the

15 continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work ;
and so both children and creatures.

The difference in affection of parents towards their
several children is many times unequal, and sometimes
unworthy, especially in the mother ; as Salomon saith,

20 A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son
shames the mother. A man shall see, where there is a
house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected,
and the youngest made wantons^ ; but in the midst
some that are as it were forgotten, who, many times,

2; nevertheless, prove the best.

Essay i\ ©f Barents anfc C£|)il&r0n 21

The illiberality of parents, in allowance towards their
children, is a harmful error, makes them base, acquaints
them with shifts, makes them sort with mean company,
and makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty.
And therefore the proof is best when men keep their 30
authority towards their children, but not their purse.
Men have a foolish manner (both parents, and school
masters, and servants), in creating and breeding an
emulation between brothers during childhood ; which
many times sorteth to discord when they are men, and 35
disturbeth families.

The Italians make little difference between children
and nephews, or near kinsfolk ; but, so they be of the
lump, they care not, though they pass not through their
own body. And, to say truth, in nature it is much a like 40
matter : insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes re-
sembleth an uncle, or a kinsman, more than his own
parent, as the blood happens.

Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses
they mean their children should take ; for then they are 45
most flexible. And let them not too much apply them
selves to the disposition of their children, as thinking
they will take best to that which they have most mind
to. It is true that, if the affection or aptness of the
children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross 50
it ; but generally the precept is good, Optimum elige,
suave et facile illudfaciet consuetude. Younger brothers
are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where the
elder are disinherited.

VIII

anfc

HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to
fortune ; for they are impediments to great enterprises,
either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works,
and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded

5 from the unmarried or childless men ; which, both in
affection and means, have married and endowed the
public. Yet it were great reason that those that have
children should have greatest care of future times ; unto
which they know they must transmit their dearest

xo pledges.

Some there are, who, though they lead a single life,
yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account
future times impertinencies. Nay, there are some other
that account wife and children but as bills of charges.

is Nay, more, there are some foolish rich covetous men
that take a pride in having no children, because they
may be thought so much the richer. For, perhaps, they
have heard some talk, Such a one is a great rich man,
and another except to it, Yea, but he hath a great charge

ao of children, as if it were an abatement to his riches.

Essay 8] ©f Jttamagc anU gbt'ngU Hffe 23

But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty,
especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds,
which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go
near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and
shackles. 25

Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best
servants ; but not always best subjects. For they are
light to run away ; and almost all fugitives are of that
condition. A single life doth well with churchmen ; for
charity will hardly water the ground where it must first 3o
fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates ;
for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant
five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the
generals commonly, in their hortatives, put men in mind
of their wives and children ; and I think the despising 35
of marriage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier
more base.

Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline
of humanity ; and single men, though they be many
times more charitable, because their means are less 40
exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and
hard-hearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because
their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave
natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are
commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, 45
Vetulam suam prcetulit immortalitati. Chaste women
are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the
merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds,
both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she thinks
her husband wise ; which she will never do if she find so
him jealous.

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for
middle age, and old men's nurses ; so as a man may
have a quarrel to marry, when he will. But yet he was
reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the 55

24 ©f JWnrnnge anfc sbtngle Htfe [Essay 8

question when a man should marry — A young man not
yet, an elder man not at all. It is often seen that bad
husbands have very good wives ; whether it be that it
raiseth the price of their husbands' kindness when it
60 comes, or that the wives take a pride in their patience.
But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their
own choosing, against their friends' consent ; for then,
they will be sure to make good their own folly.

THERE be none of the affections which have been noted
to fascinate or bewitch, but Love and Envy. They
both have vehement wishes ; they frame themselves
readily into imaginations and suggestions, and they come
easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the 5
objects : which are the points that conduce to fascination,
if any such thing there be. We see, likewise, the Scrip
ture calleth envy an evil eye ; and the astrologers call
the evil influences of the stars evil aspects : so that still
there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, 10
an ejaculation or irradiation of the eye. Nay, some have
been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke
or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are when
the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph. For that
sets an edge upon envy ; and, besides, at such time, the 15
spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the
outward parts, and so meet the blow.

But leaving these curiosities (though not unworthy to
be thought on in fit place), we will handle what persons
are apt to emy others ; -what persons are most subject io ao

26 Of CBnbg [Essay 9

be envied themselves ; and what is the difference between

public and private envy.

A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth

virtue in others. For men's minds will either feed upon
ss their own good, or upon other's evil ; and who wanteth

the one will prey upon the other ; and whoso is out of

hope to attain another's virtue, will seek to come at even

hand, by depressing another's fortune.

A man thai is busy and inquisitive is commonly en-
3° vious. For to know much of other men's matters cannot

be because all that ado may concern his own estate.

Therefore it must needs be that he taketh a kind of

play-pleasure in looking upon the fortunes of others.

Neither can he that mindeth but his own business find
35 much matter for envy. For envy is a gadding passion,

and walketh the streets, and doth not keep home ; Non

est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus.

Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards

new men when they rise. For the distance is altered :
40 and it is like a deceit of the eye that, when others come

on, they think themselves go back.

Deformed persons, and eunuchs, and old men, and

bastards, are envious. For he that cannot possibly mend

his own case, will do what he can to impair another's :
45 except these defects light upon a very brave and heroical

nature, which thinketh to make his natural wants part of

his honour ; in that it should be said that an eunuch, or

a lame man, did such great matters ; affecting the honour

of a miracle ; as it was in Narses the eunuch, and Agesi-
50 laus and Tamerlane, that were lame men.

The same is the case of men that rise after calamities

and misfortunes. For they are as men fallen out with

the times, and think other men's harms a redemption of

their own sufferings,
ss They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of

levity and vain-glory, are ever envious. For they cannot
want work ; it being impossible but many, in some one
of those things, should surpass them. Which was the
character of Adrian the emperor, that mortally envied
poets and painters, and artificers in works wherein he 60
had a vein to excel.

Lastly, near kinsfolk and fellows in office, and those
that are bred together, are more apt to envy their equals
when they are raised. For it doth upbraid unto them
their own fortunes, and pointeth at them, and cometh 65
oftener into their remembrance, and incurreth likewise
more into the note of others ; and envy ever redoubleth
from speech and fame. Cain's envy was the more vile
and malignant towards his brother Abel, because, when
his sacrifice was better accepted, there was nobody to 70
look on. Thus much for those that are apt to envy.

Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy.
First, persons of eminent virtue, when they are advanced,
are less envied. For their fortune seemeth but due unto
them ; and no man envieth the payment of a debt, but 75
rewards and liberality rather. Again, envy is ever joined
with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is
no comparison, no envy : and therefore kings are not
envied but by kings. Nevertheless, it is to be noted that
unworthy persons are most envied at their first coming 80
in, and afterwards overcome it better ; whereas, contrari
wise, persons of worth and merit are most envied when
their fortune continueth long. For by that time, though
their virtue be the same, yet it hath not the same lustre :
for fresh men grow up that darken it. 8s

Persons of noble blood are less envied in their rising.
For it seemeth but right done to their birth. Besides,
there seemeth not much added to their fortune ; and
envy is as the sunbeams, that beat hotter upon a bank,
or steep rising ground, than upon a flat. And, for the 90

28 Of <£nb]_) [Essay 9

same reason, those that are advanced by degrees are less
envied than those that are advanced suddenly, and per
saltum.

Those that have joined with their honour great travels,
95 cares, or perils, are less subject to envy. For men think
that they earn their honours hardly, and pity them some
times ; and pity ever healeth envy. Wherefore you shall
observe, that the more deep and sober sort of politic
persons, in their greatness, are ever bemoaning them-

100 selves what a life they lead, chanting a quanta patimur.
Not that they feel it so, but only to abate the edge of
envy. But this is to be understood of business that is
laid upon men, and not such as they call unto themselves.
For nothing increaseth envy more than an unnecessary

105 and ambitious engrossing of business. And nothing doth
extinguish envy more than for a great person to preserve
all other inferior officers in their full rights and pre
eminences of their places. For, by that means, there be
so many screens between him and envy.

no Above all, those are most subject to envy which carry
the greatness of their fortunes in an insolent and proud
manner ; being never well but while they are showing
how great they are, either by outward pomp, or by tri
umphing over all opposition or competition. Whereas

us wise men will rather do sacrifice to envy, in suffering
themselves, sometimes of purpose, to be crossed and
overborne in things that do not much concern them.
Notwithstanding, so much is true, that the carriage of
greatness in a plain and open manner (so it be without

120 arrogancy and vain-glory), doth draw less envy than if it
be in a more crafty and cunning fashion. For in that
course a man doth but disavow fortune, and seemeth to
be conscious of his own want in worth, and doth but
teach others to envy him.
123 Lastly, to conclude this part : as we said in the be-

Essay 9] <Z3t V!5n&JJ 29

ginning that the act of envy had somewhat in it of witch
craft, so there is no other cure of envy but the cure of
witchcraft ; and that is to remove the lot (as they call it),
and to lay it upon another. For which purpose, the
wiser sort of great persons bring in ever upon the stage 130
somebody upon whom to derive the envy that would come
upon themselves ; sometimes upon ministers and ser
vants, sometimes upon colleagues and associates, and the
like. And, for that turn, there are never wanting some
persons of violent and undertaking natures, who, so they iss
may have power and business, will take it at any cost.

Now, to speak of public envy. There is yet some
good in public envy, whereas in private there is none.
For public envy is as an ostracisrn, that eclipseth men •"'
when they grow too great. And therefore it is a bridle MO
also to great ones to keep within bounds.

This envy, being in the Latin word invidia^ goeth in
the modern languages by the name of discontentment ; of
which we shall speak in handling Sedition. It is a
disease in a State like to infection. For, as infection us
spreadeth upon that which is sound, and tainteth it ; so,
when envy is gotten once into a State, it traduceth even
the best actions thereof, and turneth them into an ill
odour. And therefore there is little won by intermingling
of plausible actions. For that doth argue but a weak- 150
ness and fear of envy, which hurteth so much the more ;
as it is likewise usual in infections, which, if you fear
them, you call them upon you.

Thi~ public envy seemeth to bear chiefly upon prin
cipal officers or ministers, rather than upon Kings and 135
Estates themselves. But this is a sure rule, that if the
envy upon the minister be great, when the cause of it in
him is small, or if the envy be general in a manner upon
all the ministers of an estate, then the envy (though
liidden) is truly upon the State itself. And so much of 160

public envy or discontentment, and the difference thereol
from private envy, which was handled in the first place.
We will add this in general, touching the affection ol
envy, that of all other affections it is the most importune

165 and continual. For of other affections there is occasion
given but now and then ; and therefore it was well said,
Iwvidia festos dies non agit. For it is ever working upon
some or other. And it is also noted, that love and envy
do make a man pine, which other affections do not, be-

170 cause they are not so continual. It is also the vilest
affection, and the most depraved ; for which cause it is
the proper attribute of the Devil, who is called T/ie
envious man that soweth tares among the wheat by night;
as it always cometh to pass, that envy worketh subtilly,

ITS and in the dark, aud to the prejudice of good things, such
as is the wheat.

THE stage is more beholding to Love than the life of
man. For, as to the stage, love is ever matter of
comedies, and now and then of tragedies ; but in life it
doth much mischief, sometimes like a Siren, sometimes
like a Fury. You may observe that amongst all the 5
great and worthy persons (whereof the memory re-
maineth, either ancient or recent), there is not one that
hath been transported to the mad degree of love : which
shews that great spirits and great business do keep out
this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, 10
Marcus Antonius, the half-partner of the empire of
Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and law
giver ; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous
man, and inordinate, but the latter was an austere and
wise man : and therefore it seems (though rarely) that 15
love can find entrance, not only in an open heart, but
also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well
kept.

It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter
alteri theatnim sumus : as if Man, made for the con- 3o

templation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do
nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself
a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet
of the eye ; which was given him for higher purposes.

25 It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion,
and how it braves the nature and value of things, by this :
that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in
nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase.
For, whereas it hath been well said, that the arch-
jo flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelli
gence, is a man's self : certainly the lover is more. For
there was never a proud man thought so absurdly well
of himself as the lover doth of the person loved. And
therefore it was well said, that it is impossible to love and

35 be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others
only, and not to the party loved ; but to the loved most
of all, except the love be reciproque. For it is a true
rule, that love is ever rewarded either with the re
ciproque, or with an inward or secret contempt. By

40 how much the more, men ought to" beware of this
passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself.
As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well
figure them : that he that preferred Helena, quitted
the gifts of Juno and Pallas ; for whosoever esteemeth

45 too much of amorous affection quitteth both riches and
wisdom.

This passion hath his floods in the very times of
weakness, which are great prosperity and great adver
sity (though this latter hath been less observed) ; both

<o which times kindle love, and make it more fervent, and
therefore shew it to be the child of folly. They do
best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it
keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious
affairs and actions of life. For if it check once with

55 business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men

that they can no ways be true to their own ends. I
know not how, but martial men are given to love: I
think it is but as they are given to wine ; for perils
commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.

There is in man's nature a secret inclination and 60
motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent
upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself
towards many, and maketh men become humane and
charitable, as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial
love maketh mankind ; friendly love perfecteth it ; but
wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it

MEN in Great Place are thrice servants ; servants of the
Sovereign or State, servants of fame, and servants of
business. So as they have no freedom, neither in their
persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a
s strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty : or to
seek power over others and to lose power over a man's
self. The rising unto place is laborious ; and by pains
men come to greater pains : and it is sometimes base ;
and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing

» is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at
least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing. Cum non
sis qui fueris, non esse cur -veils vivere. Nay, retire
men cannot when they would, neither will they when
it were reason, but are impatient of privateness, even

15 in age and sickness, which require the shadow ; like old
townsmen, that will be still sitting at their street door,
though thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great
persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to
think themselves happy. For if they judge by their

20 own feeling, they cannot find it ; but if they think with
themselves what other men think of them, and that
other men would fain be as they are, then they are
happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find

Essay u] Of (Sttat pact 35

the contrary within. For they are the first that find
their own griefs, though they be the last that find their 25
own faults. Certainly, men in great fortunes are
strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle
of business, they have no time to tend their health,
either of body or mind. Illi mors gravis tncubat, gut
notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi. &

In place there is license to do good and evil,
whereof the latter is a curse ; for in evil, the best condi
tion is not to will, the second not to can. But power to
do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring. For
good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards 35
men are little better than good dreams, except they
be put in act ; and that cannot be without ' power and
place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit
and good works is the end of man's motion, and con
science of the same is the accomplishment of man's *o
rest. For if a man can be a partaker of God's theatre,
he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest. Et con-
versus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, quce fecerunt manus
SUCE, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis ; and then the
Sabbath. 45

In the discharge of thy place set before thee the
best examples ; for imitation is a globe of precepts.
And after a time set before thee thine own example,
and examine thyself Strictly whether thou didst not
best at first. Neglect not also the examples of those 50
that have carried themselves ill in the same place ;
not to set off thyself by taxing their memory, but to
direct thyself what to avoid. Reform, therefore, with
out bravery, or scandal of former times and persons :
but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create good 55
precedents as to follow them. Reduce things to the
first institution, and observe wherein and how they
have degenerated : but yet ask counsel of both times ;

of the ancient time, what is best ; and of the latter

60 time, what is fittest. Seek to make thy course regular,
that men may know beforehand what they may expect ;
but be not too positive and peremptory, and express
thyself well when thou digressest from thy rule. Pre
serve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of

65 jurisdiction ; and rather assume thy right in silence,
and de facto, than voice it with claims and challenges.
Preserve likewise the rights of inferior places, and think
it more honour to direct in chief than to be busy in all.
Embrace and invite helps and advices touching the

70 execution of thy place ; and do not drive away such
as bring thee information, as meddlers, but accept of
them in good part.

The vic_es of authority are chiefly four : delays, cor
ruption, roughness, and facility. For delays ; give easy

75, access ; keep times appointed ; go through with that which
is in hand, and interlace not business but of necessity.
For corruption ; do not only bind thine own hands or
thy servants' hands from taking, but bind the hands
of suitors also from offering. For integrity used doth

80 the one ; but integrity professed, and with a manifest
detestation of bribery, doth the other. And avoid not
only the fault, but the suspicion. Whosoever is found
variable and changeth manifestly without manifest cause,
giveth suspicion of corruption. Therefore always when

Ss thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly,
and declare it, together with the reasons that move
thee to change ; and do not think to steal it. A servant
or a favourite, if he be inward, and no other apparent
cause of esteem, is commonly thought but a by-way to

90 close corruption. For roughness ; it is a needless cause
of discontent : severity breedeth fear, but roughness
breedeth hate. Even reproofs from authority ought
to be gra.ve, and not taunting. As for facility, it is

worse than bribery. For bribes come but now and
then ; but if importunity or idle respects lead a man, 95
he shall never be without. As Salomon saith, To respect
persons it is not good, for such a man will transgress
for a piece of bread.

It is most true that was anciently spoken, A place
slwweth the man. And it showeth some to the better, 100
and some to the worse. Omnium consensu, capax
imperil, nisi imperasset, saith Tacitus of Galba : but
of Vespasian he saith, Solus imperantium, Vespasianus
muiatus in melius. Though the one was meant of
sufficiency, the other of manners and affection. It is 105
an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit, whom
honour amends. For honour is, or should be, the place
of virtue : and as in nature things move violently to
their place, and calmly in their place, so virtue in
ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm. no

All rising to great place is by a winding stair ; and
if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self whilst
he is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is
placed. Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly and
tenderly ; for if thou dost not, it is a debt will surely 115
be paid when thou art gone. If thou have colleagues,
respect them ; and rather call them when they look
not for it, than exclude them when they have reason
to look to be called. Be not too sensible or too re- ;
membering of thy place in conversation and private 120
answers to suitors ; but let it rather be said, When he
sits in place, he is another man.

IT is a trivial grammar-school text, but yet worthy a wise
man's consideration : question was asked of Demosthenes,
What was the chief part of an orator? he answered,
Action : What next f Action : What next again ?
5 Action. He said it that knew it best, and had by nature
himself no advantage in that he commended. A strange
thing, that that part of an orator which is but superficial,
and rather the virtue of a player, should be placed so high
above those other noble parts, of invention, elocution, and

10 the rest ; nay, almost alone, as if it were all in all. But
the reason is plain. There is in human nature generally
more of the fool than of the wise ; and therefore those
faculties by which the foolish part of men's minds is
taken are most potent. Wonderful like is the case of

15 boldness in civil business ; What first ? boldness : What
second and third ? boldness. And yet boldness is a child
of ignorance and baseness, far inferior to other parts.
But nevertheless it doth fascinate and bind hand and foot
those that are either shallow in judgment or weak in

20 courage, which are the greatest part ; yea, and prevaileth

with wise men at weak times. Therefore we see it hath
done wonders in popular States ; but with senates and
princes less : and more ever upon the first entrance of
bold persons into action, than soon after ; for boldness is
an ill keeper of promise. 25

Surely, as there are mountebanks for the natural body,
so there are mountebanks for the politic body ; men that
undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in
two or three experiments, but want the grounds of science,
and therefore cannot hold out. Nay, you shall see a 30
bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet
made the people believe that he would call a hill to him,
and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the ob
servers of his law. The people assembled ; Mahomet
called the hill to come to him again arid again ; and when 35
the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said,
If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet -will go
to the hill. So these men, when they have promised
great matters, and failed most shamefully, yet, if they
have the perfection of boldness, they will but slight it 40
over, and make a turn, and no more ado.

Certainly to men of great judgment bold persons are
sport to behold ; nay, and to the vulgar also boldness
hath somewhat of the ridiculous. For, if absurdity be the
subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is 45
seldom without some absurdity. Especially it is a sport
to see when a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that
puts his face into a most shrunken and wooden posture :
as needs it must ; for in bashfulness the spirits do a little
go and come, but with bold men, upon like occasion, 50
they stand at a stay ; like a stale at chess, where it is no
mate, but yet the game cannot stir. But this last were
fitter for a satire than for a serious observation.

This is well to be weighed, that boldness is ever blind,
for it seeth not cangers and inconveniences. Therefore 53

it is ill in counsel, good in execution. So that the right
use of bold persons is, that they never command in chief,
but be seconds, and under the direction of others. For
in counsel it is good to see dangers, and in execution not
6cto see them, except they be very great.

XIII

, aitir

I TAKE Goodness in this sense, — the affecting of the weal
of men, which is that the Grecians call Philanthropia ;
and the word humanity (as it is used) is a little too light
to express it. Goodness I call the habit, and Goodness
of Nature the inclination. This, of all virtues and digni- s
ties of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of
the Deity ; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous,
wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin. Good
ness answers to the theological virtue, Charity, and ad
mits no excess, but error. The desire of power, in excess, 10
caused the angels to fall ; the desire of knowledge, in
excess, caused man to fall : but in charity there is no
excess ; neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the
nature of man ; insomuch that, if it issue not towards IS
men, it will take unto other living creatures : as it is seen
in the Turks, a cruel people, who, nevertheless, are kind
to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds ; insomuch as
Busbechius reporteth, a Christian boy in Constantinople
had like to have been stoned for gagging, in a waggish- ao
ness, a long-billed fowl.

Errors, indeed, in this virtue of goodness or charity,
may be committed. The Italians have an ungracious
proverb, Tanto buon che val niente : So good that he is

25 good for nothing. And one of the doctors of Italy,
Nicholas Machiavel, had the confidence to put in writing,
almost in plain terms, that the Christian faith had given
up good men in prey to those who are tyrannical and
unjust. Which he spake because, indeed, there was

30 never law, or sect, or opinion, did so much magnify good
ness as the Christian religion doth. Therefore, to avoid
the scandal, and the danger both, it is good to take
knowledge of the errors of an habit so excellent. Seek
the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their

is faces or fancies : for that is but facility or softness ;
which taketh an honest mind prisoner. Neither give
thou ^Csop's cock a gem, who would be better pleased
and happier if he had had a barley-corn. The example
of God teacheth the lesson truly : He sendeth his rain,

40 andmaketh his sun to shine upon the just and the unjust',
but he doth not rain wealth nor shine honour and virtues
upon men equally. Common benefits are to be communi
cate with all ; but peculiar benefits with choice. And
beware how, in making the portraiture, thou breakest the

45 pattern. For divinity maketh the love of ourselves the
pattern, the love of our neighbours but the portraiture.
Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and follow me;
but sell not all thou hast, except thou come and follow
me : that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou

5o mayest do as much good with little means as with great ;
for otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou driest the
fountain.

Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed by
right reason ; but there is in some men, even in nature, a

ss disposition towards it ; as, on the other side, there is a
natural malignity ; for there be that in their nature do

Essay 13] &nfc of (Soofciuss of jEature 43

not affect the good of others. The lighter sort of malig
nity turneth but to a crossness, or frowardness, or aptness
to oppose, or difficilness, or the like ; but the deeper sort
to envy, and mere mischief. Such men, in other men's 60
calamities, are, as it were, in season, and are ever on the
loading part : not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus'
sores, but like flies that are still buzzing upon anything
that is raw : Misanthropi, that make it their practice to
bring men to the bough, and yet never have a tree for the 63
purpose in their gardens, as Timon had : Such disposi
tions are the very errors of human nature ; and yet they
are the fittest timber to make great politiques of : like to
knee-timber, that is good for ships that are ordained to
be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand 7°
firm.

The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man
be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a
citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut
off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them. 75
If he be compassionate towards the affliction of others,
it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is
wounded itself when it gives the balm. If he easily par
dons and remits offences, it shows that his mind is planted
above injuries, so that he cannot be shot. If he be 80
thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's
minds, and not their trash. But, above all, if he have
St. Paul's perfection, that he would wish to be an anathema
from Christ, for the salvation of his brethren, it shows
much of a divine nature, and a kind of conformity with 85
Christ Himself.

XIV

WE will speak of Nobility first as a portion of an estate,
then as a condition of particular persons. A monarchy
where there is no nobility at all is ever a pure and abso
lute tyranny, as that of the Turks. For nobility at-
5 tempers sovereignty, and draws the eyes of the people
somewhat aside from the line royal. But for demo
cracies, they need it not ; and they are commonly more
quiet, and less subject to sedition than where there are
stirps of nobles. For men's eyes are upon the business,

10 and not upon the persons ; or, if upon the persons, it
is for the business' sake, as fittest, and not for flags
and pedigree. We see the Switzers last well, notwith
standing their diversity of religion and of Cantons ; for
utility \s their bond, and not respects. The United

is Provinces of the Low Countries in their government
excel. For where there is an equality, the consulta
tions are more indifferent, and the payments and
tributes more cheerful. A great and potent nobility
addeth majesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power

20 and putteth life and spirit into the people, but presseth
their fortune. It is well when nobles are not too great
for sovereignty, nor for justice ; and yet maintained in

that height, as the insolency of inferiors may be broken
upon them before it come on too fast upon the majesty
of kings. A numerous nobility causeth poverty and 25
inconvenience in a State ; for it is a surcharge of ex
pense ; and besides, it being of necessity that many
of the nobility fall in time to be weak in fortune, it
maketh a kind of disproportion between honour and
means. 30

As for nobility in particular persons : it is a reverend
thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay,
or to see a fair timber tree sound and perfect ; how
much more to behold an ancient noble family, which
hath stood against the waves and weathers of time. 35
For new nobility is but the act of power, but ancient
nobility is the act of time. Those that are first raised to
nobility are commonly more virtuous, but less innocent,
than their descendants ; for there is rarely any rising
but by a commixture of good and evil arts. But it is 40
reason the memory of their virtues remain to their
posterity, and their faults die with themselves. Nobility
of birth commonly abateth industry ; and he that is not
industrious, envieth him that is. Besides, noble persons
cannot go much higher ; and he that standeth at a stay 45
when others rise, can hardly avoid motions of envy.
On the other side, nobility extinguisheth the passive
envy from others towards them, because they are in
possession of honour. Certainly, kings that have able
men of their nobility shall find ease in employing them, 50
and a better slide into their business ; for people natu
rally bend to them as born in some sort to command.

attir

SHEPHERDS of people had need know the calendars of
tempests in State ; which are commonly greatest when
things grow to equality, as natural tempests are greatest
about the equinoctia. And as there are certain hollow
s blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas before a
tempest, so are there in States :

I lie etiam ccscos instare tumultus
Sesfe monet, fraudesque et operta tumescert be I la.

Libels and licentious discourses against the State,
when they are frequent and open ; and in like sort,
false news often running up and down to the disadvan-
tc tage of the State, and hastily embraced, are amongst
the signs of troubles. Virgil, giving the pedigree of
Fame, saith, she was sister to the giants :

Illam terra parens, ira irritata deorum,
Extremam (ut perhibent) Cceo Enceladoqite sororem
Progenuit.

As if fames were the relics of seditions past But they
are no less indeed the prjludes of seditions to come.

Essay 15] Of Jbrtfittons anD troubles 47

Howsoever, he noteth it right, that seditious tumults 15
and seditious fames differ no more but as brother and
sister, masculine and feminine : especially if it come
to that, that the best actions of a State, and the most
plausible, and which ought to give greatest content
ment, are taken in ill sense and traduced. For that »
shows the envy great, as Tacitus saith, Confiata magna
invidia, seu bene, seu male, gesta premunt. Neither
doth it follow that because these fames are a sign of
troubles, that the suppressing of them with too much
severity should be a remedy of troubles. For the de- 25
spising of them many times checks them best ; and
the going about to stop them doth but make a wonder
long-lived. Also that kind of obedience, which Tacitus
speaketh of, is to be held suspected : Erant in officio,
sed tamen qui mallent mandata imperantium interpre- y>
tart, quam exequi. Disputing, excusing, cavilling upon
mandates and directions, is a kind of shaking off the
yoke, and assay of disobedience : especially if in those
disputings they which are for the direction speak fear
fully and tenderly, and those that are against it, auda- 35
ciously.

Also, as Machiavel noteth well, when princes, that '
ought to be common parents, make themselves as a
party, and lean to a side, that is, as a boat that is over
thrown by uneven weight on the one side : as was well 40
seen in the time of Henry III. of France ; for, first
himself entered League for the extirpation of the Pro
testants, and, presently after, the same League was
turned upon himself. For when the authority of princes
is made but an accessary to a cause, and that there be 45
other bands that tie faster than the band of sovereignty,
kings begin to be put almost out of possession.

Also, when discords, and quarrels, and factions are
carried openly and audaciously, it is a sign the reverence

50 of government is lost. For the motions of the greatest
persons in a government ought to be as the motions
of the planets under primum mobile (according to the
old opinion), which is, that every of them is carried
swiftly by the highest motion, and softly in their own

ss motion. And, therefore, when great ones in their own
particular motion move violently, and, as Tacitus ex-
presseth it well, liberius quant ut imperantium memi-
nissent, it is a sign the orbs are out of frame. For
reverence is that wherewith princes are girt from God,

60 who threateneth the dissolving thereof : Solvam cingula
regum.

So when any of the four pillars of government are
mainly shaken, or weakened (which are Religion, Justice,
Counsel, and Treasure), men had need to pray for fair

65 weather. But let us pass from this part of predictions
(concerning which, nevertheless, more light might be
taken from that which followeth), and let us speak first
of the materials of seditions, then of the motives of them,
and thirdly of the remedies.

70 Concerning the Materials of seditions. It is a thing
well to be considered : for the surest way to prevent
seditions (if the times do bear it), is to take away the
matter of them. For if there be fuel prepared, it is hard
to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on

75 fire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds, much .
poverty, and much discontentment. It is certain, so
many overthrown estates, so many votes for troubles.
Lucan noteth well the state of Rome before the civil
war :

Hinc -usura vorax rapidumque in fympore ftznus,
Hinc concussa fides, et multis utiie bellum.

80 This same multis utile bellum is an assured and
infallible sign of a State disposed to seditions and
troubles. And if this poverty and broken estate in the

better sort be joined with a want and necessity in the
mean people, the danger is imminent and great. For
the rebellions of the belly are the worst. As for discon
tentments, they are in the politic body like to humours
in the natural, which are apt to gather a preternatural
heat, and to inflame. And let no prince measure the
danger of them by this, whether they be just or unjust
(for that were to imagine people to be too reasonable ; 90
who do often spurn at their own good,) nor yet by this,
whether the griefs whereupon they rise be in fact great
or small ; for they are the most dangerous discontent
ments, where the fear is greater than the feeling.
Dolendi modus, timendi non item. Besides, in great 95
oppressions, the same things that provoke the patience
do withal mate the courage ; but in fears it is not so.
Neither let any prince, or state, be secure concerning
discontentments, because they have been often, or have
been long, and yet no peril hath ensued. For as it is 100
true that every vapour or fume doth not turn into a
storm, so it is nevertheless true, that storms, though they
blow over divers times, yet may fall at last. And, as
the Spanish proverb noteth well, The cord breaketh at
the last by the weakest pull. Ios

The Causes and Motives of seditions are innovation
in religion, taxes, alteration of laws and customs, break
ing of privileges, general oppression, advancement of un
worthy persons, strangers, dearths, disbanded soldiers,
factions grown desperate, and whatsoever in offending no
people joineth and knitteth them in a common cause.

For the Remedies ; there may be some general pre
servatives, whereof we will speak : as for the just cure, it
must answer to the particular disease, and so be left to
counsel rather than rule. "s

The first remedy or prevention, is to remove, by all
means possible, that material cause of sedition whereof
T E

we speak, which is want and poverty in the estate. To
which purpose serveth the opening and well-balancing
120 of trade ; the cherishing of manufactures ; the banishing
of idleness ; the repressing of waste and excess by sump
tuary laws ; the improvement and husbanding of the soil;
the regulating of prices of things vendible ; the modera
ting of taxes and tributes ; and the like. Generally,
"5 it is to be foreseen that the population of a kingdom
(especially if it be not mown down by wars), do not ex
ceed the stock of the kingdom which should maintain
them. Neither is the population to be reckoned only by
number. For a smaller number, that spend more and
130 earn less, do wear out an estate sooner than a greater
number that live low and gather more. Therefore the
multiplying of nobility, and other degrees of quality, in
an over-proportion to the common people, doth speedily
bring a State to necessity ; and so doth likewise an over-
135 grown clergy ; for they bring nothing to the stock ; and
in like manner, when more are bred scholars than prefer
ments can take off.

It is likewise to be remembered, that, forasmuch as
the increase of any estate must be upon the foreigner
140 (for whatsoever is somewhere gotten is somewhere lost),
there be but three things which one nation selleth unto
another ; the commodity as nature yieldeth it, the manu
facture, and the vecture, or carriage. So that, if these
three wheels go, wealth will flow as in a spring tide. And
Ms it cometh many times to pass, that materiam superabit
opus, that the work and carriage is worth more than the
material, and enricheth a State more ; as is notably seen
in the Low Countrymen, who have the best mines above
ground in the world.

150 Above all things, good policy is to be used, that the ,
treasures and monies in a State be not gathered into few ;
hands. For otherwise, a State may have a great stock, \

and yet starve ; and money is like muck, not good except
it be spread. This is done chiefly by suppressing, or at
the least keeping a strait hand upon, the devouring trades 155
of usury, engrossing, great pasturages, and the like.

For removing discontentments, or, at least, the danger
of them : there is in every state (as we know), two por
tions of subjects, the nobles and the commonalty. When
one of these is discontent, the danger is not great : for 160
common people are of slow motion, if they be not excited
by the greater sort ; and the greater sort are of small
strength, except the multitude be apt and ready to move
of themselves. Then is the danger, when the greater
sort do but wait for .the troubling of the waters amongst 165
the meaner, that then they may declare themselves. The
poets feign that the rest of the gods would have bound
Jupiter ; which he hearing of, by the counsel of Pallas
sent for Briareus, with his hundred hands, to come in to
his aid. An emblem, no doubt, to show how safe it is 170
for monarchs to make sure of the good-will of common
people.

To give moderate liberty for griefs and discontent
ments to evaporate (so it be without too great insolency
or bravery), is a safe way. For he that turneth the 175
humours back, and maketh the wound bleed inwards,
endangereth malign ulcers and pernicious imposthuma-
tions.

The part of Epimetheus mought well become Pro
metheus, in the case of discontentments ; for there is not 180
a better provision against them. Epimetheus, when
griefs and evils flew abroad, at last shut the lid, and kept
hope in the bottom of the vessel.. Certainly, the politic
and artificial nourishing and entertaining of hopes, and
carrying men from hopes to hopes, is one of the best 185
antidotes against the poison of discontentments. And it
is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding,

52 Of ^rtu'tions anfc troubles [Assay 15-

when it can hold men's hearts by hopes, when it cannot
by satisfaction ; and when it can handle things in such •

190 manner as no evil shall appear so peremptory but that it
hath some outlet of hope : which is the less hard to do,i
because both particular persons and factions are apt
enough to flatter themselves, or, at least, to brave that
which they believe not.

ips Also the foresight and prevention, that there be no
likely or fit head whereupon discontented persons may
resort, and under whom they may jpin, is a known, but
an excellent point of caution. I understand a fit head to
be one that hath greatness and reputation, that hath con-

300 fidence with the discontented party, and upon whom they
turn their eyes, and that is thought discontented in his
own particular ; which kind of persons are either to be
won and reconciled to the State, and that in a fast and]
true manner, or to be fronted with some other of the same]

*os party that may oppose them, and so divide the reputation/
Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions and
combinations that are adverse to the State, and setting
them at distance, or, at least, distrust among themselves,,
is not one of the worst remedies. For it is a desperate.

210 case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the State
be full of discord and faction, and those that are against,
it be entire and united.

I have noted, that some witty and sharp speeches,
which have fallen from princes, have given fire to sedi-.'j

215 tions. Caesar did himself infinite hurt in that speech,
Sylla nescimt literas, non potuit dictare : for it did utterly I
cut off that hope which men had entertained, that he
would at one time or other give over his dictatorship.
Galba undid himself by that speech, legi a se militem,.

220 non emi : for it put the soldiers out of hope of the dona
tive. Probus, likewise, by that speech, Si vixero, non
opus erit amplius Romano imperio militibus ; a speech

Essay 15] Of x&ftions antj troubles 53

of great despair for the soldiers. And many the like.
Surely princes had need, in tender matters and ticklish
times, to beware what they say, especially in these short 225
speeches, which fly abroad like darts, and are thought to
be shot out of their secret intentions. For, as for large
discourses, they are flat things, and not so much noted.

Lastly, let princes, against all events, not be without
some great person, one or rather more, of military valour, 230
near unto them, for the repressing of seditions in their
beginnings. For, without that, there useth to be more
trepidation in court upon the first breaking out of trouble
than were fit. And the State runneth the danger of that
which Tacitus saith — Atque is habitus animorum fuit^ut 235
pessimum facinus auderent pauci, plures vellent, omnes
paterentur. But let such military persons be assured and
well reputed of, rather than factious and popular ; holding
also good correspondence with the other great men in the
State : or else the remedy is worse than the disease. no

XVI

I HAD rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and
the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal
frame is without a mind. And therefore God never
wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordi-
5 nary works convince it." It is true that a little philo
sophy inclineth Man's mind to atheism; but depth in
philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. For
while the mind of Man looketh upon second causes
scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no

»o farther ; but when it beholdeth the chain of them con
federate and linked together, it must needs fly to Pro
vidence and Deity. Nay, even that school which is
most accused of atheism, doth most demonstrate religion;
that is, the school of Leucippus, and Democritus, and

15 Epicurus. For it is a thousand times more credible,
that four mutable elements and one immutable fifth
essence, duly and eternally placed, need no God, than
that an army of infinite small portions or seeds, un
placed, should have produced this order and beauty

ao without a divine marshal.

The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart,
there is no God ; it is not said, The fool hath thoiight
in his heart : so as he rather saith it by rote to himself,
as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly
believe it, or be persuaded of it ; for none deny there as
is a God, but those for whom it maketh that there were
no God. It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism
is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by
this, that atheists will ever be talking of that their
opinion, as if they fainted in it themselves, and would 3°
be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.
Nay, more, you shall have atheists striveto get disciples,
as it fareth with other sects. And, which is most of
all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism,
and not recant : whereas, if they did truly think that 35
there were no such thing as God, why should they
trouble themselves ? Epicurus is charged, that he did
but dissemble for his credit's sake, when he affirmed
there were Blessed Natures, but such as enjoy them
selves without having respect to the government of the 4°
world. Wherein they say he did temporize, though in
secret he thought there was no God. But certainly he
is traduced ; for his words are noble and divine : Non
decs -vulgi negare profamim; sed vulgi opiniones diis
applicare profanum. Plato could have said no more. 45
And although he had the confidence to deny the ad
ministration, he had not the power to deny the nature.
The Indians of the West have names for their parti
cular gods, though they have no name for God (as if
the heathens should have had the names Jupiter, Apollo, so
Mars, &c., but not the word Deus) which shews that
even those barbarous people have the notion, though
they have not the latitude and extent of it. So that
against atheists the very savages take part with the
very subtlest philosophers. The contemplative atheist BJ

is rare : a Diagoras, a Bion, a Lucian perhaps, and
some others. And yet they seem to be more than they
are, for that all that impugn a received religion, or super
stition, are, by the adverse part, branded with the name

GO of atheists. But the great atheists indeed are hypocrites,
which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling,
so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.

The causes of atheism are, divisions in religion, if
there be many (for any one main division addeth zeal

6s to both sides, but many divisions introduce atheism) ;
another is, scandal of priests, when it is come to that
which St. Bernard saith, Non est jam dicere, ut populus,
sic sacerdos ; quia nee sic populus, ut sacerdos ; a third
is, a custom of profane scoffing in holy matters, which doth

70 by little and little deface the reverence of religion ; and
lastly, learned times, especially with peace and prosper
ity ; for troubles and adversities do more bow men's
minds to religion.

They that deny a God destroy man's nobility, for

75 certainly Man is of kin to the beasts by his body ; and
if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and
ignoble creature. It destroys likewise magnanimity, and
the raising of human nature. For take an example of a
dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put

80 on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who
to him is instead of a God, or melior natura : which
courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that
confidence of a better nature than his own, could never
attain. So Man, when he resteth and assureth himself

85 upon divine protection and favour, gathereth a force
and faith which human nature in itself could not obtain ;
therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in
this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to
exalt itself above human frailty. As it is in particular

go persons, so it is in nations. Never was there such a

State for magnanimity as Rome. Of this State hear
what Cicero saith : Quam volumus, licet, patres con-
scripti, nos amemus, tamen nee numero Hispanos, nee
robore GaZlos, nee calliditate Pcenos, ne.c artibus Grcecos,
nee denique hoc ipso hujus gentis et terrce domestico
nativoque sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos; sed pietcJe, ac
religione, atque hac una sapientia, quod deorum im-
mortalinm nuinine omnia regi,gubernariqueperspeximus,
omnts gentes nationesque s'iperavimus.

XVII

IT were better to have no opinion of God at all, than
such an opinion as is unworthy of him. For the one
is unbelief, the other is contumely : and certainly super
stition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith

5 well to that purpose : Surely, saith he, / had rather a
great deal men should say there was no such a man at
all as Plutarch, than that they should say there was one
Plutarch that would eat his children as soon as they were
born; as the poets speak of Saturn. And as the con-

10 tumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater
towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philo
sophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation : all which
may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though reli
gion were not. But superstition dismounts all these,

15 and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.
Therefore atheism did never perturb States ; for it
makes men weary of themselves, as looking no further :
and we see the times inclined to atheism, as the time
of Augustus Cassar, were civil times. But superstition

20 hath been the confusion of many States, and bringeth
in a new •primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres
of government.

Essay 17] Of Sbupetstftfon 59

The master of superstition is the people, and in all
superstition wise men follow fools ; and arguments are
fitted to practice, in a reversed order. It was gravely 25
said by some of the prelates in the Council of Trent,
where the doctrine of the schoolmen bare great sway,
that the schoolmen were like astronomers, which did
feign eccentrics and epicycles, and such engines of orbs,
to save the phenomena, though they knew there were 30
no such things ; and, in like manner, that the school
men had framed a number of subtle and intricate axioms
and theorems to save the practice of the Church.

The causes of superstition are pleasing and sensual
rites and ceremonies ; excess of outward and pharisaical 35
holiness ; over-great reverence of traditions, which can
not but load the Church ; the stratagems of prelates
for their own ambition and lucre ; the favouring too
much of good intentions, which openeth the gate to
conceits and novelties ; the taking an aim at divine 40
matters by human, which cannot but breed mixture of
imaginations ; and, lastly, barbarous times, especially
joined with calamities and disasters.

Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing ;
,for, as it addeth deformity to an ape to be so like a man, 45
so the similitude of superstition to religion makes it the
more deformed. And as wholesome meat corrupteth
to little worms, so good forms and orders corrupt into
a number of petty observances.

There is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when w
men think to do best if they go farthest from the super
stition formerly received ; therefore care would be had
that (as it fareth in ill purgings) the good be not taken
away with the bad, which commonly is done when the
people is the reformer. ss

xvi ir
Crabel

TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education ; in
the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a
country, before he hath some entrance into the language,
goeth to school, and not to travel. That young men
s travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allow well ;
so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath
been in the country before ; whereby he may be able to
tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country
where they go, what acquaintances they are to seek, what

>o exercises or discipline the place yieldeth ; for else young
men shall go hooded, and look abroad little.

It is a strange thing that, in sea-voyages, where there
is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should make
diaries ; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to be ob

is served, for the most part they omit it : as if chance were
fitter to be registered than observation. Let diaries,
therefore, be brought in use.

The things to be seen and observed are the courts of
princes, especially when they give audience to ambassa-

m dors : the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes,

and so of consistories ecclesiastic ; the churches and
monasteries with the monuments which are therein extant ;
the walls and fortifications of cities and towns, and so
the havens and harbours ; antiquities and ruins ; libraries,
colleges, disputations and lectures, where any are; 25
shipping and navies ; houses and gardens of state and
pleasure near great cities ; armories, arsenals, magazines ;
exchanges, burses, warehouses ; exercises of horseman
ship, fencing, training of soldiers, and the like ; comedies,
such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort ; 30
treasuries of jewels and robes ; cabinets and rarities ;
and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places
where they go. After all which, the tutor or servants
ought to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks,
feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such 35
shows, men need not be put in mind of them ; yet they
are not to be neglected. If you will have a young man to
put his travel into a little room, and in short time to
gather much, this you must do. First, as was said, he
must have some entrance into the language before he 4°
goeth. Then he must have such a servant, or tutor, as
knoweth the country, as was likewise said. Let him
carry with him also some card, or book, describing the
country where he travelleth, which will be a good key to
his inquiry. Let him keep also a diary. Let him not 45
stay long in one city or town : more or less, as the place
deserveth, but not long. Nay, when he stayeth in one
city or town, let him change his lodging from one end
and part of the town to another ; which is a great adamant
of acquaintance. Let him sequester himself from the 50
company of his countrymen, and diet in such places
where there is good company of the nation where he
travelleth. Let him, upon his removes from one place to
another, procure recommendation to some person of
quality residing in the place whither he removeth, that he 55

may use his favour in those things he desireth to see or

know. Thus he may abridge his travel with much profit.

As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in

travel, that which is most of all profitable, is acquaintance

60 with the secretaries, and employed men of ambassadors.
For so, in travelling in one country, he shall suck the
experience of many. Let him also see and visit eminent
persons in all kinds, which are of great name abroad,
that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the

65 fame. For quarrels, they are with care and discretion to
be avoided. They are commonly for mistresses, healths,
place, and words. And let a man beware how he keepeth
company with choleric and quarrelsome persons. For
they will engage him into their own quarrels. When a

70 traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries
where he hath travelled altogether behind him, bu,t main
tain a correspondence by letters with those of his ac
quaintance which are of most worth. And let his travel
appear rather in his discourse, than in his apparel or

75 gesture ; and in his discourse let him be rather advised
in his answers, than forward to tell stories : and let it
appear that he doth not change his country manners for
those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of
that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own

80 country.

XIX

(Empire

IT is a miserable state of mind to have few things to
desire and many things to fear. And yet that commonly
is the case with kings ; who, being at the highest, want
matter of desire, which makes their minds more languish
ing ; and have many representations of perils and shadows, 5
which make their minds the less clear. And this is one
reason also of that effect which the Scripture speaketh of,
that the king's heart is inscrutable. For multitude of
jealousies, and lack of some predominant desire, that
should marshal and put in order all the rest, maketh any 10
man's heart hard to find or sound. Hence it comes like
wise, that princes many times make themselves desires,
and set their hearts upon toys ; sometimes upon a build
ing ; sometimes upon erecting of an Order ; sometimes
upon the advancing of a person ; sometimes upon ob- iS
taining excellency in some art, or feat of the hand : as
Nero for playing on the harp ; Domitian for certainty of
the hand with the arrow ; Commodus for playing at
fence ; Caracalla for driving chariots ; and the like. This
seemeth incredible unto those that know not the principle, ao

64 Of Empire [Essay 19

\ that the mind of man is more cheered and refreshed by pro-

\ fiting in small things, than by standing at a stay in great.
We see also that kings that have been fortunate con
querors in their first years, it being not possible for them

*s to go forward infinitely, but that they must have some
check or arrest in their fortunes, turn in their latter years
to be superstitious and melancholy ; as did Alexander
the Great, Dioclesian, and in our memory Charles V. ;
and others : for he that is used to go forward, and findeth

.'« a stop, falleth out of his own favour, and is not the thing
he was.

To speak now of the true temper of empire : it is a
thing rare and hard to keep ; for both temper, and dis-
temper consist of contraries. But it is one thing to

35 mingle contraries, another to interchange them. The
answer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent
instruction."" Vespasian asked him, What was Nerd's
overthrow ? He answered, Nero could touch and tune
theharp well; but in government sometimes he used to

40 wind tfie pins too high, sometimes to let them down too
low. And certain it is, that nothing destroyeth authority
so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of
power pressed too far, and relaxed too much.

This is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times

45 in princes' affairs, is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings
of dangers and mischiefs, when theylire "near, than solid
and grounded courses to keep them aloof. But this is
but to try masteries with fortune. And let men beware
how they neglectTahd suffer matter of trouble to be pre-

50 pared. For no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence
it may come. The difficulties in princes' business are
many and great, but the greatest difficulty is often in
their own mind. For it is common with princes (saith
Tacitus) to will contradictories : Sunt plerumque regum

55 voluntates vekementes, et inter se contraries. For it is .

the solecism of power to think to command the end,
and yet not to endure {he mean.

Kings have to deal with their neighbours, their wives,
their children, their prelates or clergy, their nobles, their
.second nobles or gentlemen, their merchants, their com- 60
mons, and their men of war ; and from all these arise
dangers, if care and circumspection be not used.

First, for their neighbours ; there can no general rule
oe given (the occasions are so variable), save one which
ever holdeth. Which is, that princes do keep due senti- 65
nel, that none of their neighbours do overgrow so (by
increase of territory, by embracing of trade, by ap
proaches, or the like), as they become more able to
annoy them than they were. And this is generally the
work of standing councils to foresee and to hinder it. 70
During that triumvirate of kings, King Henry VIII. of
England, Francis I., king of France, and Charles V.,
emperor, there was such a watch kept that none of the
three could win a palm of ground, but the other two
would straightways balance it, either by confederation, 75
or, if need were, by a war, and would not in anywise take
up peace at interest. And the like was done by that
Jeague_ (which Guicciardini saith was the security of
Italy), made between Ferdinando, king of Naples, Loren-
zius Medices, and Ludovicus Sforsa, potentates, the one 80
of Florence, the other of Milan. Neither is the opinion
of some of theachoolmen to be received, that a war can
not justly be made, but upon a precedent injury or pro
vocation. For there is no question but a just fear of an ^_
imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a 85
lawful cause of war.

For their wives ; there are cruel examples of them.
Livia is infamed for the poisoning of her luisha.nd_;
Roxolana, Splyman's wife, was the destruction of that
renowned prince, Sultan Mustapha, and otherwise en
I. F

66 Of Empire [Essay 19

troubled his house and succession ; Edward II. of
England his queen had the principal hand in the de
posing and murder of her husband. This kind of
danger is then to be feared chiefly when the wives

95 have plots for the raising of their own children, or else
that they be advoutresses.

For their children ; the tragedies likewise of dangers
from them have been many. And generally the enter
ing of the fathers into suspicion of their children hath

ioo been ever unfortunate. The destruction of Mustapha
(that we named before) was fatal to Solyman's line, as
the succession of the Turks from Solyman until this
day is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood ;
for that Selymus II. was thought to be supposititious.

105 The destruction of Crispus, a young prince of rare
towardness, by Constantinus the Great, his father, was
in like manner fatal to his house, for both Constantinus
and Constance, his sons, died violent deaths ; and
Constantius, his other son, did little better ; who died,

no indeed of sickness, but after that Julianus had taken
arms against him. The destruction of Demetrius, son
to Philip II. of Macedon, turned upon the father, who
died of repentance. And many like examples there
are ; but few or none where the fathers had good by

us such distrust : except it were where the sons were in
open arms against them, as was Selymus I. against
Bajazet, and the three sons of Henry II. king of
England.

For their prelates ; when they are proud and great,

120 there is also danger from them ; as it was in the times
of Anselmus and Thomas Beckett, archbishops of Can
terbury, who, with their crosiers, did almost try it with
the king's sword : and yet they had to deal with stout
and haughty kings, William Rufus, Henry I., and

i:5 Henry II. The danger is not from that state, but

where it hath a dependence of foreign authority, or
where the churchmen come in and are elected, not by
the collation of the king, or particular patrons, but by
the people.

For the nobles ; to keep them at a distance, it is not 130
amiss ; but to depress them may make a king more
absolute, but less safe, and less able to perform any
thing that he desires. I have noted it in my history of
King Henry VII. of England, who depressed his
nobility ; whereupon it came to pass, that his times 135
were full of difficulties and troubles. For the nobility,
though they continued loyal unto him, yet did they not
co-operate with him in his business. So that in effect
he was fain to do all things himself.

For their second nobles ; there is not much danger 140
from them, being a body dispersed. They may some
times discourse high ; but that doth little hurt Besides,
they are a counterpoise to the high nobility, that they
grow not too potent. And, lastly, being the most imme
diate in authority with the common people, they do 145
best temper popular commotions.

For their merchants ; they are venajwrta, and if
they flourish not, a kingdom may havegood limbs,
but will have empty veins, and .nourish little. Taxes
and imposts upon them do seldom good to the king's 15*
revenue. For that that he wins in the hundred he
loseth in the shire : the particular rates being increased,
but the total bulk of trading rather decreased.

For their commons ; there is little danger from
them, except it be where they have great and potent 153
heads ; or where you meddle with the point of religion,
or their customs, or means of life.

For their men of war ; it is a dangerous state where
they live and remain in a Body, and are used to dona
tives ; whereof we see examples in the janizaries, and i6»

pretorian bands of Rome. But trainings of men, and
arming them, in several places, and under several com
manders, and with^out donatives, are things of defence,
and no danger.

165 Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good
or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no
rest. All precepts concerning kings are in effect com
prehended in those .two remembrances : Memento quod,
es homo, and Memento quod es Deus, or vice Dei.

no The one bridleth their power, and the other their will

Counsel

THE greatest trust between man and man, is the trust of
giving counsel. For in other confidences men commit
the parts of life, their lands, their goods, their children,
their credit, some particular affair ; but to such as they
make their counsellors they commit the whole : by how
much the more they are obliged to all faith and integrity.
The wisest princes need not think it any diminution to
their greatness, or derogation to their sufficiency, to
rely upon counsel. God himself is not without, but
hath made it one of the names of the blessed Son : The
Counsellor, Salomon hath pronounced that in counsel
is stability. Things will have their first or second
agitation. If they be not tossed upon the arguments
of counsel, they will be tossed upon the waves of fortune,
and be full of inconstancy, doing and undoing, like the
reeling of a dmnken man. Salomon's son found the
force of counsel, as his father saw the necessity of it.
For the beloved kingdom of God was first rent and
broken by ill counsel. Upon which counsel there are
set for our' instruction the two marks whereby bad

counsel is for ever best discerned : that it was young
counsel, for the persons ; and violent counsel, for the
matter.

The ancient times do set forth in figure both the

25 incorporation and inseparable conjunction of counsel
with Kings, and the wise and politic use of counsel by
Kings : the one, in that they say Jupiter did marry
Metis, which signifieth counsel, whereby they intend
that Sovereignty is married to Counsel ; the other in

3° that which followeth, which was thus : They say, after
Jupiter was married to Metis, she conceived by him, and
was with child : but Jupiter suffered her not to stay till
she brought forth, but ate her up ; whereby he became
himself with child, and was delivered of Pallas armed

35 out of his head. Which monstrous fable containeth a
secret of empire how kings are to make use of their
counsel of state : that first, they ought to refer matters
unto them, which is the first begetting or impregnation ;
but when they are elaborate, moulded, and shaped in
•40 the womb of their counsel, and grow ripe and ready to
be brought forth, that then they suffer not their counsel
to go through with the resolution and direction, as if it
depended on them, but take the matter back into their
own hands, and make it appear to the world, that the

45 decrees and final directions (which, because they come
forth with prudence and power, are resembled to Pallas
armed) proceeded from themselves, and not only from
their authority, but (the more to add reputation to them
selves) from their head and device.

50 Let us now speak of the inconveniences of counsel,
and of the remedies. The inconveniences that have
been noted in calling and using counsel, are three.
First, the revealing of affairs, whereby they become
less secret. Secondly, the weakening of the authority

55 of princes, as if they were less of themselves. Thirdly,

the danger of being unfaithfully counselled, and more
for the good of them that counsel, than of him that is
counselled. For which inconveniences, the doctrine
of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings' times,
hath introduced cabinet^ councils, a remedy worse than &>
the disease.

As to secrecy ; princes are not bound to communi
cate all matters with all counsellors, but may extract
and select. Neither is it necessary, that he that con-
sulteth what he should do, should declare what he will 65
do. But let princes beware that the unsecreting of their
affairs comes not from themselves. And as for cabinet
councils, it may be their motto, Plenus rimarum sum.
One futile person, that maketh it his glory to tell, will
do more hurt than many that know it their duty to 70
conceal. It is true there be some affairs which require
extreme secrecy, which will hardly go beyond one or
two persons besides the king. Neither are those counsels
unprosperous. For, besides the secrecy, they commonly
go on constantly in one spirit of direction without dis- 75
traction. But then it must be a prudent king, such as . . \
is able to grind with a hand-mill. And those inward '•"•'•
counsellors had need also be wise men, and especially
true and trusty to the king's ends : as it was with King
Henry VII. of England, who in his greatest business 80
imparted himself to none, except it were to Morton and
Fox.

For weakness of authority ; thejfablg. showeth the
remedy. Nay, the majesty of kings is rather exalted
than diminished when they are in the chair of counsel : 8s
neither was there ever prince bereaved of his dependen
cies by his counsel ; except where . there hath been
either an over-greatness in one counsellor, or an over-
strict combination in divers : which are things soon
found and holpen.

72 Of GCounSCl [Essay 20

For the last inconvenience, that men will counsel
with an eye to themselves : certainly, non inveniet fidem
super terram is meant of the nature of_times, and not
of all particular persons. There be that are in nature
35 faithful and sincere, and plain and direct, not crafty and
involved. Let princes, above all, draw to themselves
such natures. Besides, counsellors are not commonly
so united but that one counsellor keepeth sentinel over
another. So that if any counsel out of faction or private
I00 ends, it commonly comes to the king's ear. But the
best remedy is, if princes know their counsellors, as
well as their counsellors know them :
I
Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos.

And on the other side, counsellors should not be too

105 speculative into their sovereign's person. The true
composition of a counsellor is, rather to be skilful in
his master's business, than in his nature. For then
he is like to advise him, and not to feed his humour.
It is of singular use to princes if they take the opinions

,IO of their council both separately and together. For
private opinion is more free, but opinion before others
is more reverend. In private, men are more bold in
their own humours, and, in consort, men are more ob
noxious to others' humours. Therefore it is good to

115 take both ; and of the inferior sort, rather in private,
to preserve freedom ; of the greater, rather in consort,
to preserve respect. It is in vain for princes to take
counsel concerning matters, if they take no counsel
likewise concerning persons. For all matters are as

120 dead images ; and the life of the execution of affairs
resteth in the good choice of persons. Neither is it
enough to consult concerning persons, secitnditm genera
(as in an idea, or mathematical description), what the
kind and character of the person should be. For the

greatest errors are committed, and the most judgment »cs
is shown, in the choice of individuals. It was truly said,
Ofctimj^consiliarii mortui : Books will speak plain when
counsellors blanch. Therefore it is good to be conversant
in them, specially the books of such as themselves have
been actors upon the stage. 130

The councils at this day in most places are but
familiar meetings, where matters are rather talked on
than debated. And they run too swift to the order or
act of council. It were better that, in causes of weight,
the matter were propounded one day, and not spoken 135
to till next day ; in node consilium. So was it done
in the commission of union between England and Scot
land, which was a grave and orderly assembly. I com
mend set days for petitions. For lx>th it gives the
suitors more certainty for their attendance, and it frees 140
the meetings for matters of estate, that they may hoc_
agere. In choice of committees for ripening business
for the council, it is better to choose indifferent persons,
than to make an indifferency by putting in those that are
strong on both sides. I commend also standing commis- 145
sions ; as, for trade, for treasure, for war, for suits, for
some provinces. For where there be divers particular
councils, and but one council of estate (as it is in Spain),
they are, in effect, no more than standing commissions,
save that they have greater authority. Let such as are 150
to inform councils out of their particular professions
(as lawyers, seamen, mintmen, and the like), be first
heard before committees, and then, as occasion serves,
before the council. And let them not come in multi
tudes, or in a tribunitious manner ; for that is to clamour iss
councils, not to inform them. A long table and a square
table, or seats about the walls, seem things of form, but
are things of substance. For at a long table, a few at
the upper end, in effect, sway all the business ; but in

74 <SH &0tmsel [Essay 20

160 the other form there is more use of the counsellors'
opinions that sit lower. A king, when he presides in
council, let him beware how he opens his own inclina
tion too much in that which he propoundeth. For else
counsellors will but take the wind of him, and instead of

165 giving free counsel, will sing him a song of placebo.

XXI

IBelapS

FORTUNE is like the market ; where, many times, if you
can stay a little, the price will fall. And again, it is
sometimes like gibylla's offer ; which at first offereth the
commodity at full, then consumeth part and part, and
stiU holdeth up the price. For Occasion (as it is in the s
common verse) turneth a bald noddle after she hath pre
sented her locks in front, and no hold taken; or, at least,
turneth the handle of the bottle first to be received, and
after the belly, which is hard to clasp. There is surely
no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and w
onsets of things. Dangers are no more light, if they
once seem light ; and more dangers have deceived men
than forced them. Nay, it were better to meet some
dangers half way, though they come nothing near, than
to keep too long a watch upon their approaches. For if 15
a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep. On
the other side, to be deceived with too long shadows (as
some have been when the moon was low, and shone on
their enemies' back), and so to shoot off before the time,
or to teach dangers to come on by over-early buckling ao

76 <&f !9dapS [Essay 2i

towards them, is another extreme. The ripeness or un
ripeness of the occasion (as we said) must ever be well
weighed. And generally it is good to commit the begin
nings of all great actions to Argus with his hundred eyes,

as and the ends to Briareus with liis hundred hands : first
to watch, and then to speed. For the helmet of Pluto,
which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in
the council, and celerity in the execution. For when
things are once come to the execution, there is no secrecy

30 comparable to celerity— like the motion of a bullet in the
air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye.

XXII

Cunning

WE take Cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom. And
certainly there is a great difference between a cunning
man and a wise man, not only in point of honesty, but in
point of ability. There be tnat can pack the cards, and
yet cannot play well ; so there are some that are good in 5
canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men.
Again, it is one thing to understand persons, and another
thing to understand matters. For many are perfect in
men's humours, that are not greatly capable of the real
part of business ; which is the constitution of one that 10
hath studied men more than books. Such men are fitter
for practice than for counsel, and they are good but in
their own^alley : turn them to new men, and they have
lost their aim ; so as the old rule, to know a fool from a
wise man, Mitte ambos nudos ad tgnotos, et mdebis, doth 15
scarce hold for them. And because these cunning men
are like haberdashers of small wares, it is not amiss to
set forth their shop.

It is a point of cunning to wait upon him with whom
you speak, with your eye ; as the Jesuits give it in precept, ao

For there be many wise men that have secret hearts and
transparent countenances. Yet this would be done with
a demure abasing of your eye sometimes, as the Jesuits
also do use.

«s Another is, that when you have anything to obtain of
present dispatch, you entertain and amuse the party with
whom you deal with some other discourse, that he be not
too much awake to make objections. I know a counsellor
and secretary, that never came to Queen Elizabeth of

30 England with bills to sign, but he would always first put
her into some discourse of state, that she mought the less
mind the bills.

The like surprise may be made by moving things when
the party is in haste, and cannot stay to consider advisedly

35 of that is moved.

If a man would cross a business that he doubts some
other would handsomely and effectually move, let him
pretend to wish it well, and move it himself, in such sort
as may foil it.

40 The breaking off in the midst of that one was about
to say, as if he took himself up, breeds a greater appetite
in him with whom you confer to know more.

And because it works better when anything seemeth
to be gotten from you by question, than if you offer it of

45 yourself, you may lay a bait for a question, by shewing
another visage and countenance than you are wont ; to
the end, to give occasion for the party to ask what the
matter is of the change ; as Ngh^rniah did, And I had
not before that time been sad before the king.

50 In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to
break the ice by some whose words are of less weight,
and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by
chance, so that he may be asked the question upon the
other's speech ; as Narcissus did, in relating to Claudius

55 the marriage of Messalina and Silius.

Essay 22] Of (Eunwng 79

In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it
is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world ;
as to say, The world says, or, There is a speech abroad.

I knew one that, when he wiote a letter, he would put
that which was most material in the gostscnjrt, as if it 60
had been a bye matter.

I knew another that, when he came to have speech,
he would pass over that he intended most, and go forth,
and come back again, and speak of it as a thing he had
almost forgot.

Some procure themselves to be surprised at such
times as it is like the party, that they work upon, will
suddenly come upon them, and be found with a letter in
their hand, or doing somewhat which they are not accus
tomed, to the end they may be apposed of those things 70
which of themselves they are desirous to utter.

It is a point of cunning to let fall those words in a
man's own name which he would have another man
learn and use, and thereupon take advantage. I knew
two_that were competitors for the secretary's place, in 75
Queen Elizabeth's time, and yet kept good quarter be
tween themselves, and would confer one with another
upon the business ; and the one of them said, that to be
a secretary in the declination of a monarchy 'was a ticklish
thing, and that he did not affect it. The other straight 80
caught up those words, and discoursed with divers of his
friends, that he had no reason to desire to be secretary in
the declination of a monarchy. The first man took hold
of it, and found means it was told the Queen ; who, hear
ing of a declination of a monarchy, took it so ill, as she 85
would never after hear of the other's suit.

There is a cunning, which we in England call the
turning of the cat_ in the pan ; which is, when that
which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had
said it to him. And, to say truth, it is not easy when 90

such a matter passed between two, to make it appear
from which of them it first moved and began.

It is a way that some men have, to glance and dart
at others by justifying themselves by negatives ; as to

95 say, This I do not; as Tigellinus did towards Burrhus,
saying, Se non diversas spes, sed incolumitatem impera-
toris simpliciter spectare.

Some have in readiness so many tales and stories, as
there is nothing they would insinuate but they can wrap

too it into a tale ; which serveth both to keep themselves
more in guard, and to make others carry_jt with more
pleasure.

It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the
answer he would have, in his own words and propositions ;

105 for it makes the other party stick the less.

It is strange how long some men will lie in wait to
speak somewhat they desire to say, and how far about
they will fetch, and how many other matters they will
beat over to come near it. It is a thing of great patience,

no but yet of much use.

A sudden, bold, and unexpected question doth many
times surprise a man, and lay him open. Like to him
that, having changed his name, and walking in Paul's,
another suddenly came behind him, and called him by

us his true name ; whereat straightways he looked back.

But these small wares and petty points of cunning
are infinite, and it were a^ good deed to make a list of
them ; for that nothing doth more hurt in a State than
that cunning men pass for wise.

120 But certainly some there- are that know the reports
and falls of business, that cannot sink into the main of it ;
like a house that hath convenient stairs and entries, but
never a fair room. Therefore you shall see them find out
pretty .looses in the conclusion, but are no ways able to

i»s examine or debate matters. And yet commonly they

take advantage of their inability, and would be thought
witsjof direction. Some build rather upon the abasing
of others7"ancT(as we now say) putting tricks upon them,
than upon the soundness of their own proceedings. But
Solomon saith, Prudms advertit ad gressus sues; stultus no
diver tit ad dolos.

XXIII

far a plan's §>tlf

AN ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shjgwd,
thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly men that
are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide
with reason between self-love and society ; and be so

s true to thyself as thou be not false to others, especially
to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man's
actions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands
fast upim its own centre ; whereas all things that have
affinity with the heavens move upon the centre of

10 another, which they benefit.

The referring of all to a man's self is more tolerable
in a sovereign prince, because themselves are not only
themselves, but their good and evil is at the .rjgril of the
public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant

Js to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever
affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to
his own ends ; which must needs be often eccentric to
the ends of his master or State. Therefore, TeT ^princes
or States choose such servants as have not this mark ;

80 except they mean their service should be made but the
accessary.

That which maketh the effect more pernicious is,
that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough
for the servant's good to be preferred before the master's ;
but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the as
servant shall carry things against a great good of the
master's. And yet that is the case of bad officers,
treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false and
corrupt servants ; which set a bias upon their bowl, of
their own petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of 30
their master's great and important affairs. And for the
most part the good such servants receive is after the
model of their own fortune ; but the hurt they sell, for
that good is after the model of their master's fortune.
And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers as 35
they will set a house on fire and it were but to roast their
eggs. And yet these men many times hold credit with
their masters, because their study is but to please them,
and profit themselves ; and for either respect they will
abandon the good of their affairs. 4o

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof,
a depraved thing. It is the wisdom ®f rats, that will be
sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is
the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who
digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of«
crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.
But that which is specially to be noted is, that those
which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are sw^mantg$_£ine
rivali^ are many times unfortunate. And whereas they
have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they be- so
come in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy
of fortune ; whose wings they thought by their self-
wisdom to have pinioned.

XXIV

itmobatimtsf

As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen,
so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.
Yet, notwithstanding, as those that first bring honour
into their family are commonly more worthy than most
5 that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is
seldom attained by imitation. For 111, to man's nature
as it stands perverted, hath a natural motion, strongest
in continuance ; but Good, as a forced motion, strongest
^t first Surely every medicine is an innovation, and

10 he that will not apply new remedies must expect new
evils. ( For jime is the greatest innovator; Und if time
of course alters things to the worse, and wisdom and
counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be
the end ?

15 It is true that what is settled by custom, though it
be not good, yet at least it is fit ; and those things
which have long gone together, are, as it were, con
federate with themselves ; whereas new things piece
not so well ; but, though they help by their utility, yet

20 they trouble by their inconformity. Besides, they are

like strangers, more admired, and less favoured. All
this is true, if time stood still : which contrariwise
moveth so round that a froward retention of custom
is as turbulent a thing as an innovation ; and they
that reverence too much old times, are but a scorn to 23
the new.

It were good, therefore, that men in their innova
tions, would follow the example of time itself ; which
ndeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees
>carce to be perceived. For otherwise, whatsoever is 30
new is unlocked for : and ever it mends some, and pairs
ithers ; and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and
hanks the time ; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and
mputeth it to the author.

It is good also not to try experiments in States, 35
except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident :
and well to beware, that it be the reformation that
draweth on the change, and not the desire of change
that pretendeth the reformation : and lastly, that the
novelty, Though it be not rejected, yet be held for a sus_- 40
gectj and, as the Scripture saith, that we make a stand
upon the ancient -way, and then look about us, and dis
cover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk
in it.

XXV

AFFECTED Dispatch is one of the most dangerous things
to business that can be ; it is like that which the physi
cians call predigestion, or hasty digestion, which is sure
to fill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of
5 diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the time
of sitting, but by the advancement of the business. And
as in races it is not the large stride or high lift that
makes the speed, so in business the keeping close to
the matter and not taking of it too much at once, pro-

10 cureth dispatch. It is the care of some, only to come off
speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods
of business, because they may seem men of dispatch.
But it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another
by cutting off ;| and business so handled at several sit-

15 tings or meetings goeth commonly backward and for
ward in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man that
had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a
conclusion, Stay a little, that we may make an end the
sooner.

20 On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing. For

Essay 25] Of Dl'spatcf) 87

ime is the measure of business, as money is of wares ;
md business is bought at a dear hand_ where there is
mall dispatch. The Spartans and Spaniards have been
loted to be of small dispatch : Mi venga la muerte de
Spagna ; Let my death come from Spain ; for then it as
•v'ill be sure to be long in coming.

Give good hearing to those that give the first infor
mation in business ; and rather direct them in the
beginning than interrupt them in the continuance of
their speeches. For he that is put out of his own order 30
will go forward and backward, and be more tedious
while he waits upon his memory, than he could have
been if he had gone on in his own course. But some
times it is seen that the moderator is more troublesome
than the actor. 35

Iterations are commonly loss of time. But there is
no such gain of time as to iterate often the state of the
question ; for it chaseth away many a frivolous speech
as it is coming forth. Long and curious speeches are
as fit for dispatch as a robe or mantle with a long train 40
is for a race. Prefaces, and passages, and excusations,
and other speeches of reference to the person, are great
wastes of time ; and though they seem to proceed of
modesty, they are braxery. Yet beware of being too
material when there is any impediment or obstruction 4$
in men's wills ; for pre-occupation of mind ever requireth
preface of speech, like a fomentation to make the unguent
enter.

Above all things, order and distribution, and singling
out of parts, is the life of dispatch ; so as the distribu- 50
tion be not too^subtle. For he that doth not divide will
never enter well into business ; and he that divideth
too much will never come out of it clearly. To choose
time is to save time ; and an unseasonable motion is
but beating the air. There be three parts of business ; 55

88 Of "SMspatt!) Essay 25

the preparation, the debate or examination, and the
perfection. Whereof, if you look for dispatch, let the
middle only be the work of many, and the first and last
the work of few. The proceeding upon somewhat con-
Co ceived in writing doth for the most part facilitate dis
patch. For, though it should be wholly rejected, yet
that negative is more pregnant^ ojf_direction than an
indefinite ; as ashes are monTgenerative than dust.

XXVI

IT hath been an opinion, that the French are wiser than
they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.
But howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so
between man and man. For, as the Apostle saith of
godliness, Having a show of godliness^but denying the
power thereof, so, certainly there are, in point of wisdom
and sufficiency, that do nothing or little very solemnly,
Magno conatu nugas. It is a ridiculous thing, and fit
for a satire to persons of judgment, to see what shifts
these formalists have, and what rjrosj2£Ctisi:es,.to make 10
superficlesTo seem body that hath depth and bulk.

Some are so close and reserved, as they will not show
their wares but by a dark light, and seem always to keep
back somewhat : and when they know within themselves
they speak of that they do not well -know, would never- 15
theless seem to others to know of that which they may
not well speak. Some help themselves with countenance
and gesture, and are wise by signs ; as Cicero saith of
Piso, that when he answered him he fetched one of his
brows up to his forehead, and bent the other down to his 20

chin ; Responses, altero ad frontem sublato, altero ad
mentum depresso supercilio, crudelitatem tibi non placere.
Some think to bear k by speaking a great word, and being
peremptory ; and go on, and take by admittance that

25 which they cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is
beyond their reach, will seem to despise, or make light
of it, as impertinent or curious ; and so would have their
ignorance seem judgment. Some are never without a
difference, and commonly by amusing men with a subtlety,

?o blanch the matter ; of whom A. Gellius saith, Hominem
delirum, qui -verborum minutns rerumfrangit ponder a,
Of which kind also PlatOj in his Protagoras, bringeth in
Prodicus in scorn, and maketh him make a speech that
consisteth of distinctions from the beginning to the end.

35 Generally, such men, in all deliberations, find ease to
be of the negative side, and affect a credit to object and
foretell difficulties. For when propositions are denied,
there is an end of them ; but if they be allowed, it re-
quireth a new work : which false point of wisdom is the

4° bane of business.

To conclude, there is no decaying merchant, or inward
beggar, hath so many tricks to uphold the credit of their
wealth, as these empty persons have to maintain the
credit of their sufficiency. Seeming wise-men may make

45 shift to get opinion ; but let no man choose them for
employment : for, certainly, you were better cake for
business a man somewhat absurd than over-formal.

XX VII

IT had been hard for him that spake it, to have put more
truth and untruth together in few words, than in that
speech, Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either «.
wild beast or a god. For it is most true, that a natural
and secret hatred and aversation towards society, in any 5
man, hath somewhat of the savage beast ; but it is most
untrue, that it shjjuld have any character at all of the
iivine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in
solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's
self for a higher conversation : such as is found to have 10
been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathens, as
Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empe-
iocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana, and truly
ind really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy
Fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive what 15
solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not
company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk
but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin
idage meeteth with it a little : Magna civitas, magnet,
wlitndo : because in a great town friends are scattered ; 20

so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part,
which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go further,
and affirm most truly, t at it is a mere and miserable
solitude to want true friends, without which the world i's

«s but a wilderness. And, even in this sense also of soli
tude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections
is unfit for friendship, he takejh it of the beast, and not
from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and jlis-.

30 charge of the fulness of the heart, which passions of all
kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stop
pings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the
body ; and it is not much otherwise in the mind. You
may take sarza_to open the liver, steel to open the spleen,

35 flower of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain :
but no^rgceipt; ppeneth the heart but a true friend ; to
whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears7 hopes, sus
picions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to
oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

40 It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great
kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship
whereof we speak, so great a£ they purchase it many
times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness.
For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune

45 from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather
this fruit, except (to make themselves capable" thereof)
they raise some persons to be as it were companions, and
almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth
to mconvenience. The modern languages give unto such

50 persons the name of favourites, or privadoes ; as if it
were matter of grace or conversation. But the Roman
name attaineth the true use and Cause thereof, naming
them Participes curarum ; for it is that which tieth the
knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not

55 by weak, and passionate princes only, but by the wisest

Essay 27] Of Jprfen&S&tp 93

and most politic that ever reigned : who have oftentimes
oined to themselves some of their servants, whom both
themselves have called friends, and allowed others like
wise to call them in the same manner, using the word
which is received between private men. 60

L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey,
after surnamed the Great, to that height that Pompey
vaunted himself for Sylla's over-match. For when he
had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the
pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, 65
and began to speak great, Pompey turned__u£on him
again, and in effect bade him be quiet ; for that more
men adored the sun rising than the sun setting. With
Julius Cassar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest,
as he set him down in his testament for heir in Remainder 70
after his nephew. And this was the man that had power
with him to draw him forth to his death. For when
Caesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of
some ill presages, and especially a dream of Calpurnia,
this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, 75
telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till
his wife had dreamed a better dream. And it seemeth
his favour was so great, as Antonius,'in a letter, which is
recited verbatim in one of Cicero's Philippics, called him
venefica, witch, as if he had enchanted Caesar. Augustus 80
raised Agrippa, though of mean birth, to that height, as,
when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of
his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him,
that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or
take away his life : there was no third way, he had made 85
him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had as
cended to that height as they two were termed and
reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius, in a letter to him,
saith, H&c pro amidtia nostra non occultavi; and the
whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a 90

94 ®f Jpn'en&SlJtp [Essay 27

goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship-
between them two. The like, or more, was between
Septimus Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his
eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus, and would
95 often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son;
and did write also, in a letter to the senate, by these
words : / love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live
me. Now, if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a
Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had

I00 proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature. But being
men so wise, of such s'trength and severity of mind, and;
so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it
proveth, most plainly, that they found their own felicity, •
though as great as ever happened to mortal men, but as

105 a half piece, except they might have a friend to make it
entire. And yet, which is more, they were princes that •
had wives, sons, nephews ; and yet all these could not
supply the comfort of friendship.

It is not to be forgotten what Cornmeus observeth

no of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy ; namely,
that he would communicate his secrets with none ; and,
least of all, those secrets which troubled him most.
Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his
latter time that closeness did impair and a little £erish_

JIS his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have
made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of
his second master, Louis XL, whose closeness was
indeed his tormentor. The rjara.ble of Pythagoras is]
dark, but true, Cor ne edito : Eat not the heart. Cer-

120 tainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, (those that
want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals
of their own hearts. ! But one thing is most admirable
(wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship),
which is, that this communicating of a man's self to-

I85 his friend, works two contrary effects : for it redoubleth

joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs. For there is no man
that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the
more ; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his
friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth,
of operation upon a man's mind of like virtue as the 130
alchymists use to attribute to their stone for man's
body, that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the
good and benefit of nature. But yet, without praying
in aid of alchymists, there is a manifest image of this
in the ordinary course of nature. For in tig dies, union 135
strengthened and cherisheth any natural action, arid,
on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent
impression : and even so is it of minds.

The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sove
reign for the understanding, as the first is for the affec- 140
tions. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the
affections from storm and tempests ; but it maketh
daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and con
fusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood
only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his 145
friend ; but before you come to that, certain it is, that
whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts,
his wits and understanding do clarify and break up,
in the communicating and discoursing with another :
he tosseth his thoughts more easily ; he marshalleth 150
them more orderly ; he seeth how they look when they
are turned into words ; finally, he waxeth wiser than
himself : and that more by an hour's discourse than by
a oay's meditation. It was well said by Themistocles
to the king of Persia, that speech was like cloth of '155
A rras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth
appear in figure ; whereas in thoitghts they lie but as in
packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in
opening the understanding, restrained only to such
friends as are able to give a man counsel. They in- 160

96 Of JFrienfcsijtp [Essay 27

deed are best : but, even without that, a man learneth
of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and
whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts
not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a

165 statua or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass
in smother.

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship
complete, that other point which lieth more open, and
falleth within vulgar observation ; which is faithful

17° counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well, in one of
his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain
it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from
another is drier and purer than that which cometh from
his own understanding and judgment ; which is ever

175 infused and drenched in his affections and customs.
So as there is as much difference between the counsel
that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself,
as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a
flatterer. For, there is no such flatterer as is a man/s

180 self,' and there is no such remedy against flattery of a
man's self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two
sorts ; the one concerning- manners, the other concern
ing business. For the first, the best preservative to
keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a

185 friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account
is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive.
Reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead.
Observing our faults in others is sometimes ujipjropejrj
for our case ; but the best receipt (best, I say, to work,!

190 and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a I
strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme
absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do
commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them ; to
the great damage both of their fame and fortune. For,

195 as St. James saith, they are as men, that look sometimes

ay 27 j <&f jpitenteftip 97

11 to a glass, and presently forget their own shape and
"avour. As for business, a man may think, if he will,
hat two eyes see no more than one ; or that a gamester
eeth always more than a looker-on ; or that a man in
.nger is as wise as he that hath said over the four-and- 200
wenty letters ; or that a musket may be shot off as well
ipon the arm as upon a rest ; and such other fond and
tigh imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when
,11 is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth
msiness straight. And if any man think that he will 205
ake counsel, but it shall be by pieces ; asking counsel
n one business of one man, and in another business
if another man ; it is well (that is to say, better, per-
laps, than if he asked none at all), but he runneth
Wo dangers. One, that he shall not be . faithfully coun- 210
elled : for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect
.nd entire- friend, to have counsel given, but such as
hall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath
hat giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel
[iven, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), 213
,nd mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy.
£ven as if you would call a physician, that is thought
[ood for the cure of the disease you complain of
>ut is unacquainted with your body, and therefore, may
Hit you in , a way for present cure, but overthroweth 210
our health in some other kind, and so cure the disease,
tnd kill the patient. But a friend, that is whofty
cquainted with a man's estate, will beware, by further-
ng any present business, how he dasheth upon other
aconvenience. And, therefore, rest not upon scattered 225
ounsels, for they will rather distract and mislead than
ettle and direct.

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in
ic affections, and support of the judgment), followeth
he last fruit, which is, like the pomegranate, full of 3ao
L II

many kernels : I mean, aid and bearing a part in a
actions and occasions. Here, the best way to represen
to_Ji£e- the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and se
how many things there are which a man cannot do him
235 self ; and then it will appear that it was a sparing

of the ancients, to say, that a friend is_janother himself
for that a friend is far more than himself. Men hav
their time, and die many times in desire of some thing1
which they principally take to heart ; the bestowing d

24° a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a ma]
have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that th'
care of- those things will continue after him. So tha
a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A mai
hath a body, and that body is confined to a place ; bu

245 where friendship is, all offices of life are, as it were
granted to him and his deputy. For he may exercise
them by his friend. How many things are there whict
a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or dc
himself ! A man can scarce allege his own merits witl

250 modesty, much less extol them ; a man cannot some
times stoop to supplicate or beg, and a number of the
like. But all these things are graceful in a friend's
mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So, again
a man's person hath many proper relations which he

255 cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as
a father ; to his wife but as a husband ; to his enem)
but upon terms : whereas a friend may speak as th<
case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person
But to enumerate these things were endless : I havt

260 given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his owl
part : if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.

RICHES are for spending, and spending for honour and
good actions. Therefore extraordinary expense must be
limited by the worth of the occasion (for voluntary un
doing may be as well for a man's country as for the
kingdom of heaven) ; but ordinary expense ought to be
limited by a man's estate, and governed with such re
gard as it be within his compass and not subject to
deceit and abuse of servants ; and ordered to the best
show, that the bills may be less than the estimation
abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of even hand, *>
his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his

Riches are for spending, and spending for honour, and good
actions ; therefore extraordinary expence must be limited by the
worth of the occasion : for voluntary vndoing may be aswell for a
mans countrey, as for the kingdoms of heauen : but ordinary
expence ought to be limited by a mans estate, and governed wth
such regarde as it be wthin his compasse, and not subject to deceite,
and abuse of servauntes, and ordered by the best showe, that the
billes may be lesse then the estimation abroade : It is no basenes
for the greatest to discende, and.looke into their owne estate : some

ioo vj^f (Expense [Essay 28

receipts ; and if he think to wax rich, but to the third
part. It is no baseness for the greatest to descend and
look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon

13 negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into
melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken. But
wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that
cannot look into his own estate at all had need both choose
well those whom he employeth, and change them often ;
for new are more timorous and less subtle. He that can
look into his estate but seldom, it behoveth him to turn
all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in
some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some
other ; as, if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in

•5 apparel ; if he be plentiful in the hall, to be saving in
the stable, and the like. For he that is plentiful in
expenses of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from
decay. In clearing of a man's estate, he may as well
hurt himself in being too sudden as in letting it run on

3° too long ; for hasty selling is commonly as disadvantage-
able as interest. Besides, he that clears at once will
relapse ; for finding himself out of straits, he will revert
to his customs : but he that cleareth by degrees induceth
a habit of frugality, and gaineth as well upon his mind

35 as upon his estate. Certainly, who hath a state to
repair may not despise smal things : and commonly, it

forbeare it not of negligence alo e, but doubting to bring them-
selues into melancholy, in respect they shall finde it broken ; but
woundes cannot be cured wthout searching : he that cannot looke
into his owne estate, had neede both choose well those whome he
imployeth, and chaunge them often : for newe [men] are more
timerous, and lesse subtile : in clearing of 'a mans estate he may
aswell hurt himselfe in being too suddaine, as in letting it runne
one to long ; for hasty selling is commonly as disadvantageable as
interest : he that hath a state to repaire may not despise small
thinges : and commonly it is lesse dishonour to abridge w-ttY

28] <&

is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges than to
stoop to petty gettings. A man ought warily to begin
charges which, once begun, will continue ; but in matters
that return not, he may be more magnificent.

charges, then to stoope to petty gettings : a man ought warily to
begin charges wcb begun must continue, but in matters that returne
not, he may be more liberal.

XXIX

tfoe Crue (ireattwss of
attir tetates;

THE speech of Themistocles, the Athenian, which was
haughty and arrogant, in taking so much to himself, had
been a grave and wise observation and censure, applied
at large to others. Desired at a feast to touch a lute,
he said, He could not fiddle, but yet he could make a
small town a great city. These words (holpen a little
with a metaphor) may express two differing abilities in
those that deal in. business of estate. For, if a true
survey be taken of counsellors and statesmen, there
may be found (though rarely) those which can make a
small State great and yet cannot fiddle : as, on the other
side, there will be found a great many that can fiddle
very cunningly, but yet are so far from being able to
make a small State great, as their gift lieth the other
way, to bring a great and flourishing estate to ruin and
decay. And, certainly, th se degenerate arts and shifts,
whereby many counsellors and governors gain both
favour with their masters and estimation with the vulgar,
deserve no better name than fiddling ; being things
rather pleasing for the time, and graceful to themselves

Essay 29] ^vu* Greatness of 3&mgUoms 103

only, than tending to the weal and advancement of the
State which they serve. There are also (no doubt)
counsellors and governors which may be held sufficient
negotiis pares, able to manage affairs, and to keep them
from precipices and manifest inconveniences ; which, 25
nevertheless, are far from the ability to raise and amplify
' an estate in power, means, and fortune. But be the
workmen what they may be, let us speak of the work ;
that is, the true greatness of kingdoms and estates, and
the means thereof. An argument fit for great and mighty 30
princes to have in their hand : to the end that neither
by over-measuring their forces, they lose themselves in
vain enterprises ; nor, on the other side, by undervaluing
them, they descend to fearful and pusillanimous counsels.

The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth 35
fall under measure ; and the greatness of finances and
revenue doth fall under computation. The population
may appear by musters ; and the number and greatness
of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet there
is not anything, amongst civil affairs, more subject to 40
error, than the right valuation and true judgment con
cerning the power and forces of an estate. The king
dom of heaven is compared, not to any great kernel, or
nut, but to a grain of mustard seed ; which is one of the
least grains, but hath in it a property and spirit hastily 45
to get up and spread. So are there states great in terri
tory, and yet not apt to enlarge or command ; and some
that have but a small dimension of stem, and yet are
apt to be the foundation of great monarchies.

Walled towns, stored arsenals and armouries, goodly 50
races of horse, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance,
artillery, and the like : all this is but a sheep in a lion's
skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be
stout and warlike. Nay, number itself in armies im-
porteth not much, where the people are of weak courage ; 5$

104 <SM tt)f ®tue Greatness [Essay 29

for, as Virgil saith, // never troubles the wolf how many
the sheep be. The army of the Persians, in the plains of
Arbela, was such a vast sea of people as it did somewhat
astonish the commanders in Alexander's army ; who

60 came to him, therefore, and wished him to set upon them
by night ; but he answered, He would not pilfer the
victory. And the defeat was easy. When Tigranes, the
Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with four hundred
thousand men, discovered the army of the Romans, being

65 not above fourteen thousand, marching towards him,
he made himself merry with it, and said, Yonder men
are too many for an ambassage and too few for a fight.
But, before the sun set, he found them enow to give him
the chase with infinite slaughter. Many are the examples

70 of the great odds between number and courage ; so that
a man may truly make a judgment, that the principal
point of greatness, in any State, is to have a race d
military men. Neither is money the sinews of war (as
it is trivially said), where the sinews of men's arms in

75 base and effeminate people are failing. For Solon said
well to Crcesus (when in ostentation he shewed him his
gold), Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than
you, he will be master of all this gold. Therefore, let
any prince or State think soberly of his forces, except

So his militia of natives be of good and valiant soldiers.
And let princes, on the other side, that have subjects of
martial disposition, know their own strength, unless they
be otherwise wanting unto themselves. As for mercenary
forces (which is the help in this case), all examples show

85 that, whatsoever estate or prince doth rest upon them,
he may spread his feathers for a time, but he will mew
them soon after.

The blessing of Judah and Issachar will never meet ;
that the same people, or nation, should be both the lion's

go whelp, and the ass between burdens : neither will it be, that

Essay 29] of Bmg&oms anU Estates 105

a people overlaid with taxes should ever become valiant
and martial. It is true that taxes, levied by consent of
the estate, do abate men's courage less ; as it hath been
seen notably in the excises of the Low Countries ; and
in some degree, in the subsidies of England. For, you 95
must note, that we speak now of the heart, and not of
the purse. So that, although the same tribute and tax,
laid by consent, or by imposing, be all one to the purse,
yet it works diversely upon the courage. So that you
may conclude, that no people overcharged with tribute is *»
fit for empire.

Let states, that aim at greatness, take heed how their
nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast. For that
maketh the common subject grow to be a peasant and
base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect, but a 105
gentleman's labourer. Even as you may see in coppice
woods ; if you leave your staddles too thick, you shall
never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes.
So in countries, if the gentlemen be too many, the com
mons will be base ; and you will bring it to that, that no
not the hundredth poll will be fit for an helmet ; espe
cially as to the infantry, which is the nerve of an army :
and so there will be great population, and little strength.
This which I speak of hath been no where better seen
than by comparing of England and France ; whereof 115
England, though far less in territory and population,
hath been (nevertheless) an overmatch ; in regard the
middle people of England make good soldiers, which the
peasants of France do not. And herein the device of
King Henry VII. (whereof I have spoken largely in the 1*0
history of his life) was profound and admirable, in mak
ing farms and houses of husbandry of a standard ; that
is, maintained with such a proportion of land unto them,
as may breed a subject to live in convenient plenty and
no servile condition ; and to keep the plough in the hands 135

of the owners, and not mere hirelings. And thus indeed
you shall attain to Virgil's character, which he gives to
ancient Italy :

Terra potens armis atque ulere gleba.

Neither is the state (which, for anything I know, is almost

130 peculiar to England, and hardly to be found anywhere
else, except it be, perhaps, in Poland) to be passed over ;
I mean ihe state of free servants and attendants upon
noblemen and gentlemen : which are no ways inferior
unto the yeomanry for arms. And therefore, out of all

135 question, the splendour and magnificence and great
retinues, and hospitality of noblemen and gentlemen, re
ceived into custom, doth much conduce unto martial
greatness. Whereas, contrariwise, the close and reserved
living of noblemen and gentlemen causeth a penury of

140 military forces.

By all means it is to be procured, that the trunk of
Nebuchadnezzar's tree of monarchy be great enough to
bear the branches and the boughs ; that is, that the
natural subjects of the Crown, or State, bear a sufficient

i45 proportion to the strange subjects that they govern.
Therefore all states that are liberal of naturalization
towards strangers are fit for empire. For to think that
an handful of people can, with the greatest courage and
policy in the world, embrace too large extent of dominion

i5o — it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. The
Spartans were a nice people in point of naturalization :
whereby, while they kept their compass, they stood firm ;
but when they did spread, and their boughs were be-
comen too great for their stem, they became a windfall

I55 upon the sudden. Never any State was, in this point, so
open to receive strangers into their Body as were the
Romans. Therefore it sorted with them accordingly ;
for they grew to the greatest monarchy. Their manner

Essay 29] of 3&mQ&oms attfc (JBstatts 107

was to grant naturalization (which they called jus civitatis)
and to grant it in the highest degree : that is, not only i&>
jus commercii, jus connubit, jus hareditatis, but also jus
suffmgii and jus honorum : and this not to singular per
sons alone, but likewise to whole families ; yea, to cities,
and sometimes to nations. Add to this, their custom of
plantation of colonies ; whereby the Roman plant was 165
removed into the soil of other nations. And putting both
constitutions together, you will say, that it was not the
Romans that spread upon the world, but it was the world
that spread upon the Romans. And that was the sure
way of greatness. I have marvelled sometimes at Spain, 170
how they clasp and contain so large dominions with so
few natural Spaniards : but sure the whole compass of
Spain is a very great body of a tree, far above Rome and
Sparta at the first. And, besides, though they have not
had that usage to naturalize liberally, yet they have that 175
which is next to it : that is, to employ, almost indiffer
ently, all nations in their militia of ordinary soldiers, yea,
and sometimes in their highest commands. Nay, it
seemeth at this instant, they are sensible of this want of
natives ; as by the Pragmatical Sanction, now published, 180
appeareth.

It is certain that sedentary and within-door arts, and
delicate manufactures (that require rather the finger than
the arm), have in their nature a contrariety to a military
disposition. And generally all warlike people are a little 185
: idle, and love danger better than travail. Neither must
they be too much broken of it, if they shall be preserved
in vigour. Therefore it was great advantage in the
ancient States of Sparta, Athens, Rome, and others, that
they had the use of slaves ; which commonly did rid 190
those manufactures. But that is abolished, in greatest
part, by the Christian law. That which cometh nearest

to it is to leave those arts chiefly to strangers (which, for
that purpose, are the more easily to be received), and to

l&s contain the principal bulk of the vulgar natives within
those three kinds, tillers of the ground ; free servants ;
and handicraftsmen of strong and manly arts, as smiths,
masons, carpenters, &c. ; not reckoning professed
soldiers.

200 But, above all, for empire and greatness, it importeth
most that a nation do profess arms as their principal
honour, study, and occupation. For the things which we
have formerly spoken of are but habilitations towards
arms : and what is habitation without intention and

2°s act ? Romulus, after his death (as they report or feign),
sent a present to the Romans, that above all they should
intend arms ; and then they should prove the greatest
empire of the world. The fabric of the State of Sparta
was wholly (though not wisely) framed and composed to
2I0that scope and end. The Persians and Macedonians had
it for a flash. The Gauls, Germans, Goths, Saxons, Nor
mans, and others, had it for a time. The Turks have it
at this day, though in great declination. Of Christian
Europe, they that have it are, in effect, only the Spaniards.

6is But it is so plain that every man profiteth in that he most
intendeth, that it needeth not to be stood upon. It is
enough to point at it ; that no nation which doth not
directly profess arms, may look to have greatness fall into
their mouths. And, on the other side, it is a most certain

240 oracle of time, that those states that continue long in
that profession (as the Romans and Turks principally
have done), do wonders. And those that have professed
arms but for an age, have, notwithstanding, commonly
attained that greatness in that age which maintained

•»5 them long after, when their profession and exercise of
arms hath grown to decay.

Essay 29] of Btngtfoms anfc (Estates 109

Incident to this point is for a State to have those
laws or customs which may reach forth unto them just
occasions (as may be pretended) of war. For there is
that justice imprinted in the nature of men, that they 230
enter not upon wars (whereof so many calamities do
ensue), but upon some, at the least specious grounds and
quarrels. The Turk hath at hand, for cause of war, the
propagation of his law or sect ; a quarrel that he may
always command. The Romans, though they esteemed 235
the extending the limits of their empire to be great
honour to their generals when it was done, yet they never
rested upon that alone to begin a war. First, therefore,
let nations that pretend to greatness have this ; that they
be sensible of wrongs, either upon borderers, merchants, 240
or politic ministers ; and that they sit not too long upon
a provocation. Secondly, let them be prest and ready to
give aids and succours to their confederates ; as it ever
was with the Romans ; insomuch as, if the confederates
had leagues defensive with divers others States, and, 245
upon invasion offered, did implore their aids severally,
yet the Romans would ever be the foremost, and leave it
to none other to have the honour. As for the wars which
were anciently made on the behalf of a kind of party, or
tacit conformity of state, I do not see how they may be 250
well justified ; as when the Romans made a war for the
liberty of Grzccia ; or when the Lacedaemonians and
Athenians made war to set up or pull down democracies
and oligarchies ; or when wars were made by foreigners,
under the pretence of justice or protection, to deliver the 255
subjects of others from tyranny and oppression, and the
like. Let it suffice, that no estate expect to be great, that
is not awake upon any just occasion or arming.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither
natural body nor politic : and certainly, to a kingdom or 260

i io <&f tfje ®rt« toatness [Essay 29

estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise. A
civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever : but a foreign
war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the
body in health ; for in a slothful peace, both courages

265 will effeminate, and manners corrupt. But howsoever it
be for happiness, without all question for greatness, it
maketh to be still for the most part in arms : and the
strength of a veteran army (though it be a chargeable
business), always on foot, is that which commonly giveth

eyo the law, or, at least, the reputation, amongst all neighbour
States ; as may be well seen in Spain ; which hath had,
in one part or other, a veteran army almost continually,
now by the space of six-score years.

To be master of the sea is an abridgment of a

275 monarchy. Cicero, writing to Atticus of Pompey's pre
paration against Caesar, saith, Consilium Pompeii plane
Themistocleum est ; putat enim, qui mart potitur, eum
rerum potirij and without doubt, Pompey had tired out
Cassar, if upon vain confidence he had not left that way.

280 We see the great effects of battles by sea. The battle of
Actium decided the empire of the world. The battle of
Lepanto arrested the greatness of the Turk. There be
many examples where sea-fights have been final to the
war : but this is when princes, or States, have set up

285 their rest upon the battles. But thus much is certain,
that he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and
may take as much and as little of the war as he will.
Whereas those that be strongest by land are many times,
nevertheless, in great straits. Surely, at this day, with

290 us of Europe, the vantage of strength at sea (which is
one of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great
Britain) is great ; both because most of the kingdoms of
Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most
part of their compass ; and because the wealth of both

Essay 29] of IttngtJoms atrti (Z&stntes 1 1 1

Indies seems, in great part, but an accessary to the com- 295
mand of the seas.

The wars of latter ages seem to be made in the dark,
in respect of the glory and honour which reflected upon
men from the wars in ancient time. There be now, for
martial encouragement, some degrees and orders of 30°
chivalry (which, nevertheless, are conferred promiscuously
•upon soldiers and no soldiers) ; and some remembrance
perhaps upon the escutcheon ; and some hospitals for
maimed soldiers ; and such lite things. But in ancient
times, the Trophies erected upon the place of the victory; 305
the funeral laudatives and monuments for those that died
in the wars ; the crowns and garlands personal ; the
style of Emperor, which the great kings of the world
after borrowed ; the Triumphs of the generals upon their
return ; the great donatives and largesses, upon the dis- 3"
banding of the armies, were things able to inflame all
men's courages. But above all. that of the Triumph
amongst the Romans was not pageants, or gaudery, but
one of the wisest and noblest institutions that ever was.
For it contained three things, honour to the general, us
riches to the treasury out of the spoils, and donatives to
the army. But that honour, perhaps, were not fit for
monarchies ; except it be in the person of the monarch
himself, or his sons : as it came to pass in the times of
the Roman emperors, who did impropriate the actual 3*>
'u-iumphs to themselves and their sons, for such wars as
they did achieve in person; and left only for wars
achieved by subjects some triumphal garments and ensigns
to the general.

To conclude. No man can by care-taking (as the 325
Scripture saith) add a cubit to his stature, in this little
rrodel of a man's body ; but in the great frame of king
doms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes,

ii2 Of (Greatness of 26tmg&oms, Etc. [Essay 29

of estates, to add amplitude and greatness to their king-
330 doms. For by introducing such ordinances, constitutions,
and customs, as we have now touched, they may sow
greatness to their posterity and succession. But these
things are commonly not observed, but left to take their
chance.

LONDON I PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW -STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

PR Bacon, Francis

2206 Essays

1899

v.1

cop, 2

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

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