FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)

Bacon was connected through both his parents with the governing classes. His father was lord keeper of the great seal, and the queen used to call the boy her young lord keeper.' At twelve he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and as a youth he studied law at Gray's Inn. He was in the diplomatic service at Paris when his father died, leaving him but ill provided for. In 1584 he was elected to the House of Commons, but in spite of conspicuous ability and powerful connections, his political preferment was slow. He became solicitor-general in 1607, attorney-general 1613, privy councillor 1616, lord keeper 1617, lord chancellor and baron Verulam 1618, viscount St. Albans 1621. But hostile political influences in this last year brought about his fall. He was accused of bribery, and admitted receiving gifts, but denied that they had influenced him in the administration of justice. He was deprived of all his offices, fined £200,000, imprisoned, and excluded from court and parliament. All the penalties except the last were immediately remitted by the king, but he was not allowed to return to public life. He retired to the estate he had inherited from his elder brother, and gave himself to literature and philosophy, which had always occupied his leisure. While still a young man, he said, 'I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province.' The Advancement of Learning, published in English in 1605, is mainly an attempt to review what was then known; the Novum Organum (in Latin, 1620) is an exposition of the means by which the bounds of knowledge may be extended. His philosophical work was of great influence on account of the stress he laid on observation of facts and the testing of hypothesis by experiment. He met his death through a chill contracted by leaving his coach on a winter's day to gather snow to stuff a fowl in order to try the effect of cold on the preservation of meat. His History of Henry VII (1622) is an important work, but his most notable contribution to literature was the Essays -a title probably suggested by the French Essais of Montaigne (1580). Bacon's first edition of 10 essays appeared in 1597, an enlarged edition, containing 38, in 1612, and the final issue (58 essays) in 1625. Though they reveal only at times the philosophical bent of Bacon's genius, they illustrate fully the extraordinary keenness of his mind, his practical worldly wisdom, and the terse incisiveness of his style.

ESSAYS

1.- OF TRUTH

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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, as with poets; 5 nor for 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 perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, im

'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief, affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there 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 15 the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor: but a natural though corrupt love of the 20 aginations as one would, and the like, lie itself. One of the later school of the

but it would leave the minds of a number

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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 Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge, 'If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is

towards 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 generations of men: it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.'

in it that doth the hurt, such as we spake 10 brave towards God, and a coward of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments 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, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the 20 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

V. OF ADVERSITY

breathed light upon the face of the 25 the manner of the Stoics, that the good

matter, or chaos; then he breathed light
into the face of man; and still he
breatheth and inspireth_light into the
face of his chosen. The poet, that
beautified the sect, that was otherwise 30
inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently
well, 'It is a pleasure to stand upon the
shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea;
a pleasure to stand in the window of a
castle, and to see a battle, and the ad- 35
ventures thereof below; but no pleasure
is comparable to the standing upon the
vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be
commanded, and where the air is always
clear and serene), and to see the errors, 40
and wanderings, 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 45
in charity, rest in providence, and turn
upon the poles of truth.

It was a high speech of Seneca, after things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.' Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia. Certainly if miracles be the command over Nature, they appear most in adversity. 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 God' (Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem 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 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 unbind Prometheus, by whom human nature is represented, sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; lively describing christian resolution that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. 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 of

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the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favor. 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 labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not 10 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 to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome 15 ground. Judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

VII.-OF PARENTS AND CHIL-
DREN

made wantons; but in the midst, some that are as it were forgotten, who, many times, nevertheless, prove the best. The illiberality of parents, in allowance towards their children, is a harmful error, and 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 authority towards their children, but not their purse. Men have a foolish manner (both parents, and schoolmasters, and servants), in creating and breeding an emulation between brothers during childhood, which many times sorteth to discord when they are men, and 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 matter; insomuch that we see a nephew 25 sometimes resembleth 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 most flexible; and let them not too much apply themselves 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 it; but generally the precept is good. Optimum elige, suave et facile illud faciet consuetudo [Choose the best; custom will make it pleasant and easy]. Younger brothers are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where the elder are disinherited.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears; they cannot utter the one, nor they will not utter the 30 other. Children sweeten labors, but they make misfortunes more bitter; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to 35 beasts; but memory, and 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 have sought to express 40 the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed; so the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses are most indulgent 45 towards their children, beholding them as the continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work, and so both children and creatures.

The difference in affection of parents 50 towards their several children is many times unequal, and sometimes unworthy, especially in the mother; as Solomon saith, A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son shames the 55 mother.' A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest

VIII.-OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE
LIFE

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 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