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 3L^ 
 
 THE 
 
 LONDON SERIES OF ENGLISH CLASSICS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 J. W. HALES, M.A. and C. S. JERRAM, M.A. 
 
 BACON'S ESSAYS 
 
 ABBOTT 
 VOL. I.
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STUEET 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. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1876 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 /.I 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The object of the present' edition of Bacon's Essays 
 is 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 
 works. The basis of this Introduction is, of course, 
 the edition of Bacon's Works issued by Mr. Ellis 
 and 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 
 
 aa'77i^4
 
 iv preface 
 
 spelling, the principle adopted in the following pages 
 is this : whatever quotations or extracts are made for 
 critical or antiquarian purposes are printed \\dth 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.d. 
 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. 161 2, 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
 
 preface v 
 
 a work that may enable readers of all ages and classes 
 to read Bacon's Essays easily and intelligently. 
 
 I am indebted to Dr. Kuno Fischer's ' Francis of 
 Verulam ' for some valuable hints, which will be found 
 acknowledged severally where they occur. Of Mr. 
 Spedding's work I have made so much use that the 
 words ' debt ' and ' obligation ' cannot sufficiently ex- 
 press what I owe to it. Though (as I regret to learn 
 from Mr. Spedding, who most kindly and laboriously 
 criticised my proofs) my interpretation of Bacon's 
 character differs widely from his, yet it is founded 
 almost 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. 
 I regret that I did not see Mr. Gardiner's History of 
 Englaiid from the Accession of yaines /., &c., in time 
 to 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.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 lei 
 
 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-II2
 
 PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN BACON'S LIFE, 
 AND TIMES. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Bom (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 "^ST^ 
 
 Bacon goes to Trinity College, Cambridge . . . 1573 
 Union of Utrecht between the seven northern pro\ances of 
 
 the Netherlands iS75 
 
 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 Elizaheth\ . . . 1584 
 
 About this time was written the Greatest Birth of TimeX 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 moder7i reckoning. 
 
 t Mr. Spedding inclines to think this letter was written by Bacon. 
 
 X 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 QBbtnts m 23a£on's %\k 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Asks the Earl of Leicester to further a suit urged in his 
 
 behalf by Essex * ; death of Leicester . . , . 1588 
 
 Assassination of Henry IIL by Friar Clement . . 1589 
 
 Advertisement touchi7ig 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 Cottference of Pleasure containing ' the Praise of Forti- 
 tude,' ' the Praise of Love,' 'the Praise of Knowledge' 
 ' the Praise of the Queen ' 1593 
 
 Certain Observatiotis 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 :J: : 
 he is consequently forbidden to come into the Queen's 
 presence 1593 
 
 A true Report of the detestable treason ifitended by Dr. 
 Rod erigo Lopez, a physician attending upofi the person 
 of the Queen's Majesty 1594 
 
 Sues unsuccessfully for the place of Attorney and then for 
 
 that of Solicitor-General 1 593-5 
 
 Gesta Grayoriim, a Device represented at Gray's Inn. . 1594 
 
 Rebellion of Tyrone ; End of Religious Wars in France . 1595 
 
 Essex makes a present of an estate to Bacon to console 
 him for his disappointment ; Bacon's Device, written 
 for Essex 1595 
 
 Alhance between Elizabeth and Henry IV. . . . 1596 
 
 Essays (first edition) with Colours of Good atid 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. 
 
 t The ' Libel ' is described by j\Ir. 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.' 
 
 X 'The gentlemen,' he says in his speech, 'must sell their plate, and the 
 farmers their brass pots, ere this will be paid.'
 
 (Sbcnts in bacon's Hife 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 Uberty 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 a7id Treaso7is attempted and 
 committed by Robert, late Earl of Essex, atid 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, wTitten before 
 
 \h^ 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 Kifzg- 
 
 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 NatiircB. At this time he pro- 
 bably writes theZ^^ Intc7pretatione Natures Procsmium 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 ^bmts m 33acon's Htfc 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Sir Francis Bacon his Apology in certaiii 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 letter grounding of a 
 further Uttioti to ensue between the Kingdoi?ts of England 
 a?id Scotland ......... 1604 
 
 Appointed an 'ordinary member of the Learned Counsel' 1604 
 
 Certaiii Articles or considerations touching the Unio7i of 
 
 the Kiiigdoms of F.ngland and Scotland . . . . 1604 
 
 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 Engla?td and Scotland, authorised to treat of 
 an u?tion for the weal of both realms. 2 Jac, i. Pre- 
 pared but altered 1604 
 
 Publication of the Advaiicement of Learfiing . . 1605 
 
 The Gunpowder Plot 1605 
 
 Marriage of Bacon to Alice Barnham .... 1606 
 
 Bacon requests Dr. Playfair to translate the Advancement 
 
 of Learjiing into Latin 1606 
 
 Bacon made Sohcitor-General 1607 
 
 Colonisation of Virginia 1607 
 
 Bacon shows Sir Thomas Bodley the Cogitata et Visa de 
 
 Interpretatione Naturce 1607 
 
 Conversion of Toby Matthew (one of Bacon's most inti- 
 mate friends) to the Romish Church . . . . 1608 
 
 Matthew imprisoned and banished ; wi-ites In felicem 
 mejnoriam Elizabethce ; 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 . . . 1608 
 
 Certain cotisiderations touching the Plantatioti in Ireland 
 
 presejited to his Majesty 1609 
 
 Bacon sends to Toby Matthew a part of histauratio 
 Magna (the part is supposed to be the Redargutio Phi- 
 losophiaruin) ........ 1609 
 
 Bacon sends to Bishop Andrewes a copy of Cogitata et Visa, 
 
 with the last additions and amendments . . . . 1609
 
 (Bbmt% m i3acon's Hik xiii 
 
 A.D. 
 
 He also sends to Toby Matthew his De Sapientia Vetcrum 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- 
 
 gutio Philosophiarum 1609 
 
 Assassination of Henry IV. by Ravaillac .... 1610 
 
 Newfoundland is colonised 1610 
 
 The thermometer invented 1610 
 
 Death of Bacon's mother i6io 
 
 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 . . 161 1 
 
 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 htteUectualis and Thema Coeli . 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 hbel 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 
 
 VilUers 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 Biickingham when he became favoicrite to King 
 fames 1616
 
 xiv dBbents m 23acott's %ik 
 
 A.D. 
 1617 
 1617 
 
 Baeon made Lord Keeper , 
 
 Episcopacy introduced into Scotland .... 
 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 i6i3 
 
 Official declaration concer7iing 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 Procemium 
 beginning with the words Franciscus de Verulamio sic 
 cogitavit ; a dedication to King James ; a general Pre- 
 face ; and an account (entitled Distribtttio Operis) of 
 the parts of which the histauratio 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
 
 (iBbtnts m i3acon's Hifc 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 Dc 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 //'/i'^r/tz Ventorum, with titles 
 of five similar Histories, proposed to be published 
 month by month ; writes the Advertisemeiit touching a 
 Holy War . . . . ... . . . 1622 
 
 Parliament is dissolved 1622 
 
 Writes Historia Vitcz et Mortis ; sues in vain for the Pro- 
 vostship of Eton ; publishes the De Atigmentis ; 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 vvTitten 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 Essays 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, 
 
 I wish to make known to your Reverence my intentions 
 
 •with regard to the writi tigs which I tneditate and have in hand ; 
 not hoping to perfect them, but desiring to try ; and because I work 
 for posterity ; these things reqtcir in g ages for their accotnplishment. 
 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 
 VOL. I. a 
 
 J^)
 
 xvi iSacon's Account of i)is 2SEritmas. 
 
 concerning the ' Advancement of Learning' ; and this, as you know, 
 is already finished and published, a?id includes the Partitions of the 
 Sciences ; which is the first part of my Instauration. The Novum 
 Orgatium should have followed ; but I ititerposed my moral a7id 
 political writijigs, as being ?iearer ready. These are: first, the 
 History of the reign of Henry tlie Seventh, king of Engla'nd, after 
 zohich will follow the little book which in your lajiguage 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 atid much enlarged in the 
 treattnent. The same volume will contai?i also my little book on the 
 Wisdom of the Ancients. And this volume is {as I said) ijitetposed., 
 fiot being a part of the Instauration. After this loill follow the 
 Novum Organum, to which there is still a second part to be added : 
 but I have already compassed and plaiined it out i?i my mind. A fid 
 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 indtistry. 
 A?id those portions which I have published, concern itig Winds afid 
 concerning Life and Death, are not history pure, because of the 
 axioms and greater observatiofts that are i7ite7posed : but they -are a 
 kind of writing mixed of natural history, and a rude and imperfect 
 fortn 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 shewfi many examples of the 
 Machifie, more exact and more applied to the rules of Induction, 
 hi 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 Fi/th Part of my Instaura- 
 tion. 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 — / speak only of tlwse 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 on UCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHAT BACON WAS HIMSELF. 
 
 'I NEVER LOOK,' says Montaigne, ' upon an author, be 
 they such as write of virtue and of actions, but I curiously 
 endeavour to find out what he was himself.'^ This hint, 
 useful for the students of any book, is especially useful 
 for 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, 7iot vulgar, but of a nature whereof a man 
 shall fi7id 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 
 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 
 again need we suspect that in the Essays we have, not 
 
 ' Florio's Montaigne, p. 411.
 
 xviii Jntrotiuctton 
 
 the true Bacon, but an artificial essayist, wishing to found 
 a Uterary reputation, or a reputation for morality or 
 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 citriously — 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, '■ I speak unto paper as to the first mnn 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 silenms. ^ My 
 thoughts,' says the genial rambler, * slip from me with as 
 little care as they are of small worth': but the philo-
 
 OThat 33acon toas fiimsclf xix 
 
 sopher has no thoughts ' of small worth ' : With me it is 
 thus, and, I thitik, zvith 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 I'ather 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 vaiue 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 ivcre better relate himself to a statiia than to lei his 
 thoughts pass in smother, and Bacon's statua was pen 
 and paper. Perhaps some dim sense of his own principal 
 deficiency was one reason why Bacon so systematically 
 related himself \.o paper. Writing, he said, maketh an 
 exact 7nanj 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 cotirse of invention, he safd, 
 can be satisfactory unless it be carried on in W7'iting} 
 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, cr 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 
 
 ' Novtivi Organum, Aphorism CI.
 
 XX IntroUuction 
 
 more than to win credit at the expense of some legal 
 rival by being more rowid or resolute, or to exchange 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. ^ 
 
 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 in that short edition turn almost all upon the 
 subjects that would interest an ordinary student or 
 gentleman leading a private life — Discourse, Followers, 
 Suitors, Expence, Health, Honour. The only two that 
 have any savour of the pohtician. Faction and Negocia- 
 ting, come last in order, and they are short and incom- 
 plete. Passing to the edition of 1612, we find the first 
 place occupied by Religion; but it is religion treated from 
 the 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 : 
 the first place is given to Truth. And so the final edition of 
 the Essays of the author of the Instauratio Magna will 
 
 * See p. xlix., also Life, Vol. vil. p. 197, 'Everybody prepares himself 
 for great occasions. Bacon seems to have thought it no loss of time to pre- 
 pare for small ones too.' See also Mr. Spedding's note on the Tempons 
 Partus Masciclus as an ' experiment ' in ' a spirit of contemptuous invective,' 
 fVorks. Vol. iii. p. 525; 'To assist his memory and perhaps also to excite 
 his thoughts, he was in the habit of jotting down in common-place books 
 such reflexions and suggestions as occurred to him on the sudden.'
 
 SiBSat 33acon fajas Jimself xxi 
 
 beginfor 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 ajiswer. 
 
 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 
 poUtician, and a moralist, or — to return to Montaigne, 
 with whom we set out — ' we must curiously endeavour to 
 find out what he was himself.' 
 
 Mnltiini incola : my soul hath long dwelt with those 
 that are enemies u7tto peace — this is the text that Bacon 
 himself has given us as the key-note of his hfe.^ 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 ahen 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 ilp 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 7nultum ificola, 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 tmderstanding, my mind hath been in 
 
 * Bacon never uses these words in their full force. He means that he 
 dwells amid alien occupations.
 
 xxu 
 
 llntrotmction 
 
 effect absent frovi that I have dom} 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 Instaiiratio Magna 
 already in his mind. Yet, we are informed that while 
 still a resident at the University, he had already con- 
 ceived a dislike for the philosophy of the schools. 
 Aristotle's philosophy was then, as always, his aversion, 
 not merely for its barren logic and puerile induction, 
 but also as embodying the evil Spirit of Authority, 
 barring the way to improvement and thus retarding 
 science. 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 owai 
 confession that the ardour and constancy of his mind in 
 his pursuit of truth had been protracted over a long time, 
 it bdtig now forty years (he is writing thus in his sixty- 
 fifth year) siiice I composed a juvenile work on this subject^ 
 which, with great confidence and a magitificent title, I 
 nained the Greatest Birth of Time. ^ 
 
 Between his fortieth and fiftieth year, looking back 
 
 ' Life, Vol. iii. p. 253. ^ Works, Vol. i. p. 4. 
 
 ^ Life, Vol. vii. p. 533.
 
 Wiint 33acon Inas Shnsclf xxiii 
 
 upon and justifying his past life, he speaks as one who had 
 from the first recognised that he was dorn to be useful to 
 mankind and specially vwidded by 7iature 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 fdund no 
 work so meritorious as the discovery and development of 
 the arts and inventions that tejid to civilize the life of 
 ntajt. I found in jnyself-^h.Q. 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 earnestfiess of research, 
 apoiuer of siispenditig Judgment with patience, of medi- 
 tating with pleasure, of asserting with caution, of cor- 
 recting false impressions with readiness, and of arranging 
 my thoughts with careful pains : I had no passion for 
 7iovelty, no fond admiration for antiquity ; i7nposture hi 
 every shape I utterly hated. Ajid, thus endowed, I con- 
 sidered myself as it were a relation and kinsman of truih.'^ 
 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 
 recognisi7ig si7nila}-ities. It is curiously characteristic of 
 Bacon that he lays more stress upon that 7Jiost imp0}'ta7it 
 object the recog7iitio7i of similarities, than upon the 
 observation of subtle shades of differe7ice. 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. 519. He also speaks of himself (1592) as willing ' to 
 serve Her Majesty,' but 'not as a man born under Sol, that loveth honour ; 
 Hor under Jupiter, that loveth business (J'or the C07ite7nplative planet carrieili 
 me a-.L-ay ivhoUy).' Life, Vol. i. p. 108. See also pp. liii, l.xiii.
 
 XXIV 
 
 Jntrobuction 
 
 — 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.' ^ He himself says of them that t/iey sometimes 
 lead lis as if by the haiid to sublhne and noble axio7ns : 
 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 
 of 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 nature^ 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 Verulant, p. 133. 
 * lb., p. 139. " lb.
 
 raifiat 23acon foas Simsclf 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 
 npon human affairs than these mechanical invetitions. 
 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 *- 
 despicable affair, and good thoughts, though God accept 
 tJum, yet towards me7i 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 gy-ound. 
 Merit and good work? is the end of man^s motion, and 
 conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's 
 rest.^ 
 
 ' Essay xi. 11. 35-40.
 
 xxvi Jntvobuction 
 
 Poiver and place w^x^ 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 
 worV, fit for 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, could 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 \vith 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 ^\^ne, 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 
 wild,' 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
 
 S2E6at 23acon toas fiimseU xxvii 
 
 act ; a?id that cannot be without power a7td place as the 
 vantage and commanding ground. 
 
 Circumstances combined with the suggestions of his 
 philosophy to divert Bacon from a contemplative to a 
 pubHc 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 
 hving. 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 instrtwient to do good to the 
 State, and therefore I applied myself to him in a manner 
 which I thifik rarely happeneth among men : ^ such is the 
 account given by Bacon fourteen years afterwards of the 
 commencement of their friendship. It is no doubt true, 
 but probably not the whole truth. The State, high as 
 ic stood in Bacon's mind, was subordinate to Science. 
 We shall find him afterwards in his diary noting down 
 
 ^ Life, Vol. i. p. io6. 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 Introduction 
 
 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, z>2 whose time able men were sn;ppressed of purpose. 
 Essex, by advancing his cHent 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 
 comphance 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 sometitne 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
 
 ^^i)at i3acon toas j^imsclf 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Queen secret information of importance, duly valued by- 
 Elizabeth. But to procure this information money was 
 going out, and meantime money was not coming in. 
 Voluntary tmdoing may be as well for a man's country as 
 
 for the Kingdom of Heaven : so runs the Essay on 
 Expence; and both Bacon and his brother exemplified 
 this voluntary undoing. More than once he was 
 threatened with arrest for debt ; and all this while place 
 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 
 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 3tntvot(uctton 
 
 was more worth. But to the end of the Queen's Hfe 
 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 Bii'th 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 Hberties 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 tv/o 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 \\Tongfully 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 asserviling hi7nself to 
 every man^s charity, the Apostle of the New Logic and 
 herald of the Kingdom of Man began to learn, after
 
 WiW 53acon loas fitmsdf 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 
 advancemetit 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 his nobler 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 iiolloiv statesniaji 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 atiything exactly ; but let him make hiinself cun- 
 ning rather in the humoicrs atid drifts of persons, than in 
 the nature of business atid affairs. Of that it sufficeth 
 hi7n to know only so imich as may make him able to make 
 use of other meti^s wits and to make again a smooth and 
 VOL. 1. b
 
 xxxii Introduction 
 
 pleasing report. And ever rather let him take the side 
 which is likeliest to be followed, than that which is 
 soundest and best, that everything may seem to be 
 carried by his directioii. ' This was an apt description 
 of the hand-to-mouth pohcy too common among the 
 Queen's ministers, which Bacon contrasts with true fore- 
 sighted pohcy, and stigmatizes by the name o{ 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 oi persons that are of nature bashful, as 
 myself is, who are often 7nistaken 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. / verily think your brother's weak stomach 
 
 ' Life, Vol. i. p. 382. 
 
 1
 
 TOi)at 33acon bas Ijimself xxxiii 
 
 fo digest hath been much caused and confiruiedhy untimely 
 going to bed, and then musing nescio quid 7vhen he should 
 sleep, and then in consequent by late rising and long 
 lying i7i bed, whereby his men are fnade 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 Hfe, 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 se7'vice of ma7ikind. 
 
 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 Advancemejit 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 pubhc 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 Introtruction 
 
 place requires.' ^ Nothing but his perpetual hopeful- 
 ness and the sense of a noble purpose, and the excite- 
 ment of aspiring aciion, 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 foiind now twice, upon a7neiidment of my fortiaie, 
 disposition to mela?tcholy and distaste, specially the same 
 happening against the long vacation, when company 
 failed and btisiness both. For upon my solicitor's place 
 I grew indisposed and i?iclined to superstition. Now, 
 upon Mill's place, ^ 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 
 sendee of mankind had been convicted of corruption, 
 then the fear that he expresses lest continual attendance 
 ajid 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 pohcy 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 2000/. a year
 
 raSat 33acon toas jbtmself xxxv 
 
 for the court of James I. His Novum Organum was 
 described by the king as being ' hke 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 tlian His Majesty dehghted to 
 hear, 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 : // is the solecism of power to think to command the end 
 and yet not to endure the meaii. ^ 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, biit^ he adds, 
 being imbued with politics by birth and breedi?ig, finding 
 
 ' 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 excu.se of no little weight.
 
 xxxvi Snttotriiction 
 
 men are apt to be, coitceiviiig myself to be iftdebted to my 
 coimtry in a debt special and peculiar and not £xte7iding 
 to other relations, and lastly, hoping that, if I could ob- 
 tain some ho7iourable place iii the State, I might accomplish 
 my objects with greater helps to back my fiwn 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 
 i7ifiuential friends. This is the Avay 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 
 what was the ground of Bacon's unflagging scientific 
 confidence, it would be quite a mistake to reply 'A sense 
 of his own powers.' True, he knew his own powers, but 
 he 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 Gj-eatest Offspring 
 of Time, he always bore in mind what that title indicates. 
 It was great, yes Gi'eatest, 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 aticient model, even the 
 world itself and the nature of things, and of the ?nind. 
 And, to say truth, I am wont for my part to regard this
 
 OTifiat iSacon toas i)imself xxxvli 
 
 work as a Child of Time rather than as a Child of Wit} 
 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 of 
 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 recognition 
 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 
 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 7'ecognition 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 
 
 * Works, Vol. iii. p. 519.
 
 XXXVlll 
 
 Introbuctton 
 
 the rich exuberance of metaphor, and the picturesque 
 names with which Bacon maps out the Provinces of 
 Science before subduing them. Even in music (and 
 perhaps in colour) the same power of recognition of 
 similitudes appears in his disHke of complications and 
 love of simple effects, hi music, he says, / ever loved 
 easy airs that go full, all the paints together, and not these 
 strange points of accord or discord. As it was with 
 Ba<con 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 
 Old of a dripping-clond ; it is also made here below with 
 a jet of water. Still, thej-efore, 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 pe?-suade men that 
 jwthing difficult, nothing by which nature may be com- 
 majided and subdued, can be expected from art or human 
 labour — which things tend wholly to the U7ifair circum- 
 scription of hu7nan 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 
 saying^ 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 
 
 * Works, Vol. iv. p. 294. ° lb. p. 87. 
 
 ^ Fischer's Fravcis of Veriilatn, p. 29.
 
 S2E6at 23acon luns fiimsdf 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 his will, and from the same source came perhaps his 
 imperfect morality. He saw unity in the Universe, the 
 Great Comj?ton 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 knoiuledge ivhich he has taken as 
 his province. Grant him but Hfe and leisure, and he is 
 certain of success. It is the hope of his life, and he 
 off"ers 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 7}ien conjijie 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, bid seals and 
 shuts up the face of heaven. 
 
 In the next place, as to Bacon's love of Science, we
 
 xl Ilntrobuction 
 
 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 Legejid and the Talmud than that this universal 
 frame is without a Mijid. 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 centur>', 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 A'atura, 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
 
 Mi)at 33acon toas f)imsclf xli 
 
 their religion by the ancient Romans. Whatever pas- 
 sages may be quoted to the contrary from the formal 
 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, hke Plato, intermingle his 
 pJiilosopliy with theology^ 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 7nan should do wrong merely out of ill nature ^ 
 why yet it is but like the thorn or briar which frick and 
 scratch because they ca7t 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 Untrobuction 
 
 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 jitst 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 77iankind : 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 infiuetitial 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 worlds 
 and least of all between equals, which was wofif to be mag- 
 nified. That that is, is between superior and inferior, 
 whose fortunes inay comprehend the one the other. His 
 notion of friendship therefore appears to be little more 
 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
 
 raSat 33acon loas 6nns£lf xliii 
 
 exercise for the energies of a healthy nation. As for 
 hunting, or other field sports, omit an allusion or two to 
 the game of bowls, and there is scarcely a trace in the 
 Essays that Bacon cared for them. He seems to have 
 no liking or care for birds or beasts, wild or tame. The 
 torture of a long-billed fowl by a waggish ^ Christian, who 
 called down on himself the resentment of the Turks by 
 his cruelty, inspires him with no deeper feeling than 
 amusement ; and, though he objects to experimenting 
 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 dv.elt 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 co7n- 
 vion {not popular but conimoji), and as much as is lawful 
 to be enclosed of a cominon so mtcch 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, 
 
 ' Essay xili. 1. 20. See note there.
 
 xliv IntroJJuction 
 
 but oratiojie Jida, with face as well as words. ^ 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 appear. ng 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 iiiame 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 ? Vv'as 
 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 hght of reason, he saw 
 no cause why he should not take such part in the pro- 
 
 * When at any tune your Lordship tif>07i occasion happen hi speeches to 
 do her Majesty right {for there is no such matter as jiattery amo7igst yo7i 
 all), I fear, &rc. Life, i. p. 42.
 
 M6at 33acon toas fiimsclf xlv 
 
 secution as might naturally devolve upon him. To avoid 
 such a duty might engender suspicion ; to court it could 
 do his former friend no harm, and might advance his own 
 fortunes. He therefore wrote, volunteering his services 
 in the prosecution ; he performed the petty part en- 
 trusted to him with a vigour approaching acrimony, and 
 as the Queen took delight in his pen, he afterwards drew 
 up a narrative detailing the ruin of his unhappy friend, 
 entitled A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons at- 
 tempted and committed by Robert, tate Earl of Essex. 
 Defence or justification of such conduct can never be 
 satisfactory. But at least it is well to recognise that we 
 are dealing v/ith an extraordinary man, who did not bind 
 himself by ordinary rules. Bacon's desertion of Essex 
 was not the result of a sudden or unusual impulse : it 
 was the natural result of some of those qualities that 
 contributed to his scientific greatness. It was a sin, but 
 not a sin of weakness, or pusillanimity, or inconsistency : 
 it was of a piece with his whole nature, not to be justified, 
 nor excused, nor extenuated, but to be stored up by pos- 
 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 
 dangerous it is to be so imbued and penetrated with the 
 notion that one is born for the service of mankind as to 
 be rendered absolutely blind to all the claims of com- 
 monplace morahty, and to the vulgar ties that connect 
 individuals. 
 
 A reactionary feehng 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 ]Introliuct{on 
 
 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 tor this resolution/ and the first is, that his 
 zeal had been set dow?i as ambition. But his great 
 reason is philosophy. I found iny 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 tmaided perform for men, while I was applying 
 myself to tasks that depended upon the will of others : 
 and therefore I at 07ice tore tnyself away from all those 
 thoughts, and in accordojice with my for7ner resolution I 
 devoted my whole energies to this 2vork — 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 aboundi7ig in counsel, afid to follow my pri- 
 vate thrift and practice. For as for any ambition, I do 
 assure your Honour mi7ie is quenched. My ambition now 
 I shall only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be able 
 to maintain me?nory and merit of the times succeeding. 
 
 It was in this year that the Advaiicement of Learning 
 was probably written ; and the Apology in certaijt impu- 
 tations concernifig 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- 
 
 ' Works, Vol. iii. p. 51Q.
 
 raSat 2l3acon fcoas Jimsclf xlvii 
 
 tical ambition. But even at this time, only three or four 
 months before thus renouncing pohtics, he does not think 
 it amiss to pract'se some of the precepts of the Architect 
 of Fortune. Among the courses enjoined by that art is 
 7norioeratiofi, or applying or(.eself to one's superiors. 
 Bacon justified morigeration on principle. To apply one- 
 self to others is good : but he adds an important qualifica- 
 tion, so it be with demonstration that a man doth it upon 
 regard^ and 7iot upon facility. Yet in practice Bacon 
 disregards this qualification, and carries his flattery to 
 an unscientific excess of which a master of the art would 
 have been ashamed. When the Otieen died, and new 
 favourites were expected to come into power, it was 
 perhaps natural that he should wish to strengthen his 
 connection with Cecil, and to conciliate a few Scotchmen 
 of influence. But was it hke a scientific Architect of 
 Fortune to exaggerate his liking for Cecil — between whom 
 and himself there was probably a physical antipathy ^ — 
 so far as to write to Cecil's secretary. Let him know that 
 he is the pei'sonage in this State which I love most ; and 
 this., as you may easily fudge, proceedeth 7iot out of any 
 straits of my occasions, as might be thought in times past, 
 but merely out of the largeness and fulness of my affec- 
 tions ? ^ And again, in writing to the Earl of Northumber- 
 land, who was at first expected to have great influence with 
 the new King, there is something quite naive in the simpli- 
 city with which Bacon suddenly discovers that there hath 
 been covered in my inind, a long time, a seed of affection 
 and zeal towards your Lordship.^ In such morigeration 
 
 ' Lifcy Vol. iv. p. 52. Yet (lb. p. 12) he can say to Cecil : / do esteem 
 wJiatsoever I have or may haz>e in the world as trash, in com/>arison of 
 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 
 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. 
 
 ' lb. Vol. iii. p. 57. => lb. Vol. iii. p. 58.. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 xlviii Jntrotructfon 
 
 as this, there is httle demonstration that it is done upoji 
 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 drawftig up an Act for the better grounding of a 
 firther iinio7i to enslie betiveen the Kingdoms of Engl ana 
 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 7-elates 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 Ave 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 
 2,000/. always in readiness for bargains and occasio?is, 
 he proceeds to touch next on the means of obtaining 
 access to the King, and the names of the Scotchmen who
 
 rafiat 23acon toas Jimstlf xHx 
 
 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 to 
 induce fainiliarity^ atid for countenance in public place ; 
 also, to win credit comparate to the Attorney in being- 
 more short, rotmd, and resolute. [All this is nothing 
 except) {there is more);'^ and again, a few lines lower 
 down, to have in mifid 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 Gunter's cause, 
 weak with the Judges, Arbe (Arabella) cause, too full of 
 cases and distinctions, nibbling sole?nnly, he distijiguisheth 
 but apprehends not. Salisbury's friendship seemed most 
 important to him at this time, and accordingly he makes 
 a note : to insinuate myself to becoine privy to my Lord 
 of Salisbury s estate, and again, to correspond with 
 Salisbujy iji a habit of natural but noways perilous 
 boldness, so as to get rid of the obstruction ; or, to quote 
 Bacon's words, to f-ee 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 jny 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 comphments to my Lady Dorset the 
 widow, and jots down 3. form appropriate to the occasion: 
 Death comes to young men, and old men go to death, that 
 
 The bracketed words are, I suppose, the phrases in which Bacon in- 
 tended to correct the Attorney's inadequacies, 
 c 2
 
 1 Introbuctton 
 
 IS all the differetice. Then follow more for7ns, 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 Rtissell that depends icpon Sir David Murray j 
 and by that means drawing Sir David, and by him and 
 Sir Thomas Chaloner, in time, the Prince. Gettitig from 
 Russell a collection of phainomena, of surgery, distilla- 
 tions, 7nineral trials, the setting on work my Lo?'d of 
 North'^ and Ralegh, and therefore Harriot, themselves 
 being already iiiclined to experiments. Acquainting 
 myself with Poe, as for my health, and by him learning 
 the experime7its which he hath of physic, and gaining 
 entraJtce iftto the inner of some great persons. Seeing 
 and trying whether the Archbishop of Canterbury may 
 not be affected iji it, being single and glorious and 
 believing the sense, not desistitig to draw in the Bishop 
 Andrews ^^ being single, rich, atid sickly, a professor to 
 some experijnents. . . . Qtiery, of physicians to be 
 gained, the likest is Paddy, Dr. Hammond. Query, of 
 learned 7nen bfyo7id 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 i)lace to command wits and pois, West- 
 mitister, Eton, Winchester, specially Trinity College in 
 Cambridge, St. John^s i7i Cambridge, Magdalene College 
 i7i Oxford, a7id bespeaki7ig this beti7nes with the Kijig, 
 my Lord Archbishop, 77iy Lord Treasurer. Then follow 
 notes as to the proposed College of Science, its order and 
 discipli7ie, its travelling fellows, vaults, fu7'naces, ter7'aces 
 
 * Life, Vol. iv. p. 63. Mr. Spedding says, 'The reading here is doubtfid, 
 but I think Launcelot Andrews must be meant. He was at this lime 
 Bishop of Chichester.'
 
 Mfiat ilBacon foas fiimsdf li 
 
 Jor insulatio7tj 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 Kiitglow 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 in7va7-d vjith my Lady Dorset per Champners ad 
 utilit. iestam. — i.e., by means of Champners for testamen- 
 tary purposes ^ 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 {custumce apta ad individuum). Our 
 extracts shall conclude with these : — To frirnish my Lord 
 of Suffolk with ornaments for public speeches. To make 
 kim 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 
 maititain private speech with every the great pej'sons, 
 a7id sometimes drawing more than 07ie of them together. 
 Query, for credit ; but so as to save titne ; and to this end 
 not many things at once, but to draw iji length . . .At 
 
 ' It is nol 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. I. 98, Bacon expressly blames fish<ng /or testaments : 
 but there he is blaming fishing for one's own sake. Bacon would fish for 
 the sake of science.
 
 Hi Introbuction 
 
 cou7icil-table chiefly to niake good my Lord of Salisbury s 
 jnotiojis and speeches^ and for the rest sometijnes 07ie, 
 sojnetinies another j 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 a': 
 the feet of Truth, and will master them by first obeying 
 them. But, as he himself asks in the Essays, how can a 
 maji comprehend great matters that oreaketh his 7nind 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 ? j 
 
 It was inevitable : and the rest of Bacon's life con- a 
 tains little but the record of his gradual acquiescence in 
 defeat and servitude. But at least, before we proceed
 
 ^fiat ^acon toas i)imstlf iiii 
 
 further in that degrading history, we may reiterate with 
 advantage that Bacon was no vulgar schemer or common 
 miser. It is so easy to disbeheve 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 
 7tot to despise leanmig as unpractical ; they must be 
 made to see that learning is not like a lark which can inoimt 
 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 importa7ice to the 
 dignity of literature that a man, naturally fitted rather 
 for literature than for a?iy thing else, and borjie by some 
 destiny against the inclination of his ge7iius i?ito the 
 business of active life, should have risen to such high and 
 
 ' Works, Vol. vi, p. ;8. - lb., Vol. iii. p. 279. ^ lb., Vol. v. p. 10.
 
 liv ^Introtiucticn 
 
 honourable appointments^ utider so wise a king. It is 
 for this he serves Essex ; for this he courts the rising 
 Vilhers ; for this he cringes to the powerful Buckingham. 
 When he plans in his Diary the drawing i7i 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 
 \h.Q glim7?teri7tgs of a confiscatio?i.'^ Read in this light, 
 the testa7nentary 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 o?te man can pass 
 at a time. "^ His science depends upon facts, and facts 
 
 ' Works, Vol. vi. p. 150. ' Works, Vol. iv. p. 102.
 
 raSat 23acon toas j^imsclf 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,^ 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 
 ifpon 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 o^ 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 barteringaway 
 their immortal souls to the Evil One for a hollow pretence 
 
 ' Works, Vol. iv. p. 252.
 
 Ivi Introduction 
 
 of present happiness, and afterwards beating themselves 
 idly against the narrowing net that presses them towards 
 the inevitable pit, is much sadder thm the record of the 
 retribution, artistic if ever retributioa was, that befell the 
 Traitor to Truth. Mammon besto.vadhis gifts, but they 
 are found to be no gifts, and he takes full wages in return. 
 Bacon wins the credit he desires to win conipa^'aie to the 
 Attorney, and becomes Attorney in his place ; but it is 
 for the purpose of prosecuting St. John, torturing 
 Peacham,^ 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 we7'e, 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 ^ 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^^r/7^ God we surfeit not of it; protesting 
 that security ^ 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 than 
 the co7tservation of peace at home and abroad ; and 
 
 * 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- 
 ivise, it is Jit Peacock be pjit to torture. He deserveth it as ivcll as 
 Peacham did. Life, Vol. vii. p. 77. 
 ' Life, Vol. vii. Appendix. ' i.e. Carelessness, unguardedness.
 
 OTfiat 33acon foas fiimsclf Ivii 
 
 urging, as one of the advantages of the Spanish match, 
 that by the same conjunction there will be erected a 
 tribunal or prcBtorian power to decide the controversies 
 which may arise amongst the princes and estates of 
 Christendom withoiit effusion of Christiari blood. 
 
 Part of the retribution visited on Bacon seems to 
 have been a blindness to the distinction between what 
 is great and petty as well as between what is good and 
 bad. Among other infatuations he appears to have con- 
 ceived a genuine respect, if not admiration, for James 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. ^ 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 lo be pacified and 
 civilised, the Low Countries to be annexed. Such was 
 Bacon's policy ; and had he not been bhnded 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 7iever one hour out of 
 
 ^ Without flattery I think yo7ir Majesty the best of Kings, ami my 
 noble Lord of Bttckingha7n tJie best of persons favoured. Life, Vol. vii. p. 78.
 
 Iviii Jntrotruction 
 
 credit with the lower house, had advantages possessed by 
 few for bridging the widening gulf between the Commons 
 and the Crown.' 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 : It is 
 now tiine that you should refer your actions chiefly to the 
 good of your sovereig7i and your country. It is the life 
 of a7i ox or beast always to eat afid never to exercise ; but 
 men a7'e born {and especially Christian mefi) not to cram 
 in their fortimes, but to exercise their virtues. . . . Above 
 all, depe7id wholly {next to God) up07i the Ki>ig ; a7id be 
 ruled {as hithe7'to you have bee7i) by his i7tstructions, for 
 that is best for yourself ^ 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 7io 77iea7is 
 be you persuaded to i7tterfere yotirself by woj'd or letters 
 in a7iy cause depe7iding, or like to be depe7idi7ig, i7i a7iy 
 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 
 depe7idi7ig or like to be depe7iding. It is not in the least 
 
 ' Life, Vol. vi. p. 134. But Mr. Gardiner {History of Efiglaiid from 
 tJte 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 Baccn would 
 have come down to us as great in politics as it is in science.' fames being 
 what he was, nothing could be done. 
 
 " Life, Vol. vi. p. 6.
 
 S2E6at 33acon foas j^imsclf llx 
 
 surprising that Bacon failed to acquire the influence he 
 sought over the royal favourite. The two men moved in 
 different worlds ; and Bacon was weighted, not only by his 
 suppleness, his too easy temper, and his excessive desire 
 to please, but also by the very force and height of his 
 intellect. All the dreams of the study vanished when the 
 philosopher entered the royal presence and was con- 
 fronted with the practical needs of the moment, the in- 
 timidation of the judges, the disgracing of Coke, the 
 upholding of benevolences and monopohes, and ot the 
 royal prerogative generally. Instead of Bacon's lifting up 
 James to the heights of the philosophic world, James 
 drew Bacon down to the royal world. But to work in 
 that grosser atmosphere at those degenerate arts and 
 shifts, which Bacon was wont to csAl Jiddling, the author 
 of the Instauratio Magna was not by nature fitted. The 
 difference between him and Buckingham was so vast that 
 one 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 
 the question. Naturally, Bacon thought himself best 
 quahfied to dictate, and at first he did so. But when the 
 parental 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 3Introl5uction 
 
 higher objects, that he had drifted into the habit of acting 
 as though he beheved that such an obsequious parody of 
 statesmanship was a fit goal for a great man's hfe. 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 7nake hiinself cunni7ig 
 7'ather ifi the hinnoiirs and dtifts of persons than in the 
 nature ofhisiness and affairs, . . A 7id ever rather let him 
 take the side which is likeliest to be followed tha?i that 
 which is soundest and best. And this is what Bacon had 
 brought himself to do and to do naturally. It is precisely 
 w^hat he deliberately sets down in his Diary above : At 
 con7icil table chiefly to 77iake good 77iy Lord of Salisbury's 
 77iotio7is a7id speeches, a7td for the rest so7neti77ies 07ie, 
 so7neti77ies a7iother : chiefly his that is 77iost earnest a7idi7i 
 affcctio7i. 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.^ 
 
 • 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
 
 5M6at 23acon foas fiimself Ixi 
 
 And in the same way, as regards the habit of receiving 
 presents, there is no sufficient reason to doubt that he 
 began by determining to receive none except from parties 
 whose cases had been decided ; but here again his indif- 
 ference to detail, his habit of taking for granted the most 
 favourable aspect of things, and perhaps his gradually 
 increasing sense of the power of money, all combine to 
 make him believe, against belief, in the probity of ser- 
 vants who were taking bribes before his eyes. To quote 
 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 C07n77ia7idment that it should 
 be carried back, a7id was offe7ided whe7i I hea7'd 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 reser\-ed 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.
 
 Ixii Jntrotruction 
 
 brought against him, his unfeigned pleasure at the pros- 
 pect of the meeting of that very Parhament 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 Jj 
 interview with the King there is a significant erasure, ^ 
 which seems to indicate the unsettled perplexity which, 
 Avhen 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 bargaitt or 
 contract for reward to pervert justice poidente lite, he 
 thus meets the first : for the first of them I take myself to 
 be as imiocoit as any born iipoji St. Innocent' s-day, in my 
 heart. Note the in my heart; 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, 
 but afterwards crossed out: And yet perhaps, in some two 
 or three of them, the proofs niay sta7id 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 confessions.
 
 51iB6at 53acon foas jbimself Ixiii 
 
 Bacon believed himself to be morally innocent, innocent 
 in his heart. Preserved in cipher by his biographer, but 
 not published, there has been discovered Bacon's own 
 verdict on himself in these words : / was the jiistest judge 
 that was in England these fifty years, but it was the 
 justest censnre in Parliayneftt that was these two hundred 
 years. Was this true ? Probably not ; but it was certainly 
 true that hebeheved it to be true : and the explanation of it is 
 to be looked for partly, 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,^ 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 pendente 
 ^ite. 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., 1. 3. 
 VOL. 1. ^
 
 Ixlv 3Introtmction 
 
 his neglect of his Mission, his treason to the Truth : besides 
 my i7i7itimerable sins I confess before Thee that I am debtor 
 to Thee for the g7'acions 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 iji things for which I was least fit, 
 so as I may truly say tny soul hath been a stranger in the 
 course of my pilg7'image} It is the old text again, 
 multuni i?tcola. With this Bacon's life begins, and with 
 this it ends. 
 
 ' Life, Vol. vii. p. 231. In 1605-6 {Life, Vol. lii. p. 253) he had made a 
 similar confession that, in his alienation from his occupations, there had 
 been many errors which I do ivillingly ackno7vledge ; atid atnongst the 
 rest this great ofie that led the rest ; that hioiving myself by inward call- 
 i7ig to be fitter to hold a book than to play a part, I have Ifd my life iti 
 civil causes ; for which I was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by 
 the preoccupation of my viind.
 
 i3acon as a ^Jilosopfier Ixv 
 
 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 the 
 nnivei'sal world {joying to receive the signature thereof), 
 as the eye is of light. ^ It is strange to see how Bacon, 
 who blames Plato for intermingling theology wdth 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 Kingdojjt of Ma7i 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 conpision of Babel : 
 this should men study to be perfect iii, and, becoming again 
 as little children, cofidescend 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 betweeti the 
 
 ^ Works, Vol. iii. p. 220. " Works, Vol. v. p. 132.
 
 Ixvi Introbttctton 
 
 Idols of the human initid 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 aiuay with a fixed and solemn deter7ni7iation^ and 
 the ujiderstaiiding must be thoroughly freed a7id cleansed. ^ 
 The atomic theory, in Bacon's judgment, rather favours 
 than assails the belief in the existence of a God ; for it 
 is a thousand tinies more credible that four mutable 
 elements and otie iinmutable fifth essence, duly and 
 eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite 
 small portio7is or seeds unplaced should have produced 
 this order and beauty without a Divitie Marshal ; ^ and 
 again, the wisdom of God shines out more brightly 
 whe?i fiature does one thittg, while Provide?tce does quite 
 another co?tsegue?tce, than if sitigle scheiJies and 7tatural 
 77iotio7is were i77ipressed with the sta77ip of Provide7ice. » 
 
 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 cha77iber of the Mi7id a7id U7iiverse, speaking 
 of the work he has achieved in the Advancement of 
 Learning : and again, in the Essays, he declares that 
 the i7iquiry of Truth, which is the love-77iaki7ig or 
 wool 71 fr of it ; the k7iowledge of Truth, which is the 
 presence of itj a7id the belief of Truth, which is the 
 enjoy i7ig of it — is the sovereign good of htwia7i nature. ^ 
 
 * 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 tho 
 former meaning. 
 
 " Essay xvi. 1. 15. 
 
 ^ De Augmentis, iii. 4, quoted in Works, Vol. i. p. 57 
 
 * Essay i. 1. 37-41.
 
 33acon as a ^Jilosopber 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 Maji and the Nature of 
 things which is more precious than anything on earth^^ 
 and claims to have established for ever lawful marriage 
 between the e?npirical ajid the rational faculty, the u?ikind 
 and ill-starred divorce and separation of which has 
 thrown into confusion all the affairs of the humati 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. 
 
 ' Works, Vol. iv. p. 7.
 
 Ixviii Introbuction 
 
 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 wanderiftg inquiry .... 
 that has sought experiments of Fruit and not of Light} 
 It is true he avows that he is 7iot raising a capitol or 
 Pyramid for the pride of jnan. But, on the other hand, 
 neither is he building a shop What he is doing is, lay- 
 ing a foundation in the huma7i understanding for a holy 
 temple after the 7nodel of the world. ^ He deprecates the 
 divorce between utility and truth. Truth ajtd utility., he 
 says, are here the very same thiftgs, a7id 'W07-ks the7nselves 
 are of greater value as pledges of truth tha7i as co7itribut- 
 ing to the co77iforts of life ; ^ and again, I care little about 
 the mecha7iical arts the77iselves, 07ily about those things 
 which they contribute to the equip77ient of philosophy. * 
 In astronomy it is the same ; / wajtt not predictio7is of 
 eclipses, he says, but the truth. ^ Plato could have said 
 no more. 
 
 • Works, Vol. iv. p. 17. * lb. p. no : see also p. 115. | 
 
 * lb. p. 107. * lb. p. 271. ^ Works, Vol. V. p. 511. '
 
 33acon as a ^fiilosopjer Ixix 
 
 An important part of Bacon's philosophy is negative 
 and preventive. Like Machiavelh 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 oi Seco7td Scripture ; 
 and as the words or tertns of all languages in an ivimeiise 
 variety are composed of a few simple letters, so all the 
 actions and powers ofthijigs are formed by a few 7iatures 
 and original demerits of simple motions. ^ It follows 
 therefore that the right method to study the volume is 
 first to master the Alphabet, the original elemeiits of 
 siinple 7notio?is, 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 wisdojn in their own little 
 worlds and not ift the great a?td com7no7i world : for they 
 disdain to spell, a7id so by degrees to read in the volu77ie 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 a7id co77i7no7i 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 
 
 ' Works. Vol. v., p. 426.
 
 ixx JntroiJuction 
 
 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 atid coin- 
 mon world J 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 ostentatiojis Greek philosophy. Oste7ita- 
 tioiis 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 the Greeks, when natural 
 scie7ice was perhaps more flourishing though it made less 
 noise, not having yet passed ijito the pipes and trumpets 
 of the Greeks J ^ and declares that that wisdo7n which we 
 have derived p7-incipally from the Greeks is but like the 
 boyhood of K7iowledge j it can talk, but it can7iot generate ; 
 for it is f'uitful of co7it7'oversies a7id barre7i of works?' 
 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 77ia7i of bold dispositio7i,fa77ious for 7nethods 
 a7id short ways, which people like? Such a one is Aris- 
 totle, who is also to be censured for his bold7iess, his spirit 
 of difference a7id co7itradictio7is * springing from his self- 
 will, and also because, after the Otto77ianfashio7t, he thought 
 
 * Works, Vol. iv. p. io8. ' lb. p. 15. 
 
 • lb. p. 14. * lb. p. 344.
 
 that he could 7tot reign with safety sinless he put all his 
 brethren to death. ^ 
 
 Aristotle is also 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 hostihty 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 defined 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 
 regaining the power of naming : whensoever he shall be able 
 to call the creatures by their 7iaines he shall again cojnmand 
 
 * Works, Vol. iv. p. 358.
 
 Ixxii Jntrotruction 
 
 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., Z7nages — 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 ^!)ilosop{)er 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 philosophe7's. 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 w^ith what men do and 
 ought not to do: now w^e pass to the question, what ought 
 men to do ? After a prehminary mapping out and par- 
 tition of the provinces of knowledge, showing w^hich 
 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 
 sif?iple enumeration, and which he justly calls a puerile 
 thing} To the immediate and proper perceptions of the 
 Senses he does not attach much weight.^ He therefore 
 seeks to provide helps for the sense, substitutes to siipply 
 its defciencies, 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. 
 
 ' Works, Vol. iv. p. 25. " lb. p. 26.
 
 Ixxlv Introtruction 
 
 But there is in 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 spra?tg out of the egg 
 hatched by Alight, 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 coinpare7itia 
 ad intellectum i?ista)itiarum C07ive7iie7itiuni. " I did not 
 eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well." 
 This is the C077ipare7itia i7ista7itiaru77i i7i proxi77io 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 C077i- 
 pa7-e7itia t7ista7itiaru77i secu7idu77i 7nagis et 77ii7ms. "It
 
 iSacon as a ^BJilosopfier 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 naturaruin. 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 UntroUuction 
 
 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-
 
 i3acon as a ^j^ilosopjer Ixxvli 
 
 cumstances, but always omitting mincepies. This class 
 of experiments is the Night's egg out of which Cupid is 
 to spring. And now indeed, after several experiments of 
 this second class, assimilating his dining in all respects 
 to the dining on the days when he was ill, with the single 
 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 without 
 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 E?i2cmeration 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, eve7i the world itself and the 
 nature of things?- 
 
 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, \i& says, to treat in the fwst 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 hiduction ; 
 3rd, the Rectification of Induction ; 4th, of Varying the 
 Investigation according to the nature of the subject; 5th, 
 of Prerogative Natures with respect to Investigation, or 
 
 * Works, Vol. iv. p. II
 
 i^acon as a ^fiilosopljcr Ixxix 
 
 of what should be inquired first and what last ; 6th, of 
 the Limits of Investigatio7i, 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 hivestigations ; 9th, of the Ascending 
 and Descending Scale of Axioins. Of all these titles 
 none but the Prerogative histatices 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 itself 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,_/r(?w which, says Bacon, we easily gather that 
 colour is 7iothing 7nore thaji a modification of the image of 
 light received upo?i the object, resulting in the former case 
 from the different degrees of incidence, in the latter fro jn 
 the various textures and configurations of the body.^ 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 ofthetn are as good as many. 
 Again, another important or Prerogative Instance is a 
 Migratory Instance, where the nature in question is seen 
 
 * Works, Vol. iv. p. 156. 
 
 VOL. I. e
 
 Ixxx Jntroliuction 
 
 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 histances of the 
 Finger-post (commonly known as Instantice C?'ncis, or 
 Crucial htstances), which are described as follows : When 
 in the investigation of any 7iatiire the understanding is so 
 balanced as to be iincertain to which of two or 7nore ?iatures 
 the cause of the nature in questioti should be assig7ied, 
 Instances of the Finger-post shew the u7tio7i of 07ie of the 
 7iatures with the nature in questio7i to be sure and 
 i7tdissoluble, of the other to be varied a7id 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 For77i, or Law^ 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 \.2\A^ Esse7itice et Pr(Ese7itice — i.e. of Existe7tce and 
 Prese7tce. Next, we must make a second table of 
 instances, where sun-rays, fire, living bodies, &c., are 
 
 * Earn autem legetn ejusque paragraphos Formarum votnifte infelli- 
 gimtis. Bacon recognises that Forms and Laws do not give existence ; 
 but still the Law is the basis of knowledge as well as of action. Works, 
 Vol. i. p. 228.
 
 33acon as a ^]&ilosopScr Ixxxi 
 
 found without heat. This is the table of Departure or 
 Absence in the Corresponding Case {Absentics 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 
 [CoinparenticE), 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 Liisus Natures, 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 httle 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 Iiiduction 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 7ny for?n of interpretation.^ 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 
 
 * Works, Vol. iv. p, 115,
 
 Ixxxii Jtttrobuction 
 
 Vmtage ( Viiidemiatio Prima) exti-acted directly from the 
 Three Tables. It is a kind of Licence to the roving 
 Intellect {Pennissio Intellectiis)^ or it may be called an 
 A?iticipation of the Mind {Afiticipatio 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 v/ith 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 :^ 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 m.otion, 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 siipposeth in natiire a reason, 
 nnderstajtding, 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. * IVorks, Vol. iii. p. 353.
 
 i3acon as a ^ftilosopfier Ixxxiil 
 
 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 see?i 
 in its sinallest portions, serves Democritus in Physics, and 
 Aristotle in Politics. Thitigs 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 nnequals 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 — thitigs 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 endifig immediately iji a concord sets off the har- 
 mo7iy (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 inaking 
 the government of the world a 7nirrorfor 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 shapejiy so 
 are all innovatio7ts which are the births of Time : All 
 things that have affinity with the heavens (and therefore 
 kings) 7nove up07i the ce7itre of a7iot her which they benefit: 
 It is a secret both i7i 7iature a7id in state that it is safer to^ 
 cha7ige 7na7iy tJmigs than 07ie. We are to imitate Time, 
 which in7iovateth greatly, but quietly, a7id by degrees 
 scarce to be perceived, and we are to remember that Ti7ne 
 moveth so round that a frowa7'd rete7itio7i of ciisto77i is as 
 turbulent a thi7is^ as a7t i7i7iovation
 
 ixxxiv Introtruction 
 
 It 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 PhilosopJiia 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 ripphng 
 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 siinilitudes , as 
 men of narrow observation may conceive them to be, but 
 the satne 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. Fischer^ 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- 
 
 ' F7-ancis 0/ Verulavt, p. 139.
 
 33acon as a ^{jilosopSer Ixxxv 
 
 trations that issue in gems, and the other bright filtrations 
 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 Prifna 
 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 t 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-
 
 iXXXVl 
 
 Introtfuction 
 
 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 Indtictiojt, Rectifications 
 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 force 
 his way invulnerable through a host of obstacles, leaves 
 him vulnerable here. He seems to have thought that 
 ever>'thing, 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 say 
 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, pliant7iess or soft- 
 7iess, im?nu72ity 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 prope7-ties, 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 
 P7 ima Philosophia, he is inconsistent with himself. As 
 in morality, so in philosophy, he has laid down rules
 
 i3acon as a ^jbtlosopjer Ixxxvii 
 
 that he himself does not obey. His lofty and discursive 
 spirit will not bear in mind its own warning that the 
 human tinderstanding 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 tvith contains an invisible and ijitan- 
 gible spirit^ which it works and clothes as with a garment^- 
 and that we 7nust iiiquire what amount of spirit there is 
 in everybody, what of tangible esseiice!^ 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 7nan : and, in his efforts to be exact, 
 ostentatiously accumulating details in writing, and often 
 very trifling details, he has imposed on the Essayist, 
 
 ' Works, Vol. iv. p. 195 ; and again Vol. v. p. 224, Let it be admitted 
 as is most certain. 
 
 ' Works, Vol. iv. p. 125
 
 Ixxxviii Sntrobuction 
 
 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 Hst. At the 
 tirrie when Bacon wrote the De Ang7ne?tt2s, '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 falHng 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.
 
 i3acon as a ^Jilosopjer 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 
 Chancellor.' ^ 
 
 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 Filmn Labyrmthi or Iiiterpretatio Natiir(2 
 — 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 siifficie7it 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 
 
 ^ Quoted, Works, Vol. iii. p. 515.
 
 xc Untrotruction 
 
 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 7ni7td when all obstacles are removed ; and again, 
 we do not consider the art of Interpretation i7idispensable 
 or perfect as though nothing could be done without it} 
 He does not deny that improvement may be made, in his 
 particular investigations on his method ; On the contrary, 
 I that regard the human 7nindjtot 07ily i7i its ow7i faculties, 
 but in its co7i7iectio7i with tlmigs, 77iust needs hold that the 
 art of discove7y 77iay adva7ice as discoveries adva7ice? 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 7iative a7id 
 ge7iui7ie force of the 7ui7id, without a7iy other a7't, to fall 
 i7ito 77iy for77i of i7iterpretatio7i} 
 
 ' 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 0?ga7iU77i. Put aside the details of its 
 complicated machinery as useless, yet the spirit of it 
 
 » IVorks, Vol. i. p. 84. =* IVcrks, Vol. iv. p. 115.
 
 ^acon as a ^jbilosop^^r 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.Atlatitis j ' 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 dov/n rules to guide the different 
 grades of Truth-seekers. It seemed to Bacon that this 
 could be done so minutely as to dispense wath individual 
 judgment. Oitr method of discove7'ing knotu ledge, he 
 sa)'s, is of such a kind that it leaves very little to keen- 
 ness and strength of intellect, but almost levels alli?itellects 
 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 
 
 * Works, Vol. iii. p. 164.
 
 xcii Introlfuction 
 
 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 ajid 
 simple, and without any infusion of dogmas . . . a his- 
 tory, i7i short, setting forth a simple narrative of the facts, 
 just as if f to thing had been settled by the arts of astronomy 
 and geology, and 07ily experiments and observations had 
 been accurately collected and described with perspicuity. ^ 
 Such a History, especially if containing such facts as 
 Bacon himself laid stress upon, giving one as a specimen, 
 
 ' Works, Vol. V. p. 510.
 
 i3acon as a ^ftilosopjtr 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 cari7ien 
 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 passiotis and desires 
 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 7nany effects, as of expansion, 
 contraction, impression, cession, collection ifito masses, 
 attraction, repidsion, assimilation, union, ajid the like, 
 have place 7iot only here with us, but also i7i 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 it stands.
 
 XCIV 
 
 Jtttrotiuction 
 
 That he sometimes experimented hke 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 v<^o 
 has ever been touched with the spirit of the No'^in 
 Orgamun 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 Him who hath set the world in the heart ofmen^ 
 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 
 
 1
 
 33acon as a ^fiilosopfier xcv 
 
 about science like a Lord Chancellor ' — say rather, hke a 
 Priest, like a Prophet of Science, whose Mission he him- 
 self describes as being to prepare and adorn the hide 
 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 pohtics. 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 hke 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 ' fife 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 
 VOL. I.. f
 
 xcvi 3Introtiuction 
 
 the Bench ; he lowered morahty 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 
 pohtics 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 — 1 6 1 3- 1 6 1 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. TheDe 
 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 N'eiv 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.
 
 iSacon as a ^Silosopjer xcvil 
 
 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 Instaiiratio Magjia, we could 
 well have spared the Confession a?id humble submission 
 of me the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 f2
 
 xcviii Introbuction 
 
 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 div^orcing 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 reliictation 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 ^ftcologtan xcix 
 
 repeat that God had set the world hi 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 htiman things are full, he 
 says, of ingratitude and treachery. For the purpose of 
 guarding oneself 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 
 theolog}'. 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 co7itroversies of religion, which have so much 
 diverted 7nen from other sciences. Weary of the petty 
 ecclesiastical differences that distracted the Enghsh 
 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 Jlntrotruction 
 
 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 hke 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 exchideth and interdicteth htiman reason, whether 
 by i7iterpretatio7i or ajiticipation, froi?i examining or dis- 
 cussing of the mysteries and pri^iciples of faith} For he 
 adds, if any maji shall think by view and inquiry into 
 these sensible and material things, to attain to any light 
 for the revealing of the 7iati4re or will of God, he shall 
 dangerously abuse himself "^ 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 hteral sense, it is 
 true, is as it were the main stream or river, but the 
 moral sense chiefly, and sometijnes the allegorical or typical, 
 are they whereof the chiirch hath most use j not that I 
 wish meti to be bold in allegories or light in allusions j 
 biit that I do much condemti that i?iterpretation 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 rehgion 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 
 
 ' Works, Vol. iii. p. aji. ' lb. p. 218. ' lb. 487.
 
 33acon as a ^Jeologfait 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 HoKest 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 front 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.^ 
 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 poHtician, not 
 as a theologian. Like a large number of modern Chris- 
 tians, he did not disbelieve in any of the complicated 
 dogmas that make up modern Christianity ; but, on the 
 
 ' Essay xiii. 1. 8.
 
 cii 3Introtructfon 
 
 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 jnen, he finds no place 
 for his formal theology. He writes like a philosopher, or 
 like a courtier, or like a statesman, but rarely or never 
 like an orthodox Anglican. And even in the Advance- 
 ment of Learnings 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 ittto greater 
 perfection than all the doctrine of 7norality 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.'^ 
 Schisms are the precursors of sedition, and, as such, not 
 to be overlooked by statesmen. 
 
 * Works, Vol. iii. p. 484. 
 
 * Discourses \. 12. This and the following extracts are taken from the 
 English translation published in London in 1680.
 
 23acon as a ^fieokgian 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 rehgions 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 Untrotiuctton 
 
 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. Tlius much, 
 he says, we all hiow and cojifess that they be not of the 
 highest nature . . . we contend about ceremonies and thi?tgs 
 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 a7nongst Christians that is pemted by our Saviour , 
 ' he that is Jiot agai?ist us is with us ;' remembering that 
 the ancient and true bonds of Unity are one faith, one 
 baptism, and not 07ie ceremony, 07ie policy?- Very similar 
 is the tenour of the following passage at the end of the 
 Ninth Book of the De Augniejitis : It is of extreme import- 
 ance to the peace of the Chiwch that the Christian covetiant 
 ordained by our Saviour be properly atid clearly explained 
 ill these two heads, zuhich appear somewhat discordatit ; 
 whereof the one lays down ' he that is not with us is 
 against us,^ aftd the other, ^ he that is not against us is 
 with us.' For the bojids of Christian com7nu7iion are set 
 down, ' 07ie Lord, 07ie Faith, 07ie Baptis77i ;' not ' one Cere- 
 77io7iy, one Opi7iio7i ;' after which he sets down, as a de- 
 ficiency in theology, a treatise on the Degrees of U7iity i7i 
 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 sou7idly a7id plainly expou7tdi7ig the two 
 cross clauses i7i the league of Christia7iity pe7i7ied by our 
 Saviour himself Not without a touch of bitter sadness 
 he adds. This is a thi7ig 77iay see77i to 7na7ty trivial and 
 done already J but if it were done less partially it would 
 be et7ibraced 77iore ge7terally. 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 
 
 * Life, Vol. i. p. 75, On the Controversies of the Church, written in 
 1589.
 
 23acon as a ^Jeologian 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 Religioft, given to the Essay in 1612, gives 
 place in 1625 to the U?tity of Religion. To Bacon dis- 
 union in religion imphed 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 says, 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, tJicy are advanced to define of an only 
 and perpetual form of policy ifi the Church, which [with- 
 out conside rati 071 of possibility or foresight of peril ajtd 
 perturbation of the Church and State) niust be erected and 
 platited by the magistrate;'^ while an extreme section 
 maintain that this must be done at once by the people, 
 without attending of the establishtnent of authority, and 
 i7i the 7neantime they refuse to co7n7nunicate with us, re- 
 puling 2/s 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 i7i7iovated {partly because 
 it needed 7iot, partly because it would 77iake a breach upo7t 
 the rest). The7ice {exasperate throiigh cotite7itions) they 
 
 ' Life, Vol. i. p. 86.
 
 cvi Introtiuctton 
 
 are fallen to a direct condemnatioji of the contrary part, 
 as of a sect. Yea, and some indiscreet persons have been 
 bold, in open preachi?tg, 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 pronotinced to be no lawful 
 ministers} 
 
 The good of the nation is, in Bacon's opinion, to be 
 the basis upon which such indifferejit 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 afid imitatio7i 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 kitigdoms should be tied to innovate atid make 
 alterations. And to the same drift he writes in 1603: / 
 could 7tever find but that God hath left the like liberty 
 to the Church governme7it as He hath done to the civil 
 govertime7it, to be varied according to time, and place, 
 a7id accide7its, which 7ie'i)ertheless His high a7id divine pro- 
 vide7ice 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 thoughtfulness, 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 
 
 ' L^fe, vol. I. p. 87. ^ lb. Vol. iii. p. T07
 
 33acon as a ^fteologtan cvii 
 
 strait in exatninatiojis 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 the7n. 
 Instead of fixing both eyes on the supposed evil done by 
 tliese preachers, ought they not (/ jnean the bishops) to 
 keep one eye opeji 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 7ion operatur justitiam Dei — The 
 wrath of 7nan worketh not the righieousfiess 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 Introtruction 
 
 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 cojnpass 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 tm- 
 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 07ily ask why the Civil State should be 
 purged and restored by good and wJwlesoine laws, 7nade 
 every third or fourth year in pa7diaments asse7)ibled, 
 devising remedies as fast as time breedeih mischiefs, afui 
 contrariwise the Ecclesiastical State should still continue 
 upon the dregs of time, and receive 710 alteration 7iow for 
 triese five-a7id-forty years a7id Tnore ? If a7iy 77ian shall
 
 33acon as a ^Jtologian cix 
 
 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 
 hundred years' space at the least. But if it be said to me 
 that there is a differe7ice between civil causes and ecclesias- 
 tical, they may as well tell me that churches and chapels 
 need no reparatiofts, though houses and castles do: whereas 
 co?nrnonly, 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 persori) in standing so precisely upon 
 altering nothing. Leges novis legibus non recreatcB 
 acescunt : laws not refreshed with new laws wa-x sour. 
 Qui mala non permutat in bonis non perseverat : without 
 change of the ill, a ma?i cannot continiie the good. To 
 take away abuses, supplajiteth fiot good orders, butestablish- 
 eth thejn. Morosa jnoris retentio res turbulenta est cEque 
 ac novitas : a cojitentious retaining of custom is a turbu- 
 lejtt thing, as well as intiovation. . . . We have heard of 
 no offers of the bishops of bills in parlia?ne?it. . . . 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 me7i 
 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 
 procuriiig Unity, described in the Essay of 1625, ^ Reform 
 finds no place. The Essay on Superstition may indeed 
 be quoted as warning us against ove7'-great reverence of 
 
 ' Life, Vol. iii. p. 105. * Life, Vol. i. p. 87. 
 
 ' Essay iii. Mr. 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 Introtiuction 
 
 traditions which cajtnot but load the Church ; and as re- 
 minding us that, as whole tneat corriipteth to little worms, 
 so good forms and orders corrupt i?ito a Jiumber of petty 
 observances J but, more closely viewed, this Essay ex- 
 hibits conservative tendencies. For whereas in 1612 it 
 ends with a^ warning against conserv'atism, 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 
 custo?n is a turbulejit 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.^ 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 a7id greatness. 
 There is certainly a noticeable increase in the bitter- 
 
 ' Mr. Gardxn&r {History fro7n the Accession &c.. Vol. i. 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. '
 
 33acon as a '^fieologian cxi 
 
 ness with which Bacon speaks of the Church of Rome. 
 In 1589 he is able to censure those of the Puritan party 
 who thmk it the true touch-stone to try what is good and 
 ■holy by measuring what is more or less opposite to the 
 institiitio7is of the Church of Rome. ... // is very 
 meet that men be aware how they be abused by this opinion^ 
 and thai they k?tow that it is a cojtsideration of much 
 greater wisdo7n 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 pu7ged 
 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 16 12, 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 
 Utiity of Religion, Bacon can suggest no means for procur- 
 ing Unity except the damning and sending to hell for ever 
 those facts ajid opinions that tend to the suppot't of such 
 crijues 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 
 superstitio7i. 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 
 superstitio7is, whe7i 77ie7i thi7ik to do best if they gofurtJiest 
 from the superstitio7i for77ierly received. Therefore care 
 would be had that {as it fareth i7i ill purgings) the good 
 be not taken away with the bad ; which co77i7nonly is done 
 when the people is the refor77ier.^ 
 
 * Essay xvii. 11. 50-55, 
 VOL. I. g
 
 cxii Introtiuction 
 
 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 mn 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 understajid 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 you tnuch sometimes to meditate upon the ex- 
 treme effects of superstitioti in this last Powder Treason, 
 fit to be tabled and pictured in the chambers of meditatioii 
 as another hell above the ground, and well justifying the 
 censure of the heathen that superstition is worse than 
 atheism ; by how, much ' // is less evil to have no opinion 
 of God 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 hnes of the Essay
 
 33acon as a ^j^eologtan 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 Oueene, 
 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 lue 
 may not propagate religion by luars or by sangidfiary 
 persecutions to fo7'ce 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 Xo practice against the State. He would probably 
 have found no fault with Italians professing the Roman 
 faith, nor with Frenchmen or Spaniards, w^hose 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 Ehzabeth therefore Bacon stands forth as an 
 eulogist, not an apologist. It was not the Queen, he 
 g 2
 
 cxiv ]^ntrotiuct(on 
 
 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, Btit, he continues,y?/j/ then the ambitious atid 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 reabn of a disaffected 
 and revolutionary party which should join with the 
 invading enemy, aiid the hope of this lay in our religious 
 dissetisions. . . * . 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 7ne7i of this class should be prohibited, upon 
 paift of death, from co?7ting into the kingdom at all. 
 King James was for dealing with the recusants more 
 mildly. Pcejia 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, atid 
 reported scarce half a dozen in all, which showeth no 
 watch 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 piey 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 7iota — 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 
 MachiavelH, when recommending the employment of
 
 9i3acon as a SJcologian 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, 7ior a Jaiireguy, nor a Baltazar 
 Gerard. Yet his rule holdeth still that nature, nor the 
 engagemeftt of words, are not so forcible as custoj.:. 
 Only Superstition is now so well advanced that men of 
 the 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 behef. 
 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. 
 
 ' Essay xxxix. 11. 12-19.
 
 cxvi Jntrotruction 
 
 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 moiia7xhy 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, repubhcs, 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. 2
 
 9i3acon as a politician cxvli 
 
 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 roimd soine centre which it benejits. 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 ItttrobUCtl'OU 
 
 money. Such mercenan' notions were no less in- 
 expedient than undignified. Everything that suggested 
 such notions was to be carefully avoided: the veiy 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 
 notiiing to be regretted or dreaded (except by superficial
 
 i3acon 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.^ 
 
 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, biit 
 diminisheth power ; and putteth life a7id 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.' - 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. 
 
 =" Discourses, Book ii. chap. 55. Elsewhere, however, he regrets the 
 exclusion of the element of the nobility by the predominance of the com- 
 mercial element in Florence, as tending to military weakness.
 
 cxx JIntrotiucttott 
 
 advantageous to the military spirit, and, provided they 
 were not so numerous as to impoverish the nation, 
 gentlemen were an advantage. O^it of all qiiestion, the 
 splendour and iiiagnijiceiice and great retz?iues and 
 hospitality of noblemen and gentlemen^ received into 
 aistom, doth much co?iduce M7ito 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 soine 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 ajtd 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 the 
 gentlemaji'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 
 becoine valiant and martial? 
 
 ' Essay xxix. 1. 135. ^ Essay xxix. 1. 105. 
 
 ' Essay xiv. 1. 49. * lb. 1. 91.
 
 33acon 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 ^schylus em- 
 bodying the blessing pronounced by Athene upon her 
 chosen people, may be taken as the text of Bacon's 
 pohtical discourses : — 
 
 Let there be foreign wars, not scantly coming. 
 
 No body J writes Bacon in the Essays, can be healihful 
 without exercise^ neither natural body nor politic : and 
 certainly to a kingdom or an estate a just and honourable 
 ivar is the true exercise. A civil war indeed is like the 
 heat of a fever ; but a foreign war is like the heai of 
 exercise^ and serve th to keep the body i7t health; for iii a 
 slothful peace both courages will effemiiiate and manners 
 co7'rupt. ^ 
 
 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 certai7i 
 estates of meji answerable to that which a great persofi 
 himself professeth {as of soldiers to him that hath beeti 
 einployedin the wars and the like), hath ever be m a thing 
 
 * Essay xxix. 1. 260.
 
 CXXll 
 
 llntrotiuction 
 
 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 poHcy. Speaking in 1606-7 ^ 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 kifigdojn- of 
 Ireland, which doth as it were contin2ially call imto lis for 
 oiir colonies a7idplantatio7is, he adds, or to take the worst 
 effect, look into all stories, you shall find the remedy none 
 other thaji so?ne honourable war for the enla?-geme7tt of 
 their borders which find themselves bent upon foreign 
 parts J whicJi inconvenience in a valorous and warlike 
 nation I know not whether I should terin an inconveni- 
 ence or no ; for the saying is most true, though in attother 
 sense, ' 07mte solum forti patria.^ Aftd certainly {Mr. 
 speaker) I hope I may speak it without offeiice that, if 
 we did hold ourselves worthy whensoever Just cause 
 should be given, either to recover our ancient rights or to 
 revenge our late wrojigs, or to attain the honour of our 
 ancestors, or to enlarge the patrimony of our posterity, we 
 would never in this ma7i7ier fo7get the considerations of 
 amplitude ajid gj-eatness, 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 lo^Yer, 
 Put into parts, doth keep, in one consent, 
 Congreeing in a full and natural close 
 Like music. 
 
 Life, Vol. iii. p. 314.
 
 i3acon as a ^ioIiticiaK cxxiii 
 
 Canterhiry — 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, 
 WTiere 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 
 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 Introlruction 
 
 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 was 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 Pi'imiwi Mobile of the political system, 
 the danger must have seemed very serious indeed.^ The 
 late Queen who was, in Bacon's eyes, a pattern of 
 administrative ability by her dignity, her tact, and her 
 timely concessions, had presented 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 7iot to 
 descend below himself j 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 
 
 ' See note on page cxix.
 
 23acon as a ^iolitician 
 
 cxxv 
 
 tone of a Prince, the voice of a Commoii 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 Parhament 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 ' ^ 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 accomphshment 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, 
 tJie King^s prerogative is law, the principal part of law. 
 Judges are reminded that they are planets, w^hile the 
 
 ' Life, Vol. iv. p. 280. '^ lb. Vol vi. p. 118.
 
 cxxvi Introduction 
 
 King is Primmn Mobile, that first and highest motion 
 which all the planets or great persons of a kingdom are 
 to obey, carried swiftly by the highest inotio7is and softly 
 by their oivn motion. Do as the planets do, says the 
 Lord Chancellor to the judges, move always atid be carried 
 with the motion of your fi?'st mover, which is your 
 Sovereign. The same deference inspires the Essay on 
 Judicature, wherein the judges are instructed to rejnember 
 that SalomorHs throne was supported by liois 07i both 
 sides ; let them be lions, but yet lions U7ider the throne, 
 being circumspect that they do 7iot check or oppose any 
 poi7its of sovereignty.'^ James himself is reminded of his 
 participation in the celestial nature : If you are heavenly, 
 you 7nust 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 ho7iour or disho?iour. Revere7tce is that where- 
 with p7'i7ices are gi7't front God, and no misgovernment 
 can divest them of their sovereignty ; howsoever He7iry 
 IV.'s act by a secret provide7ice of God p7'evailed,yetit was 
 but an usurpatio7i.'^ 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 Pri7na 
 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, 1^7. * Life, Vol. v. p. 145.
 
 33acon 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.^ Furthermore, laws are to be made for the banish- 
 ing of idleness y the repressifig of waste, the improve jnerJ 
 and husbanding of the soil, the regtdating of prices of 
 things vendible, the modei^ation of taxes and tributes, and 
 the like? Wealth is to be diffused; for money is like 
 7?mck, not good except it be spread. This is to be done, 
 chiefly by suppressing, or at the least keeping a straight 
 ha fid upo7i the devouring trades of usury, engrossing, great 
 pasturages, and the like.^ To govern a country by split- 
 ting it into factions is 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. ^ lb. xv. 1. 155. 
 
 Essay xv. 11. 120-6. * lb. xv. 1. 155. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 cxxviii Untrotiuction 
 
 dling with the religion, customs, or means of hfe of the 
 Commons, Bacon sees, as Machiavelh 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 mihtary bands, trained in small 
 numbers and at different places, are things of defence and 
 no danger. To the continuous training of the English 
 mihtia, 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 etnpire or greatiiess 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 within-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 plantatio7is (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 Grecut 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 
 ereatness.
 
 i3acon as a ^^olitician 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 inclittation of the thnes 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 ei7ipty coffers} Then (after propheti- 
 cally glancing at the prospect of revolt or trouble first in 
 Scotlajid ; 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 i7i 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 perstiading to king and people, a7id 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 Cotmtries.. 
 
 * Life, Vol. iv. p.. 73- 
 h2
 
 cxxx lntrot(ttction 
 
 Video solem orientem in Occidente — / 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 hberty 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. 
 
 If 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 iii 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 pohcy. 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
 
 i3acon as 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 powerful enough 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 
 071 a Holy IFar, discussing its possibility and lawfulness. 
 The treatise is incomplete, and from its nature gives ex- 
 pression to various opinions ; but there is Httle 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.^ To the 
 last therefore Bacon upheld a policy of war. 
 
 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 aniiexiiig of the Low Coimtries 
 might have engaged England in unnecessar}^ quarrels : 
 but it might, under a difterent 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 Mojiarchy in the West to the prosecution of a 
 
 * 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 0/ the Turk, whereof the titn seemeth to 
 approach.
 
 cxxxii Introtruction 
 
 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 a7id true 
 ititentions to state and justice^ and my love to itiy master^ 
 I am not the worst of Chancellors} 
 
 Turn to the Antitheta on Tmth,^ 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 bor?i 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, bom 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 
 
 * Life, Vol. vii. p. 78. * See Essays, Vol. ii. p. 107.
 
 23acon as a politician cxxxiii 
 
 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 Enghsh Solomon all 
 that was meant for England, and much that was ' meant 
 for mankind.'
 
 cxxxir Jtttrobuction 
 
 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 Machiavelh. 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 centur>^, Christian 
 morality has exercised little influence upon the inter- 
 course of nations. Bacon seems to have followed 
 Machiavelli in believing that a State might act towards 
 other States without regard to the rules that regulate the 
 relations of individuals. In part this feeling — which is 
 shared by many in modem 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 i^loralist 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 unheardof, 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 ignora?ice and baseness, 
 far inferior to other parts, nevertheless it doth fascinate 
 and bind hand and foot those that are either shallow in 
 judgnicjit or weak in courage, which are the greatest 
 part. ^ 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 militar)^ 
 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 
 
 ' Essay xii. 1. i6.
 
 cxxxvi lixtrotKuction 
 
 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 77ia7i's life, he says, is 7iot to be 
 trifled away ; it is to be ofl'ered up and sacrificed to 
 ho7iourable services, public 77ierits, good causes, a7id 7ioble 
 adve7itures. ^ This none will dispute : but there is some- 
 thing not Enghsh and not practical in the philosophic 
 contempt with which Bacon can despise reproaches, 
 insults, and even blows. As for zvords of reproach and 
 contu7nely {whereof the lie was estee77ted none), it is 7iot 
 credible (but that the orations the77iselves are exta7it) 
 what extre77ie a7id exquisite reproaches were tossed up and 
 dow7i i7i the Se7iate of Ro77ie a7id the places of asse77ibly 
 and the like i7i GrcBcia, a7id yet 7io 77ia7i took hi77iself 
 fouled by the7n, but took the77t for breath a7id the style of 
 an e7ie77iy, a7id either despised the77i or retur7ied the7n ; 
 but 710 blood spilt about them. So of every touch or light 
 blow of the per s 071, they are not in the77iselves co7isiderable, 
 save that they have got tipo7i the77i the stamp of a disgrace, 
 which 77iaketh these light thi7igs pass for great 77iatters. 
 This 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 i??ibued with pious a7id 77ioral k7iowledge before they 
 
 ' Life, Vol. iv. p. 406.
 
 ?3acon as a JWoralist cxxxvii 
 
 take any part i7i politics : but the morality of the Essays, 
 which are eminently practical, and intended as the Author 
 says to come into the business and bosoms of men — is the 
 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 J 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 pohtician 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 imfeignedly declare 
 and describe what men do and not what they ought to do 
 .... for, without this, virtue is open and tinfenced. ^ 
 
 In ©ne 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 
 
 * Works, Vol. V. p. 17.
 
 CXXXVlll 
 
 IntroUuction 
 
 characters. Now, as we have seen above, States and 
 individuals are regarded as dwelhng in different spheres 
 of morahty : 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 prmce. Princes are above laws, and 
 have no conscience (or rarely can afford to have one) ; 
 but citizens are on a different footing. Injustice 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 Machiavelhan policy at times 
 into language not strictly Machiavellian. But, in spite 
 of these righteous inconsistencies, it is scarcely possible 
 to read the Discoic7'ses and the Essays together without 
 feeling that the latter stand on the lower level of morality.
 
 23a£on as a jTOoralist cxxxlx 
 
 Machiavelli delineates with an unflinching hand the 
 Art of Advancement iox an Empire or a Prince ; Bacon 
 appHes 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 Machiavelli 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 siunmiun bomini 
 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 
 humihty and abjection and contempt of the world ; and 
 if our religion requires any fortitude, it is rather to enable
 
 cxl 3Itttrotfuct{on 
 
 us to suffer than to act. So that it seems to me this way 
 of hving, 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 beheve ; 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,' 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.' ^ 
 
 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 
 
 ' Discourses ii. 2.
 
 33acon as a J^oralfst cxll 
 
 .... 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.' ' 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 preserv^e 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.' ^ 
 This is a summary of Machiavelli's morality for Princes, 
 and what Machiavelli meant for Princes Bacon transfers 
 to individuals. 
 
 ' Discourses i. 26. " The Prince, xv.
 
 cxlii Introtjuction 
 
 It is true that, as we have said. Bacon seldom speaks 
 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 luickedness most punished in 
 itself. To be freed from all the restraints of virtue may 
 open a short straight path to fortune : but it is iti life as 
 it is in ways ; the shortest way is commonly the foulest 
 and muddiest, and surely the faii'er 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 '* — 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 — ?iot to show hiniself disarmed and exposed 
 to scorn and injury by too much goodness a?id sweetness 
 of nature."^ A little dissimulation is almost necessary to 
 secrecy, simulation must be allowed where there is no 
 remedy : and, though some persofis of weaker judgment, 
 and perhaps too scrupulous niorality, may disapprove of 
 it, yet the A7't of Ostentation, or showing oneself off to 
 
 • Discourses iii. 6. ^ Works, Vol. v. p. 69.
 
 i3acon as a iTOoralist 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 ajiciejit precept 
 of Bias, 7iot construed to any point of perfidiousness, but 
 only to caution and moderation. Love as if you were 
 sometitne to hate, and hate as if yoit were sontetime to 
 love. For it utterly betrays and destroys all utility for 
 men to embark the?nselves too far in unforttinate friend- 
 ships, troublesome and turbulent quarrels, and foolish and 
 childish jealoicsies 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 hfe : 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 fi7id inuch 
 in experience, little in books. The Volume of Essays is 
 what Bacon called the Architect of Fortune, or the 
 Knowledge of Advanceinent in Life, set forth in a shape 
 fit to come hojne to men's business a7id bosoms. 
 
 I have as vast co7itemplative ends as I have moderate 
 civil ends : 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 a7id a se7ise of shame, old age is 
 somewhat hardened ; ayou7ig ma7i has kindness and 77iercy, 
 a7i old 77ian has beco77ie pitiless and callous; youth has a 
 praiseworthy e7nulation, old age ill-natured envy j youth 
 VOL. I. i
 
 cxliv 3Introtiuction 
 
 is inclined to 7'eligion and devotion by reason of its fervency 
 and inexperience of evil ^ i7i old age piety cools through 
 the lukewarnmess of charity and long intercourse with 
 evil, together with the difficulty of believing; a young 
 man^s wishes are vehement, an old inaiis moderate; 
 youth is fickle and unstable, old age more grave and con- 
 stant; youth is liberal, generous, a7td philanthropic, old 
 age is covetous, wise for itself, and self-seeking ; youth is 
 cojifdent and hopeful, old age diffident a7id distrustful ; a 
 young man is easy and obliging, an old man churlish and 
 peevish ; youth is fank and sincere, old age cautious and 
 reserved ; youth desires great things, old age regards 
 those that are necessary ; a yotmg man thinks well of the 
 present, an old man prefers the past j a young ?7ian 
 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 under staiiding than in the virtues of the will 
 and affectio7is ; ^ and again, though here less emphatically, 
 for the moral part perhaps youth will have the pre- 
 eminejice, 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 morahty 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 
 
 ' Works, Vol. V. p. 320. * Essay xlii. 1. 54. ' Essay xlii. 1. 47.
 
 33ncon as a JWotalist 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 mgratitude. 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 hght 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 
 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 Introbuction 
 
 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- 
 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, 
 mischievoics, wretched things no better than a kind of 
 ver77ii7i. But, on the other hand, extre7ne lovers of their 
 comttry or masters were never fortunate, neither can they 
 be. In the same way, clear and round dealing is the 
 hono2ir of man^s 7iature ; but, on the other hand, no man 
 can be secret except he give himself a little scope of dis- 
 simulatio7i. As for politicians, in them, tortuosity and 
 deceit, and indeed envy and malignity, are almost matters 
 of necessity : such (envious) dispositions are the very 
 errors of hu77ian nature, a7id yet they are the fittest ti77iber 
 to 7nake great Politiques of like to k7iee-ti77iber that is good 
 for ships, that are ordai7ied to be tossed, but not for build- 
 i7ig houses that shall stand firm. It is true that he adds 
 that it is the weaker sort of politics that are the g7'eat 
 disse77iblers ; and he shows at times a high moral and 
 intellectual contempt for the S77iall wares of cunning 
 politicians. Nothing, he says, doth 7nore hurt i7t a State 
 tha7i that cu7t7ii7ig men pass for wise. But, in his Essay 
 on Truth, he is obliged to admit that 77iixture of false- 
 hood is like alloy in coin of gold a7id silver, which 77iay 
 make the 77ietal 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
 
 33acon as a jWoralist 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 m Jutman 7iatiire generally 7nore of 
 the fool than of the wise} Yet from this folly there in- 
 evitably issues immorality : pity in the common people, if 
 it run in a strong stream, doth ever cast tip scandal and 
 envy?' At the best, the morality of the masses must be 
 very low; most people tmderstand not many excelleiit 
 virtues ; the lowesi virtues draw praise from them j the 
 7niddle virtues work in them astonishment or ad?nira- 
 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 business and bosoms of 
 men. The Unity of Religioti, 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 
 
 * Essay xii. 1. 12. 
 
 ' Works, Vol. VI. p. 203 ; Life, Vol. iii. p. 137.
 
 cxlviii Introduction 
 
 desti'oys jnagiianijnity a7id the 7'aising of marCs 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 Aiigiiientis 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 bom, 
 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 inan 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 ? Do they 
 not think they will have their own ends, and be tjnier to 
 themselves thati to them ? And with the same leniency 
 with which he judges others he judges himself To be a 
 little ostentatious, a httle cunning, and a httle 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 livals; 
 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 J^oralist cxlix 
 
 useless life of contemplation foolishly preferred by Aris- 
 totle, and who have resolved to make themselves the 
 Architects of their own Foi'times by learning the science 
 of Advaiicemejit 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.' ^ 
 
 Of the reform and amendment of human nature Bacon 
 treats in the De Atigmentis?- He there deals with the 
 Culture of the Mind, mapping out the subject into three de- 
 partments. First, the di^erent characters ofjiatures and 
 dispositions ; second, the hwwledge touching the affections 
 and pertiirbatiofis ; \h\rd., 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.
 
 cl Untrobuction 
 
 sisting of the cherishing of the good hours of the mind, and 
 the obhteration of the bad. Here Rehgion steps in, and the 
 discussion ends with that remedy which is of all others 
 the most compe^idioiis, 7iobh 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 niorality can do. Of 
 all virtues Charity alone admits of no excess ; for by 
 aspiri7ig to a similitude of God in goodness or love, 
 neither angel nor 77ian ever tra?tsgressed or shall 
 transgress. 
 
 In the Essays ^ 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 
 excelle?it, 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. I. 33.
 
 i3acon as a i^loralist cH 
 
 breakest 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 
 Augment is 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 c/u'ld 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 
 fro7n actio7is of life. Friendly love, it is true, perfecteth 
 mankind ; but of miptial love he can say no more than 
 that it maketh mankind. As for the hopes and fears of a 
 second hfe 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 ajid 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 
 
 * Essay xiii. 1. 44.
 
 clii IntrotJuction 
 
 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 Christia?is 
 ever aspire and pant after the land of pj^oniise, 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 gartnents (/ mean our frail bodies) are as 
 little worn out as possible. And again, a few lines further 
 on, though the life of?naji is only a mass and accumula- 
 tion of sins and sorrows, a?id they who aspire to eternity 
 set little value on life, yet even we Christians should not 
 despise the continua7ice 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 ojid accumulation of si?ts 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 co?ne ifito the business and bosoms of 7nen.
 
 i3acon as a iWotalfst 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 powder 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 w^elfare ; 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 ;' ^ thus speaks MachiaveUi, 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 w^hole 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- 
 
 ^ Art of War, Book i. Machiavelli speaks in the person of Fahritio, a 
 character in the dialogue.
 
 cliv Jntrotiuction 
 
 gender, that social spirit of self-sacrifiee 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 jMonastic orders, now perverted to superstitious ends, 
 turned to their laAvful end, the introduction of Goodness, 
 the ' constraining ' of citizens to love one another. Col- 
 legiate custo7n is to be a great reforming influence ; for 
 if the force of custoin si7nple and separate be great ^ the 
 force of custom copulate and conjoined is far greater. For 
 there, example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation 
 guickeneth, glory raise th; so as, i?i such places, the force 
 ofcusto7n is in its exaltatioi. Certainly the great multipii- 
 catiott of virtues up07i hu77ia7i nature resteth upo7t societies 
 'u.'ell ordai7ied a7id discipli7ied. For co77i7no7iwealths a7id 
 good gove7'mne7its do 7iourish virtue grow7i, but do not 
 i7iuch 77ie7id the seeds. But the i7iise7y is that the 77iost 
 effectual means a7-e 7iow applied to the e7ids 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 i7i its exaltatio7t ; 
 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- 
 
 ' Essay xxxix. 1. 53.
 
 23acon as a i^oralist 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- 
 straming 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 3Introbu£tfon 
 
 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 
 e?ids, such as may be in a reasoiiable sort within a maiis 
 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 Machiavelh 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 07ga7ium 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 simpHcity ren-
 
 23acon as a i^oraltst civil 
 
 dering him happily Wind 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 as towards a man not only great, but 
 also, in the main, good.
 
 THE 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 OR 
 
 COVNSELS 
 
 CIVIL AND 
 
 MORAL, 
 
 OF 
 
 FRANCIS LORD VERULAM, 
 VISCOUNT St. Alban. 
 
 Newly enlarged. 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 Printed by lOHN H AVI LAND 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. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 clxi 
 
 To 
 
 The Right Honon7'able tny very good Lord the Duke 
 OF Buckingham his Grace, Lord ILigh Admiral 
 of England. 
 
 Excellent Lord, 
 Salomon says, A good name is as a precious ointment ; 
 and I assure myself such will your Grace's name be with 
 posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been 
 eminent, and you have planted things like to last. I do 
 now publish my Essays, which, of all my works, have 
 been most current, for that, as it seems, they come home 
 to men's business and bosoms. I have enlarged them 
 both in number and weight, so that they are indeed a 
 new work. I thought it therefore agreeable to my 
 affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your 
 name before them both in English and in Latin. For I 
 do conceive that the Latin Volume of them (being in the 
 universal language) may last as long as books last. My 
 Instauration I dedicated to the King ; my History of 
 Henr>^ the Seventh (which I have now also translated 
 into Latin) and my portions of Natural History, to the 
 Prince ; and these I dedicate to your Grace, being of the 
 best fruits that, by the good increase which God gives to 
 my pen and labours, I could yield. God lead your Grace 
 by the hand. 
 
 Your Grace's most obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 Fr. St. a lean.
 
 clxiii 
 
 ^fie ^able 
 
 Numbers marked * refer to tlie pages in tJie second v.diimT. 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 0/ r;7///i . 
 
 
 I 
 
 18 
 
 Of Travel . 
 
 60 
 
 2 
 
 Of Death 
 
 
 4 
 
 19 
 
 Of Empire . ' 
 
 • 63 
 
 3 
 
 Of Unity in Religion . 
 
 7 
 
 20 
 
 Of Counsel. 
 
 69 
 
 4 
 
 Of Revenge 
 
 . . 
 
 12 
 
 21 
 
 Of Delays 
 
 75 
 
 5 
 
 Of Adversity 
 
 
 14 
 
 22 
 
 OfCunfting 
 
 77 
 
 6 
 
 Of Simulation 
 
 and 
 
 
 23 
 
 Of IVisdom for u 
 
 r 
 
 
 Dissimulation 
 
 
 i6 
 
 
 Mans Self . 
 
 82 
 
 7 
 
 Of Parents and 
 
 Chil- 
 
 
 24 
 
 Of Innovations . 
 
 84 
 
 
 dren 
 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 Of Dispatch . 
 
 86 
 
 8 
 
 Of Marriage 
 
 and 
 
 
 26 
 
 Of Seeming Wise 
 
 89 
 
 
 Single Life 
 
 
 22 
 
 27 
 
 Of Friendship 
 
 91 
 
 9 
 
 Of Envy 
 
 
 25 
 
 28 
 
 Of Expense 
 
 99 
 
 lO 
 
 Of Love 
 
 
 31 
 
 29 
 
 Of the true Greatnes 
 
 ^ 
 
 II 
 
 Of Great Place 
 
 
 34 
 
 
 of Kingdoms and Es 
 
 - 
 
 12 
 
 Of Boldness . 
 
 
 38 
 
 
 tales . 
 
 102 
 
 13 
 
 Of Goodness, and 
 
 Good- 
 
 
 30 
 
 Of Regiment of Healt) 
 
 I I* 
 
 
 7iess of Nature 
 
 
 41 
 
 31 
 
 Of Suspicion 
 
 4* 
 
 14 
 
 Of Nobility . 
 
 . 
 
 44 
 
 32 
 
 Of Discourse . 
 
 6* 
 
 15 
 
 Of Seditions and 
 
 Trou- 
 
 
 33 
 
 Of Plantations . 
 
 10* 
 
 
 bles 
 
 
 46 
 
 34 
 
 Of Riches 
 
 14* 
 
 i6 
 
 Of Atheism 
 
 
 54 
 
 35 
 
 Of Prophecies . 
 
 18* 
 
 17 
 
 Of Superstition 
 
 . . 
 
 58 
 
 36 
 
 Of Ambition . 
 
 22*
 
 clxiv 
 
 ^Je ^ablt 
 
 il 
 
 Of Masks and Tri 
 
 PAGE 
 
 49 
 
 Of Suitors 
 
 PAGE 
 68* 
 
 
 umphs 
 
 25* 
 
 50 
 
 Of Studies . . . 
 
 72* 
 
 38 
 
 Of Nature in Men 
 
 28* 
 
 51 
 
 Of Faction 
 
 TS"" 
 
 39 
 
 Of Custom and Edu 
 
 
 52 
 
 Of Ceremonies and 
 
 
 
 cation 
 
 31* 
 
 
 Respects . . . 
 
 78* 
 
 40 
 
 Of Fortune . 
 
 34* 
 
 53 
 
 Of Praise . 
 
 81* 
 
 41 
 
 Of Usury . 
 
 37^=- 
 
 54 
 
 Of Vain- Glory . . 
 
 84* 
 
 42 
 
 Of Youth and Age 
 
 42* 
 
 55 
 
 Of Honour and Repu- 
 
 
 43 
 
 Of Beauty . 
 
 45* 
 
 
 tation 
 
 87* 
 
 44 
 
 Of Deformity . 
 
 47* 
 
 56 
 
 Of Judicature . . 
 
 91* 
 
 45 
 
 Of Building . 
 
 49* 
 
 57 
 
 Of Anger . 
 
 96* 
 
 46 
 
 Of Gardens 
 
 54* 
 
 58 
 
 Of Vicissitudes of 
 
 
 47 
 
 Of Negotiating . . 
 
 62* 
 
 
 Things . . . 
 
 99* 
 
 48 
 
 Of Followers ana 
 Friends . 
 
 65* 
 
 
 
 
 Of Fame, a fragment.
 
 ESSAYS
 
 i
 
 ESSAYS 
 I 
 
 Wna t is Truth ? said jesting Pilate ; and would not stay 
 for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddi- 
 ness, and count it a bondage to fix a behef ; affecting 
 free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And, though 
 the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there 5 
 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 
 natural though corrupt love of the lie itself One of the 
 later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and 
 's 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 ^h advantage, as with the merchant, 
 but for the he's sake. But I cannot tell : this same truth 
 is a naked and open daylight, that dolh not show the 
 masques and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, 
 half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may 20 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 <©f ^ruft [Essay i 
 
 perhaps come to the price 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 w^ere 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 unpleasing to themselves ? One 
 
 ;^o of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy viimm d<z- 
 ?nonu??t, 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, w^hich 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 
 
 ^o (which is the enjoying of it) is the sovereign good of 
 human nature. The first creature 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 still 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, // is a pleasure to stand upon the 
 
 ^o shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea; a pleasure to 
 stand i7i the window of a castle^ and to see the battle, 
 and the adventures thereof below ; bnt no pleasure is com- 
 parable to the standing tipon the vatitage ground of truth 
 (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always 
 
 55 clear and serene), a?id to see the errors^ and wanderings,
 
 Essay i] <©f ^rut{) 3 
 
 and ??iists, 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. 6° 
 
 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 of 
 falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which ^5 
 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 ; 7° 
 and therefore Montaigne 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 7nuch as to say 
 that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards 75 
 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, £o 
 He shall not find faith upon the earth.
 
 II 
 m SDeatft 
 
 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 f/ie 
 wages of sin and passage to another world, is holy and 
 
 i religious ; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, 
 is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes 
 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 
 
 iQ 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 
 
 [5 that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was 
 well said, Pompa mortis magis tei'ret qumn mors ipsa. 
 Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and 
 friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, 
 shew death terrible. 
 
 :o It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in
 
 Essay 2] ^i iBcati) 5 
 
 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 of him. Revenge triumphs 
 over death ; love slights it ; honour aspireth to it ; grief 25 
 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 guamdiu eadem feceris ; mori velle, non tanitmi 
 fortis, aut miser^ sed etiam fastidiosiis potest. A man 
 would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, 
 only upon a vreariness 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 : Livia, conjiigii 
 nostri ine77ior vive, et vale. Tiberius in dissimulation, as 
 Tacitus saith of him, "^am Tiberitan vires et corpus, 7ion 40 
 dissiinulatio, deserebant. Vespasian in a jest, sitting 
 upon the stool, Ut piito Deiisfio. Galba with a sentence, 
 Feri., si ex re sit poptcli Romaiii., holding forth his neck. 
 Septimius Severus in dispatch, Adeste, si quid inihi restat 
 agendtnn. 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 Qiti finem vitce extreimun 
 inter vmnera poiiat NatiircE. It is as natural to die as to 
 be born : and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as 50 
 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 m IBeatS [Essaf 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 : 
 
 — Exthictus amabltur idem.
 
 Ill 
 
 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 5 
 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 10 
 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 (Bi Winii^ in Meligion [£ssay 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 
 
 30 in men's ears, No lite 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, a7id 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 scorne7-s. 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 Dajice of Heretics. 
 For, indeed, every sect of them have a diverse posture, 
 or cringe, by themselves ; which cannot but move deri- 
 
 45 sion in worldling'- and depraved politics, who are apt to 
 contemn holy thmgs. 
 
 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, Jehuf What hast thou to do 
 with peace ? turn thee behind ine. Peace is not 
 the matter, but follovring and party. Contrariwise,
 
 Essay 3] ^i ^ani'tg lit lEleligioix 9 
 
 certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they 
 may accommodate points of rehgion 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 7iot with tis 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 Hght, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled 
 only by contradiction. For, as it is noted by one of the 
 fathers, Chrisfs coat indeed had no sea?n, Mit the Churches 80 
 vesture was of divers czlours j 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
 
 10 (Bi Winit^ in i^eligion [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 profa7ias vociim novi- 
 tates et oppositioties falsi nof7iinis sciejitice. Men create 
 oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms so 
 
 100 tixed as, whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, 
 the term in effect govcrneth 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 
 
 hke 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 
 
 no 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. 
 
 115 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 rebelhons, 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 
 
 125 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 ^ttltg IIX BcligiOn 1 1 
 
 Taniutn religlo potuit suadere tnalorum. 
 
 What would he have said, if he had known of the 
 massacre in France, or the powder treason of England ? 130 
 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 ascetid 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 145 
 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 ijnplet jiistitiaju Dei. And 
 it was a notable observation of a wise father and no 155 
 less ingenuously confessed, that those which held a7id 
 persuaded pressure of consciences, were cojnmonly inter- 
 essed therein themselves for their own ends.
 
 IV 
 
 (Bt Eebense 
 
 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- 
 
 5 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 7nan to pass by aji offence. 
 
 That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and 
 
 lo 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
 
 Essays] <J^f Hcocngt 1 3 
 
 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 cominaiided 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 Kenry 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 
 are mischievous, so end they infortunate. 45
 
 V 
 
 m atifaersiitg 
 
 It was an high speech of Seneca (after the manner of 
 the Stoics), that //le good things which beloiig 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 
 
 lo God. Vere magnum, habere fragilitate7n Jwminis, securi- 
 iatem 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 unbind Prometheus (by whom 
 human nature is represented), sailed the length of the 
 great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher ; lively describing 
 
 20 Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the 
 flesh thorough the waves of the world.
 
 Essay 5] (©f ^terSltJ) 1 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-hke 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 doth 40 
 best discover virtue.
 
 VI 
 
 (Bt Simulation mxH Bi^gimulatiou 
 
 Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom. 
 P^or 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, Livia sorted well with the arts of her 
 hicsbafid and dissiimilation of her son ; attributing arts of 
 policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius. And 
 again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take 
 
 lo arms against Vitellius, he saith, We rise not against the 
 piercing judgment of Atigtistns, 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. 
 
 15 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 hfe, 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 ant( 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 deahng, 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 30 
 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 ahnost 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 40 
 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 t 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 
 VOL. I. c
 
 1 8 ©f S^tmulation anb Bisstmulatiott [£ssay 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 mo7'al. 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 seo'et, 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 S3ope of dissimulation ; which is, as it were, but the 
 skirts or train of secrecy. 
 
 But for the third degree, which is Simulation and 
 
 80 false profession, that I hold more culpable, and less 
 pohtic ; 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, 
 
 85 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 pubhshed, it
 
 Essay 6] <©f Simulation anli 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. 
 
 c 2
 
 VII 
 
 m ^parents antr Cf)(Itrren 
 
 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 
 
 5 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 
 
 lo 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 
 
 ^5 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 
 shajnes 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, 
 
 25 nevertheless, prove the best.
 
 Essay]] Of ^arcnts antf OTftiltireu 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 foohsh 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, Optivmm elige, 
 suave et facile illud faciei consuetudo. Younger brothers 
 are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where the 
 elder are disinherited.
 
 VIII 
 
 M Mnvvmst ana Single lift 
 
 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 
 
 lo 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. 
 
 15 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, S7ic/i a one is a great rich man, 
 and another except to it. Yea, but he hath a great cha?ge 
 
 20 of children, as if it were an abatement to his riches.
 
 Essay 8] ©f iilavnage anlr ^mgk Hife 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 30 
 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 wdfe. 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 prcsUdit inimortalitati. 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 50 
 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 (Bi iilarriagc anti finale %ik [£ssay 8 
 
 question when a man should marry — A yoimg 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 foJly.
 
 IX 
 
 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 cin 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 ivhat persons 
 are aM to envy others ; what persons are most subject to 20
 
 26 ©f OBnbe [Essay 9 
 
 be envied themselves ; and what is the difference between 
 
 picblic and private envy. 
 
 A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth 
 
 virtue in others. For men's minds will either feed upon 
 25 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 tha'. is busy and inquisitive is commonly en- 
 30 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 ciiriosuSj qnin 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 Hght 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. 
 55 They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of
 
 Essay 9] Of ([Bnbg 27 
 
 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 co 
 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 en\'y. 
 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. £5 
 
 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 m ^nbg [£ssay 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 qtianta 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 
 
 13 5 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. 
 
 I2S Lastly, to conclude this part : as we said in the be-
 
 Essay 9] <©f (IBubp 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 135 
 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 ostracism, that eclipseth men 
 when they grow too great. And therefore it is a bridle 140 
 also to great ones to keep within bounds. 
 
 This en\y, 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 hke to infection. For, as infection 145 
 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. 
 
 This public envy seemeth to bear chiefly upon prin- 
 cipal officers or ministers, rather than upon Kings and 155 
 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 
 hidden) is truly upon the State itself. And so much of 160
 
 30 (Bi <2[Bnb2 [£:ssay 9 
 
 public envy or discontentment, and the difference thereof 
 from private envy, which was handled in the first place. 
 
 We will add this in'general, touching the affection of 
 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, 
 Lividia festos dies noji 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 The 
 envious man that soweth tares among the wheat by night; 
 as it always cometh to pass, that envy worketh subtilly, 
 
 17s and in the dai'k, azid to tie pi-ejudice of good things, such 
 as is the wheat.
 
 X 
 
 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 niagimin alter 
 alteri theatrum sicmus : as if Man, made for the con- 20
 
 32 Of Hobc [Essay lo 
 
 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- 
 
 30 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- 
 cip'roque, 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 observ^ed) ; both 
 
 50 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
 
 Essay lo] ®f HobC 33 
 
 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. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 XI 
 
 m (great \mtt 
 
 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 
 
 5 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 
 
 lo is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at 
 least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing. Cum non 
 sis qui fueris, noii esse cur velis 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 ii] (©f Great ^lacc 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. //// mors gravis hiciibat, qui 
 7iotus nimis ojnnibus, igiiohis morilur sibi. 30 
 
 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 40 
 rest. For if a man can be a partaker of God's theatre, 
 he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest. Et coji- 
 versiis Deus, tit aspiceret opera^ qticE feceriint maims 
 S2i<z, vidit quod omiiia essent bona fiifnis ; 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 ;
 
 36 Of (5rcat ^lace \Essay II 
 
 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. 
 Preser\^e 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 vices 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 
 
 85 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 grave, and not taunting. As for facility, it is
 
 Essay ii] ^f (^xtdii ^lace 3; 
 
 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 
 sJioweth the man. And it showeth some to the better, 100 
 and some to the worse. Omniian consensit, capax 
 imperii, nisi imperasset^ saith Tacitus of Galba : but 
 of Vespasian he saith. Sokes imperantiiijn, Vespasiamis 
 mntatus i7t 7neli2is. 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 "5 
 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 a7iother man.
 
 ' XII 
 
 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 a7i orator? he answered, 
 Actio7i : What next ? Actio?i : What next again ? 
 ^ 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 
 
 ^° 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 
 
 ^^ 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 
 
 =° courage, which are the greatest part ; yea, and prevaileth
 
 Essay 12] <©f ^oltlneSS 39 
 
 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 and again ; and when 35 
 the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said. 
 If the hill will 7iot 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 httle 
 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 dangers and inconveniences. Therefore 55
 
 40 ^f 23oliJn£SS [Essay 12 
 
 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 
 60 to see them, except they be very great.
 
 XIII 
 
 (Bf 0ooWt^^, anir (goolrnes^sJ of d^ature 
 
 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 incHnation. This, of all virtues and digni- 5 
 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, lo 
 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 15 
 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- 20 
 ness, a long-billed fowl.
 
 42 <©f CSootJmSS [Essay 13 
 
 Errors, indeed, in this virtue of goodness or charity, 
 may be committed. The Italians have an ungracious 
 proverb, Tanto buo7i che val niente : So good that he is 
 
 IS 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 
 tip good men iti prey to those who are tyrantiical and 
 rmjust. 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 
 
 35 faces or fancies : for that is but facility or softness ; 
 which taketh an honest mind prisoner. Neither give 
 thou ^sop'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 and inaketh his sun to shi7ie 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 vie ; 
 but sell not all thou hast, except thou come and follow 
 me : that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou 
 
 50 mayest do as much good with little means as with great ; 
 for otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou driest the 
 foimtain. 
 
 Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed by 
 right reason ; but there is in some men, even in nature, a 
 
 55 disposition towards it ; as, on the other side, there is a 
 natural malignity ; for there be that in their nature do
 
 Essay 13] ^ntf of ^ootJutss of i^Htute 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 65 
 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 70 
 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- 
 ■? 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, 
 
 lo 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 is their bond, and not respects. The United 
 
 15 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 nobihty 
 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
 
 Essay 14] (©f i^Obflltp 45 
 
 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 nobihty 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 nobihty 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.
 
 XV 
 
 (Bt ^rtiitions anli Crnublts 
 
 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 
 5 blasts of wand and secret swellings of seas before a 
 tempest, so are there in States : 
 
 //le etiam ccecos instare tumultiis 
 Stzt>e viotiet, fraudesquc et operta tumescere hella. 
 
 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- 
 10 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 : 
 
 Jllam terra parens, ira irritata deoruni, 
 Extremam [ut perhibent) Coeo Enceladoque sororein 
 Progenuit. 
 
 As if fames were the relics of seditions past. But they 
 are no less indeed the preludes of seditions to com.e.
 
 Essay 15;! <©f ^etitttons anti troubles 47 
 
 Howsoever, he noteth it right, that seditious tumults 15 
 and seditious fames differ no more but as brother and 
 sister, mascuhne 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 20 
 shows the envy great, as Tacitus saith, Conflata magna 
 mvldia, sen bene, seu 7nale, 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 inallent ina?idata impei'antiuni interpi'e- 30 
 tari, quajn 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
 
 48 Of SctlttlOttS antr 'troubles [Essay 15 
 
 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 pyi?mc?n mobile (according to the 
 old opinion), which is, that ever>^ of them is carried 
 swiftly by the highest motion, and softly in their own 
 
 55 metion. And, therefore, when great ones in their own 
 particular motion move violently, and, as Tacitus ex- 
 presseth it well, liberiits qiiam td imperajiiium ineini- 
 7iisse?it, 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 usiira vorax rapidutnque in tempore fosnus, 
 Hinc concussa fides, et multis utile bellum. 
 
 80 This same multis utile bellum is an assured and 
 infalhble sign of a State disposed to seditions and 
 troubles. And if this poverty and broken estate in the
 
 Essay 15] <©f ^elfttions antr troubles 49 • 
 
 better sort be joined with a want and necessity in the 
 mean people, the danger is imminent and great. For 
 the rebeUions 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 feehng. 
 Dolendi modus, timendi non ite7n. 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. 105 
 
 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. 115 
 
 The first remedy or prevention, is to remove, by all 
 means possible, that material cause of sedition whereof 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 <©f x^^itions anti troubles [Essay 15 
 
 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, 
 
 125 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 
 
 145 it Cometh many times to pass, that materiaiti siiperabit 
 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 pohcy 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,
 
 Essay 15] ^f Sc^itions anb troubles 51 
 
 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 17c 
 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 Epim.etheus 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 hd, and kept 
 hope in the bottom of the vessel. Certainly, the politic 
 and artificial nourishing and entertaining of hopes, ajid 
 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 Oi ^ttiitiom anb troubles [Essay 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, 
 because both particular persons and factions are apt 
 enough to flatter themselves, or, at least, to brave that 
 which they believe not. 
 
 195 Also the foresight and prevention , that there be no 
 likely or fit head whereupon discontented persons may 
 resort, and under whom they may join, 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- 
 
 200 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 
 
 205 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- 
 
 215 tions. Caesar did himself infinite hurt in that speech, 
 Sylla 7iescivit literas, nou potuit dicta?'e : for it did utterly 
 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 inilitem, 
 
 220 non eini : 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] <©f ^ttiittotts anU ^roubUs 53 
 
 of great despair for the soldiers. And many the hke. 
 Surely princes had need, in tender matters and ticklish 
 times, to beware what they say, especially in these short 
 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 animoriwifiiit^ ut 235 
 pessiimim facimis aiiderent 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. 240
 
 XVI 
 
 (Bf ^tfteis^m 
 
 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 
 
 TO 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 
 
 £o without a divine marshal.
 
 Essay i6] <©f gltJ)ClSm 55 
 
 The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, 
 there is no God ; it is not said, The fool hath thought 
 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 25 
 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 30 
 be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others. 
 Nay, more, you shall have atheists strive to 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 40 
 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 
 deos vidgi 7iegare profanuni ; sed viilgi 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, 50 
 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 ii
 
 56 Oi ^fteiSm [£ssay i6 
 
 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 
 
 Co 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 
 
 65 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 7iec sic popidus, tit 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 
 
 90 persons, so it is in nations. Never was there such a
 
 Essay i6] ©f ^tjeism 57 
 
 State for magnanimity as Rome. Of this State hear 
 what Cicero saith : Quain volumus, licet, patres con- 
 scripti, Jtos ainemus, tamen nee mnnero Hispanos^ 7iec 
 robore Gallos, nee calliditate Pcenos, nee artibus GrcEcos, 
 7iec denique hoc ipso hujus gentis et terrce domestico ^^ 
 nativoqiie sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos; sed pietate, ac 
 retigione, atque hac una sapietitia, quod deortun im- 
 mortalium 7iu7ni7ie o??inia regi^gubernariqiieperspeximus^ 
 oTnnes gentes nationesque superaviinus.
 
 XVII 
 
 (Bt ^upersstitinn 
 
 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 meii should say there was no such a i7ian at 
 all as Plutarch, than that they should say there was 07ie 
 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 Caesar, were civil times. But superstition 
 
 20 hath been the confusion of many States, and bringeth 
 in a new prinuan ?nobile, that ravisheth all the spheres 
 of government.
 
 Essay 17] <^f gbupmtition 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 23 
 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 asU^onotners, which did 
 feign eccentrics and epicycles, afid such engines of orbs, 
 to save the phenoniejia, though they knew there were 30 
 no such things J 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 5° 
 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. 55
 
 XVIII 
 
 m 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 
 5 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 
 
 lo 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- 
 
 15 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- 
 
 20 dors ; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes,
 
 Essay i8] <©f ^tabd 6 1 
 
 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 dihgent 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 som.e entrance into the language before he 40 
 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
 
 62 ^f ^rabtl [Essay i8 
 
 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, but 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 
 
 m 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 ; w^ho, 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 f/ie liiiig^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- 15 
 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, 20
 
 64 ®f Empire [£ssay 19 
 
 that f/ie inijid 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 
 
 25 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 
 
 20 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 luas Nerd's 
 overthrow ? He answered, Nero could touch and tune 
 the harp well ; but iii government sometimes he tcsed to 
 
 40 wind the 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' aftairs, is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings 
 of dangers and mischiefs, when they are 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 neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be pre- 
 
 so 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 ple7-umque regum 
 
 55 voluntates vehsmentes, et inter se contrarice. For it is
 
 Essay 19] (©f Empire 65 
 
 the solecism of power to think to command the end, 
 and yet not to endure the 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- 63 
 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, v-? 
 or, if need were, by a war, and would not in anywise take 
 up peace at interest. And the like was done by that 
 league (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 the schoolmen 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 husband ; 
 Roxolana, Solyman's wife, was the destruction of that 
 renowned prince. Sultan Mustapha, and otherwise 90 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 m QBmpire [£ssay 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 
 
 100 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 Phihp 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 
 
 115 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, WiUiam Rufus, Henry I., and 
 
 irs Henry II. The danger is not from that state, but
 
 Essay 19] i©f (IBmpire 67 
 
 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 i\o 
 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 vena porta, and if 
 they flourish not, a kingdom may have good limbs, 
 but wdll have empty veins, and nourish little. Taxes 
 and imposts upon them do seldom good to the king^s 150 
 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 155 
 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 160 
 
 F 2
 
 6S <B( (Empire [£ssay 19 
 
 pretorian bands of Rome. But trainings of men, and 
 arming them, in several places, and under several com- 
 manders, and without donatives, are things of defence, 
 and no danger. 
 
 163 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 Me?ne7ito quod es Detis, or vice Dei. 
 
 170 The one bridleth their power, and the other their will.
 
 XX 
 
 m €o\m^tl 
 
 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 : T/ie 
 Co2insellor. 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 drunken 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
 
 70 ^f (jrounStI [Essay 20 
 
 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 
 wit?i 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 
 
 30 that which foUoweth, 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 
 
 33 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 caUing 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,
 
 Essay 20] ©f CounScl 7 1 
 
 the danger of being unfaithfully cjunselled, 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 60 
 the disease. 
 
 As to secrecy ; princes are not bound to communi- 
 cate all matters wnth 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, Pletius rimartwt sum. 
 One futile person, that maketh it his glor>' 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 ; the fable showeth the 
 remedy. Nay, the majesty of kings is rather exalted 
 than diminished when they are in the chair of counsel : as 
 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 com.bination in divers : which are things soon 
 found and holpen.
 
 ^2 <^\ €^OUnS£l \Essay 20 
 
 For the last inconvenience, that men will counsel 
 with an eye to themselves : certainly, non inveniet fidem 
 super terrain is meant of the nature of times, and not 
 of air particular persons. There be that are in nature 
 95 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 
 100 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 : 
 
 Principis est virtus maxima iiosse 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 
 
 110 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 preser^-e 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, seciindum getiera 
 (as in an idea, or mathematical description), what the 
 kind and character of the person should be. For the
 
 Essay 20] ^f CoUItStl 73 
 
 greatest errors are committed, and the most judgment 125 
 is shown, in the choice of individuals. It was truly said,' 
 Optinii consiliarii morUii : Books will speak plain when 
 cojinsellors 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 consilinm. 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 both 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 155 
 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 <©f (Counsel [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 oi placebo.
 
 XXI 
 
 (Bt JBelap^ 
 
 Fortune is like the market ; where, many times, if you 
 can stay a httle, the price will fall. And again, it is 
 sometimes like Sibylla's offer ; which at first offereth the 
 commodity at full, then consumeth part and part, and 
 still holdeth up the price. For Occasion (as it is in the 5 
 common verse) fiinieth a bald noddle after she hath pre- 
 sented her locks in front ^ and no hold taken j 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 lo 
 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 2c
 
 ^6 <^f BdapS {Essay 21 
 
 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, 
 
 25 and the ends to Briareus with his 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 
 
 (Bt Cunmug 
 
 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 that 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 ic 
 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 auibos midos ad ignotos, et videbis, doth 15 
 scarce hold for them. And because these cunning men 
 are hke 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. 20
 
 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. 
 
 25 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 Nehemiah did, A/id I had 
 not before that tune 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] <©f Cunning 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 wrote a letter, he would put 
 that which was most material in the postscript, 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. ^5 
 
 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/??///^ declinatio7i of a ino7iarchy ^n2lS a ticklish 
 thing, and that he did not affect it. The other straight So 
 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
 
 8o (Bi Cunning [£ssay 22 
 
 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, T/ns I do 7iot; as Tigellinus did towards Burrhus, 
 saying, Se non diversas spes, sed mcolumitatem impera- 
 toris simpiiciter spectare. 
 
 Some have in readiness so many tales and stories, as 
 there is nothing they would insinuate but they can wrap 
 
 100 it into a tale ; which serveth both to keep themselves 
 more in guard, and to make others carry it 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 
 
 115 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 resorts 
 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 
 
 125 examine or debate matters. And yet commonly they
 
 Essay 22] ®f Running 8i 
 
 take advantage of their inability, and would be thought 
 wits of direction. Some build rather upon the abusing 
 of others, and (as we now say) putting tricks upon them, 
 than upon the soundness of their own proceedings. But 
 Solomon saith, Pritdens advertit ad gressiis siios ; stultus 
 divertit ad dolos. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 XXIII 
 
 m Wii^Xiom for a ilan'si ^tlt 
 
 An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd 
 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 
 
 5 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, kwiself. It is right earth. For that only stands 
 fast upGn 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 peril of the 
 public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant 
 
 IS 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, let princes 
 or States choose such servants as have not this mark ; 
 
 20 except they mean their service should be made but the 
 accessary.
 
 Essay 23] <©f CTiistrom for a i^an^s %z\\ %i 
 
 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 25 
 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. 40 
 
 Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, 
 a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of 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 45 
 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 sui amantes sine 
 7'ivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereas they 
 have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they be- sc 
 come in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy 
 of fortune ; whose wings they thought by their self- 
 wisdom to have pinioned.
 
 4 ^. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 (Bt Jnuobations; 
 
 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 
 at first. Surely every medicine is an innovation, and 
 
 lo he that will not apply new remedies must expect new 
 evils. For time is the greatest innovator ; and 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 ? 
 
 IS 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
 
 Essay 24] ^f ^Innobations 85 
 
 like strangers, more admired, and less favoured. All 
 this is true, if time stood still : which contrariwise 
 moveth so round that a frovvard retention of custom 
 is as turbulent a thing as an innovation ; and they 
 that reverence too much old times, are but a scorn to 25 
 the new. 
 
 It were good, therefore, that men in their innova- 
 tions, would follow the example of time itself ; which 
 indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees 
 scarce to be perceived. For otherwise, whatsoever is 30 
 new is unlooked for : and ever it mends some, and pairs 
 others ; and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and 
 thanks the time ; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and 
 imputeth 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- 4- 
 pect ; and, as the Scripture saith, that we make a stand 
 tipon the ancient way, and then look about us, atid dis- 
 cover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk 
 in it.
 
 XXV 
 
 (Bf Bisipatri) 
 
 Affected Dispatch is one of the most dangerous things 
 to business that can be ; it is hke 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- 
 
 lo 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 inake an e7id the 
 sooner. 
 
 20 On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing. For
 
 Essay 25] <©f BlSpaUl) "^7 
 
 time is the measure of business, as money is of wares ; 
 and business is bought at a dear hand where there is 
 small dispatch. The Spartans and Spaniards have been 
 noted to be of small dispatch : Mi veiiga la 7nuerte de 
 Spagna ; Let my death come from Spain ; for then it 25 
 will 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 bravery. Yet beware of being too 
 material when there is any impediment or obstruction 45 
 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 hfe 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 ; ss
 
 88 <Bi iSiSpatCj) [£ssay 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- 
 go ceived in writing doth for the most part facilitate dis- 
 patch. For, though it should be wholly rejected, yet 
 that negative is more pregnant of direction than an 
 indefinite ; as ashes are more generative 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 
 godhness, Having a show of godliness, but denying the 5 
 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 prospectives, to make 10 
 superficies to 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
 
 90 ©f S>^fn^ltt9 OTtSe [Essay 26 
 
 chin ; Respondes, altera ad frontem sitblato, altera ad 
 meiitum depresso siipercilio, crudelitatem tibi 7ton placere. 
 Some think to bear it 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 
 delirimi, qui verboruni mijiutiis rerum frangit ponder a. 
 Of which kind also Plato, 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 
 
 40 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.
 
 XXVII 
 
 It had been hard for him that spake it, to have put more 
 truth and untruth together in few words, than in that 
 speech, IVhosoei^er is delighted in solitude, is either a 
 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 should have any character at all of the 
 divine 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- 
 docles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana, and truly 
 and 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 
 adage meeteth with it a little : Magna civitas, viagjia 
 solitiido : because in a great town friends are scattered ; 20
 
 92 0i Jpricntrsjip [£ssay 27 
 
 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, that it is a mere and miserable 
 solitude to want true friends, without which the world is 
 
 25 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 taketh it of the beast, and not 
 from humanity. 
 
 A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and . dis- 
 
 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 receipt openeth the heart but a true friend ; to 
 whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, 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 as 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 inconvenience. 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 ciirarum ; 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] (^f Jpn'tntlsSip 93 
 
 and most politic that ever reigned : who have oftentimes 
 joined 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 upon him 
 again, and in effect bade him be quiet ; for that more 
 vien adored the sun rising than the sun setting. With 
 Julius Caesar, 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 
 Csesar 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 
 vefie/ica, witch, as if he had enchanted Csesar. Augustus 80 
 raised Agrippa, though of mean birth, to that height, as, 
 when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of 
 his daughter Juha, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, 
 that he niust either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or 
 take away his life : there was no third way, he had made 83 
 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, HcEC pro amicitia nostra non occultavij and the 
 whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a 90
 
 94 ®f jFrienlrsJ)ip [Essay 27 
 
 goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship 
 between them two. The hke, 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-livt 
 me. Now, if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a 
 Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had 
 
 ICO proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature. But being 
 men so wise, of such strength 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 
 
 IC5 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 Comineus observeth 
 
 no of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy ; nam^ely, 
 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 perish 
 
 „5 his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have 
 made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of 
 his second master, Louis XI., whose closeness was 
 indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is 
 dark, but true. Cor he 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 
 
 125 his friend, works two contrary effects : for it redoubleth
 
 Essay 27] Of jptlCntlsSlp 95 
 
 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 hke 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 bodies, union 135 
 strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action, and, 
 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 day's meditation. It was well said by Themistocles 
 to the king of Persia, that speech was like cloth of xss 
 Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth 
 appear i?i figure ; whereas in thoughts they lie but as i7i 
 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 <©f JpriEnlrs]&ip [£ssay 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 
 
 170 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. J For the first, the best preservative to 
 keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a 
 
 185 friend. The calhng 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 unproper 
 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 
 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, 
 
 J95 as St. James saith, they are as men, that look sometimes
 
 Essay 2-^'\ <©{ JFricnbsfifp 97 
 
 into a g'/dss, and prese?itly forget their own shape and 
 favour. As for business, a man may think, if he will, 
 that two eyes see no more than one ; or that a gamester 
 seeth always more than a looker-on ; or that a man in 
 anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four-and- 200 
 twenty letters ; or that a musket may be shot off as well 
 upon the arm as upon a rest ; and such other fond and 
 high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when 
 all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth 
 business straight. And if any man think that he will 205 
 take counsel, but it shall be by pieces ; asking counsel 
 in one business of one man, and in another business 
 of another man ; it is well (that is to say, better, per- 
 haps, than if he asked none at all), but he runneth 
 two dangers. One, that he shall not be faithfully coun- 210 
 selled : for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect 
 and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as 
 shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath 
 that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel 
 given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), 215 
 and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy. 
 Even as if you would call a physician, that is thought 
 good for the cure of the dise.ise you complain of 
 but is unacquainted with your body, and therefore, may 
 put you in a way for present cure, but overthroweth 220 
 your health in some other kind, and so cure the disease, 
 and kill the patient. But a friend, that is whoii)'- 
 acquainted with a man's estate, will beware, by further- 
 ing any present business, how he dasheth upon other 
 inconvenience. And, therefore, rest not upon scattered 225 
 counsels, for they will rather distract and mislead than 
 settle and direct. 
 
 After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in 
 the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth 
 the last fruit, which is, like the pomegranate, full of 23c 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 (Bi jPricntlSi)ip [Essay 27 
 
 many kernels : I mean, aid and bearing a part in all 
 actions and occasions. Here, the best way to represent 
 to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see 
 how many things there are which a man cannot do him- 
 
 235 self; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech 
 of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; 
 for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have 
 their time, and die many times in desire of some things 
 which they principally take to heart ; the bestowing of 
 
 240 a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man 
 have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the 
 care of- those things will continue after him. So that 
 a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man 
 hath a body, and that body is confined to a place ; but 
 
 24s 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 which 
 a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do 
 himself ! A man can scarce allege his own merits with 
 
 =50 modesty, much less extol them ; a man cannot some- 
 times stoop to supphcate 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 enemy 
 but upon terms : whereas a friend may speak as the 
 case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. 
 But to enumerate these things were endless : I have 
 
 260 given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own 
 part : if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Riches are for spending, and spending for honour and 
 good actions. Therefore extraordinary expense must be 
 hmited 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, k> 
 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 hmited by the 
 worth of the occasion : for voluntary vn doing may be aswell for a 
 mans countrey, as for the kingdome of heauen : but ordinary 
 expence ought to be limited by a mans estate, and governed w**^ 
 such regarde as it be wtf'in 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
 
 100 ^f ^.ipcnsr [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 
 
 15 neghgence 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 ; 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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 preserv^ed 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 
 
 30 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 small things : and commonly, it 
 
 forbeare it not of negligence alone, but doubting to bring them- 
 selues into melancholy, in respect they shall finde it broken ; but 
 woundes cannot be cured w'^out 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 
 erne 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 petty
 
 Essay 28] (!^f ([BxpcnSC lOI 
 
 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 w^*^ begun must continue, but in matters that returne 
 not, he may be more liberal.
 
 XXIX 
 
 ©f tfte due (greatntss; nf liingtrom^j 
 anti €5tatrsi 
 
 The speech of The'mistocles, the Athenian, which was 
 haughty and arrogant, in taking so much to himself, had 
 been a grave and wise observation and censure, apphed 
 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 towfi 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 v/ill 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, those 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] ^ru£ C^uatness of Bingtroms 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 afifairs, 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 afifairs, 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- 
 tor}', 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 ; 55
 
 104 <^f t!)e ^VUe ^rtatn^SS [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 7nen 
 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 Oi 
 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 effem.inate people are failing. For Solon said 
 well to Croesus (when in ostentation he shewed him his 
 gold), Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than 
 you, he will be ?naster of all this gold. Therefore, let 
 any prince or State think soberly of his forces, except 
 
 80 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 (v\'hich 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 whclp, and tlie ass between burdens : neither will it be, that
 
 Essay 29] of Bmgtioms anti (^Bstatcs 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 100 
 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 lo-? 
 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 120 
 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 125
 
 io6 ^f t-6c '^^rue CBrveatness [Essay 29 
 
 of the owners, and not mere hirelings. And thus indeed 
 you shall attain to Virgil's character, which he gives to 
 ancient Italy : 
 
 Terra foteiis arviis atque tibere glcbce. 
 
 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 the 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 
 
 145 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 
 
 150 — it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. The 
 Spartans were a nice people in point of naturahzation : 
 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 
 
 155 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 IDttngtroms anti (!Bstatcs 107 
 
 was to grant naturalization (which they called ///'j civitatis) 
 and to grant it in the highest degree : that is, not only i6o 
 jus cominercii,jus coitimbii, jiis hcereditatis^ but alsoyV^i" 
 suffragii andyV^j- hononwt : 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
 
 I08 <©f tj^e ^ruC C^rUatneSS [Essay 29 
 
 to it is to leave those arts chiefly to strangers (which, for 
 that purpose, are the more easily to be received), and to 
 
 ^95 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, <S:c, ; not reckoning professed 
 soldiers. 
 
 2°" 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 habilitation without intention and 
 
 205 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 
 2icthat 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. 
 
 215 But it is so plain that every ma7i profiteth in that he most 
 intencfeth, 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 
 
 220 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 
 
 225 them long after, when their profession and exercise of 
 arms hath grown to decay.
 
 Essay 29] of BlngUoms anU ([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 2^5 
 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 evei 
 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 Grajcia ; or when the LaceScemonians 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 greatj 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
 
 no ©f ti)e ^ruc Greatness {Essay 2^ 
 
 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 
 
 ^70 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 abridginent of a 
 
 275 monarchy, Cicero, writing to Atticus of Pompey's pre- 
 paration against Caesar, saith, Coiisilmvi Tompeii plane 
 Themistocleiwi est ; putat enwi, qui mart potitiir, eian 
 rei'tim potiri J and without doubt, Pompey had tired out 
 Caesar, 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 uponthe 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 ; b*oth 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 2cyj of l^ingtroms anli (IBstntcs 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 th^ 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 300 
 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 like 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- 310 
 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, 115 
 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 320 
 triumphs to themselves and their sons, for such wars as 
 they did achieve in person ; and left only for wars 
 achieved by subjects some tnumphal 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 
 model of a man's body ; but in the great frame of king- 
 doms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes,
 
 112 ^f CSreatiuss of Bingtioms, rtc. [Essay 29 
 
 or estates, to add amplitude and greatnes;. 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. 
 
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