| APPENDIX 1: | Writing the Essays | 237 |
| A. | Dedicating the Essays | 237 |
| B. | Versions of the Essays | 241 |
| C. | A fragment of an essay: Of Fame | 256 |
| D. | A plan for an unwritten (or unpublished) essay |
257 |
| APPENDIX 2: | Counsels for the Prince | 259 |
| In Praise of Knowledge | 259 | |
| Advising the Study of Philosophy | 262 | |
| APPENDIX 3: | The Wisdom of the Ancients | 264 |
| Perseus or War | 264 | |
| Orpheus or Philosophy | 266 | |
| Prometheus or the State of Man | 269 | |
| APPENDIX 4: | Idols of the Mind | 277 |
| APPENDIX 5: | A Poetical Essay | 286 |
Bacon was one of those thinkers who found what he wanted to say early on, and then said it a lot of times throughout his life. His thought doesn’t really evolve, so much as fill out. The things he was convinced of in the early 1590s, he was equally sure of in his last years. On the occasions when he tried to change tack, as with his natural history experiments in the 1620s, he could be painfully limited. But when he stuck to his first principles – attack the Schoolmen, encourage the monarch to become a Solomon of science, break down the social and psychological obstructions to clear thought – he could be unbeatable. What did change about him was his writing: he got better and better at it, in part because he learnt how to hang on to things that were good. When he had written something well, or wittily, or quoted one of the ancients to good effect, he stored the words away and brought them back in another piece. Pluto’s helmet of secrecy is in the 1625 essay Of Delays, but it had already appeared twice before, in ‘Perseus’ in The Wisdom of the Ancients (1609), and in the Latin version of The Advancement of Learning (1623). For sure, this is only a chip in the mosaic of his work, but what is true of the details (and many of them) is true of the design. To counsel a prince in a Christmas jamboree in 1594 was to use a deliberative or persuasive rhetoric: pay for a science centre, a Baconian counsellor tells a festive prince, and become a real god of learning, not one just for the poets. But the dimensions and intricacies of counsel, and how princes are to receive and use it, make up a companion piece to his own efforts of persuasion. The essay Of Counsel not only complements but completes the activity of the writer-statesman (we should not forget the 1625 subtitle for the Essays: ‘Counsels, Civil and Moral’). So it is with the interpretations of classical myth in The Wisdom of the Ancients. In these Bacon fathoms the mysteries of the ancient fables, and their ways back into Greek knowledge before Plato; but the stories of heroes and gods, and those social deities, the Roman emperors, are no less explored in the Essays. Writing, rewriting, moving passages from one work to another, hoping that one day everything would come together – Bacon’s work is of a piece, and in pieces. In these appendices there is a selection which should suggest what part the Essays have in Bacon’s grand design, and in his writing.
The drafts and published pieces in this section show how Bacon developed and may have planned the Essays, and, in the dedications, what he thought of them himself. The original spellings and punctuation have been preserved here (except in A.2) to give some idea of what is lost, and gained, in modernizing Bacon’s texts. Long s is replaced with square s, and u, v, i and j are normalized to current usage. Obvious mistakes have been corrected. R. S. Crane an Stanley Fish, in the studies listed on pp. 50–51, have useful things to say about the evolution of the Essays between 1597 and 1625.
Bacon dedicated the final edition of the Essays to George, Duke of Buckingham, in the 1620s the most powerful man in England after the King. In his earlier dedications, the rank of the recipients and their influence was much less considerable. The 1597 edition was addressed to his brother Anthony, and the 1612 edition to Sir John Constable, a close friend and the husband of Bacon’s sister-in-law, Dorothy Barnham. Behind these fraternal dedications, however, were two other, major figures. Before 1612 Bacon had intended to address his revised Essays to Henry, Prince of Wales, but he was forced to drop this idea when the Prince died in November of that year. A draft of what would have been the printed dedication to Henry is preserved in a manuscript in the British Library (Sloane MS 4259, folio 155). It is printed below from Spedding, Letters and Life, IV.340–41. After Prince Henry’s death, and at the last moment, the dedication of the 1612 Essays was transferred to Sir John Constable.
Fifteen years earlier, in 1597, there was a much odder transfer of interest in the Essays. On 30 January, in the printed dedication, Bacon addressed them to his brother, but only nine days later Anthony himself wrote a letter to Robert, Earl of Essex, in effect surrendering the dedication to him:
I am bold, and yet out of a most entire and dutiful love wherein my german brother [i.e. Francis] and myself stand infinitely bound unto your Lordship, to present unto you the first sight and taste of such fruit as my brother was constrained to gather, as he professeth himself, before they were ripe, to prevent stealing; and withal most humbly to beseech your Lordship, that as my brother in token of a mutual firm brotherly affection hath bestowed by dedication the property of them upon myself, so your Lordship, to whose disposition and commandment I have entirely and inviolably vowed my poor self, and whatever appertaineth unto me, either in possession or right, – that your Lordship, I say, in your noble and singular kindness towards us both, will vouchsafe first to give me leave to transfer my interest unto your Lordship, then humbly to crave your honourable acceptance and most worthy protection.
(Works, VI.521–2)
This letter must have accompanied a copy of the Essays. Evidently, in 1597, Bacon felt that he could not present them directly to Essex (as he should have done, in all loyalty), and so he used his brother as a screen for a surreptitious and roundabout dedication. Perhaps this behaviour kept Bacon safe from the Earl’s enemies: even at this distance, though, it looks like (in Bacon’s own words) ‘the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall’.
1. Dedication to the 1597 Essays
To M. Anthony Bacon
his deare Brother.
Loving and beloved Brother, I doe nowe like some that have an Orcharde il neighbored, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceites were going to print; To labour the staie of them had bin troublesome, and subject to interpretation; to let them passe had beene to adventure the wrong they mought receive by untrue Coppies, or by some garnishment, which it mought please any that should set them forth to bestow upon them. Therefore I helde it best discreation to publish them my selfe as they passed long agoe from my pen, without any further disgrace, then the weaknesse of the Author. And as I did ever hold, there mought be as great a vanitie in retiring and withdrawing mens conceites (except they bee of some nature) from the world, as in obtruding them: So in these particulars I have played my selfe the Inquisitor, and find nothing to my understanding in them contrarie or infectious to the state of Religion, or manners, but rather (as I suppose) medicinable. Only I disliked now to put them out because they will bee like the late new halfe-pence, which though the Silver were good, yet the peeces were small. But since they would not stay with their Master, but would needes travaile abroade, I have preferred them to you that are next myself, Dedicating them, such as they are, to our love, in the depth whereof (I assure you) I sometimes wish your infirmities translated uppon my selfe, that her Majestie mought have the service of so active and able a mind, & I mought be with excuse confined to these contemplations & studies for which I am fittest, so commende I you to the preservation of the divine Majestie. From my Chamber at Graies Inne, this 30. of Januarie. 1597.
Your entire Loving brother.
2. Dedication intended for the 1612 Essays, but not published
TO THE MOST HIGH AND EXCELLENT PRINCE, HENRY, PRINCE
OF WALES, DUKE OF CORNWALL, AND EARL OF CHESTER.
It may please your Highness,
Having divided my life into the contemplative and active part, I am desirous to give his Majesty and your Highness of the fruits of both, simple though they be.
To write just treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure in the reader, and therefore are not so fit, neither in regard of your Highness’ princely affairs, nor in regard of my continual services; which is the cause that hath made me choose to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the thing is ancient. For Seneca’s epistles to Lucilius, if one mark them well, are but Essays, that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the form of epistles. These labours of mine I know cannot be worthy of your Highness, for what can be worthy of you? But my hope is, they may be as grains of salt, that will rather give you an appetite than offend you with satiety. And although they handle those things wherein both men’s lives and their pens are most conversant, yet (what I have attained I know not) but I have endeavoured to make them not vulgar, but of a nature whereof a man shall find much in experience, and little in books; so as they are neither repetitions nor fancies. But howsoever, I shall most humbly desire your Highness to accept them in gracious part, and to conceive, that if I cannot rest, but must shew my dutiful and devoted affection to your Highness in these things which proceed from myself, I shall be much more ready to do it in performance of any your princely commandments. And so wishing your Highness all princely felicity I rest,
Your Highness’s most humble servant.
3. Dedication to the 1612 Essays
To my loving brother, Sir John Constable Knight.
My last Essaies I dedicated to my deare brother Master Anthony Bacon, who is with God. Looking amongst my papers this vacation, I found others of the same Nature: which if I my selfe shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the World will not; by the often printing of the former. Missing my Brother, I found you next; in respect of bond of neare alliance, and of straight friendship and societie, and particularly of communication in studies. Wherein I must acknowledge my selfe beholding to you. For as my businesse found rest in my contemplations; so my contemplations ever found rest in your loving conference and judgement. So wishing you all good, I remaine
Your loving brother and friend.
Of Suitors appears in all four of the early versions, 1597, MS, 1612 and 1625 (editions described above, pp. 46–7). Since there are no significant variations between MS and 1612, the manuscript version has been omitted. All three texts of the essay Of Fortune and the two of Of Vainglory, are printed here.
The texts begin overleaf, in parallel columns.
1612
Of Vaine-glory.
It was pretily devised of Æsop, The Flie sate upon the Axletree of the Chariot wheele, and said. What a dust doe I raise? So are there some vaine persons, that whatsoever goeth alone, or moves upon greater meanes, they thinke it is they that carry it. They that are glorious must needs be factious; for all bravery stands upon comparisons. They must needes be violent, to make good their owne vaunts. Neither can they bee secret, and therefore not effectuall; but according to the French proverb, Beaucoup de bruit et peu de fruit, Much bruit, little fruit. Yet certainely there is use of this quality in civill affaires. Where there is an opinion and fame to bee created, either of Vertue or Greatnesse: these men are good
Of Vainglory
1625
Of Vaine-Glory.
It was prettily Devised of Æsope; The Fly sate upon the Axletree of the Chariot wheele, and said, What a Dust doe I raise? So are there some Vaine Persons, that whatsoever goeth alone, or moveth upon greater Means, if they have never so little Hand in it, they thinke it is they that carry it. They that are Glorious, must needs be Factious; For all Bravery stands upon Comparisons. They must needs be Violent, to make good their owne Vaunts. Neither can they be Secret, and therefore not Effectuall; but according to the French Proverb; Beaucoup de Bruit, peu de Fruit: Much Bruit, little Fruit. Yet certainly there is Use of this Qualitie, in Civill Affaires. Where there is an Opinion, and Fame to be created either of Vertue, or Greatnesse, these Men are good Trumpetters.
Trumpeters. Again, as Titus Livius noteth in the case of Antiochus and the Ætolians, There are sometimes greate effects of crosse lies; as if a man that should interpose himselfe to negotiate between two.
should to either of them severally pretend, more interest then he hath in the other. And in this and the like kind, it often fals out, that somewhat is produced of nothing. For lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.
But principally in cases of great enterprise, upon charge and adventure such composition of glorious natures doth put life into busines, and those that are of solid and sober natures have more of the ballast, then of the saile.
Certainely Vaine-glory helpeth to perpetuate a mans memory, and Vertue was never so beholding to humane nature, as it received his due at the second hand. Neither had the fame of Cicero, Seneca, Plinius Secundus, borne her age so well, if it had not beene joined with some vanity in themselves; like unto varnish, that makes seelings not onely shine, but last. But all this while, when I speake of Vaine-glory, I meane not of that property that Tacitus doth attribute to Mucianus, Omnium quæ dixerat feceratque arte quadam ostentator: For that proceedes not of vanity, but of a natural magnanimity and discretion; and in some persons is not onely comely, but gracious. For exusations, cessions, modesty it selfe well governed are but arts of ostentation: and amongst those Arts there is none better, then that which Plinius Secundus speaketh of, which is to be liberall of praise and commendation to others, in that wherein a mans selfe hath any perfection. For saith Plinie very wittily; In commending another, you do your selfe right; for hee that you commend, is either superior to you in that you commend, or inferiour. If he be inferiour if he be to be commended; you much more: if he be superiour if hee be not to be commended; you much lesse.
Againe, as Titus Livius noteth, in the Case of Antiochus, and the Ætolians; There are sometimes great Effects of Crosse Lies: As if a Man, that Negotiates between Two Princes, to draw them to joyne in a Warre against the Third, doth extoll the Forces of either of them, above Measure, the One to the Other: And sometimes, he that deales between Man and Man, raiseth his owne Credit, with Both, by pretending greater Interest, then he hath in Either. And in these, and the like Kindes, it often falls out, that Somewhat is produced of Nothing: For Lies are sufficient to breed Opinion, and Opinion brings on Substance. In Militar Commanders and Soldiers, Vaine-Glory is an Essentiall Point; For as Iron sharpens Iron, so by Glory one Courage sharpneth another. In Cases of great Enterprise, upon Charge and Adventure, a Composition of Glorious Natures, doth put life into Businesse; And those that are of Solide and Sober Natures, have more of the Ballast, then of the Saile. In Fame of Learning, the Flight will be slow, without some Feathers of Ostentation. Qui de contemnendà Gloriâ Libros scribunt, Nomen suum inscribunt. Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, were Men full of Ostentation.
Certainly Vaine-Glory helpeth to Perpetuate a Mans Memory; And Vertue was never so Beholding to Humane Nature, as it received his due at the Second Hand. Neither had the Fame of Cicero, Seneca, Plinius Secundus, borne her Age so well, if it had not been joyned, with some Vanity in themselves: Like unto Varnish, that makes Seelings not onely Shine, but Last. But all this while, when I speake of Vaine-Glory, I meane not of that Property, that Tacitus doth attribute to Mucianus; Omnium, quæ dixerat, feceratque, Arte quadam Ostentator: For that proceeds not of Vanity, but of Naturall Magnanimity, and discretion: And in some Persons, is not onely Comely, but Gracious. For Excusations, Cessions, Modesty it selfe well Governed, are but Arts of Ostentation. And amongst those Arts, there is none better, then that which Plinius Secundus speaketh of; which is to be Liberall of Praise and Commendation to others, in that, wherein a Mans Selfe hath any Perfection. For saith Pliny very Wittily; In commending Another, you doe your selfe right; For he that you Commend, is either Superiour to you, in that you Commend, or lnferiour. If he be Inferiour, if he be to be Commended, you much more: If he be Superiour, if he be not to be commended, you much lesse. Glorious Men are the Scorne of Wise Men; the Admiration of Fooles; The Idols of Parasites; And the Slaves of their own Vaunts.
The fragment Of Fame was first published by William Rawley, Bacon’s chaplain, in his Resuscitatio, 1657, pp. 281–2 (from which the present text is taken, preserving the original spelling and punctuation). Rawley’s book contains a life of Bacon, and certain writings which Bacon had not intended to publish but which he wanted preserved. Spedding, Works, VI.519, describes Of Fame as a ‘genuine and undoubted work of Bacon’s, as far as it goes’.
The Poets make Fame1 a Monster. They describe her, in Part, finely, and elegantly; and, in part, gravely, and sententiously.2 They say, look how many Feathers she hath, so many Eyes she hath underneath: So many Tongues; So Many Voyces; She pricks up so many Ears.3
This is a flourish:4 There follow excellent Parables;5 As that, she gathereth strength in going; That she goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her head in the Clouds. That, in the day time, she sitteth in a Watch Tower, and flyeth, most, by night: That she mingleth Things done, with things not done: And that she is a Terrour to great Citties: But that, which passeth all the rest, is: They do recount, that the Earth, Mother of the Gyants, that made War against Jupiter, and were by him destroyed, thereupon, in an anger, brought forth Fame: For certain it is, That Rebels, figured by the Gyants, and Seditious Fames, and Libels, are but Brothers, and Sisters; Masculine, and Feminine.6 But now, if a Man can tame this Monster, and bring her to feed at the hand, and govern her, and with her fly7 other ravening Fowle, and kill them, it is somewhat worth. But we are infected, with the stile of the Poets. To speak now, in a sad,8 and serious manner: There is not, in all the Politiques,9 a Place,10 lesse handled, and more worthy to be handled, then this of Fame. We will, therefore, speak of these points. What are false Fames; And what are true Fames; And how they may be best discerned11; How Fames, may be sown, and raised; How they may be spread, and multiplyed; And how they may be checked, and layed dead. And other Things, concerning the Nature of Fame. Fame, is of that force, as there is, scarcely, any great Action wherein, it hath not, a great part; Especially, in the War. Mucianus undid Vitellius by a Fame, that he scattered; That Vitellius had in purpose, to remove the Legions of Syria, into Germany; And the Legions of Germany, into Syria: whereupon the Legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed.12 Julius Cæsar, took Pompey unprovided, and layed asleep his industry, and preparations, by a Fame that he cunningly gave out; How Cæsars own Souldiers loved him not; And being wearied with the Wars, and Laden with the spoyles of Gaul, would forsake him, as soon as he came into Italy.13 Livia, setled all things, for the Succession, of her Son Tiberius, by continuall giving out, that her husband Augustus, was upon Recovery, and amendment.14 And it is an usuall thing, with the Basshawes,15 to conceale the Death of the Great Turk from the Jannizaries,16 and men of War, to save the Sacking of Constantinople, and other Towns, as their Manner is. Themistocles, made Zerxes, King of Persia poast apace out of Græcia, by giving out, that the Græcians, had a purpose, to break his Bridge, of Ships, which he had made athwart Hellespont.17 There be a thousand such like Examples; And the more they are, the lesse they need to be repeated; Because a Man, meeteth with them, every where: Therefore, let all Wise Governors, have as great a watch, and care, over Fames, as they have, of the Actions, and Designes themselves.
The rest was not Finished.
‘Play’ was first printed by Spedding, Works, VII. 210–11, from a manuscript in Bacon’s own hand (British Library MS, Harleian 7017, folio 110). Although Spedding concludes that this is a plan for an ‘elaborate treatise’ on the subject of play, it could just as well be the basis of an unwritten and much shorter essay, Of Play. The sententiae and proverbs are already written out, and in the right positions (there is a pointed opening and sharp conclusion), and the range of discussion is characteristic of the Essays. We cannot be sure, but this draft may well reveal how Bacon wrote up the Essays from the briefest of notes and quotations. Noticeably, the subject of play does not extend, in these jottings at least, to drama and the theatre. The text printed here is from Spedding, with Bacon’s contractions expanded.
The syn against the holy ghost – termed in zeal by one of the fathers.
Cause of oths, quarrells, expence and unthriftines: ydlenes and indisposition of the mynd to labors.
Art of forgetting; cause of society, acquaintance, familiarity in frends; neere and ready attendance in servants; recreation and putting of melancholy.
Putting of malas curas et cupiditates.
Games of activity and passetyme; of act. of strength, quicknes; quick of ey, hand, legg, the whole mocon: strength of arme; legge; of activity, of sleight.
Of passetyme onely; of hazard; of play mixt.
Of hazard; meere hazard; cunnyng in making the game: Of playe; exercise of attention: of memory: of dissimulation: of discrecon.
Of many hands or of receyt: of few: of quick returne, tedious; of præsent judgment, of uncerten yssue.
Severall playes or ideas of play.
Frank play, wary play; venturous, not venturous; quick, slowe.
Oversight: Dotage: Betts: Lookers on: Judgment.
Groome porter: Christmas: Invention for hunger.
Oddes: stake: sett.
He that folowes his losses and giveth soone over at wynnings will never gayne by play.
Ludimus incauti studioque aperimur ab ipso.
He that playeth not the begynnyng of a game well at tick tack and the later end at yrish shall never wynne.
Frier Gilbert.
The lott; earnest in old tyme sport now, as musike out of Church to chamber.
In Praise of Knowledge
Source: On 17 November 1592 Robert, Earl of Essex, presented a ‘device’ (or courtly entertainment) to Queen Elizabeth to celebrate the anniversary of her accession. The device, entitled A Conference of Pleasure, consists of four speeches: the first praises the worthiest virtue (fortitude), the second the worthiest affection (love), the third the worthiest power (knowledge), and the fourth the worthiest person (Queen Elizabeth). The third speech is printed here from Letters and Life, I. 123–6, with some small changes to the text.
In Praise of Knowledge
Silence were the best celebration of that which I mean to commend; for who would not use silence where silence is not made, and what crier can make silence in such a noise and tumult of vain and popular opinions?
My praise shall be dedicated to the mind itself. The mind is the man and the knowledge of the mind. A man is but what he knoweth. The mind itself is but an accident1 to knowledge, for knowledge is a double of that which is; the truth of being and the truth of knowing is all one.
Are not the pleasures of the affections greater than the pleasures of the senses? And are not the pleasures of the intellect greater than the pleasures of the affections? Is not knowledge a true and only natural pleasure, whereof there is no satiety? Is it not knowledge that doth alone clear the mind of all perturbation? How many things are there which we imagine not? How many things do we esteem and value otherwise than they are! This ill-proportioned estimation, these vain imaginations, these be the clouds of error that turn into the storms of perturbation. Is there any such happiness as for a man’s mind to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and the error of men?2
But is this a vein only of delight and not of discovery? Of contentment and not of benefit? Shall he not as well discern the riches of nature’s warehouses, as the benefit of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?
But shall I make this garland to be put upon a wrong head? Would anybody believe me, if I should verify this upon the knowledge that is now in use? Are we the richer by one poor invention, by reason of all the learning that hath been these many hundred years? The industry of artificers maketh some small improvements of things invented; and chance sometimes in experimenting maketh us to stumble upon somewhat which is new; but all the disputation of the learned never brought to light one effect of nature before unknown. When things are known and found out, then they can descant upon them, they can knit them into certain causes, they can reduce them to their principles. If any instance of experience stand against them, they can range it in order by some distinctions. But all this is but a web of the wit, it can work nothing. I do not doubt but that common notions, which we call reason, and the knitting of them together, which we call logic, are the art of reason and studies. But they rather cast obscurity than gain light to the contemplation of nature. All the philosophy of nature which is now received, is either the philosophy of the Grecians, or that other of the Alchemists. That of the Grecians had the foundation in words, in ostentation, in confutation, in sects, in schools, in disputations. The Grecians were (as one of themselves saith) you Grecians, ever children.3 They knew little antiquity; they knew (except fables) not much above five hundred years before themselves; they knew but a small portion of the world. That of the alchemists hath the foundation in imposture, in auricular traditions and obscurity; it was catching hold of religion, but the principle of it is, Populus vult decipi.4 So that I know no great difference between these great philosophies, but that the one is a loud crying folly, and the other a whispering folly. The one is gathered out of a few vulgar observations, and the other out of a few experiments of a furnace. The one never faileth to multiply words, and the other ever faileth to multiply gold.
Who would not smile at Aristotle, when he admireth the eternity and invariableness of the heavens, as there were not the like in the bowels of the earth? Those be the confines and borders of these two kingdoms, where the continual alteration and incursion are. The superficies and upper parts of the earth are full of varieties. The superficies and lower parts of the heavens (which we call the middle region of the air) is full of variety. There is much spirit in the one part that cannot be brought into mass. There is much massy body in the other place that cannot be refined to spirit. The common air is as the waste ground between the borders.
Who would not smile at the astronomers, I mean not these new carmen which drive the earth about,5 but the ancient astronomers, which feign the moon to be the swiftest of the planets in motion, and the rest in order, the higher the slower; and so are compelled to imagine a double motion; whereas how evident is it, that that which they call a contrary motion is but an abatement of motion. The fixed stars overgo Saturn, and so in them and the rest all is but one motion, and the nearer the earth the slower; a motion also whereof air and water do participate, though much interrupted.
But why do I in a conference of pleasure enter into these great matters, in sort that pretending to know much, I should forget what is seasonable? Pardon me, it was because all other things may be endowed and adorned with speeches, but knowledge itself is more beautiful than any apparel of words that can be put upon it.
And let me not seem arrogant, without respect to these great reputed authors. Let me so give every man his due, as I give Time his due, which is to discover truth. Many of these men had greater wits, far above my own, and so are many in the universities of Europe at this day. But alas, they learn nothing there but to believe: first to believe that others know that which they know not; and after that themselves know that which they know not. But indeed facility to believe, impatience to doubt, temerity to answer, glory to know, doubt to contradict, end to gain, sloth to search, seeking things in words, resting in part of nature; these, and the like, have been the things which have forbidden the happy match between the mind of man and the nature of things, and in place thereof have married it to vain notions and blind experiments. And what the posterity and issue of so honourable a match may be, it is not hard to consider. Printing, a gross invention; artillery, a thing that lay not far out of the way; the needle,6 a thing partly known before; what a change have these three made in the world in these times; the one in state of learning, the other in state of the war, the third in the state of treasure, commodities and navigation. And those, I say, were but stumbled upon and lighted upon by chance.
Therefore, no doubt the sovereignty of man lieth hid in knowledge; wherein many things are reserved, which kings with their treasure cannot buy, nor with their force command; their spials7 and intelligencers can give no news of them, their seamen and discoverers cannot sail where they grow. Now we govern nature in opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity; but if we would be led by her in invention, we should command her in action.
Source: The Christmas festivities for 1594 at Gray’s Inn included six speeches addressed to a Prince of Purpoole, a mock prince elected by the students to hold court, receive ambassadors and be the object of advice and entertainment. The speeches were delivered by counsellors, who argued in turn for ‘the Exercise of War’, ‘the Study of Philosophy’, ‘Eternizement and Fame by Buildings and Foundations’, ‘Absoluteness of State and Treasure’, ‘Virtue and a Gracious Government’, and ‘Pastimes and Sports’. The second speech is printed here from Letters and Life, I.334–5, again with some slight alterations to the text.
Advising the Study of Philosophy
It may seem, most excellent Prince, that my Lord which now hath spoken,1 did never read the just censures of the wisest men, who compared great conquerors to great rovers2 and witches, whose power is in destruction and not in preservation; else would he never have advised your Excellency to become as some comet or blazing star, which should threaten and portend nothing but death and dearth, combustions and troubles of the world. And whereas the governing faculties of men are two, force and reason, whereof the one is brute and the other divine, he wisheth you for your principal ornament and regality the talons of the eagle to catch the prey, and not the piercing sight which seeth into the bottom of the sea. But I contrariwise will wish unto your Highness the exercise of the best and purest part of the mind, and the most innocent and meriting conquest, being the conquest of the works of nature; making this proposition, that you bend the excellency of your spirits to the searching out, inventing, and discovering of all whatsoever is hid and secret in the world; that your Excellency be not as a lamp that shineth to others and yet seeth not itself, but as the Eye of the World, that both carrieth and useth light.
Antiquity, that presenteth unto us in dark visions the wisdom of former times, informeth us that the governments of kingdoms have always had an affinity with the secrets and mysteries of learning. Amongst the Persians, the kings were attended on by the Magi.3 The Gymnosophists4 had all the government under the princes of Asia; and generally those kingdoms were accounted most happy, that had rulers most addicted to philosophy. The Ptolemies in Egypt may be for instance; and Solomon was a man so seen in the universality of nature that he wrote an herbal of all that was green upon the earth. No conquest of Julius Caesar made him so remembered as the Calendar. Alexander the Great wrote to Aristotle upon the publishing of the Physics, that he esteemed more of excellent men in knowledge than in empire.
And to this purpose I will commend to your Highness four principal works and monuments of yourself. First, the collecting of a most perfect and general library, wherein whatsoever the wit of man hath heretofore committed to books of worth, be they ancient or modern, printed or manuscript, European or of other parts, of one or other language, may be made contributory to your wisdom. Next, a spacious, wonderful garden, wherein whatsoever plant the sun of divers climates, out of the earth of divers moulds, either wild or by the culture of man, brought forth, may be, with that care that appertaineth to the good prospering thereof, set and cherished: this garden to be built about with rooms to stable in all rare beasts and to cage in all rare birds; with two lakes adjoining, the one of fresh water, the other of salt, for like variety of fishes. And so you may have in small compass a model of universal nature made private. The third, a goodly huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine hath made rare in stuff, form, or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance, and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever nature hath wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included. The fourth such a still-house, so furnished with mills, instruments, furnaces, and vessels as may be a palace fit for a philosopher’s stone.5 Thus, when your Excellency shall have added depth of knowledge to the fineness of your spirits and greatness of your power, then indeed shall you be a Trismegistus;6 and then when all other miracles and wonders shall cease by reason that you shall have discovered their natural causes, yourself shall be left the only miracle and wonder of the world.
Source: First published in 1609, De Sapientia Veterum (Of the Wisdom of the Ancients) is a collection of thirty-one explications of classical fable. The ones printed here are taken, with slight alterations, from the translation by Spedding in Works, VI.714–17, 720–22, and 745–53. The standard study of how Bacon put these interpretations together is by C. W. Lemmi, The Classic Deities in Bacon, Baltimore, 1933.
Perseus was sent, it is said, by Pallas to cut off the head of Medusa, from whom many nations in the westernmost parts of Spain suffered grievous calamities – a monster so dreadful and horrible that the mere sight of her turned men into stone. She was one of the Gorgons; and the only one of them that was mortal, the others not being subject to change. By way of equipment for this so noble exploit, Perseus received arms and gifts from three several gods. Mercury gave him wings for his feet; Pluto gave him a helmet; Pallas a shield and a mirror. And yet though so well provided and equipped, he did not proceed against Medusa directly, but went out of his way to visit the Graeae. These were half-sisters to the Gorgons, and had been born old women with white hair. They had but one eye and one tooth among them, and these they used to wear by turns; each putting them on as she went abroad, and putting them off again when she came back. This eye and tooth they now lent to Perseus. Whereupon, judging himself sufficiently equipped for the performance of his undertaking, he went against Medusa with all haste, flying. He found her asleep, but not daring to face her (in case she should wake) he looked back into Pallas’s mirror, and taking aim by the reflexion, cut off her head. From the blood which flowed out of the wound, there suddenly leaped forth a winged Pegasus. The severed head was fixed by Perseus in Pallas’s shield, where it still retained its power of striking stiff, as if thunder or planet stricken, all who looked on it.
The fable seems to have been composed with reference to the art and judicious conduct of war. And first, for the kind of war to be chosen, it sets forth (as from the advice of Pallas) three sound and weighty precepts to guide the deliberation.
The first is, not to take any great trouble for the subjugation of the neighbouring nations. For the rule to be followed in the enlarging of a patrimony does not apply to the extension of an empire. In a private property, the vicinity of the estates to each other is of importance; but in extending an empire, occasion, and facility of carrying the war through, and value of conquest, should be regarded instead of vicinity. We see that the Romans, while they had hardly penetrated westward beyond Liguria,1 had conquered and included in their empire eastern provinces as far off as Mount Taurus.2 And therefore Perseus, though he belonged to the east, did not decline a distant expedition to the uttermost parts of the west.
The second is that there be a just and honourable cause of war: for this begets alacrity as well in the soldiers themselves, as in the people, from whom the supplies are to come: also it opens the way to alliances, and conciliates friends; and has a great many advantages. Now there is no cause of war more pious than the overthrow of a tyranny under which the people lies prostrate without spirit or vigour, as if turned to stone by the aspect of Medusa.
Thirdly, it is wisely added that whereas there are three Gorgons (by whom are represented wars), Perseus chose the one that was mortal, that is, he chose such a war as might be finished and carried through, and did not engage in the pursuit of vast or infinite projects.
The equipment of Perseus is of that kind which is everything in war, and almost ensures success; for he received swiftness from Mercury, secrecy of counsel from Pluto, and providence from Pallas. Nor is the circumstance that those wings of swiftness were for the heels and not for the shoulders without an allegorical meaning, and a very wise one. For it is not in the first attack, so much as in those that follow up and support the first, that swiftness is required; and there is no error more common in war than that of not pressing on the secondary and subsidiary actions with an activity answerable to the vigour of the beginnings. There is also an ingenious distinction implied in the images of the shield and the mirror (for the parable of Pluto’s helmet which made men invisible needs no explanation) between the two kinds of foresight. For we must have not only that kind of foresight which acts as a shield, but that other kind likewise which enables us (like Pallas’s mirror) to spy into the forces and movements and counsels of the enemy.
But Perseus, however provided with forces and courage, stands yet in need of one thing more before the war be commenced, which is of the highest possible importance – he must go round to the Graeae. These Graeae are treasons; which are indeed war’s sisters, yet not sisters german, but as it were of less noble birth. For wars are generous; treasons degenerate and base. They are prettily described, in allusion to the perpetual cares and trepidations of traitors, as old and white from their birth. Their power (before they break out into open revolt) lies either in the eye or the tooth; for all factions when alienated from the state, both play the spy and bite. And the eye and tooth are as it were common to them all: the eye because all their information is handed from one to another, and circulates through the whole party; the tooth, because they all bite with one mouth and all tell one tale – so that when you hear one you hear all. Therefore Perseus must make friends of those Graeae, that they may lend him their eye and tooth – the eye for discovery of information, the tooth to sow rumours, raise envy, and stir the minds of the people.
These matters being thus arranged and prepared, we come next to the carriage of the war itself. And here we see that Perseus finds Medusa asleep, for the undertaker of a war almost always, if he is wise, takes his enemy unprepared and in security. And now it is that Pallas’s mirror is wanted. For there are many who before the hour of danger can look into the enemy’s affairs sharply and attentively; but the chief use of the mirror is in the very instant of peril, that you may examine the manner of it without being confused by the fear of it; which is meant by the looking at it with eyes averted.
The conclusion of the war is followed by two effects: first the birth and springing up of Pegasus, which obviously enough denotes fame, flying abroad and celebrating the victory. Secondly the carrying of Medusa’s head upon the shield, for this is incomparably the best kind of safeguard. A single brilliant and memorable exploit, happily conducted and accomplished, paralyses all the enemies’ movements, and mates malevolence itself.
The story of Orpheus, which though so well known has not yet been in all points perfectly well interpreted, seems meant for a representation of universal Philosophy. For Orpheus himself – a man admirable and truly divine, who being master of all harmony subdued and drew all things after him by sweet and gentle measures – may pass by an easy metaphor for philosophy personified. For as the works of wisdom surpass in dignity and power the works of strength, so the labours of Orpheus surpass the labours of Hercules.
Orpheus, moved by affection for his wife who had been snatched from him by an untimely death, resolved to go down to Hell and beg her back again of the Infernal Powers; trusting to his lyre. Nor was he disappointed. For so soothed and charmed were the infernal powers by the sweetness of his singing and playing, that they gave him leave to take her away with him; but upon one condition – she was to follow behind him, and he was not to look back until they had reached the confines of light. From this however in the impatience of love and anxiety he could not refrain. Before he had quite reached the point of safety, he looked back, and so the covenant was broken, and she suddenly fell away from him and was hurried back into Hell. From that time Orpheus betook himself to solitary places, a melancholy man and averse from the sight of women; where by the same sweetness of his song and lyre he drew to him all kinds of wild beasts, in such manner that putting off their several natures, forgetting all their quarrels and ferocity, no longer driven by the stings and furies of lust, no longer caring to satisfy their hunger or to hunt their prey, they all stood about him gently and sociably, as in a theatre, listening only to the concords of his lyre. Nor was that all: for so great was the power of his music that it moved the woods and the very stones to shift themselves and take their stations decently and orderly about him. And all this went on for some time with happy success and great admiration, till at last certain Thracian women, under the stimulation and excitement of Bacchus, came where he was. And first they blew such a hoarse and hideous blast upon a horn that the sound of his music could no longer be heard for the din: whereupon, the charm being broken that had been the bond of that order and good fellowship, confusion began again; the beasts returned each to his several nature and preyed one upon the other as before; the stones and woods stayed no longer in their places: while Orpheus himself was torn to pieces by the women in their fury, and his limbs scattered about the fields. At whose death, Helicon (river sacred to the Muses) in grief and indignation buried his waters under the earth, to reappear elsewhere.
The meaning of the fable appears to be this. The singing of Orpheus is of two kinds; one to propitiate the infernal powers, the other to draw the wild beasts and the woods. The former may be best understood as referring to natural philosophy, the latter to philosophy moral and civil. For natural philosophy proposes to itself, as its noblest work of all, nothing less than the restitution and renovation of things corruptible, and (what is indeed the same thing in a lower degree) the conservation of bodies in the state in which they are, and the retardation of dissolution and putrefaction. Now certainly if this can be effected at all, it cannot be otherwise than by due and exquisite attempering and adjustment of parts in nature, as by the harmony and perfect modulation of a lyre. And yet being a thing of all others the most difficult, it commonly fails of effect; and fails (it may be) from no cause more than from curious and premature meddling and impatience. Then Philosophy finding that her great work is too much for her, in sorrowful mood, as well becomes her, turns to human affairs; and applying her powers of persuasion and eloquence to insinuate into men’s minds the love of virtue and equity and peace, teaches the peoples to assemble and unite and take upon them the yoke of laws and submit to authority, and forget their ungoverned appetites, in listening and conforming to precepts and discipline. Whereupon soon follows the building of houses, the founding of cities, the planting of fields and gardens with trees; insomuch that the stones and the woods are not unfitly said to leave their places and come about her. And this application of Philosophy to civil affairs is properly represented, and according to the true order of things, as subsequent to the diligent trial and final frustration of the experiment of restoring the dead body to life. For true it is that the clearer recognition of the inevitable necessity of death sets men upon seeking immortality by merit and renown. Also it is wisely added in the story, that Orpheus was averse from women and from marriage; for the sweets of marriage and the dearness of children commonly draw men away from performing great and lofty services to the commonwealth, being content to be perpetuated in their race and stock, and not in their deeds.
But howsoever the works of wisdom are among human things the most excellent, yet they too have their periods and closes. For so it is that after kingdoms and commonwealths have flourished for a time, there arise perturbations and seditions and wars; amid the uproars of which, first the laws are put to silence, and then men return to the depraved conditions of their nature, and desolation is seen in the fields and cities. And if such troubles last, it is not long before letters also and philosophy are so torn in pieces that no traces of them can be found but a few fragments, scattered here and there like planks from a shipwreck; and then a season of barbarism sets in, the waters of Helicon being sunk under the ground, until, according to the appointed vicissitude of things, they break out and issue forth again, perhaps among other nations, and not in the places where they were before.
Tradition says that Man was made by Prometheus, and made of clay; only that Prometheus took particles from different animals and mixed them in. He, desiring to benefit and protect his own work, and to be regarded not as the founder only but also as the amplifier and enlarger of the human race, stole up to heaven with a bundle of fennel-stalks in his hand, kindled them at the chariot of the sun, and so brought fire to the earth and presented it to mankind. For this so great benefit received at his hands, men (it is said) were far from being grateful; so far indeed, that they conspired together and impeached him and his invention before Jupiter. This act of theirs was not so taken as justice may seem to have required. For the accusation proved very acceptable both to Jupiter and the rest of the gods; and so delighted were they, that they not only indulged mankind with the use of fire, but presented them likewise with a new gift, of all others most agreeable and desirable – perpetual youth. Overjoyed with this, the foolish people put the gift of the gods on the back of an ass. The ass on his way home, being troubled with extreme thirst, came to a fountain; but a serpent, that was set to guard it, would not let him drink unless he gave in payment whatever that was that he carried on his back. The poor ass accepted the condition, and so for a mouthful of water the power of renewing youth was transferred from men to serpents. After mankind had lost their prize, Prometheus made up his quarrel with them; but retaining his malice, and being bitterly incensed against Jupiter, he did not scruple to tempt him with deceit, even in the act of sacrifice. Having slain (it is said) two bulls, he stuffed the hide of one of them with the flesh and fat of both, and bringing them to the altar, with an air of devotion and benignity offered Jupiter his choice. Jupiter, detesting his craft and bad faith, but knowing how to requite it, chose the mock bull; then bethinking him of vengeance, and seeing that there was no way to take down the insolence of Prometheus except by chastising the human race (of which work he was extravagantly vain and proud), ordered Vulcan to make a fair and lovely woman. When she was made, each of the gods bestowed upon her his several gift, whence she was called Pandora. Then they placed in her hands an elegant vase, in which were enclosed all mischiefs and calamities; only at the bottom there remained Hope. With her vase in her hand she repaired first of all to Prometheus, to see if he would take and open it, which he, cautious and cunning, declined. Thus rejected she went away to Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother, but of a character entirely different, who opened it without hesitation. But as soon as he saw all the mischiefs rushing out, growing wise when it was too late, he struggled to get the lid on again as fast as possible; but it was all he could do to keep in the last of the party, which was Hope, that lay at the bottom. In the end Jupiter seized Prometheus, and upon many and grave charges – as that of old he had stolen fire, that he had made a mock of Jupiter’s majesty in that deceitful sacrifice, that he had scorned and rejected his gift, together with another not mentioned before, that he had attempted to ravish Minerva – threw him into chains and condemned him to perpetual tortures. For by Jupiter’s command he was dragged to Mount Caucasus, and there bound fast to a column so that he could not stir. And there was an eagle which gnawed and consumed his liver by day; but what was eaten in the day grew again in the night, so that matter was never wanting for the torture to work upon. Yet they say that this punishment had its end at last; for Hercules sailed across the ocean in a cup that was given to him by the Sun, came to Caucasus, shot the eagle with his arrows, and set Prometheus free. In honour of Prometheus there were instituted in some nations games called torch-races, in which the runners carried lighted torches in their hands; and if any went out the bearer stood aside, leaving the victory to those that followed; and the first who reached the goal with his torch still burning received the prize.
This fable carries in it many true and grave speculations both on the surface and underneath. For there are some things in it that have been long ago observed, others have never been touched at all.
Prometheus clearly and expressly signifies Providence: and the one thing singled out by the ancients as the special and peculiar work of Providence was the creation and constitution of Man. For this one reason no doubt was, that the nature of man includes mind and intellect, which is the seat of providence; and since to derive mind and reason from principles brutal and irrational would be harsh and incredible, it follows almost necessarily that the human spirit was endued with providence not without the precedent and intention and warrant of the greater providence. But this was not all. The chief aim of the parable appears to be, that Man, if we look to final causes, may be regarded as the centre of the world; insomuch that if man were taken away from the world, the rest would seem to be all astray, without aim or purpose, to be like a besom without a binding, as the saying is, and to be leading to nothing. For the whole world works together in the service of man, and there is nothing from which he does not derive use and fruit. The revolutions and courses of the stars serve him both for distinction of the seasons and distribution of the quarters of the world. The appearances of the middle sky afford him prognostications of weather. The winds sail his ships and work his mills and engines. Plants and animals of all kinds are made to furnish him either with dwelling and shelter or clothing or food or medicine, or to lighten his labour, or to give him pleasure and comfort; insomuch that all things seem to be going about man’s business and not their own. Nor is it without meaning added that in the mass and composition of which man was made, particles taken from the different animals were infused and mixed up with the clay; for it is most true that of all things in the universe man is the most composite, so that he was not without reason called by the ancients the little world. For though the Alchemists, when they maintain that there is to be found in man every mineral, every vegetable, &c., or something corresponding to them, take the word microcosm in a sense too gross and literal, and have so spoiled the elegance and distorted the meaning of it, yet that the body of man is of all existing things both the most mixed and the most organic, remains not the less a sober and solid truth. And this is indeed the reason it is capable of such wonderful powers and faculties; for the powers of simple bodies, though they be certain and rapid, yet being less refracted, broken up, and counteracted by mixture, they are few; but abundance and excellence of power resides in mixture and composition. Nevertheless we see that man in the first stage of his existence is a naked and defenceless thing, slow to help himself, and full of wants. Therefore Prometheus applied himself with all haste to the invention of fire, which in all human necessities and business is the great minister of relief and help; insomuch that if the soul be the form of forms and the hand the instrument of instruments, fire may rightly be called the help of helps and the mean of means. For through it most operations are effected, through it the arts mechanical and the sciences themselves are furthered in an infinite variety of ways.
Now the description of the manner in which the theft of fire was accomplished is apt and according to the nature of the thing. It was by applying a stalk of fennel to the chariot of the Sun. For fennel is used as a rod to strike with. The meaning therefore clearly is that Fire is produced by violent percussions and collisions of one body with another; whereby the matter they are made of is attenuated and set in motion, and prepared to receive the heat of the celestial bodies, and so by clandestine processes, as by an act of theft, snatches fire as it were from the chariot of the Sun.
There follows a remarkable part of the parable. Men, we are told, instead of gratulation and thanksgiving fell to remonstrance and indignation, and brought an accusation before Jupiter both against Prometheus and against Fire; and this act was moreover by him so well liked, that in consideration of it he accumulated fresh benefits upon mankind. For how should the crime of ingratitude towards their maker, a vice which includes in itself almost all others, deserve approbation and reward? And what could be the drift of such a fiction? But this is not what is meant. The meaning of the allegory is, that the accusation and arraignment by men both of their own nature and of art, proceeds from an excellent condition of mind and issues in good, whereas the contrary is hated by the gods, and unlucky. For they who extravagantly extol human nature as it is and the arts as received, who spend themselves in admiration of what they already possess, and hold up as perfect the sciences which are professed and cultivated, are wanting, first, in reverence to the divine nature, with the perfection of which they almost presume to compare, and next in usefulness towards man; as thinking that they have already reached the summit of things and finished their work, and therefore need seek no further. They on the other hand who arraign and accuse nature and the arts, and abound with complainings, are not only more modest (if it be truly considered) in their sentiment, but are also stimulated perpetually to fresh industry and new discoveries. And this makes me marvel all the more at the ignorance and evil genius of mankind, who being over-crowed by the arrogance of a few persons, hold in such honour that philosophy of the Peripatetics,1 which was but a portion, and no large portion either, of the Greek philosophy, that every attempt to find fault with it has come to be not only useless, but also suspected and almost dangerous. Whereas certainly in my opinion both Empedocles and Democritus,2 who complain, the first madly enough, but the second very soberly, that all things are hidden away from us, that we know nothing, that we discern nothing, that truth is drowned in deep wells, that the true and the false are strangely joined and twisted together (for the New Academy3 carried it a great deal too far) are more to be approved than the school of Aristotle so confident and dogmatical. Therefore let all men know that the preferring of complaints against nature and the arts is a thing well pleasing to the gods, and draws down new alms and bounties from the divine goodness; and that the accusation of Prometheus, our maker and master though he be, yea sharp and vehement accusation, is a thing more sober and profitable than this overflow of congratulation and thanksgiving: let them know that conceit of plenty is one of the principal causes of want.
Now for the gift which men are said to have received as the reward of their accusation, namely the unfading flower of youth. It seems to show that methods and medicines for the retardation of age and the prolongation of life were by the ancients not despaired of, but reckoned rather among those things which men once had and by sloth and negligence let slip, than among those which were wholly denied or never offered. For they seem to say that by the true use of fire, and by the just and vigorous accusation and conviction of the errors of art, such gifts might have been compassed; and that it was not the divine goodness that was wanting to them therein, but they that were wanting to themselves; in that having received this gift of the gods, they committed the carriage of it to a lazy and slow-paced ass. By this seems to be meant experience, a thing stupid and full of delay, whose slow and tortoise-like pace gave birth to that ancient complaint that life is short and art is long. And for my own part I certainly think that those two faculties – the Dogmatical and the Empirical – have not yet been well united and coupled, but that the bringing down of new gifts from the gods has ever been left either to the abstract philosophies, as to a light bird, or to sluggish and tardy experience, as to an ass. And yet it must be said in behalf of the ass, that he might perhaps do well enough, but for that accident of thirst by the way. For if a man would put himself fairly under the command of experience, and proceed steadily onward by a certain law and method, and not let any thirst for experiments either of profit or ostentation seize him by the way and make him lay down and unsettle his burthen in order that he may taste them – such a man I do think would prove a carrier to whom new and augmented measures of divine bounty might be well enough entrusted.
As for the transfer of the gift to serpents, it seems to be an addition merely for ornament; unless it were inserted in shame of mankind, who with that fire of theirs and with so many arts, cannot acquire for themselves things which nature has of herself bestowed on many other animals.
The sudden reconciliation of men with Prometheus after the frustration of their hope, contains likewise a wise and useful observation. It alludes to the levity and rashness of men in new experiments; who if an experiment does not at once succeed according to wish, are in far too great a hurry to give up the attempt as a failure, and so tumble back to where they were and take on with the old things again.
Having thus described the state of man in respect of arts and matters intellectual, the parable passes to Religion; for with the cultivation of the arts came likewise the worship of things divine, and this was immediately seized on and polluted by hypocrisy. Therefore under the figure of that double sacrifice is elegantly represented the person of the truly religious man and the hypocrite. For in the one there is the fat, which is God’s portion, by reason of the flame and sweet savour, whereby is meant affection and zeal burning and rising upward for the glory of God. In him are the bowels of charity, in him wholesome and useful meat. In the other is found nothing but dry and bare bones, with which the skin is stuffed out till it looks like a fair and noble victim; whereby are signified those external and empty rites and ceremonies with which men overload and inflate the service of religion: things rather got up for ostentation than conducing to piety. Nor is it enough for men to offer such mockeries to God, but they must also lay and father them upon himself, as though he had himself chosen and prescribed them. It is against such a kind of choice that the prophet in God’s person remonstrates, when he says, Is this such a fast as I have chosen, that man should afflict his soul for one day and bow his head like a bulrush?4
After touching the state of Religion, the parable turns to morals and the conditions of human life. Pandora has been generally and rightly understood to mean pleasure and sensual appetite, which, after the introduction of civil arts and culture and luxury, is kindled up as it were by the gift of fire. To Vulcan therefore, who in like manner represents fire, the making of Pleasure is imputed. And from her have flowed forth infinite mischief upon the minds, the bodies, and the fortunes of men, together with repentance when too late; nor upon individuals only, but upon kingdoms also and commonwealths. For from this same fountain have sprung wars and civil disturbances and tyrannies. But it is worth while to observe how prettily and elegantly the two conditions and as it were pictures or models of human life are set forth in the story, under the persons of Prometheus and Epimetheus. The followers of Epimetheus are the improvident, who take no care for the future but think only of what is pleasant at the time; and on this account it is true that they suffer many distresses, difficulties, and calamities, and are engaged in a perpetual struggle with them; and yet in the mean time they indulge their genius, and amuse their minds moreover, as their ignorance allows them to do, with many empty hopes, in which they take delight as in pleasant dreams, and so sweeten the miseries of life. The school of Prometheus on the other hand, that is the wise and fore-thoughtful class of men, do indeed by their caution decline and remove out of their way many evils and misfortunes; but with that good there is this evil joined, that they stint themselves of many pleasures and of the various agreeableness of life, and cross their genius, and (what is far worse) torment and wear themselves away with cares and solicitude and inward fears. For being bound to the column of Necessity, they are troubled with innumerable thoughts (which because of their flightiness are represented by the eagle), thoughts which prick and gnaw and corrode the liver: and if at intervals, as in the night, they obtain some little relaxation and quiet of mind, yet new fears and anxieties return presently with the morning. Very few therefore are they to whom the benefit of both portions falls – to retain the advantages of providence and yet free themselves from the evils of solicitude and perturbation. Neither is it possible for anyone to attain this double blessing, except by the help of Hercules; that is, fortitude and constancy of mind, which being prepared for all events and equal to any fortune, foresees without fear, enjoys without fastidiousness, and bears without impatience. It is worth noting too that this virtue was not natural to Prometheus, but adventitious, and came by help from without. For it is not a thing which any inborn and natural fortitude can attain to; it comes from beyond the ocean, it is received and brought to us from the Sun; for it comes of Wisdom, which is as the Sun, and of meditation upon the inconstancy and fluctuations of human life, which is as the navigation of the ocean: two things which Virgil has well coupled together in those lines:
Blessèd is he whose mind had power to probe
The causes of things and trample underfoot
All terrors and inexorable fate
And the clamour of devouring Acheron.5
Most elegantly also is it added for the consolation and encouragement of men’s minds, that that mighty hero sailed in a cup or pitcher; lest they should too much mistrust the narrowness and frailty of their own nature, or plead it in their own excuse, as though it were altogether incapable of this kind of fortitude and constancy: the true nature of which was well divined by Seneca, when he said, It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of man and the security of God.6
But I must now return to a part which, that I might not interrupt the connexion of what precedes, I have purposely passed by. I mean that last crime of Prometheus, the attempt upon the chastity of Minerva. For it was even for this offence – certainly a very great and grave one – that he underwent that punishment of the tearing of his entrails. The crime alluded to appears to be no other than that into which men not unfrequently fall when puffed up with arts and much knowledge – of trying to bring the divine wisdom itself under the dominion of sense and reason: from which attempt inevitably follows laceration of the mind and vexation without end or rest. And therefore men must soberly and modestly distinguish between things divine and human, between the oracles of sense and of faith; unless they mean to have at once a heretical religion and a fabulous philosophy.
The last point remains – namely the races with burning torches instituted in honour of Prometheus. This again, like that fire in memory and celebration of which these games were instituted, alludes to arts and sciences, and carries in it a very wise admonition, to this effect – that the perfection of the sciences is to be looked for not from the swiftness or ability of any one inquirer, but from a succession. For the strongest and swiftest runners are perhaps not the best fitted to keep their torch alight; since it may be put out by going too fast as well as too slow. It seems however that these races and games of the torch have long been intermitted; since it is still in their first authors – Aristotle, Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy – that we find the several sciences in highest perfection, and no great matter has been done, nor hardly attempted, by their successors. And well were it to be wished that these games in honour of Prometheus, that is of Human Nature, were again revived; that the victory may no longer depend upon the unsteady and wavering torch of each single man, but competition, emulation, and good fortune be brought to aid. Therefore men should be advised to rouse themselves, and try each his own strength and the chance of his own turn, and not to stake the whole venture upon the spirits and brains of a few persons.
Such are the views which I conceive to be shadowed out in this so common and hackneyed fable. It is true that there are not a few things beneath which have a wonderful correspondency with the mysteries of the Christian faith. The voyage of Hercules especially, sailing in a pitcher to set Prometheus free, seems to present an image of God the Word7 hastening in the frail vessel of the flesh to redeem the human race. But I purposely refrain myself from all licence of speculation in this kind, lest peradventure I bring strange fire to the altar of the Lord.
Source: Book I of the Novum Organum, published in 1620, consists of one hundred and thirty ‘Aphorisms concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man’. The ones printed here, as 1–23, are XXXIX – LXI in Spedding’s translation, Works, IV.53–63.
There are four classes of Idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction’s sake I have assigned names – calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-place; the fourth, Idols of the Theatre.
The formation of ideas and axioms by true induction is no doubt the proper remedy to be applied for the keeping off and clearing away of idols. To point them out, however, is of great use, for the doctrine of Idols is to the Interpretation of Nature what the doctrine of the refutation of Sophisms is to common Logic.
The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For every one (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolours the light of nature; owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others; or to the reading of books, and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires; or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled; or the like. So that the spirit of man (according as it is meted out to different individuals) is in fact a thing variable and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance. Whence it was well observed by Heraclitus that men look for sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world.1
There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market-place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.
Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theatre, because in my judgement all the received systems are but so many stage-plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue, or only of the ancient sects and philosophies, that I speak; for many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner set forth, seeing that errors the most widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike. Neither again do I mean this only of entire systems, but also of many principles and axioms in science, which by tradition, credulity, and negligence have come to be received.
But of these several kinds of Idols I must speak more largely and exactly, that the understanding may be duly cautioned.
The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles; spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected. Hence too the element of Fire with its orb is brought in, to make up the square with the other three which the sense perceives. Hence also the ratio of density of the so-called elements is arbitrarily fixed at ten to one. And so on of other dreams. And these fancies affect not dogmas only, but simple notions also.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods – ‘Aye,’ asked he again, ‘but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?’ And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgements, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by. But with far more subtlety does this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences, in which the first conclusion colours and brings into conformity with itself all that come after, though far sounder and better. Besides, independently of that delight and vanity which I have described, it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike. Indeed in the establishment of any true axiom, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two.
The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded. But for that going to and fro to remote and heterogeneous instances, by which axioms are tried as in the fire, the intellect is altogether slow and unfit, unless it be forced thereto by severe laws and overruling authority.
The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond. Neither again can it be conceived how eternity has flowed down to the present day, for that distinction which is commonly received of infinity in time past and in time to come can by no means hold; for it would thence follow that one infinity is greater than another, and that infinity is wasting away and tending to become finite. The like subtlety arises touching the infinite divisibility of lines, from the same inability of thought to stop. But this inability interferes more mischievously in the discovery of causes: for although the most general principles in nature ought to be held merely positive, as they are discovered, and cannot with truth be referred to a cause; nevertheless the human understanding being unable to rest still seeks something prior in the order of nature. And then it is that in struggling towards that which is further off it falls back upon that which is more nigh at hand, namely, on final causes: which have relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of the universe, and from this source have strangely defiled philosophy. But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so.
The human understanding is no dry light,2 but receives an infusion from the will and affections, whence proceed sciences which may be called ‘sciences as one would.’ For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride, lest his mind should seem to be occupied with things mean and transitory; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections colour and infect the understanding.
But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases, insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation. Hence all the working of the spirits inclosed in tangible bodies lies hid and unobserved of men. So also all the more subtle changes of form in the parts of coarser substances (which they commonly call alteration, though it is in truth local motion through exceedingly small spaces) is in like manner unobserved. And yet unless these two things just mentioned be searched out and brought to light, nothing great can be achieved in nature, as far as the production of works is concerned. So again the essential nature of our common air, and of all bodies less dense than air (which are very many), is almost unknown. For the sense by itself is a thing infirm and erring; neither can instruments for enlarging or sharpening the senses do much; but all the truer kind of interpretation of nature is effected by instances and experiments fit and apposite; wherein the sense decides touching the experiment only, and the experiment touching the point in nature and the thing itself.
The human understanding is of its own nature prone to abstractions and gives a substance and reality to things which are fleeting. But to resolve nature into abstractions is less to our purpose than to dissect her into parts; as did the school of Democritus,3 which went further into nature than the rest. Matter rather than forms should be the object of our attention, its configurations and changes of configuration, and simple action, and law of action or motion; for forms are figments of the human mind, unless you will call those laws of action forms.
Such then are the idols which I call Idols of the Tribe, and which take their rise either from the homogeneity of the substance of the human spirit, or from its preoccupation, or from its narrowness, or from its restless motion, or from an infusion of the affections, or from the incompetency of the senses, or from the mode of impression.
The Idols of the Cave take their rise in the peculiar constitution, mental or bodily, of each individual, and also in education, habit, and accident. Of this kind there is a great number and variety, but I will instance those the pointing out of which contains the most important caution, and which have most effect in disturbing the clearness of the understanding.
Men become attached to certain particular sciences and speculations, either because they fancy themselves the authors and inventors thereof, or because they have bestowed the greatest pains upon them and become most habituated to them. But men of this kind, if they betake themselves to philosophy and contemplations of a general character, distort and colour them in obedience to their former fancies: a thing especially to be noticed in Aristotle, who made his natural philosophy a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless. The race of chemists4 again out of a few experiments of the furnace have built up a fantastic philosophy, framed with reference to a few things; and Gilbert5 also, after he had employed himself most laboriously in the study and observation of the loadstone, proceeded at once to construct an entire system in accordance with his favourite subject.
There is one principal and as it were radical distinction between different minds, in respect of philosophy and the sciences, which is this: that some minds are stronger and apter to mark the differences of things, others to mark their resemblances. The steady and acute mind can fix its contemplations and dwell and fasten on the subtlest distinctions: the lofty and discursive mind recognizes and puts together the finest and most general resemblances. Both kinds however easily err in excess, by catching the one at gradations, the other at shadows.
There are found some minds given to an extreme admiration of antiquity, others to an extreme love and appetite for novelty; but few so duly tempered that they can hold the mean, neither carping at what has been well laid down by the ancients, nor despising what is well introduced by the moderns. This however turns to the great injury of the sciences and philosophy, since these affectations of antiquity and novelty are the humours of partisans rather than judgements; and truth is to be sought for not in the felicity of any age, which is an unstable thing, but in the light of nature and experience, which is eternal. These factions therefore must be abjured, and care must be taken that the intellect be not hurried by them into assent.
Contemplations of nature and of bodies in their simple form break up and distract the understanding, while contemplations of nature and bodies in their composition and configuration overpower and dissolve the understanding: a distinction well seen in the school of Leucippus and Democritus as compared with the other philosophies. For that school is so busied with the particles that it hardly attends to the structure, while the others are so lost in admiration of the structure that they do not penetrate to the simplicity of nature. These kinds of contemplation should therefore be alternated and taken by turns; that so the understanding may be rendered at once penetrating and comprehensive, and the inconveniences above mentioned, with the idols which proceed from them, may be avoided.
Let such then be our provision and contemplative prudence for keeping off and dislodging the Idols of the Cave, which grow for the most part either out of the predominance of a favourite subject, or out of an excessive tendency to compare or to distinguish, or out of partiality for particular ages, or out of the largeness or minuteness of the objects contemplated. And generally let every student of nature take this as a rule – that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion, and that so much the more care is to be taken in dealing with such questions to keep the understanding even and clear.
But the Idols of the Market-place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words, but it is also true that words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar understanding. And whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or a more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of nature, words stand in the way and resist the change. Whence it comes to pass that the high and formal discussions of learned men end oftentimes in disputes about words and names; with which (according to the use and wisdom of the mathematicians) it would be more prudent to begin, and so by means of definitions reduce them to order. Yet even definitions cannot cure this evil in dealing with natural and material things, since the definitions themselves consist of words, and those words beget others: so that it is necessary to recur to individual instances, and those in due series and order; as I shall say presently when I come to the method and scheme for the formation of notions and axioms.
The idols imposed by words on the understanding are of two kinds. They are either names of things which do not exist (for as there are things left unnamed through lack of observation, so likewise are there names which result from fantastic suppositions and to which nothing in reality corresponds), or they are names of things which exist, but yet confused and ill-defined, and hastily and irregularly derived from realities. Of the former kind are Fortune, the Prime Mover, Planetary Orbits, Element of Fire, and like fictions which owe their origin to false and idle theories. And this class of idols is more easily expelled, because to get rid of them it is only necessary that all theories should be steadily rejected and dismissed as obsolete.
But the other class, which springs out of a faulty and unskilful abstraction, is intricate and deeply rooted. Let us take for example such a word as humid, and see how far the several things which the word is used to signify agree with each other; and we shall find the word humid to be nothing else than a mark loosely and confusedly applied to denote a variety of actions which will not bear to be reduced to any constant meaning. For it both signifies that which easily spreads itself round any other body; and that which in itself is indeterminate and cannot solidize; and that which readily yields in every direction; and that which easily divides and scatters itself; and that which easily unites and collects itself; and that which readily flows and is put in motion; and that which readily clings to another body and wets it; and that which is easily reduced to a liquid, or being solid easily melts. Accordingly when you come to apply the word, if you take it in one sense, flame is humid; if in another, air is not humid; if in another, fine dust is humid; if in another, glass is humid. So that it is easy to see that the notion is taken by abstraction only from water and common and ordinary liquids, without any due verification.
There are however in words certain degrees of distortion and error. One of the least faulty kinds is that of names of substances, especially of lowest species and well-deduced (for the notion of chalk and of mud is good, of earth bad); a more faulty kind is that of actions, as to generate, to corrupt, to alter; the most faulty is of qualities (except such as are the immediate objects of the sense) as heavy, light, rare, dense, and the like. Yet in all these cases some notions are of necessity a little better than others, in proportion to the greater variety of subjects that fall within the range of the human sense.
But the Idols of the Theatre are not innate, nor do they steal into the understanding secretly, but are plainly impressed and received into the mind from the play-books of philosophical systems and the perverted rules of demonstration. To attempt refutations in this case would be merely inconsistent with what I have already said: for since we agree neither upon principles nor upon demonstrations there is no place for argument. And this is so far well, inasmuch as it leaves the honour of the ancients untouched. For they are no wise disparaged – the question between them and me being only as to the way. For as the saying is, the lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. Nay it is obvious that when a man runs the wrong way, the more active and swift he is the further he will go astray.
But the course I propose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits and understandings nearly on a level. For as in the drawing of a straight line or a perfect circle, much depends on the steadiness and practice of the hand, if it be done by aim of hand only, but if with the aid of rule or compass, little or nothing; so is it exactly with my plan. But though particular confutations would be of no avail, yet touching the sects and general divisions of such systems I must say something; something also touching the external signs which show that they are unsound; and finally something touching the causes of such great infelicity and of such lasting and general agreement in error; that so the access to truth may be made less difficult, and the human understanding may the more willingly submit to its purgation and dismiss its idols.
Source: The poem is transcribed in a good many seventeenth-century manuscripts. Thomas Farnaby printed a version of it in 1629, and ascribed it to Bacon. It is printed here from Works, VII.271–2. The poem, based on a Greek epigram, is Bacon’s most notable piece of verse: an essay in strange metres and rhythms on the frustrations and inanity of life.
The world’s a bubble, and the life of man
less than a span;
In his conception wretched, from the womb
so to the tomb:
Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years
with cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
Domestic cares afflict the husband’s bed,
or pains his head.
Those that live single take it for a curse,
or do things worse.
Some would have children; those that have them moan,
or wish them gone.
What is it then to have or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?
Yet since with sorrow here we live opprest,
what life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools
to dandle fools.
The rural parts are turned into a den
of savage men.
And where’s the city from all vice so free,
But may be term’d the worst of all the three?
Our own affections still at home to please
is a disease:
To cross the seas to any foreign soil
perils and toil.
Wars with their noise affright us: when they cease,
we are worse in peace.
What then remains, but that we still should cry
Not to be born, or being born to die.